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Title: The New World of Islam
Author: Lothrop Stoddard
Release Date: January 1, 2008 [EBook #24107]
Language: English
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THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM
BY
LATHROP STODDARD, A.M., PH.D. (Harv.)
AUTHOR OF: THE RISING TIDE OF COLOUR,
THE STAKES OF THE WAR,
PRESENT DAY EUROPE: ITS NATIONAL STATES OF MIND,
THE TRENCH REVOLUTION IN SAN DOMINGO, ETC.
WITH MAP
_SECOND IMPRESSION_
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.
1922
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
RICHARD CLAY & SONS LIMITED.
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK
PREFACE
The entire world of Islam is to-day in profound ferment. From Morocco to
China and from Turkestan to the Congo, the 250,000,000 followers of the
Prophet Mohammed are stirring to new ideas, new impulses, new
aspirations. A gigantic transformation is taking place whose results
must affect all mankind.
This transformation was greatly stimulated by the late war. But it began
long before. More than a hundred years ago the seeds were sown, and ever
since then it has been evolving; at first slowly and obscurely; later
more rapidly and perceptibly; until to-day, under the stimulus of
Armageddon, it has burst into sudden and startling bloom.
The story of that strange and dramatic evolution I have endeavoured to
tell in the following pages. Considering in turn its various
aspects--religious, cultural, political, economic, social--I have tried
to portray their genesis and development, to analyse their character,
and to appraise their potency. While making due allowance for local
differentiations, the intimate correlation and underlying unity of the
various movements have ever been kept in view.
Although the book deals primarily with the Moslem world, it necessarily
includes the non-Moslem Hindu elements of India. The field covered is
thus virtually the entire Near and Middle East. The Far East has not
been directly considered, but parallel developments there have been
noted and should always be kept in mind.
LOTHROP STODDARD.
CONTENTS
CHAP PAGE
INTRODUCTION: THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OLD ISLAMIC WORLD 1
I. THE MOHAMMEDAN REVIVAL 20
II. PAN-ISLAMISM 37
III. THE INFLUENCE OF THE WEST 75
IV. POLITICAL CHANGE 110
V. NATIONALISM 132
VI. NATIONALISM IN INDIA 201
VII. ECONOMIC CHANGE 226
VIII. SOCIAL CHANGE 250
IX. SOCIAL UNREST AND BOLSHEVISM 273
CONCLUSION 300
INDEX 301
MAP
THE WORLD OF ISLAM _at end of volume_
THE NEW WORLD OF ISLAM
"Das Alte stürzt, es ändert sich die Zeit,
Und neues Leben blüht aus den Ruinen."
SCHILLER, _Wilhelm Tell_.
INTRODUCTION
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE OLD ISLAMIC WORLD
The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history.
Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Islam
spread within a century over half the earth, shattering great empires,
overthrowing long-established religions, remoulding the souls of races,
and building up a whole new world--the world of Islam.
The closer we examine this development the more extraordinary does it
appear. The other great religions won their way slowly, by painful
struggle, and finally triumphed with the aid of powerful monarchs
converted to the new faith. Christianity had its Constantine, Buddhism
its Asoka, and Zoroastrianism its Cyrus, each lending to his chosen cult
the mighty force of secular authority. Not so Islam. Arising in a desert
land sparsely inhabited by a nomad race previously undistinguished in
human annals, Islam sallied forth on its great adventure with the
slenderest human backing and against the heaviest material odds. Yet
Islam triumphed with seemingly miraculous ease, and a couple of
generations saw the Fiery Crescent borne victorious from the Pyrenees
to the Himalayas and from the deserts of Central Asia to the deserts of
Central Africa.
This amazing success was due to a number of contributing factors, chief
among them being the character of the Arab race, the nature of
Mohammed's teaching, and the general state of the contemporary Eastern
world. Undistinguished though the Arabs had hitherto been, they were a
people of remarkable potentialities, which were at that moment patently
seeking self-realization. For several generations before Mohammed,
Arabia had been astir with exuberant vitality. The Arabs had outgrown
their ancestral paganism and were instinctively yearning for better
things. Athwart this seething ferment of mind and spirit Islam rang like
a trumpet-call. Mohammed, an Arab of the Arabs, was the very incarnation
of the soul of his race. Preaching a simple, austere monotheism, free
from priestcraft or elaborate doctrinal trappings, he tapped the
well-springs of religious zeal always present in the Semitic heart.
Forgetting the chronic rivalries and blood-feuds which had consumed
their energies in internecine strife, and welded into a glowing unity by
the fire of their new-found faith, the Arabs poured forth from their
deserts to conquer the earth for Allah, the One True God.
Thus Islam, like the resistless breath of the sirocco, the desert wind,
swept out of Arabia and encountered--a spiritual vacuum. Those
neighbouring Byzantine and Persian Empires, so imposing to the casual
eye, were mere dried husks, devoid of real vitality. Their religions
were a mockery and a sham. Persia's ancestral cult of Zoroaster had
degenerated into "Magism"--a pompous priestcraft, tyrannical and
persecuting, hated and secretly despised. As for Eastern Christianity,
bedizened with the gewgaws of paganism and bedevilled by the maddening
theological speculations of the decadent Greek mind, it had become a
repellent caricature of the teachings of Christ. Both Magism and
Byzantine Christendom were riven by great heresies which engendered
savage persecutions and furious hates. Furthermore, both the Byzantine
and Persian Empires were harsh despotisms which crushed their subjects
to the dust and killed out all love of country or loyalty to the state.
Lastly, the two empires had just fought a terrible war from which they
had emerged mutually bled white and utterly exhausted.
Such was the world compelled to face the lava-flood of Islam. The result
was inevitable. Once the disciplined strength of the East Roman legions
and the Persian cuirassiers had broken before the fiery onslaught of the
fanatic sons of the desert, it was all over. There was no patriotic
resistance. The down-trodden populations passively accepted new masters,
while the numerous heretics actually welcomed the overthrow of
persecuting co-religionists whom they hated far worse than their alien
conquerors. In a short time most of the subject peoples accepted the new
faith, so refreshingly simple compared with their own degenerate cults.
The Arabs, in their turn, knew how to consolidate their rule. They were
no bloodthirsty savages, bent solely on loot and destruction. On the
contrary, they were an innately gifted race, eager to learn and
appreciative of the cultural gifts which older civilizations had to
bestow. Intermarrying freely and professing a common belief, conquerors
and conquered rapidly fused, and from this fusion arose a new
civilization--the Saracenic civilization, in which the ancient cultures
of Greece, Rome, and Persia were revitalized by Arab vigour and
synthesized by the Arab genius and the Islamic spirit. For the first
three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D. 650-1000) the realm of
Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world.
Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques, and quiet universities
where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the
Moslem East offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk
in the night of the Dark Ages.
However, by the tenth century the Saracenic civilization began to
display unmistakable symptoms of decline. This decline was at first
gradual. Down to the terrible disasters of the thirteenth century it
still displayed vigour and remained ahead of the Christian West. Still,
by the year A.D. 1000 its golden age was over. For this there were
several reasons. In the first place, that inveterate spirit of faction
which has always been the bane of the Arab race soon reappeared once
more. Rival clans strove for the headship of Islam, and their quarrels
degenerated into bloody civil wars. In this fratricidal strife the
fervour of the first days cooled, and saintly men like Abu Bekr and
Omar, Islam's first standard-bearers, gave place to worldly minded
leaders who regarded their position of "Khalifa"[1] as a means to
despotic power and self-glorification. The seat of government was moved
to Damascus in Syria, and afterward to Bagdad in Mesopotamia. The reason
for this was obvious. In Mecca despotism was impossible. The fierce,
free-born Arabs of the desert would tolerate no master, and their innate
democracy had been sanctioned by the Prophet, who had explicitly
declared that all Believers were brothers. The Meccan caliphate was a
theocratic democracy. Abu Bekr and Omar were elected by the people, and
held themselves responsible to public opinion, subject to the divine law
as revealed by Mohammed in the Koran.
But in Damascus, and still more in Bagdad, things were different. There
the pure-blooded Arabs were only a handful among swarms of Syrian and
Persian converts and "Neo-Arab" mixed-bloods. These people were filled
with traditions of despotism and were quite ready to yield the caliphs
obsequious obedience. The caliphs, in their turn, leaned more and more
upon these complaisant subjects, drawing from their ranks courtiers,
officials, and ultimately soldiers. Shocked and angered, the proud Arabs
gradually returned to the desert, while the government fell into the
well-worn ruts of traditional Oriental despotism. When the caliphate was
moved to Bagdad after the founding of the Abbaside dynasty (A.D. 750),
Persian influence became preponderant. The famous Caliph
Haroun-al-Rashid, the hero of the _Arabian Nights_, was a typical
Persian monarch, a true successor of Xerxes and Chosroes, and as
different from Abu Bekr or Omar as it is possible to conceive. And, in
Bagdad, as elsewhere, despotic power was fatal to its possessors. Under
its blight the "successors" of Mohammed became capricious tyrants or
degenerate harem puppets, whose nerveless hands were wholly incapable of
guiding the great Moslem Empire.
The empire, in fact, gradually went to pieces. Shaken by the civil wars,
bereft of strong leaders, and deprived of the invigorating amalgam of
the unspoiled desert Arabs, political unity could not endure. Everywhere
there occurred revivals of suppressed racial or particularist
tendencies. The very rapidity of Islam's expansion turned against it,
now that the well-springs of that expansion were dried up. Islam had
made millions of converts, of many sects and races, but it had digested
them very imperfectly. Mohammed had really converted the Arabs, because
he merely voiced ideas which were obscurely germinating in Arab minds
and appealed to impulses innate in the Arab blood. When, however, Islam
was accepted by non-Arab peoples, they instinctively interpreted the
Prophet's message according to their particular racial tendencies and
cultural backgrounds, the result being that primitive Islam was
distorted or perverted. The most extreme example of this was in Persia,
where the austere monotheism of Mohammed was transmuted into the
elaborate mystical cult known as Shiism, which presently cut the
Persians off from full communion with the orthodox Moslem world. The
same transmutive tendency appears, in lesser degree, in the
saint-worship of the North African Berbers and in the pantheism of the
Hindu Moslems--both developments which Mohammed would have
unquestionably execrated.
These doctrinal fissures in Islam were paralleled by the disruption of
political unity. The first formal split occurred after the accession of
the Abbasides. A member of the deposed Ommeyyad family fled to Spain,
where he set up a rival caliphate at Cordova, recognized as lawful not
only by the Spanish Moslems, but by the Berbers of North Africa. Later
on another caliphate was set up in Egypt--the Fatimite caliphate,
resting its title on descent from Mohammed's daughter Fatima. As for the
Abbaside caliphs of Bagdad, they gradually declined in power, until they
became mere puppets in the hands of a new racial element, the Turks.
Before describing that shift of power from Neo-Arab to Turkish hands
which was so momentous for the history of the Islamic world, let us
first consider the decline in cultural and intellectual vigour that set
in concurrently with the disruption of political and religious unity
during the later stages of the Neo-Arab period.
The Arabs of Mohammed's day were a fresh, unspoiled people in the full
flush of pristine vigour, eager for adventure and inspired by a high
ideal. They had their full share of Semitic fanaticism, but, though
fanatical, they were not bigoted, that is to say, they possessed, not
closed, but open minds. They held firmly to the tenets of their
religion, but this religion was extremely simple. The core of Mohammed's
teaching was theism _plus_ certain practices. A strict belief in the
unity of God, an equally strict belief in the divine mission[2] of
Mohammed as set forth in the Koran, and certain clearly defined
duties--prayer, ablutions, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage--these,
and these alone, constituted the Islam of the Arab conquerors of the
Eastern world.
So simple a theology could not seriously fetter the Arab mind, alert,
curious, eager to learn, and ready to adjust itself to conditions ampler
and more complex than those prevailing in the parched environment of the
desert. Now, not only did the Arabs relish the material advantages and
luxuries of the more developed societies which they had conquered; they
also appreciated the art, literature, science, and ideas of the older
civilizations. The effect of these novel stimuli was the remarkable
cultural and intellectual flowering which is the glory of Saracenic
civilization. For a time thought was relatively free and produced a
wealth of original ideas and daring speculations. These were the work
not only of Arabs but also of subject Christians, Jews, and Persians,
many of them being heretics previously depressed under the iron bands of
persecuting Byzantine orthodoxy and Magism.
Gradually, however, this enlightened era passed away. Reactionary forces
appeared and gained in strength. The liberals, who are usually known
under the general title of "Motazelites," not only clung to the
doctrinal simplicity of primitive Islam, but also contended that the
test of all things should be reason. On the other hand, the conservative
schools of thought asserted that the test should be precedent and
authority. These men, many of them converted Christians imbued with the
traditions of Byzantine orthodoxy, undertook an immense work of Koranic
exegesis, combined with an equally elaborate codification and
interpretation of the reputed sayings or "traditions" of Mohammed, as
handed down by his immediate disciples and followers. As the result of
these labours, there gradually arose a Moslem theology and scholastic
philosophy as rigid, elaborate, and dogmatic as that of the mediæval
Christian West.
Naturally, the struggle between the fundamentally opposed tendencies of
traditionalism and rationalism was long and bitter. Yet the ultimate
outcome was almost a foregone conclusion. Everything conspired to favour
the triumph of dogma over reason. The whole historic tradition of the
East (a tradition largely induced by racial and climatic factors[3]) was
toward absolutism. This tradition had been interrupted by the inrush of
the wild libertarianism of the desert. But the older tendency presently
reasserted itself, stimulated as it was by the political transformation
of the caliphate from theocratic, democracy to despotism.
This triumph of absolutism in the field of government in fact assured
its eventual triumph in all other fields as well. For, in the long run,
despotism can no more tolerate liberty of thought than it can liberty of
action. Some of the Damascus caliphs, to be sure, toyed with Motazelism,
the Ommeyyads being mainly secular-minded men to whom freethinking was
intellectually attractive. But presently the caliphs became aware of
liberalism's political implications. The Motazelites did not confine
themselves to the realm of pure philosophic speculation. They also
trespassed on more dangerous ground. Motazelite voices were heard
recalling the democratic days of the Meccan caliphate, when the
Commander of the Faithful, instead of being an hereditary monarch, was
elected by the people and responsible to public opinion. Some bold
spirits even entered into relations with the fierce fanatic sects of
inner Arabia, like the Kharijites, who, upholding the old desert
freedom, refused to recognize the caliphate and proclaimed theories of
advanced republicanism.
The upshot was that the caliphs turned more and more toward the
conservative theologians as against the liberals, just as they favoured
the monarchist Neo-Arabs in preference to the intractable pure-blooded
Arabs of the desert. Under the Abbasides the government came out frankly
for religious absolutism. Standards of dogmatic orthodoxy were
established, Motazelites were persecuted and put to death, and by the
twelfth century A.D. the last vestiges of Saracenic liberalism were
extirpated. The canons of Moslem thought were fixed. All creative
activity ceased. The very memory of the great Motazelite doctors faded
away. The Moslem mind was closed, not to be re-opened until our own day.
By the beginning of the eleventh century the decline of Saracenic
civilization had become so pronounced that change was clearly in the
air. Having lost their early vigour, the Neo-Arabs were to see their
political power pass into other hands. These political heirs of the
Neo-Arabs were the Turks. The Turks were a western branch of that
congeries of nomadic tribes which, from time immemorial, have roamed
over the limitless steppes of eastern and central Asia, and which are
known collectively under the titles of "Uralo-Altaic" or "Turanian"
peoples. The Arabs had been in contact with the Turkish nomads ever
since the Islamic conquest of Persia, when the Moslem generals found the
Turks beating restlessly against Persia's north-eastern frontiers. In
the caliphate's palmy days the Turks were not feared. In fact, they were
presently found to be very useful. A dull-witted folk with few ideas,
the Turks could do two things superlatively well--obey orders and fight
like devils. In other words, they made ideal mercenary soldiers. The
caliphs were delighted, and enlisted ever larger numbers of them for
their armies and their body-guards.
This was all very well while the caliphate was strong, but when it grew
weak the situation altered. Rising everywhere to positions of authority,
the Turkish mercenaries began to act like masters. Opening the eastern
frontiers, they let in fresh swarms of their countrymen, who now came,
not as individuals, but in tribes or "hordes" under their hereditary
chiefs, wandering about at their own sweet will, settling where they
pleased, and despoiling or evicting the local inhabitants.
The Turks soon renounced their ancestral paganism for Islam, but Islam
made little change in their natures. In judging these Turkish newcomers
we must not consider them the same as the present-day Ottoman Turks of
Constantinople and Asia Minor. The modern Osmanli are so saturated with
European and Near Eastern blood, and have been so leavened by Western
and Saracenic ideas, they that are a very different people from their
remote immigrant ancestors. Yet, even as it is, the modern Osmanli
display enough of those unlovely Turanian traits which characterize the
unmodified Turks of central Asia, often called "Turkomans," to
distinguish them from their Ottoman kinsfolk to the west.
Now, what was the primitive Turkish nature? First and foremost, it was
that of the professional soldier. Discipline was the Turk's watchword.
No originality of thought, and but little curiosity. Few ideas ever
penetrated the Turk's slow mind, and the few that did penetrate were
received as military orders, to be obeyed without question and adhered
to without reflection. Such was the being who took over the leadership
of Islam from the Saracen's failing grasp.
No greater misfortune could have occurred both for Islam and for the
world at large. For Islam it meant the rule of dull-witted bigots under
which enlightened progress was impossible. Of course Islam did gain a
great accession of warlike strength, but this new power was so wantonly
misused as to bring down disastrous repercussions upon Islam itself.
The first notable exploits of the immigrant Turkish hordes were their
conquest of Asia Minor and their capture of Jerusalem, both events
taking place toward the close of the eleventh century[4]. Up to this
time Asia Minor had remained part of the Christian world. The original
Arab flood of the seventh century, after overrunning Syria, had been
stopped by the barrier of the Taurus Mountains; the Byzantine Empire had
pulled itself together; and thenceforth, despite border bickerings, the
Byzantine-Saracen frontier had remained substantially unaltered. Now,
however, the Turks broke the Byzantine barrier, overran Asia Minor, and
threatened even Constantinople, the eastern bulwark of Christendom. As
for Jerusalem, it had, of course, been in Moslem hands since the Arab
conquest of A.D. 637, but the caliph Omar had carefully respected the
Christian "Holy Places," and his successors had neither persecuted the
local Christians nor maltreated the numerous pilgrims who flocked
perennially to Jerusalem from every part of the Christian world. But the
Turks changed all this. Avid for loot, and filled with bigoted hatred of
the "Misbelievers," they sacked the holy places, persecuted the
Christians, and rendered pilgrimage impossible.
The effect of these twin disasters upon Christendom, occurring as they
did almost simultaneously, was tremendous. The Christian West, then at
the height of its religious fervour, quivered with mingled fear and
wrath. Myriads of zealots, like Peter the Hermit, roused all Europe to
frenzy. Fanaticism begat fanaticism, and the Christian West poured upon
the Moslem East vast hosts of warriors in those extraordinary
expeditions, the Crusades.
The Turkish conquest of Islam and its counterblast, the Crusades, were
an immense misfortune for the world. They permanently worsened the
relations between East and West. In the year A.D. 1000 Christian-Moslem
relations were fairly good, and showed every prospect of becoming
better. The hatreds engendered by Islam's first irruption were dying
away. The frontiers of Islam and Christendom had become apparently
fixed, and neither side showed much desire to encroach upon the other.
The only serious debatable ground was Spain, where Moslem and Christian
were continually at hand-grips; but, after all, Spain was mutually
regarded as a frontier episode. Between Islam and Christendom, as a
whole, intercourse was becoming steadily more friendly and more
frequent. This friendly intercourse, if continued, might ultimately have
produced momentous results for human progress. The Moslem world was at
that time still well ahead of western Europe in knowledge and culture,
but Saracenic civilization was ossifying, whereas the Christian West,
despite its ignorance, rudeness, and barbarism, was bursting with lusty
life and patently aspiring to better things. Had the nascent amity of
East and West in the eleventh century continued to develop, both would
have greatly profited. In the West the influence of Saracenic culture,
containing, as it did, the ancient learning of Greece and Rome, might
have awakened our Renaissance much earlier, while in the East the
influence of the mediæval West, with its abounding vigour, might have
saved Moslem civilization from the creeping paralysis which was
overtaking it.
But it was not to be. In Islam the refined, easygoing Saracen gave place
to the bigoted, brutal Turk. Islam became once more aggressive--not, as
in its early days, for an ideal, but for sheer blood-lust, plunder, and
destruction. Henceforth it was war to the knife between the only
possible civilization and the most brutal and hopeless barbarism.
Furthermore, this war was destined to last for centuries. The Crusades
were merely Western counter-attacks against a Turkish assault on
Christendom which continued for six hundred years and was definitely
broken only under the walls of Vienna in 1683. Naturally, from these
centuries of unrelenting strife furious hatreds and fanaticisms were
engendered which still envenom the relations of Islam and Christendom.
The atrocities of Mustapha Kemal's Turkish "Nationalists" and the
atrocities of the Greek troops in Asia Minor, of which we read in our
morning papers, are in no small degree a "carrying on" of the mutual
atrocities of Turks and Crusaders in Palestine eight hundred years ago.
With the details of those old wars between Turks and Christians this
book has no direct concern. The wars themselves should simply be noted
as a chronic barrier between East and West. As for the Moslem East, with
its declining Saracenic civilization bowed beneath the brutal Turkish
yoke, it was presently exposed to even more terrible misfortunes. These
misfortunes were also of Turanian origin. Toward the close of the
twelfth century the eastern branches of the Turanian race were welded
into a temporary unity by the genius of a mighty chieftain named Jenghiz
Khan. Taking the sinister title of "The Inflexible Emperor," this
arch-savage started out to loot the world. He first overran northern
China, which he hideously ravaged, then turned his devastating course
toward the west. Such was the rise of the terrible "Mongols," whose name
still stinks in the nostrils of civilized mankind. Carrying with them
skilled Chinese engineers using gunpowder for the reduction of fortified
cities, Jenghiz Khan and his mounted hosts proved everywhere
irresistible. The Mongols were the most appalling barbarians whom the
world has ever seen. Their object was not conquest for settlement, not
even loot, but in great part a sheer satanic lust for blood and
destruction. They revelled in butchering whole populations, destroying
cities, laying waste countrysides--and then passing on to fresh fields.
Jenghiz Khan died after a few years of his westward progress, but his
successors continued his work with unabated zeal. Both Christendom and
Islam were smitten by the Mongol scourge. All eastern Europe was ravaged
and re-barbarized, the Russians showing ugly traces of the Mongol
imprint to this day. But the woes of Christendom were as nothing to the
woes of Islam. The Mongols never penetrated beyond Poland, and western
Europe, the seat of Western civilization, was left unscathed. Not so
Islam. Pouring down from the north-east, the Mongol hosts whirled like a
cyclone over the Moslem world from India to Egypt, pillaging, murdering,
and destroying. The nascent civilization of mediæval Persia, just
struggling into the light beneath the incubus of Turkish harryings, was
stamped flat under the Mongol hoofs, and the Mongols then proceeded to
deal with the Moslem culture-centre--Bagdad. Bagdad had declined
considerably from the gorgeous days of Haroun-al-Rashid, with its
legendary million souls. However, it was still a great city, the seat of
the caliphate and the unquestioned centre of Saracenic civilization. The
Mongols stormed it (A.D. 1258), butchered its entire population, and
literally wiped Bagdad off the face of the earth. And even this was not
the worst. Bagdad was the capital of Mesopotamia. This "Land between the
Rivers" had, in the very dawn of history, been reclaimed from swamp and
desert by the patient labours of half-forgotten peoples who, with
infinite toil, built up a marvellous system of irrigation that made
Mesopotamia the perennial garden and granary of the world. Ages had
passed and Mesopotamia had known many masters, but all these conquerors
had respected, even cherished, the irrigation works which were the
source of all prosperity. These works the Mongols wantonly, methodically
destroyed. The oldest civilization in the world, the cradle of human
culture, was hopelessly ruined; at least eight thousand years of
continuous human effort went for naught, and Mesopotamia became the
noisome land it still remains to-day, parched during the droughts of low
water, soaked to fever-stricken marsh in the season of river-floods,
tenanted only by a few mongrel fellahs inhabiting wretched mud villages,
and cowed by nomad Bedouin browsing their flocks on the sites of ancient
fields.
The destruction of Bagdad was a fatal blow to Saracenic civilization,
especially in the East. And even before that dreadful disaster it had
received a terrible blow in the West. Traversing North Africa in its
early days, Islam had taken firm root in Spain, and had so flourished
there that Spanish Moslem culture was fully abreast of that in the
Moslem East. The capital of Spanish Islam was Cordova, the seat of the
Western caliphate, a mighty city, perhaps more wonderful than Bagdad
itself. For centuries Spanish Islam lived secure, confining the
Christians to the mountainous regions of the north. As Saracen vigour
declined, however, the Christians pressed the Moslems southward. In 1213
Spanish Islam was hopelessly broken at the tremendous battle of Las
Navas de Tolosa. Thenceforth, for the victorious Christians it was a
case of picking up the pieces. Cordova itself soon fell, and with it the
glory of Spanish Islam, for the fanatical Christian Spaniards extirpated
Saracenic civilization as effectually as the pagan Mongols were at that
time doing. To be sure, a remnant of the Spanish Moslems held their
ground at Granada, in the extreme south, until the year Columbus
discovered America, but this was merely an episode. The Saracen
civilization of the West was virtually destroyed.
Meanwhile the Moslem East continued to bleed under the Mongol scourge.
Wave after wave of Mongol raiders passed over the land, the last notable
invasion being that headed by the famous (or rather infamous) Tamerlane,
early in the fifteenth century. By this time the western Mongols had
accepted Islam, but that made little difference in their conduct. To
show that Tamerlane was a true scion of his ancestor Jenghiz Khan, it
may be remarked that his foible was pyramids of human skulls, his prize
effort being one of 70,000 erected after the storming of the Persian
city of Ispahan. After the cessation of the Mongol incursions, the
ravaged and depopulated Moslem East fell under the sway of the Ottoman
Turks.
The Ottoman Turks, or "Osmanli," were originally merely one of the many
Turkish hordes which entered Asia Minor after the downfall of Byzantine
rule. They owed their greatness mainly to a long line of able sultans,
who gradually absorbed the neighbouring Turkish tribes and used this
consolidated strength for ambitious conquests both to east and west. In
1453 the Osmanli extinguished the old Byzantine Empire by taking
Constantinople, and within a century thereafter they had conquered the
Moslem East from Persia to Morocco, had subjugated the whole Balkan
Peninsula, and had advanced through Hungary to the walls of Vienna.
Unlike their Mongol cousins, the Ottoman Turks built up a durable
empire. It was a barbarous sort of empire, for the Turks understood very
little about culture. The only things they could appreciate were
military improvements. These, however, they thoroughly appreciated and
kept fully abreast of the times. In their palmy days the Turks had the
best artillery and the steadiest infantry in the world, and were the
terror of Europe.
Meantime Europe was awakening to true progress and higher civilization.
While the Moslem East was sinking under Mongol harryings and Turkish
militarism, the Christian West was thrilling to the Renaissance and the
discoveries of America and the water route to India. The effect of these
discoveries simply cannot be over-estimated. When Columbus and Vasco da
Gama made their memorable voyages at the end of the fifteenth century,
Western civilization was pent up closely within the restricted bounds of
west-central Europe, and was waging a defensive and none-too-hopeful
struggle with the forces of Turanian barbarism. Russia lay under the
heel of the Mongol Tartars, while the Turks, then in the full flush of
their martial vigour, were marching triumphantly up from the south-east
and threatening Europe's very heart. So strong were these Turanian
barbarians, with Asia, North Africa, and eastern Europe in their grasp,
that Western civilization was hard put to it to hold its own. Western
civilization was, in fact, fighting with its back to the wall--the wall
of a boundless ocean. We can hardly conceive how our mediæval
forefathers viewed the ocean. To them it was a numbing, constricting
presence; the abode of darkness and horror. No wonder mediæval Europe
was static, since it faced on ruthless, aggressive Asia, and backed on
nowhere. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the sea-wall became a
highway, and dead-end Europe became mistress of the ocean--and thereby
mistress of the world.
The greatest strategic shift of fortune in all human history had taken
place. Instead of fronting hopelessly on the fiercest of Asiatics,
against whom victory by direct attack seemed impossible, the Europeans
could now flank them at will. Furthermore, the balance of resources
shifted in Europe's favour. Whole new worlds were unmasked whence Europe
could draw limitless wealth to quicken its home life and initiate a
progress that would soon place it immeasurably above its once-dreaded
Asiatic assailants. What were the resources of the stagnant Moslem East
compared with those of the Americas and the Indies? So Western
civilization, quickened, energized, progressed with giant strides, shook
off its mediæval fetters, grasped the talisman of science, and strode
into the light of modern times.
Yet all this left Islam unmoved. Wrapping itself in the tatters of
Saracenic civilization, the Moslem East continued to fall behind. Even
its military power presently vanished, for the Turk sank into lethargy
and ceased to cultivate the art of war. For a time the West, busied with
internal conflicts, hesitated to attack the East, so great was the
prestige of the Ottoman name. But the crushing defeat of the Turks in
their rash attack upon Vienna in 1683 showed the West that the Ottoman
Empire was far gone in decrepitude. Thenceforth, the empire was harried
mercilessly by Western assaults and was saved from collapse only by the
mutual jealousies of Western Powers, quarrelling over the Turkish
spoils.
However, not until the nineteenth century did the Moslem world, as a
whole, feel the weight of Western attack. Throughout the eighteenth
century the West assailed the ends of the Moslem battle-line in eastern
Europe and the Indies, but the bulk of Islam, from Morocco to Central
Asia, remained almost immune. The Moslem world failed to profit by this
respite. Plunged in lethargy, contemptuous of the European
"Misbelievers," and accepting defeats as the inscrutable will of Allah,
Islam continued to live its old life, neither knowing nor caring to know
anything about Western ideas or Western progress.
Such was the decrepit Moslem world which faced nineteenth-century
Europe, energized by the Industrial Revolution, armed as never before by
modern science and invention which had unlocked nature's secrets and
placed hitherto-undreamed-of weapons in its aggressive hands. The result
was a foregone conclusion. One by one, the decrepit Moslem states fell
before the Western attack, and the whole Islamic world was rapidly
partitioned among the European Powers. England took India and Egypt,
Russia crossed the Caucasus and mastered Central Asia, France conquered
North Africa, while other European nations grasped minor portions of the
Moslem heritage. The Great War witnessed the final stage in this process
of subjugation. By the terms of the treaties which marked its close,
Turkey was extinguished and not a single Mohammedan state retained
genuine independence. The subjection of the Moslem world was
complete--on paper.
On paper! For, in its very hour of apparent triumph, Western domination
was challenged as never before. During those hundred years of Western
conquest a mighty internal change had been coming over the Moslem
world. The swelling tide of Western aggression had at last moved the
"immovable" East. At last Islam became conscious of its decrepitude, and
with that consciousness a vast ferment, obscure yet profound, began to
leaven the 250,000,000 followers of the Prophet from Morocco to China
and from Turkestan to the Congo. The first spark was fittingly struck in
the Arabian desert, the cradle of Islam. Here at the opening of the
nineteenth century, arose the Wahabi movement for the reform of Islam,
which presently kindled the far-flung "Mohammedan Revival," which in its
turn begat the movement known as "Pan-Islamism." Furthermore, athwart
these essentially internal movements there came pouring a flood of
external stimuli from the West--ideas such as parliamentary government,
nationalism, scientific education, industrialism, and even ultra-modern
concepts like feminism, socialism, Bolshevism. Stirred by the
interaction of all these novel forces and spurred by the ceaseless
pressure of European aggression, the Moslem world roused more and more
to life and action. The Great War was a shock of terrific potency, and
to-day Islam is seething with mighty forces fashioning a new Moslem
world. What are those forces moulding the Islam of the future? To their
analysis and appraisal the body of this book is devoted.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _I. e._ "Successor"; anglicized into the word "Caliph."
[2] To be carefully distinguished from divinity. Mohammed not only did
not make any pretensions to divinity, but specifically disclaimed any
such attributes. He regarded himself as the last of a series of divinely
inspired prophets, beginning with Adam and extending through Moses and
Jesus to himself, the mouthpiece of God's last and most perfect
revelation.
[3] The influence of environment and heredity on human evolution in
general and on the history of the East in particular, though of great
importance, cannot be treated in a summary such as this. The influence
of climatic and other environmental factors has been ably treated by
Prof. Ellsworth Huntington in his various works, such as _The Pulse of
Asia_ (Boston, 1907); _Civilization and Climate_ (Yale Univ. Press,
1915), and _World-Power and Evolution_ (Yale Univ. Press, 1919). See
also Chap. III. in Arminius Vambéry--_Der Islam im neunzehnten
Jahrhundert. Eine culturgeschichtliche Studie_ (Leipzig, 1875). For a
summary of racial influences in Eastern history, see Madison Grant--_The
Passing of the Great Race_ (N. Y., 1916).
[4] The Turkish overrunning of Asia Minor took place after the
destruction of the Byzantine army in the great battle of Manzikert, A.D.
