Colonialism
in a Postmodern Age: the West, Arabs and “the Battle of Baghdad”
Professor Mohamad Alkadry
Division of Public
Administration
Eberly College of Arts and
Sciences
West Virginia University
Abstract
This article argues that history of western influence and political
meddling in Arab countries over the past century has resulted in great tensions
between the West and the East. These tensions have contributed to a sense of
distrust of the West by Arab peoples. This article first narrates a story of a
century-long liberation journey. The article also recommends some policy
changes for the United States to take in order to start a process of
reconciliation with the Arab peoples.
Introduction
Two days after American
forces entered Baghdad, Arab television stations in countries like Qatar,
Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon broadcasted images of Iraqi
opposition to the new occupation. To the surprise of the American people,
American forces were greeted with demonstrations and not celebrations. On
several occasions, American soldiers fired live ammunition at demonstrators who
were just “liberated” from the brutality of the Iraqi regime. Are these quacks
of occupation or liberation? Why are some Iraqis opposed to American presence
and influence in Iraq? How could Arabs not appreciate the great fortune (i.e.
liberation) the United States had bestowed on them? This article finds in the
history of the interaction between the West and the Arab world an answer to
these questions.
History of western influence
and meddling in Arab countries and the relationship between the West and the
East over the past century has contributed to a sense of distrust of the West
by Arab peoples. This article first narrates the story of almost one hundred
years of struggle by indigenous people in the Middle East for liberation – from
the West and not by the West. Then, the article presents a set of proposals
that would improve the relationship between Arabs and the West.
Over the past one hundred
years, the West has not enjoyed the image of liberator among the people of the
Middle East. Many Arab national movements adopt anti-western political speech
to gain popularity among their peoples (Bill and Springbord, 1990). Western
interests have been at odds with the national and public interests of the Arab
peoples. While decolonization would normally mean national independence,
tyrants who eventually ruled Arab countries have ensured that Arabs would not
achieve self-determination (Alkadry, 2002).
Alkadry and Khalil (2002)
summarize the relationship between the West and the peoples of the Middle East
in four instances of resistance that lasted a century. The result of these
instances is a decolonized Middle East without popular sovereignty and
democratic governance. Throughout these moments, western interests prevailed at
the expense of human and political rights of the people of the decolonized
Middle East peoples.
The first epoch of
resistance is one of betrayal of pan-Arab nationalistic aspirations to spare
western economic and political interests. In 1917, during the First World War,
the Ottomans allied themselves with the Germans against the French and British
empires. In what Antonios (1938/1946) refers to as 'The Arab Awakening', he
describes how the Arab nations, led by the Shareef Hussein of Mecca, allied
themselves with the British and the French and revolted against the Ottomans
and helped put an end to an empire which has lasted more than four centuries.
The basis of the treaty between Arabs and the Allies was a British promise made
to Shareef Hussein - a pan-Arab Meccan leader - that Arabs would form an
independent and sovereign nation on the ruins of the Ottoman empire. In return
for this promise, the Arabs would revolt against the Ottoman empire which has
fallen under the control of the 'Young Turks'. The European victors, however,
had other plans for the region. Said (1993) explains that, "the Arabs
after liberating themselves from the Ottomans in 1917 and 1918, took British
promises for independence as the literal truth"(Said, 1993, p. 247).
Antonios (1938/1946) describes what happened at the San Remo conference where
British and French leaders changed the geography of the region:
Whatever else may be said of
the San Remo decisions [of spring 1920, in which "the whole of the Arab
Rectangle lying between the Mediterranean and the Persian frontier was to be
placed under mandatory rule"], they [allies meeting in San Remo] did
violate the general principles proclaimed and the specific promises made by the
Allies, and more particularly by Britain. The purport of the pledges given in
secret is now known: ...with that the Arabs had come into the War and made
their contribution and their sacrifices, and that fact alone sufficed to turn
the corresponding obligation into a debt of honor. What the San Remo did was,
in effect, to ignore the debt and come to decisions which, on all the essential
points, ran counter to the wishes of the peoples concerned (305-6).
