Europe begins to face colonial legacy, but not in the Middle East

Europe faces its past

Between 1492 and 1914, European governments conquered 84% of the globe. Britain alone laid claim to 24% of the world's territory at the peak of its empire in 1920, while France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Spain all had substantial colonial possessions in the past.

The conquest and holding of this territory frequently involved enslavement, ethnic cleansing, forced resettlement, exploitation, mass killing and war. Even so, European governments have been reluctant to acknowledge this and even more hesitant to take on any responsibility on behalf of their forebearers.

The question has divided opinion among European populations. Many European states boast movements to demand their governments apologise for past colonial injustices and offer compensation. These have often involved citizens with recent or distant ancestral links to colonised populations.

On the other side, some right-leaning political groups have pushed back. While a small number defend the empire, underlining perceived benefits such as the construction of modern infrastructure by imperial governments, a larger group argue that modern governments should not have to be held to account for the behaviour of their distant predecessors.

There is also the view that today's standards should not judge past actors. Dutch historian Sander Philipse told The Guardian, "The general feeling is still: we did it, it was a long time ago, everybody else was doing it, it's not that serious, there's nothing to apologise for."

Most governments have tried to tread a fine line on the topic. On the one hand, most leaders are savvy enough to recognise this is a sensitive topic abroad, with most non-European states having faced some form of European colonisation and increasingly expecting acknowledgement for the suffering that entailed.

On the other hand, with a few exceptions, European leaders are conscious that a full admission of guilt could prompt legal demands for compensation, which they are reluctant to entertain.

Even so, there has been a notable shift in recent years.

In 2020, the King of the Netherlands apologised for his country's "excessive violence" in the past when visiting Indonesia, a former colony. Echoing this, the UK's King Charles spoke regretfully of the "abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence" committed by British troops in Kenya during the colonial era when he visited Nairobi in October 2023.

Other shifts are at a cultural level. Belgium's Gryseels's museum, which once housed a 'human zoo' of colonial subjects brought over from King Leopold's colony in the Congo, has hosted exhibitions critical of Belgium's colonial past.

Similarly, there is an increasing debate about UK museums returning some artefacts to their original homes from which they were looted by imperialists.

Arguably, Germany is the most advanced on this issue. There is a precedent for Berlin, having long acknowledged the many crimes of its Nazi predecessors, not least to the reparations agreement agreed by the West Germany with Israel in 1952.

More recently, academic and political attention has been brought to Germany's pre-Nazi era, notably its colonisation of Namibia. In 2015, the German foreign minister appeared to formally accept Berlin's culpability by stating its actions in the early 20th century in Namibia should be referred to as "a war crime and a genocide".   

The Middle Eastern exception

Despite these gradual shifts, critics argue the pace is too slow, hence the efforts by the Greens-European Free Alliance to push the matter within the EU (but not Britain). Yet even these efforts have a notable blind spot: the Middle East.

The region was late to be colonised compared to some parts of the world, with Britain moving into the Gulf and Egypt in the 19th century and France and Britain partitioning the Ottoman Empire's Arab lands between them after the First World War.

Even so, both Middle Easterners and Western scholars of imperialism widely agree that this limited colonial experience had a lasting impact.

The region partitioned after 1918 has received particular scrutiny, not least because it has recently been home to violent instability but also because the native population so adamantly opposed the division.

The 1919 American King-Krane Commission concluded that an overwhelming majority of the population of the areas that would become Lebanon, Palestine and Syria wanted a united Greater Syria incorporating all the regions in a single independent democratic kingdom, with no Zionist project, only to be ignored.

It is a lazy generalisation to blame the conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Israel-Palestine entirely on colonialism, given other factors such as the Ottoman legacy, socio-economic developments, Cold War meddling, the decisions of domestic leaders and interference from foreign powers all played a role as well. However, most experts agree that European imperialism helped lay the foundation for the subsequent suffering.

The case of Palestine is one such example. Britain's decision to take control after the First World War and facilitate the immigration of European Jews into the mandate helped create the conditions for the Israel-Palestine conflict.

When British troops first entered Jerusalem in 1917, the Jewish population was 10%; when it departed in 1947, that number had risen to 32%.

Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi has noted how Britain also helped train and arm Jewish militia to defeat the 1936-9 revolt by Palestinians, weakening the Arab side while strengthening their opponents for the war of independence that was to come.

While the Israel-Palestine conflict is complex and other subsequent factors have led to the failure of the peace process and the ongoing war in Gaza, many Palestinians rightly point to British imperialism as a key starting point for their disempowerment.

Lebanon and Syria are further examples of the negative experience of European colonisation. In Lebanon, France saw itself as the protector of the Maronite Christian community, and so it established a political system based on sectarian representation that would keep its allies in a dominant position even when it was gradually out-populated by Lebanon's other non-Maronite groups.

This political system's flaws led to two civil wars, in 1958 and 1975-90, and arguably have contributed to the political paralysis and financial crisis suffered by Lebanon today. Likewise, in Syria, the French attempted to divide and rule by encouraging non-Sunni minority groups to join the military.

When France left in 1946, this ensured the military, which regularly intervened in politics, was dominated by minority groups, allowing for one group, the Alawites, to dominate. This was not the only cause of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, but it played a role and can be linked back to French colonialism.

A similar story took place in Iraq. Britain created a new state in 1921 with an Arab Shiite majority but empowered the Arab Sunnis that had traditionally ruled during the Ottoman era. This trend continued after independence and contributed to the tensions that exploded into sectarian violence after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Again, colonialism was far from the only factor in play. However, Middle Easterners have every right to add their names to the list of regions "still suffering socially, economically, and environmentally from legacies of colonialism."       

A question of responsibility

While some European activists may be willing to include Middle Eastern states on their list of victims of European colonisation to be compensated, it seems highly unlikely that Western leaders will agree.

As discussed, they are already reluctant to accept responsibility for colonial legacies elsewhere, even in more undisputable historical wrongs such as slavery. They would, therefore, probably be even more unwilling to consider apologising for historical actions in the highly contested Middle East.

Yet it remains an ominous silence. European leaders, including Britain, have proven enthusiastic actors in the Middle East in recent years, whether the UK's interventions in Iraq, France's attempts to broker financial aid for Lebanon, or the multiple states involved in the anti-IS coalitions.

Many Europeans have similarly shown support for Israel in the current Gaza war, while some are now beginning to back a ceasefire, notably France. But none seem willing to face or acknowledge their states' historical roles in contributing to the crises they're engaging in, and, unlike on colonial legacies elsewhere, there appears to be only limited pressure from activists to correct this.

As such it seems that, if Europeans begin to actually accept culpability and responsibility for their past imperial legacies, the Middle East will not be prominent in the discussions.