Constructing New Political, Economic, and Social Realities

WHAP/Napp

Cues: / Notes:
  1. The Global South
  1. Known previously as third world, developing countries, or Global South
  2. Second half of 20th century, represented 75 percent of world’s population
  3. Almost all of fourfold increase in human numbers in 20th century
  1. The Post-Colonial World
  1. In 1950sBritish, French, and Belgians attempted, rather belatedly, to transplant democratic institutions to their colonies
  2. By 1970s, many of popular political parties that led struggle for independence lost mass support and were swept away by military coups
  3. But India, Western-style democracyhas been practiced almost continuously since independence
  4. But struggle for independence in Indiaa far more prolonged affair, thus providing time for an Indian political leadership to sort itself out
  5. But creating national unitymore difficult in Africa where competing political parties identified primarily with ethnic or “tribal” groups
  6. Also widespread economic disappointment
  7. Unlike Latin America where large landowners benefited most from independence, in Africaeducated elite benefited most
  8. By early 1980s, military had intervened in at least thirty of Africa’s forty-six independent states and actively governed more than half of them
I.But since the early 1980s, a remarkable resurgence of Western-style democracyAlso end of cold war reduced willingness of the major industrial powers to underwrite authoritarian client states
J. Achieving economic development proved immensely difficult
K. An early emphasis on city-based industrial development led to a neglect or exploitation of rural areas and agriculture
L. Women also were central to many government’s interest in curtailing population growth
M. In general, East Asian countries have strongest record of economic growth
N. The quest for economic development represented an embrace of an emerging global culture of modernity but peoples of Global South also had inherited cultural patterns from more distant past
O. But a common issue all across the Global South involved the uneasy relationship between these older traditions and the more recent outlooks associated with modernity and the West
P. Nowhere was the consequences of cultural experiments with modernity more consequential than in the Islamic world
Summaries:
Cues: / II.Case Study: Turkey
  1. In aftermath of World War I, modern Turkey emerged from ashes of Ottoman empire as a republic, led by a determined general, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938)
  2. During 1920s and 1930s, presided over national cultural revolution
  3. Wanted to create a thoroughly modern and Western Turkish society and viewed many traditional Islamic institutions, beliefs, and practices as obstacles to that goal
  4. Within a few years, caliphate had officially ended, Sufi orders disbanded, religious courts abolished, and the sharia replaced by Swiss legal codes
  5. Public education was completely secularized, and the Latin alphabet replaced the Arabic script for writing the Turkish language
  6. Religious leaders (the ulama) were brought more firmly under state control
  7. Butmost visible symbols of revolutionary program occurred in realm of dressTurkish men were ordered to abandon traditional headdress known as the fez and to wear brimmed hats
  8. Polygamy was abolished and husband’s right to repudiate his wife or wives
I.Under European-style legal codes, women achieved equal rights to divorce, child custody, inheritance, and education
J. By mid-1930s, women granted right to vote in national elections, a decade before French women gained that right
K. Like Japan in the late 1800s “revolution from above” led by military and civilian officials unburdened by close ties to traditional landholding groups
L. Yet Turkey underwent a cultural revolution in public life not a social or economic revolutionstill firmly attached to Islamic tradition at local level
M. Atatürk’s answer was to fully embrace modern culture and Western ways in public life and to relegate Islam to the sphere of private life
III. Case Study: Iran
  1. The epicenter of Islamic revival in the 1970s as opposition mounted to modernizing, secularizing, American-supported government of the shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi (reigned 1941-1979)
  2. One elderly cleric in particular, the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, organized opposition from exile in Paris and became the center of a growing movement demanding the shah’s removal
  3. As the nation revolted and slipped into anarchy, the shah abdicated, and in early 1979 he and his family fled the country
  4. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran and appointed his own government
  5. Sharia became law of the land, and religious leaders themselves assumed reins of government
  6. Culturally, regime sought moral purification of country under state control
  7. But no class upheaval or radical redistribution of wealth followed; private property was maintained, and a new privileged elite emerged
  8. Nor did an Islamic revolution mean abandonment of economic modernity
  9. Iran was actively pursuing nuclear power and perhaps nuclear weapons, much to the consternation of the West

Summaries:

Strayer Questions:

  • Why was Africa's experience with political democracy different from that of India?
  • What accounts for the ups and downs of political democracy in postcolonial Africa?
  • What obstacles impeded the economic development of third world countries?
  • In what ways did thinking about the role of the state in the economic life of developing countries change? Why did it change?
  • In what ways did cultural revolutions in Turkey and Iran reflect different understandings of the role of Islam in modern societies?

