Kristof glosses over colonial era
Issandr El AmraniThere's a strange cultural phenomenon — perhaps part of the return of conservatism in the West following the social revolutions symbolized by May 1968 — that has made apologia for colonialism popular again among liberals. I know where it once came from: my maternal grandfather, a man I loved dearly, came from a Belgian colonial family (his father was among the first Europeans to go into deep inner Congo, looking for gold and diamonds in Katanga) would often complain that critics of colonialism forget that Europeans built hospitals and roads and so on where none existed — but would rarely mention the hundreds of thousands of people killed or the exploitation that took place. I didn't like what he said and attributed to his age and conservative mindset, as well as his own experience as a settler in Morocco, which was not at all the exploitative model seen in Congo.
I'm a bit puzzled to read this tidbit in Nick Kristof's latest column:
Many Arabs have an alternative theory about the reason for the region’s backwardness: Western colonialism. But that seems equally specious and has the sequencing wrong. “For all its discontents, the Middle East’s colonial period brought fundamental transformation, not stagnation; rising literacy and education, not spreading ignorance; and enrichment at unprecedented rates, not immiserization,” writes Timur Kuran, a Duke University economic historian, in a meticulously researched new book, “The Long pergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.”
It's absolutely true to say that colonialism shook up the Muslim world and introduced new technologies and methods of doing business, just as it is correct to say that much of that area stagnated since the late Middle Ages, and that cultural issues, including religion, certainly played a role in that. Kristof's point about Islamic inheritance law and much mainstream Sunni jurisprudence certainly holds. It's not a popular argument to make, but the practice of Islam by mainstream ulema and their alliance with political elites certainly contributed to hundreds of years of stagnation and despotism.
But you can't just gloss over the colonial era like that. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed by the French in the Maghreb (particularly Algeria) in campaigns of pacifications. Great areas of farmland were handed out to settlers in Algeria at the expense of local people, creating vast gulfs in wealth distribution that continue to this day (since in so many countries, nationalized assets of colonial elites were simply passed on to a native elite). The colonial era also shaped much of the legal and security framework that newly independent Arab regimes turned from repressing pro-independence activists to repressing communists, Islamists and other regime opponents. It also fuelled Muslim chauvinism, not only because the colonists were non-Muslims, but also because minorities (Christians, Jews) were often given privileged status precisely to fragment local opinion. We live with the inheritance of that era to this day.
The ongoing wave of uprisings, if there is a transition to democracy, will have to unravel the perpetuation of the colonial mindset by the post-independence elites. This is something both natives and former colonial powers (by encouraging friendly autocratic elites to emerge post-independence) have to take responsibility for.
Reader Comments (11)
Brilliant! I am from a high school class of '60 and I know the history you describe. Often I feel like I am the only one who learned anything, and I know that the current graduates haven't been taught much. It's sad that you had to write this history-in-brief for poorly educated westerners, but I'm glad that you did and I'll pass it along. THANKS!
The issues (and opportunities) suggested by Timur Kuran are being lost in the personalization surrounding Kristof’s gloss of Timur Kuran’s groundbreaking work.
Regardless of one’s approach to Kristof’s column and to colonialism in general, Timur Kuran’s work can and should be the subject of serious consideration. This video lecture provides an accessible and intriguing starting point:
Why the Middle East Became Economically Underdeveloped PART 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN7T3JDurZ4
For a quick preview, watch part 5 first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE0poY6JhCk&NR=1
First, we need to compare development indicator variation before/during/after the colonial period. Of course, the literacy rate did go up, but how much did it go up? Did it accelerate after the decolonization? Also we need to compare them to non Islamic countries[ even East European countries], to evaluate the Islam factor. I mean, I never knew of shareholders and bank system in Congo or China in the 19th century.
Second point, these are rural societies, so we need to look at the land ownership not industry. What was the land owner size repartition? At one point the Egypt Revolution of 1952 was about reducing the inequality and ending big landlord. And the situation was different in Syria, still a Muslim country but with different repartition. So why are these Muslim States different? And if few percent of landowner controlled big shares of arable land in Egypt before 1952, why didn't the islamic law he recalled cancell this? Doesn't this mean that the islamic law of inheritance is not applied in rural areas, proving that the premise of Kristoff's argument about inheritance law is wrong?
I believe that a thorough study of statistics of ownership will show sharp differences between Muslim countries, and could invalidate his theories in several regions.
Also where does this "educational underachiever [especially among girl]" come from ? Is he talking about literacy rates or college studies? I do believe that the repartition by sex in the university in Egypt is close to 50%.
We need to follow these people and look at the numbers they are presenting. If it is just cherry picked stats, and chit-chat with taxi-drivers, then these Kristoff's hunches are a load of crap.
Kuran's analysis is actually much more subtle than Kristof's representation, if Kuran's book is anything like an article of his that I read. Regarding the development of financial and economic institutions capable of countering European ones, the colonial period in the strict sense (after 1798) was less important than the period preceding it, when Europeans won concessions for their traders (and a few select minorities), in particular the right to have disputes settled in business courts that did not follow Islamic legal principles. The superiority of these courts for preserving and concentrating wealth was clear to Muslim traders as well, and many devised ways to take advantage of these protections as well. Clearly, concentrating and preserving wealth is not good for any society, but it is for capitalism, and so it did a lot to set the stage for the later colonial period.
