In this study, I want to examine
colonial geographical imaginations and postcolonial geographies. I will also
explain the key features of colonialism in general and key features of
colonialism in Arab countries in particular. In addition, I will discuss the
legacies of colonial rule in Middle East, particularly Arab countries. After
that, I aim to discuss the meaning of Orientalism, and also explain the
colonial city after mapping empire. Finally, I want also to comment on its
consequences for any history of the subsequent conflict between Arabs and the
Western colonial like Britain and France, and how Arabs were portrayed by the British
and even France and how this affected the development of modern Arab political
identities. I will also discuss postcolonial studies of Homi Bhabha in 1994
about place of colonized people in these colonial discourses.
Anthony King in 1985 defined colonialism
as the imposition of political control over countries, in particular
undeveloped nations, through the exploitation of land, thereby gaining access
to economic, military, political and even cultural power. European countries
have colonised around 85% of the earth.
Rose in 2000 stated that there are
3 stages of European colonial expansion, which affected other countries from
the 16th century to early 20th century. The first stage
was in the 16th century, when European countries were searching for new
resources after crises in feudalism. For example, countries such as Spain and
Portugal were looking for gold and silver in South America and forced the
indigenous population to adopt the Roman Catholic faith (Carlos F. Cardoza-
Orlandi, 1961, Mission, p.17-8). The second stage, classed as “mercantile
imperialism” occurred in the 17th century and was characterised by
mainly European settlement in other countries and also transportation of 6
million slaves from Africa to the Caribbean, Brazil and Southern USA by
Europeans. The slave trade was abolished in 1807 in the United Kingdom and 1833
in the USA, but formally abolished in 1865. The third stage was in the 19th
and early 20th centuries and is called “the age of Empire”, to
describe how European countries control markets, transport and communication
like railways, telecommunications and education in other countries,
particularly Arab countries, via the capitalist system (Blunt and Rose, 2000:
172).
My purpose here is to highlight
that all economic, social and political power is control by the non-indigenous
minority who are racially, culturally and religiously different from the
indigenous majority because the minority run the military, technological and
economic resources (King 1985). For instance, non-Arab minority,
mainly Persian who invaded Ahwaz controlled over 95% of economical power and
nearly 100% of political power in Ahwaz. However, due to decrease of
political and economical of European empires during WW2, the rise of
nationalism, and independence movements, Europe was forced to leave countries
it had colonised (Blunt and Wills 2000, 175). For instance, the French minority
in Algeria used to hold all the levers of economic and political power before
Algerian independence. However, with the Algerian independence movement,
Algerians began to resist the French presence, fighting to wrest back control
over their national culture, even though Algerians had far less power than the
French (The Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter22, p.120). Finally, the
Algerian people destroyed French plans to erode Algeria’s Arab culture, leaving
the Algerian people to negotiate and translate their own culture identities (The
Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter33, p.157).
Although
European empires eventually departed Arab countries, in many cases they left
behind an indelible mark on the political, administrative, legal, and
educational systems of the countries they had colonised. The roots of some
conflicts in the Middle East, such as the Israeli-Arab war over Palestine, the Iran-Iraq war over Al-Ahwaz
and Invading Ahwaz by Iran can be traced back to colonialism.
In fact,
there are three major indications of the process of
cultural invasion of countries by Western colonial powers: namely trade,
administration and education. This was imposed on the cultures of colonised
peoples even more dominated by the colonial countries (Alan J. Bishop, The
Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter13, p.80).
Edward Said in 1978 demonstrated
that there is strong link between cultural production and colonialism (Edward
Said, Orientalism 1978). For example, Western cinema spread around whole the
world, reflecting its political dominance.
Homi Bhabha stated that culture can
be both transnational and translational. It is transnational because it is
rooted in culture displacement, where many people from the Third World migrated
to the West after the WW2. Culture also can be translational because new
technology like global media has impact on culture (Homi K. bhabha, the
location of culture, p.172).
I want to expand on the theme by
saying that Orientalism as a style of thinking is based on the existence of
knowledge and differences between the East and West (Edward Said, The
Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter3, p.25). Said believed that Orientalism
is European-Atlantic power over the Orient (Edward Said 1978, Orientalism, p.
6).
According to Jane Wills in 2000,
‘Orientalism’ continues to inspire us today. In the travel industry, European
people often travel to those countries that were colonised by their
forefathers. Wills suggests that international sex tourism reflects
stereotypical representations of ‘Oriental’ women being more sexual and
‘available’ than Western women (Wills, 2000:170).
Said (1978) pointed out several
factors that have played a critical role in forming a negative impression of
Arabs and Islam in the Western political sphere, including the history of
anti-Arab and anti-Islam in the West, which itself draws on the discourse of
Orientalism; and the struggle between the Arabs and Israeli peoples, and also
Arabs and Persian invaders.
Furthermore, because of oil industry in Arab countries, political situation,
totalitarian of most regimes, freedom-loving by people make West to use
different political ideas against Arabs. Television, films and western media's
have also contributed to the picture of the Arab as violent, lusty, irrational
and primitive. However, on the other hand, Western media gave innocent pictures
for Persian who had great history after creating fake history for them and
helped them to occupy Al-Ahwaz
Arab land (Edward Said, Orientalism, p. 27).
On June 13, 1910, Arthur James
Balfour gave his lecture in the House of Commons on the conditions of Egypt. Egypt
was particularly important to Britain because of the Suez Canal, which was
created by Britain and provided a link of great strategic significance between
India and Egypt. Therefore, controlling Egypt was vital for Britain because it
made the transport of goods from India easier and faster (Edward said, 1978,
Orientalism, p.20, 91). Cromer believed knowledge of Orientals could give more
power to the coloniser in the colonised territory (Edward Said, 1978,
Orientalism, p. 36).
