Not really nationalism is just tribalism on a slightly larger scale. It’s much easier to cobble together a working state if the conquered peoples look alike, speak the same language, and have the same religion.
@@lmnop286 indeed, but it need not be wholly homogenous to create a working nation. For example India in 1947 was a far more divided but managed to form a kind of Indian identity. The Arabs are simply not that good at such things.
As an Iraqi I wanna say you did a super job man like it's always the unknown guy's like you that construct these pieces of gold you call a video thank you dude keep it up please if u can man
@@ibrahimmohammedibrahim9273 True True, maybe its kind of like how people consider the "long 1800s" to extend to 1914 I was subetely categorizing the 50s as the "long 40's"
It is crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the events that led to the current state of the world, specifically the era of colonial rule. While it may be convenient to hold Britain and France solely responsible for the issues in the Middle East
You could look at it that way. Or you could also see that when a civilization is functioning at a high level, its influence expands. Often its borders expand. The reason Britain and France were in that area, was because they were functioning at a high level and there was a power, economic, technological, and cultural cohesion vacuum in the region that was present before they ever got there. Had the ME been an advanced and unified state, there never would have been colonies. And considering this is the literal cradle of human civilization, its pretty obvious that stagnation is to blame. They had a giant head start and squandered it.
@@raftguy1376By the same token that's why Japan was never properly colonized. They were unified and strong enough to keep interlopers out until Perry. And after that it was still in a strong enough position to ward off the less tangible forms of foreign meddling for long enough for it to industrialize and become a peer to the European powers.
As a Middle Eastern Arab, those who say that there is no hope here, you're just wrong. Honestly, life in the Peninsula (minus Yemen for obvious reasons) has been good, and honestly have been getting much better as the years go on. Stuff is getting better. The Levant however is a clusterfuck.
Nah, stop blaming everything on "Islamic law" the mentioned Gulf countries are following the Islamic laws more seriously, however you see that the life in the Gulf is much much better Does that clarify anything? If you keep that washed mindset you wont understand the middle east or any part of history never, in fact you should turn your sight to the colonial history of these nations to understand @@gunterxvoices4101
Watching your series has taught me one thing about the Middle East: Nationalism and borders are Western ideas that are truly alien to a civilisation of various ethnic groups, including Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Berbers, and others, who are accustomed to living under dynasties where allegiance was towards the ruling family rather than the nation-state, as is seen in post-French Revolution Europe. Remember, Saladin and the Ayyubids were a Kurdish ruling family who held possession of two great Arab-dominated lands - Syria and Egypt - which would later be passed on to the Turkish slave dynasty, the Mamluks. It frustrates me that the British, who have a history with the Middle East, failed to convey this to the Americans prior to the invasion of Iraq. They should have used their own medieval history and their history of dealing with the Muslim world to understand the complexity of how these Muslim states function. Also it taught the Americans that you cannot be the world police and simply remove a power structure without any consequences. We saw the rise of ISIS and decades prior the rise of the Taliban after the Communist regime in Afghanistan collapsed.
The e in Kabyle is silent if pronouncing it the French way, though in English the second syllable rhymes with "mile," in keeping with the Arabic al-qabā'il.
3:10 I doubt the sincerity of the source used. This neither sounds like Sir Percy Cox nor does it sound like Ibn Saud, the man who had fought several wars and had 47 bullets in his body was “breaking down and offering half of his kingdom” ????
11:28, very interesting statistic considering all the migrant workers working under horrible conditions there today, it seems that area has a history of this.
That's just Asia in general, just look at the East Asian working culture and the Indian caste system, in India if you belong to a lower caste, you literally cannot get certain jobs, so the caste you get born into determines your job. Nothing has changed when it comes to cultural practices.
