3/25/2010

WW1 was a big mess for arab nations. It was composed of a tricky interwoven pattern of alliances which you had to carefully study in order to figure out which side a country was on and why. The most important alliance I think had to do with England, the Soviet Union, and the U.S because countries wanted them to be on their side; it was the fact that they were such superpowers. The U.S of course did not like it when a country allied with the Soviet Union because it was communist. The major thing for arab nations to take out of WW1 is massive reform. Turkey for instance had underwent a great deal of reform under Ataturk or Mustafa Kamal. He thought that the reason for all of Turkeys problems rested heavily in combining religion with governmental affairs, and that secularism would be the only way not to face those problems; secularism and nationalism. He sought to nationalise Turkey buy creating a whole new Turkey essentially based on western principals, and not Islamic principals. His most notable form of reform was the abolishment of Arabic as the national language, and the creation of the new national language, Turkish. He totally transformed governmental institutions, and I believe he should be dubbed founder of modern Turkey. However the most vicious and brutal form of reform was the Armenian massacre. Forgotten Fire is a great book, and it seeks to give a voice to the Armenians because their voices were never heard, and their stories were never told. I am loving the book so far. Nonetheless, reform led to the modernization of Turkey, and many other arab nations sought to use Kamal as their model for modernity.