Page 43 - Issue 63

Vol.1 Issue 63 January 2024Vol.1 Issue 63, May 2024 ELITE

Cultural specificity and the Arab situation

Mariam elsafty, senior, political science

mariam.yasser2020@feps.edu.eg
And here I specifically address Arab particularity
Cultural specificity is that mental, emotional, as opposed to other cultural specificities such as
value-based, and ethical halo that all those who Asian cultural specificity. This is due to the
grow up within it share, and in which all members individuals' ability to filter what is external and
of the same society or nation participate. In this adhere to their cultural peculiarity. As for the
context, the uneducated are no different from the Arabs, they are in a pitiable state. But who is to
educated; the uneducated in this case are cultured, blame? Is it the individual, the group, the society,
as their cultural identity and even their essence are or the Arab societies? Whatever the answer, it was
defined according to the anthropological concept. certainly an inevitable result of those decades of
Here, individuals are molded by a system with its foreign interventions in internal affairs, whether
own emotional and ethical specificity. Reality has politically or culturally, through language and
confirmed to us that culturally programming deviant ideas. Because of this state of
individuals is an undeniable fact; an individual fragmentation, every society feels repulsion
grows up within a certain environmental scope that towards the neighboring society and is dazzled by
has its own culture, absorbing its language, habits, what is different coming from outside. We now
and traditions. This state of specificity exists all see, dear reader, that state of deficiency felt by the
over the world and is fundamentally a healthy individual, who adopts a foreign language as the
condition that helps the individual adapt and primary source of his language regardless of the
integrate with peers in a shared scope. Cultural reality he lives in. On the other hand, Arab
specificity also exists on a larger scale than that of societies have begun to recall very distant past
a particular state to encompass an entire nation. memories, with Algerians and Lebanese
The most famous example is Arab cultural disassociating from their Arab identity, and the
specificity, which was the basis for Arab emergence of that primal tribalism that Ibn
nationalism, where a larger group of individuals Khaldun spoke about.
share a much larger territorial expanse in language,
religion, and historical experience from stages of
occupation and independence, increasing feelings
of belonging and empathy among members of the
same nation. This cultural specificity represents a
shield that protects it from negative external
influences and their consequences on the unity of
societies, whether at the state level or the national
level. However, due to external influences such as
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globalization, this specificity has become
fragmented.