One theme which has been on the mind of every
intellectual in the World ever since the obscure fruit vendor at an obscure
Tunisian town had set himself on fire is “Arab spring.” The most pressing issue
for the intellectual community is seemingly to understand and forecast what
could be the next in these turbulent times throughout the West Asian and North
African region. Now following the events in Egypt, Libya and Syria there is
also the considerable task to make some sense about the political forces which
have been coined as “Islamists”. Much of the discussion about the situation in
the region has been to understand and forecast about how would these “Islamists”
would try to replace the existing system of the day.
One of the most familiar techniques used by analysts to
understand a given situation is to compare the same with a historical event,
find similarities and dissimilarities and come up with solutions. It would be
thus a fair attitude to try and turn our focus on another very interesting
event in the history of the Western civilization which may have quite a few
parallels with the current situation in West Asia and beyond. We need to look
back at the event of the Protestant reformation and the tumultuous events which
followed it.
The Protestant reformation was in many ways a revolt
against the existing order of the day which happened to be the Catholic Church
and the monarchies which were allied with it. The chain of events had started
with the invention of the printing press and subsequent spread of education.
This gave the ability to a lot of popular and charismatic church leaders of the
day to translate the Latin scriptures into their own languages and thus make it
possible for a lot of education and awareness of the scriptures amongst the
people of the time particularly those who could afford leisure and resources to
afford a good education i.e. the nobles. This widespread awareness of the scriptures
allowed the nobles of the day as well as the nascent urban artisan and merchant
classes of the day to question the doctrines of Papal infallibility, veneration
of Catholic saints and relics and most significantly the worldly rights of the
Church and the Monarch to rule and exploit national resources as divinely
ordained rights.
The rise of the Protestants (particularly the Calvinists
some of whom would later go on to be famously referred as Puritans) tended to
extract a harsh response from the existing order i.e. the Catholic Church and
her affiliated monarchies like for example the Holy Roman Emperor Philip II of
Spain. The revolting forces of Protestantism and the Catholic reactions would
plunge much of the continental Europe into terrible bloodletting for decades
which would only be culminated at the treaty of Westphalia when most of the
combatants were either worn out or had decided in favor of prioritizing Worldly
concerns instead of religious dogma by the respective churches.
The current situation in the West Asian region could also
be thought to having similarities with that of the time of reformation. The
political economy which had started its course ever since the end of the World
War I and the subsequent fall of the Ottoman Empire, has been based upon a
group of artificially crafted states who are ready to share their vital natural
resources with the economic hegemonic powers of the day firstly Britain and
France and then the US and erstwhile USSR (and may be China in future). The
leaderships in these states have been prepared to buy the allegiance of their
restive populations either by drowning their political ambitions in an ocean of
enticements or submerging them in the darkness of oppression and tyranny. The
economic hegemonic powers have been largely content to let things continue in
these ways as long as the vital tap of cheap national resources was likely to
continue. The first challenge to this system came in the early 1950-s when the
then prime minister of Iran Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized that country’s oil
industry. The subsequent Western intervention and overthrow of Mossadegh would
ultimately make the way for a Western-backed tyrant to plunder that country and
the suppression of all the opposition forces. Thus we can clearly see a clear
connection now between the political and economic situation between that of the
pre-reformation Europe and the pre-Arab spring political situation of the
country.
Now here we can observe another similarity between the
two situations. In the case of Europe, it has been the rise of preachers like
Luther and Calvin who presented a more or less simplistic solution to what they
considered existential problem in their times. They identified (according to
the World view of the time) the Catholic Church as the diabolical root cause
behind all the evil of the day and suggested replacing the authority of the
Catholic Church with a system supported by a most literal interpretation and
implementation of the new testament. Similarly we can see in West Asia from Iran
in 1979 to Libya and Syria in 2011 that political forces who interpret their
problems in a simplistic way to the misdeeds of either “the great Satan” or her
“local agents” are gaining momentum and popularity.
The reactions which have given these nascent
movements a baptism of fire are also quite similar in nature to the ones the
Protestant movements in Europe found themselves into. The persecution of the
peaceful protests in Bahrain and the bloody civil conflicts in Syria all attest
to the fact. What complicates the picture further is the involvement of the
Western powers in the midst of the events and their contradictory policies like
for example supporting the rebels in Syria whereas at the same time either
ignoring them in Bahrain and trying to crush them in places like Mali and
Yemen. So should we expect another violent bloodletting and ultimately a peace
when all the combatants are fatigued as it happened in Europe centuries
earlier? It would be nice for those who are familiar with the Protestant reformation
in the West to remind themselves of the history of Protestant reformation when
they want to understand the current spate of tumultous events affecting West
Asia