The Era of Mandates and the Cases of Palestine and Iraq
Gelvin, 189-204, 230-237
Abdullah Schliefer, “Izz al-Din al-Qassam: Preacher and Mujtahed,” in Edmond BurkeIII (ed.), Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, 164-78.
Ussama Makdisi, “The Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon,” Middle East Report 200(1996), 23-26+30.
Recommended:
Podcast: Interview with historian Margaret MacMillan on Fresh Air (2003)
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Prompt for Reading Responses:
TV pundits often claim that political turmoil in the Middle East is rooted in timeless divisions. Gelvin, however, argues that it would be wrong to attribute contemporary conflicts in the Middle East to “primordial attachments.” Instead, he asserts that tribal, ethnic and sectarian affiliations “are neither permanent nor inflexible and should be seen as the product of history, not its driving force.” Providing at least two examples, explain why events in the 19th and 20th century Middle East have laid the foundation for conflict or political instability later on.
Amanda Gelbart
ReplyDeleteDuring this week’s readings one is introduced to how the Ottoman Empire interacted with the rest of the world leading up to World War I and after. As the region experienced economic decline and instability, it became more vulnerable to European influence. This and the entente power’s belief that they were entitled to “compensation…[by]…direct European control over territories belonging to the Ottoman Empire” (Gelvin 196) for winning the war led to the systematic separation of the Empire into nation-states. This separation ultimately led to dispute within the region and caused many of the factions who still fight today to form.
One example of this factioning is the creation and sectarianism of Lebanon. Following the war, Lebanon was under French Rule as a protectorate of religious communities, particularly the Maronites (Makdisi 25). Maronites were given prominent power in an attempt to “civilize and reform” the Muslim rule in the region following the Ottoman Empire. Using religion as justification for power created a shift in the attitudes of the Lebanese. Before, identity was mainly founded in place of birth or social status. With the inclusion of religion at a national level to determine political power, suddenly religion became a driving force in identity shifting the entire political order (Makdisi 24). Many elites recognized this and attempted to use it but found that “communal lines” based on religion were much more difficult to control because the argument easily shifted from which religion should hold the power to who constitutes a “true” person of that faith within a religious party (Makdisi 24, 25). In the continued state of Lebanon, the country still attempts to unify as a nation within this structure where religion is “stamped prominently on…[ones]…identification and voter registration card” (Makdisi 24).
Another example of how 19th and 20th century events have laid the foundation for conflict within the current Middle East is seen in the creation of the State of Israel. Zionism believed that Palestine was “a land without a people” and a “people without a land” which was meant to provide refuge to the Jewish people as guaranteed in the Torah (Gelvin 234). While this was not true as Palestinians in fact occupied the land of Palestine, the Zionist movement quickly gained acceptance due to the Balfour Declaration which mandated how Jewish immigration into Palestine would be organized (Gelvin 230). As Jewish immigration into Palestine increased and more natives were displaced, resistance towards the British policies formed and led to The Great Revolt (Gelvin 236). Once Britain realized they did not have a clear solution on how to handle the land, the issue was passed on to the United Nations. In the midst of the UN decision, a civil war arose which was won by the “Jewish State” who went on to establish Israel (Gelvin 237). This establishment was never accepted by the natives, though, which has led to continued dispute over ownership of the land.
In both of these examples, a large shift in the political environment, caused by European influence, is what created and sustained the current arguments. Gelvin states that identities which fuel modern discourse in the Middle East “are neither permanent nor inflexible and should be seen as the product of history, not its driving force” (204). This is seen in both instances. For Lebanon, it was the influx of French rule and distribution of power based on religion which shifted the political landscape of the country which continues to be an issue today. This focus on religion to define identity has never been permanent as it can clearly be seen what caused the change to occur. With the State of Israel, British rulings which were created in their own self interest to protect India created unintended consequences leading to immense conflict in the region. While Jews were migrating to the area prior to the official decree by Britain, it was Britain’s political action that fueled the divide which has created imbalance in the region.
Lebanon and Iraq were created by European diplomats “guided by a combination of whim, prejudice, avarice, and an overwhelming sense that by right they might determine the fate of those they knew so little about”(James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 204). However, rather than ignoring ancient ‘primordial attachments’, these men deliberately fostered instability and purposely created the conditions that would eventually undermine the existing social order. In the Middle East, “sectarianism is as modern and authentic as the nation-state [itself[”(Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 24).
