Slicing and Dicing the Middle East
A heated and quite interesting debate has emerged from an article printed in The Armed Forces Journal. The thrust of this article by Ralph Peters is that the reason the Middle East and other parts of the globe are so hot right now is that the national boundaries need to be redrawn in a manner more consistent with the tribal and cultural history of the areas in question.
One response to Peters' article came from someone who lives in the area, Yasser Latif Hamdani. Mr. Hamdani's article appeared in The Pak Tribune:
The Armed Forces Journal [an American military journal] has recently come up with another brilliant scheme to reconfigure the nations in the Muslim World. The author of this new scheme, Ralph Peters, is the latest in a long line of theorists who have done more to injure America's reputation among Muslims than any real U.S. injustices committed by Washington. For one thing, here in this information age, this brilliant gentleman actually argues for the realignment of the Muslim World along linguistic and sectarian lines, when logically, the concern should be to transform nation-states into constitution-based democratic republics that guarantee good governance and equal rights to all citizens, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic or religious origins.
...While I am no fan of Saudi Arabia and its Wahabbi fundamentalism, I wonder what prompted Mr. Peters to declare Saudi Arabia an unnatural state? If being united by a monarchy is his reason, should he not raise a similar objection against the United Kingdom, which historically has been united by the royal family. And oh great scholar, do spare a thought for Scotland. Why not dismantle this most unnatural state and make independent England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland happy? Surely there must be some great and historic injustices that could be reversed there? You see, I am very open-minded about the idea of altering borders. Come to think of it, what a great wrong would be reversed if California were to be made part of Mexico. And why stop there - how about Texas, or is the blood of slave-owners spilled at the Alamo more important than the blood of the millions who sacrificed their lives (even those lives sacrificed unwillingly) in conflicts that created these borders in the first place?
The fact of the matter is that with the end of colonialism, the Muslim World entered into the nation-state phase and after 80-odd years, national boundaries within the Muslimdom are now concrete realities. The way forward is not to break down and create new ghettos, but to take existing nation states and help them democratize and modernize, to bring them in step with the modern world. Thus this new proposal to redraw the borders is at least 60 years too late. Instead of coming up with these hair-brained schemes to alter existing borders in this day and age, perhaps a policy of hands off non-intervention (especially an end to all support for dictators and military rulers) would be been more advisable. [Emphasis added]
What Mr. Hamdani makes clear is that these proposed changes must not be imposed from the outside by the neocolonialists wearing neocon hats. It didn't work the first time (obviously) according to the Peters' article, and it will not work this time, no matter how well-intentioned the move might appear (although I doubt good intentions are actually involved).
The arrogance of the West, particularly that of the current regime in Washington, just is not playing well in the Middle East. I believe we are in for a long and hard road, at least for the next two years.
One response to Peters' article came from someone who lives in the area, Yasser Latif Hamdani. Mr. Hamdani's article appeared in The Pak Tribune:
The Armed Forces Journal [an American military journal] has recently come up with another brilliant scheme to reconfigure the nations in the Muslim World. The author of this new scheme, Ralph Peters, is the latest in a long line of theorists who have done more to injure America's reputation among Muslims than any real U.S. injustices committed by Washington. For one thing, here in this information age, this brilliant gentleman actually argues for the realignment of the Muslim World along linguistic and sectarian lines, when logically, the concern should be to transform nation-states into constitution-based democratic republics that guarantee good governance and equal rights to all citizens, regardless of their ethnic, linguistic or religious origins.
...While I am no fan of Saudi Arabia and its Wahabbi fundamentalism, I wonder what prompted Mr. Peters to declare Saudi Arabia an unnatural state? If being united by a monarchy is his reason, should he not raise a similar objection against the United Kingdom, which historically has been united by the royal family. And oh great scholar, do spare a thought for Scotland. Why not dismantle this most unnatural state and make independent England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland happy? Surely there must be some great and historic injustices that could be reversed there? You see, I am very open-minded about the idea of altering borders. Come to think of it, what a great wrong would be reversed if California were to be made part of Mexico. And why stop there - how about Texas, or is the blood of slave-owners spilled at the Alamo more important than the blood of the millions who sacrificed their lives (even those lives sacrificed unwillingly) in conflicts that created these borders in the first place?
The fact of the matter is that with the end of colonialism, the Muslim World entered into the nation-state phase and after 80-odd years, national boundaries within the Muslimdom are now concrete realities. The way forward is not to break down and create new ghettos, but to take existing nation states and help them democratize and modernize, to bring them in step with the modern world. Thus this new proposal to redraw the borders is at least 60 years too late. Instead of coming up with these hair-brained schemes to alter existing borders in this day and age, perhaps a policy of hands off non-intervention (especially an end to all support for dictators and military rulers) would be been more advisable. [Emphasis added]
What Mr. Hamdani makes clear is that these proposed changes must not be imposed from the outside by the neocolonialists wearing neocon hats. It didn't work the first time (obviously) according to the Peters' article, and it will not work this time, no matter how well-intentioned the move might appear (although I doubt good intentions are actually involved).
The arrogance of the West, particularly that of the current regime in Washington, just is not playing well in the Middle East. I believe we are in for a long and hard road, at least for the next two years.
posted by Diane at 9:27 AM
2 Comments:
This is a thoughtful site. Good post, The "white man helping the brown children" arrogance comes through Peters' article.
Can you infer that there is Muslim diversity in these current national boundaries, and it's a stretch but a bit like American racial/ethnic diversity? mmmm. interesting.
It always annoys me when well-meaning people, including liberals, talk about splitting Iraq in 3 pieces. As if it was our decision to make.
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