Rivalry between the Al-Ashraf of the Hashemite dynasty and the Saud dynasty
The
Iraqi sociologist Ali Al-Wardi wrote a multivolume history of modern Iraq, that
included a special volume on the relations of the Al-Ashraf, the Hashemite
family dynasty that held the position of Sherif of Mecca during the last
decades of Ottoman rule in the Hejaz and the Saud family dynasty that ruled the
Najd in central Arabia. Al-Wardi showed
that the rivalries and relations between the two Arabian dynasties clashed over
the failure of the two dynasties to compromise or share power (al-Wardi,
2007).
An
American public TV documentary of the rise of the Saud dynasty and state in the
20th century is viewable here, The House of Saud (2007).
World War I, the Mandate System and its Consequences for Palestine
Following World
War One, the rivalries of the British and French to secure influence in the
Levant, led them to decide to break up the territory of the former Ottoman
Empire that was undergoing reorganization following its internal reform
movement initiated in 1908, the Young Turks Rebellion By resorting to multilateral diplomacy the
French and British used the newly created League of Nations and together
created the “Mandate System.” The Mandate System arose because the league was
left to deal with problems that single state could afford or deemed itself
capable of dealing with in a solitary fashion.
In a sense the British had already gained some experience with its
treaties and dealing with the Arab gulf sheikdoms in the Arabian Gulf, in which
they sought to gain influence and a measure of control without direct
occupation (Gran, 2011, p.
137). .The European powers now recognized that they could not afford to
completely occupy or control territory, and so they resorted to dividing up the
Syrian, Iraqi and other territory that was under control or influence by the
Germans and Ottomans who were the defeated alliance in World War One.
In the Middle
East, the Mandate System raised expectations for a new state formation that
could not be met. By 1922 it had created kingdoms in Iraq and in Syria and
Jordan. Only the experiment with
monarchy in Jordan would survive.
Elsewhere, it allowed the formation of a separate Lebanese state and a separate Palestinian Mandate that included
Jerusalem. The special problem of the
Palestine Mandate was that it now included a growing Jewish population that had
been moving to Palestine under the Zionist ideology with the intent to create a
Jewish colony and state.
When it became
apparent that the Palestine Mandate System was actually formed to prevent their
country independence, Palestinians began to resist and organize themselves
politically. The fact that some of the other mandates, such as Syria and
Lebanon, became independent countries, provided the Palestinians with a sharp
contrast to their own situation, especially since Syrian and Lebanese
independence had more to do with the wearing down of the mandate system. (Gran,
2011, p. 141). The Palestine Question quickly became the locus of the conflict
between those who advocated the right of Zionists and Israel to form a state as
a claim to civilization and those who saw a legal argument for Palestinian
self-determination. This difference in
philosophy and diplomatic difference remains today as the today sides differ
substantially over the basis for definition and statement of their claims.
Historians now
question whether Britain ever considered Palestine as more than a mere colony
for Zionists and others to settle in.
The allowance of Zionist settler colonialism during the period of the
Mandate from the 1920s to 1940s was reinforced by the Balfour Declaration that
provided a self-authorization for Britain to act as it saw fit in the
Palestinian Mandate territory. It
completely ignored the King-Crane Commission which was charged with an official
inquiry into the views of Palestinians themselves. The result was that the Palestinian claims
and interests were reduced to legal claims while the Zionist movement was
allowed a broader ideological claim that substantiated the creation of a new
state along civilizational status. The
result was that up to 1948, the Palestinian movement was outmaneuvered by the
Zionist mobilization both in ideological and in political and o organizational
tactics and strategy. The Palestinian
claims sought improvements in their cultural status as another civilization but
allowed the Zionist community to claim the upper hand and move more directly to
state formation. For example, it appears
the Palestinians focused more attention on educational opportunity and equality
than political institutions in this period (Gran, 2011, p. 142). This
ultimately led to the 1948 creation of Israel with United Nations authority,
and the marginalization of the Palestinians.
Al-Jazeera hosts a four-part
documentary video on the 1948 Nakba, the problem of
the creation of Israel and the forced evacuation into exile and refugee status
of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Al-Jazeera hosts a four-part documentary video
on the 1948 Nakba, the problem of the creation of Israel and the forced
evacuation into exile and refugee status of hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians.
For this period
there are a number of video documentaries that may be viewed. Al Jazeera has
produced a documentary series on the period leading up to and including the 1948 war. Other documentaries include Line
of Fire: Six Day War 48 minutes.
The impact of the 1967 June War and
the defeat for Palestinian, Jordan, Egypt and Syria may be viewed in John
Pilger documentary, Palestine is Still the Issue (1977) He told
how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and
again in 1967. In this in-depth
documentary, he has returned to the West Bank of the Jordan and Gaza, and to
Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the
United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible
limbo — refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the longest
military occupation in modern times.