1071. The Turks captured Jerusalem in 1076.
CHAPTER I
THE MOHAMMEDAN REVIVAL
By the eighteenth century the Moslem world had sunk to the lowest depth
of its decrepitude. Nowhere were there any signs of healthy vigour,
everywhere were stagnation and decay. Manners and morals were alike
execrable. The last vestiges of Saracenic culture had vanished in a
barbarous luxury of the few and an equally barbarous degradation of the
multitude. Learning was virtually dead, the few universities which
survived fallen into dreary decay and languishing in poverty and
neglect. Government had become despotism tempered by anarchy and
assassination. Here and there a major despot like the Sultan of Turkey
or the Indian "Great Mogul" maintained some semblance of state
authority, albeit provincial pashas were for ever striving to erect
independent governments based, like their masters', on tyranny and
extortion. The pashas, in turn, strove ceaselessly against unruly local
chiefs and swarms of brigands who infested the countryside. Beneath this
sinister hierarchy groaned the people, robbed, bullied, and ground into
the dust. Peasant and townsman had alike lost all incentive to labour or
initiative, and both agriculture and trade had fallen to the lowest
level compatible with bare survival.
As for religion, it was as decadent as everything else. The austere
monotheism of Mohammed had become overlaid with a rank growth of
superstition and puerile mysticism. The mosques stood unfrequented and
ruinous, deserted by the ignorant multitude, which, decked out in
amulets, charms, and rosaries, listened to squalid fakirs or ecstatic
dervishes, and went on pilgrimages to the tombs of "holy men,"
worshipped as saints and "intercessors" with that Allah who had become
too remote a being for the direct devotion of these benighted souls. As
for the moral precepts of the Koran, they were ignored or defied.
Wine-drinking and opium-eating were well-nigh universal, prostitution
was rampant, and the most degrading vices flaunted naked and unashamed.
Even the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, were sink-holes of iniquity,
while the "Hajj," or pilgrimage ordained by the Prophet, had become a
scandal through its abuses. In fine: the life had apparently gone out of
Islam, leaving naught but a dry husk of soulless ritual and degrading
superstition behind. Could Mohammed have returned to earth, he would
unquestionably have anathematized his followers as apostates and
idolaters.
Yet, in this darkest hour, a voice came crying out of the vast Arabian
desert, the cradle of Islam, calling the faithful back to the true path.
This puritan reformer, the famous Abd-el-Wahab, kindled a fire which
presently spread to the remotest corners of the Moslem world, purging
Islam of its sloth and reviving the fervour of olden days. The great
Mohammedan Revival had begun.
Mahommed ibn Abd-el-Wahab was born about the year A.D. 1700 in the heart
of the Arabian desert, the region known as the Nejd. The Nejd was the
one clean spot in the decadent Moslem world. We have already seen how,
with the transformation of the caliphate from a theocratic democracy to
an Oriental despotism, the free-spirited Arabs had returned scornfully
to their deserts. Here they had maintained their wild freedom. Neither
caliph nor sultan dared venture far into those vast solitudes of burning
sand and choking thirst, where the rash invader was lured to sudden
death in a whirl of stabbing spears. The Arabs recognized no master,
wandering at will with their flocks and camels, or settled here and
there in green oases hidden in the desert's heart. And in the desert
they retained their primitive political and religious virtues. The
nomad Bedouin lived under the sway of patriarchal "sheiks"; the settled
dwellers in the oases usually acknowledged the authority of some leading
family. But these rulers possessed the slenderest authority, narrowly
circumscribed by well-established custom and a jealous public opinion
which they transgressed at their peril. The Turks, to be sure, had
managed to acquire a precarious authority over the holy cities and the
Red Sea littoral, but the Nejd, the vast interior, was free. And, in
religion, as in politics, the desert Arabs kept the faith of their
fathers. Scornfully rejecting the corruptions of decadent Islam, they
held fast to the simple theology of primitive Islam, so congenial to
their Arab natures.
Into this atmosphere of an older and better age, Abd-el-Wahab was born.
Displaying from the first a studious and religious bent, he soon
acquired a reputation for learning and sanctity. Making the Meccan
pilgrimage while still a young man, he studied at Medina and travelled
as far as Persia, returning ultimately to the Nejd. He returned burning
with holy wrath at what he had seen, and determined to preach a puritan
reformation. For years he wandered up and down Arabia, and at last he
converted Mahommed, head of the great clan of Saud, the most powerful
chieftain in all the Nejd. This gave Abd-el-Wahab both moral prestige
and material strength, and he made the most of his opportunities.
Gradually, the desert Arabs were welded into a politico-religious unity
like that effected by the Prophet. Abd-el-Wahab was, in truth, a
faithful counterpart of the first caliphs, Abu Bekr and Omar. When he
died in 1787 his disciple, Saud, proved a worthy successor. The new
Wahabi state was a close counterpart of the Meccan caliphate. Though
possessing great military power, Saud always considered himself
responsible to public opinion and never encroached upon the legitimate
freedom of his subjects. Government, though stern, was able and just.
The Wahabi judges were competent and honest. Robbery, became almost
unknown, so well was the public peace maintained. Education was
sedulously fostered. Every oasis had its school, while teachers were
sent to the Bedouin tribes.
Having consolidated the Nejd, Saud was now ready to undertake the
greater task of subduing and purifying the Moslem world. His first
objective was of course the holy cities. This objective was attained in
the opening years of the nineteenth century. Nothing could stand against
the rush of the Wahabi hosts burning with fanatic hatred against the
Turks, who were loathed both as apostate Moslems and as usurpers of that
supremacy in Islam which all Arabs believed should rest in Arab hands.
When Saud died in 1814 he was preparing to invade Syria. It looked for a
moment as though the Wahabis were to sweep the East and puritanize all
Islam at a blow.
But it was not to be. Unable to stem the Wahabi flood, the Sultan of
Turkey called on his powerful vassal, the famous Mehemet Ali. This able
Albanian adventurer had by that time made himself master of Egypt.
Frankly recognizing the superiority of the West, he had called in
numerous European officers who rapidly fashioned a formidable army,
composed largely of hard-fighting Albanian highlanders, and disciplined
and equipped after European models. Mehemet Ali gladly answered the
Sultan's summons, and it soon became clear that even Wahabi fanaticism
was no match for European muskets and artillery handled by seasoned
veterans. In a short time the holy cities were recaptured and the
Wahabis were driven back into the desert. The nascent Wahabi empire had
vanished like a mirage. Wahabism's political rôle was ended.[5]
However, Wahabism's spiritual rôle had only just begun. The Nejd
remained a focus of puritan zeal whence the new spirit radiated in all
directions. Even in the holy cities Wahabism continued to set the
religious tone, and the numberless "Hajjis," or pilgrims, who came
annually from every part of the Moslem world returned to their homes
zealous reformers. Soon the Wahabi leaven began to produce profound
disturbances in the most distant quarters. For example, in northern
India a Wahabi fanatic, Seyid Ahmed,[6] so roused the Punjabi
Mohammedans that he actually built up a theocratic state, and only his
chance death prevented a possible Wahabi conquest of northern India.
This state was shattered by the Sikhs, about 1830, but when the English
conquered the country they had infinite trouble with the smouldering
embers of Wahabi feeling, which, in fact, lived on, contributed to the
Indian mutiny, and permanently fanaticized Afghanistan and the wild
tribes of the Indian North-West Frontier.[7] It was during these years
that the famous Seyid Mahommed ben Sennussi came from his Algerian home
to Mecca and there imbibed those Wahabi principles which led to the
founding of the great Pan-Islamic fraternity that bears his name. Even
the Babbist movement in Persia, far removed though it was doctrinally
from Wahabi teaching, was indubitably a secondary reflex of the Wahabi
urge.[8] In fact, within a generation, the strictly Wahabi movement had
broadened into the larger development known as the Mohammedan Revival,
and this in turn was developing numerous phases, chief among them being
the movement usually termed Pan-Islamism. That movement, particularly on
its political side, I shall treat in the next chapter. At present let
us examine the other aspects of the Mohammedan Revival, with special
reference to its religious and cultural phases.
The Wahabi movement was a strictly puritan reformation. Its aim was the
reform of abuses, the abolition of superstitious practices, and a return
to primitive Islam. All later accretions--the writings and
interpretations of the mediæval theologians, ceremonial or mystical
innovations, saint worship, in fact every sort of change, were
condemned. The austere monotheism of Mohammed was preached in all its
uncompromising simplicity, and the Koran, literally interpreted, was
taken as the sole guide for human action. This doctrinal simplification
was accompanied by a most rigid code of morals. The prayers, fastings,
and other practices enjoined by Mohammed were scrupulously observed. The
most austere manner of living was enforced. Silken clothing, rich food,
wine, opium, tobacco, coffee, and all other indulgences were sternly
proscribed. Even religious architecture was practically tabooed, the
Wahabis pulling down the Prophet's tomb at Medina and demolishing the
minarets of mosques as godless innovations. The Wahabis were thus,
despite their moral earnestness, excessively narrow-minded, and it was
very fortunate for Islam that they soon lost their political power and
were compelled thenceforth to confine their efforts to moral teaching.
Many critics of Islam point to the Wahabi movement as a proof that Islam
is essentially retrograde and innately incapable of evolutionary
development. These criticisms, however, appear to be unwarranted. The
initial stage of every religious reformation is an uncritical return to
the primitive cult. To the religious reformer the only way of salvation
is a denial of all subsequent innovations, regardless of their
character. Our own Protestant Reformation began in just this way, and
Humanists like Erasmus, repelled and disgusted by Protestantism's
puritanical narrowness, could see no good in the movement, declaring
that it menaced all true culture and merely replaced an infallible Pope
by an infallible Bible.
As a matter of fact, the puritan beginnings of the Mohammedan Revival
presently broadened along more constructive lines, some of these
becoming tinged with undoubted liberalism. The Moslem reformers of the
early nineteenth century had not dug very deeply into their religious
past before they discovered--Motazelism. We have already reviewed the
great struggle which had raged between reason and dogma in Islam's early
days, in which dogma had triumphed so completely that the very memory of
Motazelism had faded away. Now, however, those memories were revived,
and the liberal-minded reformers were delighted to find such striking
confirmation of their ideas, both in the writings of the Motazelite
doctors and in the sacred texts themselves. The principle that reason
and not blind prescription was to be the test opened the door to the
possibility of all those reforms which they had most at heart. For
example, the reformers found that in the traditional writings Mohammed
was reported to have said: "I am no more than a man; when I order you
anything respecting religion, receive it; when I order you about the
affairs of the world, then I am nothing more than man." And, again, as
though foreseeing the day when sweeping changes would be necessary. "Ye
are in an age in which, if ye abandon one-tenth of that which is
ordered, ye will be ruined. After this, a time will come when he who
shall observe one-tenth of what is now ordered will be redeemed."[9]
Before discussing the ideas and efforts of the modern Moslem reformers,
it might be well to examine the assertions made by numerous Western
critics, that Islam is by its very nature incapable of reform and
progressive adaptation to the expansion of human knowledge. Such is the
contention not only of Christian polemicists,[10] but also of
rationalists like Renan and European administrators of Moslem
populations like Lord Cromer. Lord Cromer, in fact, pithily summarizes
this critical attitude in his statement: "Islam cannot be reformed; that
is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer; it is something else."[11]
Now these criticisms, coming as they do from close students of Islam
often possessing intimate personal acquaintance with Moslems, deserve
respectful consideration. And yet an historical survey of religions, and
especially a survey of the thoughts and accomplishments of Moslem
reformers during the past century, seem to refute these pessimistic
charges.
In the first place, it should be remembered that Islam to-day stands
just about where Christendom stood in the fifteenth century, at the
beginning of the Reformation. There is the same supremacy of dogma over
reason, the same blind adherence to prescription and authority, the same
suspicion and hostility to freedom of thought or scientific knowledge.
There is no doubt that a study of the Mohammedan sacred texts,
particularly of the "sheriat" or canon law, together with a glance over
Moslem history for the last thousand years, reveal an attitude on the
whole quite incompatible with modern progress and civilization. But was
not precisely the same thing true of Christendom at the beginning of the
fifteenth century? Compare the sheriat with the Christian canon law. The
spirit is the same. Take, for example, the sheriat's prohibition on the
lending of money at interest; a prohibition which, if obeyed, renders
impossible anything like business or industry in the modern sense. This
is the example oftenest cited to prove Islam's innate incompatibility
with modern civilization. But the Christian canon law equally forbade
interest, and enforced that prohibition so strictly, that for centuries
the Jews had a monopoly of business in Europe, while the first
Christians who dared to lend money (the Lombards) were regarded almost
as heretics, were universally hated, and were frequently persecuted.
Again, take the matter of Moslem hostility to freedom of thought and
scientific investigation. Can Islam show anything more revolting than
that scene in Christian history when, less than three hundred years
ago,[12] the great Galileo was haled before the Papal Inquisition and
forced, under threat of torture, to recant the damnable heresy that the
earth went round the sun?
As a matter of fact, Mohammed reverenced knowledge. His own words are
eloquent testimony to that. Here are some of his sayings:
"Seek knowledge, even, if need be, on the borders of China."
"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave."
"One word of knowledge is of more value than the reciting of a hundred
prayers."
"The ink of sages is more precious than the blood of martyrs."
"One word of wisdom, learned and communicated to a Moslem brother,
outweighs the prayers of a whole year."
"Wise men are the successors of the Prophet."
"God has created nothing better than reason."
"In truth, a man may have prayed, fasted, given alms, made pilgrimage,
and all other good works; nevertheless, he shall be rewarded only in the
measure that he has used his common sense."
These citations (and there are others of the same tenor) prove that the
modern Moslem reformers have good scriptural backing for their liberal
attitude. Of course I do not imply that the reform movement in Islam,
just because it is liberal and progressive, is thereby _ipso facto_
assured of success. History reveals too many melancholy instances to the
contrary. Indeed, we have already seen how, in Islam itself, the
promising liberal movement of its early days passed utterly away. What
history does show, however, is that when the times favour progress,
religions are adapted to that progress by being reformed and
liberalized. No human society once fairly on the march was ever turned
back by a creed. Halted it may be, but if the progressive urge persists,
the doctrinal barrier is either surmounted, undermined, flanked, or
swept aside. Now there is no possibility that the Moslem world will
henceforth lack progressive influences. It is in close contact with
Western civilization, and is being increasingly permeated with Western
ideas. Islam cannot break away and isolate itself if it would.
Everything therefore portends its profound modification. Of course
critics like Lord Cromer contend that this modified Islam will be Islam
no longer. But why not? If the people continue to call themselves
Mohammedans and continue to draw spiritual sustenance from the message
of Mohammed, why should they be denied the name? Modern Christianity is
certainly vastly different from mediæval Christianity, while among the
various Christian churches there exist the widest doctrinal variations.
Yet all who consider themselves Christians are considered Christians by
all except bigots out of step with the times.
Let us now scrutinize the Moslem reformers, judging them, not by texts
and chronicles, but by their words and deeds; since, as one of their
number, an Algerian, very pertinently remarks, "men should be judged,
not by the letter of their sacred books, but by what they actually
do."[13]
Modern Moslem liberalism, as we have seen, received its first
encouragement from the discovery of the old Motazelite literature of
nearly a thousand years before. To be sure, Islam had never been quite
destitute of liberal minds. Even in its darkest days a few voices had
been raised against the prevailing obscurantism. For example, in the
sixteenth century the celebrated El-Gharani had written: "It is not at
all impossible that God may hold in reserve for men of the future
perceptions that have not been vouchsafed to the men of the past. Divine
munificence never ceases to pour benefits and enlightenment into the
hearts of wise men of every age."[14] These isolated voices from Islam's
Dark Time helped to encourage the modern reformers, and by the middle of
the nineteenth century every Moslem land had its group of
forward-looking men. At first their numbers were, of course,
insignificant, and of course they drew down upon themselves the
anathemas of the fanatic Mollahs[15] and the hatred of the ignorant
multitude. The first country where the reformers made their influence
definitely felt was in India. Here a group headed by the famous Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan started an important liberal movement, founding associations,
publishing books and newspapers, and establishing the well-known college
of Aligarh. Sir Syed Ahmed is a good type of the early liberal
reformers. Conservative in temperament and perfectly orthodox in his
theology, he yet denounced the current decadence of Islam with truly
Wahabi fervour. He also was frankly appreciative of Western ideas and
eager to assimilate the many good things which the West had to offer. As
he wrote in 1867: "We must study European scientific works, even though
they are not written by Moslems and though we may find in them things
contrary to the teachings of the Koran. We should imitate the Arabs of
olden days, who did not fear to shake their faith by studying
Pythagoras."[16]
This nucleus of Indian Moslem liberals rapidly grew in strength,
producing able leaders like Moulvie Cheragh Ali and Syed Amir Ali, whose
scholarly works in faultless English are known throughout the world.[17]
These men called themselves "Neo-Motazelites" and boldly advocated
reforms such as a thorough overhauling of the sheriat and a general
modernization of Islam. Their view-point is well set forth by another of
their leading figures, S. Khuda Bukhsh. "Nothing was more distant from
the Prophet's thought," he writes, "than to fetter the mind or to lay
down fixed, immutable, unchanging laws for his followers. The Quran is a
book of guidance to the faithful, and not an obstacle in the path, of
their social, moral, legal, and intellectual progress." He laments
Islam's present backwardness, for he continues: "Modern Islam, with its
hierarchy of priesthood, gross fanaticism, appalling ignorance, and
superstitious practices is, indeed, a discredit to the Islam of the
Prophet Mohammed." He concludes with the following liberal confession of
faith: "Is Islam hostile to progress? I will emphatically answer this
question in the negative. Islam, stripped of its theology, is a
perfectly simple religion. Its cardinal principle is belief in one God
and belief in Mohammed as his apostle. The rest is mere accretion,
superfluity."[18]
Meanwhile, the liberals were making themselves felt in other parts of
the Moslem world. In Turkey liberals actually headed the government
during much of the generation between the Crimean War and the despotism
of Abdul Hamid,[19] and Turkish liberal ministers like Reshid Pasha and
Midhat Pasha made earnest though unavailing efforts to liberalize and
modernize the Ottoman Empire. Even the dreadful Hamidian tyranny could
not kill Turkish liberalism. It went underground or into exile, and in
1908 put through the revolution which deposed the tyrant and brought the
"Young Turks" to power. In Egypt liberalism took firm root, represented
by men like Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, Rector of El Azhar University and
respected friend of Lord Cromer. Even outlying fragments of Islam like
the Russian Tartars awoke to the new spirit and produced liberal-minded,
forward-looking men.[20]
The liberal reformers, whom I have been describing, of course form the
part of evolutionary progress in Islam. They are in the best sense of
the word conservatives, receptive to healthy change, yet maintaining
their hereditary poise. Sincerely religious men, they have faith in
Islam as a living, moral force, and from it they continue to draw their
spiritual sustenance.
There are, however, other groups in the Moslem world who have so far
succumbed to Western influences that they have more or less lost touch
with both their spiritual and cultural pasts. In all the more civilized
portions of the Moslem world, especially in countries long under
European control like India, Egypt, and Algeria, there are many Moslems,
Western educated and Western culture-veneered, who have drifted into an
attitude varying from easygoing religious indifference to avowed
agnosticism. From their minds the old Moslem zeal has entirely departed.
The Algerian Ismael Hamet well describes the attitude of this class of
his fellow-countrymen when he writes: "European scepticism is not
without influence upon the Algerian Moslems, who, if they have kept
some attachment for the external forms of their religion, usually ignore
the unhealthy excesses of the religious sentiment. They do not give up
their religion, but they no longer dream of converting all those who do
not practise it; they want to hand it on to their children, but they do
not worry about other men's salvation. This is not belief; it is not
even free thought; but it is lukewarmness."[21]
Beyond these tepid latitudinarians are still other groups of a very
different character. Here we find combined the most contradictory
sentiments: young men whose brains are seething with radical Western
ideas--atheism, socialism, Bolshevism, and what not. Yet, curiously
enough, these fanatic radicals tend to join hands with the fanatic
reactionaries of Islam in a common hatred of the West. Considering
themselves the born leaders (and exploiters) of the ignorant masses, the
radicals hunger for political power and rage against that Western
domination which vetoes their ambitious pretensions. Hence, they are
mostly extreme "Nationalists," while they are also deep in Pan-Islamic
reactionary schemes. Indeed, we often witness the strange spectacle of
atheists posing as Moslem fanatics and affecting a truly dervish zeal.
Mr. Bukhsh well describes this type when he writes: "I know a gentleman,
a _Mohammedan by profession_, who owes his success in life to his faith.
Though, outwardly, he conforms to all the precepts of Islam and
occasionally stands up in public as the champion and spokesman of his
co-religionists; yet, to my utter horror, I found that he held opinions
about his religion and its founder which even Voltaire would have
rejected with indignation and Gibbon with commiserating contempt."[22]
Later on we shall examine more fully the activities of these gentry in
the chapters devoted to Pan-Islamism and Nationalism. What I desire to
emphasize here is their pernicious influence on the prospects of a
genuine Mohammedan reformation as visualized by the true reformers whom
I have described. Their malevolent desire to stir up the fanatic
passions of the ignorant masses and their equally malevolent hatred of
everything Western except military improvements are revealed by
outbursts like the following from the pen of a prominent "Young Turk."
"Yes, the Mohammedan religion is in open hostility to all your world of
progress. Learn, ye European observers, that a Christian, whatever his
position, by the mere fact that he is a Christian, is in our eyes a
being devoid of all human dignity. Our reasoning is simple and
definitive. We say: the man whose judgment is so perverted as to deny
the evidence of the One God and to fabricate gods of different kinds,
cannot be other than the most ignoble expression of human stupidity. To
speak to him would be a humiliation to our reason and an offence to the
grandeur of the Master of the Universe. The worshipper of false gods is
a monster of ingratitude; he is the execration of the universe; to
combat him, convert him, or annihilate him is the holiest task of the
Faithful. These are the eternal commands of our One God. For us there
are in this world only Believers and Misbelievers; love, charity,
fraternity to Believers; disgust, hatred, and war to Misbelievers. Among
Misbelievers, the most odious and criminal are those who, while
recognizing God, create Him of earthly parents, give Him a son, a
mother; so monstrous an aberration surpasses, in our eyes, all bounds of
iniquity; the presence of such miscreants among us is the bane of our
existence; their doctrine is a direct insult to the purity of our faith;
their contact a pollution for our bodies; any relation with them a
torture for our souls.
"While detesting you, we have been studying your political institutions
and your military organizations. Besides the new arms which Providence
procures for us by your own means, you yourselves have rekindled the
inextinguishable faith of our heroic martyrs. Our Young Turks, our
Babis, our new fraternities, all are sects in their varied forms, are
inspired by the same thought, the same purpose. Toward what end?
Christian civilization? Never!"[23]
Such harangues unfortunately find ready hearers among the Moslem masses.
Although the liberal reformers are a growing power in Islam, it must not
be forgotten that they are as yet only a minority, an élite, below whom
lie the ignorant masses, still suffering from the blight of age-long
obscurantism, wrapped in admiration of their own world, which they
regard as the highest ideal of human existence, and fanatically hating
everything outside as wicked, despicable, and deceptive. Even when
compelled to admit the superior power of the West, they hate it none the
less. They rebel blindly against the spirit of change which is forcing
them out of their old ruts, and their anger is still further heightened
by that ubiquitous Western domination which is pressing upon them from
all sides. Such persons are as clay in the hands of the Pan-Islamic and
Nationalist leaders who mould the multitude to their own sinister ends.
Islam is, in fact, to-day torn between the forces of liberal reform and
chauvinistic reaction. The liberals are not only the hope of an
evolutionary reformation, they are also favoured by the trend of the
times, since the Moslem world is being continually permeated by Western
progress and must continue to be thus permeated unless Western
civilization itself collapses in ruin. Yet, though the ultimate triumph
of the liberals appears probable, what delays, what setbacks, what fresh
barriers of warfare and fanaticism may not the chauvinist reactionaries
bring about! Neither the reform of Islam nor the relations between East
and West are free from perils whose ominous possibilities we shall later
discuss.
Meanwhile, there remains the hopeful fact that throughout the Moslem
world a numerous and powerful minority, composed not merely of
Westernized persons but also of orthodox conservatives, are aware of
Islam's decadence and are convinced that a thoroughgoing reformation
along liberal, progressive lines is at once a practical necessity and a
sacred duty. Exactly how this reformation shall be legally effected has
not yet been determined, nor is a detailed discussion of technical
machinery necessary for our consideration.[24] History teaches us that
where the will to reform is vitally present, reformation will somehow or
other be accomplished.
One thing is certain: the reforming spirit, in its various
manifestations, has already produced profound changes throughout Islam.
The Moslem world of to-day is vastly different from the Moslem world of
a century ago. The Wahabi leaven has destroyed abuses and has rekindled
a purer religious faith. Even its fanatical zeal has not been without
moral compensations. The spread of liberal principles and Western
progress goes on apace. If there is much to fear for the future, there
is also much to hope.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] On the Wahabi movement, see A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au
dix-neuvième Siècle_ (Paris, 1888); W. G. Palgrave, _Essays on Eastern
Questions_ (London, 1872); D. B. Macdonald, _Muslim Theology_ (London,
1903); J. L. Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys_ (2 vols.,
London, 1831); A. Chodzko, "Le Déisme des Wahhabis," _Journal
Asiatique_, IV., Vol. II., pp. 168 _et seq._
[6] Not to be confused with Sir Syed Ahmed of Aligarh, the Indian Moslem
liberal of the mid-nineteenth century.
[7] For English alarm at the latent fanaticism of the North Indian
Moslems, down through the middle of the nineteenth century, see Sir W.
W. Hunter, _The Indian Musalmans_ (London, 1872).
[8] For the Babbist movement, see Clément Huart, _La Réligion de Bab_
(Paris, 1889); Comte Arthur de Gobineau, _Trois Ans en Perse_ (Paris,
1867). A good summary of all these early movements of the Mohammedan
revival is found in Le Chatelier, _op. cit._
[9] _Mishkat-el-Masabih_, I., 46, 51.
[10] The best recent examples of this polemical literature are the
writings of the Rev. S. M. Zwemer, the well known missionary to the
Arabs; especially his _Arabia, the Cradle of Islam_ (Edinburgh, 1900),
and _The Reproach of Islam_ (London, 1915). Also see volume entitled
_The Mohammedan World of To-day_, being a collection of the papers read
at the Protestant Missionary Conference held at Cairo, Egypt, in 1906.
[11] Cromer, _Modern Egypt_, Vol. II., p. 229 (London, 1908). For
Renan's attitude, see his _L'Islamisme et la Science_ (Paris, 1883).
[12] In the year 1633.
[13] Ismael Hamet, _Les Musulmans français du Nord de l'Afrique_ (Paris,
1906).
[14] Quoted by Dr. Perron in his work _L'Islamisme_ (Paris, 1877).
[15] The Mollahs are the Moslem clergy, though they do not exactly
correspond to the clergy of Christendom. Mohammed was averse to anything
like a priesthood, and Islam makes no legal provision for an ordained
priestly class or caste, as is the case in Christianity, Judaism,
Brahmanism, and other religions. Theoretically any Moslem can conduct
religious services. As time passed, however, a class of men developed
who were learned in Moslem theology and law. These ultimately became
practically priests, though theoretically they should be regarded as
theological lawyers. There also developed religious orders of dervishes,
etc.; but primitive Islam knew nothing of them.
[16] From the article by Léon Cahun in Lavisse et Rambeaud, _Histoire
Générale_, Vol. XII., p. 498. This article gives an excellent general
survey of the intellectual development of the Moslem world in the
nineteenth century.
[17] Especially his best-known book, _The Spirit of Islam_ (London,
1891).
[18] S. Khuda Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_, pp. 20, 24, 284.
(London, 1912).
[19] 1856 to 1878.
[20] For the liberal movement among the Russian Tartars, see Arminius
Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_ (London, 1906).
[21] Ismael Hamet, _Les Musulmans français du Nord de l'Afrique_, p. 268
(Paris, 1906).
[22] S. Khuda Bukhsh, _op. cit._, p. 241.
[23] Sheikh Abd-ul-Haak, in Sherif Pasha's organ, _Mecheroutiette_, of
August, 1921. Quoted from A. Servier, _Le Nationalisme musulman_,
Constantine, Algeria, 1913.
[24] For such discussion of legal methods, see W. S. Blunt, _The Future
of Islam_ (London, 1882); A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au dix-neuvième
Siècle_ (Paris, 1888); Dr. Perron, _L'Islamisme_ (Paris, 1877); H. N.
Brailsford "Modernism in Islam," _The Fortnightly Review_, September,
1908; Sir Theodore Morison, "Can Islam be Reformed?" _The Nineteenth
Century and After_, October, 1908; M. Pickthall, "La Morale islamique,"
_Revue Politique Internationale_, July, 1916; XX, "L'Islam après la
Guerre," _Revue de Paris_, 15 January, 1916.
CHAPTER II
PAN-ISLAMISM
Like all great movements, the Mohammedan Revival is highly complex.
Starting with the simple, puritan protest of Wahabism, it has developed
many phases, widely diverse and sometimes almost antithetical. In the
previous chapter we examined the phase looking toward an evolutionary
reformation of Islam and a genuine assimilation of the progressive
spirit as well as the external forms of Western civilization. At the
same time we saw that these liberal reformers are as yet only a
minority, an élite; while the Moslem masses, still plunged in ignorance
and imperfectly awakened from their age-long torpor, are influenced by
other leaders of a very different character--men inclined to militant
rather than pacific courses, and hostile rather than receptive to the
West. These militant forces are, in their turn, complex. They may be
grouped roughly under the general concepts known as "Pan-Islamism" and
"Nationalism." It is to a consideration of the first of these two
concepts, to Pan-Islamism, that this chapter is devoted.
Pan-Islamism, which in its broadest sense is the feeling of solidarity
between all "True Believers," is as old as the Prophet, when Mohammed
and his few followers were bound together by the tie of faith against
their pagan compatriots who sought their destruction. To Mohammed the
principle of fraternal solidarity among Moslems was of transcendent
importance, and he succeeded in implanting this so deeply in Moslem
hearts that thirteen centuries have not sensibly weakened it. The bond
between Moslem and Moslem is to-day much stronger than that between
Christian and Christian. Of course Moslems fight bitterly among
themselves, but these conflicts never quite lose the aspect of family
quarrels and tend to be adjourned in presence of infidel aggression.
Islam's profound sense of solidarity probably explains in large part its
extraordinary hold upon its followers. No other religion has such a grip
on its votaries. Islam has won vast territories from Christianity and
Brahmanism,[25] and has driven Magism from the face of the earth;[26]
yet there has been no single instance where a people, once become
Moslem, has ever abandoned the faith. Extirpated they may have been,
like the Moors of Spain, but extirpation is not apostasy.
Islam's solidarity is powerfully buttressed by two of its fundamental
institutions: the "Hajj," or pilgrimage to Mecca, and the caliphate.
Contrary to the general opinion in the West, it is the Hajj rather than
the caliphate which has exerted the more consistently unifying
influence. Mohammed ordained the Hajj as a supreme act of faith, and
every year fully 100,000 pilgrims arrive, drawn from every quarter of
the Moslem world. There, before the sacred Kaaba of Mecca, men of all
races, tongues, and cultures meet and mingle in an ecstasy of common
devotion, returning to their homes bearing the proud title of "Hajjis,"
or Pilgrims--a title which insures them the reverent homage of their
fellow Moslems for all the rest of their days. The political
implications of the Hajj are obvious. It is in reality a perennial
Pan-Islamic congress, where all the interests of the faith are discussed
by delegates from every part of the Mohammedan world, and where plans
are elaborated for Islam's defence and propagation. Here nearly all the
militant leaders of the Mohammedan Revival (Abd-el-Wahab, Mahommed ben
Sennussi, Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani, and many more) felt the imperious
summons to their task.[27]
As for the caliphate, it has played a great historic rôle, especially in
its early days, and we have already studied its varying fortunes.
Reduced to a mere shadow after the Mongol destruction of Bagdad, it was
revived by the Turkish sultans, who assumed the title and were
recognized as caliphs by the orthodox Moslem world.[28] However, these
sultan-caliphs of Stambul[29] never succeeded in winning the religious
homage accorded their predecessors of Mecca and Bagdad. In Arab eyes,
especially, the spectacle of Turkish caliphs was an anachronism to which
they could never be truly reconciled. Sultan Abdul Hamid, to be sure,
made an ambitious attempt to revive the caliphate's pristine greatness,
but such success as he attained was due more to the general tide of
Pan-Islamic feeling than to the inherent potency of the caliphal name.
The real leaders of modern Pan-Islamism either gave Abdul Hamid a merely
qualified allegiance or were, like El Sennussi, definitely hostile. This
was not realized in Europe, which came to fear Abdul Hamid as a sort of
Mohammedan pope. Even to-day most Western observers seem to think that
Pan-Islamism centres in the caliphate, and we see European publicists
hopefully discussing whether the caliphate's retention by the
discredited Turkish sultans, its transference to the Shereef of Mecca,
or its total suppression, will best clip Pan-Islam's wings. This,
however, is a distinctly short-sighted view. The caliphal institution is
still undoubtedly venerated in Islam. But the shrewd leaders of the
modern Pan-Islamic movement have long been working on a much broader
basis. They realize that Pan-Islamism's real driving-power to-day lies
not in the caliphate but in institutions like the Hajj and the great
Pan-Islamic fraternities such as the Sennussiya, of which I shall
presently speak.[30]
Let us now trace the fortunes of modern Pan-Islamism. Its first stage
was of course the Wahabi movement. The Wahabi state founded by
Abd-el-Wahab in the Nejd was modelled on the theocratic democracy of the
Meccan caliphs, and when Abd-el-Wahab's princely disciple, Saud, loosed
his fanatic hosts upon the holy cities, he dreamed that this was but the
first step in a puritan conquest and consolidation of the whole Moslem
world. Foiled in this grandiose design, Wahabism, nevertheless, soon
produced profound political disturbances in distant regions like
northern India and Afghanistan, as I have already narrated. They were,
however, all integral parts of the Wahabi phase, being essentially
protests against the political decadence of Moslem states and the moral
decadence of Moslem rulers. These outbreaks were not inspired by any
special fear or hatred of the West, since Europe was not yet seriously
assailing Islam except in outlying regions like European Turkey or the
Indies, and the impending peril was consequently not appreciated.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the situation had
radically altered. The French conquest of Algeria, the Russian
acquisition of Transcaucasia, and the English mastery of virtually all
India, convinced thoughtful Moslems everywhere that Islam was in deadly
peril of falling under Western domination. It was at this time that
Pan-Islamism assumed that essentially anti-Western character which it
has ever since retained. At first resistance to Western encroachment was
sporadic and unco-ordinated. Here and there heroic figures like
Abd-el-Kader in Algeria and Shamyl in the Caucasus fought brilliantly
against the European invaders. But though these paladins of the faith
were accorded widespread sympathy from Moslems, they received no
tangible assistance and, unaided, fell.
