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| Critiquing Orientalist Perceptions |
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So what factors lie behind the current situation of the Middle East if the Orientalist view is unfounded? Drawing upon the recent history of the Middle East demonstrates further failings in the Orientialist reading of the Muslim world. Rather than Islamic culture featuring prominently in the political structures of the region and thus holding the Muslim world back, the reality is that for most of the last two centuries, Islam largely vacated the political space, to the extent that it came to be practiced almost exclusively in a social and spiritual capacity. The increasing political marginalisation of Islam can be traced back to the early 19th century, when officials in the Ottoman Caliphate found it difficult to apply Islam and to confront the numerous challenges they faced from an increasingly assertive and ambitious Europe, because of the absence of the juristic process of ijtihad. The loss of ijtihad as a tool for tackling new problems was the result of a broader intellectual, cultural and juristic decline that had been festering since the 13th Century CE. Following the closure of the 'doors of ijtihad', which meant restrictions were placed on the exercise of this intellectual discipline, a narrow approach developed in understanding Islam to problems in the society. The trend away from Islam became particularly pronounced by the mid-nineteenth century, when Ottoman reforms explicitly introduced European legal precepts in the form of a new penal code in 1857, new laws for trading rights in 1858 and the separation of courts ending the exclusivity of the Shariah courts. The eventual termination of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 marked the formal end of Islam in a ruling capacity, though Islam had no practical presence in political life for years before that.
The despots who followed - and who currently plague the Middle East - did not draw on an Islamic political or cultural heritage to rule but rather flagrantly contradicted it; the fact that they rule over Muslims and periodically use religious rhetoric does not change this. Blaming the current tyranny and backwardness on Islam ignores the vast changes of the past two centuries, which in fact created the political vacuum that the current authoritarian dictators, monarchs and presidents eventually filled, and who now represent the real impediment to progress. Importantly, as a factor in the ongoing failure to progress, the slow marginalisation of Islam also marked a move away from a complimentary set of political, social, and economic ideas capable of articulating a coherent direction - which had once formed the basis of a formidable civilisation - to the take-up of a mixture of different and even contradictory thoughts in the scramble for new solutions, ideologies and political values. This led to a confused picture on how to proceed and what it meant to progress. Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, and the like all represented experiments that ultimately ended in failure, their number and variety representing the confused political scene that arose in the wake of Islam's marginalisation. This failure to map a coherent direction thus acted as an impediment to progress.
Such internal factors as outlined above are a justifiable lens through which one can view the backwardness of the Middle East. However as Edward Said mentioned, nothing that goes on in our world has ever been isolated from outside influence and interference. Therefore we need to discuss issues of injustice and suffering within the context of this external influence. Middle Easterners are continuously told that victimology and dwelling upon the depredations of colonialism are ways of evading the responsibility that faces the region in the present. This carries some truth as one can become lost in the sea of history and self-pity. But this habit of blaming others for internal issues within the Middle East is presented by Orientalists to focus and restrict the problem on the culture exclusively, and therefore exclude other factors and reasoning. This is of course is also V.S Naipaul's contribution to literature, that the victims of empire wail while their country is ruined and ravaged.
This flimsy reasoning however ignores colonial intrusion and interference in the affairs of the Middle East. The region has been a constant target of intervention and interference by foreign powers throughout history due to its importance strategically and economically. The key problem in the region at the moment is entrenched political systems that are failing the people. These regimes have been installed and maintained by foreign powers. They have acted against their own populations, resulting in bloodbaths and massacres. Competing foreign powers have waged proxy wars at the expense of stability in the region, preventing the emergence of a clear and stable political path. The regimes today are not representative of an Islamic heritage or Islamic thinking in ruling, therefore to equate Islam with authoritarianism is incorrect and naïve. The line that started in 1798 with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, the colonial takeover of North Africa, and the Mandate era, continued during the twentieth century with struggle over resources and strategic control in the Gulf, in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The consequences of greed and meddling have been horrific, leaving their scars on the region to this day. The creation of the nation state system and colonisation of the region in the aftermath of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of nationalistic struggles for liberation. The rise of anti-colonialist nationalism resulted in the death of thousands such as what unfolded during the Egyptian uprising of 1919 and the Algerian war of 1954, which ended in 1962. Decolonisation was the not the end of instability, as after the short period of relative independence, the region witnessed political turmoil resulting in the era of military coups and counter coups, insurgency and civil war. Syria experienced 29 different governments between 1946 and 1970; a similar story of instability can be traced in Jordan and Iraq. The era of national liberation coincided with the advent of the Cold War, a period within which the West were content to support tyrannical regimes in order to safeguard national interests from the Soviet threat. Populations were subjugated under despots such as Saddam Hussein, Anwar Sadat, Hassan Bourgiba and King Hussein, who cared little for their populaces but were supported and backed by the West. After the end of the Cold War, there was little change in policy towards the autocratic regimes in the Middle East with support continuing for rulers such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia. Persistent interference in Middle Eastern affairs and explicit support to despotic regimes has led to theimprisonment of tens of thousands throughout the region, especially those who call for a return to an Islamic system.
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