Also facing the Gulf (and much more besides) but on the other side and having been a significant player in the Middle East since well before the time of Muhammad, through the discovery of oil and up to today’s revolutionary times, is of course, Iran (or at least the Persian people and the geographical region that now contains Iran).
Iran in the sense of a nation is a longstanding multi lingual, multi religious and multi ethnic nation which today has land borders with Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and is a relatively short distance by boat from both the Gulf States and Russia. The name Persia is actually an Ancient Greek term for a small portion of what is now Iran. A Pahlavi Shah of Iran (i.e. from the most recent royal dynasty) chose the modern name, which is a more indigenously Aryan name for the country.
Before Islam, Persia was ruled by a succession of generally long-lasting dynasties concluding with the Sasanians that were conquered by Muslims in their first wave of conquests.
The official language is called Farsi and it now has an Arabic script. The major ethnic minorities include Turks, Arabs and Kurds and the religious ones include Sunni Muslims, Armenian Christians, Zoroastrians and probably the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside Israel at around 11,000. The population is quite young and often multilingual.
The land itself consists mostly of mountain and plateau country: there are two main mountain ranges and two desert areas. Major cities such as Tabriz, Tehran, Esfahan and Mashhad have tended to be built in the foothills of mountain ranges where water can be tapped in a country with few significant water courses. The fertile region around the city of Tabriz in the far north is particularly densely populated and is not a generally Persian area ethnically. There are also significant nomadic populations in Iran, which tend to be difficult for a state to control. Partly as a result of this feature of Iran, all changes in rule in Iranian history have tended to be precipitated by tribal challenges. Throughout its history, much of the population has tended to not in fact speak Farsi as a first language.
Regarding its Shi’a Islam majority, the Safavid Dynasty was the first to introduce Shi’a Islam into popular use in Iran (in the 16th Century). Sunnism had been the main religion from the 7th to the 16th Centuries. The party of ‘Ali had developed its distinctive religion and political ideas since a division in the 7th Century including of a politico-religious Imamate ruled over by descendents of Muhammad. The subdivision introduced into Iran called Twelver or Imami Shi’a Islam holds that the twelfth Imam disappeared in the 9th Century as a child and is the final Imam who will return in the end times as the Mahdi to restore justice since dispensed with in his absence. Sunni Islam has an idea of the Mahdi but has not generally developed its ideas to the extent of Shi’a Islam. As the Shi’a form of Islam holds that the Imam should rule and one is not presently available, many Twelver Muslims have accepted that a deputy role may be appropriately filled by a wise religious ruler in a form of senior co-rule with a secular ruler as the current constitution of Iran arguably currently provides.
The Safavids didn’t provide for this form of co-rule in the 16th Century, however. They were local leaders of a Twelver Sufi order who sought to combine secular power and religious authority in the person of one ruler. Having been brought to power with the assistance of Twelvers which he organised for the purpose, the first Safavid ruler of Persia, Ismail I, first attempted to standardise the form of Shi’a Islam practiced in Persia. This standardisation was furthered under later rulers.
Shi’a ulema leaders were permitted a degree of independence from the government in this system by the establishment of the khoms tax for the purpose of funding their activities. In this fruitful environment, two camps formed among them called the Usulis and the Akhbaris. The conservative Akhbaris lost the battle of ideas and the Usulis thus became dominant. The Usulis attempted a policy of quietism which generally tolerated the rule of secular rulers.
This attitude to secular rule began to unravel, though, by the 19th Century, when the Qajar were the ruling dynasty. The Qajar dynasts generally collected taxes, spent them lavishly on themselves and caved into the demands of foreigners and that was about their limit. The judges they appointed were effectively outranked in the legal system by senior mujtahidun (the senior ulema).
The Usuli ulema had no reason to respect this new ruling clan and its legitimacy and every reason to doubt it so quietism thus came to be reconsidered as a policy. Interestingly, in this period there was a fine tradition of female scholarship in a period when the passive government left the field of education open to the ulema. A kind of alliance also became established in this period mainly by marriages between family members of the senior ulema class and senior bazaar merchants and craftspeople (called the bazaari class). The bazaaris were organised into powerful guilds and the ulema of course also had the power derived from the khoms and their activity in the community. In an era of weak government, this was a potent political alliance. The bazaaris were particularly concerned at erosion in their position by the allowance of foreign competition.
The external governments involved in pressuring the Shah at this time for their own reasons involving economic and political control of the region were Britain and Russia. A balance of power between those two countries may have contributed to Iran avoiding direct colonisation by one or the other of them. Meanwhile neither country interested itself in developing Persia in any serious way. Britain’s ‘generous’ intervention to install telegraph lines in Persia was clearly a security measure for the British seen as necessary following the 1857 Sepoy Massacre in India in a year in which British troops had been engaged in a war against Persia.
The local silk industry was hit especially hard by foreign competition. Some of the concerns for the ulema included a new cotton and opium industry for export that may have (in the case of opium) been considered immoral and also may have diluted the power of the old ‘axis powers’ of Iran. The upshot of the diversion of land use to growth of these cash crops (especially opium) appears to have also been severe famine conditions from 1869 to 1872. In such circumstances, Baron Von Reuter (a formerly German British journalist more famous as the founder of the British newsagency bearing his name) effectively imposed an ‘unequal treaty’ upon Iran in 1872 in the way similar treaties were imposed upon the rest of the semi-colonised third world in that colonial period but that gave monopolies to the British to an extent that even the British marvelled at (notably Lord Curzon).