ReplyDeleteDuring the nineteenth-century, Europe competed amongst itself for control of the commodity markets in the Middle East. Although the Ottoman Levant was not home to a demographically homogeneous population, “villages were religiously mixed [and powerful] families formed an independent trans-sectarian elite”(Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 24). Europe characterized itself as being inherently superior to the backward peoples it encountered in the Middle East, and created a system of patronage that promoted The Orient’s continued economic exploitation. It did this by empowering specific Christian communities, and France saw “‘Mount Lebanon’ as a non-Muslim enclave [existing within] the ‘Mohemmedan’ Ottoman Empire”(Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 24). Yet, before the arrival of French merchants, the people of Lebanon had never identified themselves as being defined by a particular religion. The communities were distinguished by hierarchical elites that varied according to the different “customs of clothing, [languages], [titles], land holdings, and marriage alliances” particular to that part of the Ottoman Empire (Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 24).
The French had an commercial interest in Lebanon and severed it from Syria in an “effort to make it economically viable and strategically useful”(James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 200). But France needed the local elites, and although they were not a persecuted minority, the Maronite population appropriated a Christian religious identity and presented themselves as the natural leaders of an independent Lebanon. Therefore, the society restructured itself, and Maronite (and Druze) realigned themselves according to “an exclusive religious definition of community, ‘where loyalties of kinship, region, and village were subsumed by an overarching religious solidarity’”(Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 24). Religion now was politicized, and the era was marked by the emergence of the ‘ahali’ or sect and the appearance of sectarian violence. In Lebanon, “benefits could no longer be obtained simply on the basis of citizenship”(Ussama Makdisi, Middle East Report, 25). Instead, responsibilities of the state were distributed according to the French system of political patronage, which would
have tragic consequences for the dispossessed Muslim underclass.
Britain saw in Iraq a territory both economically viable and strategically important. Mosul was rich in oil, a commodity crucial for maintaining the Royal Navy, and Basra, provided a vital port outlet in the Persian Gulf (James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 201). The farmland around Bagdad, irrigated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was rich, and therefore ideal for agricultural production and exportation (James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 201). The British planned to use central Mesopotamia as a giant granary “for its Indian Colony”(James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 201). However, in order to maintain control, Britain purposely fostered nationalistic aspirations amongst the population, and like the French, empowered clients.
ReplyDeleteBritain picked the Sunni minority to govern, and in effect, guaranteed “the ruling elite’s continued dependence on British friendship, if not the RAF’s phosphorus and mustard gas bombs”(James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 203). Iraq was home to a cultrually diverse and multi-ethnic population that ranged from pastoral nomads to city dwellers (James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 202). The British acknowledged and pronounced the attachments created by “the bonds of tribe, ethnicity, [and] sectarian affiliation”(James Gelvin, The Modern Middle East, 204). The Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish populations were used in counterbalance to a national identity, and as a means
of ensuring British rule.
Today, in the Middle East, ‘sectarianism’ is a term often used to describe the atavistic nature of religious war. However, ‘sectarianism’ was a nationalist creation of the modern era, and a contemporary phenomenon rooted not in ancient history but in the recent past.
Apparently the Ottoman Empire lost from “12 percent of the population to as high as almost 25 percent----approximately five million” (Gelvin 190) population in WWI. These large casualties occurred not only in the battlefield. Many scholars believe Ottoman government planned a genocide against Armenians. This loss of population, along the sectarism comes with this genocide, is only one perspective of the huge influence that WWI brought to Middle East. The Ottoman Empire was dissolved into many modern states. These states’ legitimacy mainly relies on nationalism, which causes problem in the future.
