Middle East Turmoil

As we approach the end of this debate, the differences amongst our debaters remain large as both try to address the arguments of their counterpart. Nonetheless, we witness that the voting scale has taken an interesting shape as we enter into the closing session with the gap between each side narrowed down to only 9%. Much will therefore depend on this last round of closing remarks that our debaters submit in response to what was said during rebuttal session.

Dr. Mark Katz in his rebuttal explains the mistakes made by colonial powers by countering the allegations against the motion. He challenges Mr. Fatah’s arguments with an assertion that the colonial powers should have created those minority states, which are now being accepted to a varying degree, before vacating the power of authority. This is reflected when he provides examples of the cases like Kurdish Regional Government in Levant, Darfur & South Sudan in Africa and Morocco & Mauritania in North Africa. Furthermore, he also highlights the effects which occurred when the colonial powers were weakening as the evidence suggests in the case of Palestine and Israel. He says, “…failure of Britain’s own effort to reach a compromise between the two communities through the Peel Commission’s 1937 recommendations.”

The pivotal point of this debate surrounds the claim that majority of the mistakes were made when the maps were redrawn. However, Mr. Tarek Fatah argues with conviction that, “…not a single Arab State in the region has questioned its neighbouring Arab State over the borders drawn up by departing European colonial powers.” He further illustrates, “The straight lines drawn between Yemen and Oman, or Egypt and Libya, or Morocco and Algeria let alone Syria and Iraq have produced hardly any border conflict of the type that has pitted India and Pakistan along the Kashmir Line of Control.” Additionally, Mr. Fatah advocates that European Colonial powers are not to be blamed for the absence of democratization in Middle East & North Africa by quoting examples of India being “the world's largest democracy in a society of minorities.”

Later in the rebuttal session, we had the privilege of being joined by Mr. Frank Ledwidge who is; the Former UK Military Intelligence Officer and author of Times Book of the Year 2011 ‘Losing Small Wars’. He validates Dr. Katz’s arguments by referring to Sykes-Picot agreement and Balfour Declaration, respectively. However, by agreeing partially with the opposition, Mr. Ledwidge believes that, “the underlying roots of some of the turmoil today are found in the contemporary world not in the ghosts of the past.” Furthermore, he maintains that Western policy-makers need to understand what their contemporary involvement in the region, whether it be militarily or diplomatic, means. “We fail to appreciate how others see us”, Mr. Ledwidge further enlightens us with his experiences in the Iraq War (2003-2011) when he says, “The truth is that we were clueless as to how we were perceived by Iraqis.”

So far the debaters and guests have followed the ethics of productive argumentation, provided insightful thoughts, remained factual and countered each other’s claims. Let’s see what they have to say about their counterpart’s arguments as well as participants’ comments as they try to persuade the audience one last time.

In Mr. Fatah’s rebuttal statement, he writes that “not a single Arab State in the region has questioned its neighbouring Arab State over the borders drawn up by departing European colonial powers.”  He then goes on to acknowledge that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was indeed such an instance, but that “the entire Arab World joined hands with Europe and America to reset the border to how it was drawn by the departing Britain.”

I am sorry to have to point out that both of these statements are incorrect.[1]  The British-drawn borders on the Arabian Peninsula were (indeed, may still be) a source of contention between Saudi Arabia on the one hand and the former British protectorates that now comprise Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait on the other.  These territorial disputes have been written about extensively by Professor Richard Schofield, among others.[2]  Further, the conflict between Libya and Chad in the 1970’s and 1980’s centered around which Franco-Italian agreement about their border should be considered valid.[3]

Further, when Saddam Hussein first invaded Kuwait in 1990, Jordan refused to condemn Iraq’s move.  The Yemeni government even seemed to support it initially (indeed, both the U.S. and Saudi governments were convinced that Yemen was acting as Iraq’s ally).  But even while most (though not all, as Mr. Fatah avers) Arab governments supported the U.S.-led coalition to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, public opinion in many Arab countries was (as I well remember) highly sympathetic toward Saddam Hussein and hostile toward the Kuwaiti monarchy.

The Arab World, then, has not been free of territorial disputes stemming from the European colonial era.  But even if it had been, the European-drawn borders in the region would still have to be considered a cause for much of the region’s ongoing conflict.  As I discussed in my rebuttal statement, these colonial era borders have given rise to several conflicts in the Middle East (as well as in sub-Saharan Africa) within states.  These have included conflicts between regionally-dominant minorities (such as the Kurds, South Sudanese, Darfuris, Kabyles, Tuaregs, and Sahrawis) seeking independence on the one hand and states inheriting European-drawn borders (or, in the case of Morocco, inheriting an entire Spanish colony) that have not wanted to grant it to them.  They have also included conflicts within states between the minorities who had collaborated with European colonial rule and remained dominant in their countries after independence (the Alawites in Syria and the Arab Sunnis in Iraq), and the majorities seeking an end to minority rule (Arab Sunnis in Syria and Arab Shi’as in Iraq).

