Ussama Makdisi
book Age of Coexistence
The Ecumenical frame and the making of the Arab World.
At end of his lecture and questions he talks of the importance of history. What has happened to Palestinians isn't that complicated. What is neglected is the history and the context.
His book was written before recent events.
In his books the co existence is that of Jews/ Christians and Muslims in the late Ottoman Empire.
In the north of the Empire the coexistence broke down. Serbia / Greece and Bulgaria.
In the Arab areas the Ottoman empire tried to modernise in 19c. With a lot of work done on coexistence. A modernisation of the old co existence. With discussions of a new form of Ottoman citizenship. Called the Tanzimat.
What he says is that this history has been forgotten.
The breakup of the Empire after its defeat in WW1 led to two events. The European Imperial powers divided up the Arab part of the Empire into regions they ran. And secondly worst of all the British supported Zionism in Palestine. The Balfour declaration.
He does not say this in his lecture but the way I read it is that their could have been an alternative history. An Arab world building on the modernisation of the Tanzimat period to make an Arab world much different to now. As he says one could call oneself a Christian Arab or a Muslim Arab. But no longer an Arab Jew.
(The history book The
Line in the Sand goes into the meddling by French and British Empires who bear imo a lot of responsibility for shaping the middle east which helped cause future conflict)
He says part of the reason he wrote this book was to counter the common western view of the Arab world and middle east as a place of violence and sectarianism.
Where as he says in mid 19c Ottoman Empire serious work was done to build a co existence. He's not saying it was all plain sailing but it dispels the myth that the middle east / Arab world is just unchanging area of backward violence.
Zionism he calls Colonial Zionism. There was a Jewish population in the Ottoman Empire. They had nothing to do with Zionism.
His view is that Zionism is an European idea. It was and is a disaster for the region. And could have only got a foothold in the Arab world by help of British Empire. He says from its earliest writers ( Herzl) they knew that that to make a state for Jews required removing the Arab population from Palestine. It never was about co existence.
At end of talk they discuss the relevance of the history to the present.
The first thing is to show that Arabs have a history of tolerance.
Secondly his book shows that it is possible to have different kind of society in Arab world. He does not think Zionism - A colonial political programme - can last for ever. Some kind of co existence needs to take its place.
He does add at end that one has to be careful when advocating co existence. Palestinians co exist in Palestine with Jews. But its an unequal relationship.
He's saying co existence on equal terms.
They talked a bit about the One State solution in relation to the history he recounts in his book.
The book looks interesting.
www.amnesty.org
jewishcurrents.org
www.propublica.org
