| Mutual Views The Middle East and Europe are neighbors, oftentimes competitors and constant enemies. The previous chapters analyzed the circumstances that created the climatic environment of the two neighbors, the early civilizations shaping them and the behavioral patterns which characterize them today. This chapter intends to show, how the two neighbors saw each other during their long history. The two neighbors saw each other in a different way. On the side of Europe there was a fear of being swamped by the endless manpower of the Middle East, which nearly happened four times in historical times, in addition to smaller wars. On the side of the Middle East there are two periods of hurt national feelings, when large areas of the Middle East were under Western occupations. The first such period was a nearly millenium-long Western occupation of the Middle East, from the time of Alexander the Great until the Islamic takeover, and the second period is the more recent, from the early 17th Century to our very days, which saw a short period of European occupation, and a longer period of intense national humiliation. The conflict was always an important subject of discussion and comment on both sides of the divide. There are innumerable sources but in this chapter it is proposed to summarize these views by chronological periods. The first period is that of early times, from the beginning of the historical conflict, the Persian and Punic Wars until the zenith of the Turkish advance into Europe. The second period starts from the beginning of the Turkish withdrawal from Central Europe, the beginning of the 18th Century until today, which is a period of decline of the Middle East in its conflict with Europe. Early Times The Middle East and Europe had nearly similar views of each other. The Middle East looked upon the West, i.e. on Europe, as an entity to be feared always, to be despised when fighting it and to be hated when being subjected to it. In extreme cases, it was better to commit suicide than to survive as slaves to such a despised enemy. The habit of committing suicide to avoid slavery was replaced by the Islamic command of 'muhajir', meaning an order to the faithful to leave their country and move to Islam-controlled territory. The hatred of both sides against each other was so great that that there could have been very few objective observations unclouded by hatred. Europe's feelings toward the Middle East were near mirror images of those of the Middle East about Europe The Europeans saw a huge and menacing monolith, ready to swamp them, driven by fanatic ideologies. Europe saw the same self-sacrifice that drove the Easterners to suicide, as utter fanaticism. In addition, there was a healthy fear of the East. Even the Roman Empire was painfully aware that the Jews and the Persians, who were the vanguard of the Middle East against Rome, cut many Roman armies to pieces. At least two Roman imperators were captured, killed and put on display. Crassus in the 1st Century B.C. and Valerian in the 3rd Century AD finished their earthly days on the walls of a temple in Ekhbatana. The Romans had confidence in their legions, at least until they met the Goths, but they were aware that they were up against practically unlimited manpower, and sometimes the best tactical discipline was insufficient. As Europe was seen from the Middle East, it was first of all a threatening, cruel and immoral power. It was seen so in classical times and it remained so in comparatively modern times too.1 The people from the Middle East had somehow a different attitude to their enemies from the West as compared to the ones from the East. They saw in Byzantium enemies, but enemies that one could honor. Not so for Western Christianity. They saw the decline of the Western Empire, the barbarisation of the western provinces and felt nothing but contempt.2 Byzantine pomp and splendor was nearer Middle Eastern standards, than the primitive courts of the barbarian chieftains. The peoples of the Middle East were constantly threatened by Europe, and despised Europeans as irreligious and immoral. What happened when Macedonia, Rome and Byzantium occupied them? For those in the Middle East it was one rule, that of the West. As that rule continued for nearly one millenium, it is interesting to see how the peoples of the region saw that rule, and why there is no sign to show there for one entire millenium of exposure to Greek language and culture, apart from a few ruins and a few distorted place names. Bernard Lewis quotes an ancient Jewish text from the 2nd Century A.D. 3The text is a conversation between three rabbis: "Rabbi Judah began by saying: 'How fine are the works of these people [The Romans]. They have built markets, they have built bridges, they have built bathhouses.' Rabbi Jose was silent and Rabbi Simon Bar-Yohai answered: 'All that they built, they built only for their needs. They built markets to set whores in them; bathhouses to beautify themselves; bridges, to collect tolls.' Judah, the son of proselytes, went in and reported their words to the authorities, and they said: 'Let Judah, who exalted us, be exalted. Let Jose, who was silent, be exiled to Sepphoris, and let Simeon, who denounced us, be executed." Probably, this quotation reflects the attitude of the Middle East toward the Western authorities. They were foreign and hated. That is the reason why Greek culture in the Middle East and Roman culture in Africa dissolved into thin air, as if they had never been there. When one peruses Eastern literature, there are very few comments or opinions which are not outright hostile or derogatory in nature. One notable exception was Ibn Khaldun, who was an exceptional historian by any standard and kept his