The period 1890 to at least 1912 was characterised by protests instigated by the ulema and bazaaris and most notably the reformer, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, who formally brought them together for the purpose. Al-Afghani had developed a hatred of the British and the West after experiencing India in 1857-8 in the era of the Sepoy Mutiny. He became persona non grata with the Shah soon after arriving in Iran. In 1890 the Shah had granted yet another extravagant concession to the West, a tobacco concession which the protesters combated with a successful boycott of all commerce in tobacco products.
The leading cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi from Samarra in Iraq but born in Shiraz, Iran, as his name indicates, provided the imprimatur to the idea of protest required at this time with a fatwa against tobacco products and other senior ulema were also prominent in the movement. By 1906 the movement had achieved a form of constitutional check on the power of the Shah, generally, with the advent of a formal Persian constitution. The Majlis (assembly) thus instituted was set up in such a way that Bazaaris were major beneficiaries. The constitutional document itself was expressly progressive and tolerant. An open press was set up as well as a national bank.
Meanwhile in 1907 the British and Russians reached agreement on their spheres of influence within Persia (naturally without consulting the Persians). A Russian-supported coup soon led to the dissolution of this relatively democratic majlis and the return of its powers to the presumably relatively compliant Shah. Also, following the discovery of oil, a British oil company was set up in 1908 to exploit it. Women had also been prominent in this era of protest.
After the overthrow of the Qajar by the first Pahlavi dynast, capitulations with the West by the new (and, it turned out, last) dynasty seemed to remain the order of the day and further increased interest in politics among the combined ulema/bazaari axis of power which had already become subtly evident and in revising the general quietist policy of the ulema.
The Qajar was replaced by the Pahlavi dynasty ultimately by means of another coup in 1921 led by Reza Shah Pahlavi. His attitude to government was notably more active and reformist than had been the attitudes of the Qajar monarchs but also quite authoritarian. As a result of favouring the axis (Nazi) side during the Second World War, he was forced by the allies to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammed (who thus became the last Shah), in 1941.
By the 1950s there were two main parties in the Iranian political system: a Communist Party and a nationalist party. Iran had also become the world’s second largest oil exporter. Both of these facts naturally attracted the Cold War era interest of the US so that when Prime Minister Mossadegh attempted to nationalise oil, the CIA engineered a coup to depose him.
Following this success at the elimination of a democratically elected leader, the Shah became increasingly autocratic. From 1953 until 1977 Iran effectively became an American assisted military dictatorship led by the Shah. Education and the economy were in crisis (especially in the 1960s). The Shah’s response was called the “White Revolution” and didn’t meet with the approval of the powerful ulema/bazaari coalition whose power it tended to erode. In this period there were even Americans acting as ministers in the Iranian government.
The great symbolic final insult to Islam which enraged many Muslims was a celebration of an alleged 2,500 year anniversary of the so-called Iranian “Great Civilisation” and the monarchy. It thus suggested a status for pre-Islamic rulers and pre-Islamic Persia that Muslims regarded as virtually blasphemous. Added to that, the celebration itself, which was mostly engaged in by the Shah and invited foreign dignitaries, was obscenely ostentatious (and therefore un-Islamic) in a time of depredation and suppression of a large number of Iranians. At around the same time he added to the blasphemy by also changing the start date of the official solar calendar formally imposed in the reign of his father (the popular unofficial one was still the standard lunar Islamic calendar) from the date of the Hijra to the presumed beginning of the reign of an early Shah some 4,000 years ago, well before the time of Muhammad.
The opposition in this repressive period came from various quarters besides the powerful axis including workers who had been suppressed and whose trade unions had been banned and women’s groups concerned with the social conditions. Minority groups that were traditionally oppressed in Iran continued to be oppressed and also formed part of an opposition increasing in popularity and militancy. Student groups and intellectual and Islamic student and professional groups also stood out in this environment of determined opposition. Parties that conspired to bring about the revolution that occurred in 1978-79 included the Communist Party, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, various Ayatollahs, laypeople and a nationalist/religious guerrilla group.
The idea that there was unity even within any of the disparate groups (including the senior ulema) as to precisely what system the revolution should bring about is certainly questionable. There were many views and no clear consensus even within the clerical fraternity. Khomeini was one among many of the 'ideas people' seeking to be heard at the time. In his case he was trying to be heard from his exile near Paris after having fallen foul of both the Shah’s and then Saddam Hussein’s regime where he had at first sought and been given refuge. His activism (and often against the Shah rather than for any particular replacement) was successfully conducted via the distribution of lectures and sermons both on cassette tape and in writing.
Finally the Shah was forced to flee Iran and a strike of oil workers can be said to have finished his regime off. The strike struck at the very heart of that income stream which had given the Shah the resources with which to repress his people. Within a couple of weeks Khomeini was back on Iranian soil. The question of what would replace the Shah’s regime now became pressing.