Fear and hatred of the West, however, steadily grew in intensity, and
the seventies saw the Moslem world swept from end to end by a wave of
militant fanaticism. In Algeria there was the Kabyle insurrection of
1871, while all over North Africa arose fanatical "Holy Men" preaching
holy wars, the greatest of these being the Mahdist insurrection in the
Egyptian Sudan, which maintained itself against England's best efforts
down to Kitchener's capture of Khartum at the very end of the century.
In Afghanistan there was an intense exacerbation of fanaticism awakening
sympathetic echoes among the Indian Moslems, both of which gave the
British much trouble. In Central Asia there was a similar access of
fanaticism, centring in the powerful Nakechabendiya fraternity,
spreading eastward into Chinese territory and culminating in the great
revolts of the Chinese Mohammedans both in Chinese Turkestan and Yunnan.
In the Dutch East Indies there was a whole series of revolts, the most
serious of these being the Atchin War, which dragged on interminably,
not being quite stamped out even to-day.
The salient characteristic of this period of militant unrest is its lack
of co-ordination. These risings were all spontaneous outbursts of local
populations; animated, to be sure, by the same spirit of fear and
hatred, and inflamed by the same fanatical hopes, but with no evidence
of a central authority laying settled plans and moving in accordance
with a definite programme. The risings were inspired largely by the
mystical doctrine known as "Mahdism." Mahdism was unknown to primitive
Islam, no trace of it occurring in the Koran. But in the "traditions,"
or reputed sayings of Mohammed, there occurs the statement that the
Prophet predicted the coming of one bearing the title of "El Mahdi"[31]
who would fill the earth with equity and justice. From this arose the
widespread mystical hope in the appearance of a divinely inspired
personage who would effect the universal triumph of Islam, purge the
world of infidels, and assure the lasting happiness of all Moslems. This
doctrine has profoundly influenced Moslem history. At various times
fanatic leaders have arisen claiming to be El Mahdi, "The Master of the
Hour," and have won the frenzied devotion of the Moslem masses; just as
certain "Messiahs" have similarly excited the Jews. It was thus natural
that, in their growing apprehension and impotent rage at Western
aggression, the Moslem masses should turn to the messianic hope of
Mahdism. Yet Mahdism, by its very nature, could effect nothing
constructive or permanent. It was a mere straw fire; flaring up fiercely
here and there, then dying down, leaving the disillusioned masses more
discouraged and apathetic than before.
Now all this was recognized by the wiser supporters of the Pan-Islamic
idea. The impotence of the wildest outbursts of local fanaticism against
the methodical might of Europe convinced thinking Moslems that long
preparation and complete co-ordination of effort were necessary if Islam
was to have any chance of throwing off the European yoke. Such men also
realized that they must study Western methods and adopt much of the
Western technique of power. Above all, they felt that the political
liberation of Islam from Western domination must be preceded by a
profound spiritual regeneration, thereby engendering the moral forces
necessary both for the war of liberation and for the fruitful
reconstruction which should follow thereafter. At this point the ideals
of Pan-Islamists and liberals approach each other. Both recognize
Islam's present decadence; both desire its spiritual regeneration. It is
on the nature of that regeneration that the two parties are opposed. The
liberals believe that Islam should really assimilate Western ideas. The
Pan-Islamists, on the other hand, believe that primitive Islam contains
all that is necessary for regeneration, and contend that only Western
methods and material achievements should be adopted by the Moslem world.
The beginnings of self-conscious, systematic Pan-Islamism date from
about the middle of the nineteenth century. The movement crystallizes
about two foci: the new-type religious fraternities like the Sennussiya,
and the propaganda of the group of thinkers headed by Djemal-ed-Din. Let
us first consider the fraternities.
Religious fraternities have existed in Islam for centuries. They all
possess the same general type of organization, being divided into lodges
("Zawias") headed by Masters known as "Mokaddem," who exercise a more or
less extensive authority over the "Khouan" or Brethren. Until the
foundation of the new-type organizations like the Sennussi, however, the
fraternities exerted little practical influence upon mundane affairs.
Their interests were almost wholly religious, of a mystical, devotional
nature, often characterized by great austerities or by fanatical
excesses like those practised by the whirling and howling dervishes.
Such political influence as they did exert was casual and local.
Anything like joint action was impossible, owing to their mutual
rivalries and jealousies. These old-type fraternities still exist in
great numbers, but they are without political importance except as they
have been leavened by the new-type fraternities.
The new-type organizations date from about the middle of the nineteenth
century, the most important in every way being the Sennussiya. Its
founder, Seyid Mahommed ben Sennussi, was born near Mostaganem, Algeria,
about the year 1800. As his title "Seyid" indicates, he was a descendant
of the Prophet, and was thus born to a position of honour and
importance.[32] He early displayed a strong bent for learning and piety,
studying theology at the Moorish University of Fez and afterwards
travelling widely over North Africa preaching a reform of the prevailing
religious abuses. He then made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and there his
reformist zeal was still further quickened by the Wahabi teachers. It
was at that time that he appears to have definitely formulated his plan
of a great puritan order, and in 1843 he returned to North Africa,
settling in Tripoli, where he built his first Zawia, known as the "Zawia
Baida," or White Monastery, in the mountains near Derna. So impressive
was his personality and so great his organizing ability that converts
flocked to him from all over North Africa. Indeed, his power soon
alarmed the Turkish authorities in Tripoli, and relations became so
strained that Seyid Mahommed presently moved his headquarters to the
oasis of Jarabub, far to the south in the Lybian desert. When he died in
1859, his organization had spread over the greater part of North Africa.
Seyid Mahommed's work was carried on uninterruptedly by his son, usually
known as Sennussi-el-Mahdi. The manner in which this son gained his
succession typifies the Sennussi spirit. Seyid Mahommed had two sons, El
Mahdi being the younger. While they were still mere lads, their father
determined to put them to a test, to discover which of them had the
stronger faith. In presence of the entire Zawia he bade both sons climb
a tall palm-tree, and then adjured them by Allah and his Prophet to leap
to the ground. The younger lad leaped at once and reached the ground
unharmed; the elder boy refused to spring. To El Mahdi, "who feared not
to commit himself to the will of God," passed the right to rule.
Throughout his long life Sennussi-el-Mahdi justified his father's
choice, displaying wisdom and piety of a high order, and further
extending the power of the fraternity. During the latter part of his
reign he removed his headquarters to the oasis of Jowf, still farther
into the Lybian desert, where he died in 1902, and was succeeded by his
nephew, Ahmed-el-Sherif, the present head of the Order, who also appears
to possess marked ability.
With nearly eighty years of successful activity behind it, the Sennussi
Order is to-day one of the vital factors in Islam. It counts its
adherents in every quarter of the Moslem world. In Arabia its followers
are very numerous, and it profoundly influences the spiritual life of
the holy cities, Mecca and Medina. North Africa, however, still remains
the focus of Sennussism. The whole of northern Africa, from Morocco to
Somaliland, is dotted with its Zawias, or lodges, all absolutely
dependent upon the Grand Lodge, headed by The Master, El Sennussi. The
Sennussi stronghold of Jowf lies in the very heart of the Lybian Sahara.
Only one European eye[33] has ever seen this mysterious spot. Surrounded
by absolute desert, with wells many leagues apart, and the routes of
approach known only to experienced Sennussi guides, every one of whom
would suffer a thousand deaths rather than betray him, El Sennussi, The
Master, sits serenely apart, sending his orders throughout North Africa.
The influence exerted by the Sennussiya is profound. The local Zawias
are more than mere "lodges." Besides the Mokaddem, or Master, there is
also a "Wekil," or civil governor, and these officers have discretionary
authority not merely over the Zawia members but also over the community
at large--at least, so great is the awe inspired by the Sennussiya
throughout North Africa, that a word from Wekil or Mokaddem is always
listened to and obeyed. Thus, besides the various European colonial
authorities, British, French, or Italian, as the case may be, there
exists an occult government with which the colonial authorities are
careful not to come into conflict.
On their part, the Sennussi are equally careful to avoid a downright
breach with the European Powers. Their long-headed, cautious policy is
truly astonishing. For more than half a century the order has been a
great force, yet it has never risked the supreme adventure. In many of
the fanatic risings which have occurred in various parts of Africa,
local Sennussi have undoubtedly taken part, and the same was true during
the Italian campaign in Tripoli and in the late war, but the order
itself has never officially entered the lists.
In fact, this attitude of mingled cautious reserve and haughty aloofness
is maintained not only towards Christians but also towards the other
powers that be in Islam. The Sennussiya has always kept its absolute
freedom of action. Its relations with the Turks have never been cordial.
Even the wily Abdul Hamid, at the height of his prestige as the champion
of Pan-Islamism, could never get from El Sennussi more than coldly
platonic expressions of approval, and one of Sennussi-el-Mahdi's
favourite remarks was said to have been: "Turks and Christians: I will
break both of them with one and the same stroke." Equally characteristic
was his attitude toward Mahommed Ahmed, the leader of the "Mahdist"
uprising in the Egyptian Sudan. Flushed with victory, Mahommed Ahmed
sent emissaries to El Sennussi, asking his aid. El Sennussi refused,
remarking haughtily: "What have I to do with this fakir from Dongola? Am
I not myself Mahdi if I choose?"
These Fabian tactics do not mean that the Sennussi are idle. Far from
it. On the contrary, they are ceaselessly at work with the spiritual
arms of teaching, discipline, and conversion. The Sennussi programme is
the welding, first, of Moslem Africa and, later, of the whole Moslem
world into the revived "Imâmât" of Islam's early days; into a great
theocracy, embracing all True Believers--in other words, Pan-Islamism.
But they believe that the political liberation of Islam from Christian
domination must be preceded by a profound spiritual regeneration. Toward
this end they strive ceaselessly to improve the manners and morals of
the populations under their influence, while they also strive to improve
material conditions by encouraging the better cultivation of oases,
digging new wells, building rest-houses along the caravan routes, and
promoting trade. The slaughter and rapine practised by the Sudanese
Mahdists disgusted the Sennussi and drew from their chief words of
scathing condemnation.
All this explains the Order's unprecedented self-restraint. This is the
reason why, year after year and decade after decade, the Sennussi
advance slowly, calmly, coldly; gathering great latent power, but
avoiding the temptation to expend it one instant before the proper time.
Meanwhile they are covering North Africa with their lodges and schools,
disciplining the people to the voice of their Mokaddems and Wekils; and,
to the southward, converting millions of pagan negroes to the faith of
Islam.[34]
Nothing better shows modern Islam's quickened vitality than the revival
of missionary fervour during the past hundred years. Of course Islam has
always displayed strong proselytizing power. Its missionary successes in
its early days were extraordinary, and even in its period of decline it
never wholly lost its propagating vigour. Throughout the Middle Ages
Islam continued to gain ground in India and China; the Turks planted it
firmly in the Balkans; while between the fourteenth and sixteenth
centuries Moslem missionaries won notable triumphs in such distant
regions as West Africa, the Dutch Indies, and the Philippines.
Nevertheless, taking the Moslem world as a whole, religious zeal
undoubtedly declined, reaching low-water mark during the eighteenth
century.
The first breath of the Mohammedan Revival, however, blew the
smouldering embers of proselytism into a new flame, and everywhere
except in Europe Islam began once more advancing portentously along all
its far-flung frontiers. Every Moslem is, to some extent, a born
missionary and instinctively propagates his faith among his non-Moslem
neighbours, so the work was carried on not only by priestly specialists
but also by multitudes of travellers, traders, and humble migratory
workers.[35] Of course numerous zealots consecrated their lives to the
task. This was particularly true of the religious fraternities. The
Sennussi have especially distinguished themselves by their apostolic
fervour, and from those natural monasteries, the oases of the Sahara,
thousands of "Marabouts" have gone forth with flashing eyes and swelling
breasts to preach the marvels of Islam, devoured with a zeal like that
of the Christian mendicant friars of the Middle Ages. Islam's
missionary triumphs among the negroes of West and Central Africa during
the past century have been extraordinary. Every candid European observer
tells the same story. As an Englishman very justly remarked some twenty
years ago: "Mohammedanism is making marvellous progress in the interior
of Africa. It is crushing paganism out. Against it the Christian
propaganda is a myth."[36] And a French Protestant missionary remarks in
similar vein: "We see Islam on its march, sometimes slowed down but
never stopped, towards the heart of Africa. Despite all obstacles
encountered, it tirelessly pursues its way. It fears nothing. Even
Christianity, its most serious rival, Islam regards without hate, so
sure is it of victory. While Christians dream of the conquest of Africa,
the Mohammedans do it."[37]
The way in which Islam is marching southward is dramatically shown by a
recent incident. A few years ago the British authorities suddenly
discovered that Mohammedanism was pervading Nyassaland. An investigation
brought out the fact that it was the work of Zanzibar Arabs. They began
their propaganda about 1900. Ten years later almost every village in
southern Nyassaland had its Moslem teacher and its mosque hut. Although
the movement was frankly anti-European, the British authorities did not
dare to check it for fear of repercussions elsewhere. Many European
observers fear that it is only a question of time when Islam will cross
the Zambezi and enter South Africa.
And these gains are not made solely against paganism. They are being won
at the expense of African Christianity as well. In West Africa the
European missions lose many of their converts to Islam, while across
the continent the ancient Abyssinian Church, so long an outpost against
Islam, seems in danger of submersion by the rising Moslem tide. Not by
warlike incursions, but by peaceful penetration, the Abyssinians are
being Islamized. "Tribes which, fifty or sixty years ago, counted hardly
a Mohammedan among them, to-day live partly or wholly according to the
precepts of Islam."[38]
Islam's triumphs in Africa are perhaps its most noteworthy missionary
victories, but they by no means tell the whole story, as a few instances
drawn from other quarters of the Moslem world will show. In the previous
chapter I mentioned the liberal movement among the Russian Tartars.
That, however, was only one phase of the Mohammedan Revival in that
region, another phase being a marked resurgence of proselyting zeal.
These Tartars had long been under Russian rule, and the Orthodox Church
had made persistent efforts to convert them, in some instances with
apparent success. But when the Mohammedan Revival reached the Tartars
early in the nineteenth century, they immediately began labouring with
their christianized brethren, and in a short time most of these reverted
to Islam despite the best efforts of the Orthodox Church and the
punitive measures of the Russian governmental authorities. Tartar
missionaries also began converting the heathen Turko-Finnish tribes to
the northward, in defiance of every hindrance from their Russian
masters.[39]
In China, likewise, the nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary
development of Moslem energy. Islam had reached China in very early
times, brought in by Arab traders and bands of Arab mercenary soldiers.
Despite centuries of intermarriage with Chinese women, their descendants
still differ perceptibly from the general Chinese population, and
regard themselves as a separate and superior people. The Chinese
Mohammedans are mainly concentrated in the southern province of Yunnan
and the inland provinces beyond. Besides these racially Chinese Moslems,
another centre of Mohammedan population is found in the Chinese
dependency of Eastern or Chinese Turkestan, inhabited by Turkish stocks
and conquered by the Chinese only in the eighteenth century. Until
comparatively recent times the Chinese Moslems were well treated, but
gradually their proud-spirited attitude alarmed the Chinese Government,
which withdrew their privileges and persecuted them. Early in the
nineteenth century the breath of the Mohammedan Revival reached China,
as it did every other part of the Moslem world, and the Chinese
Mohammedans, inflamed by resurgent fanaticism, began a series of revolts
culminating in the great rebellions which took place about the year
1870, both in Yunnan and in Eastern Turkestan. As usual, these
fanaticized Moslems displayed fierce fighting power. The Turkestan
rebels found an able leader, one Yakub Beg, and for some years both
Turkestan and Yunnan were virtually independent. To many European
observers at that time it looked as though the rebels might join hands,
erect a permanent Mohammedan state in western China, and even overrun
the whole empire. The fame of Yakub Beg spread through the Moslem world,
the Sultan of Turkey honouring him with the high title of Commander of
the Faithful. After years of bitter fighting, accompanied by frightful
massacres, the Chinese Government subdued the rebels. The Chinese
Moslems, greatly reduced in numbers, have not yet recovered their former
strength; but their spirit is still unbroken, and to-day they number
fully 10,000,000. Thus, Chinese Islam, despite its setbacks, is a factor
to be reckoned with in the future.[40]
The above instances do not exhaust the list of Islam's activities during
the past century. In India, for example, Islam has continued to gain
ground rapidly, while in the Dutch Indies it is the same story.[41]
European domination actually favours rather than retards the spread of
Islam, for the Moslem finds in Western improvements, like the railroad,
the post-office, and the printing-press, useful adjuncts to Islamic
propaganda.
Let us now consider the second originating centre of modern
Pan-Islamism--the movement especially associated with the personality of
Djemal-ed-Din.
Seyid Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani was born early in the nineteenth century
at Asadabad, near Hamadan, in Persia, albeit, as his name shows, he was
of Afghan rather than Iranian descent, while his title "Seyid," meaning
descendant of the Prophet, implies a strain of Arab blood. Endowed with
a keen intelligence, great personal magnetism, and abounding vigour,
Djemal-ed-Din had a stormy and chequered career. He was a great
traveller, knowing intimately not only most of the Moslem world but
western Europe as well. From these travels, supplemented by wide
reading, he gained a notable fund of information which he employed
effectively in his manifold activities. A born propagandist,
Djemal-ed-Din attracted wide attention, and wherever he went in Islam
his strong personality started an intellectual ferment. Unlike El
Sennussi, he concerned himself very little with theology, devoting
himself to politics. Djemal-ed-Din was the first Mohammedan who fully
grasped the impending peril of Western domination, and he devoted his
life to warning the Islamic world of the danger and attempting to
elaborate measures of defence. By European colonial authorities he was
soon singled out as a dangerous agitator. The English, in particular,
feared and persecuted him. Imprisoned for a while in India, he went to
Egypt about 1880, and had a hand in the anti-European movement of Arabi
Pasha. When the English occupied Egypt in 1882 they promptly expelled
Djemal, who continued his wanderings, finally reaching Constantinople.
Here he found a generous patron in Abdul-Hamid, then evolving his
Pan-Islamic policy. Naturally, the Sultan was enchanted with Djemal, and
promptly made him the head of his Pan-Islamic propaganda bureau. In
fact, it is probable that the success of the Sultan's Pan-Islamic policy
was largely due to Djemal's ability and zeal. Djemal died in 1896 at an
advanced age, active to the last.
Djemal-ed-Din's teachings may be summarized as follows:
"The Christian world, despite its internal differences of race and
nationality, is, as against the East and especially as against Islam,
united for the destruction of all Mohammedan states.
"The Crusades still subsist, as well as the fanatical spirit of Peter
the Hermit. At heart, Christendom still regards Islam with fanatical
hatred and contempt. This is shown in many ways, as in international
law, before which Moslem nations are not treated as the equals of
Christian nations.
"Christian governments excuse the attacks and humiliations inflicted
upon Moslem states by citing the latter's backward and barbarous
condition; yet these same governments stifle by a thousand means, even
by war, every attempted effort of reform and revival in Moslem lands.
"Hatred of Islam is common to all Christian peoples, not merely to some
of them, and the result of this spirit is a tacit, persistent effort for
Islam's destruction.
"Every Moslem feeling and aspiration is caricatured and calumniated by
Christendom. 'The Europeans call in the Orient "fanaticism" what at home
they call "nationalism" and "patriotism." And what in the West they call
"self-respect," "pride," "national honour," in the East they call
"chauvinism." What in the West they esteem as national sentiment, in the
East they consider xenophobia.'[42]
"From all this, it is plain that the whole Moslem world must unite in a
great defensive alliance, to preserve itself from destruction; and, to
do this, it must acquire the technique of Western progress and learn the
secrets of European power."
Such, in brief, are the teachings of Djemal-ed-Din, propagated with
eloquence and authority for many years. Given the state of mingled fear
and hatred of Western encroachment that was steadily spreading
throughout the Moslem world, it is easy to see how great Djemal's
influence must have been. And of course Djemal was not alone in his
preaching. Other influential Moslems were agitating along much the same
lines as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. One of these
pioneers was the Turkish notable Aali Pasha, who was said to remark:
"What we want is rather an increase of fanaticism than a diminution of
it."[43] Arminius Vambéry, the eminent Hungarian Oriental scholar,
states that shortly after the Crimean War he was present at a militant
Pan-Islamic gathering, attended by emissaries from far parts of the
Moslem world, held at Aali Pasha's palace.[44]
Such were the foundations upon which Sultan Abdul Hamid built his
ambitious Pan-Islamic structure. Abdul Hamid is one of the strangest
personalities of modern times. A man of unusual intelligence, his mind
was yet warped by strange twists which went to the verge of insanity.
Nursing ambitious, grandiose projects, he tried to carry them out by
dark and tortuous methods which, though often cleverly Macchiavellian,
were sometimes absurdly puerile. An autocrat by nature, he strove to
keep the smallest decisions dependent on his arbitrary will, albeit he
was frequently guided by clever sycophants who knew how to play upon his
superstitions and his prejudices.
Abdul Hamid ascended the throne in 1876 under very difficult
circumstances. The country was on the verge of a disastrous Russian war,
while the government was in the hands of statesmen who were endeavouring
to transform Turkey into a modern state and who had introduced all sorts
of Western political innovations, including a parliament. Abdul Hamid,
however, soon changed all this. Taking advantage of the confusion which
marked the close of the Russian war, he abolished parliament and made
himself as absolute a despot as any of his ancestors had ever been.
Secure in his autocratic power, Abdul Hamid now began to evolve his own
peculiar policy, which, from the first, had a distinctly Pan-Islamic
trend[45]. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Abdul Hamid determined to
use his position as caliph for far-reaching political ends. Emphasizing
his spiritual headship of the Mohammedan world rather than his political
headship of the Turkish state, he endeavoured to win the active support
of all Moslems and, by that support, to intimidate European Powers who
might be formulating aggressive measures against the Ottoman Empire.
Before long Abdul Hamid had built up an elaborate Pan-Islamic propaganda
organization, working mainly by secretive, tortuous methods.
Constantinople became the Mecca of all the fanatics and anti-Western
agitators like Djemal-ed-Din. And from Constantinople there went forth
swarms of picked emissaries, bearing to the most distant parts of Islam
the Caliph's message of hope and impending deliverance from the menace
of infidel rule.
Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda went on uninterruptedly for nearly
thirty years. Precisely what this propaganda accomplished is very
difficult to estimate. In the first place, it was cut short, and to some
extent reversed, by the Young-Turk resolution of 1908 which drove Abdul
Hamid from the throne. It certainly was never put to the test of a war
between Turkey and a first-class European Power. This is what renders
any theoretical appraisal so inconclusive. Abdul Hamid did succeed in
gaining the respectful acknowledgment of his spiritual authority by most
Moslem princes and notables, and he certainly won the pious veneration
of the Moslem masses. In the most distant regions men came to regard the
mighty Caliph in Stambul as, in very truth, the Defender of the Faith,
and to consider his empire as the bulwark of Islam. On the other hand,
it is a far cry from pious enthusiasm to practical performance.
Furthermore, Abdul Hamid did not succeed in winning over powerful
Pan-Islamic leaders like El Sennussi, who suspected his motives and
questioned his judgment; while Moslem liberals everywhere disliked him
for his despotic, reactionary, inefficient rule. It is thus a very
debatable question whether, if Abdul Hamid had ever called upon the
Moslem world for armed assistance in a "holy war," he would have been
generally supported.
Yet Abdul Hamid undoubtedly furthered the general spread of Pan-Islamic
sentiment throughout the Moslem world. In this larger sense he
succeeded; albeit not so much from his position as caliph as because he
incarnated the growing fear and hatred of the West. Thus we may conclude
that Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda did produce profound and
lasting effects which will have to be seriously reckoned with.
The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 greatly complicated the situation. It
was soon followed by the Persian revolution and by kindred symptoms in
other parts of the East. These events brought into sudden prominence new
forces, such as constitutionalism, nationalism, and even social unrest,
which had long been obscurely germinating in Islam but which had been
previously denied expression. We shall later consider these new forces
in detail. The point to be here noted is their complicating effect on
the Pan-Islamic movement. Pan-Islamism was, in fact, cross-cut and
deflected from its previous course, and a period of confusion and mental
uncertainty supervened.
This interim period was short. By 1912 Pan-Islamism had recovered its
poise and was moving forward once more. The reason was renewed pressure
from the West. In 1911 came Italy's barefaced raid on Turkey's African
dependency of Tripoli, while in 1912 the allied Christian Balkan states
attacked Turkey in the Balkan War, which sheared away Turkey's European
provinces to the very walls of Constantinople and left her crippled and
discredited. Moreover, in those same fateful years Russia and England
strangled the Persian revolution, while France, as a result of the
Agadir crisis, closed her grip on Morocco. Thus, in a scant two years,
the Moslem world had suffered at European hands assaults not only
unprecedented in gravity but, in Moslem eyes, quite without provocation.
The effect upon Islam was tremendous. A flood of mingled despair and
rage swept the Moslem world from end to end. And, of course, the
Pan-Islamic implication was obvious. This was precisely what Pan-Islam's
agitators had been preaching for fifty years--the Crusade of the West
for Islam's destruction. What could be better confirmation of the
warnings of Djemal-ed-Din?
The results were soon seen. In Tripoli, where Turks and Arabs had been
on the worst of terms, both races clasped hands in a sudden access of
Pan-Islamic fervour, and the Italian invaders were met with a fanatical
fury that roused Islam to wild applause and inspired Western observers
with grave disquietude. "Why has Italy found 'defenceless' Tripoli such
a hornets' nest?" queried Gabriel Hanotaux, a former French minister of
foreign affairs. "It is because she has to do, not merely with Turkey,
but with Islam as well. Italy has set the ball rolling--so much the
worse for her--and for us all."[46] The Anglo-Russian man-handling of
Persia likewise roused much wrathful comment throughout Islam,[47] while
the impending extinction of Moroccan independence at French hands was
discussed with mournful indignation.
But with the coming of the Balkan War the wrath of Islam knew no bounds.
From China to the Congo, pious Moslems watched with bated breath the
swaying battle-lines in the far-off Balkans, and when the news of
Turkish disaster came, Islam's cry of wrathful anguish rose hoarse and
high. A prominent Indian Mohammedan well expressed the feelings of his
co-religionists everywhere when he wrote: "The King of Greece orders a
new Crusade. From the London Chancelleries rise calls to Christian
fanaticism, and Saint Petersburg already speaks of the planting of the
Cross on the dome of Sant' Sophia. To-day they speak thus; to-morrow
they will thus speak of Jerusalem and the Mosque of Omar. Brothers! Be
ye of one mind, that it is the duty of every True Believer to hasten
beneath the Khalifa's banner and to sacrifice his life for the safety of
the faith."[48] And another Indian Moslem leader thus adjured the
British authorities: "I appeal to the present government to change its
anti-Turkish attitude before the fury of millions of Moslem
fellow-subjects is kindled to a blaze and brings disaster."[49]
Most significant of all were the appeals made at this time by Moslems to
non-Mohammedan Asiatics for sympathy and solidarity against the hated
West. This was a development as unprecedented as it was startling.
Mohammed, revering as he did the Old and New Testaments, and regarding
himself as the successor of the divinely inspired prophets Moses and
Jesus, had enjoined upon his followers relative respect for Christians
and Jews ("Peoples of the Book") in contrast with other non-Moslems,
whom he stigmatized as "Idolaters." These injunctions of the Prophet had
always been heeded, and down to our own days the hatred of Moslems for
Christians, however bitter, had been as nothing compared with their
loathing and contempt for "Idolaters" like the Brahmanist Hindus or the
Buddhists and Confucianists of the Far East.
The first symptom of a change in attitude appeared during the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904. So great had Islam's fear and hatred of the
Christian West then become, that the triumph of an Asiatic people over
Europeans was enthusiastically hailed by many Moslems, even though the
victors were "Idolaters." It was quite in keeping with Pan-Islamism's
strong missionary bent that many pious Moslems should have dreamed of
bringing these heroes within the Islamic fold. Efforts to get in touch
with Japan were made. Propagandist papers were founded, missionaries
were selected, and the Sultan sent a warship to Japan with a Pan-Islamic
delegation aboard. Throughout Islam the projected conversion of Japan
was widely discussed. Said an Egyptian journal in the year 1906:
"England, with her sixty million Indian Moslems, dreads this conversion.
With a Mohammedan Japan, Mussulman policy would change entirely."[50]
And, at the other end of the Moslem world, a Chinese Mohammedan sheikh
wrote: "If Japan thinks of becoming some day a very great power and
making Asia the dominator of the other continents, it will be only by
adopting the blessed religion of Islam."[51]
Of course it soon became plain to these enthusiasts that while Japan
received Islam's emissaries with smiling courtesy, she had not the
faintest intention of turning Mohammedan. Nevertheless, the first step
had been taken towards friendly relations with non-Moslem Asia, and the
Balkan War drove Moslems much further in this direction. The change in
Moslem sentiment can be gauged by the numerous appeals made by the
Indian Mohammedans at this time to Hindus, as may be seen from the
following sample entitled significantly "The Message of the East."
"Spirit of the East," reads this noteworthy document, "arise and repel
the swelling flood of Western aggression! Children of Hindustan, aid us
with your wisdom, culture, and wealth; lend us your power, the
birthright and heritage of the Hindu! Let the Spirit Powers hidden in
the Himalayan mountain-peaks arise. Let prayers to the god of battles
float upward; prayers that right may triumph over might; and call to
your myriad gods to annihilate the armies of the foe!"[52]
To any one who realizes the traditional Moslem attitude towards
"Idolaters" such words are simply amazing. They betoken a veritable
revolution in outlook. And such sentiments were not confined to Indian
Moslems; they were equally evident among Chinese Moslems as well. Said a
Mohammedan newspaper of Chinese Turkestan, advocating a fraternal union
of all Chinese against Western aggression: "Europe has grown too
presumptuous. It will deprive us of our liberty; it will destroy us
altogether if we do not bestir ourselves promptly and prepare for a
powerful resistance."[53] During the troublous first stages of the
Chinese revolution, the Mohammedans, emerging from their sulky
aloofness, co-operated so loyally with their Buddhist and Confucian
fellow-patriots that Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen, the Republican leader, announced
gratefully: "The Chinese will never forget the assistance which their
Moslem fellow-countrymen have rendered in the interest of order and
liberty."[54]
The Great War thus found Islam everywhere deeply stirred against
European aggression, keenly conscious of its own solidarity, and frankly
reaching out for Asiatic allies in the projected struggle against
European domination.
Under these circumstances it may at first sight appear strange that no
general Islamic explosion occurred when Turkey entered the lists at the
close of 1914 and the Sultan Caliph issued a formal summons to the Holy
War. Of course this summons was not the flat failure which Allied
reports led the West to believe at the time. As a matter of fact, there
was trouble in practically every Mohammedan land under Allied control.
To name only a few of many instances: Egypt broke into a tumult
smothered only by overwhelming British reinforcements, Tripoli burst
into a flame of insurrection that drove the Italians headlong to the
coast, Persia was prevented from joining Turkey only by prompt
Russo-British intervention, while the Indian North-West Frontier was the
scene of fighting that required the presence of a quarter of a million
Anglo-Indian troops. The British Government has officially admitted that
during 1915 the Allies' Asiatic and African possessions stood within a
hand's breadth of a cataclysmic insurrection.
That insurrection would certainly have taken place if Islam's leaders
had everywhere spoken the fateful word. But the word was not spoken.
Instead, influential Moslems outside of Turkey generally condemned the
latter's action and did all in their power to calm the passions of the
fanatic multitude.
The attitude of these leaders does credit to their discernment. They
recognized that this was neither the time nor the occasion for a
decisive struggle with the West. They were not yet materially prepared,
and they had not perfected their understandings either among themselves
or with their prospective non-Moslem allies. Above all, the moral urge
was lacking. They knew that athwart the Khalifa's writ was stencilled
"Made in Germany." They knew that the "Young-Turk" clique which had
engineered the coup was made up of Europeanized renegades, many of them
not even nominal Moslems, but atheistic Jews. Far-sighted Moslems had no
intention of pulling Germany's chestnuts out of the fire, nor did they
wish to further Prussian schemes of world-dominion which for themselves
would have meant a mere change of masters. Far better to let the West
fight out its desperate feud, weaken itself, and reveal fully its future
intentions. Meanwhile Islam could bide its time, grow in strength, and
await the morrow.
