The Middle East And European Colonialism

Energy Crisis (1970’s) states that the crisis officially began when the “Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) reduced their petroleum production and proclaimed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and the Netherlands, the main supporters of Israel.” They did

The role of the Middle East has been very crucial to the United States, especially after WWII. The U.S. had three strategic goals in the Middle East and consistently followed them throughout various events that unfolded in the region. First, with the emergence of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the U.S., policymakers began to recognize the importance of the Middle East as a strategic area in containing Soviet influence. This also coincides with the U.S. becoming increasingly wary of Arab nationalism and the threat it posed to U.S. influence. Secondly, the emergence of the new Israeli state in 1948 further deepened U.S. policy and involvement in the region while also creating friction between the U.S. and Arab states which were

Imperialism is defined as a policy of extending a country 's power and influence through diplomacy or military force. Countries during the Industrial Revolution wanted to imperialize due to social, political, and economic reasons. As early as the mid 1800’s, the European countries craved the idea of power and conquering new lands in order to obtain resources/raw materials. They took over Africa, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Southeast Asia due to this as well as for their convenient location. They believed that the more land one owns, the stronger the country would be. Although some can argue the fact that imperialism had a detrimental effect because these countries lost their culture and independence, the end result of this was definitely more positive than negative both short term and long term. These countries would not be as thriving today if this had not happened. European Imperialism in parts of the Middle east, Africa, and Asia had more of a positive impact on the world due to education, modernization, healthcare/sanitation, and more trade/resources used.

Large busy markets, snake charmers, carpet vendors, and veiled women all invoke ideas of West Africa, the Middle East, and West Asia, but all these ideas come from Oriental fantasies from the nineteenth century. Edward Said the author of Orientalism said that “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, "us") and the strange (the Orient, the East, "them").” The nineteenth century was a period of imperialism and tourism that led many western artists to visit West Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Orientalist paintings depicted two major effects, many artists often portrayed something “exotic,” which was racialized, feminized, and from a sexualized culture from a faraway land. Another effect that artists mainly like Jean-Léon Gérôme often showed was an authentic glimpse of a location and its inhabitants. Nochlin mentioned that many of Gérôme’s paintings worked to persuade their audiences by carefully representing a "preexisting Oriental reality.”

The Age of Imperialism was an age of colonization for European countries. It began in the mid-1800s and ended in the early twentieth century. The most powerful countries of Europe raced to conquer and change the government, economic system, and social ways of Asian and African territories. But imperialism wasn 't wonderful, especially for the colonies. Innocent people were enslaved, forced to work all day long under no other options. Resources were exploited, stolen from people who couldn 't defend themselves from powerful new European weapons. Valuable cultures diminished as foreign lands took over and changed intriguing and unique languages and religions. Sickness spread to natives who hadn 't built up the immunity to deadly diseases.

“On October 17, 1973, Arab oil producers declared an embargo that drastically limited the shipment of oil to the United States” (OPEC 1). Arab countries refused to sell oil to the United States because of the Yom Kippur War, a war between Egypt and Israel. In this war, United states was backing up Israel by supporting them and giving them weapons, which angered Arab leaders. Arabs started limiting the shipment of oil to the United States. The embargo, however, brought crisis to the US with unequal proportions. US citizens were very panicky because of the shortage of gas and oil. Ultimately, the US economy slowed down, leaving its’ citizens to to be dependent on domestic resources. Shipment of oil in the country dropped by 1 million barrels,

New Imperialism was the third wave of colonial expansion, precursored by Catholic colonialism in the sixteenth century and Mercantile colonialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As the nineteenth century began, it became apparent that Europe and the United States were the dominant forces of the world, and that they were in control of defining global society. Proponents of New Imperialism believed that modern expansionism was necessary for economic, political, and cultural purposes that would benefit their own country. Furthermore, proponents also believed that colonization would modernize and incite progress in the civilizations outside of Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, New Imperialism established deep lines of contempt regarding Western power, marked with violence, throughout the world. Therefore, New Imperialism was a paltry act done by the Western world which seems to have produced little benefit.