A consensus finally formed that a model giving supreme power to the popular Khomeini and perpetually to a learned Islamic lawyer (known as the Rahbar, or guide/pilot) would shape the forming of the constitution. Along with the theocratic Islamist element, an element of republican secular government was included (a novel combination). There would be an elected parliament (a majlis) and an elected president (a ra’is). However the ruling cleric had two major forms of control: he (at the head of his not popularly elected “Council of Guardians”) was permitted to vet all prospective presidential and parliamentary candidates and he was also permitted an absolute veto power over any law. The vetting power was at first not often exercised but came to be exercised more as time went on.
In Islamic terms, the rule of a supreme jurisconsult thus established in accordance with Khomeini’s political ideas known as Velayat-e Faqih was new even to Shi’a Islam. The power to rule supremely politically had hitherto been validly able to be exercised only by Muhammad, himself, and the Twelve Imams that followed him.
From 1979 virtually until his death in 1989, the Iranian Revolution became established and was shaped largely by the charisma and understanding of the issues of Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini was a pragmatic leader. Much of this period was also taken up with a conflict with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was significantly supported by both the Arab and Western worlds in a war with the new state, and with a dispute with the US brought about ostensibly by the US’s alleged protection of the Shah from the Iranian ‘justice’ system. That system had a revolutionary character that was also responsible for many deaths and attempted assassinations in the period both within and outside Iran’s geographical borders. The war with Iraq also resulted in millions of Iranian deaths.
Domestically, the participation of women in education and literacy levels of women markedly increased in a sign of Khomeini’s modernist pragmatism. Interestingly, a 2007 report of the United Nations Development Program found that in various indices of equality between males and females Iran fared bettered than the US in several areas. However issues of inequality remain, especially in the more rural regions of the country. Other social issues to which the Shah had apparently been somewhat indifferent were swiftly dealt with.
Khomeini also had the constitution changed when the time came to consider his successor to the position of Rahbar, to permit the less senior cleric he favoured to be appointed. The current Rahbar anointed by Khomeini, Ayatollah ‘Ali Hoseyni Khamanei, who was thus permitted to succeed him had been a relatively junior cleric who would not have been able to succeed him under the former version of the constitution. He had not even been an Ayatollah when he was formerly chosen by the required committee of experts (he immediately achieved this rank upon the choice being made, however).
The period from the death of Khomeini in 1989 to around 1997 was a period of reconstruction following the long war with Iraq as well as a period of adjustment to the absence of one of the greatest symbols of the revolution. The president in the entire period was Ayatollah ‘Ali Rafsanjani, a great social and political reformer, under the new Rahbar, Ayatollah Khamanei.
A revised 1989 constitution, which strengthened the powers of the Rahbar over all other constitutional groups including the ulema from which it finally formally separated him, inaugurated the period. The electronic media became fully nationalised. In the period also, a religious movement developed, including a number of women, whose ideas were referred to as “new religious thinking” and which regarded the Rahbar as having become effectively a secular ruler and thus sought further reform to protect the religious ideals of the revolution.
A reform period from 1997 to 2005 under a new president (Mohammad Khatami, the son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami) although the same Supreme Leader and Guide (Ayatollah Khamanei) in a sense answered the questions posed by this group. Khatami liberalised the media and arts somewhat and also made government more transparent. The period was also characterised by lively debate in the free daily press. Khatami’s 2001 peace overtures towards the US were met with a US declaration in George Bush’s 2002 “State of the Union” address to congress that Iran belonged to the famous “Axis of Evil”. Iran was thought to be (and is still thought to have been) secretly and illicitly developing a nuclear weapons programme. The US estimated more recently in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that a presumed programme was halted in autumn of 2003. Nevertheless, the failure of the US to reach back when an olive branch was at least offered may be regarded today as a lost opportunity.
This period of opportunity was effectively ended by the election in 2005 of the inflammatory former mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. He was the first non-Ayatollah appointed or elected to one of the two top jobs in the country since 1981. His election platform was a redistributive programme and he drew his support from two conservative but not necessarily religious movements with which he had longstanding connections and which had begun during the Iran-Iraq War period.
Today, many Iranians feel threatened by the US in a comparable way to the way Americans have felt threatened by al-Qaeda since 9/11. As we have seen, the threats to the US have had a significant impact there. So, too, the presumed threat to Iran indicated by America’s general warlike attitude has had a significant impact in Iran. Up to recently, Ahmadinejad’s support has thus remained relatively strong (despite his failure in the distribution effort) largely because of those fears.
As of today there are still no private local television stations. However Iranians generally have access to satellite television broadcast from outside Iran. Iranian cinema on the other hand is extremely active. Much of the cinema is quite ‘Bollywood’ in style and Iran doesn’t seem an especially Islamic place in it, exploring issues of drug use and abuse and other subjects which might be thought to be ‘taboo’ in an Islamic society. Each film must be approved for distribution by authorities, which are naturally influenced by the nature of the Iranian government system.
Iran has recently undergone a significant major period of industrialisation and at the same time has become mostly self sufficient in food. Practically the only food not produced within Iran is the banana. The siege mentality that has been a feature of the post revolution period has naturally contributed to these quite successful projects.
