Before the Agreement

Before the Sykes-Picot agreement, The Ottoman Empire ruled over the region for centuries. The Ottomans were able to maintain control and prevent any large scale revolutions against their rule. Knowing civil obedience was a crucial part of maintaining their power, the Ottomans used a system of governance known as the millet system. This system was so effective that many still view it as a “hopeful but radical plan” plan to restore peace to the region. The Millet system “set up recognition of religious sects and leaders recognized by the Ottomans with populations that cohabited the same space. The leader of this larger entity could distribute resources and gather taxes through religious millets rather than by geography.” The millet system meant that Muslims were bound only to the self-governing umma, or community, and their self imposed Sharia law rather than an independent state. Jewish communities were allowed to govern themselves with their own laws, found in the Halakha. Christians groups in turn would implement their own laws over christians. This meant that each sect of ethnic or religious people would be responsible solely to the laws of that group, and each group had the freedom to govern themselves. The Ottomans were happy because they still gathered taxes from the leaders of these groups, and the people were happy because they were able to live with their own governing bodies. However, when Sykes and Picot divided the region, these groups were forced to adopt the ruling parties legislative and judicial systems. This meant that the groups who had been previously self sufficient were now scattered amongst various independent states all rife with competing ideologies and differing laws and governments. For example, the Kurds who “Following the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, found themselves divided between three successor states: Iraq, Syria and Turkey” (Owtram). Little care was given to the people who inhabited the area by the Europeans because “The British, French and Russians had been jockeying for position over the declining Ottoman Empire for decades before World War I” (Lange). This meant that the primary, and seemingly only, concern of the superpowers was ensuring they had as much land with potential financial resources as possible.