Middle+Eastern+Nationalism

The Middle East is the area of the world between the geographic borders of Europe, Africa, and Asia. While Europe is considered the near east, and Asian areas such as China and Japan the Far East, the middle east would therefore be the area in the middle.However, the selected regions also have similar cultural identities, rather than just simple political borders. Reflection: I got the cultural commonalities, geo-political boundaries, and diversity of religion correct. However, I forgot to include egypt and Turkey because I was thinking a bit too much in terms of geographic location.I also mistakenly included Kazakhstan, and other asiatic territories due to a misidentification of cultural commonalities(most likely due to American influence in lumping Afghanistan and other "-stan" related nations together with Middle Easterners).

MI: Egypt is the one middle eastern country whose nationalist tendencies began before it's conquest by the europeans. War and Nationalist movements in the Middle east: MI: In the years after WWI, resistance to the European colonial domination which had largely been confined to Egypt in the Prewar years, spread to much of the Middle East. British and French Sykes-Picolt agreement to carve up the Middle east after WWI. 1918 Wilson's 14 points = Hope for the Middle East. Future War-> Oil? 1930s, US and British began drilling for oil(Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) WWII-> Protecting Oil supplies=key Holocaust-> 1948, Israel is created as a state. It was invaded that very same day by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. By 1949, a treaty was signed, and israel actually became bigger.This greatly alienated the Middle Eastern people from the West. Revolt in Egypt, 1919: MI: Because Egypt was already occupied by the British by the time that the war broke out,it had been declared a protectorate in 1914 and had not been promised to Hussein or the Zionists as a part of the middle east.As a result, anticolonial sentiment in egypt was shaped by the earlier tolls that the war had taken on the egyptian peasantry. Military Responses:Dictatorship and Revolution: Given the difficulties that leders such as Nkrumah faced after independance, and the advantages the military weild in crisis situations, the increased rate of government instability in the form of Coups.
 * Uprisings such as the mutiny of Ahmad Orabi relating to the liberation of the Egyptian people from both the Turkish overlords and European interlopers lead to British occupation in 1882. This was essentially double-colonization of the egyptian people., by both the Turkish Khedives and the Britishcolonial overlords.
 * In decades following the british conquest, government policy was dominated by the strong-wqilled Lord Cromer. As high commissioner of egypt, he pushed for much-needed economic reforms that reduced the debts of the puppet Khedive regime.Cromer also reformed the Bureaucracy and constructed numerous other irrigation systems and public works projects.
 * With Khedival regimes closely allied with the British overlords, resisstace to this occupation was largely left to the middle class. Sine the mioddle of the 19th century this new and relatively s,mall sopcial class had been growing in power and influence.With the memories of Orabi's revolt in 1882 still fresh, the causes of revolt were largely taken up by the sons of the Effendi (prosperous businessmen and professional workers who made up the middle class).
 * In the years before the outbreak of WWI in 1914, heavy-handed british repression on several occasions put down numerous student riots and retaliated for attempts to assassinate British officials.Despite the failure of the nationalist movement at this time to unite the masses, the common tensions were felt in the Dinshawai incident in 1906, exemplifying racial arrogance of the Europeans.
 * Britain was largely wary of the Egyptian nationalism by the beginning of WWI, and declared martial law in an attempt to put down the movemements once and for all.However, like in India, the forces could not properrly suppress the egyptians and would in fact soon lead to the revival of the drive to independance.
 * Having sided with the Central powers in the war, the turkish overlords shared in their defeats.The Ottoman empire effectively disappeared, and Britain and France began dividing the once-arab lands amongst themselves.Italy and Greece attacked the areas near constantinople in attempt to begin a partition of these to Allies of the Triple entente.
 * But a skilled military commander Ataturk(Mustafa Kemal) rallied the turkish forces and amanaged to drive out the invading greeks, establishing an independant Turkish republic by 1923.Ataturk enacted sweeping reforms, including an attack on veils, adaptation of a new latin script of writing, and suffrage for women. attempting to secularize and develop Turkey.