The Versailles peace conference was just such a revelation of European
intentions as the Pan-Islamic leaders had been waiting for in order to
perfect their programmes and enlist the moral solidarity of their
followers. At Versailles the European Powers showed unequivocally that
they had no intention of relaxing their hold upon the Near and Middle
East. By a number of secret treaties negotiated during the war, the
Ottoman Empire had been virtually partitioned between the victorious
Allies, and these secret treaties formed the basis of the Versailles
settlement. Furthermore, Egypt had been declared a British protectorate
at the very beginning of the war, while the Versailles conference had
scarcely adjourned before England announced an "agreement" with Persia
which made that country another British protectorate in fact if not in
name. The upshot was, as already stated, that the Near and Middle East
were subjected to European political domination as never before.
But there was another side to the shield. During the war years the
Allied statesmen had officially proclaimed times without number that the
war was being fought to establish a new world-order based on such
principles as the rights of small nations and the liberty of all
peoples. These pronouncements had been treasured and memorized
throughout the East. When, therefore, the East saw a peace settlement
based, not upon these high professions, but upon the imperialistic
secret treaties, it was fired with a moral indignation and sense of
outraged justice never known before. A tide of impassioned determination
began rising which has set already the entire East in tumultuous
ferment, and which seems merely the premonitory ground-swell of a
greater storm. So ominous were the portents that even before the
Versailles conference had adjourned many European students of Eastern
affairs expressed grave alarm. Here, for example, is the judgment of
Leone Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta, an Italian authority on Mohammedan
questions. Speaking in the spring of 1919 on the war's effect on the
East, he said: "The convulsion has shaken Islamic and Oriental
civilization to its foundations. The entire Oriental world, from China
to the Mediterranean, is in ferment. Everywhere the hidden fire of
anti-European hatred is burning. Riots in Morocco, risings in Algiers,
discontent in Tripoli, so-called Nationalist attempts in Egypt, Arabia,
and Lybia are all different manifestations of the same deep sentiment,
and have as their object the rebellion of the Oriental world against
European civilization."[55]
Those words are a prophetic forecast of what has since occurred in the
Moslem world. Because recent events are perhaps even more involved with
the nationalistic aspirations of the Moslem peoples than they are with
the strictly Pan-Islamic movement, I propose to defer their detailed
discussion till the chapter on Nationalism. We should, however, remember
that Moslem nationalism and Pan-Islamism, whatever their internal
differences, tend to unite against the external pressure of European
domination and equally desire Islam's liberation from European
political control. Remembering these facts, let us survey the present
condition of the Pan-Islamic movement.
Pan-Islamism has been tremendously stimulated by Western pressure,
especially by the late war and the recent peace settlements. However,
Pan-Islamism must not be considered as merely a defensive political
reaction against external aggression. It springs primarily from that
deep sentiment of unity which links Moslem to Moslem by bonds much
stronger than those which unite the members of the Christian world.
These bonds are not merely religious, in the technical sense; they are
social and cultural as well. Throughout the Moslem world, despite wide
differences in local customs and regulations, the basic laws of family
and social conduct are everywhere the same. "The truth is that Islam is
more than a creed, it is a complete social system; it is a civilization
with a philosophy, a culture, and an art of its own; in its long
struggle against the rival civilization of Christendom it has become an
organic unit conscious of itself."[56]
To this Islamic civilization all Moslems are deeply attached. In this
larger sense, Pan-Islamism is universal. Even the most liberal-minded
Moslems, however much they may welcome Western ideas, and however
strongly they may condemn the fanatical, reactionary aspects of the
political Pan-Islamic movement, believe fervently in Islam's essential
solidarity. As a leading Indian Moslem liberal, The Aga Khan, remarks:
"There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and
believing Mohammedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual
brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. The real spiritual
and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the
Prophet it is the foundation of the life and the soul."[57]
If such is the attitude of Moslem liberals, thoroughly conversant with
Western culture and receptive to Western progress, what must be the
feelings of the Moslem masses, ignorant, reactionary, and fanatical?
Besides perfectly understandable fear and hatred due to Western
aggression, there is, among the Moslem masses, a great deal of genuine
fanaticism caused, not by European political domination, but by
religious bigotry and blind hatred of Western civilization.[58] But this
fanaticism has, of course, been greatly inflamed by the political events
of the past decade, until to-day religious, cultural, and political
hatred of the West have coalesced in a state of mind decidedly ominous
for the peace of the world. We should not delude ourselves into
minimizing the dangerous possibilities of the present situation. Just
because the fake "Holy War" proclaimed by the Young-Turks at German
instigation in 1914 did not come off is no reason for believing that a
real holy war is impossible. As a German staff-officer in Turkish
service during the late struggle very candidly says: "The Holy War was
an absolute fiasco just because it was not a Holy War."[59] I have
already explained how most Moslems saw through the trick and refused to
budge.
However, the long series of European aggressions, culminating in the
recent peace settlements which subjected virtually the entire Moslem
world to European domination, have been steadily rousing in Moslem
hearts a spirit of despairing rage that may have disastrous
consequences. Certainly, the materials for a holy war have long been
heaping high. More than twenty years ago Arminius Vambéry, who knew the
Moslem world as few Europeans have ever known it, warned the West of the
perils engendered by recklessly imperialistic policies. "As time
passes," he wrote in 1898, "the danger of a general war becomes ever
greater. We should not forget that time has considerably augmented the
adversary's force of resistance. I mean by this the sentiment of
solidarity which is becoming livelier of late years among the peoples of
Islam, and which in our age of rapid communication is no longer a
negligible quantity, as it was even ten or twenty years ago.
"It may not be superfluous to draw the attention of our
nineteenth-century Crusaders to the importance of the Moslem press,
whose ramifications extend all over Asia and Africa, and whose
exhortations sink more profoundly than they do with us into the souls of
their readers. In Turkey, India, Persia, Central Asia, Java, Egypt, and
Algeria, native organs, daily and periodical, begin to exert a profound
influence. Everything that Europe thinks, decides, and executes against
Islam spreads through those countries with the rapidity of lightning.
Caravans carry the news to the heart of China and to the equator, where
the tidings are commented upon in very singular fashion. Certain sparks
struck at our meetings and banquets kindle, little by little, menacing
flames. Hence, it would be an unpardonable legerity to close our eyes to
the dangers lurking beneath an apparent passivity. What the _Terdjuman_
of Crimea says between the lines is repeated by the Constantinople
_Ikdam_, and is commented on and exaggerated at Calcutta by _The Moslem
Chronicle_.
"Of course, at present, the bond of Pan-Islamism is composed of tenuous
and dispersed strands. But Western aggression might easily unite those
strands into a solid whole, bringing about a general war".[60]
In the decades which have elapsed since Vambéry wrote those lines the
situation has become much more tense. Moslem resentment at European
dominance has increased, has been reinforced by nationalistic
aspirations almost unknown during the last century, and possesses
methods of highly efficient propaganda. For example, the Pan-Islamic
press, to which Vambéry refers, has developed in truly extraordinary
fashion. In 1900 there were in the whole Islamic world not more than 200
propagandist journals. By 1906 there were 500, while in 1914 there were
well over 1000.[61] Moslems fully appreciate the post-office, the
railroad, and other modern methods of rapidly interchanging ideas.
"Every Moslem country is in communication with every other Moslem
country: directly, by means of special emissaries, pilgrims, travellers,
traders, and postal exchanges; indirectly, by means of Mohammedan
newspapers, books, pamphlets, leaflets, and periodicals. I have met with
Cairo newspapers in Bagdad, Teheran, and Peshawar; Constantinople
newspapers in Basra and Bombay; Calcutta newspapers in Mohammerah,
Kerbela, and Port Said."[62] As for the professional Pan-Islamic
propagandists, more particularly those of the religious fraternities,
they swarm everywhere, rousing the fanaticism of the people: "Travelling
under a thousand disguises--as merchants, preachers, students, doctors,
workmen, beggars, fakirs, mountebanks, pretended fools or rhapsodists,
these emissaries are everywhere well received by the Faithful and are
efficaciously protected against the suspicious investigations of the
European colonial authorities."[63]
Furthermore, there is to-day in the Moslem world a widespread
conviction, held by liberals and chauvinists alike (albeit for very
different reasons), that Islam is entering on a period of Renaissance
and renewed glory. Says Sir Theodore Morison: "No Mohammedan believes
that Islamic civilization is dead or incapable of further development.
They recognize that it has fallen on evil days; that it has suffered
from an excessive veneration of the past, from prejudice and bigotry and
narrow scholasticism not unlike that which obscured European thought in
the Middle Ages; but they believe that Islam too is about to have its
Renaissance, that it is receiving from Western learning a stimulus which
will quicken it into fresh activity, and that the evidences of this new
life are everywhere manifest."[64]
Sir Theodore Morison describes the attitude of Moslem liberals. How
Pan-Islamists with anti-Western sentiments feel is well set forth by an
Egyptian, Yahya Siddyk, in his well-known book, _The Awakening of the
Islamic Peoples in the Fourteenth Century of the Hegira_.[65] The book
is doubly interesting because the author has a thorough Western
education, holding a law degree from the French university of Toulouse,
and is a judge on the Egyptian bench. Although, writing nearly a decade
before the cataclysm, Yahya Siddyk clearly foresaw the imminence of the
European War. "Behold," he writes, "these Great Powers ruining
themselves in terrifying armaments; measuring each other's strength with
defiant glances; menacing each other; contracting alliances which
continually break and which presage those terrible shocks which overturn
the world and cover it with ruins, fire, and blood! The future is God's,
and nothing is lasting save His Will."
Yahya Siddyk considers the Western world degenerate. "Does this mean,"
he asks, "that Europe, our 'enlightened guide,' has already reached the
summit of its evolution? Has it already exhausted its vital force by two
or three centuries of hyperexertion? In other words: is it already
stricken with senility, and will it see itself soon obliged to yield its
civilizing rôle to other peoples less degenerate, less neurasthenic,
that is to say, younger, more robust, more healthy, than itself? In my
opinion, the present marks Europe's apogee, and its immoderate colonial
expansion means, not strength, but weakness. Despite the aureole of so
much grandeur, power, and glory, Europe is to-day more divided and more
fragile than ever, and ill conceals its malaise, its sufferings, and its
anguish. Its destiny is inexorably working out!...
"The contact of Europe on the East has caused us both much good and much
evil: good, in the material and intellectual sense; evil, from the moral
and political point of view. Exhausted by long struggles, enervated by a
brilliant civilization, the Moslem peoples inevitably fell into a
malaise; but they are not stricken, they are not dead! These peoples,
conquered by the force of cannon, have not in the least lost their
unity, even under the oppressive régimes to which the Europeans have
long subjected them....
"I have said that the European contact has been salutary to us from both
the material and intellectual point of view. What reforming Moslem
princes wished to impose by force on their Moslem subjects is to-day
realized a hundredfold. So great has been our progress in the last
twenty-five years in science, letters, and art that we may well hope to
be in all these things the equals of Europe in less than half a
century....
"A new era opens for us with the fourteenth century of the Hegira, and
this happy century will mark our Renaissance and our great future! A new
breath animates the Mohammedan peoples of all races; all Moslems are
penetrated with the necessity of work and instruction! We all wish to
travel, do business, tempt fortune, brave dangers. There is in the East,
among the Mohammedans, a surprising activity, an animation, unknown
twenty-five years ago. There is to-day a real public opinion throughout
the East."
The author concludes: "Let us hold firm, each for all, and let us hope,
hope, hope! We are fairly launched on the path of progress: let us
profit by it! It is Europe's very tyranny which has wrought our
transformation! It is our continued contact with Europe that favours our
evolution and inevitably hastens our revival! It is simply history
repeating itself; the Will of God fulfilling itself despite all
opposition and all resistance.... Europe's tutelage over Asiatics is
becoming more and more nominal--the gates of Asia are closing against
the European! Surely we glimpse before us a revolution without parallel
in the world's annals. A new age is at hand!"
If this was the way Pan-Islamists were thinking in the opening years of
the century, it is clear that their views must have been confirmed and
intensified by the Great War.[66] The material power of the West was
thereby greatly reduced, while its prestige was equally sapped by the
character of the peace settlement and by the attendant disputes which
broke out among the victors. The mutual rivalries and jealousies of
England, France, Italy, and their satellites in the East have given
Moslems much food for hopeful thought, and have caused corresponding
disquietude in European minds. A French publicist recently admonished
his fellow Europeans that "Islam does not recognize our colonial
frontiers," and added warningly, "the great movement of Islamic union
inaugurated by Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani is going on."[67]
The menacing temper of Islam is shown by the furious agitation which has
been going on for the last three years among India's 70,000,000 Moslems
against the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. This agitation is not
confined to India. It is general throughout Islam, and Sir Theodore
Morison does not overstate the case when he says: "It is time the
British public realized the gravity of what is happening in the East.
The Mohammedan world is ablaze with anger from end to end at the
partition of Turkey. The outbreaks of violence in centres so far remote
as Kabul and Cairo are symptoms only of this widespread resentment. I
have been in close touch with Mohammedans of India for close upon thirty
years and I think it is my duty to warn the British public of the
passionate resentment which Moslems feel at the proposed dismemberment
of the Turkish Empire. The diplomats at Versailles apparently thought
that outside the Turkish homelands there is no sympathy for Turkey. This
is a disastrous blunder. You have but to meet the Mohammedan now in
London to realize the white heat to which their anger is rising. In
India itself the whole of the Mohammedan community from Peshawar to
Arcot is seething with passion upon this subject. Women inside the
Zenanas are weeping over it. Merchants who usually take no interest in
public affairs are leaving their shops and counting-houses to organize
remonstrances and petitions; even the mediæval theologians of Deoband
and the Nadwatul-Ulama, whose detachment from the modern world is
proverbial, are coming from their cloisters to protest against the
destruction of Islam."[68]
Possibly the most serious aspect of the situation is that the Moslem
liberals are being driven into the camp of political Pan-Islamism.
Receptive though the liberals are to Western ideas, and averse though
they are to Pan-Islamism's chauvinistic, reactionary tendencies,
Europe's intransigeance is forcing them to make at least a temporary
alliance with the Pan-Islamic and Nationalist groups, even though the
liberals know that anything like a holy war would dig a gulf between
East and West, stop the influx of Western stimuli, favour reactionary
fanaticism, and perhaps postpone for generations a modernist reformation
of Islam.
Perhaps it is symptomatic of a more bellicose temper in Islam that the
last few years have witnessed the rapid spread of two new puritan,
fanatic movements--the Ikhwan and the Salafîya. The Ikhwan movement
began obscurely about ten years ago in inner Arabia--the Nejd. It is a
direct outgrowth of Wahabism, from which it differs in no essential
respect. So rapid has been Ikhwanism's progress that it to-day
absolutely dominates the entire Nejd, and it is headed by desert
Arabia's most powerful chieftain, Bin Saud, a descendant of the Saud who
headed the Wahabi movement a hundred years ago. The fanaticism of the
Ikhwans is said to be extraordinary, while their programme is the old
Wahabi dream of a puritan conversion of the whole Islamic world.[69] As
for the Salafî movement, it started in India even more obscurely than
Ikhwanism did in Arabia, but during the past few years it has spread
widely through Islam. Like Ikhwanism, it is puritanical and fanatical in
spirit, its adherents being found especially among dervish
organizations.[70] Such phenomena, taken with everything else, do not
augur well for the peace of the East.
So much for Pan-Islamism's religious and political sides. Now let us
glance at its commercial and industrial aspects--at what may be called
economic Pan-Islamism.
Economic Pan-Islamism is the direct result of the permeation of Western
ideas. Half a century ago the Moslem world was economically still in the
Middle Ages. The provisions of the sheriat, or Moslem canon law, such as
the prohibition of interest rendered economic life in the modern sense
impossible. What little trade and industry did exist was largely in the
hands of native Christians or Jews. Furthermore, the whole economic life
of the East was being disorganized by the aggressive competition of the
West. Europe's political conquest of the Moslem world was, in fact,
paralleled by an economic conquest even more complete. Everywhere
percolated the flood of cheap, abundant European machine-made goods,
while close behind came European capital, temptingly offering itself in
return for loans and concessions which, once granted, paved the way for
European political domination.
Yet in economics as in politics the very completeness of Europe's
triumph provoked resistance. Angered and alarmed by Western
exploitation, Islam frankly recognized its economic inferiority and
sought to escape from its subjection. Far-sighted Moslems began casting
about for a _modus vivendi_ with modern life that would put Islam
economically abreast of the times. Western methods were studied and
copied. The prohibitions of the sheriat were evaded or quietly ignored.
The upshot has been a marked evolution toward Western economic
standards. This evolution is of course still in its early stages, and is
most noticeable in lands most exposed to Western influences like India,
Egypt, and Algeria. Yet everywhere in the Moslem world the trend is the
same. The details of this economic transformation will be discussed in
the chapter devoted to economic change. What we are here concerned with
is its Pan-Islamic aspect. And that aspect is very strong. Nowhere does
Islam's innate solidarity come out better than in the economic field.
The religious, cultural, and customary ties which bind Moslem to Moslem
enable Mohammedans to feel more or less at home in every part of the
Islamic world, while Western methods of transit and communication enable
Mohammedans to travel and keep in touch as they never could before. New
types of Moslems--wholesale merchants, steamship owners, business men,
bankers, even factory industrialists and brokers--are rapidly evolving;
types which would have been simply unthinkable a century, or even half a
century, ago.
And these new men understand each other perfectly. Bound together both
by the ties of Islamic fraternity and by the pressure of Western
competition, they co-ordinate their efforts much more easily than
politicals have succeeded in doing. Here liberals, Pan-Islamists, and
nationalists can meet on common ground. Here is no question of political
conspiracies, revolts, or holy wars, challenging the armed might of
Europe and risking bloody repression or blind reaction. On the contrary,
here is merely a working together of fellow Moslems for economic ends
by business methods which the West cannot declare unlawful and dare not
repress.
What, then, is the specific programme of economic Pan-Islamism? It is
easily stated: the wealth of Islam for Moslems. The profits of trade and
industry for Moslem instead of Christian hands. The eviction of Western
capital by Moslem capital. Above all, the breaking of Europe's grip on
Islam's natural resources by the termination of concessions in lands,
mines, forests, railways, custom-houses, by which the wealth of Islamic
lands is to-day drained away to foreign shores.
Such are the aspirations of economic Pan-Islamism. They are wholly
modern concepts, the outgrowth of those Western ideas whose influence
upon the Moslem world I shall now discuss.[71]
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Islam has not only won much ground in India, Brahmanism's homeland,
but has also converted virtually the entire populations of the
great islands of Java and Sumatra, where Brahmanism was formerly
ascendant.
[26] The small Parsi communities of India, centring in Bombay, are the
sole surviving representatives of Zoroastrianism. They were founded by
Zoroastrian refugees after the Mohammedan conquest of Persia in the
seventh century A.D.
[27] Though Mecca is forbidden to non-Moslems, a few Europeans have
managed to make the Hajj in disguise, and have written their
impressions. Of these, Snouck Hurgronje's _Mekka_ (2 vols., The Hague,
1888) and _Het Mekkaansche Feest_ (Leiden, 1889) are the most recent
good works. Also see Burton and Burckhardt. A recent account of value
from the pen of a Mohammedan liberal is: Gazanfar Ali Khan, _With the
Pilgrims to Mecca; The Great Pilgrimage of A. H. 1319 (A.D. 1902)_, with
an Introduction by Arminius Vambéry (London, 1905).
[28] The Shiite Persians of course refused to recognize any Sunnite or
orthodox caliphate; while the Moors pay spiritual allegiance to their
own Shereefian sultans.
[29] The Turkish name for Constantinople.
[30] On the caliphate, see Sir W. Muir, _The Caliphate: Its Rise,
Decline, and Fall_ (Edinburgh, 1915); Sir Mark Sykes, _The Caliph's Last
Heritage_ (London, 1915); XX, "L'Islam après la Guerre," _Revue de
Paris_, 15 January, 1916; "The Indian Khilafat Delegation," _Foreign
Affairs_, July, 1920 (Special Supplement).
[31] Literally, "he who is guided aright."
[32] "Seyid" means "Lord." This title is borne only by descendants of
the Prophet.
[33] The explorer Dr. Nachtigal.
[34] On the Islamic fraternities in general and the Sennussiya in
particular see W. S. Blunt, _The Future of Islam_ (London, 1882); O.
Depont and X. Coppolani, _Les Confréries réligieuses musulmanes_ (Paris,
1897); H. Duveyrier, _La Confrérie musulmane de Sidi Mohammed ben Ali es
Sénoussi_ (Paris, 1884); A. Le Chatelier, _Les Confréries musulmanes du
Hedjaz_ (Paris, 1887); L. Petit, _Confréries musulmanes_ (Paris, 1899);
L. Rinn, _Marabouts et Khouan_ (Algiers, 1884); A. Servier, _Le
Nationalisme musulman_ (Constantine, Algeria, 1913); Simian, _Les
Confréries islamiques en Algérie_ (Algiers, 1910); Achmed Abdullah
(himself a Sennussi), "The Sennussiyehs," _The Forum_, May, 1914; A. R.
Colquhoun, "Pan-Islam," _North American Review_, June, 1906; T. R.
Threlfall, "Senussi and His Threatened Holy War," _Nineteenth Century_,
March, 1900; Captain H. A. Wilson, "The Moslem Menace," _Nineteenth
Century and After_, September, 1907; ... "La Puissance de l'Islam: Ses
Confréries Réligieuses," _Le Correspondant_, 25 November and 10
December, 1909. The above judgments, particularly regarding the
Sennussiya, vary greatly, some being highly alarmist, others minimizing
its importance. A full balancing of the entire subject is that of
Commandant Binger, "Le Péril de l'Islam," _Bulletin du Comité de
l'Afrique française_, 1902. Personal interviews of educated Moslems with
El Sennussi are Si Mohammed el Hechaish, "Chez les Senoussia et les
Touareg," _L'Expansion Coloniale française_, 1900; Muhammad ibn Utman,
_Voyage au Pays des Sénoussia à travers la Tripolitaine_ (translated
from the Arabic), Paris, 1903.
[35] On Moslem missionary activity in general, see Jansen, _Verbreitung
des Islams_ (Berlin, 1897); M. Townsend, _Asia and Europe_, pp. 46-49,
60-61, 81; A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au dix-neuvième Siècle_ (Paris,
1888); various papers in _The Mohammedan World To-day_ (London, 1906).
[36] T. R. Threlfall, "Senussi and His Threatened Holy War," _Nineteenth
Century_, March, 1900.
[37] D. A. Forget, _L'Islam et le Christianisme dans l'Afrique
centrale_, p. 65 (Paris, 1900). For other statements regarding Moslem
missionary activity in Africa, see G. Bonet-Maury, _L'Islamisme et le
Christianisme en Afrique_ (Paris, 1906); E. W. Blyden, _Christianity,
Islam, and the Negro Race_ (London, 1887); Forget, _op. cit._
[38] A. Guérinot, "L'Islam et l'Abyssinie," _Revue du Monde musulman_,
1918. Also see similar opinion of the Protestant missionary K.
Cederquist, "Islam and Christianity in Abyssinia," _The Moslem World_,
April, 1921.
[39] S. Brobovnikov, "Moslems in Russia," _The Moslem World_, January,
1911.
[40] Broomhall, _Islam in China_ (London, 1910); Nigârèndé, "Notes sur
les Musulmans Chinois," _Revue du Monde musulman_, January, 1907; paper
on Islam in China in _The Mohammedan World To-day_ (London, 1906).
[41] See papers on Islam in Java and Sumatra in _The Mohammedan World
To-day_ (London, 1906); A. Cabaton, _Java, Sumatra, and the Dutch East
Indies_ (translated from the Dutch), New York, 1916.
[42] Quoted from article by "X," "Le Pan-Islamisme et le Pan-Turquisme,"
_Revue du Monde musulman_, March, 1913. This authoritative article is,
so the editor informs us, from the pen of an eminent Mohammedan--"un
homme d'étât musulman." For other activities of Djemal-ed-Din, see A.
Servier, _Le Nationalisme musulman_, pp. 10-13.
[43] Quoted from W. G. Palgrave, _Essays on Eastern Questions_, p. 111
(London, 1872).
[44] A. Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_, p. 351 (London,
1906).
[45] Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic schemes were first clearly discerned by
the French publicist Gabriel Charmes as early as 1881, and his warnings
were published in his prophetic book _L'Avenir de la Turquie--Le
Panislamisme_ (Paris, 1883).
[46] Gabriel Hanotaux, "La Crise méditerranéenne et l'Islam," _Revue
Hebdomadaire_, April 13, 1912.
[47] See "X," "La Situation politique de la Perse," _Revue du Monde
musulman_, June, 1914; B. Temple, "The Place of Persia in
World-Politics," _Proceedings of the Central Asian Society_, May 4,
1910; W. M. Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia_ (New York, 1912).
[48] Quoted from A. Vambéry, "Die türkische Katastrophe und die
Islamwelt," _Deutsche Revue_, July, 1913.
[49] Shah Mohammed Naimatullah, "Recent Turkish Events and Moslem
India," _Asiatic Review_, October, 1913.
[50] Quoted by F. Farjanel, "Le Japon et l'Islam," _Revue du Monde
musulman_, November, 1906.
[51] Farjanel, _supra_.
[52] Quoted by Vambéry, _supra_.
[53] Vambéry, "An Approach between Moslems and Buddhists," _Nineteenth
Century and After_, April, 1912.
[54] Vambéry, "An Approach between Moslems and Buddhists," _Nineteenth
Century and After_, April, 1912.
[55] Special cable to the New York _Times_, dated Rome, May 28, 1919.
[56] Sir T. Morison, "England and Islam," _Nineteenth Century and
After_, July, 1919.
[57] H. H. The Aga Khan, _India in Transition_, p. 158 (London, 1918).
[58] This hatred of Western civilization, as such, will be discussed in
the next chapter.
[59] Ernst Paraquin, formerly Ottoman lieutenant-colonel and chief of
general staff, in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, January 24, 1920.
[60] A. Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, pp.
71, 72 (Paris, 1898).
[61] A. Servier, _Le Nationalisme musulman_, p. 182.
[62] B. Temple, "The Place of Persia in World-Politics," _Proceedings of
the Central Asian Society_, May, 1910.
[63] L. Rinn, _Marabouts et Khouan_, p. vi.
[64] Sir T. Morison, "England and Islam," _op. cit._
[65] Yahya Siddyk, _Le Reveil des Peuples islamiques au quatorzième
Siècle de l'Hégire_ (Cairo, 1907). Also published in Arabic.
[66] For a full discussion of the effect of the Great War upon Asiatic
and African peoples, see my book _The Rising Tide of Colour against
White World-Supremacy_ (New York and London, 1920).
[67] L. Massignon, "L'Islam et la Politique des Alliés," _Revue des
Sciences politiques_, June, 1920.
[68] Sir T. Morison, "England and Islam," _op. cit._
[69] For the Ikhwan movement, see P. W. Harrison, "The Situation in
Arabia," _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1920; S. Mylrea, "The
Politico-Religious Situation in Arabia," _The Moslem World_, July, 1919.
[70] For the Salafî movement, see "Wahhabisme--Son Avenir sociale et le
Mouvement salafî," _Revue du Monde musulman_, 1919.
[71] On the general subject of economic Pan-Islamism, see A. Le
Chatelier, "Le Reveil de l'Islam--Sa Situation économique," _Revue
Économique internationale_, July, 1910; also his article "Politique
musulmane," _Revue du Monde musulman_, September, 1910; M. Pickthall,
"La Morale islamique," _Revue Politique internationale_, July, 1916; S.
Khuda Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_ (London, 1912).
CHAPTER III
THE INFLUENCE OF THE WEST
The influence of the West is the great dynamic in the modern
transformation of the East. The ubiquitous impact of Westernism is
modifying not merely the Islamic world but all non-Moslem Asia and
Africa,[72] and in subsequent pages we shall examine the effects of
Western influence upon the non-Moslem elements of India. Of course
Western influence does not entirely account for Islam's recent
evolution. We have already seen that, for the last hundred years, Islam
itself has been engendering forces which, however quickened by external
Western stimuli, are essentially internal in their nature, arising
spontaneously and working toward distinctive, original goals. It is not
a mere copying of the West that is to-day going on in the Moslem world,
but an attempt at a new synthesis--an assimilation of Western methods to
Eastern ends. We must always remember that the Asiatic stocks which
constitute the bulk of Islam's followers are not primitive savages like
the African negroes or the Australoids, but are mainly peoples with
genuine civilizations built up by their own efforts from the remote
past. In view of their historic achievements, therefore, it seems safe
to conclude that in the great ferment now stirring the Moslem world we
behold a real _Renaissance_, whose genuineness is best attested by the
fact that there have been similar movements in former times.
The modern influence of the West on the East is quite unprecedented in
both intensity and scope. The far more local, partial influence of
Greece and Rome cannot be compared to it. Another point to be noted is
that this modern influence of the West upon the East is a very recent
thing. The full impact of Westernism upon the Orient as a whole dates
only from about the middle of the nineteenth century. Since then,
however, the process has been going on by leaps and bounds. Roads and
railways, posts and telegraphs, books and papers, methods and ideas,
have penetrated, or are in process of penetrating, every nook and cranny
of the East. Steamships sail the remotest seas. Commerce drives forth
and scatters the multitudinous products of Western industry among the
remotest peoples. Nations which only half a century ago lived the life
of thirty centuries ago, to-day read newspapers and go to business in
electric tram-cars. Both the habits and thoughts of Orientals are being
revolutionized. To a discussion of the influence of the West upon the
Moslem world the remainder of this book will be devoted. The chief
elements will be separately analysed in subsequent chapters, the present
chapter being a general survey of an introductory character.
The permeation of Westernism is naturally most advanced in those parts
of Islam which have been longest under Western political control. The
penetration of the British "Raj" into the remotest Indian jungles, for
example, is an extraordinary phenomenon. By the coinage, the
post-office, the railroads, the administration of justice, the
encouragement of education, the relief of famine, and a thousand other
ways, the great organization has penetrated all India. But even in
regions where European control is still nominal, the permeation of
Westernism has gone on apace. The customs and habits of the people have
been distinctly modified. Western material improvements and comforts
like the kerosene-oil lamp and the sewing-machine are to-day part and
parcel of the daily life of the people. New economic wants have been
created; standards of living have been raised; canons of taste have been
altered.[73]
In the intellectual and spiritual fields, likewise, the leaven of
Westernism is clearly apparent. We have already seen how profoundly
Moslem liberal reformers have been influenced by Western ideas and the
spirit of Western progress. Of course in these fields Westernism has
progressed more slowly and has awakened much stronger opposition than it
has on the material plane. Material innovations, especially mechanical
improvements, comforts, and luxuries, make their way much faster than
novel customs or ideas, which usually shock established beliefs or
ancestral prejudices. Tobacco was taken up with extraordinary rapidity
by every race and clime, and the kerosene-lamp has in half a century
penetrated the recesses of Central Asia and of China; whereas customs
like Western dress and ideas like Western education encounter many
setbacks and are often adopted with such modifications that their
original spirit is denatured or perverted. The superior strength and
skill of the West are to-day generally admitted throughout the East, but
in many quarters the first receptivity to Western progress and zeal for
Western ideas have cooled or have actually given place to a reactionary
hatred of the very spirit of Western civilization.[74]
Western influences are most apparent in the upper and middle classes,
especially in the Western-educated _intelligentsia_ which to-day exists
in every Eastern land. These élites of course vary greatly in numbers
and influence, but they all possess a more or less definite grasp of
Western ideas. In their reactions to Westernism they are sharply
differentiated. Some, while retaining the fundamentals of their
ancestral philosophy of life, attempt a genuine assimilation of Western
ideals and envisage a higher synthesis of the spirits of East and West.
Others break with their traditional pasts, steep themselves in
Westernism, and become more or less genuinely Westernized. Still others
conceal behind their Western veneer disillusionment and detestation.[75]
Of course it is in externals that Westernization is most pronounced. The
Indian or Turkish "intellectual," holding Western university degrees and
speaking fluently several European languages, and the wealthy prince or
pasha, with his motor-cars, his racing-stables, and his annual "cure" at
European watering-places, appear very Occidental to the casual eye. Such
men wear European clothes, eat European food, and live in houses partly
or wholly furnished in European style. Behind this façade exists every
possible variation of inner life, from earnest enthusiasm for Western
ideals to inveterate reaction.
These varied attitudes toward Westernism are not parked off by groups or
localities, they co-exist among the individuals of every class and every
land in the East. The entire Orient is, in fact, undergoing a prodigious
transformation, far more sudden and intense than anything the West has
ever known. Our civilization is mainly self-evolved; a natural growth
developing by normal, logical, and relatively gradual stages. The East,
on the contrary, is undergoing a concentrated process of adaptation
which, with us, was spread over centuries, and the result is not so much
evolution as revolution--political, economic, social, idealistic,
religious, and much more besides. The upshot is confusion, uncertainty,
grotesque anachronism, and glaring contradiction. Single generations
are sundered by unbridgeable mental and spiritual gulfs. Fathers do not
understand sons; sons despise their fathers. Everywhere the old and the
new struggle fiercely, often within the brain or spirit of the same
individual. The infinite complexity of this struggle as it appears in
India is well summarized by Sir Valentine Chirol when he speaks of the
many "currents and cross-currents of the confused movement which is
stirring the stagnant waters of Indian life--the steady impact of alien
ideas on an ancient and obsolescent civilization; the more or less
imperfect assimilation of those ideas by the few; the dread and
resentment of them by those whose traditional ascendancy they threaten;
the disintegration of old beliefs, and then again their aggressive
revival; the careless diffusion of an artificial system of education,
based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and bereft of all moral
or religious sanction; the application of Western theories of
administration and of jurisprudence to a social formation stratified on
lines of singular rigidity; the play of modern economic forces upon
primitive conditions of industry and trade; the constant and unconscious
but inevitable friction between subject races and their alien rulers;
the reverberation of distant wars and distant racial conflicts; the
exaltation of an Oriental people in the Far East."[76] These lines,
though written about India, apply with fair exactitude to every other
portion of the Near and Middle East to-day. As a French writer remarks
with special reference to the Levant: "The truth is that the Orient is
in transformation, and the Mohammedan mentality as well--though not
perhaps exactly as we might wish. It is undergoing a period of crisis,
wherein the past struggles everywhere against the present; where ancient
customs, impaired by modern innovations, present a hybrid and
disconcerting spectacle."[77]
To this is largely due the unlovely traits displayed by most of the
so-called "Westernized" Orientals; the "stucco civilization"[78] of the
Indian Babu, and the boulevardier "culture" of the Turkish
"Effendi"--syphilized rather than civilized. Any profound transformation
must engender many worthless by-products, and the contemporary
Westernization of the Orient has its dark as well as its bright side.
