Contribution to the Discussion of Western Scholarship - Essay Example

Contribution to the Discussion of Western Scholarship Section A 1. Ziya Gokalp – a writer and sociologist, whose works shaped the foundation of Turkish nationalism. Gokalp claimed that any nation encompassed the elements of territory, ethnicity, political affinity, and culture. Gokalp spread the message that Turkish nationalism was impossible without Islam. 2. Sati al-Husri – a founder and supporter of Arab Nationalism, a philosopher of Syrian origin born in Yemen. Husri built his ideas on the principles and values of German romanticism. Husri was confident that the condition of the Arabs resembled that of Germans, when there is a state of national belonging but no statehood. 3. Rentier state – a type of state that relies primarily and only on the revenues derived from extracting and selling one or more natural resources (e.g., oil). More often than not, the rentier state relies on a limited number of people who dominate the natural resources business, whereas government uses these revenues as the main source of national income. Most Middle Eastern countries rely on natural gas, oil, and petroleum production. 4. The Dutch disease – after the Groningen gas field was discovered in 1959, the Dutch economy was faced with the challenge of inflation. The rapid appreciation of the Dutch guilder led to the subsequent rise in the price of Dutch goods. For this reason, the demand for Dutch goods declined and the manufacturing sector fell into a deep economic abyss during the 1960-70s. 5. The Eastern Question – the study of the relationships and interactions between unequal power systems; of these, one system (Europe) is on the rise and another (Middle East) is in the state of decline. In this relationship, the Middle East is believed to be closely intertwined with the political developments in Europe. Simultaneously, over the 19th century the Middle East developed its own rules of the international relations game, to deal with the challenge of the European dominance. 6. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – founder of the modern secular Turkish Republic. Ataturk is the foundational figure of modern Turkish history. He served as President of the Turkish Republic between 1923 and 1938. 7. Gamal Abd al-Nasser – one of the most important figures in the development of Arab politics and the second president of Egypt (since 1956 until death). Nasser’s leadership played a crucial role in the creation of Egyptian nationhood and is often viewed as a role model of Arab dignity. The figure of Nasser is closely associated with the rise of Arab nationalism. 8. Baghdad Pact – was created and signed by Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and Britain in 1955. The main goal of the Pact was to unite the Middle East against the risks of the Soviet penetration. Britain’s ideas faced huge political opposition from Egypt; Syria and Jordan refused to join the pact. 9. Saddam Hussein – a Middle Eastern dictator and the single ruler of the Iraqi nation between 1979 and 2003. Hussein’s political career began to flourish after Abdul-Karim Qassim was assassinated. His regime was overthrown in 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq. 10. Fundamentalism – a term commonly used in modern press and political philosophy and denoting the striving of political forces and people to revive and institutionalize the most important aspects of the past. Generic fundamentalism treats secularism as a political and religious enemy and relies on sacred texts to withstand the pressure of criticism. Section B Question 2: Edward Said and his contribution to the discussion of Western scholarship. Edward Said has become well-known for his work Orientalism. The latter was created to expose and criticize the main deficiencies of Western scholarship and its continued reliance on the principles of hegemony and power misbalances. Said does not merely redefine the term ‘Orientalism’ but explains why most of what Europeans assume about the Middle East is either false or misleading. Basically, Said suggests that Western scholarship of the Middle East reveals “a subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture”. Said is convinced that, previously, the United States and Europe viewed the Middle East as the source of oil and petroleum or the source of terrorist threats. It goes without saying that Said’s book sheds light on the main controversies surrounding Western beliefs about the Middle East. Another major work of Edward Said is Culture and Imperialism. However, Orientalism remains the fundamental element in the development of Middle Eastern consciousness, a book where Said argues that Westerners build their perceptions of the ME not on real facts but on the eternal stereotypes of subordination and underdevelopment. Question 3: Oil rent and its detrimental impact on the development of the Middle East. The negative effects of hydrocarbons on national economies cannot be overstated, as they marginalize other economic sectors and limit their contribution to the national economy. In terms of oil rent, it allows for non-taxable functioning of the government; consequentially, such governments develop and implement policies with little regard for public opinion. Oil rent distorts the balance of the relationship between government