Why did Europeans decided to ruin Middle East and divide Muslims

>>1461951

Because the opinions of people on the ground didnt matter to the victorious world powers?

Few people at the time outside the foreign office, academics and eccentrics would be able to properly distinguish the differences between the sunnis and shiites and to be fair, there was relative peace and tolerance between the sects at the time of sykes picott.

You did that to yourselves. Don't lie.

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>>1461951
The Muslims divided themselves between Sunni and Shi'a within a generation of the death of the Prophet.

The European powers drew lines on a map that did not respect the natural geo-political divisions which had taken place over the ensuing millennium.

Why? The arrogant assumed superiority of the White Man and their ignorance of the Sunni Shi's divide.

Pretty simple really.

>pic "After the Prophet" (2009) by Lesley Hazelton

>>1461951
There was no french """influence""", we controled all the green clay.

>>1461951

Because Churchill was a fucking idiot

>>1462176
>The Muslims divided themselves between Sunni and Shi'a within a generation of the death of the Prophet.

There wasn't a significant concentrated population of shi'a until Safavid Persia in the 16th century

The rest of the world was conquered, so they wanted to conquer the Middle East too. And they did.

>>1462292
There always was in large parts of Syria and Iraq, but Iraq was always considered more or less part of Persia to begin with.

>>1462071
>Few people at the time outside the foreign office

Even the Foreign Office didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

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>>1462176
There is alway another solution for your land, Ahmed

Before we knew it existed at all

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>>1462992
You are ignorant and a racist.
Given that I am a pasty white Protestant American Veteran, I would hope that nobody launches nuclear weapons against the United States of America.

It isn't fair to blame the Europeans 100% when the Ottomans utterly failed to modernize any of the states under their control, and the Europeans were only there for a generation.

>>1461951
>Genocidal tribal peoples show a complete lack of ability to self govern or create a productive society
>"B-But muh evil whiteys ruled us for like twenty years after hundreds of years of Turkish oppression. Fuck those guys."
>"Our general terribleness is their fault"
This honestly seems like the most irrational and infantile reaction to a problem: Blaming it on someone else.

>>1462225
Can you do better?

>>1461951
This meme again.

The western divisions were largely based on the Ottoman administrative Sandjaks which they inherited.

Leftist polemicists desperate to spin all problems in the world as the west's fault

>>1461951
Western leftists:
>how can you mash so many ethno-religious groups together into a single state? Don't you see that this is a recipe for conflict?

Western leftists:
>we should turn all Western countries into multicultural societies by importing mass numbers of people from an alien and hostile culture

>>1463480
kys pseud

>>1461951
""Europeans"""

>>1463685

>>>/lit/

>>1461951
>the west is expected to live with people completely different from them everyday
>the middle east isn't even expected to live with their neighbors because "muh sunni/shia"

Fuck that, they need to start living in the 21st century.

Sunnis have been committing pogroms against Shia for generations. Now that they've got a significant power base in Iran in the Middle East, Sunni powers are chimping the fuck out and doing all kinds of nonsense we see in the news daily, spreading Salafism, and funding terror groups.

Don't blame it on the West, Omar. Their only problem is supporting S Arabia

>>1461951
>Europeans

>>1461951
1.Sykes-Picot was never implemented.
2.Religious affiliation does not a nation make, and as the failure of Pan-Arab ideology showed the different Arab-speaking peoples can't simply treated as a homogenous whole only divided by Western-drawn 'lines in the sand'.
3.The current Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict is a product of the ideological clash between Saudi wahhabism and Iranian revolutionary khomeinism.

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>>1463669
>Leftist polemicists desperate to spin all problems in the world as the west's fault

You weren't exactly just standing on the sidelines while all this was happening, and you aren't exactly being neutral observers now.

>>1461951
IMO I'm all for the Third Argument: not dismantling the Ottoman Empire.

Since really, the only way you get a bunch of Tribal Nignogs together is some strong Central Government bitchslapping them with a mailed hand whenever they get rowdy.

>>1463804
Even if the entire West armed, trained, and advised the Ottomans, the empire had fallen to such disrepair that the Third Argument is pure fantasy.

>>1463785

The argument is self defeating from a leftist standpoint, besides rather ignorant of the historical context.

For the argument to work one must first implicitly accept that different religions or races are not able to live together. Which goes against most leftist theory.

In order to largely prevent the violence and oppression according to this argument the European imperialist should have divided the territories according to the ethnic theories of European orientalists. Instead of quasi inheriting the existing provinces and divisions which were created by Muslims.

The argument also ignores that for example the Kurds and Armenians were in fact given ethnic territories to protect them from the Arabs and Turks. The latter were promptly genocided. The former got a boot in the face starting from the very moment the British handed over control over Iraq.

Now, I'm not saying that the short lived imperialist adventures of the Europeans in the Middle East did not disrupt societies in the region in other ways.

Sykes Picot however, is a meme. And a leftist that uses is kind of a hypocrit.

>>1463840
I know ;_;

Let's even add the retarded Turkish Nationalists to that mess.

