The 19th and 20th century proved
pretty humiliating for much of the world. The West climbed to the top and has,
up to now dominated the planet. The 20th century in particular has
been a time of grief for the Islamic world. They have been brought low and are
most humiliated by their own inter-cultural betrayals...nouveau oil elites
selling out the Islamic world for Western treasure, and dictatorial leaders
often acting as Western ‘strongmen’.
Both camps due to Western acquiescence have capitulated to Israel's
existence and even 'right' to exist. And the fact that these regimes terrorize
their own people, engage in inter-Islamic war, and all the while using Western
purchased armaments also adds insult to the injury.
And so there's a complicated web of anti-Westernism working
against these Western proxy regimes. Popular movements have brought down a few
of them as of late. And though both liberals and conservatives in the American
political system have tried to ‘spin’ the narrative, the bottom line is, these
revolts of the ‘Arab Spring’ have brought down American proxies. Gaddafi though
no longer out in the cold wasn’t quite an ally, and certainly Assad of Syria is
no friend. Yet the toppled Tunisian and Egyptian leaders were friends and
allies to the United States. Some in our media try and pretend their fall was a
good thing for Western interests, but among the American power-elites and strategists,
this was a sore blow.
There's a mutual dislike for Israel but also a desire on the
part of some to keep the status quo. There are old ethnic and cultural tensions
between Turks, Arabs, Persians, Kurds, and the host of minorities...Alawites,
Druze, Assyrians, Copts, and of course the larger divides between the Sunni,
Shiites, and the many who prefer forms of Sufism above all.
Though it would do little to further the gospel, socially
and culturally an Islamic Reformation of sorts is long overdue. In terms of
pragmatics for themselves and for the peace of the world it would be a good
thing if they came up with a new paradigm that blends the secular and sacred,
the concerns of nation and society with the claims of the mosque. We may be
seeing something akin to a prototype of this coming out of Turkey. The public
and government have moved away from secular Western oriented Kemalism, but have
retained a mindset both modern and progressive and yet also Islamic. Kemalism
was also primarily nationalist. Islamism is of course pan-national and that
focus will give a greater venue than just a 'Turkey for the Turks' way of
thinking.
And thankfully in no way are they remotely interested in
Wahhabism or Salafi interpretations of Islam. Turkey's problem is that their
secularism is breeding internal radicalism and Turkey has not reckoned with its
minorities and it’s still present nationalism is uncomfortable with social
pluralism...not out of religious concerns, like American Evangelicals who
oppose social pluralism, but out of historical and nationalist concerns.
Acknowledging the eastern 1/3 or so of their country historically belonged to
Armenians and Kurds is an argument they refuse to entertain. And there are
still all the tensions with the Greeks over their shared and bloody history.
Yet despite these problems, everyone is watching Turkey. They have come to a
very interesting time in their history, and the history of their region which
straddles the Middle Eastern and European worlds.
But will they be left alone? Historically the Americans used
the Turkish military to stage coups and remove anyone it did not approve of.
The present Erdogan government is not favoured by strategic thinkers in the
American and NATO establishment. The Bush administration was not happy with
Turkey's refusal to use bases during the March 2003 Iraq invasion, nor in
Turkey's new posturing in recent years. The Israeli relationship has been
ruined and Turkey has even made overtures to their longtime enemy the Assad’s
of Syria. Long an American lapdog, Turkey is becoming a serious player, a
tremendous influential force in the region.
Just in the past couple of years there have been large scale
arrests of numerous officials, some quite high ranking within the Turkish
military and talk of a coup plot going back to 2003. While the proof has not
been provided this 'Sledgehammer' plot, one would have to deliberately avert
their eyes to try and suggest this activity was not prompted by American
interests. History and common sense demand it.
The majority of the Islamic world is overtly Sacralist, and
under this way of thinking, the political regime also has theological
responsibilities and roles. Saddam Hussein and Assad of Syria represent regimes
which reject this model, but like the ‘Communists’ they try and establish a
sort of secular religion usually built around a cult of personality. Saudi
Arabia would represent the most extreme version of Sunni sacralism. Most
countries have some sort of mix.
Pakistan comes to mind...another country where the majority
of the people are very deliberately Islamic, but few are what would be
considered extreme. They want Islamic-minded rulers, but not extremists. In the
1970's when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government promoted Socialist ideas, the
Anglo-American backed army staged a coup against him and Zia ul-Haq was
installed. He as an American ally brought sweeping changes to the country promoting
a pretty hardline Islamic agenda. The United States was okay with that because
it kept Pakistan far away from People Power/Communist movements and kept the
people ratcheted up against India which during the Indira Gandhi years was
hardly pro-American. And of course after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
1979, the Islamisation of Pakistan could only help the cause of the Afghan mujahideen.