Women continue to extend their influence and activities in public life and to achieve reforms in their favour. In nationality law, for instance, children can now choose to identify with either their fathers’ or mothers’ nationalities. Also women’s pensions may now continue to be received by their dependents in the event of their deaths as was formerly only the case with men’s pensions.
A major area of continuing concern for human rights groups continues to be the treatment of people of the Baha’i faith. Generally speaking discrimination against recognised religious minorities is outlawed but the Baha’i continue to not be recognised thus permitting severe discrimination against this group. There is also a level of discrimination against even the recognised religious minorities despite the law.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Arabia
Returning now to where it all began, Arabia, Yemen is the only republic there today and also the only state not facing the Persian (Arabian in Arabic) Gulf and finally the only essentially non-oil state. All the other states are dynastic monarchies (with the exception in a sense of United Arab Emirates being a federation of monarchies formally led ex officio by the Emir of Abu Dhabi as president (ra’is)). Kuwait is an emirate, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are kingdoms and Oman is a sultanate.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is really where it all began containing as it does the cities of Mecca and Medina, is also probably the most conservative of the states and is certainly the biggest geographically. Three factors are of course pre-eminent in the story of ‘modern day’ Saudi Arabia: religion and tribalism (dating from the 18th Century beginning of the Saudi ruling dynasty) and oil (significant since the 20th Century).
The religious force was epitomised by Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, an intolerant and puritanical 18th Century Nejdi preacher, scholar and jurist in the school of the 9th Century Hadith scholar/jurist, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. Wahhab was opposed to Sufism, Shi’ism and popular forms of veneration. His supporters were atavistic Salafis mainly living in the Nejd (literally “high plateau”) region of what is now Saudi Arabia, the largest town in the region being what is now Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh. Their style has been to ensure that the external forms of Islam are properly adhered to as practiced by the idealised earliest Muslims without much concern for the interior personal life of religion or understanding of the undoubted flaws of many of those, effectively worshipped, ancestors, though they would probably be horrified to hear themselves described in such a way, hating venerations as they do. Correct practice was for them virtually everything of importance in life.
The tribal force was the Saud family which became Wahhabi in the 18th Century. They came from the Aanaza confederation and Rabi’a clans distinct from the Adnan of the Hijaz and the tribes of Yemen. While the alliance with Wahhabi ideology was constant, the Saud family was twice removed from their position of political domination of central Arabia before the father of the last several kings of Saudi Arabia, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud, finally regained control and created Saudi Arabia in the early to mid 20th Century. The well known Muhammad ‘Ali of Egypt was involved in one of the crushings of the family at the behest of the Ottomans. The Sauds now have legitimacy as a ruling family by virtue of their Wahhabism and since their conquest of the Hijaz by virtue of serving as rulers over the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina. As his landholdings increased in the course of his conquests of most of the Arabian peninsula over about two decades, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz upgraded his status in turn from Emir to Sultan to King (Malik). He had well over a hundred sons and many daughters to his many wives.
Oil was the third powerful factor and it has contributed to the further success of the other two elements: the family (especially within Saudi Arabia) and Wahhabism (supported by petrodollars around the Islamic world). It was first prospected for near the peninsula by the British and Dutch (occasionally jointly) in Iran and Iraq. The first prospecting in Saudi Arabia, however, was undertaken by Americans who had managed to win the trust of the Saud family. They ultimately controlled the concessions on Saudi oil fields and the necessary pipelines with Arabian partners as ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company).
The social and economic effects of the development of the oil resources were not evenly spread in the kingdom at first. On the East coast, where the oil tended to be concentrated, an influx of foreign oil workers from all over the world had an especially early impact. As time went on, the effects were more evenly spread as the government generally discouraged nomadism and agriculture and promoted urban settlement throughout the kingdom. The now settled former pastoralists and farmers were thus made and became dependent upon government handouts made possible by oil wealth and were thus able to be more efficiently managed by the political and religious elites. Ironically, while the payouts have not always been equitable, as a result of oil wealth there are no ‘taxpayer dollars’ involved in the way we mostly understand them in the West and complaints (along with calls for democracy) are thus seen as less legitimate. This is the so-called Rentier State syndrome.
The kingdom does have an appointed Consultative Assembly which is not however a legislative body and is not permitted to criticise the government, it may only advise the government. The family also has a council which decides upon family matters such as succession from brother to brother since the first king’s death (and once decided to effectively depose a king, Saud Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who agreed to abdication in 1964 and ultimately was in exile for life).
Oil and wealth resulting from oil as well as the position of Mecca and Medina have contributed to this tribal, conservative religious kingdom playing a considerable role internationally. The US is interested in defending Saudi oil in a way it never has been with Australian Uranium for which we may possibly be grateful. Could the reason be an attitude of post-colonialism that applies only to presumed inferior ‘races’? Repercussions arising from this directly may include the world epoch making 9/11 attacks as many Saudis find the US presence in their country so offensive and a small proportion no doubt subscribe to a tendency for radical reaction. The reaction in turn of the Saudi government is to focus attention on the prestige of the guardianship of the two holiest cities of Islam. Beyond that prestige, the Saudis have also sought to spread their ‘brand’ of Islam far and wide throughout the Islamic world by means of its largesse in spending its convenient ‘petrodollars’ which ironically come mainly from the US, one of the very sources of the legitimacy problems of the Saudis today.
