Address the following questions in 1-2 paragraphs:
Why do you think that the history of the Middle East and North Africa before WWI matters in understanding modern politics in the region? What legacies did pre-colonial institutions leave that shape political behavior today? How did Western colonial intrusions up to WWI affect modern political outcomes?
The history of MENA before WWI is important to help one understand the conscious of the region. One would be unable to understand why one would group Egypt and Turkey as the “middle east” unless you study their common history of belonging to the same Empire. It is fair to state that even under the banner of the Ottoman Empire, regions were molded differently because of the experiences they had with the citadel of power in Istanbul and also the encroaching powers: western Europe and Russia. Egypt for example was considered a ‘menace’ or rogue province by the Ottoman Empire, because of Mehmet Ali’s overly ambitious modernization plans for the province. The British used such opportunities to weaken the Ottoman Empire by ‘saving the day’ at the last minute, and later asking for a ‘pound of flesh’ in payment for helping preserve the empire. Such was the case with the 1838 Treaty of Balta Liman: that essentially laid out the blue print for the economic downfall of the Ottoman Empire destroying the vestige of an economy that had being withering away since the introduction of the capitulations. Both the treaty and capitulations allowed the western powers and Russia to damp their goods in the Ottoman market because they were tax-free goods.
Western intrusion up to WWI created a sort of wave to want to “modernize”. This was inaugurated by Tanzimat era followed by the Young Turk revolution in the early 20th century. These two waves have various implications even today as the path to “modernity” is contested daily. Some see it as the total rejection of everything western, others an embrace of western institutions, and others as a hybrid syncretic mix.
In order to understand modern politics in the Middle East and North Africa, we must first understand the distinct history of the region. Gelvin offers an explanation of how modern Middle Eastern economic and state systems were adopted through two main methods: 1) “defensive developmentalism” and 2) colonial intrusions (pg. 70).
During the 19th century, Ottomon Sultans, Persian shahs and Egyptian dynasts undertook “defensive developmental” policies to expand their authority. In order to protect their political independence from European powers, these pre-colonial bureaucracies encouraged military reform, cultivated cash crops, and attempted to increase tax revenues. However, these “defensive” measures eliminated economic independence in the region, and actually exacerbated European influence due to foreign borrowing and debt accruing (Gelvin 74).
European colonialism largely shaped the modern state system and economic order of the region. Furthermore, in reaction to Western Imperialism, a number of intellectual and religious movements emerged. The movements had implications for modern political culture, especially those that sought to reform society by reforming Islam. In the present day Middle East, localized tensions within Islamic culture can often be a source of political conflict. The politicization of religion, which initiated in reaction to European colonization in the 18th and 19th centuries, presents a modern-day predicament in the Middle East.
It’s important to know the preceding history in order to better understand all modern political events, not just those limited to the Middle East and North Africa region. If we were to look at current events in MENA today, many might fall victim to the assumption that because “secularism is an essential part of modernity and that states that are not secular cannot be considered modern”, states in the MENA region are therefore backwards (Gelvin 143). Gelvin points out, however, that those in the MENA region simply have a different sense of modernity—one that cannot be compared to Western political ideologies that believe in the separation of politics and religion.
In some ways, the political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries that Gelvin talks about remind me of an issue we discussed in a History of Modern Africa course: the Rwandan Genocide. Like the revolutions in the MENA region, many argue that the 1994 tragedy in Rwanda was a consequence of colonialism. Historians looked back at the history between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples and mostly found evidence of harmony. It wasn’t until the Europeans showed up and treated the groups differently that conflict ensued. Similarly, colonial legacy affected the politics of MENA. Salafis sought to “restore the glory of Islam” by pursuing the first Muslim community established by Muhammad at Medina as the prototype of the ideal community (135). Moral reconstructionists sought to “rebuild society from the ground up…by reconstructing the social and moral fabric that bound its members to one another” (136). Islamic modernists argued that “true Islam…was not incompatible with science and reason” (138). Constitutionalists hoped that having a constitution and modern body of governance “would demonstrate to European powers that their empires were civilized members of the world community rather than carcasses to be picked clean by various imperialist powers” (155). All these political movements, however, have one thing in common. Yes, they sought to improve the lives of those involved. But they also sought to elevate their community’s standing in the international limelight—a standing that was, in many ways, undermined by their colonial intruders.
Understanding the History of the Middle East is vital to interpreting the situation of Middle East politics today. The events before WWI were centered on historic empires, specifically the Ottoman Empire, and their attempts to first consolidate and then resist colonial intrusion. Only under this background of historic struggle can the framework of the Modern Middle East be fully understood.
