186 • 12 THE RISE OF NATIONALISMOther Middle Eastern nationalist movements were based even more firmly
on religion and called on their people to resist oppression by others having a
different faith. These include Greeks and Armenians among the Christians
of the Middle East, as well as Turks and Persians among its Muslims. Politi¬
cal Zionism, which called for Israel's creation as the Jewish state, drew its in¬
spiration from Judaism, even if many of its advocates were not themselves
observant. In all three monotheistic faiths, the rise of nationalism has meant
substituting collective self-love for the love of God, enhancing life on earth
instead of preparing for what is to come after death, and promoting the
community's welfare instead of obeying God's revealed laws.
During the forty years preceding World War I, the peoples of the Arab
world, Turkey, and Persia began to develop nationalist feelings. As this era
was the heyday of European imperialism, we can see rising nationalism as a
natural reaction to Western power. But it was also the end result of a century
of westernizing reform, with its enlarged armies and bureaucracies, modern
schools, printing presses, roads and rail lines, and centralized state power.
One could not learn Europe's technical skills, most often taught in French,
without absorbing some of its ideas. Middle Eastern students at French or
German universities had ample exposure to Western ideas, even if they
never heard lectures in political theory. There were newspapers and maga¬
zines being hawked in the streets, lively discussions in cafes, demonstrations,
and encounters with Western orientalists (the nineteenth-century counter¬
part of our Middle East historians) who could explain what was happening
in Europe to a Turkish, Egyptian, or Persian sojourner. Even the students
who learned their technical skills in Istanbul, Cairo, or Tehran were apt to
get exposed to Western ideas through their European instructors. Besides,
their schools usually had reading rooms. A Middle Easterner studying engi¬
neering could read works by Rousseau or other Western writers.
In short, as Middle Easterners learned how to work like Europeans, some
also started to think like them. They learned that bad governments did not
have to be endured (indeed, many earlier Muslims had defied tyrannical
rulers), that individuals had rights and freedoms that should be protected
against official coercion, and that people could belong to political commu¬
nities based on race, language, culture, and shared historical experience—in
short, they form nations. In the 1870s these liberal and nationalist ideas be¬
came current among many educated young Muslims of the Middle East, es¬
pecially in the capital cities. While they faced the frustrations of these years
and those that followed, their ideas crystallized into nationalist movements.
Many religious and ethnic groups formed nationalist movements in the
Middle East before World War I. We limit this chapter, however, to three
that arose within existing states that had governments and some experience