There was something ironic in seeing Arab nationalism sinking off the shores of Gaza. At the heart of the romantic Arab narrative was the notion that the Arabs - united by an Arab identity - had been burning with a desire to emancipate themselves from the Turkish Empire's yoke. Lawrence of Arabia's fables of the Arab struggle against the Turks were, I always suspected, a British invention.
This not only has highlighted the shallowness of the Arab nationalist narrative, it also, at least conceptually, has restored what for centuries was the natural order of the region, which Arab nationalism was supposed to alter but did not. Just as Iran's Islamic Revolution was expansionist by definition, the AKP's "neo-Ottomanism" also posits a Turkish-dominated realm. As the potential for Iranian-Turkish competition grows and the Levant once again assumes its historical function as a contested space between more powerful nations vying for influence, the Arab states are becoming ever more secondary, their populations easily manipulated by populist leaders like Erdogan. (Based on an insight of Tony Badran).
2 comments:
And yet Turkey's neo-Ottomanism apparently involves making nice with Iran rather than competing with it. How do you explain that? Could the religious overlay override regional considerations - all Islamic brothers united against the Zionist interlopers and the West? Of course this is a crock - Syria is part of this love triangle and Assad is no Islamist, but it suits him strategically (just as Saddam played at being a Muslim for public consumption). But behind the hidden agendas, all the regional powers have to either stay out in front of an increasingly Islamized population or keep the lid on it. The rhetoric of the leadership may be BS to stay in power but the Islamification of the populace is quite real.
Erdogan is quite frightening. I recently read a quote of his to the effect that democracy is like a street car - once you reach your destination you get off of it. This is the Hitler model of democracy.
K
TE Lawrence wrote a grand book about his exploits, which ensured his place in history. Of course his claims were totally exagerated:
Hugh Fitzgerald is completely underwhelmed, but the book is a masterpiece of its genre. The British had no desire to see the Ottomans fall apart, they were the counterweight to Tsarist Russia. But along came the cynical, dastardly Germans ever ready to promise heaven and earth to anyone to further their goals. They inveigled the Turks into a war with the Allies promising them the Muslim realms of the British and the Tsars. Wilhelm II was going to take the shahada and become Wilhelm Mohammed. The Germans cruelly exploited age old religious divides and ethnic hatreds to fuel their war and when things went wrong blamed everyone else. No wonder then that Churchill, who saw all this lusted to "scourge the Hun".
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