 * With Turkish rule in the Arab heartlands ended, arab nationalists turned to face the new threat presented by the victorious Entente Powers.Betraying promisesa to preserve Arab independance that the British had made in 1915-16, French and British forces occupied much of the middle east (in territories/colonies called mandates. France controlled Syria and Lebanon, while Britain controlled the rest.) in the years after the war. Hussein, the sherif of Mecca, had used these promises to convince arabs to rise in support of the British during the war.
 * The fact that the British had promised Palestine to both the Jewish Zionists and Arab peoples further confused this matter. Despite repeated assurances to Hussein and other Arab leaders, the British foreign secretary Lord Balfour promised prominent Zionist leaders that he would grant Palestine to them.This pledge, known as the Balfour Declaration greatly increased Zionist aspirations, leading to a larger group of organizations dedicated to Zionist causes.
 * Early moves made by these organizations were a direct result of persecution of Jews in European countries. Pogroms, or violent assaults on the jewish community coming from Russia and Romania during the 1860s and 1870s lead Jewish thinkers such as Leon Pinsker to beleive that acceptance of Jews by Christian Europe was near impossible.
 * Until the late 1890s, Jews in Europe largely disagreed with Zionists, enjoying their civil rights and citizenship.However, many became Zionists in 1894 after Theodore Herzl, an established Austrian journalist reported on gross mistreatment of army officer Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew who had been accused of leaking secrets to Germany.French mobs began shouting "Death to the Jews", and Dreyfus was exiled, creating much bitterness.Soon after, Herzl managed to unite other Zionist leaders to form the WZO (World Zionist Organization)
 * Arabs continued to feel increased tension with the Jews due to what they felt as European betrayal in favor of the Jews.WHen British officials attempted to balance things out, curtailing promises to the Zionists, they began mistrusting the british and openly resisting them.
 * Defense of the Suez Canal was of major importance to the British. Therefore, to prevent egyptian retaliation from Turkish calls for a holy war, martial law was declared shortly after the War began.Throughout the war, large contingencies of Entente troops were stationed in Egypt, creating a heavy drain on Egyptian food and resources such as draft animals, combined with conscription of egyptian soldiers made egypt primed for revolution by the end of the war.
 * Mass discontent strenghtened the power of the nationalist elites to demand a hearing at Versailles, where the victorious allies struggled reaching a postwar setllement.When a delegation of egyptian leaders was denied the right to travel to France to make a case for Egyptian self-determination, most political leaders resigned from the government and began inciting mass demonstrations.
 * Though the British government was able to regain control, it became clear that it was necessary to hear egyptian complaints.The newly formed Wafd party under it's strong leader S'ad Zaghlul provided the nationalists a mass base and focus which far exceeded that which they had achieved in previous decades. When a special british commision came to Egypt to investigate the causes of such social discontent, they met with mass upheaval and protest, causing them to recommend a plan for eventual withdrawal from egypt.However, after much negotiation, the British reserved the right to re-occupy Egypt if it was threatened by a foreign agressor.
 * Though they won more political freedom for egypt, few political leaders at the time had the will to push for the reforms which Egypt needed, resluting in massive social bankruptcy for the next 40 years.By the early 1950s, over 60% of egyptian land was owned by 6% of the population, and 98% of the peasant class was illiterate, diseased, and starving.
 * Once in control, military leaders have banned civilian political parties and imposed military regimes of varying degrees of repression and authoritarian control.However, the ends to which these regimes have put their dictatorial powers have differed greatly.
 * In a few cases, military leaders have been radical in their approaches to economic and social reforms. For example, general Gamal Abdul Nasser who took power in Egypt in 1952, and he was the first to actually attempt full reform. (As can be seen from previous notes, revolution in Egyppt was sucessful, but was largely unreformed.
 * The radical movements that succeeded and gained power, the Free Officers Movement for example, werre largely based on secret societies established in the Egyptian army in the 1930s.
