4 ms·

> the whole Middle East fuck-up is the result of the post-WW1 partitions Blaming everything on the Sykes-Picot agreement removes a lot of agency from the inhab

• paganel 11y ago
  > especially political movements like the rise of Baathism and pan-arabism Pan-arabism was not such a bad idea. It was somehow similar to the "nation-state" idea prevalent in 19th century Europe, which, while true that generated some ugly side-effects (WW1), in the end was responsible for the creation of most European modern states as we know them today. The same thing could have happened with pan-arabism, i.e. we could have talked right now about a modern Lybia, a modern Egypt or a modern Syria, but instead the Suez Crisis killed this possibility in its infancy and gave guys like Nasser (or Assad in Syria and Gaddafi in Lybia) reason to take even more power in their hands.
  • seivan 11y ago
    Except when they gased kurds. Killed, raped and sold Yezidis. Yeah, Pan-arabism is awesome.