Wrap Up Blog

This class was actually one of the tougher ones I have take in my years in college.  I am about 2 weeks away from graduation and it has amazed me throughout how little I knew about the Middle-East.  I am a History minor and most of my courses have been centered around US/European History with some Latin America sprinkled in.  The Middle East was totally left out of my curriculum until this year.  The history of the Middle East is a deep, rich one.  There are so many different places, events and people that make up the history of the Middle East.  I never realized how many different battles there were and how strong some of the empires were.  The Ottoman Empire for example was one of the strongest, fiercest empires of all time!  I never knew how well trained their militaries were and how they even used muskets and gun powder before most other nations.  The second major thing that I learned was about the Armenian Genocide.  I had never heard about it until this semester.  To know that this event preceded what went on in Nazi Germany truly boggles my mind.  This was just as heinous an act as anything in history!  You would think that people would've have risen up after the Armenian Genocide and not let something so bad happen in Nazi Germany.  You hear so much about the Holocaust, but not much about the Armenian Genocide.  I'm not saying people should hear about the Holocaust less, I am just saying that the Armenian Genocide deserves more attention then it gets.  Overall, there was a lot of reading and work in this class, but after finishing up everything it seems pretty satisfying to learn some new stuff I didn't know before.   

Iran/Iraq War Might Not Have Happened If....

I am just putting this out there, and people may not agree with me, but I think the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980's would not have happened if Reza Shah was able to get support for his western reforms in Iran before the Iranian Revolution.  If he would have been able to get the full support of the people and completely westernize Iran, there most likely would not have been a war.  At the time of the war, Iraq was not considered part of this Islamic Union that other countries were a part of.  Ayatollah Khomeini believed that Iraq's government was evil and needed to be defeated and replaced with a government centered around Islam.  Just think if Khomeini never won the people over and the Western reforms started by Reza Shah would have stuck.  Iran would've been a modern "western type" state and therefore most likely would not have had a conflict with Iraq.  I just thought that was an interesting thought and I wanted to share it with everyone.  

Gate of The Sun -"Seeing Through Palestinian Eyes"

The conflict between Jews and Arabs has been going on almost one hundred years now.  Millions of lives have already been lost and to this day there is still fighting, so those numbers are sure to increase.  A lot gets lost during these times of war between Israel and Palestine.  Westerners get caught up and tend to see the conflict from the eyes of the Israeli people.  They don’t truly understand that the Palestinians have eyes too.  Westerners throw out labels of “murderers” and “terrorists,” and I am not suggesting that some aren’t.  I’m suggesting that some people on the Israeli side can be considered “terrorists” and “murderers” also. 

            The fictional novel, Gate of the Sun written by Elias Khoury, does a great job of showing the conflict from the eyes of the Palestinian people.  In this novel, you can see that the Palestinian people are not cold-blooded killers and that they even have sympathy and compassion for their Israeli counterparts.  The author does a tremendous job of telling the story of the Palestinian people through the stories of a few fictional characters. 

            The Arab –Israeli conflict has roots in the fall of the Ottoman Empire.  During that time, there was a mad dash to determine what to do with the areas of the fallen Empire.  Countries such as Britain, France and Russia all had a stake in what to do with the land.  These countries totally disregarded the thoughts and feelings of the Arab people that were already living in these areas.  These people were shuffled around all over what is now known as the Middle East.  Also during this time, there was a rise in what is known as Zionism.  Zionism is essentially known as the policy to establish and develop a homeland for the Jewish people.  Through much debate with the occupying countries, most notably the British, the Zionists agreed that their homeland should be stationed within the borders of Palestine, which is an Arab state.  More and more Jewish people began to migrate to Palestine.  With the aid of Jewish Para-military units known as the Stern Gang and the Irgun, the nation of Israel was officially formed in 1948. 

            The new nation of Israel was officially recognized by the United States and Britain, and a new government was installed.  Approximately twenty years after the creation of Israel, the Six Day War occurred and forced more and more Palestinians from their homes.  Israel was able to conquer more and more territory including Golan Heights and the West Bank.  Once again, by doing so forced more and more people from their homes. 

Today, not much has changed within the confines of the conflict.  Palestinian forces have terrorized the Israeli people and the Israeli’s have fired back and organized their own attacks as well.  These are the events that are shown all over the news, but what is missing is a sense on how the people of Palestine really feel.  That is what Khoury has done in Gate of The Sun.  It gives Westerners a look into the feelings of the Palestinian people and gives the conflict a new perspective.