professional sense of proportion. In Chapter 35 of his Muqaddimah4 he wrote that rulers in the Maghrib (Morocco) used to employ Christian mercenaries in their armies, because of the simple reason that they were the only soldiers who were trained to fight in formation and not run away, as those did who were fighting without formation. Ibn Khaldun wrote his book in the 14th Century AD, that two millennia after the Greeks defeated the Persians they are still using the same formation tactics. It raises a simple question, why people from the Middle East could not adopt a simple military tactic. The rulers of the Middle East hired not only mercenaries expert in close drill, they hired all kinds of professionals. Indeed, one of the major signs of the later period of the conflict was that Turkish and other Eastern rulers were always willing to receive renegade Europeans, who brought administrative and technical skills.5 There was no similar movement in the other direction, either because those in the East were more loyal to their civilization, or they had less saleable skills. Europe saw in the Middle East an enemy which was utterly fanatical, had a religion of the sword and so felt itself to be always on the edge of being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It was so after the advent of Islam, but it was evident even before it. It is interesting to note that Gibbon, and other historians too, saw in the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD when Charles Martel defeated the army of Abd-al-Rahman which penetrated into France, a rescue of Western civilization. Gibbon wrote of the victory: "the Rhine is not more passable than the Nile or the Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet. From such calamities was Christendom delivered by a genius and fortune of one man".6 It is interesting to note that Muslim historians deny that the Muslims ever had designs on Europe. According to them, Europe was a dreadful place, with a bad climate and primitive, backward inhabitants, who were on a level with the black barbarians of Africa. The Muslim historians were probably accurate here. The Arab conquest of Spain was always limited to the line of the Carthaginian advance, and for the same reason. Muslims, as the Carthaginians before them, were limited in their advance in Spain by the northern border of the olive tree. North of that line, the source of fat for human consumption was pigs, which was forbidden to Muslims, and Carthaginians before them. So, north of the line of the olive, the Muslims could make raids but no permanent settlements. It is possible that the Arabs had really no designs on Europe but still, Europe had a long period of humiliation and impotence during the Dark Ages from the first appearance of the Muslims in Europe until the beginning of the reconquest of Spain. The Arabs might not have wanted to conquer Europe, but they were raiding Provence, Liguria and Italy. Europe's fears were justified. After Muhammed's death, the power of Islam grew enormously. Within two or three centuries after Muhammed, Islam ruled from Spain as far east as India, Indonesia and China. In comparison, Europe was puny and defenseless against the colossus with unlimited manpower, wealth and enthusiasm. Erchembert, a cleric in the monastery of Monte Cassino, wrote in the 11th Century about the Muslim war bands roaming the region: "(they had) all the appearance of a swarm of bees, but with a heavy hand...they devastate everything".7 It continued so until the end of the 17th Century AD, when the terror of the East was finally broken. It did not start with Islam and the Arabs. The fear was already there when Croesus, King of Lydia, attacked the Greek cities of Asia Minor. It was a clear opening to an East-West confrontation.8 The Persians, the Carthaginians, the Etrurians and the Jews continued the battle. When the Ottoman Turks appeared on the European scene in the 14th Century AD , the Europeans saw in them not a new Asian tribe coming to loot and destroy, like the Mongols before them, but as a new addition to the seemingly inexhaustible manpower of the Asian steppes coming in turn to devour Europe. It was for the Europeans not a new war but a continuation of the war, which started with Croesus and Cyrus, or even earlier, with the siege of Troy.9 There were times when the Europeans really saw themselves on the edge of total disaster. Their real problem was that their resources were utterly unequal to the task, even when they had the silver of the New World. In 1571, there was a great European naval victory at Lepanto, at the entrance to the Adriatic. It was celebrated all over Christendom as a great victory, and it was indeed. Still, when the Sultan Selim asked his Vizier, Sokollu Mehmet Pasha about the cost of a new fleet, he was answered: " The might of our Empire is such that if it were desired to equip the entire fleet with silver anchors, silken rigging and satin sails, we could do it."10 It is no wonder that there were people, like Busbecq, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent, who had misgivings about Europe's chances of survival, and noted: "Persia alone interposes in our favour, for the enemy, as he hastens to attack, must keep an eye on this menace from the rear. Persia is only delaying our fate, it cannot save us. When the Turks have settled with Persia, they will fly at our throat, supported by the might of the whole East; how unprepared we are I dare not say."11 Luckily, Busbecq was wrong. It is true that Turkey had practically unlimited resources compared with Europe. The Turks even learned, in the meantime, to march in step. Still they lost the war at the universities of Europe because until the end of the 17th Century Europe