Syria and Iraq Flashcards
(47 cards)
What did European colonialism not represent according to Daniel Neep?
A radical rupture in the means by which the region was governed.
Who had ruled over the area we now know as Syria in the nineteenth century?
The Ottomans
What had the Ottomans done during the nineteenth century?
Reformed state structures
What had the Ottoman reforms aimed to do?
- Enhance institutional efficiency
- Enhance bureaucratic rationality
- Enhance state autonomy
What was the name of the area of the Middle East where Syria now resides?
The Levant
What is the significance of the Ottoman reforms?
Typically modern governmental forms preceded direct European rule in the Levant.
How does Daniel Neep describe Ottoman governance despite their reforms?
“sporadic and discontinuous”
What prompted the intensification and centralisation of state power in the Levant?
The end of the First World War and the Mandatory State system.
How was British and Frence control extended into the Levant?
Through the Mandate system of the League of Nations.
What was the Mandate system intended to do in the Levant?
Transform indigenous society to modernise it and would last until the populations of the Levant could govern themselves.
What did the end of the First World War herald?
A new era of international history.
What was the horrific and mechanised slaughter of WW1 blamed on?
The structure of international politics during the nineteenth century, where great powers had struggled for military, economic, and territorial supremacy.
How does Daniel Neep describe the post-WW1 thinking about what led to the Great War?
“This unrestrained clash of sovereign wills was blamed for bringing civilisation to the brink of destruction.”
What was the League of Nations meant to do?
Transform unruly states and the international system as a whole in order to prevent a repreat of such a devastating war.
How did General Smuts of South Africe describe the rationale behind the Mandate system?
As great-power tutelage of those
‘incapable of or deficient in the power of self-government’ who required
‘nursing towards political and economic independence’.
How does Daniel Neep describe the Mandate system?
A tool for engineering global peace but also for refashioning old colonial possessions into new polities alligned to Wilsonian international liberalism.
What did Point 5 of Wilson’s 14 points call for?
“A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims… the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight”
What did point 14 call for?
“A general association of nations…guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”
How did Article 22 of the League of Nations describe the mandate system?
“a sacred trust of civilization”
What did the categories of A, B, and C represent under the madate system?
The level of advancement of each territory, A being the most advanced.
Which category did Syria fall into?
A, the most advanced
When did the British Colonial Office take over responsibiloty for Iraq?
February 1921
How does Daniel Neep describe French colonial policy in Mandate Syria compared to Britains mandates?
It was much more interventionist and therefore less ‘Wilsonian’.
Why did France take a much more interventionist approach to their mandates?
The role it saw itself performing as religious
protector of Catholics in the Middle East - “Levantine society was thought to be so fragmented that social peace could be guaranteed only by an external protector who stood above the petty squabbles of local communities.”