ReplyDeleteAfter WWI, European powers along with US came to an agreement that modern states that compatible with international economy system should be created on the land where used to be Ottoman Empire. Different with the dissolving of Austria-Hungary empire, the creating of middle east states were not based on geographic or ethical reasons. The dividing of Middle East is simply a result of a negotiation between the big three winners of the WWI: UK, French, and US. UK and French played a huge role on deciding how they are going to divide those lands, and how many countries this area is going to divide to. It will be wrong to say UK and French didn’t consider ethical factors at all. But it is also fair to say they made those decision mainly for their own interests. After the negotiation, French divided the land that it mandated to Syria, and Lebanon, consider French’s history with Lebanon, it seems reasonable that french divide the land in this way. On the other hand, the means that UK decided to divide the land it mandate caused most troubles and leave roots for Middle East conflicts today. UK supported the zionist movement, and established the state of Israel, outside immigrants took the Israel as their home because UK supported that notion, but indigenous people felt their land were taken from them, this conflict between immigrants and indigenous people finally transform to the conflicts of Israel and Palestine. Creation of Iraq is another problem that UK created. Creating Iraq, on paper, is a good plan, the country seems geographically reasonable and has nature resources to sustain itself. But the territory “that is now Iraq contained a variety of populations whose social organization ranged from that of pastoral nomads to cosmopolitan city dwellers” (Gelvin 202). The conflicts between Sunni and Shia muslims also leave roots for Iraq-Iran war.
From what we knew, one can easily tell that all the struggles in Middle East today can trace all the way back to the end of WWII. UK and French created these countries based on their own interests caused the mess that middle east is experiencing. Some countries they created, solve their political problem, like Jordan, but created an economic nightmare. Some countries contained ethnic groups that have conflicts with each other, like Iraq and Israel. This is not the first time that European powers created countries that either can sustain themselves economically or simply can’t unite as a country. What they did to African countries are similar to what they did to Middle East. If one looks at the map of the world, one will find the borders in Africa and some Asian country are in strangely straight lines. Those borders didn’t created naturally, they usually draw by the country that once colonized this place. The post colonial problems, are the problems we need to face.
Lynn
ReplyDeleteDiscussions surrounding the Middle East has always been centred along the lines of language, religious, and ethnic divisions. While these are useful concepts in framing historical movements and trends, their significance is often overstated it that it fails to account for the development of these trends as modern phenomena; or more simply put, the result of Western intervention in the region.
Tracing back, the historical trends that encouraged the growth of these divisions can be summarised into a few broad themes. Firstly, the arbitrary partitioning of land arguably sowed the seeds of future conflict and instability. The French for instance, attempted to divide present-day Syria into six ethnically and religiously distinct territorial ministates. While this may not have materialized completely, it gave rise to the opportunity for a power struggle amongst local leaders and posed a serious challenge to the Syrian government in later years (Gelvin, 2011, p.191). Similarly, the division of the Levant and Mesopotamia into separate nations is debilitating and unnatural, later laying the foundations for and fuelling the rise of Pan-Arabic movement (Gelvin, 2011, p.194). This was exacerbated by how in some instances, the demarcation of territory was simply unsustainable. The invention of Jordan for example, is hardly reasonable, given its lack of natural resources (Gelvin, 2011, p.192-193). This in part explains the economic struggle that Jordan faces today, and illustrates how arbitrary territorial boundaries were problematic in nature.
Secondly, colonial rule of Middle Eastern territories was characterised by the favouring of certain groups, whether deliberately or not. The British signed the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, endorsing the Zionist goal of establishing a “national home” in Palestine for Jews around the world (Gelvin, 2011, p.188), without realizing its unintended consequences. Given this, it would a mistaken to frame the Palestine-Israeli conflict as simply a religious battle, without understanding it against the context of British rule. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that religious divisions were not natural – during Ottoman Jerusalem, boundaries separating the lives of Muslims, Christians and Jews were fluid. Ceremonies and rituals of each religious group borrowed elements from each other and festivals celebrated by one group were often opportunities for citywide celebration (Gelvin, 2016, p.111). Moreover, many religious movements were borne as a response to their disadvantaged positions as compared to the favoured groups. For instance, many quasi-literate Muslim peasants, who were disgruntled at Zionist land policies and oppression, found faith and comfort under the religious guidance of al-Qassam. Al-Qassam saw his predicament in religious terms, and then built, grew and cultivated a group of Muslims committed to the jihad goal of reigning justice (Schleifer).
Similarly, the French favoured the Christian Maronite and created what they envisaged would be a permanent Christian enclave (Gelvin, 2016, p.191), known as present day Lebanon. Given that territory carved out was never homogenous in its demographic, it later laid the foundations for future civil wars and unrest. On a more fundamental level, the reordering of society to pave the way for certain elites changed the social and political fabric of life to such that religious identities alone defined the individuals (Makdisi, 1996, p.24).