Wrong in one thing it was definitely a thing in a past but not now. Problem nowadays is of discrimination. You can get jobs but doesn't mean you won't face discrimination@@DrShocktopus
Most of these South Asian cheap workers from the “lower classes” in the Gulf countries are treated much better by far than in their homeland, where classism systems makes them live worse than slaves. they also receive a salaries that they cannot dream of there, you can easily find many videos for some of them who breaking down in tears after being deported due to legal violations. claiming that they are a “slaves” is just a nonsense western propaganda.
It's easy to blame Britain and France for the clusterfuck of the Middle East, but this series shows just how really you could get the most skilled and good-willed statesmen and diplomats on the job and it would still end in chaos.
Exactly what I was going to say! There was much brutal Muslim-on-Muslim violence for 100s of years before the Europeans arrived as a conquering force. This violence was in par with the violence that Europe experienced internally for centuries before WW1. The sustained peace in Europe over the last several decades after WW2 is a recent and novel phenomenon.
this is partially true however a number of Western elements such as nationalism, imperialism, Israel, and just OIL kinda made the old rivalries much more complicated, industrialized, and total
I don't think this video is detailed enough to explain why the Middle East is in the ruinous state that its been in since sometime after 1918. It's a very complicated question. The impact of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is often underestimated. The Ottomans, arguably, held the Arab world in a "suspended state" after the decline and conquest of the medieval Islamic Empire - which is still remembered by Arabs of numerous political ideologies as the high point of Arab Civilization - a period of lost glory. There's also questions about whether or not Islam is itself a force of stagnation. It's a very impolite question, but a serious one.
@@skykid Imperialism is hardly a western concept, if anything it was perfected into an art form by Islamic empires. Nadir Shah’s brutal raids into Muslim-ruled India, under the Mughals, is remembered to this day with much hatred and disdain by the Hindus, who were at receiving end of the terror he unleashed, especially their wealthy, historic places of worship. The same goes for any number of other Afghan and Turkic warmongers who made a hobby of raiding Indian wealth over the centuries. As for nationalism, the 100s of years that the Persian empire spent warring with the Ottomans is extremely well documented. Israel or not, sparring Muslim tribes and factions needed no additional incentive to kil each other, even in the name of Islam. This is not unlike pre-WW1 Europe for several centuries. Oil just gave the Middle East access to seemingly unlimited wealth through hyperlocal natural resources. Even without that, Muslim empires were at each other’s throats for a very long time. The decentralized nature of the Ottoman Empire is not well understood by many. The endless wars between the Sublime Porte and the ambitious, independence-oriented provinces of the empire in North Africa, especially Egypt, led to much bloodshed, and this was really Sunni-on-Sunni violence, before someone chimes in to cast the the Persian-Ottoman rivalry as a Shia-Sunni affair.
Great work, so much detail. One minor correction: the English name St John is usually pronounced "Sinjin" (really). See, for example, the Wikipedia article on the minor British politician Norman St John-Stevas - there's a pronunciation guide near the top. Thanks again for so much education.
Could you please upload your sources? I have to do a paper on this topic and I could really use them and complement them with your video, which is awesome by the way. Thanks!
Regarding the Berbers and Kabyle , yes they must have Germanic , Roman admixture considering Romans and Greeks had heavily colonised north Africa and subsequently Germanic Vandals and Goths settled there and mixed with the local population .
@majidbineshgar7156 there was no Greeks colonies west of Carthage in Africa as the was a kingdom established there Numidia and kings of Numidia allied with Rome or Carthage during the Punic wars, later becoming a client state of Rome, king juba of Numidia fought on against Caesar's armies in north Africa. Yes Rome had a lot of influence the region but not the goths or vandals, yes 80,000 invaded but lost most control of the region to Berber tribes after 40-60 years of them being there and most their power base was in modern Tunisia not Alegria , and they continued to lose control and influence until Belisarius destroyed the last remnant of vandal kingdom in 534, the Berbers and Kabyle would have barely if any Germanic admixture , maybe some of Tunisia definitely not for most of Alegria
Language and religion is actually the first thing that is changed by colonisers. If that did not change, than the colonisers must have been a tiny minority.
