America, the Middle East and the Colonial Heritage

Pondering on America’s possible role in the Middle East

In several editorials I have stressed the point that America does not truly face in Iraq a Sunni or Shia opposition, insurgence or revolution, but is about to be crushed on the rocks of French / British Colonialism. Instead of limiting myself to the superficial level of political and economic colonialism, I rather focus on subjects related to average educational and cultural systems as first conceived (or machinated) and ultimately implemented by the Colonial Powers, mainly France and England, in lands illegally confiscated from the Ottoman Empire, Safevid Iran, Mughal India and Imperial Morocco.

Among other issues, I also insisted on the very negative intentions of the Colonial Scheme, pointing out that the ultimate goal of the colonial powers was the permanent engulfment of the colonized countries into archaic structures, anachronistic environment, dysfunctional administration, cultural confusion, inexistent education, and socio-political dispersion. By now, we know very well that the unfortunate state-like diagrams from Mauritania to Pakistan, and from Afghanistan to Tanzania, failed to get rid of this befallen curse of Colonialism.

The long procedure of Colonialism has not yet been appropriately studied by America, let alone the rest of the world.

To be precise, the former Ottoman provinces that came under Colonial mandate at the aftermath of WW I, and became ‘independent’ states after the WW II do not truly know and/or understand what happened to them. But are they the only not to know?

Practical Aspects of the Colonial Scheme Certainly not, and this should not surprise anyone! It should rather be expected that the local peoples and intellectuals, ruling classes and businessmen, would not be able to understand or even evaluate this critical subject.

The Colonial scheme was based on the following practical axes:
a. the great old states (Ottoman Empire, Iran, Mughal India, and Morocco) should not be able to truly understand the scheme, and face it in the correct time.
Comment: However, it was already very late for them!

b. the local peoples that were to be detached (either in Syria, or in Mali and Bangladesh) should never advance at the level of education and culture up to the point of truly evaluating ‘what happened to them’.
Comment: In this the Great Colonial powers were very successful! They were receiving in Paris and in London belittled and besotted Indians, who were there to study Sanskrit, belittled and besotted Algerians, who were there to study Semitic Linguistics, and/or belittled and besotted Persians, who were there to study Old Persian in Cuneiform!

The number of the accepted students was limited, and corresponded to the Colonial powers’ interests in imposing local academic ‘elites’ in the colonized countries so that these ‘elites’ diffuse locally the falsehood they were learning in Paris and in London, that was presented as the ‘real’ academic truth, but truly speaking was the falsified Colonial version of History, a partly ‘truth’, which can be very well appreciated thanks to the French expression ‘bon pour l’ Orient!

What was never taught to these ultimately numerous generations of besotted pseudo-academics-to-be of the colonized peoples was precisely what was standing at the epicenter of French and British humanistic academia, namely what was the nectar and the ambrosia of Western European Humanities: the Interest for the Other, and the Universal Concept of History!

This was reserved for the French and the British Orientalists exclusively. It consisted in the real power one gets through learning meticulously the ‘other’, the universalism of Knowledge, the concept of Historicity itself, the concept of Continuity and Consequence within History, etc.

The absolute reality that Colonial Empires could not have existed without the armies of the Orientalists of all sorts, epigraphists, archeologists, ethnologists, specialists in Linguistics, Numismatics, History of Religion, Comparative Literature, Art History, Political, Social and Economic History, decipherers of forgotten scriptures, philologists, architects, has been kept as a secret.

And more the Colonial armies of specialists were advancing in their work of learning the ‘other’ and empowering their countries with the strength of the newly acquired knowledge, more the Colonial diplomats were pulling strengths in a way that Ottomans and Persians be further engulfed into
a) barbaric ignorance and lack of identity,
b) cultural somnolence,
c) hysteric hatred of the Lumieres emanating from the just rediscovered access to Ancient Civilizations, and
d) minimization of the Islamic Civilization into a caricature of few religious prescriptions able to guarantee the besotted ‘believers’ a Paradise in the ‘other world’!

To put it in a very simple way, Napoleon would never have gone to Egypt (1798) without his dozen of academia, who achieved a unique scholarly breakthrough by publishing the unprecedented ‘Description de l’ Egypte’.

Of course, the competition between France and England, and the inauguration of so many new fields of knowledge could not leave other Europeans indifferent! Austrians, Prussians, other Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swiss, Danish and other Scandinavians, as well as Russians followed the example in an epoch resplendent with Humanities and Seek for Universal Understanding!

Definitely French and English could not monopolize the newly acquired knowledge, but they also seemed to need the contribution of the other Europeans (and by the middle of the 19th century of the Americans as well) into these new scholarly disciplines.

