Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class * BY KEITH DAVID WATENPAUGH

Abstract

The problem of modernity—of being or becoming modern—has engaged the attention of numerous authors who take it to be at the heart of the difficulties of developing societies. Becoming modern implies at least two things; becoming is a process of change—moving from one condition to another—and modern is a description that is set against something previously existing, i.e. non-modern, traditional or, pejoratively, backward. To move from one stage to the other is often difficult and can cause tensions in a traditional society as it faces challenges posed either by the outside world or by attempts to modernize from within. From the outside world, globally these days, has come modernization in the form of communications and technology. Modernity is a general term for the political and cultural processes set in motion by integrating new ideas, economic systems and education into society. Some societies seem to cope remarkably better than others in integrating change. In the Arab world debate has raged over the relative values of modernity and authenticity (aṣāla) and in some areas it is clear that any final solution is far from being achieved. Professor Watenpaugh has chosen to analyse these problems through a study of one city in the Middle East, Aleppo, from 1908 until 1946. From this particular study he has drawn some general conclusions about being modern in the Middle East and about how change came about in Aleppo through the emergence of a new urban middle class made up of civil servants, teachers, journalists, officers and others, which did not fit into the established categories of Ottoman society. Bernard Lewis has of course dealt with similar problems more widely in his classic The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York, 1991) and Albert Hourani for Arabic speaking authors in Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (Cambridge, 1983). Watenpaugh criticizes them both for asserting ‘the existence of a dialectical relationship between the commitment to modernization… and a conservative reaction against modernity’, and for discussing only ideas coming in from Europe rather than analysing internal developments in society. This seems to be the habit these days of younger authors who need to show that they have read, understood the failings of, and passed on from, older scholars.