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The middle east must be defined as it is not defined in common usage. There
is a difference between the Middle East as opposed to Arab and Muslim
countries and countries with a significant Muslim population.
Google up a map of the eastern hemisphere and follow me. The countries from
Morocco to Egypt are in north Africa not the middle east. They are referred
to Arab countries because centuries ago Arabic became the dominant language
and culture.
Without question Turkey is not a middle eastern country by geography and
does not speak Arabic although it is a Muslim majority country. Although
a few might argue Iran is a middle eastern country it has one of the oldest
cultures in the world, it does not speak Arabic and it has a Muslim
majority.
Which brings us to Iraq which on balance of the arguments is not a middle
eastern country. Although it has a Muslim majority and speaks Arabic it is
the oldest civilization in the world. Along with Iran (Persia) and Greece it
has held huge empires in the middle east.
With these limits clearly countries east of Iran such as Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Bangladesh are not in the middle east geographically nor do
they speak Arabic although they do have Muslim majorities.
So what countries are in the middle east without question? Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a mess of little
emirates between the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. These little emirates
make it impractical to give statistics by number of countries. Three of them
are so small they form the United Arab Emirates to have any clout at all
in regional negotiations.
But taken all together the unquestionable middle eastern countries have a
minority of the world population of Muslims. Even if one argues for Iraq
being included it is still a minority.
As to which middle eastern countries are democracies, we have Lebanon,
Israel, Palestine and Yemen. If one wants to consider which Arab countries,
not just middle eastern are democracies that depends upon ones definition of
democracy. But the list will expand to include Egypt, the most populace
Arabic country, as well as Iraq. To look to Muslim majority countries which
are democracies we add Iran which is more democratic than Egypt,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and a handful smaller
countries. Notice this list includes some of the most populace countries in
the world.
Now that we have an idea of what is the middle east, back to the subject of
the middle east being only a century behind the "enlightened" West. Lets
look at what it meant by behind. Clearly only a few are going to say Israel,
Lebanon, Palestine and Kuwait are behind the West so there is no need to
address them. Syria is one of those countries where the bigger the city the
more western so it is at least partially western. If we expand to Arabic
countries in general we add all the countries in North Africa on the same
basis we add Syria although it is more like how far south of the Mediterranean
rather than just the big cities. This applies in all current social customs
including clothing and life styles.
So what do we mean by behind the times? A century ago in the west the
Austro-Hungarian empire was not a democracy in any sense. It was also the
fount of most of western culture for more than a century. Italy's major
artistic productions of the 19th century were while ruled by Austria. In
half of Europe democracy has only appeared in the last fifteen years so
democracy is not a benchmark of behind the times.
What most people look at is what they consider an oppressive culture,
particularly towards women. They look at the worst examples, the full body
covering or at least long robes with only hands and eyes showing. No one
objects to men in robes with turbans and only hands and face showing. They
dress the same short of a veil.
A century ago in the west it was almost the same. Only hands and face could
show in public. Women could show their hair only if it was up in a bun and
if they had to wears hats just as men had to wear hats in public. The
enlightened West required everything but the veil for women and the same
dress code for men.
If that isn't clear enough it was only half a century ago that both men and
women could be seen in public without hats. It was half a century ago that
women could wear pants in public regardless of the emancipationists less
than a century ago. Sure you can see it in movies from those days but look
at pictures taken on the street and see how many women in pants you see.
Expand this to the entire Muslim world and we find only the few in middle
east, Iran and both "liberated" Afghanistan and Iraq still having examples
this kind of repression. Iraq now has religious police in everything but
name. Women have been murdered for wearing pants, working in "men's" jobs
and all the usual represive reasons. The difference between Iraq and other
countries with such religious police is the penalty is death. Read her blog for more
information.
Were it not for the murders this would all simply sound backward but in the
west the idea of clothing is intimately linked with sexual freedom for women
only. It was only in the US in the late 1960s that it was not the norm to
expect the couple to marry because of pregnancy. Unwed mothers only gained
some respectability in the 80s and it is still not encouraged despite TV and
the movies and Hollywood publicity stunts.
The history of American TV, which is decades behind both Europe and Canada,
is a list of firsts. The first married couple in a bedroom and later the
first couple in twin beds. Then there was the first sound of a toilet
flushing on TV calling for All in the Family to be removed from the air. And
then the first scene with a toilet. The first bra with an invisible woman
followed decades later with the first bra with a visible woman. And we talk
about censored TV in the middle east? All of the above was in the last half
century in the US.