Furthermore, the negative image of
Arabs in colonial ideology is evidenced by Cromer’s statements. Cromer said
Westerners were more intelligent than Arabs who he described as gullible,
‘’devoid of energy and initiative,’’ obsessed with excessive praise and
flattery, conspiracy and deceit. Cromer also added that lying is rooted in the
Arab people. (Edward said, 1978, Orientalism, p. 38-9).
According to the Balfour agreement
in 1919, Britain was to help Jewish immigrants create an independent homeland
in the Middle East. Having promised the Arabs to support their independence following
the end of the Ottoman era in the early 1900s, the West instead begun to carve
up the land into new Arab countries according to its own geopolitical
interests. The most controversial of its decisions was to establish a state for
Jews on the land that was home to some 700,000 indigenous Arabs. (Edward Said,
Zionism from the standpoint of its victims; Anne McClintock, Amir Mufti and
Ella Shohat: Dangerous Liaisons, p.17). It is also can add that Britain helped
Persian to create bigger land after invading AL-Ahwaz and other non-Persian lands, gave Persian
new history which all created after 1935 like Takht Jamishid (Persepolis) and
in 1971 built Pasargadae, and began to speech in their media about those fake
history which created by them, however, on the other hand, they ignored the
history in AL-Ahwaz caused will show their hypocrisy against non-Persian lands
in Iran.
Furthermore, in 1914, Britain and
France had planned to make meeting between both countries about making new
ideas to separate Arab countries from each other and make them small nations
that have since been periodically riven by political conflict amongst each
other. Therefore, according to their agreement which called ‘’Sykes-Picot’’,
Arab land became several countries (Edward said, 1978, Orientalism, 220-1). As
Mark Sykes the British representative for Sykes-Picot agreement said “it is
clear that Arab will make revolution against us, so it is better to return good
relations with France till the revolution will be positive not negative against
Britain’’ (Edward said, 1978, Orientalism, 221). For instance, helped Persian to occupied Ahwaz,
and separated Sudan from Egypt and Western Arab countries from each other and
so on.
Even now that the colonial era has
passed, the West still wields great influence in the Middle. In fact, Arab
countries through Western Education system, new modern technology, medication
and so on can have better connection with the world because Arabs are using
Western Education system, for instance the education system in Algeria is
French so Algerian can have better connection with people from Mali is because
Mali also has French system. Europe sees itself as responsible for the Arabs
for political, historical and cultural reasons like French language in western
Arab countries or British education in the Arabian Gulf countries. The West has
began to create history for Arabs or remind Arab to their history through Media
to make Arab often conflict each other due to historical reasons which created
by the West (Edward said, 1978, Orientalism, p.63).
I would like to add that
neo-colonialism differs from traditional colonialism. Traditional colonialism
refers to the direct imposition of control over one country or area by another
nation or more. The legacy of colonialism thus differed from one country to the
next, depending on the unique configuration of coloniser and colonised.
Neo-colonialism on the other hand does not involve direct control or
nation-building, but rather the imposition of policies that have often grown
out of colonial ideology and effectively perpetuate the colonialism of the
past. For instance, the USA is neo-colonised country which still using
traditional colonisers ideology (Ashby 1967; Kazamia and Epstein 1968; The
Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter87, Philip G. Altbach, Education and
Neo-colonialism: 197).
Neo-colonialism can have both
negative and positive effects. For example, education, sending foreign
textbooks to Arab nations’ schools, and the use of foreign technical and
technology are arguably positive aspects of neo-colonialism (Ashby 1967;
Kazamia and Epstein 1968; The Post-Colonial Studies Reader; chapter87, Philip
G. Altbach, Education and Neo-colonialism: 1971, p.381). However, the negative
effect can be the policies of Western media and even ideology of ordinary
people in the West towards Arab, which have colonial root. Many people in the
West think of Arabs as people who ride camels, belong to terrorist
organizations, commit adultery, and do not deserve the vast riches that oil has
conferred on some of them. (Edward Said, 1978, Orientalism, p. 109).
Friedman in 1966 stated that
colonial cities are no different to their Western counterparts. Colonial cities
pass through different stages of development from traditional non-industrial
city to their modern industrialized form. However, Simon 1992 noted that cities
in developing countries are very different from the West, for instance, cities
in developing countries have higher birth rates than in developed nations. And
also basing theories on Western experiences ignores the specificity of
processes in the developing world.
To conclude, I want to suggest that
colonialism is a cultural and economic project of control. I also want to
suggest that in colonized countries, indigenous people became a minority and
the majority of power is out of their hands. Since 16th century, European
policy has changed from enslaving people to controlling their economy and
politics, particularly in Arab countries. I also suggest that the political
behaviour of Europe has always put its own interests above those of Arab
countries.
I would like to add that some
cities in the Middle East like Dubai
were built like Western cities due to colonised root in Arab countries, but cities in AL-Ahwaz could
not improve because of occupation which has oriental root.
I also want to add that building colonised
city in Western policy has some disadvantages for indigenous people such as
affecting their culture, and limiting their power, but there can be advantages
like industrialisation. For instance, native people in city like Dubai became
minority.
I also conclude that the Third
World, like some parts of the Middle East, has been exploited by the West, and
the Arab world as we know it was a figment of the West as laid down in the
Sykes-Picot agreement.
