The Sykes-Picot ‘curse’

Analysts often refer to the 100-year-old Sykes-Picot agreement as the underlying cause of the problems the Arab world has been facing for decades.

While they condemn the agreement that divided the Arab world and imposed artificial lines between the states that emerged as a result of the political arrangements in the aftermath of World War I, they also warn of fresh conspiracies to redraw the lines along ethnic and sectarian bases. 

It is hard not to see the irony of this reasoning. 

Hypothetically, if the Sykes-Picot lines are deemed to be so wrong and troublesome, why would their revision be a bad idea? 

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire, referred to as the “Sick Man of Europe” by influential European powers at the time, was getting old, weakened by many wars and showing visible signs of a decline.

The vastness of the territory covered by the empire, as well as the strategic significance of its lands, right in between Asia and Europe, prompted the European powers to plan how to divide the big prize amongst themselves once the end came.

One such prearranged plan was the Sykes-Picot agreement, also known as the Asia Minor Agreement, which was concluded secretly between the British and the French governments in 1916.

The Russian empire offered its assent to the arrangement and was promised Ottoman territory too. The Russian revolution in 1917, however, revealed the secret plan which also exposed European duplicity, as the British had already promised Sherif Hussein of Mecca the task of uniting the Arab territories once liberated from Ottoman rule into one kingdom under his reign — a commitment that was never fulfilled by the British.

Syria and Iraq, currently the scene of ongoing violent trouble, unrest, political uncertainty and fear of disintegration, were indeed a product of the Sykes-Picot arrangements.

However, to attribute the prevailing regional chaos to an arrangement that was conceived under completely different circumstances a century ago could not be but an arbitrary judgment that has no historic relevance.

When Iraq and Syria were created, they included a variety of ethnic and religious communities. This was not unusual at the time because all such communities were of one Arab identity, except for the Kurds in Iraq and Syria (and in other Middle Eastern countries) who belonged to a different ethnicity, but they, too, nevertheless, lived peacefully with their other fellow citizens until, decades later, dissent occurred for totally different reasons than communal disharmony. The population of both Syria and Iraq included Muslims — Shiites, Sunnis, Alawites, Druze etc. — Christians, Jews, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans and many others.

If there were complaints from the Arabs about the territorial designs and arrangements by the colonial powers at the time, it was not because they created countries that lumped together different religious and ethnic communities, but because of the exact opposite. 

The Arabs blamed Sykes-Picot for dividing Arab lands rather than creating one united Arab independent entity that would have included many diverse communities.

As the current conflicts in many parts of the Arab world have assumed a religious and ethnic nature, some people believe that Sykes-Picot was wrong for creating multi-ethnic and multi-religious states.

However, it does not require much research to objectively conclude that the current wars in many parts of the Arab world are not essentially religious or ethnic. They may have ended up like that, but that is due to a host of complex political factors — sustained injustice, rise of dictatorships, continued disregard for citizens’ rights, festering corruption, massive frustration, despair, radicalisation, foreign interference and outright aggression — rather than religious or ethnic discord.

Over the past seven decades, specifically since the injustice imposed on the Palestinian people as a result of the Zionist project targeting Palestine, anomalies have been building up and have been shaking the very foundations of the existing order and of any healthy development of the existing states or their people.

Continuous disintegration has infiltrated all aspects of life and activities. Furthermore, the consistent failure of states and governments in charge has further compounded the adverse effects of the problems and anomalies.

Therefore, it is very simplistic and flawed to attribute and reduce the problems in the Arab world to ethnic and religious differences, or to the Sykes-Picot territorial arrangements.

History has long bypassed the nation state concept, moving faster towards globalisation. 

There is not one country out of the 193 UN members whose population is not mixed. 

Modern democracies and the concept of citizenry, and the equality of all citizens before the law, regardless of their religious affiliations or their ethnic origins in any state, are the sound basis for solid and stable state structures.

Whether Sykes-Picot was right or wrong, whether its plans were done in good or in bad faith, it cannot be blamed for successive decades of governments’ malfunction and poor rule.

The perceived lack of peaceful ethnic and religious coexistence is not the root of the problem in any Arab country. The problems are now only due to unrelated factors. 

In every Arab country, citizens of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds have always lived in peace and harmony for decades. In some, Jordan in particular, they still do. 

In order to restore communal peace, we must deal with the root causes. 

We do not need to be taught how to live in peace with each other, to accept and respect each other, as some like to preach, because we already know that and have been practising it all along.

All we need is to solve chronic political problems, build democratic institutions, and guarantee good governance and justice, away from foreign interference and meddling.