The
San Remo agreement between the British and the French put Arabs under direct
colonial rule. Palestinian Arabs had to deal with a new settlement activity
which was encouraged by the British, and which would be the cornerstone of the
Arab-Israeli conflict for the last 65 years (Hourani, 1991). At the same time
that the British leaders made promises to Arab leaders, they made different
promises to the growing European Zionist movement in what became known as 'the
Balfour Declaration.' The Balfour Declaration gave Zionists the promise of a
homeland in Palestine.
The
betrayal of Arabs by the West caused deep resentment and was followed by a
period of cultural awakening and revival among Arabs. Hourani (1991) emphasizes
the significance, at the time, of developing a revitalized Arab-Islamic
identity and culture which could resist the West and "Western Imperial
Impingement" on them (Said, 1993, p. 252). Said (1981) argues that the
result of this double struggle, on one hand to liberate the nation from the new
British colonialism and on the other to revitalize Arabic culture, mixed with
western betrayal has been a discourse of 'Arab nationalism'--at the heart of
which is a complex of "hope betrayal and bitter disappointment" which
resulted in an unfulfilled and incomplete culture, "expressing itself in a
fragmented language of torment angry insistence," often uncritical
condemnation of outside (mainly western) enemies (Said, 1981).
British and French colonial
forces labeled themselves as forces of reconstruction and nation building under
a British and French mandate (as compared to colonialism). Arabs were betrayed
when suddenly control of Arabs by Muslim non-Arab Ottomans was replaced by
non-Muslim Europeans. The audacity of this situation is exacerbated by the fact
that Arab activists were misled into helping Europeans achieve this colonial
presence.
The second epoch was even
more dramatic than the first. The French and British administrations
immediately transformed the Arab world into several nation-states with
arbitrary borders. Arab aboriginals were not consulted and their economic,
demographic or geographic interests were of little concern to the new victors
of the Second World War (Hourani, 1991). These geographic creations have resulted
in many conflicts and problems that have lasted up for decades and up until our
current day (Sayegh, 1958). Clapham (1985) notes that “European colonial rule
has a major global impact in that it created political territories which were
artificial, in the sense that they did not arise from societies which they
governed but were instead imposed on them” (p.4). Alkadry and Khalil (2002)
note that “this arbitrary delineation of borders is at worst an attempt to
fragment the ideas of civil society and citizenship consistent with the
divide-and-conquer colonial philosophy, and at best a disregard and dismissal
of these two concepts by the colonial powers consistent with colonial dismissal
of natives’ rights to things that are civilized” (p. 156-157).
After this
arbitrary delineation of borders, Arab natives were left with little options
but to “[recite] a script written by someone else” (Sayegh, 1958, p. xiv-xv).
There were no national identities associated with the newly created states, and
the common historical, cultural and political experiences of most of these
countries was a yearning for Arab or Islamic unity (Abu Jaber, 1969). In
summary, the colonial forces carved up the Middle East, installed
non-democratic and traditionally-alien regimes in the newly created states, and
expected Arabs to dance to these newly-introduced colonial tunes (Alkadry,
2002).
Colonial powers, by
delineating arbitrary borders to arbitrary states, affected the notion of civil
society and solidarity which are very important to the Islamic tradition of
Middle East nations (Antonios, 1936/1948; Mansfield, 1973; Abadi, 1983). The
colonial forces created states with conflicting ethnicities and divided some
coherent and existing ethnic communities among two, three or four states. For instance,
the Kurds who lived in a contiguous geographic region were divided among Syria,
Iraq, Iran and Turkey with borders separating siblings and cousins. Since 1922, every Iraqi regime called for
correcting the colonial carving of Kuwait out of Iraqi territory after many
centuries of Kuwaiti control by Baghdad (Ali, 2002). The creation of the State
of Israel – created mostly by settlers who actively worked to expunge
Palestinian natives from their homeland– triggered a struggle in the Middle
East that has lasted and will last for decades to come (Said, 1981). The
resulting Palestinian exodus into neighboring Arab states has also caused civil
wars in Lebanon and Jordan (Deegan, 1994).