and society, leading to the suppression of opposition, the lack of political transparency and accountability, political repressions and, subsequently, political authoritarianism. This is a kind of a Grand Bargain, when the government assumes the fullest autonomy and organizes a patriarchal or neo-patriarchal system. Question 4: The four main sources of conflict in the Middle East. The discussion of conflicts and their sources in the Middle East is inseparable from the discussion of Attribution Theory. The latter builds on the two main groups of factors – situational and dispositional. In this sense, the first source of conflicts in the Middle East was the introduction of new values, institutions, and systems that are characteristic of states in transition. Transition was followed by political experimentation and authoritarianism: the second source of conflicts was political monopolization through which select groups sought to concentrate power in their hands, causing alienation, discontent, and the rise of opposition. Third, the Middle East was evolving in conditions of continuous instability, caused by the failure to resolve the longstanding conflicts between the Arabs and Israelis, as well as between Cyprus, the Western Sahara, Afghanistan, and others. Political rivalry and tensions did not leave enough room for effective development and growth. Finally, external involvement in Middle Eastern affair on the side of the U.S. and Europe was a continued source of controversies. Such involvement did little to resolve the local conflicts but, on the contrary, led to the creation and growing popularity of fundamentalism and Islamist movements. Question 5: The military and its prominent role in Middle East politics. Militarism had long been the defining feature of Middle East politics and life. The military had long dominated the Middle East political landscape. The continued prominence of the military in the Middle Eastern countries was attributed to the historical weakness of civil society and political institutions. External involvement further strengthened the position of the military in the Middle East, as Europeans hired local minorities into the military to preserve their control over the ME territories and suppress the emerging nationalist movements. It was not until the 1970s when the military began losing their power, due to the rapid consolidation of political interests in the ME, the oil boom, and new political ideologies. Section C Question 1: The emergence of nationalism. Understanding the roots of nationalism in the Middle East is impossible without trying to understand the contribution of European culture and philosophy and the role of American Protestant missionaries. To begin with, at the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of nationalism in the Middle East was explained in two different ways: first, nationalism was treated as a Western concept of nationhood or, in other words, nationalism implied that every nation had to have its own state. Second, nationalism was also believed to embody the meaning of local communities/ unities, which were founded on the common bonds among clans, tribes, groups, and individuals. To a large extent, three factors were responsible for the rise of nationalism in the ME. First, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Middle East entered a new stage of anti-Ottomanism. In George Antonius’s The Arab Awakening, anti-Ottomanism is described as a political and social trend much stronger than anti-European (Delanty & Kumar 501). Antonious writes that, as the ME was realizing the vacuum and hollowness of the Ottoman regime, its leaders were seeking greater alliance with the European anti-Ottomanist powers (Delanty & Kumar 501). In this sense, Britain and Russia had to become the main ME’s allies. Second, ME’s search for European ideological and political support facilitated the penetration of Europeans into the region. The British, the French, and other nations realized the convenience of the political moment in the Middle East and reinforced the urgency of the anti-Ottomanist changes in the region. Third, the ME was facing the need to develop and implement a common ideology that would rally the masses and unite them around a common goal. That was the goal of further cultural and political development in ways that would allow the ME to catch up with the West. The emergence of nationalism in the Middle East was further fueled by the ideas spread by American Protestant Missionaries. Delanty and Kumar write that the higher education institutions founded by Protestant Missionaries became the Alma Mater for the first Arab nationalists (501). Western missionaries did not merely teach the basics of nationalism but further imposed the European vision of nationalism on their ME students. Simultaneously, new university curriculums emphasized the importance of developing and sustaining new collective identity in the Arab world. Protestant Missionaries founded Universities in Cairo and Beirut (Delanty & Kumar 501). The effects of American Protestantism were further strengthened by the presence and contribution of Russian Orthodox groups, which helped to Arabize most Christian communities in the ME (Delanty & Kumar 501). This being said, it is no wonder that, from its inception, nationalism in the ME assumed a unique, illiberal position. The