The emphasis has had successes. Prestige has as a result grown, as indicated by the two million pilgrims that today visit Mecca each year at the time of the (lunar) annual hajj month alone. The Saudis only took over the mantle of rule of the Hijaz early in the 20th Century. The informal Ottoman positions of Sharif and King of the Hijaz were not permitted to continue as a distinct governorship from those later established by Saudi Arabia after the 1924 abdication of King Hussein and the defeat and exile of his son, ‘Ali, the older brother of King Faisal I of Iraq and (later) King ‘Abdullah I of Jordan. At that time, and in the recent past, the pilgrimage was a small source of revenue and a concomitantly small cost to any state. In the 1830s, the Swiss Orientalist, John Burckhardt, a secret non-Muslim witness of one pilgrimage, had predicted its imminent demise as a Muslim rite in view of the small numbers then involved. Incidentally, some credit Burckhardt with having ‘discovered’ oil in the region (meaning probably that he was made aware of its existence by locals). The government today bravely bears a now large cost and Saudi businesses also benefit from much revenue as the government benefits from huge prestige as a result of its handling of the pilgrimage.
Much prestige has fallen upon Wahhabism, too, however, and sections of the Wahhabi (and Salafi) movement as well (arguably a major export of Saudi Arabia supported by American ‘petrodollars’) are sympathetic with the aims of ‘Usama Bin Laden. This embarrassing situation for the government has resulted in a crackdown on sympathisers with ‘terrorism’ since 9/11. On a single occasion recently, over a hundred Imams were officially purged. Wahhabism is certainly potentially open as an ideology to assertion of political control by leaders such as Bin Laden in the name of Islam and violence.
While a few titles in the West have considered the scenario of the fall of the house of Saud, it appears to have secured itself power indefinitely by means of a web of family alliances throughout government and society (as the Ba’ath Parties have in other countries – certainly in Syria). It has been suggested that the armed forces may stage a coup. Saudi Arabia has both a regular army and a “National Guard” arguably to ensure that very stability, even in the unlikely event that a family member or other person with the support of only one of the ‘armies’ steps out of line and attempts to take power unconstitutionally. The period of Arab military coups appears to have passed into history for the time being however a palace coup by a family faction, as I noted above, achieved the effective deposition of King Saud in 1964 and a revolution is never completely out of the question. The current King is ‘Abdullah. Traditionally, he will be succeeded by a prominent brother decided by the family council. The current heir apparent (referred to as the Crown Prince) is as a result Crown Prince Sultan but he is roughly the same age as his brother, the king (i.e. in his 80s). Proponents of democratic reforms and democratic socialism (usually Western educated) are somewhat tolerated.
A religious police force actively enforces a very strict level of physical sex segregation. A classic case of excess in this regard was perpetrated recently by even the regular police. As a fire raged at a school, young female people were not allowed to leave the scene as they could not access the correct clothing to ‘properly’ cover themselves and, probably consequently, burned to death. The results of these kinds of excess, while not necessarily intentional, are effectively satirised on local TV, however. One example involved a burglar being effectively the only legitimate head of a household due to having been male and having entered a house in which there were only female occupants. The females therefore required his permission to leave the house, a requirement enforced by the police who arrived at the scene. Women famously aren’t generally permitted to drive a car in Saudi Arabia although they may obtain permits in nearby states. Universities have separate male and female campuses generally in different neighbourhoods and women may generally only communicate with male academic teachers by electronic means or by sending male relatives as proxies. The female campuses have nearly a full complement of female academic staff, however, providing extra job opportunities for many educated women in academia.
The strict rules have also produced a clandestine culture of pre-marital meetings organised simply in order to get to know a possible future spouse before marriage. As a rule, the eastern provinces tend to be less strict in maintaining these rules that the Nejd or Hijaz, predominantly as a result of exposure to the cultures of foreigners working in the eastern oil fields and subsidiary industries there. Even the royal family is believed to engage in non-Wahhabi-approved activities in private. As discussed above, however, this is less of an issue than one might imagine, focused as Wahhabism is on external appearances and correct practice in public rather than what may be purely private ‘peccadilloes’. There is a Shi’a presence in this kingdom whose basis is in part a religious view of the Shi’a as quite as evil as any other ‘non-Muslim perversion’. If Shi’a people are able to not flaunt their religion, and if they are needed in Saudi Arabia’s economy, they are tolerated.
‘Unayzah is an example of a middling and middle class city in Saudi Arabian terms. Both the formation of the Saudi state and the discovery of oil have had significant effects in this city and not necessarily all positive. Around the turn of the 20th Century it was already described as the “Paris of the Nejd” and it has been described with admiration at various times by at least several Europeans, Amin al-Rihani and the first king, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud, himself. It has perhaps not surprisingly therefore seen a relative decline as the rest of Saudi Arabia has been developed rapidly and become somewhat more centralised in focus around nearby (and now flourishing) Riyadh. Its middling nature perhaps makes it a reasonable example of how Saudi Arabian society has fared recently and the Saudi scholar Soraya Altorki perhaps chose it as a subject of her study in the mid 1980s for that reason and also perhaps because of its interesting early 20th Century ‘notoriety’ and subsequent virtually inevitable reduction in relative importance.