This continues to go back and forth. In 1988 ul-Haq was
killed in a mysterious plane crash. Bhutto's daughter Benazir becomes leader of
the anti-American pro-modern, pro-Socialist PPP and becomes Prime Minister of
Pakistan… and is later ousted. Another military coup puts General Musharraf
into power in the late 1990's. Though the United States publically didn’t want
to support a military coup, they once again found an ally.
And we all watched as Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007 as
she tried to return to Pakistani politics. While she was hardly innocent or
free of corruption she had to know the army, American interests, and the
Islamic elements were against her. And she like her father was killed. Today
her husband Asif Ali Zardari sits in Islamabad, having taken power in a wave of
anti-Musharraf sentiment. He’s cut a deal with the Americans and in the end
seems to care far more about money than forwarding the agenda of his party.
Realistically the country is on the verge of a meltdown, and he wields very
little power in an astonishingly complex country...this remnant of British
India, sharing a British drawn border with Afghanistan, a line cutting the
Pashtun lands in two. The Pashtuns are the soul of the Taliban and they have no
love for either Kabul or Islamabad. Their society I'm sad to say is largely the
source for much of what Western eyes and ears consider to be the harshness and
wickedness of the region and the ideology of the Taliban. Thirty years of war
has only made it worse. And ironically the power vacuum created in Afghanistan by
American withdrawal may end up providing nothing more than a proxy battleground
for arch-enemies Pakistan and India as well as Iranian and Russian via Central
Asian interests. The Chinese have recently been trying to get in on it. Cut one
head of the hydra off...and it's replaced by three more at least.
This is the legacy of Empires, the direct rule of the
British Raj and the proxy-power of the Americans. The region has always had its
problems, modern life has brought some improvements as well as creating new
problems…but as bad as it might have been under the Mughals, look at the mess
Western domination has brought them. And yet I still hear British Christians
talking of the glory of the Raj, and the British Empire. Shame on them.
Khaled Hosseini’s novels capture the sense of innocence lost
in Afghanistan when the king's cousin Daoud Khan overthrew the monarchy in
1973. They had no idea the blood of the 20th century was going to be
poured in a potent concentration on their land in but a few short years. They
still are passing through the fire. I think of Afghanistan as I try and imagine,
try and even grasp what it was like to live in the Rhineland or central Germany
during the Thirty Years War...the endless torment and suffering. People going
mad and insane with it. It helped to turn subsequent generations into
a-religious apathetic sceptics. So-called 'Religion' had only brought pain and
death. What will the Afghans do when their land once more knows peace? Will
they become cold hearted or will the tribal codes demanding honour and revenge
haunt them for generations? What will their understanding of the state be? What
is the role of the leader? Will they still want a sacralist ruler? Most likely.
After years of the secular, reforming Shah the Iranian people decided in 1979
they wanted a Sacral society, one ruled by the Ayatollahs. When the clerics have
been removed from power, what sort of society will the Iranians want?
In America we're so proud of our democratic legacy. But
really we dealt with all these questions during an era when our only enemy were
the natives we were conquering. This country has geographic advantages almost
everyone would envy. It's given the United States an unprecedented and
unimaginable security. Our history isn't as rosy as many a Conservative would
paint it...but, there have been few threats. Other countries have not had the
luxury and people (I insist) always desire security more than freedom. Not
everyone has had the elbow room and resource availability our continent
afforded either. Until modern times our population was paltry. What I'm saying
is, I don't think the United States should be as proud and pompous of its social
experiment as it tries to be. If the colonies were somewhere else, the story
would have obviously been quite different. But few I think grasp just how
different.
Many countries started to wrestle with these questions a
century ago but were impeded by European empires and dictators which held their
societies in a state of stasis. Now that things are changing for many, they
have to wrestle with issues we frankly take for granted. That hardly means
they're inferior. In fact Iran's post-Revolutionary model I expect will be
quite impressive. The road there might not be easy and it may not please the
United States if it is still wielding hegemonic power. But from what I've seen
of Iranian culture and brilliance, and considering geography and history, they
will someday be a leader on the world stage. The Saudis don't want to see that
happen. And since Israel is the enemy of their enemy, yes...even the Sacral
rulers of Arabia, the keepers of Mecca and Medina are more than willing to work
with Israel to keep Iran becoming what Iran is probably destined to be.
The Iranians are Muslim but they're not Sunnis. And the
Persians had several world empires and a vast civilization centuries before the
Arabs emerged from the sands of the desert and moved beyond pitching tents and
riding camels. The Arabs also constructed an amazing civilization but the
Persian-Arab rivalry is old, bitter and very much alive.