succeeded in holding its own, and from then on, science and technology decided the outcome. There was an aspect of powerlessness in the attitude of the Europeans to the attack from the East because of another element. They saw in the Eastern attack not a regular, secular war of conquest to which they were accustomed. The Europeans overcame the raids of the Magyars in the 10th Century AD, just as eventually they succeeded in taming the Vikings. The eastern enemy was of a new type and war was a Holy War, a jihad and not a war of booty and conquest. The Arabs, and later the Turks, were not ordinary enemies but a scourge of the Lord, sent to punish the Christians, just as he once punished the Jews, when they forsook the faith.12 The Europeans saw in those from the Middle East a fanatical horde, without any possibility of accommodation or compromise. It seemed to Europe that any conflict with the East was always a fight to the death. The Romans succeeded in defeating Hannibal in the second Punic War. Hannibal fled to the East to find refuge there. However, eventually he committed suicide to prevent the Romans laying hands on him.13 When the Romans conquered Carthage at the end of the third Punic War, the last defenders of the inner citadel of Carthage withdrew to the temple of Esmun and died in its flames.14 When Pompey's troops entered the Temple in Jerusalem following his war against the pirates, his officers saw the priests in the Temple continuing their accustomed tasks, regardless of the battle around them. They were cut down without raising a hand in their own defense, serving the Temple to the end. The other defenders of the Temple, 12,000 in number, committed suicide in order not to fall into Roman hands. The same happened in 70 AD when Titus besieged Jerusalem. There too, the defenders of the Temple eventually committed suicide, and so did the defenders of Masada. It was a new type of war; the Romans were to have the opportunity to come across it on many future occasions15 and so had their successors, Byzantium, the Crusaders, and other Europeans in more modern times. Later Times Since the beginning of the Turkish withdrawal from Europe, the continuous defeats inflicted on it caused devastating psychological effects. Although the defeats were of Turkey, not directly of the Middle East, Turkey was by then the only remaining champion of Islam's hope. The period of the last two to three hundred years was much more traumatic than the period of the occupation after Alexander the Great. Although the occupation following Alexander the Great's conquest lasted nearly a millenium, it was a period of constant revolt and war. The occupied Middle East had its irridentist power in Parthian and Sassanid Persia; the period of Western occupation was a long series of wars and revolts, with Persia being always in the background. Seen from the West, it was a bottomless pit. Time and time again armies had to be equipped and sent out to the East, not always with successful results. The Persians overran Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria Minor and Judea more than once, with the active help of the locals. The West usually had to defend its possessions. It was only once that it succeeded in extending the Empire east and that was under Trajan. Even then it came up against the usual Eastern syndrome of fighting to the death, This was at Nisibis, which was defended by the local Jews. It cost Trajan one legion, which he could ill afford. With the defeat of Turkey in Europe, the rout was complete. For the first time the confidence of the Middle East in the worth of its moral superiority over the decadent West was shaken. It had to cope with a number of problems simultaneously. It had to confront modernity, which invaded the Middle East through newspapers, magazines, personal contacts and the electronic media. Modernity brought Western ideas with it. It was a difficult challenge. The days when people could be executed for wearing western clothes had passed.16 When the Middle East had to confront modernity and Western civilization, it found that there is a basic incompatibility in all fields, political, economic and cultural. When the Middle East lay open to cultural intrusion, it was difficult to avoid pertinent questions, and the questions which were put by one V. S. Naipaul's characters state some sorry facts: "All that I know of our history and the history of the Indian Ocean, I have got from books written by Europeans. If I say that our Arabs in their time were great adventurers and writers; that our sailors gave the Mediterranean the lateen sail that made the discovery of the Americas possible...if I say these things it is because I have got them from European books. They formed no part of our knowledge or pride. Without Europeans, I feel all our past would have been washed away..."17 It is a heavy accusation made by someone, who should be sympathetic to the problems of the East. It was a basic incompatibility and it showed itself in many ways. Samuel P. Huntington commented on the unsuccessful efforts by Turkey to be accepted by the Europen Union. Many excuses were given for the refusal but the main reason seems to be that the European Union is a Christian Club, and "Turkey is too poor, too populous, too Muslim, too harsh, too everything." One observer commented: "The private nightmare of Europeans is the historical memory of Saracen raiders in Western Europe and the Turks at the gates of Vienna."18 It is not altogether certain that European officials who have to evaluate Turkey's application are really worried about historical nightmares. The possibility of another 2 - 3 million Turkish immigrants in Germany is frightening enough. One of the principles of the European