Altorki notes the emergence of a new class of women with a different external relationship with men (the non-Saudi worker) but also the development of a sense of independence of income in Saudi women (as well as men) as traditional roles are updated to analogous roles in a relatively individualised and modern milieu. She notes, though, that the state itself remains an essentially male organisation. With regard to educational advancements, she noted that, while advances were staggered so that boys and young men were given the earliest assistance in furthering their educational attainments, the education levels of girls and young women were also advancing. A catch-up is thus occurring. Fathers (though still patriarchs of their families and thus rulers over the affairs of their daughters) have also tended to be supportive of the right to work of their daughters in the negotiation of the marriage contracts of their daughters (in which requirements in relation to such affairs may be stipulated). Some men expressed mild concern that their wives were able to earn more than they were able to earn in the new wage economy. Women were limited by not being able to drive or even independently use the modern forms of public transport now becoming available. At the same time, the prized genealogies of the Arabs of the region are now beginning to include more women, probably indicating an improved status.
The Saudis are today seriously considering their position post-oil in a modern world and the project of producing mega-cities today is part of a serious attempt to produce the basis for a viable post-oil economy. Reform (on an Islamic basis) to the polity is also occurring especially following the public and Islam-based nasiha protests of 1991. In 2005, municipal elections were held coinciding with the coming to power of King ‘Abdullah that women, however, were not permitted to vote in. Along with today’s economic reforms, there are some improvements in the conditions of women. The state recognises the state of Israel and has interests that coincidence to some degree with those of the USA. The limited Hanbali Ahl al-Hadith (Hadith scholarship) view of the law still inhibits legal growth in Saudi Arabia, Ibn Hanbal the Hadith scholar being the only founder of a major legal school in Islam who was not actually a jurist by formal training. As oil and pilgrimage have been major sources of Saudi wealth, the Saudis have been focused on the external and the large foreign workforce has contributed further to the many cross-currents operating there. Whether this interplay of currents and this external focus contributes to the success of Saudi Arabia today and into the future or is a weakness that is damaging and will damage it as suggested by the ‘purists’ (such as ‘Usama bin Laden) remains to be seen.
The Other States of Arabia
Generally for all of the Gulf countries I will discuss now, which all benefited from oil wealth (and for Saudi Arabia), their main pre-oil revenues were earned in the traditional pearling industry. Some Arab pearlers originating in the Gulf even operated in Sri Lanka. A politically powerful pearl merchant class somewhat distinct from the ruling classes therefore existed which provided a counterfoil to the ruling families who grew wealthy due to oil. As a result, although notably not in Saudi Arabia, there are relatively democratic styles of rule in many of these countries. One possible irony is that the current modernisations have generally resulted in a setback for women. Part of the reason for this is that women did have a productive role in the traditional economy which has become irrelevant in the modern economy leading to a concomitant loss of status. While men also lost their traditional roles, the forces of patriarchy together with a conservative form of Islam (especially in Saudi Arabia) have preserved male power and brought about both the segregation and veiling of the modern and now inactive Arabian woman. Female foreign workers are not so restricted, as they have a valued modern productive role.
There is also competition among these small states for prestige which may explain the attempts to stand out in the Arab world as a whole but especially in the Gulf discussed below. They compete for a range of businesses and especially to have major airport infrastructure, media outlets and conferences (think Doha in Qatar). The populations tend to be both sophisticated and respectful of their cultural traditions (as Western sophisticates tend to be also). All of the countries have large numbers of expatriates of other countries residing there (and forming a majority in the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain).
The countries all tend to face several common limitations on their indigenous economic capacities. Shortages of arable land, water and skilled indigenous agriculturalists limit the feasibility of agriculture and food production, shortages of skilled workers limit industry and have produced reliance upon foreign expatriates and the nature of the rentier state and other factors have limited the efficiency of administration. It may well prove to the benefit of each of the Gulf States (as indeed for the Arab states as a whole) for the states to combine in all these areas for their mutual benefit. Localist interests make this unlikely to occur in the near future, however. The establishment of a more defined rule of law in these countries (as, too, in Saudi Arabia) would also certainly contribute to an improved investment climate there.
Kuwait is an independent Emirate that was created by British action to be independent as much as any other British creation in the region. This explains, to an extent, the forceful claim to it made by Saddam Hussein that led to the First Gulf War in which America was a direct belligerent in 1991. Kuwait is also ‘punching above its weight’ in Arab cultural terms today and considering a democratic system.
Bahrain is an island off the east coast of Arabia.
Qatar is the home of the al-Jazeera television network.
The United Arab Emirates is the home of two major airlines, Emirates and Etihad. Dubai (one of the Emirates) is establishing itself as a major world financial centre.