The book is based primarily around the two main Palestinian characters Dr. Khalil Ayyoub and a man named Yunes.  Yunes is in a hospital somewhere in Lebanon and is being cared for by Khalil.  Yunes has suffered a stroke and is now in a coma.  Yunes used to be a freedom fighter in the Palestinian military and has had many experiences before the formation of Israel and after into the 1990’s.  Khalil sees Yunes as a hero and even goes as far as to call him a father figure. 

Since Yunes is in a coma, Khalil stays at his bedside night after night and reminisces about stories from his own past and stories from Yunes’ past.  He hopes that the stories will eventually wake Yunes from the coma and bring him back.  This is where you, as the reader, get a real sense of how the Palestinian people were feeling during these terrible times of conflict. 

You hear of the story of Yunes as a freedom fighter and how the Israeli government wants to capture him.  He is forced to be on the run for the most of his life because he was a freedom fighter.  Khalil tells the stories of Yunes and his wife and how they have to always meet at the cave known as The Gate of The Sun.  This is the only time they were able to see each other because Yunes was always on the run.  They ate many meals and even conceived children at this spot. 

This story in particular gives readers a look into what life as a Palestinian can be.  Yunes stuck up for his people and his land as a freedom fighter and then had to pay the ultimate price of not being able to be with his family because he was wanted by the Israeli government.  His wife constantly has to live in fear and is even stopped by Israeli police because she is pregnant.  She eventually lies and tells them that the baby isn’t Yunes and that she is pregnant because she cheated on him.  The reason she does this is because Yunes was on the run and couldn’t risk exposing him.  It shows how the Arab Israeli conflict can ruin the lives of the people involved in it. 

Some of the other stories that Khalil speaks about are real life events that occurred.  He speaks on the Holocaust and sympathizes with the Jewish people.  He says that nobody should’ve sat around silently while this terrible act of genocide was occurring in Nazi Germany.  This is the first sign of sympathy towards the Jewish people.  This is significant in the story because it shows that Palestinian men are not just animals and cold blood murderers.  Westerners believe that the Arabs want to kill all Jews and their supporters, but it is simply not the case.  The next story that shows sympathy towards Jews is the story about the Munich Olympics where Jewish athletes were killed.  Khalil tells the readers how Yunes was against those kinds of acts and actually took a stand against it.  Once again, this shows that even a Palestinian soldier feels compassion towards the Jewish people and is not simply a terrorist or a murderer. 

The most important stories in the novel are the stories of the people who occupied Palestine.  Through these small vignettes, the reader gets a sense of who the Arab Palestinians are as people.  This can open a lot of eyes in Western culture and can show that these people were treated terribly and are not just barbarians. 

In conclusion, this work of fiction does a tremendous job of showing Westerners that the Palestinian people have such a deep, rich culture.  The stories in this book allow the Palestinian story to be told to the Western world.  The author shows that they are people as well and not just terrorists and murderers.  While reading this book, readers gets a sense of who the Palestinians are as people and why they are struggling just as much, if not more, than their Israeli counterparts.  The Arab-Israeli conflict has affected millions of innocent people and has negatively affected all who are involved.  This book finally shows the conflict through the eyes of the Palestinian and that seems to be a tremendous step in maybe finding peace.             

Recent Israel/Arab News

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/21/israel.iran.nazi/index.html#cnnSTCText

I read this article today on CNN.com speaking about some recent barbs fired by Ahmadinejad of Iran and Israel's vice Prime Minster Silvan Shalom.  Shalom was firing back at Iran after Iran leader Ahmadinejad came out and publicly called Israel a racists government who kicked out the Arab people of Palestine due to their race.  Shalom fired back by calling Iran "like Nazi Germany."  Those are fighting words if I ever heard them.  Both of these nations believe that the other is constantly in the wrong.  That has been the root of this conflict for many years.  But once again, I pose the question, who really is right in this situation?  I would say that both sides have a legitimate argument.  What does everyone else think? 

