Ibn Battuta’s book contains delightful observations about the people and countries he visited. Egypt was rich then because the whole of the Indian trade with the West passed through it, and this was a very profitable business. These profits went to make Cairo into a great city with beautiful monuments. Ibn Battuta tells us of caste in India, of sati, and of the custom of offering pan-supari! We learn from him of Indian merchants carrying on a brisk trade in foreign ports, and Indian ships on the seas. He is particular to notice and to note down where he found beautiful women, and the manner of their dress and scents and ornaments. He describes the city of Delhi as “the metropolis of India, a vast and magnificent city, uniting beauty with strength”. Those were the days of the mad Sultan Mohammad Tughlaq who, in a fit of anger, transferred his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in the south, and thus converted this “vast and magnificent city” into a desert “empty and unpopulated, save for a few inhabitants”, and even these few inhabitants had crept in long afterwards.
I have managed to get swept away a little by Ibn Battuta. These travel-stories of old days fascinate me.
So we see that up till the fourteenth century the Middle East, or western Asia, played a great part in world affairs and was the main link between East and West. The next 100 years saw a change. The Ottoman Turks took possession of Constantinople and spread all over these countries of the Middle East, including Egypt. They did not encourage continental trade, partly because this trade was in the hands of their rivals in the Mediterranean, the Viennese and the Genoese. Trade itself took to new ways, for new sea routes were opened out, and these sea routes took the place of the old land caravan routes. So these land routes across western Asia, which had done good service for many thousands of years, fell into disuse, and the lands through which they had passed faded into unimportance.
Western Asia Re-awakened
For nearly 400 years, from early in the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth, the sea routes were all-important, and they dominated the land routes, especially where there were no railways, and there were no railways in western Asia. A little before the World War, proposals were made, backed by the German Government, for a railway connecting Constantinople with Baghdad. The other Powers were very jealous of Germany doing this, as it would have led to the increase of German influence in the Middle East. The war intervened.
When the war ended in 1918, Britain was supreme in western Asia and, as I have told you, for a brief while, visions of a great Middle Eastern Empire, from India to Turkey, floated before the dazzled eyes of British statesmen. That was not to be. Bolshevik Russia and Kemal Pasha and other factors prevented its realization, but still Britain managed to hold on to a good deal. Iraq and Palestine continued under British influence or control. So that although the British were unable to realize their vast ambitions, they succeeded in holding on to their old policy of controlling the routes and approaches to India. It was with this object that British armies fought during war-time in Mesopotamia and Palestine, and encouraged and helped the Arab revolt against Turkey. It was because of this that great friction arose between England and Turkey over the Mosul question after the war. And this is one of the chief reasons for the bad blood between England and Soviet Russia, for England hates the idea of a great Power like Russia sitting on the garden wall, overlooking the road to India.
The two railways about which there was so much dispute before the war—the Baghdad Railway and the Hejaz Railway—have now been built. The Baghdad Railway connects Baghdad with the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. The Hejaz Railway connects Medina in Arabia to the Baghdad Railway at Aleppo. (The Hejaz is the most important part of Arabia, containing the holy cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina.) So that many important cities of western Asia are now connected by the railway system to Europe and Egypt, and are thus easily accessible. The city of Aleppo is developing into an important railway junction, for the railway systems of three continents will meet there: the line from Europe, from Asia via Baghdad, and from Africa via Cairo. British policy has long aimed at controlling these routes in Asia and Africa. The Asiatic route, when extended from Baghdad, may reach India. The African route is meant to go right across the African continent from Cairo to Cape Town in the far south. The all-red Cape-to-Cairo line has long been the dream of British imperialists, and it is well on the way to realization now—“all-red” means that it should pass British territory along the whole route, as red is the colour on the map monopolized by the British Empire.
But these developments may or may not take place in the future, for the railway has got serious rivals now in the motor-car and the aeroplane. Meanwhile it is worth remembering that both these two new railways in western Asia, the Baghdad and the Hejaz, are largely controlled by the British, and serve British policy in opening out a new and shorter route, under their control, to India. Part of the Baghdad Railway passes through Syria, which is under French control. Not liking this dependence on the French, the British intend building a new line through Palestine to take its place. Another little railway is being built in Arabia between Jeddah, the port in the Red Sea, and Mecca. This will be a great convenience to the tens of thousands of pilgrims who go to Mecca every year.
So much for the railway system which is opening out these countries of western Asia to the world. And yet even before it has done its job it is losing some of its importance, and is being pushed aside by the motorcar and the aeroplane. The motor-car has taken very readily to the desert, and rushes along the same old caravan routes along which trudged for thousands of years the patient camel. A railway is very costly, and it takes time to build. The motor is cheap and can function immediately whenever required. But motor-cars and lorries do not usually serve long distances; they go backwards and forwards in comparatively small areas of 100 miles at most.