With regard to the relationship between European colonial rule and the presence or absence of democracy after independence:  Mr. Fatah argues that the success of democracy in post-colonial India in particular compared to the absence of democracy in virtually all of the Arab World is proof that European colonialism cannot be held responsible for the Arab states not democratizing.  India is certainly a democracy, but it is one that is absolutely intolerant of secessionism.  It has refused to allow a referendum in Kashmir for fear that the Muslim majority there would vote for independence, and is not willing to allow the Sikhs as well as several groups in the northeast to hold a vote showing just how much local support within these regions there is for their independence.  In other words, India’s democracy has not resulted in its being able to resolve the problem of some regionally dominant minorities seeking secession from the colonial-era defined state. 

Indeed, what the example of India shows is that even if Arab states do democratize, they may not be able to resolve the problem of their regionally dominant minorities seeking secession.  The Arab states being so much smaller than India and the minorities in some of them being a much larger proportion of the population, I argue, has made democratization a far more frightening prospect for the ruling majorities (not to mention ruling minorities) in many Middle Eastern countries.  As I noted in my rebuttal statement:  if the Kurds, etc., had been organized into separate colonies and been granted independence by the European powers in the first place, this problem would not have arisen and democratization within more homogenous Arab and non-Arab states might have been easier.

The European-drawn borders, then, have indeed contributed much to present day conflict in the Middle East and North Africa.  The question, then, is:  Can this colonial-era legacy be overcome?  Forceful efforts to do so, such as that being made by ISIS, are highly undesirable as they only increase conflict in the region rather than resolve it.  It would be far better if borders could be realigned through peaceful negotiations.  But this may be well-nigh impossible.  For even if all agree that existing borders in the region are highly arbitrary, it will be next to impossible to reach agreement on how to redraw them.  And, as the case of South Sudan has shown, secession does not necessarily lead to peace and prosperity for the newly independent state.

One possible way to ameliorate the continuing legacy of the European-drawn borders, at least initially, may be to encourage federal democracies within existing borders.  Central governments would then have to focus on preventing secession not through suppression, but through persuasion.  Regionally dominant minorities might learn that they can gain concessions through threatening to secede, but not actually doing so (as Quebec and Scotland, among others, have shown).  Indeed, this is something that could be learned not just by former European colonies in the Middle East, but by some former European colonial powers as well.

I write my closing arguments in the shadow of a horrifying tragedy that has hit the country of my birth, Pakistan. A suicide bomber from a splinter group of the Taliban blew himself up on Sunday at the country’s border crossing with India, killing over 50 people, including women and children and injuring scores more. 

He did so in the name of Islam and the worldwide jihad against the infidels who Islamists believe are responsible for their real or imagined grievances. A feeling nurtured by the constant drumbeat of victimhood played into our ears by various shades of the jihadist organizations and well-meaning, yet naive liberals in the West who believe it is the West that is responsible for all that is stagnant about the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. 

Four weeks ago on October 20 when I penned my opposition to Prof Katz’s motion, tragedy struck. This time much closer to home, in Canada. 

Men who held a grievance against the West that Prof. Katz suggests is responsible for the turmoil in Islamdom, staged two attacks, killing two Canadian soldiers while trying to bring Canada's parliament to its knees. 

Two men, born in Canada in French-speaking Quebec families had converted to Islam and partaken in a jihadist terrorist attack, for no reason other than the fact they had been convinced by someone that the West—Europe and North America—is evil. Infidels who deserved death.

Both Muslim men wanted to go to the Middle East or North Africa to fight alongside jihadists they had never met, but who they now considered as part of their new brotherhood, the Ummah. For whom they were prepared to give their lives, and both did.

The first terrorist ran his car over a Canadain soldier outside an Army recruitment centre near Montreal while the second gunman targeted a military reservist guarding the Ottawa National War Memorial — a revered national symbol in memory of so many brave men and women who have given their lives to protect the West’s freedom and way of life.

For the two men who had no links to the Middle East and who came from middle class families, the very Western way of life of their families had offended them.

Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a 24-year-old father of one and a reservist with The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, was standing sentry at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when he was executed at 9:52 a.m. Wednesday by a masked man bearing a long-barrelled rifle. One witness told reporters the young shooter with long black hair and a “black and white Palestinian type head scarf over his face” raised his arms in triumph after shooting Cirillo twice at point blank range.

The Muslim terrorist then stormed his way into Parliament Hill where Conservative and NDP MPs had just begun their respective weekly caucus meetings. The Prime Minister himself was in the building as well. There could be no better prize for a terrorist intent on making a terrifying impact. 

These two terrorist attacks on opposite ends of earth, one at the beginning of this debate and the other as I submit my closing arguments, make it abundantly clear the turmoil we face around the world, not just in North Africa and the Middle East has little or nothing to do with what happened a 100 years ago. 

While European Colonial Rule may have played a part in the 19th and 20th centuries in dragging modernity into traditional agrarian monarchies, that cannot explain the anger of two White Quebecois Muslims towards their country of birth or that of a Taliban jihadist blowing up 50 fellow Muslims in Pakistan. 

The day we Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia own up to our own mistakes and end our addiction to the blame game, we will have taken the first steps towards a respectful place in the family of nations. If we don't, hundreds of millions will suffer tomorrow as we satiate our hunger for revenge today. 

And to those well-meaning liberals in the West who wish we remain hooked to the drug of victimhood, we must say, “Thank you, but no thank you. We don’t need your crutches. Go find some other victims to help.”

Debaters, guests and users’ statements and comments are their independent thoughts, opinions, beliefs, viewpoints and are not necessarily that of MUSLIM Institute's.