Am Berber and no the rulers where Germanic and Roman and we are not 👱🏻♂️ those who have 👱🏻♂️ skin like me our grandfathers enslaved 🇪🇺 women so normally there’s mix but we are of our fathers not of enslaved women
23:32 Before the Ottomans of 1520s Northern Iraq was mostly Alevi Turkmen. Then Ottomans settled sunni kurds into there for assimilating Alevi Turkmens.
Wow I did not expect to see John Philby to be mentioned here. When I lived in Saudi Arabia I actually knew the Grand-daughter and Great-grand children of John Philby (or perhaps a generation more down the line, I am not completely sure). We were actually neighbors at one point. They were a nice family.
Its interesting how the societies on each continent in succession go through horribly violent periods until they settle down. Asia had it, Central America had it, Africa has it but N.America, Europe, Australia appear to be done, over it and life is better in those places. Its our mission as humans to Evolve.
Not including North Africa, the period of time that the Arab world is under the control of French and British empire is very short. Far, far shorter than the rest of the world. So why does it get such undue emphasis? It seems to me that the Ottoman Empire has so much more of an impact on producing the disaster that is the middle East after decolonization. It's very strange that there should be so much animosity to the West in the Arab world when there is NONE for Turkey.
Because the Ottomans did not colonise, they conquered and then relied on a decentralised government to rule. That, and in places like Algieria, they expected improvements by the western powers only to realise that it was just for exploitation. And the Arabs do criticise the Ottomans. Most Muslims do. The Ottomans are very heavily criticised due to their medieval standards of warfare and lack of Islamic rules of war during the later centuries. Also, Turkey became a secular country. Not only that, the Arabs hold to their contribution of ending the Ottoman Empire. In that sense, that animosity is not as obvious since Turkey is viewed as a Western country. Like Muslims from Africa still view Turkey as more of a European country than a Muslim country despite the recent efforts by Erdoğan to push for his islamist views or the fact that a majority of the population are Muslim. The recent municipal votes in Istanbul should show that the Turks still favour secularism too which only adds to the rest of the Islamic world viewing them as westerners.
@@vincentcorvus3063 When the Ottomans conquered the Balkans, they resettled Muslim Anatolians into the conquered Christian lands in order to solidify their gains. That is the very definition of colonization. In fact, there are many former mosques in the Balkan countries that were converted to Churches when the muslims were finally expelled.
No, there wasnt, and it wasnt meant to be. It was Balkanization to shatter and keep shattered. To believe ANY of the written rhetoric otherwise is to not winnow the real politik of historical decisions despite all writtings otherwise which would object. No one in government ever went to another land, conquered it and divided it and hoped they would grow up big and strong.
@@JabzyJoe Sure, again, I dont doubt the proclomations nor sincerity of some. I do however know the the unwritten policy for a few hundred years from these powers was one ofnthree things: own it, profit from it, or break it so it cannot compete with us. So maybe the mix was "lets see if we can profit from this" and when it became aparent that wasnt in the cards, it changed to" break it". But it seems, the endish result, to me, was intentional because jeeeeeeze the Ottomans were big and to pull "profit" out of the post ww1 morass was never going to bear more fruit than what was invested. Just my opinion using what we see transpired resulting in now, combine with my understanding of human nature. Love your work! But youtube always serves it to me at 3 a.m. so the background music tells me its bedtime lol
@@machination3e I think it's an often repeated thing. People look at the end result and assume a) it was the plan, and b) there was a great deal of profit in it. Anthony Eden put forward the idea of an Arab League: “it seems to me both natural and right that the cultural and economic ties between the Arab countries, yes, and the political ties too, should be strengthened. His Majesty’s Government for their part will give their full support to any scheme.” While Churchil said: “we should try to raise Ibn Saud to a general overlordship of Iraq and Transjordan.” Otherwise, historically, the British in particular favoured keeping Empires united to profit from them. They saved the Ottomans from the Russians, China from the Taiping etc. Of course there was money to be made in oil, but they didn't need to partition Iran for that for example. Britain in fact traded far more with Latin America and the likes. A "Soft Empire" was far more beneficial to a nation. Compare that to the Middle East - as I've said in this series before - Palestine had an annual revenue comparable to 1 British Lord in the early 20th Century. Or as it was reported after WW2 -"Jordan depends almost entirely on a British subsidy of £7,500,000 annually to run its government, and its British-trained Arab Legion of 10,000 men.”
