RIFA wrote:
I think the west can help, but only if they look beyond the numbers of oil production, drug production, and agriculture. I think the west can easily raise the standard of life in middle-east and can help middle-east to "modernize" it's society.
I'm curious, from your understanding of history what would you define as "modernize"? Or to put it another way, do you see modernity as an objective state of progress inevitably achieved with the advance of science, medicine, politics, etc. or do you see it as tied in with the unique experience of Western/European nations?
The issue here is how you approach middle-east. And there's been very very few decent attempts, and to my knowledge, those didn't come from a western political initiative but from western corps or non-profit organizations. Basically... simple people understood better how to deal with the middle east than the governments because the governments still look at middle-east like it's something they could grab whenever they want for their sole benefit.
I agree with you on the aspect that as human beings, some of us will always feel obligated to help those in need, but I see that as a separate act when I generally mean the West. There are many other organizations or individuals, who aren’t part of the West who do help the Middle East in a similar manner.
As long as this region contains a lot of resources that other regions want, continuous tampering and foreign involvement will continue. It's that simple really. France was forced out by Algerian and Syrian persistence. England and Russia were forced out by the US. The US will be forced out by China, India or whoever else. Our region thrived when no one wanted us, and stopped thriving when the Mongols and Crusaders wanted us.
I'm actually rooting for unity in middle-east. I too would like to see arabs uniting against such threats as ISIL which obviously cannot cause any good whatsover and is not just toxic but a complete scam.
I've spoken to lots and lots and lots of Arabs over the years and I've noticed a few things. Virtually all Arabs welcome the idea of a union but they all have some reservation about it. In the Gulf no one wants their region to be flooded by millions of other Arabs, or their oil wealth to be stolen. In Egypt young people are afraid of Nasserists because he was attached to the military, was quite undemocratic, and in the end an authoritarian leader with socialist leanings. So you find a lot of people who like the idea of unity, but don't want the party, or don't want the state acquisitions of businesses, or don't want the military in power, etc. What is the option for them? Well, nothing. My Egyptian friends who aren't self professed pan-arabists simply see it as a more long-term goal. I often hear "let's first sort the bigger problems in the country and then we can worry about that."
In the same way, there are millions of youths all over the Levant who like the idea of pan-arabism, but they don't want Baathism. They don't want the party, the dictators, the 'socialism'.
Lastly, you have the jaded group. This is the group, like one of my Lebanese uncles, who used to be a staunch arabists. Now they resent other arabs and believe that their only focus should be restoring their own country, and then worry about unity 100 years from now, or whatever.
So basically, I see, two obvious problems here;
- The lack of a fresh arabist party or ideology that exist today. These old tired dogmas have elbowed out all the competition and have a monopoly on arabism today.
- Nasserism and Baathism being associated with Arabism. These parties failure to achieve any real long-term goal and unity have created stigma and fear of Arabism. I mean, the mere fact that a movement called the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham can exist today despite 100 years of patriotic government propaganda in both Iraq and Syria shows how miserably these nation-states have failed to supplant ethnic and sectarian identities.
What the Arab people need is a viable alternative. We need to create and establish an Arabist movement that acknowledges those older movements, but is more in tune with our needs and not beholden to their faults. Leaflets, banners, graffiti, internet groups and sites that call for: Unity, Democracy, Transparency, Social Justice, Education, Equality
I've tried to get some my Arab friends involved in some stuff. But people of my generation are too busy with school or looking for jobs.
However, I think Arabs have a tough times getting over their 2000+ years of fighting with each other. It's like they can't get out of that damned cycle (for Europe for example it was 2 world wars). I wonder what it takes to break the cycle... to make them see that it's all pointless and that nobody forbids them to live happily on their land.
I mean, let’s look at this way - you as a European probably know the level of death and destruction that the Europeans wrought on one another for centuries. Just before the European Union was formed the Germans were still gassing Jews and believing they were the übermensch. They were literally raping other people to Germanise them. They were categorising human beings into levels of purity. Italians were trying to conquer Libya and recreate the Roman Empire under Mussolini. Spain was under the fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Finland was destroyed from wars against Russia and Germany. France was fighting brutal wars in Algeria and Vietnam trying to keep the French empire alive. Hundreds of thousands of French people lost their lives to keep the colonies. They were killing and torturing Algerians and cutting off their penises. They even considered dropping nuclear weapons on Vietnam to stop the independence movement as late as 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. And after all that they united.
Europeans speak many different national languages, have different histories and movements, have different cultures and national tales, and lastly, have a long history of killing each other. Meanwhile we have a bunch of Arab countries, most of whom have spent most of the last 2000 years ruled together by the same empire. None of whom were involved in the creation of their own borders whatsoever. Same language, largely the same religion, largely the same historical figures. We listen to the same music, watch the same shows, have the same superstitions. It really is not farfetched to imagine Arabs uniting, if we wanted to do it we could do it quite easily. It wouldn't happen overnight. It would require treaties and step by step loosening of restrictions. But in my opinion, it's very possible and not difficult to do at all