By Maya Ghanem
At 8:30 AM someday this January, I strolled into the Microhistory lab at Duke University’s East Campus Classroom Building, meeting my professor, Dr. Mestyan, and three other students. When I signed up for the History department’s Global Engineering in the Middle East class, I had limited knowledge on the Middle East but was interested in energy technologies. Little did I know I would not only learn about Middle East history and politics, I would also learn the role technology plays in the construction of everyday life. In fact, technology is inherently political and can thus cause historical and monumental change. Most importantly, understanding the history of technology in the Middle East helps one understand the world.
The class covered topics of land, water, coal, electricity, industrialization, and climate change. Dr. Mestyan structured our semester around a group project on the technological aspects of the occupation of Iraq from 1914 to 1921. Throughout the semester, we created a website that charts the technological changes that occurred during the occupation, compiling a general narrative, biographies of the main figures involved, developments of the railway system, and articles from the British press on the occupation.
Beyond teaching, Dr. Mestyan focuses on nationalism and sovereignty in the Arab world. He wrote Arab Patriotism-- The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt and is currently working on a second book on modern Arab kingship. Once that's finished, he plans on writing a third book on land surveys in the Middle East.
the Interview
I interviewed Dr. Mestyan about his perspective on his class. Here are our most memorable moments (MG = Maya Ghanem, AM = Adam Mestyan):
MG: What led you to teach the Global Engineering in the Middle East Class and what led you to engage in the history of energy and technology in the Middle East generally?
AM: [A couple of years ago], I was traveling around Egypt and I talked to many not very rich Egyptians, and I regularly encountered this story, this model: at one point the government took away their land, or part of their land, or if not the government, then the army took away, nationalized, certain parts and land. I became interested: how is it possible that it’s so easy to take land? What are the laws which govern landed property? And anyway, how do they know where the land ends?
This is how I started to think about and started to research about the topic of land laws and land surveys. Land surveys are a scientific thing. And then I realized that I don’t know a lot about the history of science. Actually I did not know too much about the history of agriculture in the Middle East, too, and so I thought that it would be great to have a class through which I myself also learn.
The nature of land surveys was one of the biggest lessons I took from the class. The system of land surveys in Islamic civilization, prior to the occupation by Europe, took on a detailed, narrative format, involving communication and descriptions of the people who inhabited the land in focus. Historians greatly benefit from these types of land surveys because they convey a more intimate understanding of the specific land. However, after the onset of European influence, this land survey system began to mimic European methods, consisting of impersonal maps and diagrams as opposed to narrative descriptions. Dr. Mestyan also elaborates on the power of storytelling in history.
AM: On the other hand I also found that it’s interesting to think and talk about the history of the Middle East, Arab states, and Arab societies in terms of technology, science, and material culture. [And] not necessarily in terms of religion, or even Europeanization, but as simply telling stories and unearthing really important, fundamental problems, which are related to the everyday construction of life. The factory, for instance, -- right? We don’t really talk about factories in the Middle East, but there are so many factories in the Middle East [...] which pose all kinds of questions about capital, class, race, and gender.
Of course there is one branch of this class, namely, oil, which is a relatively known, or relatively large field of research today, and in which students are also interested. But that is just the tip of the iceberg, if I may say. There are so many other dimensions of Middle East History, which is related to technology, energy, and power. So this is why.
The next piece of discussion summarizes a central theoretical discussion: what changes history? Dr. Mestyan examines human ideas, politics, technology, and war as instrumental facets, as changemakers of history. He suggests that technology and materialism are just as important as the conventional study of politics and culture in history.
MG: How does a material account of history in the Middle East offer a different perspective than more of a purely political or cultural account of the Middle East?
AM: There is a debate, a tension here. What is important in history? Why does history change? Why does a country change? Why do things change in general? Why don’t they stay the same?
Some people [historians] say that human ideas change history. Others say religion changes history. Or political ideas change history. The constitution, for example, that’s a political idea. Others say for instance, Marx [...] these are all important things, but actually what changes history is the struggle over goods, material interests.
There is a new neo-materialist scholarship that argues that, in some cases, the tangible, the non-human, also has its own agency. And I think just narrating a story about material development [...] helps us to get rid of the essentialism, which is often just noise. One can see sometimes politics and religion as only an embodiment, or as the consequence of material changes.
Now, there is another branch of scholars, and I belong to them, who would say that, of course ideas are important, of course materials are important, but what really changes history is war. War changes history. Of course war can be caused by ideas and can be caused by material interests, but war is the fundamental aspect.
So as you could see, it’s really all combined because our project, the occupation of Iraq as a technological moment, is a combination of war and technology. The material history of the Middle East helps to make distinctions between claims, because everybody is claiming something in the Middle East. The Middle East is a place where everybody claims things-- land, rights, status, identity, etc. Studying those claims can make us lost in a Labyrinth, and I think the material history gives a solid ground to our conversation.
Dr. Mestyan and I also discussed the main themes of our project on the British occupation of Iraq as a technological moment from 1914 to 1921. We focused on the inherent political qualities of technology, the power imbalances that arise from a technological occupation, and the motivations of both Iraq and Britain in the occupation.
MG: When I got into the project, I hadn’t taken a Middle East class yet, so I didn’t know about the conventional account of how historians approach the Middle East. But it seems to me that by looking at the occupation of Iraq as a technological moment, I felt that I was able to understand the power dynamic between Britain and Iraq in a different way. Britain was able to consolidate its power in a more subtle way that’s not as noticeable as a war or a huge treaty. That was a really important lesson I took away. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that idea.
