The Middle East and the West / Part 1NPR.org

• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3860950

MAKE IT MATCH!

The aftermath / the boundaries / the fate / to carve (- /-off/-up) / to seize / to foment / a slog

What follows / to grab – take by force / An hard work / The borders / To stir up – provoke discontent / supersticious control of one’s life / To sculpt – to shape

• On what side did the Ottoman fought duringWW1?

Ottomans entered World War I on the Germanside against Britain and France

• What was the French & British strategyregarding the Ottoman Empire during WW1?

They basically wanted to finish this easternquestion and carve off whatever remained of the Ottoman Empire

• What secret agreement has been signed on 1916?

Sykes-Picot secret agreement, 1916: defines spheres of influence after WW1

Secretly, French and British diplomats workedover maps of the Middle East and in 1916 came to an agreement, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, carving up the Middle East intospheres of British and French influence

• How did this agreement carved up the Middle East?

Sykes-Picot is rightly seen as the point at whichEurope, as it were, divided up the Middle East and created the modern state system in manyparts of the Middle East. Syria and Lebanon went to the French; Palestine to the British. The British also tookthe three Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra and createdmodern-day Iraq

MAKE IT MATCH!

A bulwark / to loathe (sb/sth) / the resentment / to abideby / the self-rule / an insurgency / a predicament / to betricked / a withholdind of information

To cheat – to deceive / A defensive wall / to tolerate / To hate / Self determination / a difficult situation / bitterness– ill will / to keep – not give / rebellion

• What was the mission of the famous British officer Lawrence of Arabia?

He had to organize tribal resistance, fomentinsurgencies

• Did Lawrence of Arabia succeed in turning the Arab tribes against the Ottomans ?

Although the British would have some successorganizing tribal resistance in Arabia, the famous story of Lawrence of Arabia.But the Allies, especially the British, were toostrong and by 1918 when the war endedBritish armies had occupied Baghdad, Damascus and Jerusalem.

• What did the British decide to establish in Palestine?

The Balfour Declaration(Nov. 2, 1917)

In Palestine, the British empire had declareditself in favor of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people, a decision that would have profound and violent consequences down to the present day

• What is a mandate?

There were plenty of arguments at the peaceconference in 1919 in Paris over how to divideup the Middle East. Eventually, the Allies came to a new agreement. They set up the League of Nations and created the mandate system of colonial controlA League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, on behalf of the League.

• What areas are under French mandates? British mandates?

Winston Churchill (Colonial

Secretary in the early

1920s) -- drew the current

map of the Middle East

Syria and Lebanon went to the French; Palestine to the British. The British also tookthe three Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra and createdmodern-day Iraq

• What were the British & French policiesregarding the mandates’ self governance?

The British and French, even though they werecharged under this mandate system, withleading these countries towards eventual self-rule, towards eventual independence, the British and French had no thought of goinganywhere anytime soon and fully intended to remain in control of these territories for the indefinite future. « divide and rule”.

• Where did the first Arab nationalists revoltsbroke out? Match it with the time landmarksbelow.

1919

1920 Revolt came first against British control in Egypt in 1919; then in Iraq in 1920

• How does T. E. Lawrence assess the British situation in Mesopotamia during the 1920s?

It was evident from the beginning that if we won the war these promises would be dead paper

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap into which it willbe hard to escape with dignity and honorWe are today not far from a disaster.'

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Make it match!

To resort to / to wander / a storyteller / secularist

Walk aimlessly / a writer – author / to have recourse to / independent from any religion

• What about the French in Syria, at the sameperiod of time?

Founded in Damascus in 1941 by Michel Aflaq (b. 1910 in

Damascus, d. 1989 Baghdad)

« The Renaissance party »

The Ba’th Party

Motto: “[Arab] Unity, Freedom [from colonialism], and Socialism”

Key concept: Pan-Arabism

Arab resistance to French control in Syria alsotook a violent turn in 1925. The French, too, resorted to bombing the insurgents intosubmission, including in some of the oldneighborhoods in Damascus itself

• How did the people living in old Damascusrenamed the old city after the French 1925 bombing?

• Is the Muslim Brotherhood a secularnationalist movement?

“Islam huwa al-hal!”(Arabic: Islam is the solution).

The Muslim Brotherhood.

Founded in 1928 by school teacher & imam Hassan al-Banna.

The world’s most longstanding Islamic movement

If you suffer in the way of God, it will be your profit in this world, and your reward in the next.

The civilization of the West, which was brilliant by virtue of its scientific perfection for a long time, and which subjugated the whole world with the products of this science to its states and nations, is now bankrupt and in decline.

If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realized by the Arab peoples, they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea.

ANTICOLONIALISM

POLITICAL ISLAMISM

ANTIZIONISM

Match the quotation & the idea

• What year did Syria got its independency?

Syria became independent in 1946

• What country took the place of Europeanpowers after WW2 ?

All these emerging Arab states then would face a new challenge from the West with the United States taking the place of Europe as the primary outside player in Middle Easternpolitics