 * Founded by idealistic young officers of egyptian descent, the Revolutionary command Council studied the conditions in the country in preparation for a genuine revolution. For many decades, these societies were allied to the Muslim Brotherhood(founded by a schoolteacher in 1928 to rid egypt of injustices, performing many islamic revivals and promoting trade, building hospitals, and educating women), another revolutionary alternative to the puppet Khedive regime.
 * After Egypt's humiliating defeat in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and a clash with the british over continued british occupation of the Suez canal in 1952, mass anger and the Khedival regime gave the Officers their chance.In relatively bloodless coup, the corrupt khedive Farouk was toppled from his jewel encrusted throne that very same year.
 * Egyptians were able to rule themselves for the first time since the 6th century BC under the guidance of Nasser.Nasser used the dictatorial power that he had won in the coup to promote sweeping reforms which he beleived would placate the raging egyptian masses.He beleived massive state intervention was the only way that the opressed Egyptian masses could be restored, and sought to intervene in all aspects of Egyptin life.
 * To establish economic independance, restrictions were placed upon foreign investment, and in some cases, foreign properties were redistributed to egyptian investors. Nasser also directed a part of his energies to the destruction of the newly formed jewish state.However, most of his reforms backfired.EVen the Aswan High Dam over the Nile River was a massive fiasco.His foreign ventures often failed, and while he did manage to finally eject the British and French focres from the Suez canal area with Russian and American help, he still lost the devastating 6-Day War to Israel in 1967.
 * Although he moved slowly at first, Nasser's sucessor, Anwar Sadat had little choice but to dismantle the massive state appartus that Nasser had created.He favored private rather than state-funded initiatives, and the middle class grew to be a substantial force, which they couldn't under Nasser.Sadat also moved to end the fighting with Israel, opening Egypt to aid from Western Europe and America, at the expense of the Russians.
 * HIs sucessor, Hosni Mubarack continued Sadat's reforms, but none of the sucessors to come were as radical as Nasser, and none of the sucessors really managed to check the corruption of the Egyptian bureaucracy in the face of a starving population.There was still a massive class division between the poor and the rich in Egyptian society, and the people largely remained in dicontent, resulting in a large proliferation of Muslim Fundamentalist movements.

Iran- Religious revivalism and rejection of the West: MI: No path to development in a post-colonial society faced more fundamental challenges that the revolutionary Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. Leadership Analysis:([] ) Full Name: Ruhollah Mostafavi Moosavi Khomeini Time in Power: 1979-1989 Titles/Nicknames:Ayatollah Khomeini/Imam Khomeini/1st Supreme Leader of Iran Lifespan: September 22 1902-> June 3 1989 Country/Region: Iran Conditions prior to gaining power: Ideology, Motivation, and Goals: Significant actions and Effects: Leadership Analysis 2: Full Name: Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein Time in Power: 1956-1970 Titles/Nicknames: 2nd President of Egypt Lifespan: 1888-1970 Country/Region: Egypt Conditions Prior to gaining Power:
 * In many ways, this revolution was a massive throwback to the days of religious fervor and anticolonial resistance.similat to the movement lead by the Madhi of Sudan in the 1880s. Core movements emphasized a fusion of religion and politics, as well as religious purification, in general, a call back to what Islam was like under the Golden Age of Muhammed and toppling western-backed governments.
 * Though it was proclaimed as an alternative choice to development which could be followed by other nations, Khomeini's revolution largely owed it's success to a combination of the circumstances unique to Iran(it had not been formally colonized, just carved up into spheres of influence between Russia and Britian.)
 * The Shah's dictatorial and opressive regime deeply offended the emerging middle classes after nationalist leader Mohammed Mosaddeq rose to power, and Mosaddeq considered them to be his greatest supporters.HIs flaunting of Islamic conventions and neglect of Islamic worship enraged the ayatollahs or religious experts and mullahs(local prayer leaders).
