From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 13:10:45 MDT
Article below is derived from the National Post and a
number of other sources -- but I found the history lesson
quite informative (though I will not assert its accuracy).
Makes one wonder a *lot* about why the French and the
Germans resist change in Iraq. If the article is
accurate they (or their parents) are the "people"
indirectly responsible for the mess. One wouldn't
want to expose the dirty linen.
Of course this wouldn't have happened if the French
and British had taken the rise of Hitler/Nazism more
seriously and been prepared for it. (The U.S. cannot
be totally blameless as I think during that period
[the '30s] we wanted no part of Euopean internal
politics.)
Definitely points out the long term consequences
of sticking ones head in the sand.
Robert
=======================================================
"SADDAM'S REGIME IS A EUROPEAN IMPORT"
From National Post 10 April 2003
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id=%7B0E39D93C-7FF7-43A9-9E5DA0E7EF4CF6C4%7D
By Bernard Lewis
In the Western world, knowledge of history is poor -- and the
awareness of history is frequently poorer. For example, people
often argue today as if the kind of political order that prevails
in Iraq is part of the immemorial Arab and Islamic tradition. This
is totally untrue. The kind of regime represented by Saddam Hussein
has no roots in either the Arab or Islamic past. Rather, it is an
ideological importation from Europe -- the only one that worked and
succeeded (at least in the sense of being able to survive).
In 1940, the French government accepted defeat and signed a
separate peace with the Third Reich. The French colonies in Syria
and Lebanon remained under Vichy control, and were therefore open
to the Nazis to do what they wished. They became major bases for
Nazi propaganda and activity in the Middle East. The Nazis extended
their operations from Syria and Lebanon, with some success, to Iraq
and other places. That was the time when the Baath Party was
founded, as a kind of clone of the Nazi and Fascist parties, using
very similar methods and adapting a very similar ideology, and
operating in the same way -- as part of an apparatus of
surveillance that exists under a one-party state, where a party is
not a party in the Western democratic sense, but part of the
apparatus of a government. That was the origin of the Baath Party.
When the Third Reich collapsed, and after an interval was replaced
by the Soviet Union as the patron of all anti-Western forces, the
adjustment from the Nazi model to the Communist model was not very
difficult and was carried throughout without problems. That is
where the present Iraqi type of government comes from. As I said
before, it has no roots in the authentic Arabic or Islamic past. It
is, instead, part of the most successful and most harmful process
of Westernization to have occurred in the Middle East.
When Westernization failed in the Middle East, this failure was
followed by a redefinition and return to older, more deep-rooted
perceptions of self and other. I mean, of course, religion.
Religion had several advantages. It was more familiar. It was more
readily intelligible. It could be understood immediately by
Muslims. Nationalist and socialist slogans, by contrast, needed
explanation. Religion was less impeded. What I mean is that even
the most ruthless of dictatorships cannot totally suppress
religiously defined opposition. In the mosques, people can meet and
speak. In most fascist-style states, openly meeting and speaking
are rigidly controlled and repressed. This is not possible in
dealing with Islam. Islamic opposition movements can use a language
familiar to all, and, through mosques, can tap into a network of
communication and organization.
This gave to religious arguments a very powerful advantage. In
fact, dictatorships were even helping them by eliminating competing
oppositions. They had another great advantage in competing with
democratic movements. Such movements must allow freedom of
expression, even to those who are opposed to them. Those who are
opposed to them are under no such obligation. Indeed, their very
doctrines require them to suppress what they see as impious and
immoral ideas -- an unfair advantage in this political competition.
These religious movements have another advantage. They can invoke
the very traditional definition of "self" and "enemy" that exists
in the Islamic world. It is very old. We see it, for example, in
historiography. We can talk of European history as a struggle
against, for example, the Moors, or the Tartars. If you look at
contemporary historiography for the Middle East's Muslim peoples,
their struggle is always defined in religious terms. For their
historians, their side is Islam, their ruler is the lord of Islam,
and the enemy is defined as infidels. That earlier classification
has come back again. Osama bin Laden's habit of defining his
enemies as "crusaders" illustrates this. By "crusaders," bin Laden
does not mean Americans or Zionists. "Crusaders," of course, were
Christian warriors in a holy war for Christendom, fighting to
recover the holy places of Christendom, which had been lost to
Muslim conquerors in the 7th century. Bin Laden sees it as a
struggle between two rival religions.
I say again: To blame the Saddam Hussein-type governments on
Islamic and Arabic traditions is totally false. Those traditions
led to the development of societies that, while not democratic in
the sense of having elected bodies, produced limited governments.
That is, governments limited by the holy law, limited in a
practical sense by the existence of powerful groups in society,
like the rural gentry and the military and religious
establishments. These acted as constraints on the power of the
government. The idea of absolute rule is totally alien to Islamic
practice until, sad to say, modernization made it possible.
What the process of modernization did was to strengthen the
sovereign power, and place at the disposal of the sovereign power
the whole modern apparatus of control and repression. Modernization
also weakened the intermediate powers, which previously limited the
powers of the state and had acted as a countervailing force.
Modernization meant a shift from old elites living on their
estates, to new elites who regarded the state as their estate.
Modernization has not erased the fact that the peoples of the
Muslim Middle East have a tradition of limited, responsible
government. While not democratic, this tradition shares many
features of democratic Western governments. It provides, I believe,
a good basis for the development of democratic institutions -- as
has happened elsewhere in the world. I remain cautiously optimistic
for their future.
Bernard Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern
Studies, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He has written numerous
books about Islam, including, most recently, The Crisis Of Islam:
Holy War And Unholy Terror (March 2003). This essay is adapted from
the 8th Annual Barbara Frum Lecture delivered by Prof. Lewis in
Toronto which will be broadcast on CBC Radio's IDEAS on April 24.
© Copyright 2003 National Post
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