Why are Arab nations so powerful and how did they get that way?

[Justinian]

So.. in case you can't tell by my ownage of posts in this category.. I love reading on history..

One day I was reading some CNN article about a treasure ship that was found somewhere.. I forget. not important now. But it made me wonder.. with all the problems of our world economies right now.. where did all the gold go that actually made it back to the "old world"... ??? Well it didn't take me too long to dig through and find it out. All the fine silks and spices and everything else that rich wanted.. OPIUM... all settled in the Middle East. And the spanish who were taking in a majority of the gold from the new world wanted all this shit. So they were sending boat loads of gold to the Middle East to trade for it. I read something that said even back in those days, the arabs were so overwhelmed with gold coins that they used to do stupid shit with them like make entire necklaces out of spanish dubloons. fashioned lingerie out of them too.. This made them super wealthy..

And also the Brits giving all their territories the right to be free of the crown or however they want to say it.. only made them more wealthy.

then once oil was discovered.. game over.

This is a very brief process of how Arabian countries became so wealthy. And showing that they were wealthy a long time before the oil came around.

 

[HDRKID]

Actually, those who forget history are forced to repeat it. Please remember Neville "this means peace in our time" Chamberlain. In fact, our current policy of appeasement with iran is not working. They continue to work on building the gadget and plan to use it. Sadly, in a few years Hitler showed his true colors and he was raining V2 rockets on London.

How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.

- Neville Chamberlain

 

[Justinian]

After reading what I wrote. I just want to add that I'm not saying in any way that Arab nations being rich is a bad thing. Don't want anyone saying I'm being prejudicial here. Was only trying to get across that interesting tid bit of information I came across.

HDRKID.. Iran is a completely different story. They are the power they are today thanks to the USofA. If it wasn't for us, there would be no Iran, only a much larger Iraq, and Sadaam wouldn't have been so easy to go and capture. But yes, I do agree that failure to know history only deems us to repeat it's mistakes.

 

[Aaron TAYLOR]

The Arab world was rich. Just as Petra or Damascus was the top mercantile city on the world. But Saudi Arab was primitive and nomadic.Also, Arab scientists discovered some pretty awesome technologies.

 

[Justinian]

Thanks for reiterating my point, but yes the Arab world was rich. the point of the post was to point out why.

 

[Aaron TAYLOR]

Hmm, the Arab Nations were powerful because they were "there", if you know what i mean. Mesopotamia and Babylon and Canaan were a seat of civilization in the ancient world. Also when Europe were in the dark ages, Arabs were advancing rapidly. As for modern day, i think the Arabs are stubborn and zealous, thats where their power comes from.

 

[Justinian]

No I don't know what you mean. Because you're either missing what I'm putting out, or I'm not putting it down right for you. Let me reiterate; The Mesopotamian civilizations were the seat of trading. Which in turn equalled them having what all the other nations of the world wanted. Which equalled all the gold from the new world ending up in Arabia. They were never and will never be powerful militarily. They don't do enough of their own research anymore. They contract out or buy tech from other nations and ride on the wings of someone else all the while hoarding their earnings. (Note: I'm not including the Ottomans here because from the locals here and the reading I've done, Turks are not considered Arab, they are their own racial denomination.) So The Arab nations have never been able to capitalize on their wealth. The British Empire took most of them as colonies on not much more than the threat of violence. Today's nations are all relying on oil too much. Luckily the UAE has gotten smart and is trying to expand their idealism and open up to tourism by allowing alcohol and hedonism(In case nobody knows.. Dubai is pretty much the prostitution capital of the world, maybe second only to Thailand. Although you'll find that about 75% of all prostitutes are Romanian or Roma). Anyways... There is a seperation for most of these nations during their British rule where I've not been able to find much yet on what happened to the wealth acquired before British rule.