AM: I think this is exactly what the class was about. Often what was purely political is not as political as the materials. The material development, the technological development is political, it is the creation of a power relationship. And not only a power relationship -- actually [...] the case of Iraq [is] a good example -- it’s the creation of something new. It’s the creation of a new country. Of a new polity, if you will. Connecting cities with train lines, connecting villages with train lines creates a new network, a new identity, ultimately.
Think about even the US, for example-- in the 19th century, when they built long railway lines, this is how the US became the US as a connected polity. Of course the problem is, you can say that in the US that was a colonial moment as well because that was when the railway lines went through the land of Native Americans. So you can say train lines were war in technological form.
At least it’s very clear that it’s a moment of occupation, it is a moment of war, and it is a war by different means.
It’s not saying that the British army and politicians were not horrible. Of course they were horrible! But if you just say and repeat it as a parrot that the British were horrible, horrible, it doesn’t tell anything. You have to go and see what’s happening. And the paradox is that actually [...] many Iraqis might have been very happy to have train lines.
MG: That’s something I was wondering about because when I was writing the biographies, I noticed that there was talk among Iraqis about an independence movement, but Nuri al- Sa'id, one of the Iraqi figures I wrote about, wanted to hold off an independence movement until there was technological development. Once that technological development occurred, he then led the demand for independence. I thought that was interesting because it made it seem like a lot of Iraqi figures wanted development as well-- maybe to have a technologically advanced Iraq.
AM: And why not? Why wouldn’t you like to have new technology? Who wouldn’t want a Tesla today? It looks really cool. But of course you give control over your car to a company! Or even perhaps to one person-- Elon Musk!
There is a price for new technology, but why wouldn’t Iraqi’s or anyone want technology. In Egypt, my research demonstrated that countryside Egyptians were happy to have train lines in the 19th century and wanted more. They requested in villages that the government build a railway that reached their village because they knew that it was good for them economically and that they would be connected to the world via capitalism.
But of course if you look at it like this, then you have a very strange, mixed, hybrid political picture. While the British occupation establishes its own goals through technology, in fact the Iraqis at least try to advance their own goal also through technology. But we don’t know those stories, if those stories are there at all, so I just want to be cautious, but I suspect that there are some of these stories. Things are not necessarily so black and white, as some would hope.
MG: It definitely seems that Britain [...] advanced their own goals, but I wonder whether Iraq was able to advance their goal as well, especially due to the contradictory nature of the political dynamic.
AM: What is their own goal? First of all there was no Iraq yet-- there were three Ottoman provinces-- and the question was ''what is the next step?” If you remember, there was a British plan to make Basra a colony, basically, as a part of the British empire, and create a small Princedom/Emirate in Baghdad. Such was the original plan. But of course, they couldn’t do that because the First World War resulted in a pact that ended colonization. The mandate system was an alternative.
The Iraqis had all kinds of goals. Some Iraqis were seriously considering having their own little emirates or monarchies. There was someone, the famous Nagib of Basra, who really wanted to become the King of Iraq. The British chose another guy from the Hashimite family, but there were other local candidates for that position who were very invested.
What the Iraqis wanted, first of all, was to survive, I would presume. And many of them wanted independence and sovereignty. But what does that independence look like? There were these provinces in the empire. Although nationalists usually tell that there is a sudden moment where they became independent and that’s it, it’s never easy after an imperial situation to become independent and sovereign. For instance, people usually don’t agree with each other about how to live together.
MG: If the Iraqi goal was to be independent, it feels a little counterintuitive to allow British technological development there because Iraq is letting their own identity be shaped by the British. Even if Iraq is able to gain legal independence, they are still dependent on the British in terms of technology, in terms of identity.
“The struggle over technology is one of the main struggles. It is perhaps the fundamental struggle today. ”
AM: That’s a huge question. First of all, Iraq had no choice. Don’t forget that this is a moment of occupation, so they are not free to choose. Second, it is also true that the technologies-- just think about the oil industry-- that the British brought to Iraq were not indigenous technologies. For example, railway locomotives had to be imported. There were no train factories in Iraq. That is one of the major problems [even] today in the Middle East (and many other parts of the world), many of the technologies are not developed there. There is not only a lack of knowledge, but also a lack of ability to create new machines. New machines have to be imported. Otherwise, you risk that you don’t participate. Your country will be slow; you will be poorer.
I would recommend students interested in the Middle East, energy, and general social issues take this class. The Middle East is a vital region in our global energy network and studying its technological history not only enhanced my knowledge on Middle East history, but also broadened my understanding of the world as a whole.
MG: Why would you recommend that these students take a class relating technology and energy to the Middle East?
AM: To understand the world! They won’t understand anything if they don’t understand the history of energy, the history of agriculture, the material history of the Middle East. For example, if you don’t consider the occupation and the pipelines in Kirkuk, then you don’t understand the importance of Iraq for the British empire, in general. So it’s not only the Middle East. Through the history of technology and environment in the Middle East, you understand not only the Middle East, but also the world as it is. It is global history, by definition.
“You cannot talk about the history of technology in the Modern Middle East as a local thing. It’s by definition a global exchange, a global power structure.”
Many thanks to Dr. Adam Mestyan for taking the time to be a part of this interview. You can access our group project on the Occupation of Iraq as a Technological Moment here.
ABout The Interviewee
Dr. Mestyan is a historian of the modern Arab world, whose research and teaching focus on the global social history of nation-state building, nationalism, and sovereignty in the region from the late Ottoman period until today. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships. More info can be found here.