main theorists of the nationalist movement included Nasif Yaziji, Farish al-Shidyaq and Butrus al-Bustani. Many theorists who espoused Arab Nationalism were Christians; among those who were Muslims the most prominent were Amir Mohammad Arslan and Ibrahim Yaziji. They had similar views on the importance of the Arabic language and Arab history but took a different stand on nationalism. Some of them advocated for the unification of the entire Arab world, whereas others promoted a more local view of national identities. European cultures caused profound effects on ME nationalism, through the works and hands of European missionaries and the ideological support of Europe in the elimination of the Ottomanist dominance. Question 3: The role of Islam in modern Middle East. The nineteenth century in the ME was marked with the rapid rise in Islamic movements. Islamism came into the scene at times, when Europe and the rest of the Western world were conquering and trying to preserve their positions of supremacy. At that time, the Middle East and its political activists were slowly realizing that there was a serious political and economic gap between them and the western world. Although religion had always been an essential ingredient of political and cultural development in the Middle East, it was not before the 19th century that ME countries realized the decline in the religious power and the need to revive themselves in the eyes of others. The defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the victory of Israel became the turning point in the development of Islamism but back to the 19th century, Islamic intellectuals were thinking of the ways to promote the message of wellness and success in the ME lands. The decline in politics and culture made Islamic thinkers revise the main premises on which the ME had previously rested. The most prominent thinkers of Islamism in the Middle East were Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Muhammad Rashid Rida. Although the hostility between the west and the east continued to persist, the ME had to look beyond hostility and try to understand how Europe managed to achieve its superior status. In this sense, the ways in which Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani perceived the role of religion were similar. They realized the hidden dangers coming from the West and, simultaneously, looked at the West as a role model of the social and economic development. They also realized that it was high time the Middle East had its values and beliefs reshaped, to adjust to the new conditions of modern life. With this in mind, both thinkers realized and recognized the potential value of Islam as a defensive shield against the undesirable effects of the Western world and the instrument that would stop decline and deterioration in the Middle Eastern world. Unlike his counterparts, Rashid Rida had a more radical viewpoint. He advocated the development of the new system of punishments, according to the Qu’ran and, according to Rida, that was how the ME could bring back its past glory and power. The Muslim Brotherhood Society marked an important stage in the development of Middle Eastern Islamism. The Brotherhood (also called Jama’iya Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun) was created in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher and a charismatic Islamic preacher Hassan Al-Banna. Al-Banna promoted and voted for extremism as one of the form of Islamism. Al-Banna was convinced that through extremism and radical Islamism the Middle East could protect itself from Western cultural and moral influences (Barsky 1). Jihad was the central element of Brotherhood’s ideology, and terror had to become the dominant form of cultural revival in the ME (Barsky 2). Al-Banna’s ideology fit perfectly well in the then conditions of cultural and social performance in the Middle East, and that was why the ideology rapidly spread to other ME countries. Even today, after so many years, the ideas and ideology of the Brotherhood still exert much influence on Middle East developments and thinking. By the time Al-Banna died in 1948, the Brotherhood would have gained 2 million followers (Barsky 3). Today, the Brotherhood continues spreading the message to its followers, through the Internet (Barsky 3). Reasons why Islamist forces are still potent are numerous. First, the gap between Western hegemony and ME mentality continues to persist. The Western world is still surrounded by the stereotypes and archetypes of its own supremacy. Second, throughout years, Islam has proved to be a successful element of protection against the influence of Western cultures and ideologies. Third, part of the reason why Islamist influences are still significant is because religion, and the Islamic religion, in particular, strengthens the national, political, cultural, and educational institutions in the Middle East. Finally, Islamist exemplifies a unique instrument of bringing positive changes to the ME, through peaceful, non-military means. Works Cited Barsky, Yehundit. “The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.” Global Jewish Advocacy, n.d. Web. 25 November 2011. Delanty, Gerard and Krishnan Kumar. The SAGE Handbook of Nations and Nationalism. SAGE, 2006. Print. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage, 1979. Print. Read More