The Six Day War and it's effects

The Six Day War was one of the most crucial moments in the history of the Arab Israeli Conflict.  Nasser rallied arab nations and positioned them to remove the UNEF peacekeeping forces from the Sinai Peninsula.  Nasser's idea of pan arabism was at the center of the mobilization of these arab forces in the region.  You really can't blame Nasser for mobilizing these troops to reclaim land that he believed belonged to the Arabs.  There had been so many contradictory attempts to divide land and keep peace that it was inevitable that this would occur.  The mobilization of the troops got Israel's attention and in 6 days they inflicted a humiliating attack on the Arab forces.  They were able to acquire more and more land including the West Bank and Golan Heights.  I think it could be argued that if the Arabs were not ambushed by the Israeli's there might be a totally different picture in Israel.  Israel might not be an official Jewish state today if the Arab forces led by Nasser were successful in this war.    

Deir Yassin

I just visited the Deir Yassin Remembered web site and learned some facts that I did not know about.  I read through some of the material and learned that indeed the events at Deir Yassin is definitely a massacre of sorts.  Obviously it is not on the scale of some other massacres in history, but it is a massacre nonetheless.  I do agree with some of the statements on the site that Westerners are finally viewing Palestinians as Human Beings.  Personally, I was probably guilty of looking at Palestinian people as "terrorists" or as bad human beings, but my feelings have changed more recently.  I do believe that those who attack the United States are terrorists and that they should be held accountable for killing innocents.  But I also now have an understanding of what the Palestinian people are going through and it is truly terrible.  The fact that these people constantly live in fear is terrible, and I am more understanding now than before.  

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, more successful than Reza Shah

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was much more successful in reforming his country than Reza Shah for a few reasons.  The first, and what I feel is the major reason why he was successful, was that the reforms in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire were already underway before Ataturk began to reform.  Ataturk essentially expanded on these western reforms that were already in place, and it allowed for the people to adapt them easier.  In Iran, under Reza Shah, these reforms were totally new ideas and it was perceived as very radical by the people.  The second reason that Ataturk was more successful is because he was forced to create a state and government at the same time which allowed them to fuse together.  Reza Shah had to create a new government in a state that already existed, which made it much harder for the reforms to work.  One of the final reasons that Ataturk was successful was because he took power by popular revolution, whereas Reza Shah took power in Iran by a coup d'etat.  Obviously, the people are supporting Ataturk with the revolution and Reza Shah is forcing his ideas on the people of Iran.  These are all just a few reasons why Ataturk was successful and Reza Shah was not. 

Reza Shah and his Western Reforms

Reza Shah did what he believed was necessary to do in Iran.  He believed that he needed to "modernize" Iran and kick out the traditional way of life in order to compete in the changing world around him.  The traditional culture essentially failed in the face of Westernization.  There was tremendous pressure to rebuild and keep up with the Western powers after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and Reza Shah did what he felt was necessary to survive in these times.  He forced women to unveil and gave them more say in everyday life.  This was the first time that women truly had some power in the Middle East and that was a huge step in westernization.  He also created a state university even though he was illiterate himself.  The creation of the university was another example of the westernization that was happening in Iran under Reza Shah.  In the end though, these new reforms failed.  The people didn't truly adapt to the new policies and they still had ties to the traditional culture.  The traditional culture was eventually brought back and Reza Shah's reforms were a thing of the past.  You can't really blame Reza Shah for what he tried to do in Iran, and I believe it was completely necessary in order to survive at the time.   

Britain's promises in the Middle East

It's very interesting when other nations carve up a fallen empire/nation like a bunch of vultures.  They always have their own interests and don't ever care about the people who are actually living in these areas.  This was especially true after the Ottoman Empire fell.  Britain, France and Russia began to carve up the empire into zones of influence and began instilling their own beliefs on the people of these areas.  Britain was making all of these promises to various types of people, and these problems are still at the root of the problems facing the Middle East today, especially in Israel.  The British made vague and ambiguous promises of an Arab state after WWI.  This appeased the arabs for a little while, but then in 1917 the British made the Balfour Declaration which gave support to the Zionists for a Jewish Homeland.  You can see how both of these statements contradict each other and you can clearly see how they would be the base for a conflict in the region later on.  This seems to happen a lot in the world.  A country will move in and take control of an area, but they wont have the best interest of the people in mind when they do so. 

Touba and the Connection to the Past

Iran underwent many changes throughout the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.  The traditional culture that had been in place for hundreds of years, was deemed outdated by new leaders in the Iranian regime.  The leaders believed that the traditional culture was no match for westernization and that the culture needed to be completely reformed in order to survive all the changes that were occurring in the world around them. 

