Hi Haim.
((Unfortunate there are those who interpret Islam as a doctrine for power grab and destruction of those not abiding to their rule and there, is the strating point of the deep rooted problems))
... But Haim, is this the "starting point" as you say? Or is it a logical consequence of a combination of history, and social and economic circumstances?
Take Iran for example. In 1951 Iran elected by democratic means Mohammad Mossadegh. To quote Kinzer from "All the Shaw's Men?" (2003): "Since the early years of the twentieth century a British company, owned mainly by the British government, had enjoyed a fantastically lucrative monopoly on the production and sale of Iranian oil The wealth that flowed from beneath Iran's soil played a decisive role in maintaining Britain at the pinnacle of world power while most Iranians lived in poverty. Iranians chafed bitterly under this injustice. Finally, in 1951, they turned to Mossadegh, who more than any other political leader personified their anger at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AOIC). He pledged to throw the company out of Iran, reclaim the country's vast petroleum reserves, and free Iran from subjection to foreign power."
Elsewhere, Kinzer writes: "In 1953 the United States was still new to Iran. Many Iranians thought of Americans as friends, supporters of the fragile democracy they had spent half a century trying to build. It was Britain, not the United States, that they demonized as the colonialist oppressor that exploited them.".
... rewinding to the front cover "Drawing on research in the United States and Iran, using material from a long-secret CIA report, Kinzer explains the background of the coup and tells how it was carried out. It is a cloak-and-dagger story of spies, saboteurs, and secret agents. There are accounts of bribes, staged riots, suitcases full of cash, and midnight meetings between the Shah and CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, who was smuggled in and out of the royal palace under a blanket in the back seat of a car ... a real-life James Bond ... After his first coup attempt failed, he organized a second attempt that succeeded three days later."
Oh well, I'm sure the Iranian people really would have got the whole democracy thing wrong (you know, not being in their "culture" and all), and the American-installed puppet, the Shaw, was a much better choice.
But then, why should the peoples of the Middle East expect anything better. After all, the modern creation of the Middle East was created from the same underhanded dealing put into effect after WWI, most symbolized by the infamous "Sykes-Picot Agreement" signed January 16th, 1916. Smack dab in the middle of WWI, Britain and France were already dividing the spoils, both well aware of the importance that Middle Eastern oil would have on global geopolitical power.
From Gerald Butt's "The Arabs" (1994): "The Sykes-Picot Agreement - The agreement is named after the English representative Mark Sykes and the French representative Georges Picot who laid the basis for the division of Greater Syria and Iraq between their two countries ... The Arabs got to know of this secret agreement by way of Ahmed Jemal Pasha who came upon it when the Soviet Revolution occurred in Russia and the Kaiser's papers were made public. ...
...what Syrian [school children] are reading today ... about the arrangement between Britain and France during the First World War which came to be known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, will have to basic themes: plot and betrayal. As one of the maps of the Syrian History book shows, the Sykes-Picot agreement envisaged the division of large areas of the Ottoman empire at the eastern end of the Mediterranean into British and French zones of influence. Once the Ottomans had been defeated, Britain would have direct control of Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, and Haifa and Acre on the Mediterranean coast. The rest of the coast would be under direct French control. Britain would also have an area of indirect influence covering Iraq and Jordan, while Lebanon and Syria were to come under the wing of France.
The British representative, Sir Mark Sykes, believed that he had done a good job - that the deal with France no only met the demands of the colonial powers but also met Arab aspirations for self-government, as stated by Sherif Hussien bin Ali, the head of the Hashemite clan and local ruler of the Ottoman province of Hejaz (modern-day western Saudi Arabia, encompassing the sacred Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina).
Unfortunately, Sykes and the Europeans on the one side, and the Arabs on the other, had very different ideas about the definition of the word 'indpendence' [oh oh, here we go again!]. In the minds of the colonial powers at this time, independence in the Middle East could only have meant limited autonomy under British or French rule. The Arabs took the word 'independence' literally - rather in a way that the British or French were it applied to themselves. The collective grievance of the Arabs is that the Sykes-Picot accord, kept in secret by Britain and France, deliberately undermined the Arabs' aspirations for independence and broke a clear promise which had been made to them. From their point of view, the accord was, in short, a blatant betrayal.
The Sykes-Picot agreement and its implications have become part of the collective unconscious of the Arabs."
To appreciate the story in its full detail, David Fromkin's "The Peace to End ALL Peace - the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" wonderfully documents this period of history, including T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia's) role in promoting the Arab cause.