 * Favoritism of Iranian entrepeneurs to larger private contacts enraged local merchants. The shah's half--hearted attempts to reform the land ownership enraged the land-owning upper class without wining the support of the lower class workers,and falling oil prices managed to put Iran into an economic slump which caused high unemployment.
 * The shah also neglected the army, and when the time came when crisis was mounting, the shah had very few soldieres which could adequately defend him.After the insurrection, Khomeini actually managed to follow through on the massive reforms he had promised. Constitutional and leftist parties were largely abolished, and Khomeini soon strove to rid Iran of the "satanic influences" of the Western Europeans and the United States.He made the wearing of veils mandatory, and enforced harsh punishments such as stoning for women caught in adultery and amputation for theives.
 * However, most of his reforms never came to fruition because of the Iran-Iraq War, which became at points a personal vendetta for Khomeini, who wanted to punish the Iraqi people and Saddam Hussein.Iran lost due to failing technology, and Iraqi alliances with other oil-rich countries.As american support of the Iraqis increased, and many thousands of poorly armed Iranian troops died before the humiliating armistice which brought the war to an end in 1988.
 * Iran was not formally colonized, and instead divided up into spheres of influence between Britain, Russia, America, etc...
 * The Shah's dictatorial and opressive regime deeply offended the emerging middle classes after nationalist leader Mohammed Mosaddeq rose to power, and Mosaddeq considered them to be his greatest supporters.HIs flaunting of Islamic conventions and neglect of Islamic worship enraged the ayatollahs or religious experts and mullahs(local prayer leaders).
 * The shah's half--hearted attempts to reform the land ownership enraged the land-owning upper class without wining the support of the lower class workers,and falling oil prices managed to put Iran into an economic slump which caused high unemployment.
 * A return to the religious fervor and beleif in purification of Islamic rituals/revivalism + Theocracy.
 * Desire to topple the western-backed government/rid Iran of "Satanic" influences.
 * Supression of constitutionalists who would stand in the way of Khomeini's domination as the Supreme Ruler.
 * Rage/Personal Vendetta against Saddam Hussein-> The Iran-Iraq War largely resulted from this
 * Large scale reforms, including making the wearing of veils mandatory, and enforced harsh punishments such as stoning for women caught in adultery and amputation for theives.However, most of his reforms never came to fruition because of the Iran-Iraq War
 * Many assassination attempts, for example Khomeini issued a [|fatwa] calling for the assassination of [|Salman Rushdie], an India-born British author. Khomeini issued a Religious Verdict (Fatwa) that claimed that Rushdie's assassination was allowed for Muslims to partake because of his alleged [|blasphemy] against [|Muhammad] in his novel, //[|The Satanic Verses]//, published in 1988. Rushdie's book contains passages that many Muslims – including Ayatollah Khomeini – considered offensive to Islam and the prophet, but the fatwa has also been attacked for violating the rules of [|fiqh] by not allowing the accused an opportunity to defend himself, and because "even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurist only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence." However, even after a public apology, Khomeini still had Rushdie marked for death.
 * He is also reportedly famous for answering a question about his economic policies by declaring that 'economics is for donkeys'. This low opinion of economics is said to be "one factor explaining the inchoate performance of the Iranian economy since the revolution." Another factor was the long war with Iraq, the cost of which led to government debt and inflation, eroding personal incomes, and unprecedented unemployment.Khomeini is said to have stressed "the spiritual over the material". Six months after his first speech he expressed exasperation with complaints about the sharp drop in Iran's standard of living: 'I cannot believe that the purpose of all these sacrifices was to have less expensive melons'On another occasion emphasizing the importance of martyrdom over material prosperity.
 * Severe religious favoritism-Life for religious minorities was mixed under Khomeini. Non-Muslim religious minorities no longer had equal rights. Senior government posts were reserved for Muslims. Schools set up by Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians had to be run by Muslim principals.Compensation for death paid to the family of a non-Muslim was (by law) less than if the victim was a Muslim. Conversion to Islam was encouraged by entitling converts to inherit the entire share of their parents (or even uncle's) estate if their siblings (or cousins) remain non-Muslim.