  1. One of the chief by-products of population growth in the Third World nations has been
(A)Imposition of effective state birth control programs.
(B)Intensive programs of land redistribution.
(C)Industrialization.
(D)Mass migration to cities.
  1. The continued relegation of the Third World to economic dependency after decolonization is sometimes referred to as the
(A)“Neocolonialism.”
(B)Western supremacy.
(C)Global retardation.
(D)“Malthusian principle.”
3. Which of the following is true of both India and China in the period from 1945 to 1990?
(A) Both colonies of a foreign power.
(B) In the 1950s, leaders of both countries focused on industrial development.
(C) Building an agricultural base was the top priority of both countries.
(D) Both countries adopted free-trade policies in the 1960s.
(E) Both societies quickly rejected traditional religious values. / 4.Which country's collapse was at the heart of the Eastern Question?
(A) Persia's
(B) the Ottoman Empire's
(C) India's
(D) Afghanistan's
(E) China's
5. The regime of the Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlazi was overthrown because
A) He alienated conservative Shia Muslims with his secular reforms.
B) He used CIA money to suppress all dissent.
C) He allowed western corporations to dominate the economy.
D) All of the above.
E) A and B, not C.
6. The goals of feminism in industrialized nations after WWII include all the following except
A) Women’s suffrage.
B) Equal pay for equal work.
C) Access to birth control and abortion.
D) Legal equality.
E) All of the above are postwar goals of feminism.

In 1921 Reza Khan, commander of an Iranian Cossack force, overthrew the decadent Kajar dynasty, and, as Reza Shah Pahlevi, established the Pahlevi dynasty in 1925. During his reign, transportation and communication systems were improved, and a program of Westernization was begun. In 1941 Britain and the Soviet Union occupied areas of the country to protect the oil fields from German seizure. Because of this Allied presence, Reza Shah Pahlevi, who had been friendly to the Axis powers, abdicated. His son, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi, succeeded to the throne and adopted a pro-Allied policy. In 1945 the Iranian government requested the withdrawal of occupying troops, concerned that Soviet forces were encouraging separatist movements in the Northern provinces. All troops were withdrawn by 1946.

In the 1950s, a major political crisis developed over control of the oil industry. In 1951 Muhammad Mossadegh, a militant nationalist, became prime minister. When parliament approved a law nationalizing the property of foreign oil companies with widespread popular support, Mossadegh pressed the shah for extraordinary powers. The dissension between pro- and anti-Mossadegh forces reached a climax during 1953 when the shah dismissed the prime minister. Mossadegh refused to yield and the shah fled to Rome. After three days of riots, the royalists won back control of Teheran, the shah returned, and Mossadegh was sentenced to prison. The shah then opened negotiations with an eight-company oil consortium that guaranteed Iran a margin of profit greater than anywhere else in the Middle East.

Throughout the 1960s, the shah began to exercise increasing control over the governmentafter dissolving parliament in 1961. Programs of agricultural and economic modernization were pursued, but the shah's Plan Organization took charge of economic development, leaving very few benefits to reach the ordinary citizen.

Despite growing prosperity, opposition to the shah was widespread, fanned mainly by conservative Shiite Muslims, who wanted the nation governed by Islamic law. They were directed, from France, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (Ruhollah ibn Mustafa Musawi Khomeini Hindi), a Muslim clergyman who had been exiled in 1963.

As the Shah's regime, supported by the U.S., became increasingly repressive, riots in 1978 developed into a state of virtual civil war. In early 1979 popular opposition forced the shah to leave the country. Hundreds of the shah's supporters were tried and executed, others fled the country, and the westernization of Iran was reversed. Khomeini, who had returned to Iran in triumph in February 1979, presided over the establishment of an Islamic republic.

On 4 November 1979, after the shah had been allowed entry into the United States for medical care, militant Iranians stormed the US embassy in Teheran, taking 66 Americans hostage. The militants demanded that the shah be turned over to face trial and that billions of dollars he had allegedly took abroad be returned. Thirteen of the hostages were soon released, but another 53 were held until an agreement was negotiated that freed the hostages on 20 January 1981. Unable to persuade Iran to release them, President Carter ordered a military rescue mission, which failed, resulting in the deaths of eight American servicemen when their aircraft collided in the Iranian desert.

Thesis Statement: Change Over Time:The Islamic World 1500 – 2000______

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