Context

[flexibeast]

i have to wonder how many people in English-speaking countries know the background to, and context of, the current situation in the Middle East. Not many, i suspect. How many are aware of:

• the fact that, as my Times Atlas of World History notes:

  Initially, Islam did not particularly encourage, far less insist upon, conversion. The Koran enjoins Muslims to respect the 'people of the book', that is, members of the other monotheistic religions with written scriptures, and the existence of substantial Christian (and until comparatively recently, Jewish) communities throughout the Muslim world is ample evidence that this injuction was heeded.

• the anti-Semitism of Christian Europe over hundreds and hundreds of years - from 'mere' harrassment and discrimination through to pogroms and eventually the Holocaust - which facilitated the rise of Zionism as Jewish people sought a country in which they were free from persecution;


• the "Great Game" of the 19th century between Russia and Britain, in which Afghanistan was a pawn manipulated at will by the two colonial powers in an attempt to protect their 'interests';


• the First War of Indian Independence, which had as its proximal cause a concern amongst Hindu and Muslim sepoys that they would be forced to break religious vows in order to carry out their duties, and which had as a more general cause the increasing presence of Christian evangelists throughout British India;


• the role played by Britain in the evolution of the Levant in the early 20th century (again reflecting British 'interests') via the Mandate for Palestine, which amongst other things, included the British refusing Jewish people fleeing the Holocaust entry into Palestine, placing them instead in detention;


• the evolution of 20th-century Iraq which included the League of Nations granting the British a mandate over the region, and the British invading in 1941 in order to protect their oil supplies;


• the partition of British India into Pakistan, India and East Pakistan (later to become Bangladesh), resulting in millions of deaths and an increase in religiously-based violence;


• the rise of the Revisionist Zionist movement, which contained organisations openly declaring themselves to be 'terrorist' and who were so desperate to oust the British from Palestine that they sought to build an alliance with the Nazis;


• the Suez Crisis of 1956, the proximal cause of which was Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez Canal, but which had as a more general cause tensions resulting from the founding of the Israeli state and the displacement of non-Jewish Palestinians;


• the evolution of Iran since World War II, including the nationalisation of the country's oil reserves by the country's first Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1951. This in turn led to Operation Ajax, the return of the pro-Western Shah, and eventually to the revolution of 1979;


• the United States' support for the Afghan mujahaddin. The mujahaddin represented a tribalist response to an urban-based Stalinist government in a country in which only a minority of people live in urban areas - a government which wanted to do such outrageous things as improve literacy and respect the rights of women. The government ended up trying to protect its position by calling on the Soviet Union to invade. Afghanistan's mujahaddin became the basis of the Taliban;


• the United States' support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

i realise that i've left out a number of important historical events; but i feel that those listed above serve to provide a better context for current events than the mass media are generally willing to provide.

David Ben-Gurion, who became the first Prime Minister of modern Israel, is reputed to have once said:

"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"

An essay written by King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein in 1947, entitled "As the Arabs see the Jews", demonstrates that Ben-Gurion's analysis was right on the mark. Even without decades of hindsight post the establishment of the modern Israeli state, Ben-Gurion showed more understanding of the region than anything i've heard from the mass media and politicians in the English-speaking countries.

With all of the above in mind, here are some articles about current Middle-East events:

• Just whose side is Pakistan really on?;


• Israeli refusenik winds up speaking tour;


• The De-Zionization of the American mind, by Jean Bricmont, who along with Alan Sokal, co-authored a wonderful critique of the waffly side of postmodernism, Fashionable Nonsense;


• 'US, Israel planned ME war';


• Six Lessons from the London Airline Bombing Plot;


• On the Implausibility of the Explosives Plot;


• Last Week's Terrorism Arrests, by Bruce Schneier, security commentator and author of, amongst other great books, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

i'm completely against terrorism. i disagree with it morally, ethically, strategically and tactically. Peaceful mass movements are my preferred vehicle for achieving social change. And i believe that anyone who claims to be opposed to terrorism would do well to heed the words of Bruce Schneier: "If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose -- even if their attacks succeed."
 

Comments

[superbbluewren.livejournal.com]

As you demonstrate so well, the whole situation needs to be understood in context. The results of nineteenth century imperialism continue to shadow us and the western world continues to exacerbate the problem out of greed. We will be living with the effects of imperialism for a long time to come, long after the oil runs out. Until then many people will suffer needlessly.

And I agree with your attitude to terrorism.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

We will be living with the effects of imperialism for a long time to come, long after the oil runs out. Until then many people will suffer needlessly.

*sad nod*

I agree with your attitude to terrorism.

:-)