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How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Destruction of the Syrian Arab Kingdom in 1920 and the Rise of Anti-Liberal Islamism
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61
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
78/100Critics
17/100Scholars
89/100Author:
Elizabeth F. Thompson
Publisher:
Grove Atlantic
Date:
April 21, 2020
On March 8, 1920, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence and ushered in a constitution that established the first Arab democracy with equal rights for all citizens, including non-Muslims. But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government, and the French invaded and crushed the Syrian stateâdestroying the fragile Arab democracy with profound consequences that this book explores in detail.
What The Reviewers Say
This accessible historical narrative...imagines what would have happened had Syria gained independence in 1920 and suggests that the resulting state could have offered a model for the marriage of Islam and liberal democracy in the region. This counterfactual is both sweeping and unprovable. In reality, European powers strangled Syrian independence in its crib, and by the late 1930s, an intolerant form of Islam and autocratic Arab nationalism came to prevail in the Middle East..
Thompson argues that the Western betrayal was ultimately rooted in race. Rather than seeing Arabs as free humans, Europeans (and likely many Americans) perceived them as inferior.
...How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs...breaks new ground in its discussion of the efforts of Syria’s short-lived National Congress to fuse liberal constitutionalism and Islam. This synthesis—the creation of an ideological common ground—is immensely important because its absence has wreaked havoc in the Arab countries ever since.
This clearly written, detailed study of post-World War I diplomacy sheds insight into the Syrian struggle for self-rule, and shows how the legacy of imperialism and colonialism continues to endure throughout the years.