The British and French
colonialists suppressed national movements within the colonized nations,
silenced voices for national independence and self-determination and installed
local puppet leaders to help suppress Arab populations in the newly created
states (Bill and Springbord, 1990; Clapham, 1985). The colonial forces,
especially the British, introduced western forms of monarchy regimes that are
alien to the region and to the historic traditions of its peoples (Lewis,
2000). Throughout the Arab world, the colonial forces suppressed nationalist
movements and attempts to hold democratic elections . In 1924, British colonial
administrators opposed attempts by the King of Jordan to hold elections for a
parliament (Abu Jaber, 1969). The British also opposed elections and the
formation of nationalist government in Iraq in the early 1920s, and instead
installed a complacent royal regime - that of King Faisal who had been recently
exiled from Damascus by French colonial administrators (Bill and Springbord,
1990). In 1942, the British forces surrounded the Egyptian Royal Palace to
force the Egyptian King to remove a nationalist government and appoint a
pro-British government. French colonial administrators also systematically
opposed popular and elected regimes in Lebanon and Syria and rather endorsed
political leaders who would be more complacent to the goals and priorities of
the French imperialists (Rustow, 1963).
The
Betrayal of Arabs and their colonization by the British were only made worse by
the mass influx of European and other Jews into Palestine and therefore the
demographic displacement of the Palestinian natives. In the late 19th century
Jews accounted for less than 10% of the population of Palestine. By the 1930,
they accounted for almost one-third (Said, 1981). The culmination of these two
factors and the news of the Balfour Declaration, by which the British gave a
promise of a Jewish state in Palestine, all gave rise to the Great Arab Revolt
in Palestine which has arguably started in 1929 and lasted for almost ten years
until 1939 (Kimmerling and Migdal, 1993).
The Great Arab Revolt in Palestine was especially important because it
has mobilized thousands of Palestinians "from every stratum of society,
all over the country." The Revolt was a response to British colonialism
and their refusal to suppress Jewish immigration to Palestine. Young
Palestinian nationalists felt that Zionism was not simply a delusion, to be, or
that could be, corrected. Rather, Zionism was, part of and, "parcel of
Western imperialism in the Middle East, and only the eradication of the latter
could halt the advance of the former" (Kimmerling and Migdal, 1993, p.9).
Resistance has occurred at
all these instances of confrontation. Colonial administrations in the Middle
East and in other Muslim nations faced some fierce resistance from the
indigenous peoples. Examples of resistance to colonialism include the Mahdist
movement led by Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah against Italian and British Conquest in
Somalia, the revolt of 1920 against the British colonial administration in
Iraq, the ‘Abd Al-Qāder revolt against French colonialism in 1830 in
Algeria, the Mahdist movement of 1821 against Egypto-British colonialism in
Sudan, the revolt by Ahmad ‘Urābi against British occupation of Egypt in
1881, the Sanūsi resistance against Italian colonialism in Libya, and the
Palestinian resistance to British and Zionist colonialism particularly in the
uprisings of 1936, 1987 and 2000 (Peters, 1979).
Confrontation between the
colonizing Europe and the colonized Arabs lasted decades and did not even end
with decolonization and national independence. British colonials installed
leaders and regimes in Arab countries who maintained the British influence in
the region for decades after the British left. National independence did not
translate into self-determination, and ultimately liberation and popular
sovereignty, for the people of the Middle East, as colonial forces continued to
exert influence over the decolonized people years after decolonization (Said,
1993).
The fourth epoch of
confrontation is perhaps the one of great significance to American scholars. In
the post-colonial period, Arab confrontation with Europe and European
colonialism was transformed into confrontation between Arabs and the United
States of America. Arabs in the post-colonial era could be found in one of
three camps: repressive regimes friendly to the United States, repressive
regimes not friendly to the United States, and occupying regimes that are
sustained economically and militarily by the United States (Alkadry, 2002).