In a series of extraordinary interviews with both Palestinians and
Israelis, John Pilger weaves together the issue of Palestine. He speaks to the
families of suicide bombers and their victims; he sees the humiliation of
Palestinians imposed on them at myriad checkpoints and with a permit system not
dissimilar to apartheid South Africa’s infamous pass laws. He goes into the
refugee camps and meets children who, he says, “no longer dream like other
children, or if they do, it is about death.” Continually asking for the
solution, John Pilger says it is time to bring justice, as well as peace, to
Palestine.
Egypt:
Arab Nationalism of Nasser (1952-1970) and the Open Door Policy of the
Sadat era (1970-1982)
During
the 1950s Jamal Abd al-Nasser and the Free Officers came to power when they
forcibly removed King Farouk from power in Egypt in 1951. By 1954 Jamal ‘Abd al- Nasser, the most
capable and charismatic of the officers, assumed the Presidency. During the Nasser years, the idea or ideology
of Nasserism was equated with a popularization of the military regime’s rule
and broadening of powers that allowed for an expansion of the state and
services, but also an authoritarian rule over various factions of society. The Free Officers moved to suppress the
Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party that were both active in the
country. Nasser attempted to develop the
image of a popular national socialism and later the idea of an Arab Nationalism
that would seek wider relations and political exchange with other Arab
countries.
Nasser’s
government was characterized by the following.
First, Nasser himself was a very charismatic and appealing figure. Born from a simple background in Upper Egypt,
his rise in the military and his knowledge of the conditions of life and
experiences of ordinary Egyptians gave him a sensitivity to the broader needs
of the Egyptian public. His government
did initiate and implement a limited form of land reform that granted acres of
land to be given to some Egyptian peasants while at the same time Nasser sought
to build the new Aswan Dam. The Aswan
Dam, which was not fully completed until after his death provided the necessary
hydroelectric power and control of the Nile River’s annual flooding. The reservoir of the dam allowed for new
irrigation projects and expansion of agricultural lands from which some of
these lands could be granted to new peasant landowners. This made Nasser immensely popular among many
during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Nasserism
however met a number of obstacles in the 1960s.
The Cold War between the Soviet and Communist bloc and the Western
Powers of the United States and Western Europe forced Arab states to side with
one group or the other. Syria and Egypt
both favored the Soviet Union. For
Egypt, the Soviet Union had provided needed funding for the Aswan Dam, when the
Western powers and institutions had failed to provide investment for the
dam.
In
1959 Nasser attempted a union of the governments of Egypt and Syria, the United
Arab Republic that was largely a failure.
Egyptian bureaucracy failed to fully integrate and share power with
Syrian officials. Further, attempts to
force land reform and distribution by confiscating land from large landowners
in Syria and giving the land to Syrian peasants met resistance and resentment
from Syrian elites.
It
was only with the departure of the British and the defeat of the Palestinians
in the war of 1948-1949 after the creation of Israel that Palestinians began to
reorganize themselves through the creation of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO) in the 1950s.
For
other Arab states, the creation of Israel and the defeat of the Arab armies
that resisted it in 1948-1949 exposed the vulnerability of older systems of
power. In Egypt, the monarchy of King
Faruq weakened and it was toppled by massive dissent in 1951 and the Army’s
coup in 1952. After two years of
consolidated rule, Colonel Gamal Abdel
Nasser took over power of the state and formed a military led government
that expanded bureaucratic services and the public sector. Nasser spoke openly and sought to provide
certain guarantees or access to education and some minimal efforts at land reform
or redistribution through expanded land reclamation projects. However Nasser’s government also turned its
powerful state apparatus, its control of the army and police to silence
opposition movements that had arisen before his rise to power. These were the Muslim Brothers, who were
declared an illegal organization by 1954, and the communists who had gained
considerable support during the late 1940s and early 1950s. With these opposition parties held in check,
Nasser turned to a program of popular appeals.
He called for the nationalization of the Suez Canal and openly spoke of
providing land grants or small parcels of land to poor or landless
peasants.
The
1956 Suez Crisis and War
Nasser’s
appeal to nationalization of the Suez Canal, which was controlled by British
interests and French companies which took the revenues of shipping through the
canal was a popular initiative that brought him support throughout Egypt and
the Arab world. But it also alarmed the
older system of conventional big power interests, primarily those of France and
Britain as well as Israel that was wary of an Egyptian revival of nationalism
and military power. The Suez Canal was
owned and operated by a French company but its principal investors were British
shareholders.
In
July 1956 Nasser gave a famous speech in Alexandria, Egypt proclaiming the
takeover or nationalization of the Suez Canal.
