Westernization, Imperialism, Nationalism, and Zionism in the ME

I think the Western countries mostly the European countries, caused many problems for many areas. We saw it in Asia especially in China where they caused problems there like the Opium addictions that many Chinese people couldn't escape that were sold by the Europeans. They also caused problems in North America when they first arrived in America. There were fierce battles between the Indians and the Europeans for land. We see the same thing in Africa where now the whole continent is going through major problems since the Europeans just left them after imperializing. Now in the Middle East, I feel that it has been the driving force for their hatred towards the West. Imperialism led to the many problems that we face from the Middle East today. The European countries just took their land and tried implementing their culture when the Middle Eastern countries already had their own culture. Other countries had the same response where none of them liked the European countries coming in with their culture. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Middle East countries have such hatred against the West.

Imperialism and Zionism had the most impact. Between them, I think imperialism had a bigger impact on the anti western mindset. I think this because imperialism started everything. Without it the other factors such as Westernization or Nationalism could have happened. Because of the European countries coming in, nationalism rose in order to get rid of the European countries. The Middle Eastern countries had to get westernized to become strong enough to beat the Europeans. The saying in order to get rid of the Barbarians, you got to be like them was what the Middle East did. Since the European countries had control over Palestine, they let the Jews to come back which fueled the idea of Zionism brighter. If the Europeans didn't come into the countries, there might have not been those extremists that have been the enforcer of terrorism. Extremists saw how the Europeans were when they entered the country and the way the West lived angered them.