Union is free movement of people and goods between members of the Union. If Turkey is accepted as a member of the Union, nothing could hinder free emigration from there to Western Europe. The Middle East found itself being marginalized by history. The peoples of the Middle East have their own traditional culture and have to cope with the modern culture of the West. They are not alone in this quandary. The same problem exists in India, Japan and the Far East. However, nowhere is the conflict so acute as in the Middle East. The internal conflict within the psyches of educated people is especially dominant. Great many violent clashes involve educated people, mainly those educated in the West. In the 1919 riots in Egypt, a crowd was waiting at a railroad station to kill some British soldiers. The leader of the crowd had just arrived home from Wye Agricultural College in the south of England, where a month previously he had been awarded the prize for the most promising student of the year.19 Indeed, the events of the last two hundred years brought the conflict directly to the Middle East. So far as the Eastern debacle was confined to the Balkans, it had less effect. Beginning with the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, the occupation of Algeria by the French, Egypt by the British and Libya by the Italians, the doors of the region were forced open, and both politicians and intellectuals had to come to some conclusion. The result of the soul searching was that the intellectuals joined the common people's distrust and hatred of anything that is not Eastern. The feelings of fear and hatred felt for the West is so intense that it is difficult for the people of the West to understand and accept. Thus Raphael Patai: "Wilford Cantrell Smith wrote in the mid-1950's: Most Westerners have simply no inkling of how deep is the hate especially of the West, that has gripped the modernizing Arab."20 It might be that Westerners have no inkling, but they ought to have. From time immemorial, the East was educated that there is a spiritual East and a materialistic West. Europe leads in science and technology, but because of its moral degeneration, it can result only in suicide. European civilization is corrupt to its roots and no wholesome fruit can grow out of it.21 According to this principle, even technology must have moral contents, and without morality even technology is tainted. The Middle East feels itself vulnerable and has a healthy dose of an inferiority complex. In view of the honor-shame syndrome still existing in the region, it is a question of time before the hurt feelings will erupt into violent actions.22 The real situation in the Middle East is known to all, including the intellectuals of the region, who should lead the movement for reform but do not. The figures in Appendix I are available to everyone, they are no secret. Rational thinking would obviously lead to such questions as: What went wrong? How can we put it right? And they might cause doubts as to the validity of principles on which their civilization was built. People, whose very intellectual existence is built upon principles that there is a Holy Law, and its fulfillment provides everything, cannot ask questions like those without doubting the basic precepts. Therefore, the main question, however obvious to those in the West, is never asked, namely: - If we live according to the Holy Law and maintain our loyalty to our civilization, why are we punished, and why are the godless Europeans rewarded?23 It must be added here, that the question above, and the avoidance in asking it is not religious, it is civilizational. The avoidance is common to Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Posing it would be logical and rational, answering honestly might lead to a change, but it is not done and cannot be done. No civilization can raise doubts about its governing principles when they go back thousands of years without being torn apart in the process. One can blame the honor-shame system or so-called 'fundamentalism' but they are only outward manifestations of basic principles, which are still those installed by the original 'hydraulic civilizations'. So that question is never asked. Instead of it, there is a different one: "Who did this to us?". Of course, this question only adds fuel to the flames, so paradoxically the decline of the Middle East by contrast with Western Civilization only increases the distrust and hatred. However, judging from basic civilizational parameters, the increase of alienation is the only logical possibility. On the Western side of the divide there are basic changes in the views held of their opponents. Instead of fearing an enemy who sends raiders into Western Europe, Algerian pirate ships to kidnap coastal villagers from England, Ireland and Iceland 24 and attacks Vienna twice within two centuries, the East turned into something not less sinister than before, but on a different level and with changed methods. It is true that the image of the menacing Turk was superseded by a new image - weak, decadent and an invitation to foreign domination, 25 Lord Exmouth's expedition in 1816 against the pirate base in Algiers, with an English-Dutch fleet, punished the pirates, freed the Christian slaves, and put a stop to their excursions until the French finished the job in 1830.26 The threat from the East and the reaction of the West to it has changed. There are no more threats of slavers, Saracen raiders and attacks by Janissaries. Now there are threats of hijackings, blowing up of planes, and subtle hints of eventual use of unconventional weapons. Indeed, as seen from the West, nothing has changed except the possible methods of application of force. One searches in vain