Yemen has recently attracted attention as the place of learning and inspiration of the recent underpants bomber.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Maghreb Part 2 - especially Tunisia and Morocco
Tunisia and Morocco
Morocco has the distinction in the Maghreb of never having come under Ottoman control (and also having come under mainly Spanish control rather than English, French or Italian). It is today also formally the only monarchy in the Maghreb and one of only a handful in the Arab or Islamic world. It traces its ancestry to the ruling Idrisid clan that began to rule in about 800 CE and in turn laid claim to Sharif-hood (i.e. descent from Hasan Ibn ‘Ali Ibn Muhammad). They built Fez and there has been a continuous monarchy in Morocco since.
Muhammad VI is the current king of Morocco. His grandfather, Muhammad V, agitated for and then negotiated for and received independence in 1956. In the middle period of independence Hassan II, the son of one Muhammad and father of the other ruled. Muhammad V had been in exile until independence working with the Istiqlal Party. Today the Istiqlal Party remains a prominent party within the current multi-party system. Hassan II was an astute mixture of western education and traditional Arab kingship. The king of Morocco is more than a figurehead but rules somewhat constitutionally. In these circumstances, Hassan sought to improve his political position by courting the religious establishment. Morocco experienced a degree of Islamic resurgence and one general unsuccessfully attempted a coup in his time. Hassan's brave reaction and personal charisma in the face of the coup won him the further admiration of his people. He also built the largest Mosque in the world (the Hassan II Mosque) and was also a French speaker.
Today Islamism and even extreme forms exist in Morocco (as they do in the UK it has to be said). However, the form of Islam promoted by the government and apparently accepted by most of the people is exemplified by the school recently set up by the current king for the training of female Imams. They must however only preach to other females and in the overall hierarchy they are below all of the male ulema. The region known as Western Sahara is currently ruled by Morocco while Algeria supports its independence from Morocco. Morocco's proximity to Spain has also made it a favoured point of emigration to Europe for many of the Arabs (and other peoples) of North Africa and even the peoples of southern Africa.
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Maghreb Part 1 - especially Libya and Algeria
A notable feature of the Maghreb is that only Mauritania has a freely and fairly elected head of state; in the case of Mauritania that is its president. The ruling elites in the Maghreb generally tend to be (probably quite rightly) fearful of the rise of Islamism and this has probably contributed to tardiness in proceeding towards more democratic systems along with a lack of experience in self governance at most levels of society.
In common with other countries of the Maghreb, Libya is Arab, African, Muslim and Mediterranean. In common with most, it has also been an official European colony. The pretext for colonisation was, in part, that it harboured Mediterranean and other pirates. Its recent modern history includes both dealings with and confrontation with the US (over the pirate issue) and Italian colonisation before the First World War (in 1911). Virtually all of the rest of the continent had already been occupied by other European powers by this time.
In this colonial period and the immediate aftermath, the Sufi Sanusiyya movement achieved the greatest political support as an interior opposition to essentially coastal Italian (1911-12 to 1943), British (1943 and until 1951) and even the post-war regal control of the Sanusiyya King Idris I until Qaddafi’s 1969 coup and still retains a degree of support. From 1919 to 1922 there was even an independent Islamic state (perhaps the world’s first modern one) under the Sanusiyya on the coast. Their base of support has tended to be in Cyrenaica in the East rather than in the capital, Tarablus (Tripoli), in the West.
The first Maghrebi country I will consider in some detail is Libya. Libya is significantly larger than Egypt to its immediate east but has less than a tenth of Egypt’s population. It is also bordered by Tunisia (which is much smaller in size but also has a larger population) and Algeria to the West and Niger, Chad and another Arab/Islamic country, Sudan, to the South (see the map below).
In common with other countries of the Maghreb, Libya is Arab, African, Muslim and Mediterranean. In common with most, it has also been an official European colony. The pretext for colonisation was, in part, that it harboured Mediterranean and other pirates. Its recent modern history includes both dealings with and confrontation with the US (over the pirate issue) and Italian colonisation before the First World War (in 1911). Virtually all of the rest of the continent had already been occupied by other European powers by this time. In this colonial period and the immediate aftermath, the Sufi Sanusiyya movement achieved the greatest political support as an interior opposition to essentially coastal Italian (1911-12 to 1943), British (1943 and until 1951) and even the post-war regal control of the Sanusiyya King Idris I until Qaddafi’s 1969 coup and still retains a degree of support. From 1919 to 1922 there was even an independent Islamic state (perhaps the world’s first modern one) under the Sanusiyya on the coast. Their base of support has tended to be in Cyrenaica in the East rather than in the capital, Tarablus (Tripoli), in the West.
Muammar Qaddafi led a coup on 1 September 1969 and has since remained the effective ruler of what he claims to be a socialist democracy. By an elaborate system, he ensures that his decisions appear to have been made by certain popular bodies. He has expressed his individuality by the unusual name he has given Libya and in several other ways. He has been criticised as a religious heretic as a result but given the actual diversity of Islamic sects this criticism may be regarded as relatively meaningless. We have discussed a number of rulers and their different sects (such as the ‘Alawite rulers of Syria or the other Shi’a rulers of Iran who would probably be considered at least as heretical by most orthodox Muslim scholars). One of his unusual religious ideas in Sunni terms is that the body of the Hadith should have less influence than it has heretofore in Islamic law. He also allegedly dates his personal calendar from the year of Muhammad’s death rather than the more conventional year of the Hijra.