They were successful in politically eliminating them from the colonized area, but European scholarly contributions like those of Lepsius, Golenischeff, Naville and others were most welcome for the French and the British.

But all this had to be limited among Europeans and North Americans, and not to be extended among Persians and Turks, who were still running empires (although they were at the brink of collapse), or to Moroccans, Ethiopians, ‘Lebanese’, ‘Iraqis’ (in quotation marks since the terms did not exist in the 19th century), Indians, Egyptians, Yemenites, and others.

This policy has been perpetuated during the 20th century, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and has lasted until now.

The result is that no one can learn Gueze (Ancient Abyssinian) in Morocco, Assyrian – Babylonian Cuneiform in Yemen, Egyptian Hieroglyphics in Malaysia, or Harosthi Indian writing in Egypt! The colonized countries had to be and were ultimately disconnected from the source of strength and knowledge, the exploration of the ‘other’.

This would guarantee permanent political dispersion and misunderstanding, if not enmity and war!

c. other potentially rival powers (Austria – Hungary, Germany, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain, Japan and the US) should be kept far from the Colonial Scheme through various ways.

1. Some of them were truly very small at the European level (Belgium, Holland). They could not endanger the scheme by controlling Indonesia, Congo and part of Guyana!

2. In other cases a Great European Power was subtly pulled in a way to focus on European affairs; the creation of numerous problems with its neighbors could therefore minimize that country’s overseas capacities. Austria – Hungary, having problems with the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Italy, Germany and last but not least Serbia, could not deploy significant forces overseas.

3. Other European countries of significant size were educationally and academically unable to catch up fast with Humanities (Russia, Spain) and were politically diverted from the epicenter areas of the Colonial Scheme, according to the interests of France and England. Russia detached parts of the Ottoman Empire (all the Caucasus area, the Northern Black Sea, the Azoff Sea) and of Iran (Central Asiatic territories) in a way to create difficulties to both Islamic countries to react to French and English policies in Egypt, Lebanon (French infiltration), India, Oman, Yemen, and the Red Sea Straits and the Horn of Africa area.

To this case one should also ascribe French – British attitude towards Japan. This country was used to keep Russia busy, to contribute in pressurizing China, and similar purposes up to the point the Japanese militarist adventures of the 20s and 30s started creating problems to France and England that culminated with WW II and Japan’s axis with Germany and Italy.

4. Other Great European countries with leading academia in Humanities and in Orientalism were politically dwarf and disunited until very late (Italy, Germany), I mean 1860 and 1870. When England was rather poised to be left far behind France (successes in the Suez Canal, French Polynesia and negotiations with Mexico for a huge empire), the Prussian victory helped in re-equilibrating the rapport de force between the two leading Colonial Powers!

Germany’s and Italy’s Humanities and Orientalism were bearing the stamp of French authority, approach and target, without any sign of criticism, of deep inquiry about French motifs, or of exploring alternatives that would suit better a German or an Italian Orientalism in the sense of a tool of Imperial (Colonial) foreign policy. Because no such criticism and sharp analysis took place, Germany lost Cameroon and Tanganyika, and Italy finally failed to create anything significant out of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia! Military defeat in 1918 ended the Colonial mini-dreams of Germany, whatsoever!

d. Towards the USA, France and England developed an intelligent policy, by shrewdly disorienting the US from the central Concept of the Colonialism. America was left to detach Spanish colonies (Panama, Philippines) but US presence in the rest of Asia and Africa was minimal.

The British needed American presence in Egypt to face the overwhelming French involvement, and in this regard England used Americans intelligently. Result of this American "colonial" presence is the American University in Cairo, the American School of Oriental Research, American Orientalism, Carter’s excavations of Tutankhamun’s tomb, etc.

But although America was pursuing de-colonization policies in the 30s, the 40s and the 50s, American Orientalists, scholars, academia and intellectuals failed to grasp the quintessence of the Colonization that was not just military occupation and economic exploitation, but a far larger concept and deeper scheme!

American academia was for many long decades repetitive of British, French and German universities, to the everlasting glory of the French and British Colonial Scheme!

That is why, after the supposed de-colonization of the late 40s, the 50s, the 60s and the early 70s, all previous colonies of France and England found themselves in another stage of colonization and under-development that lasted until now, and is supposed to perpetuate itself.

Truly speaking, not a single country escaped from this Colonial rule and scheme! The fact that we have now Japanese Egyptology means that even Japan did not escape from the Colonial scheme but very late and for very limited extent! There are no Japanese specialists on Sumerian, Haussa, Amharic, Anicent Yemenite, Byzantine Greek, Mithraism, Manichaeism, Talmud, Islamic Hadith, or Carthage!