The very process of reform, however necessary and inevitable, lends
fresh virulence to old ills and imports new evils previously unknown. As
Lord Cromer says: "It is doubtful whether the price which is being paid
for introducing European civilization into these backward Eastern
societies is always recognized as fully as it should be. The material
benefits derived from European civilization are unquestionably great,
but as regards the ultimate effect on public and private morality the
future is altogether uncertain."[79]
The good and the evil of Westernization are alike mostly clearly evident
among the ranks of the educated élites. Some of these men show the
happiest effects of the Western spirit, but an even larger number fall
into the gulf between old and new, and there miserably perish. Lord
Cromer characterized many of the "Europeanized" Egyptians as "at the
same time de-Moslemized Moslems and invertebrate Europeans";[80] while
another British writer thus pessimistically describes the superficial
Europeanism prevalent in India: "Beautiful Mogul palaces furnished with
cracked furniture from Tottenham Court Road. That is what we have done
to the Indian mind. We have not only made it despise its own culture and
throw it out; we have asked it to fill up the vacant spaces with
furniture which will not stand the climate. The mental Eurasianism of
India is appalling. Such minds are nomad. They belong to no
civilization, no country, and no history. They create a craving that
cannot be satisfied, and ideals that are unreal. They falsify life.
They deprive men of the nourishment of their cultural past, and the
substitutes they supply are unsubstantial.... We sought to give the
Eastern mind a Western content and environment; we have succeeded too
well in establishing intellectual and moral anarchy in both."[81]
These patent evils of Westernization are a prime cause of that
implacable hatred of everything Western which animates so many
Orientals, including some well acquainted with the West. Such persons
are precious auxiliaries to the ignorant reactionaries and to the rebels
against Western political domination.
The political predominance of the West over the East is, indeed, the
outstanding factor in the whole question of Western influence upon the
Orient. We have already surveyed Europe's conquest of the Near and
Middle East during the past century, and we have seen how helpless the
backward, decrepit Moslem world was in face of the twofold tide of
political and economic subjugation. In fact, the economic phase was
perhaps the more important factor in the rapidity and completeness of
Europe's success. To be sure, some Eastern lands were subjugated at a
stroke by naked military force, as in the French expedition to Algiers,
the Russian conquest of central Asia, and the Italian descent upon
Tripoli. Much oftener, however, subjection began by the essentially
economic process known as "pacific penetration"--the acquirement of a
financial grip upon a hitherto independent Oriental country by Western
capital in the form of loans and concessions, until the assumption of
Western political control became little more than a formal registration
of what already existed in fact. Such is the story of the subjection of
Egypt, Morocco, and Persia, while England's Indian Empire started in a
purely trading venture--the East India Company. The tremendous potency
of "pacific penetration" is often not fully appreciated. Take the
significance of one item alone--railway concessions. Says that keen
student of _Weltpolitik_, Doctor Dillon: "Railways are the iron
tentacles of latter-day expanding Powers. They are stretched out
caressingly at first. But once the iron has, so to say, entered the soul
of the weaker nation, the tentacles swell to the dimensions of brawny
arms, and the embrace tightens to a crushing grip."[82]
On the question of the abstract rightness or wrongness of this
subjection of the East by the West, I do not propose to enter. It has
been exhaustively discussed, pro and con, and every reader of these
pages is undoubtedly familiar with the stock arguments on both sides.
The one thing certain is that this process of subjugation was, broadly
speaking, inevitable. Given two worlds at such different levels as East
and West at the beginning of the nineteenth century--the West
overflowing with vitality and striding at the forefront of human
progress, the East sunk in lethargy and decrepitude--and it was a
foregone conclusion that the former would encroach upon the latter.
What does concern us in our present discussion is the effect of European
political control upon the general process of Westernization in Eastern
lands. And there can be no doubt that such Westernization was thereby
greatly furthered. Once in control of an Oriental country, the European
rulers were bound to favour its Westernization for a variety of reasons.
Mere self-interest impelled them to make the country peaceful and
prosperous, in order to extract profit for themselves and reconcile the
inhabitants to their rule. This meant the replacement of inefficient and
sanguinary native despotisms inhibiting progress and engendering anarchy
by stable colonial governments, maintaining order, encouraging
industry, and introducing improvements like the railway, the post,
sanitation, and much more besides. In addition to these material
innovations, practically all the Western governments endeavoured to
better the social, intellectual, and spiritual condition of the peoples
that had come under their control. The European Powers who built up
colonial empires during the nineteenth century were actuated by a spirit
far more enlightened than that of former times, when the early colonial
empires of Spain, Portugal, Holland, and the English East India Company
had been run on the brutal and short-sighted doctrine of sheer
exploitation. In the nineteenth century all Western rule in the Orient
was more or less impregnated with the ideal of "The White Man's Burden."
The great empire-builders of the nineteenth century, actuated as they
were not merely by self-interest and patriotic ambition but also by a
profound sense of obligation to improve the populations which they had
brought under their country's sway, felt themselves bearers of Western
enlightenment and laboured to diffuse all the benefits of Western
civilization. They honestly believed that the extension of Western
political control was the best and quickest, perhaps the only, means of
modernizing the backward portions of the world.
That standpoint is ably presented by a British "liberal imperialist,"
Professor Ramsay Muir, who writes: "It is an undeniable fact that the
imperialism of the European peoples has been the means whereby European
civilization has been in some degree extended to the whole world, so
that to-day the whole world has become a single economic unit, and all
its members are parts of a single political system. And this achievement
brings us in sight of the creation of a world-order such as the wildest
dreamers of the past could never have anticipated. Without the
imperialism of the European peoples North and South America, Australia,
South Africa, must have remained wildernesses, peopled by scattered
bands of savages. Without it India and other lands of ancient
civilization must have remained, for all we can see, externally subject
to that endless succession of wars and arbitrary despotisms which have
formed the substance of their history through untold centuries, and
under which neither rational and equal law nor political liberty, as we
conceive them, were practicable conceptions. Without it the backward
peoples of the earth must have continued to stagnate under the dominance
of an unchanging primitive customary régime, which has been their state
throughout recorded time. If to-day the most fruitful political ideas of
the West--the ideas of nationality and self-government--which are purely
products of Western civilization, are beginning to produce a healthy
fermentation in many parts of the non-European world, that result is due
to European Imperialism."[83]
The ethics of modern imperialism have nowhere been better formulated
than in an essay by Lord Cromer. "An imperial policy," he writes, "must,
of course, be carried out with reasonable prudence, and the principles
of government which guide our relations with whatsoever races are
brought under our control must be politically and economically sound and
morally defensible. This is, in fact, the keystone of the imperial arch.
The main justification of imperialism is to be found in the use which is
made of imperial power. If we make good use of our power, we may face
the future without fear that we shall be overtaken by the Nemesis which
attended Roman misrule. If the reverse is the case, the British Empire
will deserve to fall, and of a surety it will ultimately fall."[84]
Such are the basic sanctions of Western imperialism as evolved during
the nineteenth century. Whether or not it is destined to endure, there
can be no question that this prodigious extension of European political
control greatly favoured the spread of Western influences of every kind.
It is, of course, arguable that the East would have voluntarily adopted
Western methods and ideas even if no sort of Western pressure had been
applied. But they would have been adopted much more slowly, and this
vital element of time renders such arguments mere academic speculation.
For the vital, expanding nineteenth-century West to have deliberately
restrained itself while the backward East blunderingly experimented with
Westernism, accepting and rejecting, buying goods and refusing to pay
for them, negotiating loans and then squandering and repudiating them,
inviting in Europeans and then expelling or massacring them, would have
been against all history and human nature.
As a matter of fact, Western pressure was applied, as it was bound to be
applied; and this constant, ubiquitous, unrelenting pressure, broke down
the barriers of Oriental conservatism and inertia as nothing else could
have done, forced the East out of its old ruts, and compelled it to take
stock of things as they are in a world of hard facts instead of
reminiscent dreams. In subsequent chapters we shall examine the manifold
results of this process which has so profoundly transformed the Orient
during the past hundred years. Here we will continue our general survey
by examining the more recent aspects of Western control over the East
and the reactions of the East thereto.
In my opinion, the chief fallacy involved in criticisms of Western
control over Eastern lands arises from failure to discriminate between
nineteenth-century and twentieth-century imperialism. Nineteenth-century
imperialism was certainly inevitable, and was apparently beneficial in
the main. Twentieth-century imperialism cannot be so favourably judged.
By the year 1900 the Oriental peoples were no longer mere fanatical
obscurantists neither knowing nor caring to know anything outside the
closed circle of their ossified, decadent civilizations. The East had
been going to school, and wanted to begin to apply what it had been
taught by the West. It should have been obvious that these peoples,
whose past history proved them capable of achievement and who were now
showing an apparently genuine desire for new progress, needed to be
treated differently from what they had been. In other words, a more
liberal attitude on the part of the West had become advisable.
But no such change was made. On the contrary, in the West itself, the
liberal idealism which had prevailed during most of the nineteenth
century was giving way to that spirit of fierce political and economic
rivalry which culminated in the Great War.[85] Never had Europe been so
avid for colonies, for "spheres of influence," for concessions and
preferential markets; in fine, so "imperialistic," in the unfavourable
sense of the term. The result was that with the beginning of the
twentieth century Western pressure on the East, instead of being
relaxed, was redoubled; and the awakening Orient, far from being met
with sympathetic consideration, was treated more ruthlessly than it had
been for two hundred years. The way in which Eastern countries like
Turkey and Persia, striving to reform themselves and protect their
independence, were treated by Europe's new _Realpolitik_ would have
scandalized the liberal imperialists of a generation before. It
certainly scandalized present-day liberals, as witness these scathing
lines written in 1912 by the well-known British publicist Sidney Low:
"The conduct of the Most Christian Powers during the past few years has
borne a striking resemblance to that of robber-bands descending upon an
unarmed and helpless population of peasants. So far from respecting the
rights of other nations, they have exhibited the most complete and
cynical disregard for them. They have, in fact, asserted the claim of
the strong to prey upon the weak, and the utter impotence of all ethical
considerations in the face of armed force, with a crude nakedness which
few Eastern military conquerors could well have surpassed.
"The great cosmic event in the history of the last quarter of a century
has been the awakening of Asia after centuries of somnolence. The East
has suddenly sprung to life, and endeavoured to throw itself vigorously
into the full current of Western progress. Japan started the enterprise;
and, fortunately for herself, she entered upon it before the new Western
policy had fully developed itself, and while certain archaic ideals
about the rights of peoples and the sanctity of treaties still
prevailed. When the new era was inaugurated by the great Japanese
statesmen of the nineteenth century, Europe did not feel called upon to
interfere. We regarded the Japanese renaissance with interest and
admiration, and left the people of Nippon to work out the difficulties
of their own salvation, unobstructed. If that revolution had taken place
thirty years later, there would probably have been a different story to
tell; and New Japan, in the throes of her travail, would have found the
armed Great Powers at her bedside, each stretching forth a mailed fist
to grab something worth taking. Other Eastern countries which have
endeavoured to follow the example of Japan during the present century
have had worse luck. During the past ten years a wave of sheer
materialism and absolute contempt for international morality has swept
across the Foreign Offices of Europe, and has reacted disastrously upon
the various Eastern nations in their desperate struggles to reform a
constitutional system. They have been attempting to carry out the
suggestions made to them for generations by benevolent advisers in
Christendom.
"Now, when they take these counsels to heart, and endeavour, with
halting steps, and in the face of immense obstacles, to pursue the path
of reform, one might suppose that their efforts would be regarded with
sympathetic attention by the Governments of the West; and that, even if
these offered no direct aid, they would at least allow a fair trial."
But, on the contrary, "one Great Power after another has used the
opportunity presented by the internal difficulties of the Eastern
countries to set out upon a career of annexation."[86]
We have already seen how rapid was this career of annexation,
extinguishing the independence of the last remaining Mohammedan states
at the close of the Great War. We have also seen how it exacerbated
Moslem fear and hatred of the West. And the West was already feared and
hated for many reasons. In the preceding chapter we traced the growth of
the Pan-Islamic movement, and in subsequent chapters we shall trace the
development of Oriental nationalism. These politico-religious movements,
however, by no means exhaust the list of Oriental reactions to
Westernism. There are others, economic, social, racial in character. In
view of the complex nature of the Orient's reaction against Westernism,
let us briefly analyse the problem in its various constituent elements.
Anti-Western feeling has been waning in some quarters and waxing in
others during the past hundred years. By temperamental reactionaries and
fanatics things Western have, of course, always been abhorred. But,
leaving aside this intransigeant minority, the attitude of other
categories of Orientals has varied greatly according to times and
circumstances. By liberal-minded persons Western influences were at
first hailed with cordiality and even with enthusiasm. In the opening
chapter we saw how the liberal reformers welcomed the Western concept of
progress and made it one of the bases of their projected religious
reformation. And the liberals displayed the same attitude in secular
matters. The liberal statesmen who governed Turkey during the third
quarter of the nineteenth century made earnest efforts to reform the
Ottoman State, and it was the same in other parts of the Moslem world.
An interesting example is the attempt made by General Kheir-ed-Din to
modernize Tunis. This man, a Circassian by birth, had won the confidence
of his master, the Bey, who made him vizier. In 1860 he toured Europe
and returned greatly impressed with its civilization. Convinced of
Europe's infinite superiority, he desired passionately to transplant
Western ideas and methods to Tunis. This he believed quite feasible, and
the result would, so he thought, be Tunis's rapid regeneration.
Kheir-ed-Din was not in the least a hater of the West. He merely
recognized clearly the Moslem world's peril of speedy subjection to the
West if it did not set its house rapidly in order, and he therefore
desired, in a perfectly legitimate feeling of patriotism, to press his
country along the road of progress, that it might be able to stand alone
and preserve its independence.
So greatly was the Bey impressed by Kheir-ed-Din's report that he gave
him a free hand in his reforming endeavours. For a short time
Kheir-ed-Din displayed great activity, though he encountered stubborn
opposition from reactionary officials. His work was cut short by his
untimely death, and Tunis, still unmodernized, fell twenty years later
under the power of France. Kheir-ed-Din, however, worked for posterity.
In order to rouse his compatriots to the realities of their situation he
published a remarkable book, _The Surest Means of Knowing the State of
Nations_. This book has profoundly influenced both liberals and
nationalists throughout the Near East, especially in North Africa, where
it has become the bible of Tunisian and Algerian nationalism. In his
book Kheir-ed-Din shows his co-religionists the necessity of breaking
with their attitude of blind admiration for the past and proud
indifference to everything else, and of studying what is going on in the
outer world. Europe's present prosperity is due, he asserts, not to
natural advantages or to religion, but "to progress in the arts and
sciences, which facilitate the circulation of wealth and exploit the
treasures of the earth by an enlightened protection constantly given to
agriculture, industry, and commerce: all natural consequences of justice
and liberty--two things which, for Europeans, have become second
nature." In past ages the Moslem world was great and progressive,
because it was then liberal and open to progress. It declined through
bigotry and obscurantism. But it can revive by reviving the spirit of
its early days.
I have stressed the example of the Tunisian Kheir-ed-Din rather than the
better-known Turkish instances because it illustrates the general
receptivity of mid-nineteenth-century Moslem liberals to Western ideas
and their freedom from anti-Western feeling.[87] As time passed,
however, many of these erstwhile liberals, disillusioned with the West
for various reasons, notably European aggression, became the bitterest
enemies of the West, hating the very spirit of Western civilization.[88]
This anti-Western feeling has, of course, been greatly exacerbated since
the beginning of the present century. As an influential Mohammedan wrote
just before the Great War: "The events of these last ten years and the
disasters which have stricken the Mohammedan world have awakened in its
bosom a sentiment of mutual cordiality and devotion hitherto unknown,
and a unanimous hatred against all its oppressors has been the ferment
which to-day stirs the hearts of all Moslems."[89] The bitter rancour
seething in many Moslem hearts shows in outbursts like the following,
from the pen of a popular Turkish writer at the close of the Balkan
Wars: "We have been defeated, we have been shown hostility by the
outside world, because we have become too deliberative, too cultured,
too refined in our conceptions of right and wrong, of humanity and
civilization. The example of the Bulgarian army has taught us that every
soldier facing the enemy must return to the days of barbarism, must have
a thirst of blood, must be merciless in slaughtering children and women,
old and weak, must disregard others' property, life, and honour. Let us
spread blood, suffering, wrong, and mourning. Thus only may we become
the favourites of the civilized world like King Ferdinand's army."[90]
The Great War itself was hailed by multitudes of Moslems as a
well-merited Nemesis on Western arrogance and greed. Here is how a
leading Turkish newspaper characterized the European Powers: "They would
not look at the evils in their own countries or elsewhere, but
interfered at the slightest incident in our borders; every day they
would gnaw at some part of our rights and our sovereignty; they would
perform vivisection on our quivering flesh and cut off great pieces of
it. And we, with a forcibly controlled spirit of rebellion in our hearts
and with clinched but powerless fists, silent and depressed, would
murmur as the fire burned within: 'Oh, that they might fall out with one
another! Oh, that they might eat one another up!' And lo! to-day they
are eating each other up, just as the Turk wished they would."[91]
Such anti-Western sentiments are not confined to journalists or
politicians, they are shared by all classes, from princes to peasants.
Each class has its special reasons for hating European political
control. The native princes, even when maintained upon their thrones and
confirmed in their dignities and emoluments, bitterly resent their state
of vassalage and their loss of limitless, despotic power. "Do you know,
I can hardly buy a pen or a sword for myself without asking the Resident
for permission?" remarked an Indian rajah bitterly. His attitude was
precisely that of Khedive Tewfik Pasha, who, in the early days of the
British occupation of Egypt, while watching a review of British troops,
said to one of his ministers: "Do you suppose I like this? I tell you, I
never see an English sentinel in my streets without longing to jump out
of my carriage and strangle him with my own hands."[92] The upper
classes feel much the same as their sovereigns. They regret their former
monopoly of privilege and office. This is especially true of the
Western-educated _intelligentsia_, who believe that they should hold all
government posts and resent bitterly the reservation of high-salaried
directive positions for Europeans. Of course many intelligent liberals
realize so fully the educative effect of European control that they
acquiesce in a temporary loss of independence in order to complete their
modernization and ultimately be able to stand alone without fear of
reaction or anarchy. However, these liberals are only a small minority,
hated by their upper-class fellows as time-servers and renegades, and
sundered by an immense gulf from the ignorant masses.
At first sight we might think that the masses would, on the whole, be
favourably disposed toward European political control. Despite certain
economic disadvantages that Westernization has imposed, the masses have
unquestionably gained most by European rule. Formerly exploited
ruthlessly by both princes and upper classes, the peasants and town
workers are to-day assured peace, order, justice, and security for
their landholdings and the fruits of their toil. Now it would be a
mistake to think that the masses are insensible to all this. The fact
is, they do recognize the benefits of European rule. Nevertheless, the
new rulers, while tolerated and even respected, are never beloved.
Furthermore, as the generation which knew the old régime dies off, its
evils are forgotten, and the younger generation, taking present benefits
for granted, murmurs at the flaws in the existing order, and lends a
readier ear to native agitators extolling the glories of independence
and idealizing the "good old times."
The truth of the matter is that, despite all its shortcomings, the
average Oriental hankers after the old way of life. Even when he
recognizes the good points of the new, he nevertheless yearns
irrationally for the old. "A Moslem ruler though he oppress me and not a
_kafir_[93] though he work me weal" is a Moslem proverb of long
standing. Every colonial administration, no matter how enlightened, runs
counter to this ineradicable aversion of Moslems for Christian rule. A
Russian administrator in Central Asia voices the sentiments of European
officials generally when he states: "Pious Moslems cannot accommodate
themselves to the government of _Giaours_."[94]
Furthermore, it must be remembered that most Orientals either do not
recognize much benefit in European rule, or, even though they do
recognize considerable benefits, consider these more than offset by many
points which, in their eyes, are maddening annoyances or burdens. The
very things which we most pride ourselves on having given to the
Orient--peace, order, justice, security--are not valued by the Oriental
anywhere near as highly as we might expect. Of course he likes these
things, but he would prefer to get less of them if what he did get was
given by native rulers, sharing his prejudices and point of view. Take
the single factor of justice. As an English writer remarks: "The Asiatic
is not delighted with justice _per se_; indeed, the Asiatic really cares
but little about it if he can get _sympathy_ in the sense in which he
understands that misunderstood word.... This is the real reason why
every Asiatic in his heart of hearts prefers the rule of his own
nationality, bad though it be, to the most ideal rule of aliens. For
when he is ruled by his own countrymen, he is dealt with by people who
understand his frailties, and who, though they may savagely punish him,
are at least in sympathy with the motives which prompt his
delinquencies."[95]
Take again the matter of order. The average Oriental not only does not
appreciate, but detests, our well-regulated, systematic manner of life.
Accustomed as he has been for centuries to a slipshod, easygoing
existence, in which, if there was much injustice, there was also much
favouritism, he instinctively hates things like sanitary measures and
police regulations. Accustomed to a wide "personal liberty" in the
anarchic sense, he is not willing to limit this liberty for the common
weal. He wants his own way, even though it involves possible dangers to
himself--dangers which may always be averted by bribery, favouritism, or
violence. Said an American who had listened to a Filipino's glowing
words on independence: "What could you do, if you were independent, that
you cannot do now?" "I could build my house there in the middle of the
street, if I wanted to." "But suppose your neighbour objected and
interfered?" "I would 'get' him." "But suppose he 'got' you?" A shrug of
the shoulders was the only answer.[96]
The fact is that the majority of Orientals, despite the considerable
penetration of Western ideas and methods that has been going on for the
last century, still love their old ruts and hate to be budged out of
them. They realize that Western rule furthers more than anything else
the Westernization of their social system, their traditional manner of
life, and they therefore tend to react fanatically against it. Every
innovation imposed by the colonial authorities is apt to rouse the most
purblind resistance. For example, compulsory vaccination was bitterly
opposed for years by the natives of Algeria. The French officials
pointed out that smallpox, hitherto rampant, was being rapidly
extirpated. The natives replied that, in their opinion, it was merely a
crafty scheme for sterilizing them sexually and thus make room for
French colonists. The officials thereupon pointed to the census figures,
which showed that the natives were increasing at an unprecedented rate.
The natives merely shrugged their shoulders and continued to inveigh
against the innovation.
This whole matter has been well summarized by a French writer with a
wide knowledge of Mohammedan lands. Says Louis Bertrand:
"In reality, all these peoples, indisposed as they are by their
traditions, customs, and climates to live according to our social ideal,
hate to endure the constraint of our police, of our administration--in a
word, of any sort of _regulated_ government, no matter how just and
honest. Delivered from the most anarchic and vexatious of tyrannies,
they remain in spirit more or less like our vagabonds, always hoping to
escape from the gendarmes. In vain do we point out to the Arabs of North
Africa that, thanks to the protection of France, they are no longer
pillaged by Turkish despots nor massacred and tortured by rival tribes.
They see only one thing: the necessity of paying taxes for matters that
they do not understand. We shall never realize the rage, the fury,
aroused in our Algerian towns by the simple health department ordinance
requiring the emptying of a garbage-can at a fixed hour. At Cairo and
elsewhere I have observed the same rebellious feelings among the
donkey-boys and cab-drivers subjected to the regulations of the English
policeman.
"But it is not merely our municipal and administrative regulations which
they find insupportable; it is all our habits, taken _en bloc_--in a
word, the _order_ which regulates our civilized life. For instance: on
the railway-line from Jaffa to Jerusalem the train stops at a station
beside which stands the tomb of a holy man. The schedule calls for a
stop of a minute at most. But no sooner had we arrived than what was my
stupefaction to see all the Mohammedans on the train get off, spread
their prayer-rugs, and tranquilly begin their devotions. The
station-master blew his whistle, the conductor yelled at them that he
was going to leave them behind; nobody budged. A squad of railway
employees had to be mobilized, who, with blows and curses, finally
bundled these pious persons back into the train again. The business
lasted a good quarter of an hour, and was not easy. The more vigorous of
the worshippers put up an energetic resistance.
"The above is only a casual instance, chosen at random. What is certain
is that these peoples do not yet understand what we mean by exactitude,
and that the concept of a well-regulated existence has not yet
penetrated their heads."[97]
What has just been written of course applies primarily to the ignorant
masses. But this attitude of mind is more or less common to all classes
of Oriental peoples. The habits of centuries are not easily transformed.
In fact, it must not be forgotten that the upper classes were able to
enjoy most fully the capricious personal liberty of the unmodified East,
and that, therefore, though they may be better able to understand the
value of Westernization, they have in one sense the most to lose.[98]
In fact, for all Orientals, high and low alike, the "good old times"
had charms which they mournfully regret. For the prince, the pasha, the
courtier, existence was truly an Oriental paradise. To be sure, the
prince might at any moment be defeated and slain by a rival monarch; the
pasha strangled at his master's order; the courtier tortured through a
superior's whim. But, meanwhile, it was "life," rich and full. "Each of
these men had his own character and his own renown among his countrymen,
and each enjoyed a position such as is now unattainable in Europe, in
which he was released from laws, could indulge his own fancies, bad or
good, and was fed every day and all day with the special flattery of
Asia--that willing submissiveness to mere volition which is so like
adoration, and which is to its recipients the most intoxicating of
delights. Each, too, had his court of followers, and every courtier
shared in the power, the luxury, and the adulation accruing to his lord.
The power was that of life and death; the luxury included possession of
every woman he desired; the adulation was, as I have said, almost
religious worship."[99]
But, it may be asked, what about the poor man, exploited by this
hierarchy of capricious despots? What had he to gain from all this?
Well, in most cases, he got nothing at all; but he _might_ gain a great
deal. Life in the old Orient was a gigantic lottery. Any one, however
humble, who chanced to please a great man, might rise to fame and
fortune at a bound. And this is just what pleases the Eastern
temperament; for in the East, "luck" and caprice are more prized than
the "security" cherished in the West. In the Orient the favourite
stories are those narrating sudden and amazing shifts of
fortune--beggars become viziers or viziers become beggars, and all in a
single night. To the majority of Orientals it is still the uncertainties
of life, and the capricious favour of the powerful, which make it most
worth living; not the sure reward of honesty and well-regulated labour.
All these things made the life of the Orient infinitely _interesting_
to _all_. And it is precisely this gambler's interest which
Westernization has more or less destroyed. As an English writer very
justly remarks _à propos_ of modern Egypt: "Our rule may be perfect, but
the East finds it dull. The old order was a ragged garment, but it was
gay. Its very vicissitude had a charm. 'Ah! yes,' said an Egyptian to a
champion of English rule, 'but in the old days a beggar might sit at the
gate, and if he were found pleasing in the eyes of a great lady, he
might be a great man on the morrow.' There is a natural and inevitable
regret for the gorgeous and perilous past, when favour took the place of
justice, and life had great heights and depths--for the Egypt of Joseph,
Haroun-al-Rashid, and Ismail Pasha. We have spread the coat of
broadcloth over the radiant garment."[100]
Saddened and irritated by the threatened loss of so much that they hold
dear, it is not strange that many Eastern conservatives glorify the past
as a sort of Golden Age, infinitely superior to anything the West can
produce, and in this they are joined by many quondam liberals,
disillusioned with Westernism and flying into the arms of reaction. The
result is a spirit of hatred against everything Western, which sometimes
assumes the most extravagant forms. Says Louis Bertrand: "During a
lecture that I attended at Cairo the speaker contended that France owed
Islam (1) its civilization and sciences; (2) half of its vocabulary; (3)
all that was best in the character and mentality of its population,
seeing that, from the Middle Ages to the Revolution of 1789, all the
reformers who laboured for its enfranchisement--Albigensians, Vaudois,
Calvinists, and Camisards--were probably descendants of the Saracens. It
was nothing less than the total annexation of France to Morocco."
Meanwhile, "it has become the fashion for fervent (Egyptian)
nationalists to go to Spain and meditate in the gardens of the Alcazar
of Seville or in the patios of the Alhambra of Granada on the defunct
splendours of western Islam."[101]
Even more grotesque are the rhapsodies of the Hindu wing of this Golden
Age school. These Hindu enthusiasts far outdo the wildest flights of
their Moslem fellows. They solemnly assert that Hindustan is the nursery
and home of all true religion, philosophy, culture, civilization,
science, invention, and everything else; and they aver that when India's
present regrettable eclipse is past (an eclipse of course caused
entirely by English rule) she is again to shine forth in her glory for
the salvation of the whole world. Employing to the full the old adage
that there is nothing new under the sun, they have "discovered" in the
Vedas and other Hindu sacred texts "irrefutable" evidence that the
ancient Hindu sages anticipated all our modern ideas, including such
up-to-date matters as bomb-dropping aeroplanes and the League of
Nations.[102]
All this rhapsodical laudation of the past will, in the long run, prove
futile. The East, like the West, has its peculiar virtues; but the East
also has its special faults, and it is the faults which, for the last
thousand years, have been gaining on the virtues, resulting in
backwardness, stagnation, and inferiority. To-day the East is being
penetrated--and quickened--by the West. The outcome will never be
complete Westernization in the sense of a mere wholesale copying and
absolute transformation; the East will always remain fundamentally
itself. But it will be a new self, the result of a true assimilation of
Western ideas. The reactionaries can only delay this process, and
thereby prolong the Orient's inferiority and weakness.
Nevertheless, the reactionary attitude, though unintelligent, is
intelligible. Westernization hurts too many cherished prejudices and
vested interests not to arouse chronic resistance. This resistance would
occur even if Western influences were all good and Westerners all angels
of light. But of course Westernization has its dark side, while our
Western culture-bearers are animated not merely by altruism, but also by
far less worthy motives. This strengthens the hand of the Oriental
reactionaries and lends them the cover of moral sanctions. In addition
to the extremely painful nature of any transformative process,
especially in economic and social matters, there are many incidental
factors of an extremely irritating nature.
To begin with, the mere presence of the European, with his patent
superiority of power and progress, is a constant annoyance and
humiliation. This physical presence of the European is probably as
necessary to the Orient's regeneration as it is inevitable in view of
the Orient's present inferiority. But, however beneficial, it is none
the less a source of profound irritation. These Europeans disturb
everything, modify customs, raise living standards, erect separate
"quarters" in the cities, where they form "extraterritorial" colonies
exempt from native law and customary regulation. An English town rises
in the heart of Cairo, a "Little Paris" eats into Arabesque Algiers,
while European Pera flaunts itself opposite Turkish Stambul.
As for India, it is dotted with British "enclaves". "The great
Presidency towns, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, are European cities planted
on Indian soil. All the prominent buildings are European, though in some
of the more recent ones an endeavour has been made to adopt what is
known as the 'Indo-Saracenic' style of architecture. For the rest, the
streets are called by English names, generally the names of bygone
viceroys and governors, or of the soldiers who conquered the land and
quelled the mutiny--heroes whose effigies meet you at every turn. The
shops are English shops, where English or Eurasian assistants traffic in
English goods. English carriages and motors bowl along the macadamized
or tarred roads of Old England. On every hand there is evidence of the
instinctive effort to reproduce, as nearly as the climate will permit,
English conditions of life.... Almost the whole life of the people of
India is relegated to the back streets, not to say the slums--frankly
called in Madras the Black Town. There are a few points--clubs and
gymkhanas specially established to that end--where Englishmen, and even
women, meet Indian men, and even women, of the wealthier classes, on a
basis of social equality. But few indeed are the points of contact
between the Asian town and the European city which has been superimposed
upon it. The missionary, the Salvation Army outpost, perhaps the
curiosity-hunting tourist, may go forth into the bazaars; but the
European community as a whole cares no more for the swarming brown
multitudes around it than the dwellers on an island care for the fishes
in the circumambient sea."[103] And what is true of the great towns
holds good for scores of provincial centres, "stations," and
cantonments. The scale may be smaller, but the type is the same.
The European in the Orient is thus everywhere profoundly an alien,
living apart from the native life. And the European is not merely an
aloof alien; he is a ruling alien as well. Always his attitude is that
of the superior, the master. This attitude is not due to brutality or
snobbery; it is inherent in the very essence of the situation. Of course
many Europeans have bad manners, but that does not change the basic
reality of the case. And this reality is that, whatever the future may
bring, the European first established himself in the Orient because the
West was then infinitely ahead of the East; and he is still there to-day
because, despite all recent changes, the East is still behind the West.
