Original link: https://aaronnick.github.io/posts/the-arabs/
“Arabs in Conquest and Revolution” is a clear-cut Arab history book, which describes in detail the Arabs’ resistance to foreign rule, resistance to imperialist colonization, resistance to Jewish aggression and national establishment, and response to civil wars and other historical events. However, the shortcoming of this book is that most of the content is just a list of historical events, lacking unique thinking.
Throughout history, the Arabs have longed for a unified nation-state, but since the establishment of their own independent states in the last century, the realization of this aspiration has become minimal. In the past, the main contradiction of the entire nation was to resist colonialism and establish a unified country. Subsequent contradictions gradually became complicated, because Arabs carry multiple identities, such as national residents, Arabs, and Muslims. And there are serious conflicts among multiple sects of Islam, which has exacerbated the instability in the Arab world.
In addition, the existence of the Jewish state of Israel is also an unstable factor in the entire Arab world, and the impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to this day. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with the conflicts of interests of various camps externally, and to deal with the complexity of internal conflicts internally. It is pessimistic for the entire Arab world to achieve peace and stability.
Record a few impressive points:
Closure makes people ignorant, and ignorance makes people proud . At the end of the eighteenth century, the British visited Alexandria to inform local officials that the French were about to invade them and that the British could help. However, they refused, because in the eyes of the Alexander nobles, a secondary country could not invade the land of the sultan (monarch), and they did not need to ask a secondary country for help. The closed environment caused the Arabs to misunderstand the great changes in the outside world. It was not until the European powers opened the city gate with guns that they realized that they were a frog in a well.
The conflict between religious belief and modern civilization . When the French tried to infect the people of Cairo with ideas of freedom after the French Revolution, they failed, and the Muslims rejected human reason over revealed religion. They believe that Allah is unique, and so is Allah’s law, which does not require additional thoughts and rules.
Irreconcilable conflict of beliefs and interests . The founding of Israel’s Jewish state is a great insult to the Arab world, and the support of Western countries for Israel has extended this influence to the whole world. The Arabs tried to regain their land by launching wars, but faced sanctions from Western countries. If they conclude a peace treaty with Israel or the West, they will be opposed by the domestic population. In addition, the disunity within the Islamic sect intensified this contradiction, resulting in turmoil and civil wars that continued.
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