What Is Stopping The Arab World From Decolonising?

The slimy ‘divide and conquer’ tactics of the West

‘There’s a real sense in which, more than any other part of the former colonial world, the Middle East has never been fully decolonised.’ — Seumas Milne (2011), The Guardian.

I read this article a couple of years back and reread it last week. This first line is the only thing that still haunts me from the long list of atrocities Milne writes about.

‘The Middle East has never been fully decolonised’.

Part and parcel of writing this essay are to unpick this idea. Untangle it and make sense of it.

What’s stopping the Middle East from decolonising?

It’s no secret that the Arab world sits on top of the majority of the world’s oil reserves.

But with great benefit, comes an even greater curse.

The curse of Western interference

The Arab world is the only region where Western powers don’t believe we are capable of self-governance.

As though Arabs ruling themselves is irresponsible. As though they would squander the oil reserves their ancestors lived on.

The collective and selective amnesia of European powers speaks volumes of this. Their colonial consciousness demands the protection of their cognitive dissonance.

Colonial history is rarely taught the honest way. I remember the blurs of history classrooms where the British empire is only ever taught for the good it did to its subjects.

That’s why some of you won’t know about the Sykes-Picot agreement.

Some of you won’t believe me when I say that Britain and France created Iraq out of transparent paper on an empty map.

Some of you will even think that I’m suggesting that arbitrary colonial borders are the root cause of all the problems in the Middle East. I’m not.

But the Arab world remembers that day in our cultural memory. Only because it was one of the earliest ‘divide and conquer’ tactic of the West.

These slimy strategies of the West don’t surprise us anymore.

We know all our dictators are backed and funded by Britain, America and France. Our politics is a chess game between Western powers.

Our corrupt leaders and Western powers have dipped their arms elbow-deep in our oil.

Our dim leaders stained their sleeves. The West made sure to roll theirs up so no stain exposes them.

But we’re not stupid.

We know our ‘leaders’ are puppets to the ventriloquist West.

We have seen far too many European troops flocking to ‘protect’ us from our ills.

Even in our revolutions, we look over our shoulders as the West try to hijack our renaissance. As they try to buy off our resistance and squash our rebuff.

It’s no secret why the Arab Spring was not as successful as the French revolution. It’s easier to control desperate peoples and illiterate masses.

It’s easier to exploit, subdue and seize an oil-filled land from a people struggling to have their voices heard.

How to decolonise?

This is a hefty question on many grounds.

With the Middle East, decolonisation is complex and nuanced. We have to look at physical emancipation from Western powers. As well as decolonising our minds.

Unlike other former colonies, our politics are still under Western control. We have not emancipated our land from colonial rule properly.

Politics may not decolonise for a long while. But we can always do one thing.

Invest in our minds.

To decolonise our minds, we have to cultivate a knowledge-based economy. No one will save us but ourselves.

We have to stop waiting for the white man saviour or a gold-tooth, greasy-haired political leader.

Building a knowledge economy

The Middle East is running out of time to prove itself to be a leading force in global relevancy.

Soon the oil reserves will deplete, and with it, the Arab world would be buried with the debris and dust.

A shift to a knowledge economy could save the Arab world.

But science, education, and literacy have to be at the forefront. Investment in Arab thought, intellect and philosophy are how we emancipate ourselves.

We already know how ideas move people with the plentitude of ideologies that funnel in our societies. But intellectual ideas is how to leapfrog to our decolonisation.

The UAE is paving the way for other Arab states. Their Mars Mission proves to the Arab world the meaning of ‘hope’.

It proves to that Arabs can compete in the growing information-led society.

Fatima Sultan is a writer, tutor and self-proclaimed nerd. She writes about life and its many excitements and disappointments. She also apparently likes referring to herself in the third person. You can read more of her writing by subscribing to her free newsletter.