Simultaneously he had given orders to the Egyptian military to seize the
offices of the foreign companies that ran the canal.
Click
here to listen to and read Nasser’s speech of 1956.
Together
France and Britain secretly proposed to Israel that it invade and take the
Sinai peninsula up to the Suez Canal.
Nasserism and Pan-Arabism
Nasser
also began to strengthen his power by appealing to a concept of Arab unity and
foreign affairs. His first attempt at
strengthening Arab ties was his appeal to unity, or what has been called
pan-Arab unity. He did this accepting a
union with the newly installed government in Syria after 1958.
Syria
was especially vulnerable at the end of World War II and the unraveling of the
French mandate system that had seen a shakeout of five changes in political
leadership in the 1950s. In this
interlude, a powerful new ideology was framed by the Ba’th party that would
gain predominance in both Syria and Iraq.
The Ba’th Party or Arab Renaissance Party was founded by Michel Aflaq
and Salah al-Din Bitar and blended nationalist and socialist ideas with an
appeal to the creation or idea of one Arab nation (Rogan, 2012, p. 385). It remained an elite political movement that
lacked a broad sense of popular support (Dib). In late 1957 the Syrian Ba’thist Party and
the Syrian Communist Party, both minority parties that lacked a substantial proportion
of power in Syria’s parliament began to explore and propose to President Nasser
of Egypt the unification of Syria and Egypt into a single state. When a sudden military coup struck and took
power in January of 1958, it offered Nasser the opportunity to provide direct
support to the new military government.
Soon a weakly construed attempt at union between Syria and Egypt was
attempted but failed miserably over the next three years when Syrians finally
withdrew from the joint effort. Union
proved especially burdensome and impossible as Egyptian officials who relocated
to Damascus were incompetent, arrogant or unable or unwilling to understand or
respond to actual conditions or needs in Syria.
The Algerian War for Independence
After
France was forced at the end of World War II to disengage from Syria and the
Syrian mandate system, by 1956 it was faced with a series of crises over its
colonial possessions in Vietnam and Algeria.
The French sustained a major defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam
that precipitated the complete withdrawal of France from Vietnam and the
division of that country into North and South.
In Algeria, the perceived weakness and reluctance of the French to
disengage led to a full civil war for independence by Algerians that would last
until 1962. It was during the long
Algerian war that France was forced to grant or allow full independence or
autonomy to Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.
Only in Algeria, where there was a large population of French colonial
settlers and landowners who had taken land from dispossessed Algerians, was
there an attempt by France to hold on to its possession.
The
Algerian War for Independence also produced a number of key works by critical
intellectuals and writers. This included
Dr. Franz Fanon, the Martinique born physician from the Caribbean who was
working as a psychiatrist in Algeria during this period. His writings on the problems of psychiatry
and the politics of the Third World caused by the Cold War of the 1950s between
the Western European and American Powers and that of the Soviet Union and
China, saw countries of the Third World as its victims. Algeria also produced prominent writers of
its own who noted the paradoxical conditions of the war, notably Mouloud
Ferraoun who was killed by forces sympathetic to France, and Kateb Yacine the
novelist and playwright. The Algerian
War for Independence also produced notable divisions among French
intellectuals. The famous Algerian born
French colonial writer Albert Camus refused to accept or support Algerian
independence, while the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre changed his views and
openly supported French withdrawal from Algeria.
Yemen, Aden and Southern Yemen: 1962-1980
Aden had been a British possession since 1839 and was part
of the larger British Empire’s strategy of controlling or exercising direct
political and occasional military influence on the port cities of the Arabian
Seas, and the Arabian Gulf. Therefore,
the British decision in 1967 to abandon their control the port city of Aden in South Yemen was another pivotal event
in recent Arabian history for it would provide the precedent for the announced
withdrawal at the end of the year by the British from the Arabian Gulf states (Kelly J. B.,
1980). The effect of the June 1967 war in which
Israel had seized the eastern side of the Suez Canal closed off the Suez Canal
and with it Aden’s vital link to world trade through the Red Sea and Suez Canal
route.
Yemen had also been embroiled in a five year long civil war
between Republican forces located mostly in the southern part of the country
and royalist supporters of the monarchy with their base of support in the north
of the country. The Federation of South
Yemen was declared in January 1963 but with Egypt’s defeat in the June 1967 war with Israel, support for the
Republican side from Nasser’s Egypt now waned.
This put great pressure on the British to maintain the viability and
independence of their small protectorate port town of Aden, where they also
maintained a military air base. The
position of Aden was similar to that of Gibraltar in southern Spain.