for changes in the Middle East. There is certainly no coming to terms with modernity, but the precise opposite. Moreover, the refusal comes not from the so-called fundamentalists, but from those who were considered advanced, liberal and democratic. So far as the view of the East as seen from the West is concerned, the hatred and the threat are there, without change and relent; waiting only for suitable opportunities for revenge.27 There is also the question of immigration to the West. There is no doubt that the immigration of Muslims to Europe is individual, independent and has mostly economic causes. It was pointed out before that it is a sorry state of affairs when people from Islamic countries can have no better prospects than to live in some cubbyhole in gray and soulless suburbs around great Western cities. However, once they are there, and are not assimilated into the host countries, they become tools in the ongoing war. It does not mean that there is some general staff which uses the immigrants as weapons, it only means that as unassimilated immigrants are on the lowest rung of the social ladder, there are constant incidents which can be used by whoever wishes to use them. The head scarves of Muslim girls in French schools, the question of citizenship of second-generation Turks in Germany, the massive illegal immigration into Italy, and much else, are a continuation of the fight using different methods. According to an article by Abdul Hakim Murad28 Islam is already the second largest religion in Western Europe and in 1996 7% of all babies born in Western Europe were Muslims. The existence of such articles prove that there are watchful eyes, and that quantity is eventually going to be a factor in inter-civilizational politics. What is the reaction of the West to this situation? There are a number of approaches. There are, of course, the perennial do-gooders, the turners-of-the-other-cheek and the rope merchants, according to the well-known Leninist dictum, who are always ready to understand, explain and forgive. They are always there and nothing much can be done about them. So long as the present threat from the East may involve cutting the supply of oil, there will always be politicians, journalists, TV commentators, professors and general pens-for-hire who will always see the silver lining, the new Middle East, the change around the corner and preach for better understanding. They love multiculturalism, political correctness and will always be eager to label anybody who disagrees with them as 'fascists' and 'neo-Nazis'. They had a lot of experience when they sang the praise of the late-lamented 'Sun of the Peoples'. The standard approach of the West was that of Orientalism, i.e. to learn the customs, habits, beliefs and culture of the East, so that a better understanding could be reached. This is the approach that Edward Said has so violently opposed in his book, 'Orientalism'. Without justifying Mr. Said's approach which sees in the science which is called Orientalism in the West, an invalid intrusion into the life of the East and a preparation for physical intrusion, there are a number of facts which should be taken into consideration. Appendix II shows the behavioral traits of both civilizations. Analyzing any of those traits from that of the other side will always result in hostile treatment. There is nothing in the Appendix that does not show conflict in each and every category. As the Appendix shows, the basic parameters of social life, and the behavior of both sides is the exact opposite of each other, therefore, an analysis from either side will show the opposite side not fit to be defined as civilized. Indeed, it can be said that an analysis, from either side, will only highlight a basic incompatibility. The problem of analyzing the opposite side in a conflict has a danger that the analysis turns out stereotypes instead of serious descriptions. Raphael Patai described the current French stereotype of the Arabs, which projects an extremely derogatory unpleasant image, of dirty, lazy, primitive and superstitious people.29 Edward Said cites in his book 'Orientalism' a similar article written by Harold W. Glidden on the psychological profile of Arabs.30 These articles, and many others like them, are typical of present Western attitude towards the East, apart of course from those of the pen-for-hire category. There is an utter distrust in the West toward the East, with a single redeeming feature, that it is much weaker and subdued than the prevailing atmosphere in the East toward the West. Probably, it is a question of style and education, but even in times of utter conflict, like in the 1973 oil crisis and the time when the Iranians held American diplomats as hostages, the Western reaction was low-key and subdued, far from the noisy demonstrations and the flag-burning rituals of Eastern cities. As for the worth of Orientalism, it is probably sufficient to quote T. E. Lawrence, who probably had more experience in living Orientalism than anyone else. He wrote the following lines in a letter to his friend V. W. Richards in 1918:31 "...I think I can understand it enough to look at myself and other foreigners from their direction, and without condemning it. I know I am a stranger to them, and always will be; but I cannot believe them worse, any more than I could change their ways." These lines from T. E. Lawrence, who was one of the main exponents of those who saw a civilizing mission of the West in the East show that he recognized from his side that , 'East is East and West is West , and ne'er the twain shall meet'. The two sides are strangers to each other, no better and no worse, but so different as to preclude any understanding and accommodation. Notes: |
