Arabs and colonialism

Today is the son of yesterday and father of tomorrow.

Everything that we have now is the result of our past experience and our ancestors' contributions in life. Life is just a series of events that have occurred in chronological order, which is what we call history.

I’ll talk a little about history, starting from the beginning of last century; 100 years ago what did the world look like? At that time there were only 2 classes of people, the first were people who had the power and the money and they governed the world, they were the minority. Then there was the other class of people who didn't have any power or any rights at all compared to today, what we would call now ‘Human rights’ and these were the majority; some of these people had major feelings of injustice at the situation they were in.

The distribution of natural resources was done in the absence of any fair justice system, which would have ensured people had help in providing them with their needs. That caused many conflicts and struggles between people in their communities and even on a national level. These conflicts and struggles took many forms and wore many faces, like what was known as the class struggle, for example; revolution leading to communism in Russia and China, or in other armed conflict like the First World War, and the struggle against Ottoman colonialism in the Arabic world and afterwards against European colonialism.

That struggle (the struggle of ordinary people to have a fair share of the worlds resources) had continued over time in the developing world. For example in Arabia, specially in Palestine, it took a form of what we call in Arabic 'Fiddaee' or kamikaze, this is a man who is ready to sacrifice his life for the sake of his people and his cause. This happened because there was no Justice for Palestinians, and there wasn't any chance for the Palestinians to join an organized army to have an equal war against Israel, this was because of the Arabic leaders at that time.

Even now there isn’t any system that exists to provide justice for Palestinians. That pushed the Palestinians into looking for something they could do, and to invent their own system that would help them to fight Israel’s occupation. This is just an example from one area of the world and you can find more examples around the world everywhere you look.

Actually this struggle existed everywhere in the Arabic homelands even after the disappearance of colonialism, because when the colonists had left the Arabic world they left behind established governments that were still loyal to them, because they had been supported by colonists, like in Kuwait for example. These governments are too far from the ordinary people (The Arabs) who they are supposed to represent, and these governments are ruled by one man (he is the source of the law and for everything, he governs by his will alone). That was the reason for Revolution in some of Arabic countries like Iraq, Egypt and Syria.

While there was colonialism in the Arabic countries, the struggle between the Arabs and the colonists was a legitimate conflict but after that the struggle lost it's legitimacy because of the Arab governors and it took another path, some called this ‘Political Islam’ but what made it happen this way?

People in the Arabic homeland suffered a lot because of the despotism of colonialism, at first under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, then under European colonialism, and afterwards under the tyranny of Arabic leaders. I like here to bring your attention to one important point in our history as Arabs before the First World War.

At this time there was struggle between the Arabs and the Ottoman Empire, there was very famous leader (Al sheriff Al-Hussein) of the Arabs in Al jazeera Al Arabia (Saudi Arabia now). At that time there was war between the allied forces against Germany and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). The British, who were the strongest force at that time, made an agreement with the Arabs who were lead by Al-Hussein, to fight against the Ottomans with a promise that the Arabs would be allowed to have their own sovereign state, ruled by their own government.

That was a political agreement between the Arabs and the British based on common political interests. According to that agreement the Arabs fought the Ottomans in different places in the Arabic homelands, until the Ottoman Empire had been defeated and vanished. At that time then the Arabic people expected that according to their agreement with the British, they would have their own sovereign country under the rule of Al-Hussein. Unfortunately the Europeans disrespected and broke their agreement and all the promises that they made to the Arabs, quite simply they betrayed their allies in the Arabic homeland.

That meant the Arabs had tried to accept politics by international standards, but unfortunately those who represented the west were people without any respect for their own principles or even their promises. That made the Arabs lose any trust in western polices, because the Europeans not only refused to keep their agreements and promises with the Arabs but they occupied the Arabic homeland themselves!

That was very painful for the Arabic people; the Arabs had fought to replace the Ottoman Empire (Islamic) with European colonialism (Christians). After this the Arabs then felt that western politics were just agreements that no one would work with and these were promises that no one would keep!!!

As I'm Arabic, I would like to tell you what we think about politics, for me the reality of politics is this; the art of increasing your rights, taking no account of other rights ( even if reducing others rights) by convincing the other side to believe in promises that you'll not keep! So I believe that politics is the work of dishonest and greedy people!