During 1973-1974, with the dwindling of oil resources Americans were faced with the possibility of running out of oil. The Oil Embargo implemented by Arab members of The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries denied exporting oil to the states that supported Israel during the Arab-Israeli War. My questions about this event are how did this oil embargo change The United States and what did they do to adjust to all these changes? First the US had to figure out a new place they could get their oil from, they had to create new energy conservation movements and find new ways to create energy, and then finally they had to change how they looked at international business.

“The sun never sets on the British Empire,” is an ancient saying, referring to the immense territory Britain has conquered throughout its years of Imperialism.. Often times, many countries that colonize other nations usually have a purpose of doing so, such as the want for money, resources, humanitarian aid, greed, and or power. However, Britain wasn’t the only country responsible for Imperialization. Other countries such as France, America, and Japan also played their parts in Imperialism. The driving force of European Imperialism was power over a people in colonized nations. The reasons for these include the beliefs that Caucasoid Europeans were the superior beings and the European continent being the most superior civilization on the face of the planet.

First of all Imperialism affected many different things in Africa and in the middle east. The effects of the imperialism resulted in stress and powerful threats from Western imperialists. They kept pleading for special rights but they did not give in so quickly. They wanted Europeans to reside in Muslim lands. The Muslims weren't’ so happy about that arrangement. Some of the time Europeans protected their rights, but other times they acted as if nothing ever happened. Africans resisted imperialism as much as they could. Germans fought wars against Africans which did not help the imperialism in Africa. When the Germans fought the Africans they caused more chaos making everyone panic and lives were lost.

There is a tendency to characterize all Arab nations as being unilaterally on the same page when it came to the Israeli issue. In Rachel Bronson’s work Thicker than Oil demonstrates that nations like Saudi Arabia were capable of a great deal of leniency when it came to the issue.

Imperialism began in the 1870s, European states established vast empires mainly in Africa, but also in Asia and the Middle East. Imperialism can be used as an act of expanding used as an act of developing a country’s empire through the use of force, colonization, or coercion. This method can be used to benefit one or both sides of the process. By means of benefiting one side would be considered as being a world bully because the nation is trying to expand or develop with the help of others without doing the other nation any good. As a result of advancing both nations can give a nation the name of a world leader with it helping both sides, everyone is developing in a way to help not just themselves, but others as well. America used imperialism for the good or bad as long as they got something out of it in some way. Many in the U.S. thought that country must be able to compete and saw the opportunity to take its own colonies before European countries got them all. Colonial powers often struggled with each other over the best potential features. These motives tend to believe its purpose is gaining additional wealth, power, and control. America used this approach as an intimidator to get economic growth, expand their political power, spread of the culture’s religion, and build military and naval bases.

Many of the problems in the Middle East today are a direct result of actions undertaken in the region 's colonial past. I will argue that both imperialist ineptitude, deliberate meddling and outright deceit by colonial powers have sown seeds of distrust that linger in the Middle East today towards the West. I will claim that artificial boundaries, government structures and societal schisms created in colonial times have entrenched animosities and created internal structural instabilities in the area that are still being resolved. The imposition of Israel into Palestine, I will argue, remains an unresolved product of colonial rule. I will discuss how the discovery of oil and the regions importance as a trade route caused the World Powers to remain engaged in the area and oppressive in their demeanour. Finally I will argue that perhaps the greatest ongoing legacy of colonialism in the Middle east is an imperialist attitude by the west which continues to this day.

There are many significant change in the world economy occurred, marked by globalization each country has different speed of development under different political and cultural background. During this period, Such as the United States of America 's economic status from the rapid development to the decline, then move to the current stable trend. Brazil, Russia, India, China, which named ‘BRCIS’ those developing countries’ economic performances are very catch the attention in recent years. The decline and rise of these countries ' commercial economy are closely related to their political culture. Therefore, it attracted the attention of scholars and research circles.

the conflict in the middle east between 1948-1973 was not purely fuelled by the interest and concerns of the superpowers but rather of a series of conflictual incidents, aswell as the main wars that took place from the years from 1948-1967 such as the: 1948 War, The Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. But although the conflict was not fuelled by the superpowers, the influence of the superpowers and the reach of the superpowers into the Middle East was evident in the years both prior and following 1978. But even despite the influence and interests of the superpowers between and including 1948-1967 being undeniably evident, the extent of this influence cannot be said to have “fuelled the conflict”.