For the great distances there is, of course, the aeroplane, which is both cheaper than the railway and far swifter. There can be no doubt that the use of aircraft will go on increasing rapidly for purposes of transport. Already great progress has been made, and huge air-liners go regularly from continent to continent. Western Asia again becomes a meeting-place of these great air routes, and Baghdad is especially the centre of them. The British Imperial Airways line from London to India and Australia passes Baghdad; also the K.L.M. Dutch line from Amsterdam to Batavia, and the French line—Air France—from Paris to Indo-China. Moscow and Iran are also connected with Baghdad by air. A passenger to China and the Far East by air has to pass Baghdad. From Baghdad also aeroplanes go to Cairo, connecting with the African service to Cape Town.
Most of these air lines do not pay and are heavily subsidized by their governments, for air-power is all-important to empires today. With the development of air-power, the importance of sea-power has diminished greatly. England, which was so proud of its navy, and considered itself secure from attack, has ceased to be an island from the point of view of defence. It is as vulnerable from the air as France or any other country. And so all the great Powers are keen on becoming strong in the air, and the old rivalry on the sea has given place to air rivalry. Passenger traffic by air is encouraged and subsidized by each country in peace-time, as this builds up a service of trained pilots who can be used in time of war. Civil aviation helps the development of military aviation. A rapid development in civil aviation is therefore taking place, and there are hundreds of air services in Europe and America. The progress made is probably greatest in the United States of America; in the Soviet Union also great progress has been made and many air-services run across its vast territories.
In this age of air-power, western Asia attains a new importance because of the many long-distance lines that cross there. It re-enters again world politics and becomes a pivot of inter-continental affairs. This means also that it becomes the scene of friction and conflict between the great Powers, for their ambitions clash, and each tries to overreach the other. If we keep this in mind, we can understand the policy which has shaped British and other activities in th
e Middle East and elsewhere.
Mosul, besides being situated on this new high road to India, possesses oil, and oil is even more important in the age of air-power than it was before. Iraq possesses important oilfields and, as we have seen, is the very heart of the inter-continental air-system. Hence the great importance for the British of controlling Iraq. Persia has vast oilfields which have long been exploited by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which is partly owned by the British Government. The importance of oil and petrol grows and affects imperialist policies. Indeed modern imperialism has sometimes been called “oil imperialism”.
We have considered in this letter some of the factors which have given a new prominence to the Middle East and brought it back into the whirlpool of world politics. But behind all this is the awakening of the whole of the Asiatic East.
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The Arab Countries—Syria
May 28, 1933
We have seen what a powerful force nationalism has been in binding together and strengthening groups of people living in countries usually with a common language and traditions. While this nationalism binds together one such group, it marks it off and separates it still further from other groups. Thus nationalism makes of France a strong, solid national unit, closely bound together and looking on the rest of the world as something different: so also it makes the different German peoples into one powerful German nation. But this very drawing together separately of France and Germany cuts them off from each other still more.
In a country which has several distinct national groups, nationalism is often a disruptive force which, instead of strengthening and binding together the country, actually weakens it and tends to break it up. The Austro-Hungarian Empire before the World War was such a country with many nationalities, of which two, the German-Austrians and the Hungarians, were the dominant ones, and the others were dependent. The growth of nationalism therefore weakened Austria-Hungary, as it infused fresh life into each of these nationalities separately, and with this came the desire for freedom. The war made matters worse, and the country broke up into little bits when defeat followed the war, each national area forming a separate State. (The division was not a very happy or logical one, but we need not go into that here.) Germany, on the other hand, in spite of a severe defeat, did not break up into bits. It held together even in disaster under the powerful stress of nationalism.
The Turkish Empire before the World War was, like Austria-Hungary, a collection of many nationalities. Apart from the Balkan races, there were the Arabs and the Armenians and others. Nationalism, therefore, proved a disruptive force in this Empire also. The Balkans were first affected by it and, right through the nineteenth century, Turkey had to struggle with the Balkan races, one after the other, beginning with Greece. The great Powers, and especially Tsarist Russia, tried to profit by this awakening nationalism and intrigued with it. They also used the Armenians as a tool to hammer and weaken the Ottoman Empire, and hence the repeated conflicts between the Turkish Government and the Armenians, resulting in bloody massacres. These Armenians were exploited and used for propaganda purposes by the great Powers, but after the World War, when there was no further use for them, they were left to their own fate. Later, Armenia, which lies to the east of Turkey, touching the Black Sea, became a Soviet republic and joined the Russian Soviet Union.
