Habari Post

After 16 years with the World Bank, William Easterly writes about the failures and shortcomings of development policy and practices by Western dominated organizations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, USAID and the United Nations.

His basic premise is that while policymakers search for solutions that work in their own countries, they shift their approach to that of an outside "planner" when analyzing and prescribing solutions for other countries - and are therefore disconnected with the local reality in the countries they are trying to develop.

Easterly explores the perspective of what he calls 'Western planners' and their self-imposed obligation to help develop other countries, a phenomenom he labels 'The White Man's Burden.' His perspective is eye-opening and usually critical, though he offers few solutions or alternatives to the current problems with the aid sector.

He does, however, offer an interesting history of a handful of countries in the Middle East and the effects of Western planners in the region. Below is a summary of Easterly's history of the Middle East during and immediately following World War I.

During World War I the sharif of Mecca and Medina, Emir Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi (ruler of the Hashemite dynasty) was aligned with the Ottoman Empire against the British. He offered to switch sides as he became worried about being disposed by the Ottomans. He promised to lead the Arabs in revolt against the Ottomans in exchange for independence.

The British were not doing well in the war in the Midddle East and were tempted by the offer, so they sent Sir Mark Sykes to negotiate. Sykes agreed to Arab independence in the regions of Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia, but did not cede the area known as Western Syria (present day Lebanon). France believed it was entitled to Western Syria and the British did not want to offend its ally. Easterly suggests it was deliberately unclear whether Palestine was also promised to the Arabs or not.

Before the war ended the British came to an agreement with the French to divide Palestine with the north going to the French, the south going to the British and central Palestine (including Jerusalem) would be shared by the British, French and even Russia at one point under the notorious Sykes-Picot Agreement.

In an effort to drum up support for the Allied war effort among Zionist leaders, the British later offered Palestine to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration: "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In summary, Sir Mark Sykes and the British sold Palestine to three different parties with the short term goal of gaining support in World War I. Easterly points out that the British received very little in return from their three customers during the war.

After the war, the French agreed to give up any claims to Palestine in return for British recognition of French control over Syria. The British agreed and abandoned Hussein's son, Faisal who had started forming a government in Damascus and offered him Iraq instead. The borders of Iraq had been drawn by Sykes to include three very different Ottoman provinces containing Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Faisal ruled a volatile Iraq until 1958 when, after a series of military coups, Saddam Hussein emerged and took control.

The British had promised Iraq to Faisal's brother Abdullah, who at this point the only member of the Hashemite family without a kingdom. When Abdullah threatened to make trouble after the war, then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to split off the lightly populated part of Palestine east of the Jordan River (then called Transjordan and later simply Jordan) and give it to Abdullah, who was assassinated in 1951. The Hashemite family is still in power today in Jordan, with Abdullah's great grandson Abdullah II on the throne - the country is formally known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The League of Nations mandated that the French transition Syria and Lebanon into free and independent states. In Lebanon, the French gave the Maronite Christians control of the Muslim majority areas around Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon. This later led to a Christian-Muslim civil war that left the independent state of Lebanon in ruins.

The French took a harsh authoritarian approach in Syria which led to much resentment and the rise of nationalist radicals in Syria after independence.

In Palestine, the British took over again and tried to reconcile the promises they had made to both the Arabs and the Jewish inhabitants. They weren't very successful as their top priority was maintaining their land bridge from India to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

In summary, Sir Mark Sykes established nations around boundaries that were convenient for European powers and promised parts of the Middle East to multiple entities to gain political and military favors for the British government. These tactics set the Middle East up for decades of war, violence and instability in the region.

More info from Amazon: The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good