Therefore the European in the Orient is still the ruler, and so long as
he stays there _must_ continue to rule--justly, temperately, with
politic regard for Eastern progress and liberal devolution of power as
the East becomes ripe for its liberal exercise--but, nevertheless,
_rule_. Wherever the Occidental has established his political control,
there are but two alternatives: govern or go. Furthermore, in his
governing, the Occidental must rule according to his own lights; despite
all concessions to local feeling, he must, in the last analysis, act as
a Western, not as an Eastern, ruler. Lord Cromer voices the heart of all
true colonial government when he says: "In governing Oriental races the
first thought must be what is good for them, but not necessarily what
they think is good for them."[104]
Now all this is inevitable, and should be self-evident. Nevertheless,
the fact remains that even the most enlightened Oriental can hardly
regard it as other than a bitter though salutary medicine, while most
Orientals feel it to be humiliating or intolerable. The very virtues of
the European are prime causes of his unpopularity. For, as Meredith
Townsend well says: "The European is, in Asia, the man who will insist
on his neighbour doing business just after dinner, and being exact when
he is half-asleep, and being 'prompt' just when he wants to enjoy,--and
he rules in Asia and is loved in Asia accordingly."[105]
Furthermore, the European in the Orient is disliked not merely as a
ruler and a disturber, but also as a man of widely different race. This
matter of race is very complicated,[106] but it cuts deep and is of
fundamental importance. Most of the peoples of the Near and Middle East
with which our present discussion is concerned belong to what is known
as the "brown" category of the human species. Of course, in strict
anthropology, the term is inexact. Anthropologically, we cannot set off
a sharply differentiated group of "brown" types as a "brown race," as we
can set off the "white" types of Europe as a "white race" or the
"yellow" Mongoloid types of the Far East as a "yellow race." This is
because the Near and Middle East have been racially a vast melting-pot,
or series of melting-pots, wherein conquest and migration have
continually poured new heterogeneous elements, producing the most
diverse ethnic amalgamations. Thus to-day some of the Near and Middle
Eastern peoples are largely white, like the Persians and Ottoman Turks;
others, like the southern Indians and Yemenite Arabs, are largely black;
while still others, like the Himalayan and Central Asian peoples, have
much yellow blood. Again, as there is no brown racial type-norm, as
there are white and yellow type-norms, so there is no generalized brown
culture like those possessed by yellows and whites. The great brown
spiritual bond is Islam, yet in India, the chief seat of brown
population, Islam is professed by only one-fifth of the inhabitants.
Lastly, while the spiritual frontiers of the Moslem world coincide
mainly with the ethnic frontiers of the brown world, Islam overlaps at
several points, including some pure whites in eastern Europe, many true
yellows in the Far East, and multitudes of negroes in Africa.
Nevertheless, despite these partial modifications, the terms "brown
race" and "brown world" do connote genuine realities which science and
politics alike recognize to be essentially true. There certainly is a
fundamental comity between the brown peoples. This comity is subtle and
intangible in character; yet it exists, and under certain circumstances
it is capable of momentous manifestations. Its salient feature is the
instinctive recognition by all Near and Middle Eastern peoples that they
are fellow "Asiatics," however bitter may be their internecine feuds.
This instinctive "Asiatic" feeling has been noted by historians for
more than two thousand years, and it is true to-day as in the past.
The great racial divisions of mankind are the most fundamental, the most
permanent, the most ineradicable things in human experience. They are
not mere diverse colorations of skin. Matters like complexion, stature,
and hair-formation are merely the outward, visible symbols of
correlative mental and spiritual differences which reveal themselves in
sharply contrasted temperaments and view-points, and which translate
themselves into the infinite phenomena of divergent group-life.
Now it is one of these basic racial lines of cleavage which runs between
"East" and "West." Broadly speaking, the Near and Middle East is the
"brown world," and this differentiates it from the "white world" of the
West in a way which never can be really obliterated. Indeed, to attempt
to obliterate the difference by racial fusion would be the maddest of
follies. East and West can mutually quicken each other by a mutual
exchange of ideas and ideals. They can only harm each other by
transfusions of blood. To unite physically would be the greatest of
disasters. East and West have both given much to the world in the past,
and promise to give more in the future. But whatever of true value they
are to give can be given only on condition that they remain essentially
themselves. Ethnic fusion would destroy both their race-souls and would
result in a dreary mongrelization from which would issue nothing but
degeneration and decay.
Both East and West instinctively recognize the truth of this, and show
it by their common contempt for the "Eurasian"--the mongrel offspring of
unions between the two races. As Meredith Townsend well says: "The chasm
between the brown man and the white is unfathomable, has existed in all
ages, and exists still everywhere. No white man marries a brown wife, no
brown man marries a white wife, without an inner sense of having been
false to some unintelligible but irresistible command."[107]
The above summary of the political, economic, social, and racial
differences between East and West gives us a fair idea of the numerous
cross-currents which complicate the relations of the two worlds and
which hinder Westernization. The Westernizing process is assuredly going
on, and in subsequent chapters we shall see how far-reaching is its
scope. But the factors just considered will indicate the possibilities
of reaction and will roughly assign the limits to which Westernization
may ultimately extend.
One thing is certain: Western political control in the Orient, however
prolonged and however imposing in appearance, must ever rest on
essentially fragile foundations. The Western rulers will always remain
an alien caste; tolerated, even respected, perhaps, but never loved and
never regarded as anything but foreigners. Furthermore, Western rule
must necessarily become more precarious with the increasing
enlightenment of the subject peoples, so that the acquiescence of one
generation may be followed by the hostile protest of the next. It is
indeed an unstable equilibrium, hard to maintain and easily upset.
The latent instability of European political control over the Near and
Middle East was dramatically shown by the moral effect of the
Russo-Japanese War. Down to that time the Orient had been so helpless in
face of European aggression that most Orientals had come to regard
Western supremacy with fatalistic resignation. But the defeat of a
first-class European Power by an Asiatic people instantly broke the
spell, and all Asia and Africa thrilled with a wild intoxication which
we can scarcely conceive. A Scotch missionary thus describes the effect
of the Japanese victories on northern India, where he was stationed at
the time: "A stir of excitement passed over the north of India. Even the
remote villagers talked over the victories of Japan as they sat in
their circles and passed round the huqqa at night. One of the older men
said to me, 'There has been nothing like it since the mutiny'. A Turkish
consul of long experience in Western Asia told me that in the interior
you could see everywhere the most ignorant peasants 'tingling' with the
news. Asia was moved from end to end, and the sleep of the centuries was
finally broken. It was a time when it was 'good to be alive,' for a new
chapter was being written in the book of the world's history."[108]
Of course the Russo-Japanese War did not create this new spirit, whose
roots lay in the previous epoch of subtle changes that had been going
on. The Russo-Japanese War was thus rather the occasion than the cause
of the wave of exultant self-confidence which swept over Asia and Africa
in the year 1904. But it did dramatize and clarify ideas that had been
germinating half-unconsciously in millions of Oriental minds, and was
thus the sign manual of the whole nexus of forces making for a
revivified Orient.
Furthermore, this new temper profoundly influenced the Orient's
attitude toward the series of fresh European aggressions which then
began. It is a curious fact that just when the Far East had
successfully resisted European encroachment, the Near and Middle East
should have been subjected to European aggressions of unparalleled
severity. We have already noted the furious protests and the unwonted
moral solidarity of the Moslem world at these manifestations of Western
_Realpolitik_. It would be interesting to know exactly how much of this
defiant temper was due to the heartening example of Japan. Certainly
our ultra-imperialists of the West were playing a dangerous game during
the decade between 1904 and 1914. As Arminius Vambéry remarked after
the Italian raid on Tripoli: "The more the power and authority of the
West gains ground in the Old World, the stronger becomes the bond of
unity and mutual interest between the separate factions of Asiatics,
and the deeper burns the fanatical hatred of Europe. Is it wise or
expedient by useless provocation and unnecessary attacks to increase
the feeling of animosity, to hurry on the struggle between the two
worlds, and to nip in the bud the work of modern culture which is now
going on in Asia?"[109]
The Great War of course immensely aggravated an already critical
situation. The Orient suddenly saw the European peoples, who, in racial
matters, had hitherto maintained something like solidarity, locked in an
internecine death-grapple of unparalleled ferocity; it saw those same
peoples put one another furiously to the ban as irreconcilable foes; it
saw white race-unity cleft by moral and political gulfs which white men
themselves continuously iterated would never be filled. The one
redeeming feature of the struggle, in Oriental eyes, was the liberal
programme which the Allied statesmen inscribed upon their banners. But
when the war was over and the Allies had won, it promptly leaked out
that at the very time when the Allied leaders were making their liberal
speeches they had been negotiating a series of secret treaties
partitioning the Near East between them in a spirit of the most cynical
imperialism; and in the peace conferences that closed the war it was
these secret treaties, not the liberal speeches, which determined the
Oriental settlement, resulting (on paper at least) in the total
subjugation of the Near and Middle East to European political control.
The wave of wrath which thereupon rolled over the East was not confined
to furious remonstrance like the protests of pre-war days. There was a
note of immediate resistance and rebellion not audible before. This
rebellious temper has translated itself into warlike action which has
already forced the European Powers to abate some of their extreme
pretensions and which will undoubtedly make them abate others in the
near future. The details of this post-war unrest will be discussed in
later chapters. Suffice it to say here that the Great War has shattered
European prestige in the East and has opened the eyes of Orientals to
the weaknesses of the West. To the Orient the war was a gigantic course
of education. For one thing, millions of Orientals and negroes were
taken from the remotest jungles of Asia and Africa to serve as soldiers
and labourers in the White Man's War. Though the bulk of these
auxiliaries were used in colonial operations, more than a million of
them were brought to Europe itself. Here they killed white men, raped
white women, tasted white luxuries, learned white weaknesses--and went
home to tell their people the whole story.[110] Asia and Africa to-day
know Europe as they never knew it before, and we may be sure that they
will make use of their knowledge. The most serious factor in the
situation is that the Orient realizes that the famous Versailles "Peace"
which purports to have pacified Europe is no peace, but rather an
unconstructive, unstatesmanlike futility that left old sores unhealed
and even dealt fresh wounds. Europe to-day lies debilitated and uncured,
while Asia and Africa see in this a standing incitement to rash dreams
and violent action.
Such is the situation to-day: an East, torn by the conflict between new
and old, facing a West riven with dissension and sick from its mad
follies. Probably never before have the relations between the two
worlds contained so many incalculable, even cataclysmic, possibilities.
The point to be here noted is that this strange new East which now faces
us is mainly the result of Western influences permeating it in
unprecedented fashion for the past hundred years. To the chief elements
in that permeation let us now turn.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] For the larger aspects, see my book _The Rising Tide of Colour
against White World-Supremacy_ (New York and London, 1920).
[73] On these points, see Arminius Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern
Lands_ (London, 1906); also his _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant
Quarante Ans_ (Paris, 1898); C. S. Cooper, _The Modernizing of the
Orient_ (New York, 1914); S. Khuda Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_
(London, 1912); A. J. Brown, "Economic Changes in Asia," _The Century_,
March, 1904.
[74] For the effect of the West intellectually and spiritually, see
Vambéry, _op. cit._; Sir Valentine Chirol, _Indian Unrest_ (London,
1910); J. N. Farquhar, _Modern Religious Movements in India_ (New York,
1915); Rev. J. Morrison, _New Ideas in India: A Study of Social,
Political, and Religious Developments_ (Edinburgh, 1906); the Earl of
Cromer, _Modern Egypt_, especially Vol. II., pp. 228-243 (London, 1908).
[75] For the Westernised élites, see L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage Orientale_
(Paris, 1910); Cromer, _op. cit._; A. Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui:
Étude Sociale_ (Paris, 1918); A. Le Chatelier, "Politique musulmane,"
_Revue du Monde musulman_, September, 1910.
[76] Chirol, _op. cit._, pp 321-322.
[77] Bertrand, _op. cit._, p 39. See also Bukhsh, _op. cit._; Farquhar,
_op. cit._; Morrison, _op. cit._; R. Mukerjee, _The Foundations of
Indian Economics_ (London, 1916); D. H. Dodwell, "Economic Transition in
India," _Economic Journal_, December, 1910.
[78] W. S. Lilly, _India and Its Problems_, p. 243 (London, 1902).
[79] Cromer, _op. cit._, Vol. II., p. 231.
[80] _Ibid._, p. 228.
[81] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _The Government of India_, pp. 171-172
(London, 1920). On the evils of Westernization, see further: Bukhsh,
Cromer, Dodwell, Mukerjee, already cited; Sir W. M. Ramsay, "The Turkish
Peasantry of Anatolia," _Quarterly Review_, January, 1918; H. M.
Hyndman, _The Awakening of Asia_ (New York, 1919); T. Rothstein,
_Egypt's Ruin_ (London, 1910); Captain P. Azan, _Recherche d'une
Solution de la Question indigène en Algérie_ (Paris, 1903).
[82] E. J. Dillon, "Persia," _Contemporary Review_, June, 1910.
[83] Ramsay Muir, "Europe and the Non-European World," _The New Europe_,
June 28, 1917.
[84] The Earl of Cromer, _Political and Literary Essays_, p. 5 (London,
1913).
[85] For a full discussion of these changes in Western ideas, see my
_Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy_, especially chaps.
vi. and vii.
[86] Sidney Low, "The Most Christian Powers," _Fortnightly Review_,
March, 1912.
[87] On this point see also A. Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern
Lands_ (London, 1906); W. S. Blunt, _The Future of Islam_ (London,
1882); also the two articles by Léon Cahun on intellectual and social
developments in the Islamic world during the nineteenth century in
Lavisse et Rambaud, _Histoire Générale_, Vol. XI., chap. xv.; Vol. XII.,
chap. xiv.
[88] See A. Vambéry, _Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, chap. vi.
(Leipzig, 1875).
[89] "X," "La Situation politique de la Perse," _Revue du Monde
musulman_, June, 1914. As already stated, the editor vouches for this
anonymous writer as a distinguished Mohammedan official--"un homme
d'étât musulman."
[90] Ahmed Emin, _The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by Its
Press_, p. 108 (Columbia University Ph.D. Thesis, New York, 1914).
[91] The Constantinople _Tanine_. Quoted from _The Literary Digest_,
October 24, 1914, p. 784. This attitude toward the Great War and the
European Powers was not confined to Mohammedan peoples; it was common to
non-white peoples everywhere. For a survey of this feeling throughout
the world, see my _Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy_,
pp. 13-16.
[92] Both the above instances are taken from C. S. Cooper, _The
Modernizing of the Orient_, pp. 339-340 (New York, 1914).
[93] An "Unbeliever"--in other words, a Christian.
[94] Quoted by A. Woeikof, _Le Turkestan russe_ (Paris, 1914).
[95] B. L. Putnam Weale, _The Conflict of Colour_, p. 193 (London,
1910).
[96] Quoted from H. H. Powers, _The Great Peace_, p. 82 (New York,
1918).
[97] L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage oriental_, pp. 441-442 (Paris, 1910).
[98] On this point see the very interesting essay by Meredith Townsend
entitled "The Charm of Asia for Asiatics," in his book _Asia and
Europe_, pp. 120-128.
[99] Townsend, _op. cit._, p. 104.
[100] H. Spender, "England, Egypt, and Turkey," _Contemporary Review_,
October, 1906.
[101] Bertrand, pp. 209, 210.
[102] For discussion of this Hindu attitude see W. Archer, _India and
the Future_ (London, 1918); Young and Ferrers, _India in Conflict_
(London, 1920). Also see Hindu writings of this nature: H. Maitra,
_Hinduism: The World-Ideal_ (London, 1916); A. Coomaraswamy, _The Dance
of Siva_ (New York, 1918); M. N. Chatterjee, "The World and the Next
War," _Journal of Race Development_, April, 1916.
[103] Archer, pp. 11, 12.
[104] Cromer, _Political and Literary Essays_, p. 25.
[105] Townsend, _Asia and Europe_, p. 128.
[106] I have dealt with it at length in my _Rising Tide of Colour
against White World-Supremacy_.
[107] Townsend, p. 97.
[108] Rev. C. F. Andrews, _The Renaissance in India_, p. 4 (London,
1911). For other similar accounts of the effect of the Russo-Japanese
War upon Oriental peoples generally, see A. M. Low, "Egyptian Unrest,"
_The Forum_, October, 1906; F. Farjanel, "Le Japon et l'Islam," _Revue
du Monde musulman_, November, 1906; "Oriental Ideals as Affected by the
Russo-Japanese War," _American Review of Reviews_, February, 1905; A.
Vambéry, "Japan and the Mahometan World," _Nineteenth Century and
After_, April, 1905; Yahya Siddyk, _op. cit._, p. 42.
[109] A. Vambéry, "An Approach between Moslems and Buddhists,"
_Nineteenth Century and After_, April, 1912.
[110] For the effect of the war on Asia and Africa, see A. Demangeon,
_Le Déclin de l'Europe_ (Paris, 1920); H. M. Hyndman, _The Awakening of
Asia_ (New York, 1919); E. D. Morel, _The Black Man's Burden_ (New York,
1920); F. B. Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_ (New York, 1919); also,
my _Rising Tide of Color against White World-Supremacy_.
CHAPTER IV
POLITICAL CHANGE
The Orient's chief handicap has been its vicious political tradition.
From earliest times the typical form of government in the East has been
despotism--the arbitrary rule of an absolute monarch, whose subjects are
slaves, holding their goods, their honours, their very lives, at his
will and pleasure. The sole consistent check upon Oriental despotism has
been religion. Some critics may add "custom"; but it amounts to the same
thing, for in the East custom always acquires a religious sanction. The
mantle of religion of course covers its ministers, the priests forming a
privileged caste. But, with these exceptions, Oriental despotism has
usually known no bounds; and the despot, so long as he respected
religion and the priesthood, has been able to act pretty much as he
chose. In the very dawn of history we see Pharaoh exhausting all Egypt
to gratify his whim for a colossal pyramid tomb, and throughout history
Oriental life has been cursed by this fatal political simplicity.
Now manifold human experience has conclusively proved that despotism is
a bad form of government in the long run. Of course there is the
legendary "benevolent despot"--the "father of his people," surrounded by
wise counsellors and abolishing evils by a nod or a stroke of the pen.
That is all very well in a fairy-tale. But in real life the "benevolent
despot" rarely happens and still more rarely succeeds himself. The
"father of his people" usually has a pompous son and a vicious grandson,
who bring the people to ruin. The melancholy trinity--David, Solomon,
Rehoboam--has reappeared with depressing regularity throughout history.
Furthermore, even the benevolent despot has his limitations. The trouble
with all despots, good or bad, is that their rule is entirely
_personal_. Everything, in the last analysis, depends on the despot's
personal will. Nothing is fixed or certain. The benevolent despot
himself may discard his benevolence overnight, and the fate of an empire
may be jeopardized by the monarch's infatuation for a woman or by an
upset in his digestion.
We Occidentals have, in fact, never known "despotism," in its Simon
Pure, Oriental sense; not even under the Roman Empire. Indeed, we can
hardly conceive what it means. When we speak of a benevolent despot we
usually think of the "enlightened autocrats" of eighteenth-century
Europe, such as Frederick the Great. But these monarchs were not
"despots" as Orientals understand it. Take Frederick, for example. He
was regarded as absolute. But his subjects were not slaves. Those proud
Prussian officers, starched bureaucrats, stiff-necked burghers, and
stubborn peasants each had his sense of personal dignity and legal
status. The unquestioning obedience which they gave Frederick was given
not merely because he was their king, but also because they knew that he
was the hardest-working man in Prussia and tireless in his devotion to
the state. If Frederick had suddenly changed into a lazy, depraved,
capricious tyrant, his "obedient" Prussians would have soon showed him
that there were limits to his power.
In the Orient it is quite otherwise. In the East "there lies upon the
eyes and foreheads of all men a law which is not found in the European
decalogue; and this law runs: 'Thou shalt honour and worship the man
whom God shall set above thee for thy King: if he cherish thee, thou
shalt love him; and if he plunder and oppress thee thou shalt still love
him, for thou art his slave and his chattel.'"[111] The Eastern monarch
may immure himself in his harem, casting the burdens of state upon the
shoulders of a grand vizier. This vizier has thenceforth limitless
power; the life of every subject is in his hands. Yet, any evening, at
the pout of a dancing-girl, the monarch may send from his harem to the
vizier's palace a negro "mute," armed with the bowstring. And when that
black mute arrives, the vizier, doffing his robe of office, and with
neither question nor remonstrance, will bare his neck to be strangled.
That is real despotism--the despotism that the East has known.
Such is the political tradition of the Orient. And it is surely obvious
that under such a tradition neither ordered government nor consistent
progress is possible. Eastern history is, in fact, largely a record of
sudden flowerings and equally sudden declines. A strong, able man cuts
his way to power in a period of confusion and decay. He must be strong
and able, or he would not win over other men of similar nature
struggling for the coveted prize. His energy and ability soon work
wonders. He knows the rough-and-ready way of getting things done. His
vigour and resolution supply the driving-power required to compel his
subordinates to act with reasonable efficiency, especially since
incompetence or dishonesty are punished with the terrible severity of
the Persian king who flayed an unjust satrap alive and made the skin
into the seat of the official chair on which the new satrap sat to
administer justice.
While the master lives, things may go well. But the master dies, and is
succeeded by his son. This son, even assuming that he has inherited much
of his father's ability, has had the worst possible upbringing. Raised
in the harem, surrounded by obsequious slaves and designing women,
neither his pride nor his passions have been effectively restrained, and
he grows up a pompous tyrant and probably precociously depraved. Such a
man will not be apt to look after things as his father did. And as soon
as the master's eye shifts, things begin to go to pieces. How can it be
otherwise? His father built up no governmental machine, functioning
almost automatically, as in the West. His officers worked from fear or
personal loyalty; not out of a patriotic sense of duty or impersonal
_esprit de corps_. Under the grandson, matters get even worse, power
slips from his incompetent hands and is parcelled out among many local
despots, of whom the strongest cuts his way to power, assuming that the
decadent state is not overrun by some foreign conqueror. In either
eventuality, the old cycle--David, Solomon, Rehoboam--is finished, and a
new cycle begins--with the same destined end.
That, in a nutshell, is the political history of the East. It has,
however, been modified or temporarily interrupted by the impact of more
liberal political influences, exerted sometimes from special Eastern
regions and sometimes from the West. Not all the Orient has been given
over to unrelieved despotism. Here and there have been peoples (mostly
mountain or pastoral peoples) who abhorred despotism. Such a people have
always been the Arabs. We have already seen how the Arabs, fired by
Islam, established a mighty caliphate which, in its early days, was a
theocratic democracy. Of course we have also seen how the older
tradition of despotism reasserted itself over most of the Moslem world,
how the democratic caliphate turned into a despotic sultanate, and how
the liberty-loving Arabs retired sullenly to their deserts. Political
liberalism, like religious liberalism, was crushed and almost forgotten.
Almost--not quite; for memories of the Meccan caliphate, like memories
of Motazelism, remained in the back of men's minds, ready to come forth
again with better days. After all, free Arabia still stood, with every
Arab tribesman armed to the teeth to see that it kept free. And then,
there was Islam. No court theologian could entirely explain away the
fact that Mohammed had said things like "All Believers are brothers" and
"All Moslems are free." No court chronicler could entirely expunge from
Moslem annals the story of Islam's early days, known as the
Wakti-Seadet, or "Age of Blessedness." Even in the darkest times
Moslems of liberal tendencies must have been greatly interested to read
that the first caliph, Abu Bekr, after his election by the people, said:
"Oh nation! you have chosen me, the most unworthy among you, for your
caliph. Support me as long as my actions are just. If otherwise,
admonish me, rouse me to a sense of my duty. Truth alone is desirable,
and lies are despicable.... As I am the guardian of the weak, obey me
only so long as I obey the Sheriat [Divine Law]. But if you see that I
deviate but in the minutest details from this law, you need obey me no
more."[112]
In fine, no subsequent distortions could entirely obliterate the fact
that primitive Islam was the supreme expression of a freedom-loving folk
whose religion must necessarily contain many liberal tendencies. Even
the sheriat, or canon law, is, as Professor Lybyer states,
"fundamentally democratic and opposed in essence to absolutism."[113]
Vambéry well summarizes this matter when he writes: "It is not Islam and
its doctrines which have devastated the western portion of Asia and
brought about the present sad state of things; but it is the tyranny of
the Moslem princes, who have wilfully perverted the doctrines of the
Prophet, and sought and found maxims in the Koran as a basis for their
despotic rule. They have not allowed the faintest suspicion of doubt in
matters of religion, and, efficaciously distorting and crushing all
liberal principles, they have prevented the dawn of a Moslem
Renaissance."[114]
In the opening chapter we saw how Oriental despotism reached its evil
maximum in the eighteenth century, and how the Mohammedan Revival was
not merely a puritan reformation of religion, but was also in part a
political protest against the vicious and contemptible tyrants who
misruled the Moslem world. This internal movement of political
liberalism was soon cross-cut by another political current coming in
from the West. Comparing the miserable decrepitude of the Moslem East
with Europe's prosperity and vigour, thinking Moslems were beginning to
recognize their shortcomings, and they could not avoid the conclusion
that their woes were in large part due to their wretched governments.
Indeed, a few even of the Moslem princes came to realize that there must
be some adoption of Western political methods if their countries were to
be saved from destruction. The most notable examples of this new type of
Oriental sovereign were Sultan Mahmud II of Turkey and Mehemet Ali of
Egypt, both of whom came to power about the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Of course none of these reforming princes had the slightest idea of
granting their subjects constitutional liberties or of transforming
themselves into limited monarchs. They intended to remain absolute, but
absolute more in the sense of the "enlightened autocrat" of Europe and
less in the sense of the purely Oriental despot. What they wanted were
true organs of government--army, civil service, judiciary, etc.--which
would function efficiently and semi-automatically as governmental
machinery, and not as mere amorphous masses of individuals who had to be
continuously prodded and punished by the sovereign in order to get
anything done.
Mahmud II, Mehemet Ali, and their princely colleagues persisted in their
new policies, but the outcome of these "reforms from above" was, on the
whole, disappointing. The monarchs might build barracks and bureaux on
European models and fill them with soldiers and bureaucrats in European
clothes, but they did not get European results. Most of these
"Western-type" officials knew almost nothing about the West, and were
therefore incapable of doing things in Western fashion. In fact, they
had small heart for the business. Devoid of any sort of enthusiasm for
ideas and institutions which they did not comprehend, they applied
themselves to the work of reform with secret ill-will and repugnance,
moved only by blind obedience to their sovereign's command. As time
passed, the military branches did gain some modern efficiency, but the
civil services made little progress, adopting many Western bureaucratic
vices but few or none of the virtues.
Meanwhile reformers of quite a different sort began to appear: men
demanding Western innovations like constitutions, parliaments, and other
phenomena of modern political life. Their numbers were constantly
recruited from the widening circles of men acquainted with Western ideas
through the books, pamphlets, and newspapers which were being
increasingly published, and through the education given by schools on
the Western model which were springing up. The third quarter of the
nineteenth century saw the formation of genuine political parties in
Turkey, and in 1876 the liberal groups actually wrung from a weak sultan
the grant of a parliament.
These early successes of Moslem political liberalism were, however,
followed by a period of reaction. The Moslem princes had become
increasingly alarmed at the growth of liberal agitation among their
subjects and were determined to maintain their despotic authority. The
new Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, promptly suppressed his parliament,
savagely persecuted the liberals, and restored the most uncompromising
despotism. In Persia the Shah repressed a nascent liberal movement with
equal severity, while in Egypt the spendthrift rule of Khedive Ismail
ended all native political life by provoking European intervention and
the imposition of British rule. Down to the Young-Turk revolution of
1908 there were few overt signs of liberal agitation in those Moslem
countries which still retained their independence. Nevertheless, the
agitation was there, working underground. Hundreds of youthful patriots
fled abroad, both to obtain an education and to conduct their liberal
propaganda, and from havens of refuge like Switzerland these
"Young-Turks," "Young-Persians," and others issued manifestoes and
published revolutionary literature which was smuggled into their
homelands and eagerly read by their oppressed brethren.[115]
As the years passed, the cry for liberty grew steadily in strength. A
young Turkish poet wrote at this time: "All that we admire in European
culture as the fruit of science and art is simply the outcome of
liberty. Everything derives its light from the bright star of liberty.
Without liberty a nation has no power, no prosperity; without liberty
there is no happiness; and without happiness, existence, true life,
eternal life, is impossible. Everlasting praise and glory to the shining
light of freedom!"[116] By the close of the nineteenth century
keen-sighted European observers noted the working of the liberal ferment
under the surface calm of absolutist repression. Thus, Arminius Vambéry,
revisiting Constantinople in 1896, was astounded by the liberal
evolution that had taken place since his first sojourn in Turkey forty
years before. Although Constantinople was subjected to the severest
phase of Hamidian despotism, Vambéry wrote, "The old attachment of
Turkey for the absolute régime is done for. We hear much in Europe of
the 'Young-Turk' Party; we hear even of a constitutional movement,
political emigrés, revolutionary pamphlets. But what we do not realize
is the ferment which exists in the different social classes, and which
gives us the conviction that the Turk is in progress and is no longer
clay in the hands of his despotic potter. In Turkey, therefore, it is
not a question of a Young-Turk Party, because every civilized Ottoman
belongs to this party."[117]
In this connection we should note the stirrings of unrest that were now
rapidly developing in the Eastern lands subject to European political
control. By the close of the nineteenth century only four considerable
Moslem states--Turkey, Persia, Morocco, and Afghanistan--retained
anything like independence from European domination. Since Afghanistan
and Morocco were so backward that they could hardly be reckoned as
civilized countries, it was only in Turkey and Persia that genuine
liberal movements against native despotism could arise. But in
European-ruled countries like India, Egypt, and Algeria, the cultural
level of the inhabitants was high enough to engender liberal political
aspirations as well as that mere dislike of foreign rule which may be
felt by savages as well as by civilized peoples.
These liberal aspirations were of course stimulated by the movements
against native despotism in Turkey and Persia. Nevertheless, the two
sets of phenomena must be sharply distinguished from each other. The
Turkish and Persian agitations were essentially movements of liberal
reform. The Indian, Egyptian, Algerian, and kindred agitations were
essentially movements for independence, with no settled programme as to
how that independence should be used after it had been attained. These
latter movements are, in fact, "nationalist" rather than liberal in
character, and it is in the chapters devoted to nationalism that they
will be discussed. The point to be noted here is that they are really
coalitions, against the foreign ruler, of men holding very diverse
political ideas, embracing as these "nationalist" coalitions do not
merely genuine liberals but also self-seeking demagogues and even stark
reactionaries who would like to fasten upon their liberated countries
the yoke of the blackest despotism. Of course all the nationalist groups
use the familiar slogans "freedom" and "liberty"; nevertheless, what
many of them mean is merely freedom and liberty _from foreign
tutelage_--in other words, independence. We must always remember that
patriotism has no essential connection with liberalism. The Spanish
peasants, who shouted "liberty" as they rose against Napoleon's armies,
greeted their contemptible tyrant-king with delirious enthusiasm and
welcomed his glorification of absolutism with cries of "Long live
chains!"
The period of despotic reaction which had afflicted Turkey and Persia
since the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century came
dramatically to an end in the year 1908. Both countries exploded into
revolution, the Turks deposing the tyrant Abdul Hamid, the Persians
rising against their infamous ruler Muhammad Ali Shah, "perhaps the most
perverted, cowardly, and vice-sodden monster that had disgraced the
throne of Persia in many generations."[118] These revolutions released
the pent-up liberal forces which had been slowly gathering strength
under the repression of the previous generation, and the upshot was that
Turkey and Persia alike blossomed out with constitutions, parliaments,
and all the other political machinery of the West.
How the new régimes would have worked in normal times it is profitless
to speculate, because, as a matter of fact, the times were abnormal to
the highest degree. Unfortunately for the Turks and Persians, they had
made their revolutions just when the world was entering that profound
_malaise_ which culminated in the Great War. Neither Turkey nor Persia
were allowed time to attempt the difficult process of political
transformation. Lynx-eyed Western chancelleries noted every blunder and,
in the inevitable weakness of transition, pounced upon them to their
undoing. The Great War merely completed a process of Western aggression
and intervention which had begun some years before.
This virtual absence of specific fact-data renders largely academic any
discussion of the much-debated question whether or not the peoples of
the Near and Middle East are capable of "self-government"; that is, of
establishing and maintaining ordered, constitutional political life.
Opinions on this point are at absolute variance. Personally, I have not
been able to make up my mind on the matter, so I shall content myself
with stating the various arguments without attempting to draw any
general conclusion. Before stating these contrasted view-points,
however, I would draw attention to the distinction which should be made
between the Mohammedan peoples and the non-Mohammedan Hindus of India.
Moslems everywhere possess the democratic political example of Arabia as
well as a religion which, as regards its own followers at least,
contains many liberal tendencies. The Hindus have nothing like this.
Their political tradition has been practically that of unrelieved
Oriental despotism, the only exceptions being a few primitive
self-governing communities in very early times, which never exerted any
widespread influence and quickly faded away. As for Brahminism, the
Hindu religion, it is perhaps the most illiberal cult which ever
afflicted mankind, dividing society as it does into an infinity of rigid
castes between which no real intercourse is possible; each caste
regarding all those of lesser rank as unclean, polluting creatures,
scarcely to be distinguished from animals. It is obvious that with such
handicaps the establishment of true self-government will be apt to be
more difficult for Hindus than for Mohammedans, and the reader should
keep this point in mind in the discussion which follows.
Considering first the attitude of those who do not believe the peoples
of the Near and Middle East capable of real self-government in the
Western sense either now or in the immediate future, we find this
thesis both ably and emphatically stated by Lord Cromer. Lord Cromer
believed that the ancient tradition of despotism was far too strong to
be overcome, at least in our time. "From the dawn of history," he
asserts, "Eastern politics have been stricken with a fatal simplicity.