Issandr, like you I was taken aback by Kristof's casual glance at colonialism. But after my initial surprise, I had to admit that the 'colonial period' meant different things in different parts of the world. On one end of the spectrum, for example, India suffered under two forms of British colonialism over the course of hundreds of years. On the other end of the spectrum, I recall a good friend in Italy who is Somali. His attitude to British colonialism in Somalia was basically to shrug. British dominion was exceptionally brief in his country (10 years? 15 years?) and more benign than slightly longer Italian occupation. His summary - the British built roads, the Italians just wanted cheap bananas. Neither seemed, from his telling or that of his friends, to be much more than a brief detour in an ancient land. Conversely, the Algerian experience under the French was traumatic and horrible in the extreme. And then there is the Turkish experience, for many centuries a mighty imperial power that dominated the Mediterranean, southern Europe and MENA - the Turks were the colonisers, not the colonised. As a good historian, I must remind myself that particularities are essential. It was wrong of Kristof to gloss over the colonial era, because some encounters were long, brutal and severely destructive to the societies that suffered them. But others were not. It is equally mistaken for us to gloss over different experiences of colonialism and react, with heartfelt solidarity, as if all experiences of colonialisation were the same. I've not read Kuran's much-praised book, but it does sound like the kind of scrupulous investigation of particularities and variables that may be very helpful at this historical juncture to put at least some parts of colonial history in perspective, drain them of their suffocating grip on us, and help people move forward at last.
Excellent nuancing of Kristoff's comments. And in good spirit, Kristoff himself is tweeting a link to this article.
It's outrageous, poor history knowledge, and ungrateful to accuse Islam from backwardness, the West owes Islam for bringing it the light as it was blinded in the dark ages, whether in sciences, inovations, human rights,..etc, you need to learn about Islam before talking about it, not to mention trying to analyze and blame it! See for example "Isalm:Empire of Faith", you could've at least asked a Muslim, and should've quoted what's the point of Muslims on topic, it's strange for a journalist not to go to sources and only search for what would satisfy his opinion! A judge would hear both sides before a judgement.
How about be cause the West worships oil and their interests, that they are ready to kill millions, start wars and supress freedoms for it; is history and even what is happening now does not trigger this easy answer in you mind?! It is a game they keep playing, supporting who they like to do their dirty work, then turn on them when their role is finished by labeling them terrorists or dictators! And then try to play it all over again! They know exactly how those regimes suppress the freedom they claim supporting, an example is Egypt, where Libya they sold their souls if they had it for the bloody oil
We will get, The Creator Willing, the real Freedom, and we will build our countries to be a source of light again, and then, you may want to write an article on how the West is so backward, and how to learn from the East, we can help you on it, and you can include a our qoute
I'm from India and I can see the damages of colonial era to my country. They not only divided the country but also try to steal our history. It European greed for wealth and power that.................I can not stop writing so I better end here.
I believe that more than the unravelling of "the perpetuation of the colonial mindset" needs to take place in the Middle East if the wave of uprisings there are going to lead to democratic societies. Also, I would go further than Kuran and add that not only Islamic law has held back the Middle East but that Islamic society, following the early centuries of the Islamic ascendency, has been held back by social repression, repression which has been sanctioned, or has been seen to be sanctioned by Islamic belief. When I say this, I am well aware of the negatives and the positives that have been the result of humanism, enlightenment and the development of secular society in the West. Also, I am all too aware of what is happening in my own country, the United States- the coarsening and trivializing of public behavior that I witness daily; the increasing incivility of public, especially political, discourse; the weakening of intellectual inquiry... As I see it, the colonial mindset must be faced, learned from and grown beyond. Islamic law must be transformed so that women can make, not their own choices, but discover that they have their own choices. Islamic belief- I tell my ESL students when we first start working together and they want to know am I a Christian that I was raised Methodist. This is good for 50 minutes of explanation concerning the Christianity of Byzantium, the Christianity of Rome, the Protestant Reformation and how Methodism is one of the Protestant branches. I put them off not because it feels unprofessional to me to speak of my religion but because I am no longer a "believer", though I still love to sing the hymns of my church going childhood and I am still moved by the Christmas Eve service and the story of the baby being born in a stable and then the unlit candles each person is holding in the darkened church are lit and the church glows because of the light we all make together. I should be able to talk about this to students but I know I "m not really taling about a faith and it's not much on which to build a faith. I am lucky, I think, that my religious upbringing provides me with a moral ground. Furthermore, I believe that a moral ground is essential to a healthy and vital society. Moral ground without faith- I realize i've boxed myself into a corner which is a good place to stop... Thank you for providing some insight into the colonial mindset and mentioning Kurun's book.
A couple of things.
Post festum, there is no way to excuse some of the consequences of western imperialism, but in the Mediterranean it's difficult to discuss and understand the development without taking the the ottoman
empire and the power play between the western powers into account. Killings is at the center at the politics. The ottoman empire wasn't that soft, the mass killings in what is to become Greece to mention one example, the russian czarists policy in around the black sea ( Orlando Figes book of the Crimea war describes this well).
The question of landownership is surely in much need to be research, but in some part of the middle east landownership was part of religious entitlements, which was very difficult to break up, and those entitlements was de facto ( if not juridical) owned by big landowners, and thats one of the reasons that the inheritance laws didn't have much effect.
In hindsight it's clear that parts of the middle east would have been better of, if it has had the same reforms as in Western Europe , which lead to the establishment of strong independent farmer class
which had an important role in the development of the democratic state.
Why do I get the nagging feeling that the rotten "West" is preparing a new, direct colonial rule in our region? No longer colonialism by proxy, but something more demeaning.