By economically
and politically sustaining ruthless regimes, the U.S. constrains the
emancipation of Arab peoples and at the same time ensures a complacency of
these regimes in their external relations. The regimes friendly to the United States include
Saudi-Arabia, post-Nasser Egypt, Jordan, pre-1990 Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab
Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco, and pre-1979 Iran. Countries not
friendly to the United States include Syria, Nasser’s Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and
post-1990 Iraq. Being a major source of
crude oil, the Middle East became the heart pump for the world economy (Nixon,
1980, 1992). In this instance, the United States and Europe sanctioned the
oppression of people in the region and the continued prevalence of royal and
dictator regimes as “friendly tyrants” (Pipes and Garfinkle, 1991). With direct
western support, regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Shah’s Iran and Jordan
continued to oppress their nationals and to suppress the formation of
democratic institutions (Ali, 2002). Egypt and Jordan - essentially dictator regimes - were cited as
models of governance by the United States President G. W. Bush as he searched
for complacency for US and Israeli interests by the Palestinian Authority in
July 2002 (Al-Jazeera, 7/17/2002). In this moment of confrontation, the
socio-political and economic theaters were directed and envisioned not by Arabs
or the economic and political interests, but rather by the economic and
political interests of the United States and Israel (Kubursi, 1999). The anger
about American support for friendly tyrants is obvious in the fact that almost
all the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001
were almost all from countries ruled by friends of ours but not of their own
people (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates). These terrorists did
not come from Syria, Iraq, Iran, or Libya -
countries that are not considered friendly to the United States.
Besides support for
“friendly tyrants,” the United States objection to unfriendly tyrants has
helped these tyrants sustain themselves through nationalist anti-Zionist,
anti-American rhetoric. The United States intervened to deal with unfriendly
Arab nationalist movements that toppled pro-colonial regimes in many of the
newly-created states. This happened in Iraq, Syria, Egypt (1952-1973), and
Libya. These regimes faced what Bill and Springbord (1990) term as a process of
“defensive modernization.” These regimes used external threats to their national
security as excuses to disallow a process of democratization as well as
suppress opposition within. Some of these Arab regimes switched roles as
defensive modernizers and friendly tyrants. Iraq shifted from a friendly tyrant
before its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 to a defensive modernizer
afterwards. The Shah of Iran (pre-1979) was a friendly tyrant while Khomeini
was a defensive modernizer. Egypt under Nasser (pre-1970) is an example of a
defensive modernizer while Egypt under Mubarak and Sadat (post-1973 period)
became a friendly tyrant regime.
Finally, Arabs
of Palestine have been living under Israeli occupation, or in exile since 1948.
Over the past 50 years, Arabs watched Israeli progress from a settler community
to a prosperous state. This prosperity would have been impossible without the
direct and indirect support by the United States. This support has become
sharper in the post-cold war era. The United States in the 1990s used its
Security Council veto power to block any sanctions on Israel, any presence of
international observers to protect Palestinian rights under the Geneva
Convention, or even any investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel in the
occupied Palestinian territories. This unconditional support for Israel despite
its violation of tens of Security Council resolutions, is paralleled by strict
enforcement of all such resolutions against non-friendly Arab states – such as
Libya and Iraq. The United States used protecting Israel’s right to exist as
its rationale for this support. Still, the double-standard in enforcing
international law and unconditional support for Israeli occupation of Arab
lands are the source of great resentment of United States policies in the
region (Chomsky, 2001; Said, 2001).
Western hegemony (Bin
Sayeed, 1995) has also triggered some major resistance by the peoples subjected
to imperialism. Bin Sayeed (1995) argues that the resurgence of this old
phenomenon as “Islamic Resistance to Western hegemony in the Middle East” (p.
5). However, he only looks at resistance by self-proclaimed Islamic states
specifically Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan. We submit here that the more
threatening form of resistance is that of non-states - organizations such as
Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad. These organizations are products of tyrant regimes
friendly to the U.S. but not to political freedoms within their own countries.
With the suppression of political organizing and oppression of opposition by
oppressive regimes that are supported and sustained by the West, political
Islam seems more difficult to halt because of the inseparability between
religion and politics.
In summary, the past century
witnessed the prevalence of western interests at the expense of the human and
political rights of Arabs. At each period of confrontation, the resistance by
Arabs was stronger than resistance in earlier periods. This is evident in the
history of the decolonized Middle East as it has experienced wars more than any
region in the world for the last fifty years. The region was home to three wars
between Israel and its neighbors, a war between Iraq and Iran, a war between
Iraq and Kuwait, and two wars between Iraq and the United States. Several
countries in the region also experienced internal conflicts: Turkey
(Kurds), Iraq (Kurds), Lebanon, Sudan, and Algeria Indeed, the
daily tragic pictures coming out of West Bank and Gaza Strip and the
inability or unwillingness of the United States and Europe to find a just
solution to the Palestinian issue make peoples of the region very
suspicious of these two powers.