Well, thank god the British and France came to same same conclusion in the Arab Middle East that the American's came to in Iran. I mean, once again, democracy and independence simply isn't in the Arab "culture". I'm sure they would have screwed it up entirely.
And for the creme-da-la-creme, try Robert Fisk's "Pity the Nation - The Abduction of Lebanon" (1990). No matter what your nationality or political inspirations, it will make you embarassed to be a card-holding member of the human race.
Oh well, I don't know what the Islamic world feels so bitter about. I mean clearly they haven't been the only peoples simply not ready for, or capable of getting right, Western-style democracy. And obviously have been much better served by U.S. backed totalitarian regimes. I mean, take another hopeless culture, the Latino cultures of Central and South America.
A fine example is Guatemala, though of course we could use pretty much any hapless nation of the Southern hemisphere. In 1951 the people of Guatemala through democratic means elected Jacobo Arbenz Guzman as President.
From Schlesinger's & Kinzer's "Bitter Fruit - The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala" (1982):
"[Jabobo Arbenz] was a nationalist hoping to transform an oligarchic society. He did not suppose that change would be accomplished easily but he was determined to carry through the reform program on which he had been elected."
... Anyway, I won't go into this story in all its sordid detail. But Guatemala at the time was basically owned and operated by the United Fruit company. Arbenz was elected to implement a modest program of land reform, that was to fully compensate the United Fruit company for all lands owned that would be acquired for redistribution to landless peasants (in hopes of creating the basis for a some-day land-owning middle class, and to relieve the poverty of the peasantry). Furthermore, land acquired was to be land that was not presently being used for growing banana plantations, but rather unused but controlled by the United Fruit company.
Well, it's the same story as Iran. Many of the same cast of characters actually - the Dulles', Kermit Roosevelt, yadda yadda. Disinformation and psychological warfare tactics, a propaganda campaign financed by the United Fruit company in U.S. media, conspiring in U.S. congress, and finally, invasion and overthrow.
But really, you have to figure it was worth it. I mean, sure there were some casualties to follow. Funny how fascist rule can do that. From "Guatemala - Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny", by Jean-Marie Simon (1987):
"Statistics now rote on the Guatemalan scholar circuit indicate that thirty-nine percent of all "disappearances" throughout Latin America since 1966 have taken place in Guatemala. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), over the past two decades there have been at least 100,000 political killings and 38,000 "disappearances" carried out by the army, police, and paramilitary government forces. The term "desapareciodo (literally "disappared", referring to government kidnappings), acquired its grammatical versatility as both a verb and participle ("to be disappeared," "he was disappeared") almost a decade before the term was exported to Chile and Argentina [where, BTW, School of America's alumni were being installed as proxy dictators, to implement similar policies that had been "so successful" in Guatemala]."
And like the Iranians, at least the Guatemalan's had company. Quoting John Coatsworth from the Introduction to "Bitter Fruit":
"Unlike the 1950's, Guatemala did not suffer alone in the 1980's. Including the 50,000 or so deaths in the Nicaraguan revolution against the Somoza dictatorship (1977-90), the 80,000 or so killed in the Salvadoran civil war (1981-90), and the several thousand victims kidnapped and executed by the security forces in Honduras and Panama, the Central American dead by 1990 equaled the number of U.S. soldiers killed in all of World War Two (about 300,000). By that date, one out of every 150 or so Central Americans had been killed. Refugees (internal as well as external) numbered over two million by 1990 in a region whose total population did not exceed 29 million."
Those hapless Central Americans, when will they ever learn that (a) they don't deserve democracy in the way that we in the developed West do, and (b) if they did get democracy, they'd probably screw it up because it simply isn't in their "culture" to get it right anyway.
Anyway, sorry to go on about world history that should be very well-known to most Americans, Canadians, and Europeans anyway. After all, I'm sure we all learned about this history in our school education. And if not, the commerically-owned Western media has done a very good job of separating fact from fiction when it comes to the American legacy in the world.
But when George Bush says that the rest of the world "hates us because they hate our freedom", it does make you wonder what history "he" knows, no?
So Haim, back to your quote above about the "starting point" for deep rooted problems in the Islamic world, or the worlds of Central America, Latin America, or Africa, was REALLY IS the starting point. What is cause and what is effect? I can't help but feel strongly that it is a more complex issue that extremists (or "terrorists") who want to use religion or any other social mechanism as "a doctrine for power grab and destruction of those not abiding to their rule".
In fact, wait a minute, "extremists who want to use ... a doctrine for power grab and destruction of those not abiding to their rule". Sounds to me like you just perfectly described U.S. foreign policy. A curious reversal of interpretation ... but one well-documented by historical research.
Best regards,
Glenn |
