Middle East Turmoil

“Suicide bomber kills 27 militiamen south of Iraqi capital” – Reuters UK (Tuesday Oct 28, 2014). Headlines like these from the region of Middle East & North Africa have managed to secure their places on the front page of every major news agency since a while now. Whether it be Islamic State fighting for Kobani in Syria, or Islamist militia fighting forces loyal to Former General Hiftar in Benghazi, Libya, the turmoil in the region seems to get bloodier day by day as it claims the lives of innocent children, women and men caught up in between.

Our debate, nonetheless, enters it’s rebuttal stage after a very thought-provoking opening session where both sides tried to justify their viewpoints through various compelling arguments, which then induced our audience to participate on the debate floor via votes and some interesting comments. Currently, the voting statistics are as follows: 25% stand For the motion, whereas the majority 75% side with the opposition.

To sum up what has been already put forward by our debaters in the opening session, Dr. Mark Katz while defending the motion, firstly argued that one of the main reason behind present day turmoil having it’s roots in the European Colonial era is “…the borders that they drew.” Elaborating on the same point he further says that the border were ‘highly arbitrary’, this is because “After independence, the Kurds, Berbers, and various non-Arab African groups in southern Sudan who were majorities in their own small regions found themselves to be persecuted minorities in larger countries.” Furthermore, Dr. Katz goes on argue how the legacy of European colonialism had a negative impact on the prospects of democratization in the region. He says, “…the European-drawn borders, as well as the ability of minorities which collaborated with colonial rule to retain power after it ended, have posed the most important barriers progress to democratization in the Middle East and North Africa.” Lastly, the proposition says that the legacy of European colonial rule was that “it served to prevent democratization in the region as well as to preserve an authoritarian order that has lasted for several decades.” And that it is ‘less surprising’ that this legacy is now coming under great challenge in the form of present day turmoil in the region.

Arguing against the motion, Mr. Tarek Fatah begin his statement by identifying what constituted as the ‘present day turmoil in Middle East & North Africa’. He then goes on the say how the turmoil in the region is not rooted in the European colonial era, rather is “…rooted in Islamic history, Turkish Ottoman colonial rule and the rejection of modernity itself that has led to such turmoil.” Mr. Fatah then elaborates by dividing his arguments into three parts: ‘The rise of the Islamic State, Daesh in Syria & Iraq’, ‘Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur & Western Sahara’ and lastly, ‘Palestine and Israel’. Starting off with the first argument, Mr. Fatah compares the Islamic history with the contemporary Islamic world and argues that the conflict amongst Muslims existed long before the Colonial powers got to the Middle East region. Moving on towards the second section of his statement, he talks about the massacre of ‘half a million Black-skinned Darfuris at the hands of the Arab Janjaweed of Sudan in 2003-2005’, pointing out the fact that the massacre was due to conflict amongst Muslims itself rather than Colonial powers. Lastly, addressing the Palestine issue, Mr. Fatah lays down some examples when Muslims, mainly Arab leaders at the time had the opportunity to avoid the long lasting conflict by agreeing on various agreements and plans, particularly, ‘The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement of 1919’, ‘The Peel Commission Plan of 1937’ and ‘The UN General Assembly Partition Plan of 1947’.

We were also honoured to have Ambassador Richard W. Murphy as our opening guest, who through his sheer expertise and experience in the field, provided some invaluable insights on the subject. He believes that it would be an ‘overstatement’ to say that the current turmoil in Middle East & North Africa does only have its roots in the Colonial era. Although, he adds, “Older patterns of conflict are still present. History is a continuum where the stronger, whether in military, economic or ideological terms, has continued to impose its ways on the weaker.” Talking about the ongoing crisis regarding the Islamic State and their declaration of erasing borders, Mr. Murphy considers it to be, “the latest attempt in the Arab World to end what might be termed the Colonial Legacy.” In conclusion of his remarks, Ambassador Murphy says that the negative impact of Colonial legacy on the present day turmoil might be limited, nonetheless, he believes, “The assertion that colonialism and nationalism represented historical steps towards modernity but prevented democratization through preserving authoritarian rule is more persuasive.”

As the debate enters into the rebuttal stage, we look forward to another phase of lively and insightful discussion. Let’s see what our debaters have to say further about their counterpart’s arguments and how the audience responds to their rebuttal remarks via votes and comments.

Mr. Tarek Fatah has set forth an eloquent and highly persuasive argument about how turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa is not the result of European colonialism but is “rooted in Islamic history, Turkish Ottoman colonial rule and the rejection of modernity itself.”  Yet several of his own statements tend to support my argument that certain instances of present-day conflict in the region have their roots in European colonialism.

Mr. Fatah blames the continuing occupation of Kurdistan by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran not on the borders drawn at the end of World War I, but to the Arab, Persian, and Turkish conviction that the “Kurds are lesser people or no people at all.”  But if Britain and France had created an independent Kurdish state in what is now northern Iraq and northeastern Syria at the end of World War I, the neighboring states would have had to learn to accommodate it much sooner, as they have done to varying degrees more recently with the Kurdish Regional Government.