The Arab parts of the Turkish dominions took more time to wake up, although there was little love lost between the Arabs and the Turks. At first there was a cultural awakening and a renaissance of the Arabic language and literature. This began in Syria, as early as the ’sixties of the nineteenth century, and spread to Egypt and other Arabic-speaking countries. Political movements grew up after the Young Turk revolution in Turkey in 1908 and the fall of Sultan Abdul Hamid. Nationalist ideas spread among the Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, and the idea of freeing the Arab countries from Turkish rule and uniting them in one State took shape. Egypt, though an Arabic-speaking country, was more or less apart politically, and was not expected to join this proposed Arab State, which was meant to include Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. The Arabs also wanted to get back the religious leadership of Islam by getting the Caliphate transferred from the Ottoman Sultan to an Arab dynasty. Even this was looked upon more as a national move, as redounding to the greater importance and glory of the Arabs, than as a religious one, and even the Syrian Christian Arabs were favourable to it.
Britain began intriguing with this Arab nationalist movement even before the World War. During the war all manner of promises were made about a great Arab kingdom, and the Sherif Hussein of Mecca, with the hope of becoming a great ruler and the Caliph dangling before him, joined the British and raised an Arab rebellion against the Turks. Syrian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, supported Hussein in his rebellion, and many of their leaders paid for this with their lives, for the Turks sent them to the gallows. May 6 was the day of their execution in Damascus and Beirut, and this day is still observed in Syria in memory of the national martyrs.
The Arab revolt, subsidized by the British, and helped especially by a genius, the British mystery man and secret service agent, Colonel Lawrence, succeeded. By the time the war ended, almost all the Arab dominions of the Turks were under British control. The Turkish Empire had gone to pieces. I have told you that Mustafa Kemal, in his fight for Turkey’s independence, never aimed at the conquest of non-Turkish areas (except a part of Kurdistan). Very wisely he stuck to Turkey proper.
The Arab Countries
So after the war the future of these Arab countries had to be decided. The victorious Allies, or rather the British and the French Governments, piously declared about these countries that their aim was “the complete and definite emancipation of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks, and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations”. These two governments proceeded to realize this noble aim by sharing among themselves the greater part of these Arab areas. Mandates, the new way of acquiring territory by the imperialist Powers, with the blessing of the League of Nations, were issued to France and England. France got Syria; England got Palestine and Iraq. The Hejaz, the most important part of Arabia, was put under Britain’s protege, the Sherif Hussein of Mecca. Thus, in spite of the promises made to create a single Arab State, these Arab territories were split up into separate areas under different mandates, with one State, the Hejaz, outwardly independent, but really under the British. The Arabs were greatly disappointed at these partitions, and they refused to accept them as final. But more surprises and disappointments were in store for them, for the old imperialist policy of division, in order to rule the more easily, was practised even within the limits of each mandate. It will be easier to consider each of these countries separately now. So I shall deal with the French mandate, Syria, first.
Early in 1920 an Arab government under the Emir Feisal (son of King Hussein of the Hejaz) was set up in Syria with the help of the British. A Syrian National Congress met and adopted a democratic constitution for a united Syria. But all this was a few months’ show only, and in the summer of 1920, the French, with the League of Nations mandate for Syria in their pocket, came and drove out Feisal and took forcible possession of the country. Syria, even taken as a whole, is a small country with a population of less than 3,000,000. But it proved to be a hornets’ nest for the French, for the Syrian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, now that they had resolved on independence, refused to submit easily to the domination of another Power. There was continuous trouble, and local insurrections took place, and a huge French army was required in Syria to carry on French rule. The French Government then tried the usual tactics of imperialism and sought to weaken Syrian nationalism by dividing up the country into even smaller States and giving importance to religious and minority differences. It was a deliberate policy, almost proclaimed officially, “to divide in order to rule”.
Syria, small as it was, was now split u
p into five separate States. On the western sea coast and near the Lebanon mountains, the State of Lebanon was created. The majority of the population here consisted of a sect of Christians called the Maronites, and the French gave them a special status to win them over against the Syrian Arabs.
North of Lebanon, also along the coast, another little State was created in the mountains where some Muslim people, called the Alawis, lived. Farther north still, a third State, Alexandretta, was established; this adjoined Turkey and was largely inhabited by Turkish-speaking people.
Thus Syria proper, as it now remained, was deprived of some of its most fertile districts and, what was much worse, completely cut off from the sea. For thousands of years Syria had been one of the great Mediterranean countries, and now this ancient alliance was broken up and it had to face the inhospitable desert. Even from this Syria another mountainous bit was cut off and made into a separate State, the Jebel ed Druz, where a tribal people, the Druzes, lived.
From the very beginning the Syrians had not taken kindly to the French mandate. There had been conflicts and big demonstrations, in which Arab women had taken part, and the French had repressed these with a heavy hand. The division of the country, and the deliberate attempt to raise religious and minority problems, made matters worse, and dissatisfaction grew. To put this down, the French, like the British in India, suppressed personal and political liberties and covered the country with their spies and secret service men. They appointed as their officials “loyal” Syrians who had no influence whatever with the people and who were generally regarded as renegades by their own countrymen. All this was done, of course, with the most pious of motives, and the French proclaimed that they considered it “their duty to educate the Syrians to political maturity and independence”—the phrase has a familiar ring in India!
Glimpses of World History Page 112
