Nationalism In The Middle East Essay

Nationalism is an extremely intriguing concept. In history, there have been many diverse empires whose inhabitants lived in peace with with people of different religions and cultures. Main example of this was Ottoman Empire which was well known for its high levels of tolerance, especially towards the dhimmis, for many centuries. But in time, as the world started changing from empire states to nation states, different groups of people started to embrace nationalism, and wanted to be “molded” into one unified country of people with similar languages, religions, and culture. In specific, this can be seen amongst the Eastern European Jews and Ottoman Palestinians around between the 17th and 20th centuries. Although the idea of nationalism had already rooted itself in Europe, it wasn't embraced in the Middle East until imperialism of European powers and until the Ottoman government itself wanted to implement it as a means of defensive

The culture of nationalism was the product of application of new methods of governing and the spread of market relations. To really understand nationalism amongst the Jews and Arab Muslims in the Middle East, one must first understand how and why nationalism came about and the role of the governments in this process. Nationalism, which came about during a process of world modernization did not happen over night. As James L. Gelvin discusses in his The Modern Middle East: A History, the period of transformation from a system of world empires to a modern world system, also known as nation states, began as early as early 16th century. A system of world empires meant that the world was made up of large empires who were self-dependent economically, spread by military campaigns, and earned wealth and power through conquest and taxes from their subjects. This long and slow transformation started to pick up speed as the idea of modern nation state, citizenship, and nationalism started to become favored by governments and the