Aden had a cosmopolitan population of local Aden and Yemeni
Arabs as well as Somali, Ethiopian, Indian and British residents. From the late 1950s trade unionism emerged
among Aden’s Arab population that was influenced by a broader interest in Arab
nationalism and mixtures of participatory politics and economic policies. As these groups organized they later merged
into the United National Front (UNF) and favored the separation of South Yemen
from the North. The whole of Yemen had
been ruled by Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Hamidi (Imam Ahmad). Brtitish proposals to create a federation of
rule between the North and South ran across intersecting tribal and religious
affiliations, including the presence of Sunni Muslim adhering to the Shafi’i
school and the Zaidi sect of Shi’a Islam. To appease these trends the British
had appealed to the use of local daulah’s or tribal councils to intercede in
local affairs (Kelly J. B., 1980, p. 18). By 1962 pressure for local elections in Aden
also found the emergence of new political factions including the People’s
Socialist Party (PSP) that favored regional autonomy for Southern Yemen. On September
26, 1962 the Aden legislature voted to secede and to join the newly
declared Federation of South Yemen. that
was a republican movement armed and supported by the Egyptian government. On the same day a military coup supported by
Egypt seized power in Sanaa the capital of Yemen only a week after the aged
Imam Ahmad had died.
The new successor to Imam Ahmad was Muhammad ibn Ahmad
al-Badr, who seemed to have been completely caught off guard by the multitude
of events and crisis confronting him (Kelly J. B., 1980, p. 24). Over the next five years Yemen fell into a
prolonged civil war with attempts at brokered peace negotiations led by
President Nasser of Egypt and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. After the defeat of Egypt in the June 1967
war, support for the Southern Yemenese declined. Britain exploited Egypt’s withdrawal of forces
and support for Yemenese Republican forces by sending a naval force and an
aircraft carrier. Meanwhile riots and
attacks on British nationals in the city of Aden forced the British in June of
1968 to send in troops and intervene directly in Aden. But the decision had already been made the
year before and by the end of 1968 a British presence in Aden and South Yemen
had ended. It paved the way for the
decisions and policies we would next see toward the British protectorates of
the Arabian Gulf, including the Trucial States.
In the following years Yemen’s civil war led to a split of
the country into two parts. After 1967
the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was declared in the South and
remained independent until 1978 when President Ali Abdallah Saleh in 1972
assumed power as President of the Yemen Arab Republic. The two countries would not be reunited until
1990. Ali Saleh remained in power of the
Republic of Yemen until the end of 2011 when he was forced to step down
following the changes ushered in the protests and momentum of the Arab Spring
that took place in Yemen. It was during
this time that the Yemeni human rights activist Tawakul Karman was active in
her advocacy for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Oman in Modern Gulf History and the World System
Of the Gulf maritime states, Oman has a long established
political and commercial history that overlaps with modern world history and
the modern world system. Traditionally,
the regions of the UAE were incorporated or regarded as part of a greater Oman
territory. Thus Khor Fakkan or Ras al
Khaimah were provisionally regarded as part of a wider Oman and sometimes
referred to as Eastern Oman, although more correctly to its north. In the development of the modern world
system, Oman was targeted by Britain for diplomatic and political influence as
it viewed Oman as a strategic place for its ports and location along the
Arabian Seas waterway and its commercial and maritime links throughout the
Indian Ocean (Owtram, 2004). The historian Francis Owtram breaks this into
several phases for study.
1798-1920 – this is the era of continued and expanded
British presence and influence on Gulf affairs.
The goal of the British was to gain the influence and consent of the
Oman Sultanate for Britain’s expanded role in India and the Indian Ocean and
Arabian Seas. In this period Britain
supported Oman against rival claims and attacks threatened by Iran and internal
Arabian attacks from the period of the Wahhabi mission.
1921-1931 After World War I Oman enters a new phase of state
formation that lasted form the signing of the Treaty of Sib until 1931. This
is seen as a period of consolidation of rule by a Council of Ministers in
league with the British who together opposed the rule of Sultan Taymur bin
Faisal (r. 1913-1932). During these
years the development of air routes and oil prospecting were underway and a
source of limited revenue for the rulers.
1932-1955: this is
seen as the expansion of the Sultanate powers.
Following the discovery of oil in Bahrain in 1932 the entire Gulf region
becomes open to finance and exploratory negotiations with foreign oil companies
and competing interests of the British and Americans.
1956-1977: In this period the rise of the modern state
occurs during the Cold War. Arab
nationalism and ideologies of Arab socialism appeared in the attempt and
breakaway of the Dhofar region. The
Dhofar revolution was defeated only with the direct intervention of British
special forces (SAS) in a counter-guerilla campaign. Sultan Sa’id bin Taimur (r. 1932-1970) was
forced to absent himself from Muscat.
Only with the defeat of the Dhofar rebellion and the British withdrawal
in 1977 was the Sultanate of Oman in its present form created and its ruling
elite installed with the aid of new oil revenues (Owtram, 2004)