Qaddafi’s rule has been somewhat similar to the rule of other desert tribal-based rulers, however. He has cracked down on any criticism and rules according to his idiosyncrasies. Although he is not officially creating a ruling dynasty, it seems likely that that is his current intent. As also in the eastern Christian world the idea of the separation of “church” (or mosque) and state is relatively meaningless. Iran stands out in the Islamic world, however, as the model of (while formally not admitted) rule of the clergy as a theocracy. More typically, a ruler such as Qaddafi claims to rule in an Islamic manner and seeks to claim authority on that basis using Islamic symbolism for his secular purposes. As in much of the Arab world, however, the Islamic clergy in Libya is as limited as anyone in its effective power and in its criticism of the leadership (probably much more than in the West). Mere lip service is in fact paid to religion in Libya.
Qaddafi’s famed Green Book, which was written in 1976, might be compared to Mao’s Red Book of somewhat random thoughts and was probably actually written by Qaddafi although there is some doubt but is probably more appositely compared with Hitler’s Mein Kampf especially given its anti-Semitic tendencies. It illustrates the attitude to religion of many Arab leaders in the time it was written. It never mentions the words Muslim or Islam and rarely mentions God. Timed as it was just before the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, it is much more concerned with relatively old Arab nationalist ideas such as Nasserism. Today he certainly talks more of Islam as he asks for his people’s trust and apparently grooms one of his sons to replace him. Libya has created a pseudo-academic industry of allegedly serious study of the much over-rated Green Book. Qaddafi has certainly promoted a personality cult using similar methods to ones adopted by Mao’s supporters around the time of the then recent Cultural Revolution. Nasser was also a writer and in fact was a considerably better philosophical writer (and a more practically programmatic one) than Qaddafi. Qaddafi’s main theme appears to be that the two current world currents of capitalism and Communism should be replaced by his own better ‘third way’.
Algeria
Algeria is a country that has been influenced (probably especially by a brutal process of colonisation by and separation from France) to resort to faith and Islam. It was certainly the most directly ruled colony of the French in the Maghreb, more than a million essentially non-indigenous colons were also settled there and the French language also generally dominated Arabic. Arabic is now gaining ground again following independence.
Geographically, Algeria is the largest of all the Arab countries and has land borders with seven other countries. The bloody war for independence lasted from 1954 to 1962. As with Morocco and Libya, Algeria now has significant dialogue and trade with especially southern European countries such as France, Italy and Spain. As with especially Morocco, Algeria has also proved to be a portal for migration from Southern Africa to Europe. Algerians themselves have tended to seek opportunities especially in the country of their former colonial masters, France.
Algeria’s long history has included hosting Ibn Khaldoun in a remote castle while he wrote his classic historical work known as the Muqaddima and providing him employment in its government as he travelled through the country. When the French first invaded, the rulers were a dynasty loyal to the Ottoman Empire. Algeria has never been a major intellectual centre of the Arab world, however. Nevertheless Arabic culture continued to exist along with a significant and mainly oral Berber culture and the dominating French influence.
The entire period of colonisation was characterised by a degree of resistance but the war for independence was especially bloody with the killing of more than a million people. Algerians became especially disillusioned with the French after having assisted them in two world wars (especially the first) when they appeared willing to offer independence to other countries much earlier (and without the necessity for nearly as much struggle) than they were prepared to offer to loyal Algerians.
The party of resistance was called the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) and upon De Gaulle’s admission of defeat in the Evian agreement of 1962 formed the first independent government. It had largely worked in exile in Tunisia and with the support of Nasser’s Egypt. A million odd colons virtually immediately evacuated when there was no prospect of further French support. Shortly afterwards (in 1965), the first Ben Bella government was overthrown by the former FLN Defence Minister, Houari Boumédienne, who proposed a more urbanised socialist agenda. His plans for rapid planned industrialisation were not successfully implemented. Nevertheless, Algeria began from 1973 to benefit from gas revenues (especially until around 1985 when production was curtailed sharply as reserves were reduced and oil prices also fell – in the meantime Boumédienne died in office in 1978). The lull in revenues exacerbated problems caused by rapid population growth as unemployment and overcrowding became problems in the cities.
The prestige of the FLN was thus becoming tarnished as it became fragmented by the relative material difficulties and social issues of the late 1980s. Some of the new opposition had a religious flavour. When a youth revolt occurred, the population supported it because of the poor conditions. The FIS came into being in this time as a four-way coalition of western educated Islamic radicals, recently victorious and returned veterans of the war against the USSR in Afghanistan, the naturally pious traditional urban classes and youth disillusioned with the FLN. The involvement of large numbers of male youths in particular is well documented but it is likely many females are also supportive of the FIS movement.
In October 1988, the new president, Chadli Bendjedid, promised more political openness and elections. Municipal elections in 1990 were a large success for the FIS which won most seats and failure for the party of President Bendjedid. He also failed in his attempt to benefit himself personally in the first stage of the 1991 presidential election by playing off his party against the FIS.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