            The novel Touba and the Meaning of Night by Shahrnush Parsipur was written shortly after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  The author Parsipur does a decent job of weaving her fictional characters into the real life events that occurred before and after this Islamic Revolution in Iran.  The role of the fictional main character Touba and the real life role of women in Iran are paralleled in this book to give the reader a true sense of what was going on during this time.

            Iranian culture before the revolution practiced the segregation of women in the society.  Women held household domestic duties and were in charge of raising the children.  The men in society were in charge of finding work and supporting the family.  The men held the power in the household and were off working jobs most of the day.  Women were also required to wear a chador, or a veil, at all times when in public or in the house when males other than their husbands were present.  The basis for this traditional culture was written in the Quran, which is the religious book of Islam.  There was no separation of church and state in the traditional Iranian society, and the Quran was the law that the people obeyed at the time.  Because the Quran called for women to have less power, the people enforced that rule, and women therefore had less power. 

            In the early 20^th century, there were many political tensions felt in Iran between the weakening Qajar dynasty and the Pahlavi’s that were led by Reza Shah.  The Qajar dynasty, which believed in the traditional cultures, was very weak going into the 1920’s.  Reza Shah saw this weakness and capitalized on it and overthrew the Qajar dynasty.  He instituted his own dynasty, known as the Pahlavi dynasty, and implemented many western ideas.

            The traditional culture of Iran had been scrutinized and put under attack by Western powers such as Britain, France, Russian and later the United States.  In order to continue competing in this modern world, the culture of Iran needed to be changed.  Reza Shah believed in Westernization and soon after the political coup, he instituted many western ideas in Iran.  There were many different types of industrialization and railroad construction.  He also believed in public education and even created the first university in the country known as Tehran University.  Reza Shah was then overthrown in favor of his son Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.  He continued on the path of westernization and sought to implement more and more western policies. 

Also during this time, women had more rights in society.  They were no longer required to wear veils and were also encouraged to become educated and participate in the government and other public positions.  Women were finally given a voice in Iran and for the first time ever, had a sense of power that was never seen in the traditional Iranian culture.

In the 1970’s more and more people in Iran were growing tired of the Westernization that was present in Iran under the shah.  More and more people called for the reinstitution of traditional culture in Iran.  The people then rallied around Ayatollah Khomeini, who wanted to implement the traditional Islamic culture back into Iran. 

The Iranian Revolution began in 1978 and Khomeini led the revolt.  Khomeini and the people were successful in overthrowing the Shah and the western type government.  After completing the revolution, traditional rules were implemented once again.  Laws were once again enacted to restrict the role of women in society.  They were once again relegated to the home and were required to wear cover certain parts of their bodies if they were seen in public.  The efforts of Reza Shah to modernize and change Iran were forgotten and the traditional culture was back in Iran.

The characters in Touba reflect all that was going on during the period before and after the Iranian Revolution.  The main character is Touba, and her life directly parallels everything that was happening in Iran.  The author does a decent job of telling the history of Iran through the character of Touba. 

Touba begins her journey in search of God.  She is trying to find him and also find the true meaning of life.  This can be seen as a direct reference to the fact that Islam took a backseat during the reign of Reza Shah.  Westernization was implemented during the Shah, and many Islamic people lost touch to their religion.  Later on in the novel, you see Touba begin to participate more and more in the Iranian society.  She has a voice in the public sphere, much like women did during the westernization of Iran under the Shah. 

Touba then also has a relationship with a character named Ismael, who later becomes her son in law.  Ismael is very educated and he symbolizes the advances in education that were present during the time of westernization in Iran.  Later in the story though, he becomes very politically active.  He is then arrested and tortured.  It is believed that he later symbolizes the beginnings of the revolution in the 1970’s.  Khomeini is becoming a political force and trying to implement the traditional culture.  Education would be looked at as a western idea and it is no surprise that Ismael is punished because he is educated.  The book then ends with Touba continuing on her quest of finding God.  This may symbolize that Islam is back at the center of the Iranian culture at this time.

In conclusion, the novel Touba and the Meaning of Night, does a decent job of connecting fictional characters with events that were going on during the 20^th century.  You see direct references to Reza Shah, his son Mohammed, so the story definitely does have connections to the history of the country.  The westernization of Iran under Reza Shah and the revolutionary period in Iran is definitely paralleled by Touba and the other characters at certain points throughout the novel.