Ethnic History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ethnic History - Essay Example For purposes of this brief response, this student will attempt to show the ways in which individuals from a Muslim background engage with and understand their ethnic history. Although the topics which will be represented will further help to shed a level of understanding on many of the ways in which current levels of trust and suspicion continue to exist with regards to the relations that individuals from an Islamic background and/or from the Middle East or North Africa share with regards to an interpretation of their own history. Firstly, when one begins to discuss an ethnic history, it is a means of understanding that necessarily divides groups into â€Å"us† vs. â€Å"them†. Such a construct is not necessarily bad; rather, it is just another way of seeking to provide a level of understanding for why the world has developed in the unique way that it is has. This â€Å"us† versus â€Å"them† attitude is especially useful in situations in which a colonizer of entity has been present. This is of course very much the case when it comes to many of the Islamic regions within North Africa and throughout the Middle East. In this way, trying to understand the way that a type of shared ethnic history has developed would not be complete without first trying to understand that indelible imprint that the period of European colonization and control affected on the collective ethnic memories of the subjugated people throughout the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere in the Islamic Maghreb ( Leong et al 2013). After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire soon after the end of the First World War, European powers quickly exerted their influence throughout the remnants of the power vacuum that existed. What was unique about this situation as compared to what occurred elsewhere throughout Africa and Southeast Asia during the same period was the fact that many of these Islamic lands had recently transitioned away from the grip of the