Background:
Majority of what is now known
as the “Arab World” were once parts of the Ottoman Empire, a vast Turkish
Muslim empire that absorbed the decaying Byzantine-Roman Empire in the 15th
century. After the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War, the Partitioning
of the Ottoman Empire commenced afterwards. (30 October 1918 – 1 November 1922).
New states were established on the territories and peoples that formerly
comprised the Ottoman Empire. The League of Nations granted France mandates
(state-like administration over Syria and Lebanon, and granted the United
Kingdom mandates over Mesopotamia (later Iraq) and Palestine (later divided
into Palestine and Transjordan). The Kingdom of Hejaz and the Sultanate of Nejd
(today Saudi Arabia), the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, and the Arab States
of the Persian Gulf were also carved out of the Ottoman Empire's territories in
the Arabian Peninsula. In a sense, this European-lead partitioning brought the
creation of the modern Arab world and today’s Turkey.
I am well aware of the current
Israel-Palestine Crisis which is partly (see note 1) a “side-effect” of the poorly-made borders drafted by the United Kingdom on
Palestine. I honestly believe that the naming convection shouldn’t be a big
deal – Palestine was the name assigned by the Romans to the area after a Jewish
revolt; the area was simply called Judea (Israel). However, due to its Zionist
associations, I know that many of the Arab majority will not agree. Also, I
will not comment yet on the issue since the conflict is very broad and is not
just a simple Muslim versus Jewish conflict.
Present-Day Issues:
I’ve read this eloquently
written editorial by a Filipino columnist named Alex Magno:
The fighting units of the [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] (ISIS),
now marauding through a large swath of Iraq, demonstrated such brutality that
they were banished by the Al Qaeda no less. At its core, the ISIS is composed
of jihadists that had been fighting the Assad regime in Syria. When a ceasefire
was forged there, they began to spill back into Iraq, overrunning cities and
forcing the Iraqi army on its heels.
The resurgent conflict in Iraq is not a new one. It draws from
sectarian animosities dating back centuries.
Most analysts are convinced that this new round of conflict will begin
to abate only after the incompetent and sectarian regime led by Nouri al-Maliki
in Baghdad is deposed. It is not just the Shi’ite regime of al-Maliki that
faces dissolution. Iraq itself will probably be dissolved in this round of
violence.
The Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq announced the other day
readiness to declare an independent state. The idea of a Kurdish state finds
support from unlikely quarters. Turkey expressed readiness to support a Kurdish
state, even as this country has been fighting a war with its own Kurdish
minority for years. An independent Kurdish state will provide a buffer zone
between them and the chaos expected to engulf Iraq for many years to come.
Ironically, as well, the beleaguered al-Maliki government, supported by
the US, now finds additional support from Iran. The Islamic state is anxious to
protect the Iraqi Shi’ites from genocide likely to be perpetrated by the ISIS
militants. Shi’ites are the majority in Iraq; Sunnis a slight minority.
The old fault lines between Shi’ites and Sunnis reappeared with a
vengeance the past few years of war and chaos in the region.
The sectarian divide dates back to 632 AD, the year the Prophet
Muhammad [PBUH] died. His followers were divided between those who wanted the
Prophet’s son-in-law Ali to inherit the mantle of leadership (Shi’ites) and those
who wanted to determine the leader on the basis of consensus (Sunni).
Ali eventually assumed the caliphate. In 661 AD, however, he was
assassinated. Fighting soon broke out between Shi’ites and Sunnis. That
fighting never really ceased through the centuries.
About 90% of Muslims today are Sunni, the sect predominant through the
centuries of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The remaining 10% are Shi’ite,
concentrated in the old sphere of influence of the Persian Empire.
After [World War I], the British and the French drew maps arbitrarily
establishing the modern nations of Syria and Iraq, paying no heed to the
tribal, ethnic and sectarian boundaries. Over the next decade, repressive
regimes mimicking the secular, heavily militarized regime in Turkey after its
own revolution earlier in the 20th century.
Syria was ruled repressively by the Ba’ath party led by the elder
Assad, supported mainly by the Shi’ite Allawite minority. Iraq, for its part,
was ruled for a long time by the Ba’athists under Saddam Hussein, supported by
the Sunni minority.
Ruling with iron fists, both Assad (father and son) in Syria and
Hussein in Iraq kept a lid on sectarian tensions and tried to foist the idea of
nationhood above tribal and sectarian identities. When the US invasion deposed
the Hussein regime and when a brutal civil loosened the Assad regime in Syria,
sectarian tensions simply flowed to the surface.
It is the common Shi’ite heritage that explains why Tehran and the
Hezbollah in Lebanon support the Assad regime. It is the Sunni identity that
animates much of the opposition to Assad in Damascus as well as the al-Maliki
government in Baghdad. In this age-old sectarian clash, the jihadist ISIS drew
a following. The fundamentalist movement, with its vision of establishing a new
caliphate, now holds sway over large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
The column was very
informative, especially for a tolerant non-Muslim like me. Academically
speaking, it is unwise to anchor your opinions on a single source, especially
an opinion piece. This is the reason that after reading the piece, I did some
basic research (even attempted to utilize our University’s subscription but the
results were either unrelated or too deep – as this piece was a tad bit hastily
written [at least I admit it]). What caught my attention is the apparent
stability of these two Arab nations under a dictator. It brings back memories
of my OFW uncle’s testimonies of the prosperity of Libya under the iron fist of
Qaddafi, who was recently overthrown in a western-supported (NATO-lead) civil
war. He witnessed the near-zero poverty rate in his area in Tubruq in eastern
Libya. According to his testimony, the people, unemployed or not, received
money from the government yearly. It is true, however, that the regime was
brutal, undemocratic, and corrupt – as my uncle himself worked as an engineer
building magnificent palaces for the Qaddafi clan. However, what did
“democracy” do to Libya? It fractured it into warring tribal fiefdoms! The west
should understand that sometimes democracy cannot stabilize a severely
fractured society; only a strongman could do it. (I’m not a Qaddafi fan,
however, since he supported insurgents in my country decades ago.) Libya and
Iraq are just some examples of modern-day Western intervention gone bad. Historically,
when the western League of Nations partitioned the Ottoman Empire without
considering the sectarian differences in the area, it spelled trouble for the
years to come. Take a look when they promised the Arabs a great nation in the
Levant if they would revolt against the Ottoman Turks, what happened to that
promise? It certainly didn’t materialize after the now-Jewish majority State of
Israel was declared in May 1948. Another lesser known (since it was not
followed religiously) “western-made division”, the Treaty of Tordesillas (and a
later Treaty of Zaragosa), was done during the Age of Exploration in the 15th
century.
Understanding the examples
above will give a gist on the bad effects of Western colonialism and
imperialism in past decades. Although this opinion piece might have circled
around various ideas and veered off from the main topic, the main motive of
this writing is to inculcate the minds that not all Filipinos like me blindly
support the west in all its ideals. No, I’m not a leftist either. Politically
speaking, I am a centrist with tiny leftist tendencies. Why am I discussing my
political and economic stance? Well...
It is obvious, however, that the western intervention is both
politically and economically motivated. Oil is one of the most needed resource
in the world, thanks to modern day technology that enslaved us (with both
positive and negative consequences) to rely on it. Therefore to fully end these
disputes, borders should be redrawn to consider the sectarian differences between
the states. Despite their good-hearted aim of unifying all Muslims under a caliphate,
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant must be stopped because of their
crimes against humanity. If the west will intervene this time, they must
make amends and try to fix the sectarian differences plaguing the region. I
support the creation of a Kurdish state!