Under the Ottomans and Safavids, the Middle East and North Africa established pre-colonial bureaucracies that were to be the backbone for the current major Middle Eastern powers of Turkey, Egypt, and Iran. Geographically, these powers surrounded the Arabian Peninsula and areas such as the Levant and Iraq have been battlegrounds between the powers, to the extent that today Iraq is suffering from Sunni-Shi’a strife, the Safavids having established Shi’ism as the state religion. Another legacy of these powers was there attempts at reform to combat European incursion and expansion. Sometimes this involved European influenced economic and liberal reforms (Tanzimat), and sometimes this involved an orientation towards Muslim/traditional practices. At the beginning of WWI, the empires, and the Ottomans especially, were fighting for their survival amid rising nationalisms.
The colonial intrusions by France, Britain, and Russia effectively dismantled and decentralized the powers of these empires even further, especially in the Balkans, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. French immigration into Algeria was to prove a problem later and domination in the centralized areas such as Egypt and Turkey would later create powerful nationalisms. WWI ultimately dismantled the fragile Ottoman Empire, and ethnic/regional nationalisms would take its place as the Middle East was reconfigured. The continued interference of the European powers before and after WWI would create widespread resentment that exists to this day.
Studying Middle Eastern and North African history before WWI is incredibly important today. Indeed many of the problems that US policymakers are dealing with now in those regions stem from their pre-colonial and colonial history.
During the pre-colonial period, Middle Eastern and North African regimes tried to catch-up to Europe, and instituted a whole host of modernizing reforms, focusing, in particular, on their militaries and economies. They poured money into their armed forces, recruiting European military officers and weapon makers, who, they felt, could improve their armies. However, those plans had some unexpected consequences, mainly that those regimes’ militaries became increasingly independent and powerful, a legacy that continues to this day, especially in Egypt and Turkey. The economic reforms implemented by Middle Eastern and North African regimes also turned out to be a double-edged sword. While their economies did become integrated with Europe’s, they become more relient on cash-crops, which were subject to violatile price fluctuations, resulting in boom and bust cycles and further indebtedness.
European colonialism only exacerbated these trends. The British, for instance, forced Egyptians to cultivate cotton for the England’s booming textile industry. Meanwhile, the French in Algeria grew wine grapes for their home country. The colonialists also discouraged education or, for that matter, any institution that could lead to a common national identity, and tried to play off sectarian groups off one another, as in Lebanon, leading to inter-religious divisions and strife that persist to this day.
Understanding the history of the Middle East and North Africa is essential to understanding the context in which modern politics of the region developed. The history of the development of Islam is particularly important in understanding modern politics in the Middle East, because Islam has played such a fundamental role in shaping the cultural, social, and political aspects of the region. The sectarian divides of Sunni and Shi’a have contributed to political disagreement and conflict, and some nations have declared one of the sects as their official state religion.
The millet system established by the Ottomans that set up certain rights for religious minorities is still in use to some degree in parts of the Middle East–in certain countries, there are different personal courts and laws for different religions, and seats reserved in parliament for religious minorities.
Western colonization introduced the system of nation-states to the Middle East, and contributed to many of the national borders that exist today. It also introduced the Middle East to the modern world economy by participating in international trade and extracting resources from the region. The constructed values given to resources of the region by Western colonizers has had an enormous effect on politics and conflict.
History in the Middle East and North Africa before WWI matters in understanding modern politics of the region because pre-WWI was the time that sectarian conflicts first sprouted up (e.g. Sunni vs. Shi’a) and this was the period where the middle east opened itself up to influence from European nations that continue to have an interest in the region in the present day.
The Ottoman Empire sowed the seeds of religious conflict in the region by offering religious freedom and equality to all non-Muslim subjects in the empire. Muslims were upset that their dominance in the empire might become threatened and that Christians were receiving privileges even the Muslims did not have. This sectarian mindset continues into the present day. Persia’s sale of the rights to all the region’s petroleum products also set the stage for the massive oil mining across the rest of the Middle East.
Whenever a western power colonized a part of the Middle East or North Africa they left behind the framework of a nation-state government and instilled a sense of nationalism in the native population. The colonizers instituted policies to exploit their colonies economically in the world market. This involvement in the world market remained even after colonizers were thrown out. The nationalism in the native population resulted from feeling like second-class citizens to the colonizers of their native land. This nationalism in turn led to revolutions for independence from colonizing Europeans.