Before the First World War, there wasn't any Islamic trend among Arabic people, this was because of one important reason; all the governors before the war were Muslims and the Arabs are Muslims. The governors depended on Islamic ideology that the governor is a Caliph, one who follows the prophet Mohammad. In that type of government the power is obtained from the authority that God gave to our prophet. According to that authority the prophet had the right to appoint his successor to govern the Moslems afterward, and the successor had the same right. All the power of the governors came from the Qur'an (Shari'a), the Qur'an is the source of our legislation.

According to that ideology, all Moslems must respect that concept as sacred law. Even the Ottoman Emperors (Sultan) were Caliphs! From that we can understand that anyone resisting by any means the rule of the Caliph, actually works against the will of the God, and the prophet. It wasn't only a crime to fight against the Caliph, but a big sin in Islam, to such a degree that the punishment was death. That created many problems for the Moslems, it was the reason for the split of Islam into 2 groups, Shi'a and Sina, maybe I'll speak about that in another book.

Under the Ottoman Empire, the Arabs employed nationalist ideologies in their resistance against the Ottoman rule. The Ottomans belonged to another nationality, they were Turkish but they were Moslems. It wasn't possible for the Arabs to fight the Ottoman Empire on religious ideology because it's against Islam to fight other Muslims, especially if he is a Caliph! Therefore Islam had no role in the fighting between Arabs and Ottomans. So this made the Arabs need to work with new political ideas, like the agreement between Al Hussein and the British government.

After the First World War, everything changed dramatically in Arabic world because of the change of governors! The Allies and especially the British disregarded all the agreements and the promises they had with the Arabs regarding giving them the right to govern themselves in their own sovereign country. Instead of that the allies divided Arabia into smaller pieces like a cake and each piece was given to a European country (Sics peco treaty). That was a big shock for the Arabs, and it changed the face of Arabic history.

After that all the political ideas that the Arabs had been following collapsed and lost its meaning. The Arabs lost trust and respect in the Arabs leaders, Europeans and politics in general.

The Arabic nationalism ideology started to be divided into local or minor nationalist ideologies, like Iraqi, Syrian, Kuwaiti or Egyptian. The Arabs felt that they had been betrayed, humiliated, discarded, disrespected and they had been dealt with like they were fools!!!

With the new non-Islamic governments of the Europeans in the Arabic countries, the Islamic ideology had been changed. Because the Europeans occupied the Arabic homelands by force, they started to put in their own laws and discarded the Moslem legislation (Al Qur'an, source of Al Shari'a). The new governors weren't Caliphs; they were just occupiers and colonists. This was the same for the Arabic leaders that had been appointed by them. So the new leaders lost Islamic authority and respect and they were just representatives of the colonists.

For more understanding, I would like to briefly make some important points:

Before World War,

· There weren’t any Islamic political Ideologies.

· There weren’t any extremist actions of thinking.

· The struggle between the Arabs and the Ottoman Empire biased on nationalism ideas.

· The Arabs tried to gain their rights by political means.

· The Arabic homeland was united.

After the World War 1:

· Arabic nationalism start to fade away.

· The Arabs lost their belief in politics as a way to obtain their rights.

· The Europeans had occupied the Arabic homeland.

· The Arabic homeland had been divided into small regions (countries).

· The Islamic ideologies started to rise up as the only way to provide Arabs with a good system of government and to provide them with justice.

I'll sI'll start from the last point, about Islamic ideologies. At the time of Ottoman colonialism, Islam was a neutral factor, because the Ottomans and the Arabs were Moslems. Because of this the struggle of the Arabic people was based on nationalism and political ideas. But after the war under the European governments with their made up Arabic leaders ruled without any legitimacy. The Arabs were governed first by colonialism and then afterwards under the Arabic leaders appointed by these people.

The Arabic people faced despotism, injustices, humiliation, lost their freedom, lost their rights and millions lost their lives. The Arabs have never stopped their struggle for justice and to have their rights, this struggle has gone on for more than 100 years.

Because of the made up Arabic leaders the struggle has become between Arabs and other Arabs so the Arabic nationalism ideology has been lost, and the people are still looking to find a system that is able to provide them with justice. So what system and what kind of ideology can they on to or believe in so they can have Justice in their life? They have not found anything, only Islamic ideology. So this is how the Islamic parties have come about, through desperation. Some examples of these Islamic parties are, Hisb Aldaawa in Iraq and Hisb Alakhwan Al moslmeen in Egypt, the governments in these places became more secular like in Turkey for example.

I hope that I have given you some points to ponder on and maybe to start discussions which will bring greater understanding between us all.