>>1463669
this is correct

> Invade Europe for 1,100 years.
> Take over the Iberian, parts of Italy, and Eastern Europe up to the gates of Vienna
> Countless wars of conquest
> Countless enslavements
> Finally driven out in the 1800s from most of your holdings
> Still able to fight competently and beat the Brits and Russians on the defensive in 1914-1918
> Lose war, become colonized for less than 30 years
> Able to pretend your entire society has been victimized by Europeans for eternity and any bad things in your society are due to a Jewish/Western cabal

>>1464246
>Arabs = Turks

Smhtbhoniifam

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>>1461951
>Why did Europeans decided to ruin Middle East and divide Muslims between Shia and Sunni?

The problem is they didn't divide the Muslims between Shia and Sunni (and Kurd and Levantine Arab) regions and then the U.S. (at Israel's behest) further screws up by again not dividing them up.

They didn't divide them into Sunni and Shia groups.

And frankly, how could they have seen this coming? Were Shias and Sunnis always killing each other under Ottoman rule?

If WWII doesn't happen and the French get to create an Alawite state out of the east of Syria we wouldn't be having this civil war either.

>>1465712
This map is fucking imbecillic.

What is the principle here; Wilsonian ethno-states?

Why are there now six Sunni arab states?

Why have the alawites been folded into Lebanon, making the country an even bigger ethnic clusterfuck?

Why has "Arab shia state" been given 95% of the middle east's oil supplies?

Why is Pakistan's capital city now in a ten mile wide strip?

Why does the UAE still exist?

Why the FUCK does Kuwait exist?

>>1463669
>The western divisions were largely based on the Ottoman administrative Sandjaks which they inherited.
The problem is they worked as Sanjaks because a Sanjak is not the same as a nation state. Syria and Iraq are three or more sanjaks fused together (with some cutting at the border) and one given primacy as the capital for the sake of colonial administration, while an Ottoman sanjak was equal to all others. Damascus was not above Aleppo which was not above Mosul which was not above Baghdad under the Ottomans, but as Syria and Iraq Damascus and Baghdad respectively are now supposed to be capitals over the others.

Big surprise when all the civil wars currently are about one or more old sanjaks rebelling against Damascus and Baghdad. Like, imagine if the Ottomans had successfully conquered Italy before its unification, and for their convenience built an emirate out of all the Italian states with Venice or Naples as the capital. And then it left, leaving the elite gathered around this capital that had only ruled over other states like Milan, Genoa, Rome, and Florence for a few decades to dominate the state institutions. Then years later when Tuscany and Lombardy are centers of a major revolt some idiots in Turkey just say 'why blame the us? Italy as we left it was largely based on the Italian States anyway, what's the big deal?'

>>1465944

Good post

Why can't the goat fucked just learn to be more tolerant?

>>1466166
Ers*

>>1465712
>that kurdistan
>they even control fucking tabriz

How the fuck they contol tabriz that's like the azeri capital of persia

>kuwait exist

Ohh so it's that kind of a map

>>1464188

>For the argument to work one must first implicitly accept that different religions or races are not able to live together. Which goes against most leftist theory.

All these diferent sects and ethnicities managed to get along for most of the Ottoman Empire's history, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

>The argument also ignores that for example the Kurds and Armenians were in fact given ethnic territories to protect them from the Arabs and Turks. The latter were promptly genocided. The former got a boot in the face starting from the very moment the British handed over control over Iraq.

Kurds and Armenians were most definitely not given their own countries by the British. On the contrary, the British forced Kurdistan into Iraq as a way of maintaining a Sunni majority over what was a Shia majority. Oil was also an important consideration. If Kurdistan became a part of Iraq, Kirkuk's anticipated oil wealth could finance the new country. Oil wealth that would not coincidently flow through the hands of the British owned Iraq Petroleum Company.

>Now, I'm not saying that the short lived imperialist adventures of the Europeans in the Middle East did not disrupt societies in the region in other ways.

>The West created the modern Middle East, from its rotten regimes down to its ridiculous borders, and it did so with contemptuous disregard for the wishes of the local people. It is indeed a problem that most Arab governments are corrupt autocracies that breed hatred and despair in their own people, which then fuels terrorism against the West, but it was the West that created the problem — and invading Iraq won’t solve it.

http://gwynnedyer.com/2004/whats-wrong-with-the-arab-world/

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>>1463015

>>1461951
Its called using anthopological studies as a weapon, it's a fine British tradition-Study other cultures so you best know how to subjugate and exploit them with the minimum expenditure of force, resources and manpower.

>>1465910
The most stupid thing about it isn't even the logic or lack thereof, it's imagining they can just carve up the region like that.
How are you going to carve up Turkey, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States all at the same time? The only allies such a foolish hegemon would have would be the Jordanians, Lebanese, Kurds and Baluchi, who are less irredentist and powerful than the states they're supposed to gain territory from. And all this for no real gain other than pretty borders (because I'm pretty certain this will not bring any stability to the Middle East.)

>>1461951
>divide Muslims between Shia and Sunni?
Pretty sure that they did so themselves