Present political structures, powers, and peoples are better understood through their history. Ussama Makdisi, a historian of the Middle East and distinguished professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has spent much of his research on the formation of the modern Middle East out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire. He now writes on the peace conference of 1919 and its effects on the lands of the collapsing Ottoman empire, including the often-ignored fact finding mission that asked local inhabitants of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine about their own visions of their future governance. The report was quietly shelved, as a story of colonial domination played itself out and the region was carved up between Britain and France. The historical consequences, including the orientalist gaze that depicted Arabs and Muslims as less than human or at least less than civilised second-class citizens seen through a series of stereotypes. This orientalism still dominates Western policy towards the Middle East, Ussama Makdisi argues in this fascinating discussion.

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