With Syria continuing to gain global attention, what follows in an extract from the forthcoming book by Khilafah.com editor Adnan Khan. It looks at the historical context of the Middle East, shedding light on events currently taking place in the region.
100 Years after Sykes-Picot
100 years ago in 1915 there was no place called Jordan, Iraq didn’t exist and Syria as we know today had not been invented yet. Anyone asking for directions to Saudi Arabia would have been met with some confusion as there was no place on the planet with such a name because the tribe with the name had not risen to power yet. 100 years ago, there was no nation called Lebanon, there was just a mountain range with such a name. There were no Jordanians, Iraqis or Lebanese, these nationalities simply did not exist.
The major powers of the day – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary were slugging it out in WW1 from July 1914. After the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that would change little until 1918 when the war ended. But it was events in the East, i.e. Russia that would change the Middle East forever. A show of national unity had accompanied Russia’s entrance into WW1, with defence of the Slavic Serbs, the main battle cry. Tsar Nicholas II presided over a backward nation by pretty much every standard at the time, but saw the emergence of a powerful Germany as a strategic threat. But military reversals and the Tsar’s incompetence soon soured much of the population’s view towards him. Inept Russian preparations for war and ineffective economic policies hurt the country financially, logistically and militarily. By February 1917, public support for the Tsarist regime had virtually evaporated and with troops refusing to fire on rioting crowds in St. Petersburg, Emperor Nicholas II was overthrown, the Russian government collapsed and three centuries of Tsarist rule came to a bloody end.
By November 1917 the Bolshevik Revolution was in full swing in Russia and the ransacking of the foreign ministry brought to light an agreement by two civil servants from the British Empire and France, Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot. On behalf of their governments they had secretly agreed in clandestine meetings from November 1915 – May 1916 to carve up the Muslim world for themselves, despite it being under Ottoman leadership. In the middle of WW1, France and Britain were bargaining which pieces of the Middle East that they would take as spoils of war. The pre-communist government had a copy of the agreement as it was promised the Caucuses including Turkish Armenia and northern Kurdistan, in another secret deal conducted with Britain.
Britain made numerous deals with various individuals, groups and tribes to revolt against the Ottomans in return for their own nation, power and leadership in a new future Middle East. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was the only agreement that Britain stuck to, despite promises made to numerous individuals. By drawing artificial lines in the desert sand, they created nations and borders that we refer to as the “Middle East” today. These borders and nations have managed to survive a century intact, not because of nationalism, patriotism or loyalty but due to significant engineering, intervention, interference and handouts. With the demise of both Britain and France as global powers after WW2, questions have continued on the sustainability of the Sykes-Picot borders in the Middle East. But in 2015, on the 100 year anniversary of the Anglo-French creation, the question is not on the legacy, but how this artificial construct has survived for so long.
Despite 100 years of volatility and instability, the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010 in a market in Tunisia spread to thousands on the streets in Cairo and evolved to hundreds of thousands demanding political change for the entire region. His desperate act created a sweeping wave, which crossed the artificial borders to Egypt, then to Libya, Yemen and Bahrain until it engulfed most of the Middle East. Despite 100 years of being told how to live, govern and organise the people of the Middle East, the people erupted to take their destiny into their own hands. Contradicting every theory and opinion the world had of the region they even voted in Islamic parties. This was a critical moment in the regions 100 year history as it showed the people in the region rejecting socialism, nationalism, Arabism and all the other value systems that had previously been imposed upon them. Whilst these so called Islamic governments turned out to be even more secular than their predecessors the region remains in flux, 100 years on from Sykes-Picot.
The Middle East, today, stands at an epoch. The artificial architecture created by the British and French is tearing apart at the seams and no amount of stitching can keep it together. The Muslim rulers, who have long played the role of maintaining the artificial architecture in the Middle East, have lost their most potent weapon – fear, this was their only method of maintaining Sykes-Picot as well as themselves in power. Looking forward there are huge unprecedented demographic, economic, political, social, technological and geopolitical trends taking shape that will subsume everything standing in its way and sweep away those who try to maintain the status quo.
Today’s rulers in the Middle East are the descendants of the Sykes-Picot creation 100 years ago and are not in power due to their track record or merit. They are all more interested in maintaining the status quo and securing their own power, rather than taking care of their people’s affairs. Egypt, which is at the centre of the Middle East and one of the significant powers in the region, has a population of 90 million. A quarter of a century ago in 1980 the country’s population was half of this at 45 million. The country’s population is forecasted to exceed 121 million by 2050. All of this has been possible because between 2006 and 2012 there was a 40% increase in the number of births, this also means over a million people enter the country’s workforce every year for jobs that do not exist. Successive governments in Egypt have failed to develop any policies for this time bomb. This is a common pattern across the region.
Today, 100 years after drawing the borders of Syria, the world is converging on this artificial nation at the heart of the Middle East. The people of Syria rose up in 2011 to bring real change to the country and after almost 5 years of facing-off against the regime they have remain committed to bringing real change. This has worried the regional nations and the international powers who view this as a threat to the architecture they created to maintain the status quo. Syrian regime officials, US officials and Russian officials constantly reiterate the need to intervene in Syria due to the implications of a successful revolution. Walid Al-Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, in a press conference, in June 2013 confirmed what was at stake in the country and the region, he said: “We know that those who plan evil for Syria and those who demand the establishment of the Islamic Khilafah state will not stop at the borders of Syria. So what we are currently doing is even defending Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.”
Adnan Khan
100 Years of the Middle East – To be published July/August 2016
2015 will marks 100 years since the Middle East was carved up by the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Today the Middle East is in disarray; chaos, anarchy and instability characterise the region. This has been the story of the Middle East for the last 100 years, a period in which many of the nations in the region were conceived and eventually created out of thin air. On the centennial anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement many misconceptions, stereotypes and outright lies still exist regarding the Middle East, so much so that I felt compelled to dispel and clarify the air of misconception that clouds this complex region.
The book looks to provide answers to a number of questions. How did the Muslims, led by the Ottomans, go from a global power to the sick man of Europe? Was the Sykes-Picot Agreement a folly by the French and British empires and poor strategic planning or part of a carefully constructed plan to divide the Muslim world in order to control it? Does the Arab Spring confirm the end of Sykes-Picot and a new dawn for the people of the region? What are the most important emerging trends going forward? What do these mean for the region and beyond? What myths exist of the region, which are simply untrue and upon closer scrutiny do not stack up to the facts?