Do not let us for one moment imagine that the fatally simple idea of
despotic rule will readily give way to the far more complex conception
of ordered liberty. The transformation, if it ever takes place at all,
will probably be the work, not of generations, but of centuries.... Our
primary duty, therefore, is, not to introduce a system which, under the
specious cloak of free institutions, will enable a small minority of
natives to misgovern their countrymen, but to establish one which will
enable the mass of the population to be governed according to the code
of Christian morality. A freely elected Egyptian parliament, supposing
such a thing to be possible, would not improbably legislate for the
protection of the slave-owner, if not the slave-dealer, and no assurance
can be felt that the electors of Rajputana, if they had their own way,
would not re-establish suttee. Good government has the merit of
presenting a more or less attainable ideal. Before Orientals can attain
anything approaching to the British ideal of self-government, they will
have to undergo very numerous transmigrations of political thought." And
Lord Cromer concludes pessimistically: "It will probably never be
possible to make a Western silk purse out of an Eastern sow's ear."[119]
In similar vein, the veteran English publicist Doctor Dillon, writing
after the Turkish and Persian revolutions, had little hope in their
success, and ridiculed the current "faith in the sacramental virtue of
constitutional government." For, he continues: "No parchment yet
manufactured, and no constitution drafted by the sons of men, can do
away with the foundations of national character. Flashy phrases and
elegant declamations may persuade people that they have been transmuted;
but they alter no facts, and in Persia's case the facts point to utter
incapacity for self-government." Referring to the Persian revolution,
Doctor Dillon continues: "At bottom, only names of persons and things
have been altered; men may come and men may go, but anarchy goes on for
ever.... Financial support of the new government is impossible. For
foreign capitalists will not give money to be squandered by filibusters
and irresponsible agitators who, like bubbles in boiling water, appear
on the surface and disappear at once."[120]
A high French colonial official thus characterizes the Algerians and
other Moslem populations of French North Africa: "Our natives need to be
governed. They are big children, incapable of going alone. We should
guide them firmly, stand no nonsense from them, and crush intriguers and
agents of sedition. At the same time, we should protect them, direct
them paternally, and especially obtain influence over them by the
constant example of our moral superiority. Above all: no vain
humanitarian illusions, both in the interest of France and of the
natives themselves."[121]
Many observers, particularly colonial officials, have been disappointed
with the way Orientals have used experimental first steps in
self-government like Advisory Councils granted by the European rulers;
have used them, that is, to play politics and grasp for more power,
instead of devoting themselves to the duties assigned. As Lord Kitchener
said in his 1913 report on the state of Egypt: "Representative bodies
can only be safely developed when it is shown that they are capable of
performing adequately their present functions, and that there is good
hope that they could undertake still more important and arduous
responsibilities. If representative government, in its simplest form,
is found to be unworkable, there is little prospect of its becoming more
useful when its scope is extended. No government would be insane enough
to consider that, because an Advisory Council had proved itself unable
to carry out its functions in a reasonable and satisfactory manner, it
should therefore be given a larger measure of power and control."[122]
These nationalist agitations arise primarily among the native upper
classes and Western-educated élites, however successful they may be in
inflaming the ignorant masses, who are often quite contented with the
material benefits of enlightened European rule. This point is well
brought out by a leading American missionary in India, with a lifetime
of experience in that country, who wrote some years ago: "The common
people of India are, now, on the whole, more contented with their
government than they ever were before. It is the classes, rather, who
reveal the real spirit of discontent.... If the common people were let
alone by the agitators, there would not be a more loyal people on earth
than the people of India. But the educated classes are certainly
possessed of a new ambition, politically, and will no longer remain
satisfied with inferior places of responsibility and lower posts of
emolument.... These people have little or no sympathy with the kind of
government which is gradually being extended to them. Ultimately they do
not ask for representative institutions, which will give them a share in
the government of their own land. What they really seek is absolute
control. The Brahmin (only five per cent. of the community) believes that
he has been divinely appointed to rule the country and would withhold
the franchise from all others. The Sudra--the Bourgeois of India--would
no more think of giving the ballot to the fifty million Pariahs of the
land than he would give it to his dog. It is the British power that has
introduced, and now maintains, the equality of rights and privileges
for all the people of the land."[123]
The apprehension that India, if liberated from British control, might be
exploited by a tyrannical Brahmin oligarchy is shared not only by
Western observers but also by multitudes of low-caste Hindus, known
collectively as the "Depressed Classes". These people oppose the Indian
nationalist agitation for fear of losing their present protection under
the British "Raj." They believe that India still needs generations of
education and social reform before it is fit for "home rule," much less
independence, and they have organized into a powerful association the
"Namasudra," which is loyalist and anti-nationalist in character.
The Namasudra view-point is well expressed by its leader, Doctor Nair.
"Democracy as a catchword," he says, "has already reached India and is
widely used. But the spirit of democracy still pauses east of Suez, and
will find it hard to secure a footing in a country where caste is
strongly intrenched.... I do not want to lay the charge of oppressing
the lower castes at the door of any particular caste. All the higher
castes take a hand in the game. The Brahmin oppresses all the
non-Brahmin castes. The high-caste non-Brahmin oppresses all the castes
below him.... We want a real democracy and not an oligarchy, however
camouflaged by many high-sounding words. Moreover, if an oligarchy is
established now, it will be a perpetual oligarchy. We further say that
we should prefer a delayed democracy to an immediate oligarchy, having
more trust in a sympathetic British bureaucracy than in an unsympathetic
oligarchy of the so-called high castes who have been oppressing us in
the past and will do so again but for the British Government. Our
attitude is based, not on 'faith' alone, but on the instinct of
self-preservation."[124]
Many Mohammedans as well as Hindus feel that India is not ripe for
self-government, and that the relaxing of British authority now, or in
the immediate future, would be a grave disaster for India itself. The
Moslem loyalists reprobate the nationalist agitation for the reasons
expressed by one of their representative men, S. Khuda Bukhsh, who
remarks: "Rightly or wrongly, I have always kept aloof from modern
Indian politics, and I have always held that we should devote more
attention to social problems and intellectual advancement and less to
politics, which, in our present condition, is an unmixed evil. I am
firmly persuaded that we would consult our interest better by leaving
politics severely alone.... It is not a handful of men armed with the
learning and culture of the West, but it is the masses that must feel,
understand, and take an intelligent interest in their own affairs. The
infinitesimal educated minority do not constitute the population of
India. It is the masses, therefore, that must be trained, educated,
brought to the level of unassailable uprightness and devotion to their
country. This goal is yet far beyond measurable reach, but until we
attain it our hopes will be a chimera, and our efforts futile and
illusory. Even the educated minority have scarcely cast off the
swaddling-clothes of political infancy, or have risen above the
illusions of power and the ambitions of fortune. We have yet to learn
austerity of principle and rectitude of conduct. Nor can we hope to
raise the standard of private and public morality so long as we continue
to subordinate the interest of our community and country to our
own."[125]
Such pronouncements as these from considerable portions of the native
population give pause even to those liberal English students of Indian
affairs who are convinced of the theoretical desirability of Indian home
rule. As one of these, Edwyn Bevan, says: "When Indian Nationalists ask
for freedom, they mean autonomy; they want to get rid of the foreigner.
Our answer as given in the reforms is:[126] 'Yes, autonomy you shall
have, but on one condition--that you have democracy as well. We will
give up the control as soon as there is an Indian people which can
control its native rulers; we will not give up the control to an Indian
oligarchy.' This is the root of the disagreement between those who say
that India might have self-government immediately and those who say that
India can only become capable of self-government with time. For the
former, by 'self-government', mean autonomy, and it is perfectly true
that India might be made autonomous immediately. If the foreign control
were withdrawn to-day, some sort of indigenous government or group of
governments would, no doubt, after a period of confusion, come into
being in India. But it would not be democratic government; it would be
the despotic rule of the stronger or more cunning."[127]
The citations just quoted portray the standpoint of those critics, both
Western and Oriental, who maintain that the peoples of the Near and
Middle East are incapable of self-government in our sense, at least
to-day or in the immediate future. Let us now examine the views of those
who hold a more optimistic attitude. Some observers stress strongly
Islam's liberal tendencies as a foundation on which to erect political
structures in the modern sense. Vambéry says, "Islam is still the most
democratic religion in the world, a religion favouring both liberty and
equality. If there ever was a constitutional government, it was that of
the first Caliphs."[128] A close English student of the Near East
declares: "Tribal Arabia has the only true form of democratic government,
and the Arab tribesman goes armed to make sure that it continues
democratic--as many a would-be despot knows to his cost."[129]
Regarding the Young-Turk revolution of 1908, Professor Lybyer remarks:
"Turkey was not so unprepared for parliamentary institutions as might at
first sight appear. There lay hidden some precedent, much preparation,
and a strong desire, for parliamentary government. Both the religious
and the secular institutions of Turkey involve precedents for a
parliament. Mohammed himself conferred with the wisest of his
companions. The Ulema[130] have taken counsel together up to the present
time. The Sacred Law (Sheriat) is fundamentally democratic and opposed
in essence to absolutism. The habit of regarding it as fundamental law
enables even the most ignorant of Mohammedans to grasp the idea of a
Constitution." He points out that the early sultans had their "Divan,"
or assemblage of high officials, meeting regularly to give the sultan
information and advice, while more recently there have been a Council of
State and a Council of Ministers. Also, there were the parliaments of
1877 and 1878. Abortive though these were and followed by Hamidian
absolutism, they were legal precedents, never forgotten. From all this
Professor Lybyer concludes: "The Turkish Parliament may therefore be
regarded, not as a complete innovation, but as an enlargement and
improvement of familiar institutions."[131]
Regarding Persia, the American W. Morgan Shuster, whom the Persian
Revolutionary Government called in to organize the country's finances,
and who was ousted in less than a year by Russo-British pressure,
expresses an optimistic regard for the political capacities of the
Persian people.
"I believe," he says, "that there has never been in the history of the
world an instance where a people changed suddenly from an absolute
monarchy to a constitutional or representative form of government and at
once succeeded in displaying a high standard of political wisdom and
knowledge of legislative procedure. Such a thing is inconceivable and
not to be expected by any reasonable person. The members of the first
Medjlis[132] were compelled to fight for their very existence from the
day that the Parliament was constituted.... They had no time for serious
legislative work, and but little hope that any measures which they might
enact would be put into effect.
"The second and last Medjlis, practically all of whose members I knew
personally, was doubtless incompetent if it were to be judged by the
standards of the British Parliament or the American Congress. It would
be strange indeed if an absolutely new and untried government in a land
filled with the decay of ages should, from the outset, be able to
conduct its business as well as governments with generations and even
centuries of experience behind them. We should make allowances for lack
of technical knowledge; for the important question, of course, is that
the Medjlis in the main represented the new and just ideals and
aspirations of the Persian people. Its members were men of more than
average education; some displayed remarkable talent, character, and
courage.... They responded enthusiastically to any patriotic suggestion
which was put before them. They themselves lacked any great knowledge of
governmental finances, but they realized the situation and were both
willing and anxious to put their full confidence in any foreign advisers
who showed themselves capable of resisting political intrigues and
bribery and working for the welfare of the Persian people.
"No Parliament can rightly be termed incompetent when it has the support
of an entire people, when it recognizes its own limitations, and when
its members are willing to undergo great sacrifices for their nation's
dignity and sovereign rights....
"As to the Persian people themselves, it is difficult to generalize. The
great mass of the population is composed of peasants and tribesmen, all
densely ignorant. On the other hand, many thousands have been educated
abroad, or have travelled after completing their education at home.
They, or at least certain elements among them which had had the support
of the masses, proved their capacity to assimilate Western civilization
and ideals. They changed despotism into democracy in the face of untold
obstacles. Opportunities were equalized to such a degree that any man of
ability could occupy the highest official posts. As a race they showed
during the past five years an unparalleled eagerness for education.
Hundreds of schools were established during the Constitutional régime. A
remarkable free press sprang up overnight, and fearless writers came
forward to denounce injustice and tyranny whether from within their
country or without. The Persians were anxious to adopt wholesale the
political, ethical, and business codes of the most modern and
progressive nations. They burned with that same spirit of Asiatic unrest
which pervades India, which produced the 'Young-Turk' movement, and
which has more recently manifested itself in the establishment of the
Chinese Republic."[133]
Mr. Shuster concludes: "Kipling has intimated that you cannot hustle the
East. This includes a warning and a reflection. Western men and Western
ideals _can_ hustle the East, provided the Orientals realize that they
are being carried along lines reasonably beneficial to themselves. As a
matter of fact, the moral appeal and the appeal of race-pride and
patriotism, are as strong in the East as in the West, though it does not
lie so near the surface, and naturally the Oriental displays no great
desire to be hustled when it is along lines beneficial only to the
Westerner."[134]
Indeed, many Western liberals believe that European rule, however
benevolent and efficient, will never prepare the Eastern peoples for
true self-government; and that the only way they will learn is by trying
it out themselves. This view-point is admirably stated by the well-known
British publicist Lionel Curtis. Speaking of India, Mr. Curtis says that
education and kindred benefits conferred by British rule will not, of
themselves, "avail to prepare Indians for the task of responsible
government. On the contrary, education will prove a danger and positive
mischief, unless accompanied by a definite instalment of political
responsibility. It is in the workshops of actual experience alone that
electorates will acquire the art of self-government, however highly
educated they may be.
"There must, I urge, be a devolution of definite powers on electorates.
The officers of Government[135] must give every possible help and advice
to the new authorities, for which those authorities may ask. They must
act as their foster-mothers, not as stepmothers. But if the new
authorities are to learn the art of responsible government, they must be
free from control from above. Not otherwise will they learn to feel
themselves responsible to the electorate below. Nor will the electorates
themselves learn that the remedy for their sufferings rests in their own
hands. Suffering there will be, and it is only by suffering,
self-inflicted and perhaps long endured, that a people will learn the
faculty of self-help, and genuine electorates be brought into being....
"I am proud to think that England has conferred immeasurable good on
India by creating order and showing Indians what orderly government
means. But, this having been done, I do not believe the system can now
be continued as it is, without positive damage to the character of the
people. The burden of trusteeship must be transferred, piece by piece,
from the shoulders of Englishmen to those of Indians in some sort able
to bear it. Their strength and numbers must be developed. But that can
be done by the exercise of actual responsibility steadily increased as
they can bear it. It cannot be done by any system of school-teaching,
though such teaching is an essential concomitant of the process.
"The goal now set by the recent announcement of the Secretary of
State[136] will only be reached through trouble. Yet troublous as the
times before us may be, we have at last reached that stage of our work
in India which is truly consonant with our own traditions. The task is
one worthy of this epoch in our history, if only because it calls for
the effacement of ourselves."[137]
Mr. Curtis's concluding words foreshadow a process which is to-day
actually going on, not only in India but in other parts of the East as
well. The Great War has so strengthened Eastern nationalist aspirations
and has so weakened European power and prestige that a widespread
relaxing of Europe's hold over the Orient is taking place. This process
may make for good or for ill, but it is apparently inevitable; and a
generation (perhaps a decade) hence may see most of the Near and Middle
East autonomous or even independent. Whether the liberated peoples will
misuse their opportunities and fall into despotism or anarchy, or
whether they succeed in establishing orderly, progressive,
constitutional governments, remains to be seen. We have examined the
factors, pro and con. Let us leave the problem in the only way in which
to-day it can scientifically be left--on a note of interrogation.
FOOTNOTES:
[111] T. Morison, _Imperial Rule in India_, p. 43 (London, 1899).
[112] Quoted from Arminius Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_,
pp. 305-306 (London, 1906).
[113] A. H. Lybyer, "The Turkish Parliament," _Proceedings of the
American Political Science Association_, Vol. VII., p. 67 (1910).
[114] Vambéry, _op. cit._, p. 307.
[115] A good account of these liberal movements during the nineteenth
century is found in Vambéry, "Freiheitliche Bestrebungen im moslimischen
Asien," _Deutsche Rundschau_, October, 1893; a shorter summary
of Vambéry's views is found in his _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_,
especially chap. v. Also, see articles by Léon Cahun, previously noted,
in Lavisse et Rambaud, _Histoire Générale_, Vols. XI. and XII.
[116] Vambéry, _supra_, p. 332.
[117] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p. 22
(Paris, 1898).
[118] W. Morgan Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia_, p. xxi (New York,
1912).
[119] Cromer, _Political and Literary Essays_, pp. 25-28.
[120] E. J. Dillon, "Persia not Ripe for Self-Government," _Contemporary
Review_, April, 1910.
[121] E. Mercier, _La Question indigène_, p. 220 (Paris, 1901).
[122] "Egypt," No. 1 (1914), p. 6.
[123] Rev. J. P. Jones, "The Present Situation in India," _Journal of
Race Development_, July, 1910.
[124] Dr. T. Madavan Nair, "Caste and Democracy," _Edinburgh Review_,
October, 1918.
[125] Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_, pp. 213-214 (London, 1912).
[126] _I. e._, the increase of self-government granted India by Britain
as a result of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report.
[127] E. Bevan, "The Reforms in India," _The New Europe_, January 29,
1920.
[128] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p.
58.
[129] G. W. Bury, _Pan-Islam_, pp. 202-203 (London, 1919).
[130] The assembly of religious notables.
[131] A. H. Lybyer, "The Turkish Parliament," _Proceedings of the
American Political Science Association_, Vol. VII., pp. 66-67 (1910).
[132] The name of the Persian Parliament.
[133] Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia_, pp. 240-246.
[134] _Ibid._, p. 333.
[135] _I. e._, the British Government of India.
[136] _I. e._, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, previously noted.
[137] Lionel Curtis, _Letters to the People of India on Responsible
Government_, pp. 159-160 (London, 1918).
CHAPTER V
NATIONALISM
The spirit of nationality is one of the great dynamics of modern times.
In Europe, where it first attained self-conscious maturity, it radically
altered the face of things during the nineteenth century, so that that
century is often called the Age of Nationalities. But nationalism is not
merely a European phenomenon. It has spread to the remotest corners of
the earth, and is apparently still destined to effect momentous
transformations.
Given a phenomenon of so vital a character, the question at once arises:
What is nationalism? Curiously enough, this question has been endlessly
debated. Many theories have been advanced, seeking variously to identify
nationalism with language, culture, race, politics, geography,
economics, or religion. Now these, and even other, matters may be
factors predisposing or contributing to the formation of national
consciousness. But, in the last analysis, nationalism is something over
and above all its constituent elements, which it works into a new and
higher synthesis. There is really nothing recondite or mysterious about
nationalism, despite all the arguments that have raged concerning its
exact meaning. As a matter of fact, nationalism is _a state of mind_.
Nationalism is a _belief_, held by a fairly large number of individuals,
that they constitute a "Nationality"; it is a sense of _belonging
together_ as a "Nation." This "Nation," as visualized in the minds of
its believers, is a people or community associated together and
organized under one government, and dwelling together in a distinct
territory. When the nationalist ideal is realized, we have what is known
as a body-politic or "State." But we must not forget that this "State"
is the material manifestation of an ideal, which may have pre-existed
for generations as a mere pious aspiration with no tangible attributes
like state sovereignty or physical frontiers. Conversely, we must
remember that a state need not be a nation. Witness the defunct Hapsburg
Empire of Austria-Hungary, an assemblage of discordant nationalities
which flew to pieces under the shock of war.
The late war was a liberal education regarding nationalistic phenomena,
especially as applied to Europe, and most of the fallacies regarding
nationality were vividly disclosed. It is enough to cite Switzerland--a
country whose very existence flagrantly violates "tests" like language,
culture, religion, or geography, and where nevertheless a lively sense
of nationality emerged triumphant from the ordeal of Armageddon.
So familiar are these matters to the general public that only one point
need here be stressed: the difference between nationality and race.
Unfortunately the two terms have been used very loosely, if not
interchangeably, and are still much confused in current thinking. As a
matter of fact, they connote utterly different things. Nationality is a
psychological concept or state of mind. Race is a physiological fact,
which may be accurately determined by scientific tests such as
skull-measurement, hair-formation, and colour of eyes and skin. In other
words, race is what people anthropologically _really_ are; nationality
is what people politically _think_ they are.
Right here we encounter a most curious paradox. There can be no question
that, as between race and nationality, race is the more fundamental,
and, in the long run, the more important. A man's innate capacity is
obviously dependent upon his heredity, and no matter how stimulating may
be his environment, the potential limits of his reaction to that
environment are fixed at his birth. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
men pay scant attention to race, while nationalism stirs them to their
very souls. The main reason for this seems to be because it is only
about half a century since even savants realized the true nature and
importance of race. Even after an idea is scientifically established, it
takes a long time for it to be genuinely accepted by the public, and
only after it has been thus accepted will it form the basis of practical
conduct. Meanwhile the far older idea of nationality has permeated the
popular consciousness, and has thereby been able to produce tangible
effects. In fine, our political life is still dominated by nationalism
rather than race, and practical politics are thus conditioned, not by
what men really are, but by what they think they are.
The late war is a striking case in point. That war is very generally
regarded as having been one of "race." The idea certainly lent to the
struggle much of its bitterness and uncompromising fury. And yet, from
the genuine racial standpoint, it was nothing of the kind. Ethnologists
have proved conclusively that, apart from certain palæolithic survivals
and a few historically recent Asiatic intruders, Europe is inhabited by
only three stocks: (1) The blond, long-headed "Nordic" race, (2) the
medium-complexioned, round-headed "Alpine" race, (3) the _brunet_,
long-headed "Mediterranean" race. These races are so dispersed and
intermingled that every European nation is built of at least two of
these stocks, while most are compounded of all three. Strictly speaking,
therefore, the European War was not a race-war at all, but a domestic
struggle between closely knit blood-relatives.
Now all this was known to most well-educated Europeans long before 1914.
And yet it did not make the slightest difference. The reason is that, in
spite of everything, the vast majority of Europeans still believe that
they fit into an entirely different race-category. They think they
belong to the "Teutonic" race, the "Latin" race, the "Slav" race, or the
"Anglo-Saxon" race. The fact that these so-called "races" simply do not
exist but are really historical differentiations, based on language and
culture, which cut sublimely across genuine race-lines--all that is
quite beside the point. Your European may apprehend this intellectually,
but so long as it remains an intellectual novelty it will have no
appreciable effect upon his conduct. In his heart of hearts he will
still believe himself a Latin, a Teuton, an Anglo-Saxon, or a Slav. For
his blood-race he will not stir; for his thought-race he will die. For
the glory of the dolichocephalic "Nordic" or the brachycephalic "Alpine"
he will not prick his finger or wager a groat; for the triumph of the
"Teuton" or the "Slav" he will give his last farthing and shed his
heart's blood. In other words: Not what men really are, but what they
think they are.
At first it may seem strange that in contemporary Europe thought-race
should be all-powerful while blood-race is impotent. Yet there are very
good reasons. Not only has modern Europe's great dynamic been nationalism,
but also nationalism has seized upon the nascent racial concept and has
perverted it to its own ends. Until quite recent times "Nationality" was a
distinctly intensive concept, connoting approximate identity of culture,
language, and historic past. It was the logical product of a relatively
narrow European outlook. Indeed, it grew out of a still narrower outlook
which had contented itself with the regional, feudal, and dialectic
loyalties of the Middle Ages. But the first half of the nineteenth century
saw a still further widening of the European outlook to a continental or
even to a world horizon. At once the early concept of nationality ceased
to satisfy. Nationalism became extensive. It tended to embrace all those
of kindred speech, culture, and historic tradition, however distant such
persons might be. Obviously a new terminology was required. The keyword
was presently discovered--"Race." Hence we get that whole series of
_pseudo_ "race" phrases--"Pan-Germanism," "Pan-Slavism," "Pan-Angleism,"
"Pan-Latinism," and the rest. Of course these are not racial at all. They
merely signify nationalism brought up to date. But the European peoples,
with all the fervour of the nationalist faith that is in them, believe and
proclaim them to be racial. Hence, so far as practical politics are
concerned, they _are_ racial and will so continue while the nationalist
dynamic endures.
This new development of nationalism (the "racial" stage, as we may call
it) was at first confined to the older centres of European civilization,
but with the spread of Western ideas it presently appeared in the most
unexpected quarters. Its advent in the Balkans, for example, quickly
engendered those fanatical propagandas, "Pan-Hellenism," "Pan-Serbism,"
etc., which turned that unhappy region first into a bear-garden and
latterly into a witches' sabbath.
Meanwhile, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the first
phase of nationalism had patently passed into Asia. The "Young-Turk" and
"Young-Egyptian" movements, and the "Nationalist" stirrings in regions
so far remote from each other as Algeria, Persia, and India, were
unmistakable signs that Asia was gripped by the initial throes of
nationalist self-consciousness. Furthermore, with the opening years of
the twentieth century, numerous symptoms proclaimed the fact that in
Asia, as in the Balkans, the second or "racial" stage of nationalism had
begun. These years saw the definite emergence of far-flung "Pan-"
movements: "Pan-Turanism," "Pan-Arabism," and (most amazing of apparent
paradoxes) "Pan-Islamic Nationalism."
I
Let us now trace the genesis and growth of nationalism in the Near and
Middle East, devoting the present chapter to nationalist developments in
the Moslem world with the exception of India. India requires special
treatment, because there nationalist activity has been mainly the work
of the non-Moslem Hindu element. Indian nationalism has followed a
course differing distinctly from that of Islam, and will therefore be
considered in the following chapter.
Before it received the Western impact of the nineteenth century, the
Islamic world was virtually devoid of self-conscious nationalism. There
were, to be sure, strong local and tribal loyalties. There was intense
dynastic sentiment like the Turks' devotion to their "Padishas," the
Ottoman sultans. There was also marked pride of race such as the Arabs'
conviction that they were the "Chosen People." Here, obviously, were
potential nationalist elements. But these elements were as yet dispersed
and unco-ordinated. They were not yet fused into the new synthesis of
self-conscious nationalism. The only Moslem people which could be said
to possess anything like true nationalist feeling were the Persians,
with their traditional devotion to their plateau-land of "Iran." The
various peoples of the Moslem world had thus, at most, a rudimentary,
inchoate nationalist consciousness: a dull, inert unitary spirit;
capable of development, perhaps, but as yet scarcely perceptible even to
outsiders and certainly unperceived by themselves.
Furthermore, Islam itself was in many respects hostile to nationalism.
Islam's insistence upon the brotherhood of all True Believers, and the
Islamic political ideal of the "Imâmât," or universal theocratic
democracy, naturally tended to inhibit the formation of sovereign,
mutually exclusive national units; just as the nascent nationalities of
Renaissance Europe conflicted with the mediæval ideals of universal
papacy and "Holy Roman Empire."
Given such an unfavourable environment, it is not strange to see Moslem
nationalist tendencies germinating obscurely and confusedly throughout
the first half of the nineteenth century. Not until the second half of
the century is there any clear conception of "Nationalism" in the
Western sense. There are distinct nationalist tendencies in the
teachings of Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani (who is philosophically the
connecting link between Pan-Islamism and Moslem nationalism), while the
Turkish reformers of the mid-nineteenth century were patently influenced
by nationalism as they were by other Western ideas. It was, in fact, in
Turkey that a true nationalist consciousness first appeared. Working
upon the Turks' traditional devotion to their dynasty and pride in
themselves as a ruling race lording it over many subject peoples both
Christian and Moslem, the Turkish nationalist movement made rapid
progress.
Precisely as in Europe, the nationalist movement in Turkey began with a
revival of historic memories and a purification of the language. Half a
century ago the Ottoman Turks knew almost nothing about their origins or
their history. The martial deeds of their ancestors and the stirring
annals of their empire were remembered only in a vague, legendary
fashion, the study of the national history being completely neglected.
Religious discussions and details of the life of Mohammed or the early
days of Islam interested men more than the spread of Ottoman power in
three continents. The nationalist pioneers taught their
fellow-countrymen their historic glories and awakened both pride of past
and confidence in the future.
Similarly with the Turkish language; the early nationalists found it
virtually cleft in twain. On the one hand was "official" Turkish--a
clumsy hotchpotch, overloaded with flowers of rhetoric and cryptic
expressions borrowed from Arabic and Persian. This extraordinary jargon,
couched in a bombastic style, was virtually unintelligible to the
masses. The masses, on the other hand, spoke "popular" Turkish--a
primitive, limited idiom, divided into many dialects and despised as
uncouth and boorish by "educated" persons. The nationalists changed all
this. Appreciating the simple, direct strength of the Turkish tongue,
nationalist enthusiasts trained in European principles of grammar and
philology proceeded to build up a real Turkish language in the Western
sense. So well did they succeed that in less than a generation they
produced a simplified, flexible Turkish which was used effectively by
both journalists and men of letters, was intelligible to all classes,
and became the unquestioned vehicle for thought and the canon of
style.[138]
Of course the chief stimulus to Turkish nationalism was Western
political pressure. The more men came to love their country and aspire
to its future, the more European assaults on Turkish territorial
integrity spurred them to defend their threatened independence. The
nationalist ideal was "Ottomanism"--the welding of a real "nation" in
which all citizens, whatever their origin or creed, should be
"Ottomans," speaking the Turkish language and inspired by Ottoman
patriotism. This, however, conflicted sharply with the rival (and prior)
nationalisms of the Christian peoples of the empire, to say nothing of
the new Arab nationalism which was taking shape at just this same time.
Turkish nationalism was also frowned on by Sultan Abdul Hamid. Abdul
Hamid had an instinctive aversion to all nationalist movements, both as
limitations to his personal absolutism and as conflicting with that
universal Pan-Islamic ideal on which he based his policy. Accordingly,
even those Turkish nationalists who proclaimed complete loyalty were
suspect, while those with liberal tendencies were persecuted and driven
into exile.
The revolution of 1908, however, brought nationalism to power. Whatever
their differences on other matters, the Young-Turks were all ardent
nationalists. In fact, the very ardour of their nationalism was a prime
cause of their subsequent misfortunes. With the rashness of fanatics the
Young-Turks tried to "Ottomanize" the whole empire at once. This enraged
all the other nationalities, alienated them from the revolution, and
gave the Christian Balkan states their opportunity to attack
disorganized Turkey in 1912.
The truth of the matter was that Turkish nationalism was evolving in a
direction which could only mean heightened antagonism between the
Turkish element on the one side and the non-Turkish elements, Christian
or Moslem, on the other. Turkish nationalism had, in fact, now reached
the second or "racial" stage. Passing the bounds of the limited, mainly
territorial, idea connoted by the term "Ottomanism," it had embraced the
far-flung and essentially racial concepts known as "Pan-Turkism" and
"Pan-Turanism." These wider developments we shall consider later on in
this chapter. Before so doing let us examine the beginnings of
nationalism's "first stage" in other portions of the Moslem world.
Shortly after the Ottoman Turks showed signs of a nationalistic
awakening, kindred symptoms began to appear among the Arabs. As in all
self-conscious nationalist movements, it was largely a protest _against_
some other group. In the case of the Arabs this protest was naturally
directed against their Turkish rulers. We have already seen how Desert
Arabia (the Nejd) had always maintained its freedom, and we have also
seen how those Arab lands like Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hedjaz which
fell under Turkish control nevertheless continued to feel an
ineradicable repugnance at seeing themselves, Islam's "Chosen People,"
beneath the yoke of a folk which, in Arab eyes, were mere upstart
barbarians. Despite a thousand years of Turkish domination the two races
never got on well together, their racial temperaments being too
incompatible for really cordial relations. The profound temperamental
incompatibility of Turk and Arab has been well summarized by a French
writer. Says Victor Bérard: "Such are the two languages and such the two
peoples: in the latitude of Rome and in the latitude of Algiers, the
Turk of Adrianople, like the Turk of Adalia, remains a man of the north
and of the extreme north; in all climates the Arab remains a man of the
south and of the extreme south. To the Arab's suppleness, mobility,
imagination, artistic feeling, democratic tendencies, and anarchic
individualism, the Turk opposes his slowness, gravity, sense of
discipline and regularity, innate militarism. The Turkish master has
always felt disdain for the 'artistic canaille,' whose pose,
gesticulations, and indiscipline, shock him profoundly. On their side,
the Arabs see in the Turk only a blockhead; in his placidity and
taciturnity only stupidity and ignorance; in his respect for law only
slavishness; and in his love of material well-being only gross
bestiality. Especially do the Arabs jeer at the Turk's artistic
incapacity: after having gone to school to the Chinese, Persians, Arabs,
and Greeks, the Turk remains, in Arab eyes, just a big booby of barrack
and barnyard."[139]
Add to this the fact that the Arabs regard the Turks as perverters of
the Islamic faith, and we need not be surprised to find that Turkey's
Arab subjects have ever displayed symptoms of rebellious unrest. We have
seen how the Wahabi movement was specifically directed against Turkish
control of the holy cities, and despite the Wahabi defeat, Arab
discontent lived on. About 1820 the German explorer Burckhardt wrote of
Arabia: "When Turkish power in the Hedjaz declines, the Arabs will
avenge themselves for their subjection."[140] And some twenty years
later the Shereef of Mecca remarked to a French traveller: "We, the
direct descendants of the Prophet, have to bow our heads before
miserable Pashas, most of them former Christian slaves come to power by
the most shameful courses."[141] Throughout the nineteenth century every
Turkish defeat in Europe was followed by a seditious outburst in its
Arab provinces.
Down to the middle of the nineteenth century these seditious stirrings
remained sporadic, unco-ordinated outbursts of religious, regional, or
tribal feeling, with no genuinely "Nationalistic" programme of action or
ideal. But in the later sixties a real nationalist agitation appeared.
