One of the saddest facts of history is that the lessons it offers are rarely used in planning the future. When injustices result in war after it is over, the same wrongs that precipitated the conflict often smolder beneath the surface only to erupt in yet another conflict. The repeated episodes deepen the reservoir of resentment.
The United States has been less guilty of this than many nations. Although pockets of prejudice still exist, we have not had to re-fight the Civil War or re-visit the civil rights movements. There is still much work to be done in the field of human rights, but at least we have not torn apart the progress that we have made. Although we are, and are becoming, a more heterogeneous nation, there is still an underpinning of democracy in the vast majority of us.
Why is that not true for other nations? A major reason is the duration of their conflicts. Although we have been at the business of getting along together for over two hundred years, that is a very short time when looking at the cultures in the Middle East. Humans developed the first civilizations there in Sumer and Akkad and if history is to be believed they have been fighting for almost six thousand years.
The wars have been over two main issues: geography and religion. A third factor joins the pair and that is politics which has been used as an instrument to resolve the conflict. It has only compounded the problem.
Even though civilization has been around since the Sumerians, tribal living remains the norm for much of the world today. That was an issue in this country in the 17th century and everyone knows how that worked out for the Native Americans. There may have been as many as one hundred thousand Native Americans when the colonists got themselves organized and they were dispatched in short order. Such is not the case in the Middle East where there were millions living there when Christopher Newport weighed anchor in the James River in 1607.
In the Levant, the nations east of Italy in the Mediterranean, so different were these ethnic groups, so little land that was arable, and so variable their religious beliefs that almost continual conflict was inevitable. Just think back to the one million inhabitants (in who knows how many tribes) where living in the land of Canaan in the 13th century BCE when Joshua crossed the Jordan and announced that was the land God (one the Canaanites had never heard of) had given to them! That was 3300 years ago and there hasn’t been peace since then.
Americans, believing that we have the answer to everything, introduced the concept of Jeffersonian democracy to the Middle East a few years ago. As Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense points out in his valuable book, Duty, no understanding of the complexity of the societies of the Levant was even discussed, much less understood. We expected to explain this to them and suddenly five thousand years of their history would be laid aside and all would be well. Sadly, we have interest in only the nations that threaten our security or have natural resources we covet. Others, like Rwanda, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many more, we ignore.
With the resurgence of the radical Islamists what was feared by some actually is coming to pass in Iraq: The divisions of their religion have re-ignited a conflict that started in assassination of Muhammad’s grandson in the 7th century; that was the beginning of the Shiite/Sunni conflict. Our arrogance in thinking, when we understand nothing of their culture, we could show them a peaceful way to live together, is stunning.
The whole situation in the Middle East is beyond anyone’s understanding. It seems obvious, although our intentions may have been good, our actions were based on ignorance and now forces beyond our control have been set loose.
While we are powerless to influence the outcome, we should not lose sight of the tens of millions caught in the maelstrom not of their own making. We can only hope that sanity will rule the day, but even that seems unlikely.
The world has become a small place and we cannot live in isolation. How to intervene in a meaningful way is a Herculean task.
Hayden Hollingsworth