At 31:20 you don't mention that the reason the numbers were so even was because the British police killed Muslims who were attacking Jews, it was a massacre the British barely stopped, not a battle.
This topic is way too big for a 40 minute video many details are missing about Arabia(VERY VERY VAST LAND) and also some details are out right a lie like Arab racial purity non mixing marriages.
Imam Malik, Imam al-Shafi'i, Imam Ahmad, Al-Ajurry, Al-Nasa'i, Abu Dawud, Imam Muslim, Imam Al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn 'Abdil-Barr, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Rajab, Ibn Al Qayyim, etc were all Wahhabis even before Muhammad Bin 'Abdil-Wahhab was born. Don't spread this lie of "Wahhabi ideology". I am an Algerian and our people are "Wahhabis". This is a malicious lie against the people of Truth
Your group changed a lot the books of ancient muslkm scholar so those book fit them, North African are athari but the Wahabi have different type of Atharism, your original Athari creed didn't make Allah like man, if there's a verse about hand of Allah, so be it the verse say but not make further explanation about the hand of Allah
Thank you for inaccurate portrayal of the riots in mandatory Palestine. The popular Pseudo-historical narrative is that the British sided with the Israelis, and desecrations of Jewish holy sites, and the massacres in holy cities like Hebron and Safed are ignored.
Another video another: "All colonisers are bad, except the British". I'm sorry but even with the benefit of the doubt, the bias is not difficult to see. The pattern is way too obvious. Like obviously the French, Italians and Spaniards were brutal, but so were the British.
Of particular note is in how enslavement in the Middle Earth (more accurate than middle of a direction), was epistemologically and practically wholly different from the one undertaken by chattel enslavers of those from European background. It was not predicated upon notions of supremacy backed by quakeries masquerading as science.
…i’m not sure where you got the idea there was no racial/cultural chauvinism in the Middle East… The death rate of slaves crossing the Sahara was far higher than crossing the Atlantic.. Plus, male slaves were generally castrated and female slaves were bought for the explicit purpose of sex. I wouldn’t want to be a slave at all, but if I had to choose, I’d be going to North America.
@@scott2452 That too depends on when and where. African slaves were sometimes castrated, but that practice varies since in general, slave communities were used as well while in other cases, slaves were used in the army and trained to fight such as the Mamluks. There is generally a higher chance for a slave in the middle East to gain a high position within society, but again, it differs such as with Malik Ambar who became a Sultan and tried to defeat the Mughal Empire. The later and more tribalistic Arabs were more harsher towards their slaves as most Muslims will know, but then again, Africans were also harsh on other African slaves too but that differs from place and time. In general, you'd likely not have a chance to free yourself from a European colonist compared to an Arab slaver. Cause a slave can simply convert and then it is regarded as illegal to enslave another Muslim. The Arabs treated it on more economic grounds, but yeah, harsh treated was still used on slaves.
@@vincentcorvus3063 Agree with everything you wrote (though there are plenty of cases of emancipation in North America…either from the slave holders themselves, or from fighting alongside the British)…it is also worth pointing out that the Mamluk slaves were usually Turks, Albanians, Georgians etc. which can point to racial/cultural views in the region.