Similarly, Mr. Fatah blames the slaughter of the black-skinned Darfuris by the Arab Janjaweed in Sudan in 2003-05 on the “belief of Arab superiority over the darker skinned people.”  But if the British had granted independence in the first place to Darfur as well as to Equatoria (now known as South Sudan) instead of putting them under Arab rule from Khartoum, the Arab vs. black conflicts that have plagued Sudan since independence might have been avoided.

In addition, Morocco’s decades-long effort to pacify Western Sahara might have been avoided if the Spanish, who were then departing from what was then Spanish Sahara, had granted the region independence instead of dividing it between Morocco and Mauritania (claim to which the latter would soon renounce).

While Mr. Fatah is certainly right that Somalia’s demise as a state was not the result of European colonial rule, the division of the Somali people among Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somaliland and Somalia itself was. 

Furthermore, the fact that Britain made conflicting promises to the Jews and to the Arabs during World War I about the disposition of Palestine afterward is surely one of the root causes of the present-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The failure of Britain’s own effort to reach a compromise between the two communities through the Peel Commission’s 1937 recommendations that the Palestine Mandate be abolished and separate Jewish and Arab states be created is not simply the result of Arab obstructionism, but also of the difficulty of a declining imperial power to unravel the colonial legacy that it had itself created earlier.

Mr. Fatah is certainly right that Islamic history, Ottoman colonial rule, and present-day attitudes have contributed to turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa.  But in each of the specific instances he discussed noted above, European colonial policy served to exacerbate, not ameliorate, these conflicts.  Indeed, different European colonial policies in each of these instances might have served to mitigate, if not avoid, them all.

Finally, I must confess to feeling slightly confused by the last paragraph in Ambassador Murphy’s otherwise clear statement.  He describes the view that “the colonial legacy had a negative impact on stability through its imposition of borders and stimulation of nationalism” (in other words, my argument) as “intriguing but limited.” He then notes that the “assertion that colonialism and nationalism…prevented democratization though preserving authoritarian rule is more persuasive.”  But after setting forth this alternative argument which he believes is superior to mine, he concludes by stating, “Considered together both help explain why power sharing and pluralism in the governments of the Arab World have proven difficult goals to achieve”—thus indicating that the two arguments are not so much opposed to each other as they are mutually reinforcing.

I agree completely with this.  As Francis Fukuyama once noted, “The success and stability of liberal democracy…never depends simply on the mechanical application of a certain set of universal principles and laws, but requires a degree of conformity between peoples and states.”[1]  It is largely because of the borders drawn by the European colonial powers that this “conformity between peoples and states” is absent in much of the Middle East and North Africa.

The premise of Professor Katz's motion is that the trials and tribulations of the Middle East and North Africa are rooted in the borders drawn by the departing European colonial powers. 

He writes, "... European colonialism in the Middle East and North Africa is responsible for much of the region’s subsequent turmoil … because while the European powers are long gone, one highly important legacy of their rule remains: the borders that they drew." 

This assumes the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa is limited to the Israel-Palestine question. I say this because not a single Arab State in the region has questioned its neighbouring Arab State over the borders drawn up by departing European colonial powers. 

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. 

The casualty figures of the many wars fought between Arab States and Israel are dwarfed by the 200,000 Arabs killed by fellow Arabs in the on-going Syrian civil war or as I said in my opening statement the 500,000 Blacks killed in Darfur by Arab Janjaweed. 

In fact the only time someone did try to rectify the European drawn arbitrary borders in the Middle East, the entire Arab World joined hands with Europe and America to reset the border to how its was drawn by the departing Britain. I am referring to the attempt by Iraq under Saddam Hussein to erase the artificial entity of Kuwait created by the United Kingdom. 

Not a single Arab country opposed the erasure of a European Colonial border and all of them rallied behind the U.S. and Europe to reinstall the self-appointed royal family of an artificial country. 

Prof. Katz goes on to blame the colonial powers for the lack of democratization in Middle East and North Africa. He writes: 

"The legacy of European colonial rule has also had a negative impact on the prospects for democratization in the Middle East and North Africa.  Instead of being the result of what some see as the primordially authoritarian nature of Arab culture or the Islamic religion, the European-drawn borders, as well as the ability of minorities which collaborated with colonial rule to retain power after it ended, have posed the most important barriers progress to democratization in the Middle East and North Africa." 

That argument does not withstand scrutiny. After all India being the world's largest democracy in a society of minorities, both ethnic and religious, embraced Westminster type parliamentary form of governance because of European colonial rule after a historic 100-year struggle to oust the Europeans from their shores. 

Even the Islamic countries of the Indian subcontinent, Bangladesh and to a lesser degree Pakistan, have a far better record at democracy than the Middle East and North Africa. Even embattled Israel, surrounded by monarchies and dictatorships has emerged as a vibrant secular democracy, despite the area being a British colony from 1918 to 1948. 

If one were to take Prof Katz's argument to its logical conclusion, then Kenya should have had border wars with Tanzania and Uganda while Indonesia and Malaysia would have fought while Singapore could not have emerged as one of Asia's most vibrant and thriving economies despite a population that speaks four languages and practices three religions. 

North Africa, Turkey, Iran and the Arab countries of the Middle East are alone responsible for the turmoil in their lands. Blaming it on European colonialism is merely an excuse to avoid addressing some core value issues that were best applicable in the 12th century, certainly not in the 21st.

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