The Islamic world faces its future.

AuthorLandis, Benjamin

It is apparent without further explanation that the world of Islam from the shores of the Atlantic to the extremities of the Indian Ocean is today in tumult. The causes for these chaotic conditions are rooted deep in its history. Especially, since the first Western occupations of traditional Islamic lands in the fifteenth century. The first encroachment was made by the Portuguese when they conquered and occupied Ceuta on the North African Mediterranean coast in 1415. Then in 1492 Ferdinand of Castile conquered the last remaining Islamic state in Spain, the Kingdom of Granada. In the XVth and XVIth centuries the Portuguese and the Dutch extended their seafaring adventures into the islands of Indonesia. In the XVIIth century the Dutch won out over the Portuguese and established Indonesia as a Dutch colony. Early in the XVIIIth century various European trading companies established posts in India. Eventually the British East India Company became dominant and by the 1820's it ruled almost all of the country, to include today's Muslim Pakistan. In 1858, after the rebellion of 1857, India, including Pakistan, became a British royal colony. The French seized Algeria in 1830; The Italians seized Libya in 1912. The French and Spanish began fighting over Morocco in the XIXth century. Finally, in 1912 Morocco became a French protectorate, although Spain continued to control certain coastal and Saharan areas. In the XIXth century the British invaded Afghanistan twice, but were eventually driven back. Then again in 1920 the British fought a short border war with the Afghans.

The Western coup de grace struck on the Islamic World came with the Western powers victory over Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires in the First World War. France and Great Britain divvied up the Ottoman Empire between themselves, except for Turkey. Even there, they made an effort. They occupied Constantinople (Istanbul) and Smyrna until 1922, at which time the Turkish independence movement under Kamal Ataturk pushed them out. The British and French arbitrarily created new states out of the provinces of the defunct Ottoman Empire. They also assigned these states as protectorates to one and the other or governed them as League of Nations "mandates". The one nominal exception was Saudi Arabia, which, although not formally, was under the virtual control of Great Britain and after the discovery of oil in 1938, was also heavily influenced by the United States and the international oil companies.

The final result after five centuries of attacks on and colonization of the different parts of the Islamic World was that by 1922 all of this world was under the control of Western European powers except for Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. And even with regard to Iran, Russia occupied the northern part of the country in 1911 and the British occupied most of the western part during the First World War until 1921. And then as late as during the Second World War, Great Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran for several years until 1946. The establishment of the state of Israel, backed by Western European powers and the United States, in 1948 was, in the minds of Islamists, another flagrant example of an attack upon and seizure of Islamic territory. (Please note that I define the "Islamic World" as only those countries where the majority religion is Islam.)

The effect of this Western European onslaught has been traumatic for the inhabitants of the Islamic World. In Western colonies and protectorates they were at best second class citizens. They were, in effect, strangers in their own lands. Although they were by far the large majority of the population, they had no political voice; they had no political power. They were ruled for the benefit of their colonizers and "protectors". As a result of the attacks, conquests, and colonization, the Islamic peoples, having no power in the external world, turned inward to their religion in order to affirm their identity and maintain their self-respect. The Western European powers did virtually nothing to transform them into Westernized citizens. There was no Islamic Renaissance or Reformation. Consequently, their social structures and their attitudes remained medieval.

Then, after the end of the Second World War, everything began to change. One after another the former colonies, protectorates, mandates, zones of influence liberated themselves from their Western European colonizers, protectors, mentors. And in 1962 Algeria became the last of the Islamic states to regain its full independence. But the trauma for the Islamic World did not end. One type of trauma was joined by another. And instead of the exterior forces of attacks and colonization and their demeaning effects, this new trauma has several and different aspects. They are within and without. By the time of their independence, all of the newly sovereign countries of the Islamic World, except Iran and Afghanistan, had been either colonies or protectorates of Western European powers or provinces of an Islamic empire. Some of them for several centuries; some of them for many centuries, some for less than a century. With no experience in governing themselves, with their political heritage rooted in tribal and provincial chiefs they all became monarchical or dictatorial states. Today, after more than fifty years of independence the citizens of these states are beginning to tire of the self-centeredness of such regimes and to look for others that can meet their expectations.

Independence thrust these medieval societies into the modern world. And they have been slowly transforming their medieval structures and attitudes in order to be a part of today's world. This transformation has been both helped and hindered by the ineluctable Westernization of all the world's cultures. Helped, in the sense that the governments of the Islamic World cannot prevent their citizens from learning how the rest of the world lives and thinks. This became manifest in the "Arab Spring" of 2011, even though the results achieved in progress toward modern societies and governments has not been appreciable. On the other hand, it demonstrates the powerful underlying social forces that want to join the modern world. In viewing the turmoil and tumult in the Islamic World today one must always keep in mind the difficult and repeated efforts that were needed by Western states to achieve effective and durable freedom and democratic governments. If one starts the British process with the Magna Carta of 1215, it took them six centuries to achieve a full democracy. We Americans were fortunate in that we could use the British efforts to establish our own from the beginning of the country's independence. The French were not so fortunate. The First Republic lasted only seven years. It was followed by Napoleon until 1815, then by the restoration of the monarchy. This endured until 1848 when the Second Republic was declared, only to be terminated by Napoleon III in 1852. He, in turn, gave way to the Third Republic in 1870. The Third Republic endured until the 1940 conquest of...

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