The problem with Islam

[rory_20_uk]

So, first we lump together a massive area of land from the borders of China Morocco and state that they are all somehow the same. I imagine that by the same light they all peacefully converted to Islam

Right, the crusades. They were to retake the Holy Land. Remember that christianity was around BEFORE Islam. So they attacked. Revelation I know. And the conquest of the Balklands and Spain by the Muslims appears to also have been ignored.

Then we appear to sidestep the fact that the Middle East has had despots since at least 500BC!!!

"Better to remain silent and for people to think you are ignorant than to speak and for peple to know you are"

[Watchman]

Right, the crusades. They were to retake the Holy Land.

...and happened in the 1000s, the Holy Land having been under Muslim control since about the 700s.

Don't talk stupidities.

Then we appear to sidestep the fact that the Middle East has had despots since at least 500BC!!!

500BC ? Try "since organized societies with division of labor developed" instead. Agriculture was developed in the Fertile Crescent some eight millenia ago, and hierarchical empires followed in short order.

'Course, the same despotic empires also laid the groundwork of all later developement...

And what did we have in Europe under the period ? Barbarian warlords mostly. A handful of oligarchies based on slave economy (Athens, evan at its best, so doesn't count as a genuine democracy by modern standards; all the more so as they elected tyrants to handle crises all the time...) in the more developed regions. And a tendency to be really jealous of the Easterners.

Your point ?

Ugh. Such tendentiously vulgar pseudo-historicizing gives me an indigestion.

[rory_20_uk]

So the Muslims had control. How did they get control? Asking nicely? And who owned the area before the muslims took control? And what religion were they?

Re: despots was that they existed before the West got involved, not after. I felt that 500BC was perfectly adequate to place the timeframe well before the West was organised.

And so no there was no intention to say that the West was any different or any better.

I thought that my points were perfectly clear. Thank you for pointing out that some members require themes to be painted with a thicker brush before they are able to discern them.

I'm not going to let the shortsighted low brow nature of your post adversely affect my digestion. To be upset by such commom tabloid reasoning would be beneath me.

[Watchman]

So the Muslims had control. How did they get control? Asking nicely? And who owned the area before the muslims took control? And what religion were they?

The tried and true old-fashioned way, of course - armed conquest. Hardly much of a point. That's how everyone always took the place over anyway. Check out the OT for one - a whole lotta wars, sieges and massacres.

Anyway, by the time the Muslim Arabs came to the scene the Levant had been the subject of considerable tug-of-war between the Eastern Orthodox Byzantines and the Zoroastrian Persians (ruled by the Sassanid dynasty at the time). The border wars in the region had been almost routine ever since the Romans got that far and started butting heads with the Parthians (whome the Sassanids eventually overthrew); during the last century or so they'd started taking on a more total character, with the participants making serious if quite futile efforts to genuinely destroy each other.

The fact the two regional superpowers had battered each other bloody naturally made the Arab conquest a whole lot easier.

At the time the Levant region was religiously mostly made up of Jews and various Christian sects; both harbored considerable resentement towards their current Byzantine overlords, who had by that time started persecuting both Jews and the various "heretical" Christian sects that had a bit different idea of the canon than the Empire's offical take. The relationship had gotten so bad in fact, the locals had assisted the Persians in their recent takeover of the region, and the Byzantine reprisals after they'd expelled the Persians hadn't exactly improved things.

The funny detail is, especially in the Byzantine regions the Muslims were often hailed as liberators. After all, they were quite willing to let the "Peoples of the Book" worship pretty much however they felt like so long as they paid their extra tax and didn't cause trouble, something that could not be said of the often rather intolerant Byzantines.

Re: despots was that they existed before the West got involved, not after. I felt that 500BC was perfectly adequate to place the timeframe well before the West was organised.

Given that the involvement of the West, to a large degree also run by despots at the time, did nothing to help the matters I somewhat fail to see what you're after. For example, the Hellenic conquest merely replaced the old Achaemenid Persian overlords with (mainly Macedonian) Hellenic ones; the Crusader Kingdoms ran their territories as good old feudal monarchies; and the puppet regimes installed by Age of Empire conquerors weren't exactly meant to be bastions of progress and enlightement.

...are you trying to say that despotism is somehow natural or suited to the region or the people living there, or something similarly absurd ?

[rory_20_uk]

Yes, the area was in constant war. The Muslims then came in and conquered the place. Then the Christians came back and fought them. The crusades in that light seem to be merely a continuation of normality for the area, not some amazing alteration due to the West.

They deserve despots? No, rather the more simple fact that the West can not be blamed for the despots that are there, since they have been there long before the West was aware that the area existed. I have never visited the area, have talked to few people from the area and so have no idea of what regieme would work best - or if indeed there is even a "best".

[Watchman]

Yes, the area was in constant war. The Muslims then came in and conquered the place. Then the Christians came back and fought them. The crusades in that light seem to be merely a continuation of normality for the area, not some amazing alteration due to the West.

You don't know too much of the academic discussion about the whys of the Crusades, do you ? Hint: internal developements in the Catholic portion feature prominently. So do the at the time recently arrived Turks. And the fact the Byzantines had just gotten a serious licking from the aforementioned nasty steppe nomads.

The Crusades had the unpleasant side effect of firing up a whole new wave of appreciation of the until then almost forgotten military dimension of the jihad concept though and a general shall we say turn towards militant values, and had their part in the processes that for example led to Egypt being taken over by the Mamluk military regime (which was eventually taken over by the Ottomans, but anyway).

Oh yes, they had long-lasting effects indeed.

More concretely, however, firebrand nationalists and other rabble-rousers in the area have in the recent years found the whole issue a really good blunt instrument in the best nationalist fashion. Bush's infamous use of the term "crusade" to describe the Second Gulf War can only be considered the height of short-sighted stupidity in the context.

No, rather the more simple fact that the West can not be blamed for the despots that are there, since they have been there long before the West was aware that the area existed.

Given that the standard Cold War games of proxy regimes and sycophants were played there as they were in any other strategically vital region (the US has had an essentially permanent military presence on the Gulf since something like the Thirties...), this postulation is pretty absurd. Do I even need to point out the Shah of Iran, who managed his country in such a popular fashion as to get deposed by a religious-populist uprising, had been reinstated to autocratic power by outright Western (primarily American) support...?

Not that "the West" had been particularly adverse to any despots in the region anyway. One of the major reasons the "great unwashed" there tend to hold such low opinions of the West has to be the fact they can well perceive the hypocrisy in piously talking about promoting democracy, freedom and suchlike on one hand and cheerfully cutting oil deals with and supporting patently autocratic regimes on the other. Kinda eats at the "street cred" of the whole idea, you know ?