The main difference is that Arabs castrated their slaves. That's why you have descendants of slaves in the US living better lives than any Africans while there are little to no descendants of slaves in the middle east because they committed a pre-emptive genocided. Also, there were virtually no "enslavers" with a European background, only slave traders. Africans were enslaved by other Africans and Arabs, who then sold them to Europeans for a lot of money. Lastly, scientific racial theory played no role in the Atlantic slave trade. It didn't come along until much later.
what? there were and there are no religion more forbidding of slavery than Islam. What's little publiczed these days is how several orders of magnitude the byzantine slev trade was bigger compared to its Arabian counterpart. Even the emperor had a eunuch play...boy to sleep with him every night. One thing the archologists remarked on the period was how rare it is to find shackles in lands ruled by Islam at that time, while the museums alone had curated over 500,000 of these from byzantium (which means there must have been dozens of millions originally as they are over a thousand years old!). There were eunuchs in there too, however that process was aeen as abominable by Muslims so the coptic church and other churches were reponsible for castrating the slaves, as they had been before Islam.
There was never hope for the Middle East period. Place has been a non-stop warzone and filled with oppression for 5000 years. As they say in Australia: shit's fucked, mate.
Don't worry it has never happened never will happen, Islam is a religion not a nation , that religion might have official status in some countries but there are nations ( e.g. Iranic peoples ) whose pre-Islamic cultural identity and their national language is far stronger therefore they have always refused to be amalgamated into a Arabic-Islamic world .
@@majidbineshgar7156 pan Islamic is a real national theory not impossible just look at Israel, for hundreds of years no one thought they would have their own nation
The term hope and Middle East Arabs simply never go together. After years of travel in the region I have learned, to my own previous optimism, is that these regions are dominated by depression, conspiracy theories, hopeless, resentment and failure. Without energy there are no economies, the only form of government that kind of works is absolute monarchy, like the rest of the world had 300 years ago. As the rest of Asia pulls itself up for far worse situations in South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, China and India; the Arab nations just fall further and further behind.
@@bonafidemonafide7810 Oh 'orientalist', somebody has seen a few Tik Toks by people who saw RU-vids or people who listen to part of the audobooks of some of the works of Andrew Said. But you are on my territory now. I won't bore you with my CV and my decades of academic, professional and personal contacts with the Arab world and clarify for you how I am not engaging in Orientalism. Said's concept can be summed up that people in the West view people in the East as things and not humans. Okay lets look at the life imposed on the young people of the Arab world. For the most part they live in societies with long running massive youth unemployment while having a majority of young people. They are excluded from any political participation. They are ruled over by old corrupt authoritarian regimes that provide them little opportunity and impose rigid systems that essentially aim to deny them any of the simple pleasures and freedoms that people even in China can have today. In 2011 there was an effort by the youth to just get some basic reforms. The outcome: if you are lucky like Tunisia, Bahrain, Iran, Turkey or Egypt the reform efforts just failed and resulted in more of the same. If you are unlucky like Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan or Lebanon they led to brutal civil wars and genocides. Now imagine you are a human being, you have some access via a mobile phone to Instagram and you see how people live in other nations. You cannt get a job. If you are a woman you are a second class citizen. The government is run by corrupt old people who rule with total disregard for you. These are all OBJECT facts about how most Arabs live. Even in rich Arab nations the youth unemployment is combined with lack of democracy and freedoms. How would any HUMAN likely react to such a situation? I know how much depression people in the western democracies that allow freedoms, participation and provide opportunities have because people have to struggle to pay bills and their protests don't result in immediate changes. Imagine there isn't even the job in Starbucks or with JustEast, if you go out on the street and protest you are likely to be arrested, held without trail and tortured, and if you simply go out with a boyfriend and hold hands someone in the moral authority could crack you head open, or families might marry you off or worse. If you are gay you need to hide it to protect you life. If you have doubts about the existence of God you need to keep your mouth shut. How do you think living with these OBJECTIVE facts than anyone can validate would feel emotionally? If you believe Arabs are human, you would empathetically understand that depression would be a massive problem, especially given as there is NOT PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES in the Middle East outside of Israel. But someone people in the radical 'left' seem to assume that Arabs are not human, that they face a world that would depress almost all of us, are somehow racist. Bad SJW, no Khalifa