 * Elimination of all political opponents-Opposition to the religious rule of the clergy or Islamic government in general was often met with harsh punishments. In a talk at the Fayzieah School in Qom, 30 August 1979, Khomeini warned opponents: "Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. They are worse than [|Bani-Ghorizeh] Jews, and they must be hanged. We will oppress them by God's order"
 * Mass discontent strenghtened the power of the nationalist elites to demand a hearing at Versailles, where the victorious allies struggled reaching a postwar setllement.When a delegation of egyptian leaders was denied the right to travel to France to make a case for Egyptian self-determination, most political leaders resigned from the government and began inciting mass demonstrations.
 * Few political leaders at the time had the will to push for the reforms which Egypt needed, resluting in massive social bankruptcy for the next 40 years.By the early 1950s, over 60% of egyptian land was owned by 6% of the population, and 98% of the peasant class was illiterate, diseased, and starving.
 * British and French forces still occupied the Suez canal area, and withdrawal was only reached after an agreement that they had the right to re-occupy the area if Egypt was invaded.

Ideology, Motivation and Goals: Significant Actions and effects:
 * Domestic and independant foreign policies relating to freedom from western influences, and removal of outside (Especially British) forces from the Suez Canal Area.
 * The combination of living in so many cities and attending different schools did not distress Nasser but broadened his horizons, allowing him to become aware of the class divisions in Egyptian society. Despite constantly changing schools, Nasser spent most of his spare time reading, particularly in 1933 when his uncle happened to live near the National Library of Egypt. In addition to the Qur'an, the sayings of Muhammad, and the lives of the Sahaba (Muhammad's companions), he read the works of Napoleon, Gandhi, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and many others. He was greatly influenced by the nationalist Egyptian politician Mustafa Kamel, and the poet Ahmed Shawqi.
 * Nasser was wounded during an anti-British demonstration, in which several students tried to cross Abbas ( el-Roda ) Bridge in Cairo to clash with the police. Afterward, he was arrested and detained for two days along with several members of the Egyptian Socialist Party. The wound he sustained was superficial, but garnered his first mention in the nationalistic newspaper //Al Gihad//.


 * After Egypt's humiliating defeat in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and a clash with the british over continued british occupation of the Suez canal in 1952, mass anger and the Khedival regime gave the Officers their chance.In relatively bloodless coup, the corrupt khedive Farouk was toppled from his jewel encrusted throne that very same year.
 * Egyptians were able to rule themselves for the first time since the 6th century BC under the guidance of Nasser.Nasser used the dictatorial power that he had won in the coup to promote sweeping reforms which he beleived would placate the raging egyptian masses.He beleived massive state intervention was the only way that the opressed Egyptian masses could be restored, and sought to intervene in all aspects of Egyptin life.
 * To establish economic independance, restrictions were placed upon foreign investment, and in some cases, foreign properties were redistributed to egyptian investors. Nasser also directed a part of his energies to the destruction of the newly formed jewish state.However, most of his reforms backfired.EVen the Aswan High Dam over the Nile River was a massive fiasco.His foreign ventures often failed, and while he did manage to finally eject the British and French focres from the Suez canal area with Russian and American help, he still lost the devastating 6-Day War to Israel in 1967.

Summary of Middle East: MI: The Middle East at this time was largely subject to a period of long political upheaval due to nationalism in the face of corrupt(often western funded) leadership.
 * Overall, there was a large movement against political fragmentation, and worked to form governments based around having no political opposition/defeat of political opponents.
 * There were also very large movements to reform societal woes via social/religious reforms and remove western influences, whether it be playing western nations against one another (As happened in Egypt) or outright calling Western influence "satanic" (As can be seen in Iran)
 * Development of a more distinct middle eastern identity, increased xenophobia lead to the Arab Identity developing around religious influence. Political movements began revolving more along overthrowing outsiders and dealing with regional rivalries rather than reform, as time passed. Then, we also see a move towards divergence, even with the common middle eastern identity.