Colonial
administrators carved up the Middle East, oppressed its peoples, and installed
regimes and states with no single national identity or common definition of
citizenship that would unite their peoples. Western imperialism and
defensiveness against it by anti-imperial regimes in the region have ensured
that the peoples of the Middle East did not experience true processes of
liberation. Those national forces that toppled pro-colonial and pro-imperial
regimes found themselves in defensive positions that turned them into regimes
as ruthless as their colonial predecessors.
Not long ago and in the
words of President George W. Bush, Americans engaged in a seemingly innocent
debate of how could Arabs hate the United States. “We are so good,” the
American President announced. The interesting thing about this debate is that
it was a debate among Americans – no Arabs invited and no historical context.
This article serves to answer that question. At the same time, the article
should not be construed as justification for anti-American sentiments. Instead,
they are explanations of what went wrong and how long these sentiments have
been in the making. Understanding the roots of a problem is the first step to
surgically deal with that problem.
The past four decades were
particularly damaging for prospects of peace between the United States and the
Arab peoples. Reversing this hostile relationship is done not by retaining
image spin-masters and purchasing television ads in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon,
Egypt, Jordan, and other countries. Nor is this done through invading an Arab
country to allegedly liberate its people from a friendly tyrant gone mad, while
leaving the liberation of other Arabs from other Arab and non-Arab friendly
tyrants contingent on the loyalty of these tyrants to the U.S. A change has to
entail fundamental policy changes.
First, ending the Israeli
occupation of Arab lands would help ease the tensions between the United States
and Arabs. For the last 38 years, Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza
Strip despite many United Nations resolution and outcry of the international
community to end this occupation (Keeley, 2002). For more than fifty years,
Palestinians have been living as refugees in other Arab states. The Palestinian
question is critical for any peace between Arabs and the United States.
According to an editorial in Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s first English-language
daily, "while the strikes in Afghanistan have pushed the Palestinian
struggle down to the second-lead position in media coverage, it remains the
central issue for the region. Palestine continues to yield, every day, its dead
and injured. Until that stops, all agree, there can be no peace in this
region" (World Press, 2001).
Second, the US presence in
Iraq has to be very transparent and its approach to dealing with Iraq must be
both surgical and delicate. Alkadry and Khalil (2002) predicted that the next
confrontation between Arabs and the West is at the crossroads of globalization.
The US occupation of Iraq seems more appropriate as that fifth moment of
confrontation. What the United States needs to ensure is that it does not
follow in the footsteps of European colonizers.
Finally, additional
confrontation with Syria and Iran does not serve American interests. It reminds
Arabs of their helplessness in the face of United States war machinery. Unlike
images of natives that are spread by western popular culture (Shaheen, 2001),
Arabs are intelligent and able to identify hypocrisy when they see one evil
sanctioned because of friendliness to the United States and another targeted
because of non-friendliness to the United States. Therefore, any attempt to
fight evil in the world must start with the friendly tyrants in the Middle East
and elsewhere. Support for friendly tyrants has to end because Arabs have
started realizing that western supporters and not only the tyrants is their
enemy.
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Mohamad
Alkadry is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at West Virginia
University. He received his Ph.D. from Florida Atlantic University. He is the
co-editor of These Things Happen: Stories from the Public Sector. He is
the author of several publications in the area of public management and citizen
participation. His current research focuses on public participation,
organizational behavior, and theories of democracy in an age of globalization.
His research interests include public participation and administrative
responsiveness.
Professor
Mohamad Alkadry
Division
of Public Administration
Eberly
College of Arts and Sciences
West
Virginia University
217
Knapp Hall
Morgantown,
WV 26501-6322
Work
Phone: (304) 293-2614 extension 3158
Fax:
(304) 293-8814
Home
Phone : (304) 291-3532
E-mail: malkadry@wvu.edu