So how far behind is this fraction of the middle east which is a minority of
the Arab world and an even smaller minority of the Muslim world? No more
than a century no matter how you look at it.
So why did this happen in what is strictly the Middle East? The majority of
the bad reputation comes from Saudi Arabia and those bordering emirates. In
Saudi there are some very elderly people who still remember the time before
it was a country. There are people in their 60s who remember having worked
on camel caravans before settling down in the cities.
But Kuwait is in this same position but is as modern as you can ask. The
difference is oil wealth per capita. Unique among these countries is small
population in proportion to its oil earnings. The result is any citizen, man
or woman can get all the western or eastern or whatever education they want
for free all expense paid. It is mostly western. And most all return to
Kuwait. Few of them agitate for democracy. The country is run well. Why rock
the boat?
What is the difference between Saudi and Kuwait? Kuwait has ten to twenty
times more oil earning per capita than Saudi. Kuwait can afford to foster a
western oriented population while Saudi cannot.
This leads to the backwater of civilization. Before oil no one gave a damn
about the deserts of the Arabian peninsula. The places of interest were
Damascus and Baghdad and Sidon and Tyre and Gaza City. These were held by
the Ottoman Empire.
In WWI Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were the
losing side. The Ottoman Empire handed Britain its greatest naval defeat
ever as well as holding off the Russian Empire. It was as good as you got
during that war. It also held the cities in the previous paragraph. It did
not mark borders as did the west and those cities had areas of influence
and peripheral cities such as Jerusalem which were part of it. But for the
most part, outside the major cities, it was the backwater of the empire. And
without oil there was no way to make them more than backwater provinces.
Consider it like American Alaska when it was only Eskimos and a few gold
rush towns.
But also look at the major cities the Ottomans controlled. Except for the
cities of what is now Iraq they are still the places where we see open,
nearly western cultures. And we did see nearly western society in Iraq
before the invasion. Now of course it is back to robes and veils or abayas
for the most part.
We can look at WWI and find the British did promise the people of the
Ottoman empire freedom if they would rebel against the central government.
T. H. Lawrence was the emissary of this promise and returned his medals and
resigned his commission when he discovered he had been used. The Sykes-Picot
Agreement divided all but Turkey between the French and British creating
artificial borders where they never existed while Lawrence was making his
promises. Both Britain and France fought bloody wars to prevent democracy,
preferring to install kings beholding to them for power and military
support.
For example Iraq was originally three Ottoman major groupings of provinces,
Tikrit, Baghdad and Basra taking their names from the principle city in
each. The British made Kuwait an independent country separate from Basra
provence to have military and political control of Iraq's exports to the
sea. And it installed a king not a democracy.
So when oil from the original western sources began to run out in the 1950s
they started to get rich but the wealth to population ratio was always a
limitation upon what could be done with it. No matter what was done with it
for the first time there were significant exports and earnings in foreign
currency. And for the first time in the 1960s there was a way for people in
this traditional middle east to afford products from the west. Affording a
radio is one thing. For people to afford radio stations and make them
profitable is something else entirely.
So look at it in the long run. An entire region with varying degrees of
modernity suddenly being able to afford the best the modern world can
provide. Sound great? It was only forty years ago. Look at it from their
point of view. What do you expect in only forty years? The US situation on
TV, still behind most of the West, took more than that to get where it is
today and that is with all the other freedoms.
That is barely two generations. If you are twenty you would have grown up in
a culture where your grandparents still remember these changes as having
happened when they were middle aged. You father may or may not like it but
remembers some of the changes while he was growing up. And you are the
product of all those decisions. Your grandparents are still the arbiters of
public norms of behavior and morality. What kind of change would you expect
at age 20?
So if we look at a century ago in the US minus 40 years we are in the
morality and customs of 1940s. Above I talk about the 1950s ten years later.
What kind of miracles does one expect from Saudi? Saudi started from a
nomadic culture and tribal rulers barely 70 years ago. The US started from
an industrial revolution a century ago after a previous century a
technological and social progress.
The rational comparison for the middle east is not a century behind but
rather to be amazed they have accomplished in only 70 years what it took the
US 150 years to accomplish.
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