Lynn Part 2
ReplyDeleteThirdly, independence was often granted in a haphazard way with structures built on very weak foundations. The 1943 National Pact which granted Lebanon independence was in essence a compromise between elites, thereby legitimising a system of patronage, encouraging corruption and paralysing government effectiveness (Makdisi, 1996, p.25). By defining status law and communities solely by religious affiliation, the state failed to address some of the most serious issues which goes beyond religious lines, such as workers’ rights and the disenfranchised majority (Makdisi, 1996, p.26), giving rise to severe fault lines crippling the nation state. Additionally, the sectarian character of the state structure also served to entrench the power struggles of the elite minority, undermining the secular ideal.
In all, while factors relating to race and religion definitely play a part in the instability and rampant conflict in modern day Middle East, it is important to understand that movements of political and elite agenda are often masked and branded in religious terms. These divisions are after all a product of historical changes and are at times, imposed on by intervening parties.
Sarah Fung: Part 1
ReplyDeleteEvents in the 19th and 20th centuries have laid the foundation for subsequent conflict and political instability because of the disruption and reconstruction of regional and sect identities across the Middle East. These new identities left a legacy of conflict and instability because they were destabilising and unnatural, shaped by the mandates and reconstruction of Middle Eastern territories by European powers.
This reconstruction can primarily be seen through the legacy of the events of World War I. During World War I, colonies in the Middle East became strategic and resourceful entities for the European powers associated with them (Gelvin, 2015). In the wake of the post-war collapse of the Ottoman Empire, European powers grappled for their own a piece of the Middle East to maintain the political and commercial advantages each area presented, exacerbated by a fragmented Europe that emerged from the World War (Gelvin, 2015).
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire also led to the loss of the Ottoman national identity (osmanlilik) that previously united Arabs, Turks, Christians and Jews within the region (Gelvin, 2015). This loss exacerbated the effect of the territorial division of the Middle East by European powers on sect identities: with the construction of new regions and governing bodies with them what it meant to be a citizen and person living in that region too was subject to change.
This was evident in the emergence of the Zionist and Palestinian national identities with the first diplomatic recognition of Zionism by Great Britain in the Balfour Declaration (Gelvin, 2015). The endorsement of a Jewish national home in Palestine, commercially and politically advantageous for the British, saw the emergence of Palestinian nationalism upon the mass migration of Jews into Palestine under the Declaration. The identity vacuum that emerged immediately after World War I, with Palestinians identifying as Arabs or Syrians (Gelvin, 2015), was filled by an identity defined in opposition to Zionism. Jewish conquest of land and labour with help from namely British policies through land occupation and the shift of jobs from Palestinians to Jews within the region fuelled such sentiment.
Sarah Fung: Part 2
ReplyDeleteThe emergence of a Palestinian nationalism defined in opposition to another inevitably created an atmosphere of instability and conflict between the Palestinians and Jews. Although firstly territorial, it is a conflict that has been reinstated on different levels, woven into their identities resisting a resolution that has constituted later and indeed current conflict and instability within the region.
The nation-state of Lebanon also displays the evolution of conflict and political instability from reconstruction of the state by and the legacy of external European powers. Separated from Syria as a Christian state both politically and commercially strategic for the French, increasing favour of the Christian population produced a new association between religion and economic prosperity (Makdisi, 1996). This new interpretation of religious sectarianism as political led to a struggle between religious sects, the Maronites, Druzes and other communal identities (Makdisi, 1996).
This was translated into the politics of the time via the reconstruction of the political system through the formal establishment of the republic of Lebanon by the National Pact (Makdisi, 1996). Religious sectarianism was reinstated by the Pact by the regulation of electoral and personal status laws on religious affiliation (Makdisi, 1996). The power struggle created in light of religious and class sectarianism has generated conflict and political instability between militant, elite and non-elite stakeholders that still lie below the surface of Lebanon’’s social order. As with the case of Palestinian nationalism and its impact on Jewish - Palestinian relations, the conflict and instability resulting from sectarianism within Lebanon stems from the political strategies and mandates of Europe, here France, that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries that restructured regional identities and subsequent conflict.