The fact that there are by now Orientalist departments in Canadian and Australian universities, as well as Classical departments in South African universities means also nothing special in this regard, since these countries have been meant to be ‘England outside England’.

And what is the point that South Korean per capita GDP is by now higher than that of Spain? What do the South Koreans know of the world that could be compared to the knowledge and the specialization of Humanities in Dutch or Spanish universities?

With regard to Colonialism, it would be essential for the US and the present administration to deeply understand that all the other countries lost to France and England in different historical moments. And none of them attempted to oppose, much less bring down, the pillars of the Colonial Ideology!

This is the real essence of the solemnly and prudently celebrated Entente Cordiale!!!

And it is essential to realize that only in the 80s and in the 90s scholars in academically advanced countries, and mainly in America, started reaching the nucleus of the problem and advancing theories, interpretations, conceptual approaches and philosophical-historical systems that refute and reject the theoretical basis of the Colonialism.

One must not confuse between the political rejection of Colonialism that dates even back to the XIXth century, and the theoretical historical refutation of Colonialism that has not unleashed but its first masterpieces! The former being limited at a surface socio-political level is ‘acceptable’ and easily manipulated by French and British academia. The latter is the ‘revolution’ French and British are afraid of!

The Multi-Polar trickery of Mr. Chirac: the last Colonial invention of the French

It is essential to grasp right now that the famous, brilliant Multi-Polar World of Mr. Jacques Chirac implies above all that these illustrious ‘poles’, China, Brazil, Mexico, and India (that France tries to manipulate very subtly), do not bother to imitate French and British, German and American universities, do not extend Humanities much farther than their borders, with just some depts. of English, French, German, Russian and Spanish! Quite revelatory is the fact that these depts. do not go up to the point the French and the British universities do!

They remain at the simple language – literature level, nothing about Celtic archaeology in France, Roman archaeology in England, Scythian archaeology in Russia and in Germany, ethnology, etc! The Multi-Polar World of Mr. Jacques Chirac is above all a misled and disoriented world, so that France continues playing its dirty Colonial games.

And one must not be so gullible as to believe that any political refutation of Colonialism has truly brought about the final collapse of Colonialism. Quite contrarily, there have been numerous cases of political rejection of the Colonialism that even helped the Colonial powers!

Unknown and unevaluated Colonialism

Assuming that America has truly the intention to help spreading democracy allover the colonized and tyrannized Middle East, we still are not able to detect any indication in the American policies that would persuade an objective observer that the Congress, the State Department, the entire American establishment has truly a plan about bringing down the prevailing colonial structures. This is a condition sine qua non for the existence of democratic establishments.

In this regard, many would say that the US does not intend to bring about the end of the colonial structures in Iraq whatsoever, but just wants to use them to their profit. If this is the case, one must now draw the conclusion that America already failed. If the simple thought of just ‘replacing’ France, Germany and Russia in Iraq was the only thing in the mind of the present administration in this respect, I would rather advise them to just pack now, and go home!

What would be their mistake in this case? Simply, the fact that they had not studied the ‘logic’ of the existing colonial structures; and consequently, that they did not act accordingly.
Colonial imposition means mostly ‘remote control’. The logic of a ‘remote control’ in the exploitation of the natural resources, in the imposition of an appropriate educational and cultural system, and in the assertion of a harmless (to the main colonial countries’ interest) local political power was probably not well studied in Washington. The result is obvious…

Yet, we could perhaps seek a better possibility for both, the colonized countries, mainly Iraq and Afghanistan at the time being, and the US. One could even go up to the point of thinking that a new rising power like America could mark a success at the point where the fragmented little neo-colonial states (in this case Iraq and Afghanistan) failed!

In other words, if the US conceptualized a plausible end to the colonialism in Iraq, this would bring about a positive situation for both, the Iraqi people and the American administration.

But this has to do with the refutation of the theoretical pillars of Historical Colonialism. By opening the eyes of the colonized peoples, by making them be mostly interested in the ‘other’, by introducing a completely different Theoretical Assessment of the World History, a different ‘historical model’ as academia say, the US would revitalize these countries and peoples in a spectacular way.

And this would reduce France and Britain to just a ‘big Belgium’ and a ‘big Ireland’. One should therefore focus extensively on the falsified Colonial model of History, as well as analyze, reject and refute it from a much wider viewpoint than that of the excellent American Orientalist, Prof. Martin Bernal, the author of Black Athena.