Its birthplace was Syria. That was what might have been expected, since
Syria was the part of Turkey's Arab dominions most open to Western
influences. This first Arab nationalist movement, however, did not
amount to much. Directed by a small group of noisy agitators devoid of
real ability, the Turkish Government suppressed it without much
difficulty.
The disastrous Russian war of 1877, however, blew the scattered embers
into a fresh flame. For several years Turkey's Arab provinces were in
full ferment. The nationalists spoke openly of throwing off the Turkish
yoke and welding the Arab lands into a loose-knit confederation headed
by a religious potentate, probably the Shereef of Mecca. This was
obviously an adaptation of Western nationalism to the traditional Arab
ideal of a theocratic democracy already realized in the Meccan caliphate
and the Wahabi government of the Nejd.
This second stirring of Arab nationalism was likewise of short duration.
Turkey was now ruled by Sultan Abdul Hamid, and Abdul Hamid's
Pan-Islamic policy looked toward good relations with his Arab subjects.
Accordingly, Arabs were welcomed at Constantinople, favours were heaped
upon Arab chiefs and notables, while efforts were made to promote the
contentment of the empire's Arab populations. At the same time the
construction of strategic railways in Syria and the Hedjaz gave the
Turkish Government a stronger grip over its Arab provinces than ever
before, and conversely rendered successful Arab revolts a far more
remote possibility. Furthermore, Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda
was specially directed toward awakening a sense of Moslem solidarity
between Arabs and Turks as against the Christian West. These efforts
achieved a measure of success. Certainly, every European aggression in
the Near East was an object-lesson to Turks and Arabs to forget, or at
least adjourn, their domestic quarrels in face of the common foe.
Despite the partial successes of Abdul Hamid's efforts, a considerable
section of his Arab subjects remained unreconciled, and toward the close
of the nineteenth century a fresh stirring of Arab nationalist
discontent made its appearance. Relentlessly persecuted by the Turkish
authorities, the Arab nationalist agitators, mostly Syrians, went into
exile. Gathering in near-by Egypt (now of course under British
governance) and in western Europe, these exiles organized a
revolutionary propaganda. Their formal organization dates from the year
1895, when the "Arabian National Committee" was created at Paris. For a
decade their propaganda went on obscurely, but evidently with effect,
for in 1905 the Arab provinces of Hedjaz and Yemen burst into armed
insurrection. This insurrection, despite the best efforts of the Turkish
Government, was never wholly suppressed, but dragged on year after year,
draining Turkey of troops and treasure, and contributing materially to
her Tripolitan and Balkan disasters in 1911-12.
The Arab revolt of 1905 focussed the world's attention upon "The Arab
Question," and the nationalist exiles made the most of their opportunity
by redoubling their propaganda, not only at home but in the West as
well. Europe was fully informed of "Young Arabia's" wrongs and
aspirations, notably by an extremely clever book by one of the
nationalist leaders, entitled _The Awakening of the Arab Nation_,[142]
which made a distinct sensation. The aims of the Arab nationalists are
clearly set forth in the manifesto of the Arabian National Committee,
addressed to the Great Powers and published early in 1906. Says this
manifesto: "A great pacific change is on the eve of occurring in Turkey.
The Arabs, whom the Turks tyrannized over only by keeping them divided
on insignificant questions of ritual and religion, have become conscious
of their national, historic, and racial homogeneity, and wish to detach
themselves from the worm-eaten Ottoman trunk in order to form themselves
into an independent state. This new Arab Empire will extend to its
natural frontiers, from the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to the
Isthmus of Suez, and from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Oman. It will
be governed by the constitutional and liberal monarchy of an Arabian
sultan. The present Vilayet of the Hedjaz, together with the territory
of Medina, will form an independent empire whose sovereign will be at
the same time the religious Khalif of all the Mohammedans. Thus, one
great difficulty, the separation of the civil and the religious powers
in Islam, will have been solved for the greater good of all."
To their fellow Arabs the committee issued the following proclamation:
"Dear Compatriots! All of us know how vile and despicable the glorious
and illustrious title of Arabian Citizen has become in the mouths of all
foreigners, especially Turks. All of us see to what depths of misery and
ignorance we have fallen under the tyranny of these barbarians sprung
from Central Asia. Our land, the richest and finest on earth, is to-day
an arid waste. When we were free, we conquered the world in a hundred
years; we spread everywhere sciences, arts, and letters; for centuries
we led world-civilization. But, since the spawn of Ertogrul[143] usurped
the caliphate of Islam, they have brutalized us so as to exploit us to
such a degree that we have become the poorest people on earth." The
proclamation then goes on to declare Arabia's independence.[144]
Of course "Young Arabia" did not then attain its independence. The
revolt was kept localized and Turkey maintained its hold over most of
its Arab dominions. Nevertheless, there was constant unrest. During the
remainder of Abdul Hamid's reign his Arab provinces were in a sort of
unstable equilibrium, torn between the forces of nationalist sedition on
the one hand and Pan-Islamic, anti-European feeling on the other.
The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 caused a new shift in the situation.
The Arab provinces, like the other parts of the empire, rejoiced in the
downfall of despotism and hoped great things for the future. In the
Turkish Parliament the Arab provinces were well represented, and their
deputies asked for a measure of federal autonomy. This the Young-Turks,
bent upon "Ottomanization," curtly refused. The result was profound
disillusionment in the Arab provinces and a revival of separatist
agitation. It is interesting to note that the new independence agitation
had a much more ambitious programme than that of a few years before. The
Arab nationalists of Turkey were by this time definitely linking up with
the nationalists of Egypt and French North Africa--Arabic-speaking lands
where the populations were at least partly Arab in blood. Arab
nationalism was beginning to speak aloud what it had previously
whispered--the programme of a great "Pan-Arab" empire stretching right
across North Africa and southern Asia from the Atlantic to the Indian
Oceans. Thus, Arab nationalism, like Turkish nationalism, was evolving
into the "second," or racial, stage.
Deferring discussion of this broader development, let us follow a trifle
further the course of the more restricted Arab nationalism within the
Turkish Empire. Despite the Pan-Islamic sentiment evoked by the
European aggressions of 1911-12, nationalist feeling was continually
aroused by the Ottomanizing measures of the Young-Turk government, and
the independence agitation was presently in full swing once more. In
1913 an Arabian nationalist congress convened in Paris and revolutionary
propaganda was inaugurated on an increased scale. When the Great War
broke out next year, Turkey's Arab provinces were seething with
seditious unrest.[145] The Turkish authorities took stern measures
against possible trouble, imprisoning and executing all prominent
nationalists upon whom they could lay their hands, while the
proclamation of the "Holy War" rallied a certain portion of Arab public
opinion to the Turkish side, especially since the conquest of Egypt was
a possibility. But as the war dragged on the forces of discontent once
more raised their heads. In 1916 the revolt of the Shereef of Mecca gave
the signal for the downfall of Turkish rule. This revolt, liberally
backed by England, gained the active or passive support of the Arab
elements throughout the Turkish Empire. Inspired by Allied promises of
national independence of a most alluring character, the Arabs fought
strenuously against the Turks and were a prime factor in the _débâcle_
of Ottoman military power in the autumn of 1918.[146]
Before discussing the momentous events which have occurred in the Arab
provinces of the former Ottoman Empire since 1918, let us consider
nationalist developments in the Arabized regions of North Africa lying
to the westward. Of these developments the most important is that of
Egypt. The mass of the Egyptian people is to-day, as in Pharaoh's time,
of the old "Nilotic" stock. A slow, self-contained peasant folk, the
Egyptian "fellaheen" have submitted passively to a long series of
conquerors, albeit this passivity has been occasionally broken by
outbursts of volcanic fury presently dying away into passivity once
more. Above the Nilotic masses stands a relatively small upper class
descended chiefly from Egypt's more recent Asiatic conquerors--Arabs,
Kurds, Circassians, Albanians, and Turks. In addition to this upper
class, which until the English occupation monopolized all political
power, there are large European "colonies" with "extraterritorial"
rights, while a further complication is added by the persistence of a
considerable native Christian element, the "Copts," who refused to turn
Mohammedan at the Arab conquest and who to-day number fully one-tenth of
the total population.
With such a medley of races, creeds, and cultures, and with so prolonged
a tradition of foreign domination, Egypt might seem a most unlikely
_milieu_ for the growth of nationalism. On the other hand, Egypt has
been more exposed to Western influences than any other part of the Near
East. Bonaparte's invasion at the close of the eighteenth century
profoundly affected Egyptian life, and though the French were soon
expelled, European influences continued to permeate the valley of the
Nile. Mehemet Ali, the able Albanian adventurer who made himself master
of Egypt after the downfall of French rule, realized the superiority of
European methods and fostered a process of Europeanization which,
however superficial, resulted in a wide dissemination of Western ideas.
Mehemet Ali's policy was continued by his successors. That magnificent
spendthrift Khedive Ismail, whose reckless contraction of European loans
was the primary cause of European intervention, prided himself on his
"Europeanism" and surrounded himself with Europeans.
Indeed, the first stirrings of Egyptian nationalism took the form of a
protest against the noxious, parasitical "Europeanism" of Khedive Ismail
and his courtiers. Sober-minded Egyptians became increasingly alarmed at
the way Ismail was mortgaging Egypt's independence by huge European
loans and sucking its life-blood by merciless taxation. Inspired
consciously or unconsciously by the Western concepts of "nation" and
"patriotism," these men desired to stay Ismail's destructive course and
to safeguard Egypt's future. In fact, their efforts were directed not
merely against the motley crew of European adventurers and
concessionaires who were luring the Khedive into fresh extravagances,
but also against the complaisant Turkish and Circassian pashas, and the
Armenian and Syrian usurers, who were the instruments of Ismail's will.
The nascent movement was thus basically a "patriotic" protest against
all those, both foreigners and native-born, who were endangering the
country. This showed clearly in the motto adopted by the agitators--the
hitherto unheard-of slogan: "Egypt for the Egyptians!"
Into this incipient ferment there was presently injected the dynamic
personality of Djemal-ed-Din. Nowhere else did this extraordinary man
exert so profound and lasting an influence as in Egypt. It is not too
much to say that he is the father of every shade of Egyptian
nationalism. He influenced not merely violent agitators like Arabi Pasha
but also conservative reformers like Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, who realized
Egypt's weakness and were content to labour patiently by evolutionary
methods for distant goals.
For the moment the apostles of violent action had the stage. In 1882 a
revolutionary agitation broke out headed by Arabi Pasha, an army
officer, who, significantly enough, was of fellah origin, the first man
of Nilotic stock to sway Egypt's destinies in modern times. Raising
their slogan, "Egypt for the Egyptians," the revolutionists sought to
drive all "foreigners," both Europeans and Asiatics, from the country.
Their attempt was of course foredoomed to failure. A massacre of
Europeans in the port-city of Alexandria at once precipitated European
intervention. An English army crushed the revolutionists at the battle
of Tel-el-Kebir, and after this one battle, disorganized, bankrupt Egypt
submitted to British rule, personified by Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer.
The khedivial dynasty was, to be sure, retained, and the native forms of
government respected, but all real power centred in the hands of the
British "Financial Adviser," the representative of Britain's imperial
will.
For twenty-five years Lord Cromer ruled Egypt, and the record of this
able proconsul will place him for ever in the front rank of the world's
great administrators. His strong hand drew Egypt from hopeless
bankruptcy into abounding prosperity. Material well-being, however, did
not kill Egyptian nationalism. Scattered to the winds before the British
bayonet charges, the seeds of unrest slowly germinated beneath the
fertile Nilotic soil. Almost imperceptible at first under the numbing
shock of Tel-el-Kebir, nationalist sentiment grew steadily as the years
wore on, and by the closing decade of the nineteenth century it had
become distinctly perceptible to keen-sighted European observers.
Passing through Egypt in 1895, the well-known African explorer
Schweinfurth was struck with the psychological change which had occurred
since his earlier visits to the valley of the Nile. "A true national
self-consciousness is slowly beginning to awaken," he wrote. "The
Egyptians are still very far from being a true Nationality, but the
beginning has been made."[147]
With the opening years of the twentieth century what had previously been
visible only to discerning eyes burst into sudden and startling bloom.
This resurgent Egyptian nationalism had, to be sure, its moderate wing,
represented by conservative-minded men like Mohammed Abdou, Rector of El
Azhar University and respected friend of Lord Cromer, who sought to
teach his fellow-countrymen that the surest road to freedom was along
the path of enlightenment and progress. In the main, however, the
movement was an impatient and violent protest against British rule and
an intransigeant demand for immediate independence. Perhaps the most
significant point was that virtually all Egyptians were nationalists at
heart, conservatives as well as radicals declining to consider Egypt as
a permanent part of the British Empire. The nationalists had a sound
legal basis for this attitude, owing to the fact that British rule
rested upon insecure diplomatic foundations. England had intervened in
Egypt as a self-constituted "Mandatory" of European financial interests.
Its action had roused much opposition in Europe, particularly in France,
and to allay this opposition the British Government had repeatedly
announced that its occupation of Egypt was of a temporary nature. In
fact, Egyptian discontent was deliberately fanned by France right down
to the conclusion of the _Entente Cordiale_ in 1904. This French
sympathy for Egyptian aspirations was of capital importance in the
development of the nationalist movement. In Egypt, France's cultural
prestige was predominant. In Egyptian eyes a European education was
synonymous with a French education, so the rising generation inevitably
sat under French teachers, either in Egypt or in France, and these
French preceptors, being usually Anglophobes, rarely lost an opportunity
for instilling dislike of England and aversion to British rule.
The radical nationalists were headed by a young man named Mustapha
Kamel. He was a very prince of agitators; ardent, magnetic,
enthusiastic, and possessed of a fiery eloquence which fairly swept away
both his hearers and his readers. An indefatigable propagandist, he
edited a whole chain of newspapers and periodicals, and as fast as one
organ was suppressed by the British authorities he started another. His
uncompromising nationalism may be gauged from the following examples
from his writings. Taking for his motto the phrase "The Egyptians for
Egypt; Egypt for the Egyptians," he wrote as early as 1896: "Egyptian
civilization cannot endure in the future unless it is founded by the
people itself; unless the fellah, the merchant, the teacher, the pupil,
in fine, every single Egyptian, knows that man has sacred, intangible
rights; that he is not created to be a tool, but to lead an intelligent
and worthy life; that love of country is the most beautiful sentiment
which can ennoble a soul; and that a nation without independence is a
nation without existence! It is by patriotism that backward peoples come
quickly to civilization, to greatness, and to power. It is patriotism
that forms the blood which courses in the veins of virile nations, and
it is patriotism that gives life to every living being."
The English, of course, were bitterly denounced. Here is a typical
editorial from his organ _El Lewa_: "We are the despoiled. The English
are the despoilers. We demand a sacred right. The English are the
usurpers of that right. This is why we are sure of success sooner or
later. When one is in the right, it is only a question of time."
Despite his ardent aspirations, Mustapha Kamel had a sense of realities,
and recognized that, for the moment at least, British power could not be
forcibly overthrown. He did not, therefore, attempt any open violence
which he knew would merely ruin himself and his followers. Early in 1908
he died, only thirty-four years of age. His mantle fell upon his leading
disciple, Mohammed Farid Bey. This man, who was not of equal calibre,
tried to make up for his deficiency in true eloquence by the violence of
his invective. The difference between the two leaders can be gauged by
the editorial columns of _El Lewa_. Here is an editorial of September,
1909: "This land was polluted by the English, putrefied with their
atrocities as they suppressed our beloved _dustour_ [constitution], tied
our tongues, burned our people alive and hanged our innocent relatives,
and perpetrated other horrors at which the heavens are about to tremble,
the earth to split, and the mountains to fall down. Let us take a new
step. Let our lives be cheap while we seek our independence. Death is
far better than life for you if you remain in your present condition."
Mohammed Farid's fanatical impatience of all opposition led him into
tactical blunders like alienating the native Christian Copts, whom
Mustapha Kamel had been careful to conciliate. The following diatribe
(which, by the way, reveals a grotesque jumble of Western and Eastern
ideas) is an answer to Coptic protests at the increasing violence of his
propaganda: "The Copts should be kicked to death. They still have faces
and bodies similar to those of demons and monkeys, which is a proof that
they hide poisonous spirits within their souls. The fact that they exist
in the world confirms Darwin's theory that human beings are generated
from monkeys. You sons of adulterous women! You descendants of the
bearers of trays! You tails of camels with your monkey faces! You bones
of bodies!"
In this more violent attitude the nationalists were encouraged by
several reasons. For one thing, Lord Cromer had laid down his
proconsulate in 1907 and had been succeeded by Sir Eldon Gorst. The new
ruler represented the ideas of British Liberalism, now in power, which
wished to appease Egyptian unrest by conciliation instead of by Lord
Cromer's autocratic indifference. In the second place, the Young-Turk
revolution of 1908 gave an enormous impetus to the Egyptian cry for
constitutional self-government. Lastly, France's growing intimacy with
England dashed the nationalist's cherished hope that Britain would be
forced by outside pressure to redeem her diplomatic pledges and
evacuate the Nile valley, thus driving the nationalists to rely more on
their own exertions.
Given this nationalist temper, conciliatory attempt was foredoomed to
failure. For, however conciliatory Sir Eldon Gorst might be in details,
he could not promise the one thing which the nationalists supremely
desired--independence. This demand England refused even to consider.
Practically all Englishmen had become convinced that Egypt with the Suez
Canal was a vital link between the eastern and western halves of the
British Empire, and that permanent control of Egypt was thus an absolute
necessity. There was thus a fundamental deadlock between British
imperial and Egyptian national convictions. Accordingly, the British
Liberal policy of conciliation proved a fiasco. Even Sir Eldon Gorst
admitted in his official reports that concessions were simply regarded
as signs of weakness.
Before long seditious agitation and attendant violence grew to such
proportions that the British Government became convinced that only
strong measures would save the situation. Therefore, in 1911, Sir Eldon
Gorst was replaced by Lord Kitchener--a patent warning to the
nationalists that sedition would be given short shrift by the iron hand
which had crushed the Khalifa and his Dervish hordes at Omdurman.
Kitchener arrived in Egypt with the express mandate to restore order,
and this he did with thoroughness and exactitude. The Egyptians were
told plainly that England neither intended to evacuate the Nile valley
nor considered its inhabitants fit for self-government within any
discernible future. They were admonished to turn their thoughts from
politics, at which they were so bad, to agriculture, at which they were
so good. As for seditious propaganda, new legislation enabled Lord
Kitchener to deal with it in summary fashion. Practically all the
nationalist papers were suppressed, while the nationalist leaders were
imprisoned, interned, or exiled. In fact, the British Government did its
best to distract attention everywhere from Egypt, the British press
co-operating loyally by labelling the subject taboo. The upshot was that
Egypt became quieter than it had been for a generation.
However, it was only a surface calm. Driven underground, Egyptian unrest
even attained new virulence which alarmed close observers. In 1913 the
well-known English publicist Sidney Low, after a careful investigation
of the Egyptian situation, wrote: "We are not popular in Egypt. Feared
we may be by some; respected I doubt not by many others; but really
liked, I am sure, by very few."[148] Still more outspoken was an article
significantly entitled "The Darkness over Egypt," which appeared on the
eve of the Great War.[149] Its publication in a semi-scientific
periodical for specialists in Oriental problems rendered it worthy of
serious attention. "The long-continued absence of practically all
discussion or even mention of Egyptian internal affairs from the British
press," asserted this article, "is not indicative of a healthy
condition. In Egypt the superficial quiet is that of suppressed
discontent--of a sullen, hopeless mistrust toward the Government of the
Occupation. Certain recent happenings have strengthened in Egyptian
minds the conviction that the Government is making preparations for the
complete annexation of the country.... We are not concerned to question
how far the motives attributed to the Government are true. The essential
fact is that the Government of the Occupation has not yet succeeded in
endearing, or even recommending, itself to the Egyptian people, but is,
on the contrary, an object of suspicion, an occasion of enmity." The
article expresses grave doubt whether Lord Kitchener's repressive
measures have done more than drive discontent underground, and shows
"how strong is the Nationalist feeling in Egypt to-day in spite of the
determined attempts to stamp out all freedom of political opinion. As
might be expected, this wholesale muzzling of the press has not only
reduced the Mohammedan majority to a condition of internal ferment, but
has seriously alienated the hitherto loyal Copts. It may be that the
Government can discover no better means of recommending itself to the
confidence and good-will of the Egyptian people; it may be that only by
the instant repression of every outward sign of discontent can it feel
secure in its occupation; but if such be the case, it is an admission of
extreme weakness, or recognized insecurity of tenure." The article
concludes with the following warning as to the problem's wider
implications: "Egypt, though a subject of profound indifference to the
English voter, is being feverishly watched by the Indian Mohammedans,
and by the whole of our West and Central African subjects--themselves
strongly Moslem in sympathy, and at the present time jealously
suspicious of the political activities of Christian Imperialism."
Such being the state of Egyptian feeling in 1914, the outbreak of the
Great War was bound to produce intensified unrest. England's position in
Egypt was, in truth, very difficult. Although in fact England exercised
complete control, in law Egypt was still a dependency of the Ottoman
Empire, Britain merely exercising a temporary occupation. Now it soon
became evident that Turkey was going to join England's enemies, the
Teutonic empires, while it was equally evident that the Egyptians
sympathized with the Turks, even the Khedive Abbas Hilmi making no
secret of his pro-Turkish views. During the first months of the European
War, while Turkey was still nominally neutral, the Egyptian native
press, despite the British censorship, was full of veiled seditious
statements, while the unruly attitude of the Egyptian populace and the
stirrings among the Egyptian native regiments left no doubt as to how
the wind was blowing. England was seriously alarmed. Accordingly, when
Turkey entered the war in November, 1914, England took the decisive
plunge, deposed Abbas Hilmi, nominated his cousin Hussein Kamel
"Sultan," and declared Egypt a protectorate of the British Empire.
This stung the nationalists to fury. Anything like formal rebellion was
rendered impossible by the heavy masses of British and colonial troops
which had been poured into the country. Nevertheless, there was a good
deal of sporadic violence, suppressed only by a stern application of the
"State of Siege." A French observer thus vividly describes these
critical days: "The Jehadd is rousing the anti-Christian fanaticism
which always stirs in the soul of every good Moslem. Since the end of
October one could read in the eyes of the low-class Mohammedan natives
their hope--the massacre of the Christians. In the streets of Cairo they
stared insolently at the European passers-by. Some even danced for joy
on learning that the Sultan had declared the Holy War. Denounced to the
police for this, they were incontinently bastinadoed at the nearest
police-station. The same state of mind reigned at El Azhar, and I am
told that Europeans who visit the celebrated Mohammedan University have
their ears filled with the strongest epithets of the Arab
repertory--that best-furnished language in the world."[150]
The nationalist exiles vehemently expressed abroad what their fellows
could not say at home. Their leader, Mohammed Farid Bey, issued from
Geneva an official protest against "the new illegal régime proclaimed by
England the 18th of last December. England, which pretends to make war
on Germany to defend Belgium, ought not to trample underfoot the rights
of Egypt, nor consider the treaties relative thereto as 'scraps of
paper.'"[151] These exiles threw themselves vehemently into the arms of
Germany, as may be gauged from the following remarks of Abd-el-Malek
Hamsa, secretary of the nationalist party, in a German periodical:
"There is hardly an Egyptian who does not pray that England may be
beaten and her Empire fall in ruins. During the early days of the war,
while I was still in Egypt, I was a witness of this popular feeling. In
cities and villages, from sage to simple peasant, all are convinced in
the Kaiser's love for Islam and friendship for its caliph, and they are
hoping and praying for Germany's victory."[152]
Of course, in face of the overwhelming British garrison in Egypt, such
pronouncements were as idle as the wind. The hoped-for Turkish attacks
were beaten back from the Suez Canal, the "State of Siege" functioned
with stern efficiency, and Egypt, flooded with British troops, lapsed
into sullen silence, not to be broken until the end of the war.
Turning back at this point to consider nationalist developments in the
rest of North Africa, we do not, as in Egypt, find a well-marked
territorial patriotism. Anti-European hatred there is in plenty, but
such "patriotic" sentiments as exist belong rather to those more
diffused types of nationalist feeling known as "Pan-Arabism" and
"Pan-Islamic Nationalism," which we shall presently discuss.
The basic reason for this North African lack of national feeling, in its
restricted sense, is that nowhere outside of Egypt is there a land which
ever has been, or which shows distinct signs of becoming, a true
"nation." The mass of the populations inhabiting the vast band of
territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara desert are
"Berbers"--an ancient stock, racially European rather than Asiatic or
negroid, and closely akin to the "Latin" peoples across the
Mediterranean. The Berbers remind one of the Balkan Albanians: they are
extremely tenacious of their language and customs, and they have an
instinctive racial feeling; but they are inveterate particularists,
having always been split up into many tribes, sometimes combining into
partial confederations but never developing true national
patriotism.[153]
Alongside the Berbers we find everywhere a varying proportion of Arabs.
The Arabs have colonized North Africa ever since the Moslem conquest
twelve centuries ago. They converted the Berbers to Islam and Arab
culture, but they never made North Africa part of the Arab world as they
did Syria and Mesopotamia, and in somewhat lesser degree Egypt. The two
races have never really fused. Despite more than a thousand years of
Arab tutelage, the Berbers' manner of life remains distinct. They have
largely kept their language, and there has been comparatively little
intermarriage. Pure-blooded Arabs abound, often in large tribal groups,
but they are still, in a way, foreigners.[154]
With such elements of discord, North Africa's political life has always
been troubled. The most stable region has been Morocco, though even
there the sultan's authority has never really extended to the mountain
tribes. As for the so-called "Barbary States" (Algiers, Tunis, and
Tripoli), they were little more than port-cities along the coast, the
hinterland enjoying practically complete tribal independence. Over this
confused turmoil spread the tide of French conquest, beginning with
Algiers in 1830 and ending with Morocco to-day.[155] France brought
peace, order, and material prosperity, but here, as in other Eastern
lands, these very benefits of European tutelage created a new sort of
unity among the natives in their common dislike of the European
conqueror and their common aspiration toward independence. Accordingly,
the past generation has witnessed the appearance of "Young Algerian" and
"Young Tunisian" political groups, led by French-educated men who have
imbibed Western ideas of "self-government" and "liberty."[156] However,
as we have already remarked, their goal is not so much the erection of
distinct Algerian and Tunisian "Nations" as it is creation of a larger
North African, perhaps Pan-Islamic, unity. It must not be forgotten that
they are in close touch with the Sennussi and kindred influences which
we have already examined in the chapter on Pan-Islamism.
So much for "first-stage" nationalist developments in the Arab or
Arabized lands. There is, however, one more important centre of
nationalist sentiment in the Moslem world to be considered--Persia.
Persia is, in fact, the land where a genuine nationalist movement would
have been most logically expected, because the Persians have for ages
possessed a stronger feeling of "country" than any other Near Eastern
people.
In the nineteenth century Persia had sunk into such deep decrepitude
that its patent weakness excited the imperialistic appetites of Czarist
Russia and, in somewhat lesser degree, of England. Persia's decadence
and external perils were, however, appreciated by thinking Persians, and
a series of reformist agitations took place, beginning with the
religious movement of the Bab early in the nineteenth century and
culminating with the revolution of 1908.[157] That revolution was
largely precipitated by the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 by which
England and Russia virtually partitioned Persia; the country being
divided into a Russian "sphere of influence" in the north and a British
"sphere of influence" in the south, with a "neutral zone" between. The
revolution was thus in great part a desperate attempt of the Persian
patriots to set their house in order and avert, at the eleventh hour,
the shadow of European domination which was creeping over the land. But
the revolution was not merely a protest against European aggression. It
was also aimed at the alien Khadjar dynasty which had so long misruled
Persia. These Khadjar sovereigns were of Turkoman origin. They had never
become really Persianized, as shown by the fact that the intimate court
language was Turki, not Persian. They occupied a position somewhat
analogous to that of the Manchus before the Chinese revolution. The
Persian revolution was thus basically an _Iranian_ patriotic outburst
against all alien influences, whether from East or West.
We have already seen how this patriotic movement was crushed by the
forcible intervention of European imperialism.[158] By 1912 Russia and
England were in full control of the situation, the patriots were
proscribed and persecuted, and Persia sank into despairing silence. As a
British writer then remarked: "For such broken spirit and shattered
hopes, as for the 'anarchy' now existing in Persia, Russia and Great
Britain are directly responsible, and if there be a Reckoning, will one
day be held to account. It is idle to talk of any improvement in the
situation, when the only Government in Persia consists of a Cabinet
which does not command the confidence of the people, terrorized by
Russia, financially starved by both Russia and England, allowed only
miserable doles of money on usurious terms, and forbidden to employ
honest and efficient foreign experts like Mr. Shuster; when the King is
a boy, the Regent an absentee, the Parliament permanently suspended, and
the best, bravest, and most honest patriots either killed or driven
into exile, while the wolf-pack of financiers, concession-hunters and
land-grabbers presses ever harder on the exhausted victim, whose
struggles grow fainter and fainter. Little less than a miracle can now
save Persia."[159]
So ends our survey of the main "first-stage" nationalist movements in
the Moslem world. We should of course remember that a nationalist
movement was developing concurrently in India, albeit following an
eccentric orbit of its own. We should also remember that, in addition to
the main movements just discussed, there were minor nationalist
stirrings among other Moslem peoples such as the Russian Tartars, the
Chinese Mohammedans, and even the Javanese of the Dutch Indies. Lastly,
we should remember that these nationalist movements were more or less
interwoven with the non-national movement of Pan-Islamism, and with
those "second-stage," "racial" nationalist movements which we shall now
consider.
II
Earlier in this chapter we have already remarked that the opening years
of the twentieth century witnessed the appearance in Asia of
nationalism's second or racial stage, especially among the Turkish and
Arab peoples. This wider stage of nationalism has attained its highest
development among the Turks; where, indeed, it has gone through two
distinct phases, describable respectively by the terms "Pan-Turkism" and
"Pan-Turanism." We have described the primary phase of Turkish
nationalism in its restricted "Ottoman" sense down to the close of the
Balkan wars of 1912-13. It is at that time that the secondary or
"racial" aspects of Turkish nationalism first come prominently to the
fore.
By this time the Ottoman Turks had begun to realize that they did not
stand alone in the world; that they were, in fact, the westernmost
branch of a vast band of peoples extending right across eastern Europe
and Asia, from the Baltic to the Pacific and from the Mediterranean to
the Arctic Ocean, to whom ethnologists have assigned the name of
"Uralo-Altaic race," but who are more generally termed "Turanians." This
group embraces the most widely scattered folk--the Ottoman Turks of
Constantinople and Anatolia, the Turkomans of Persia and Central Asia,
the Tartars of South Russia and Transcaucasia, the Magyars of Hungary,
the Finns of Finland and the Baltic provinces, the aboriginal tribes of
Siberia, and even the distant Mongols and Manchus. Diverse though they
are in culture, tradition, and even personal appearance, these people
nevertheless possess certain well-marked traits in common. Their
languages are all similar, while their physical and mental make-up
displays undoubted affinities. They are all noted for great physical
vitality combined with unusual toughness of nerve-fibre. Though somewhat
deficient in imagination and creative artistic sense, they are richly
endowed with patience, tenacity, and dogged energy. Above all, they have
usually displayed extraordinary military capacity, together with a no
less remarkable aptitude for the masterful handling of subject peoples.
The Turanians have certainly been the greatest conquerors that the world
has ever seen. Attila and his Huns, Arpad and his Magyars, Isperich and
his Bulgars, Alp Arslan and his Seljuks, Ertogrul and his Ottomans,
Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane with their "inflexible" Mongol hordes, Baber
in India, even Kubilai Khan and Nurhachu in far-off Cathay: the type is
ever the same. The hoof-print of the Turanian "man on horseback" is
stamped deep all over the palimpsest of history.
Glorious or sinister according to the point of view, Turan's is
certainly a stirring past. Of course one may query whether these diverse
peoples actually do form one genuine race. But, as we have already seen,
so far as practical politics go, that makes no difference. Possessed of
kindred tongues and temperaments, and dowered with such a wealth of
soul-stirring tradition, it would suffice for them to _think_ themselves
racially one to form a nationalist dynamic of truly appalling potency.
Until about a generation ago, to be sure, no signs of such a movement
were visible. Not only were distant stocks like Finns and Manchus quite
unaware of any common Turanian bond, but even obvious kindred like
Ottoman Turks and Central Asian Turkomans regarded one another with
indifference or contempt. Certainly the Ottoman Turks were almost as
devoid of racial as they were of national feeling. Arminius Vambéry
tells how, when he first visited Constantinople in 1856, "the word
_Turkluk_ (_i. e._, 'Turk') was considered an opprobrious synonym of
grossness and savagery, and when I used to call people's attention to
the racial importance of the Turkish stock (stretching from Adrianople
to the Pacific) they answered: 'But you are surely not classing us with
Kirghiz and with the gross nomads of Tartary.' ... With a few
exceptions, I found no one in Constantinople who was seriously
interested in the questions of Turkish nationality or language."[160]
It was, in fact, the labours of Western ethnologists like the Hungarian
Vambéry and the Frenchman Léon Cahun that first cleared away the mists
which enshrouded Turan. These labours disclosed the unexpected vastness
of the Turanian world. And this presently acquired a most unacademic
significance. The writings of Vambéry and his colleagues spread far and
wide through Turan and were there devoured by receptive minds already
stirring to the obscure promptings of a new time. The normality of the
Turanian movement is shown by its simultaneous appearance at such widely
sundered points as Turkish Constantinople and the Tartar centres along
the Russian Volga. Indeed, if anything, the leaven began its working on
the Volga sooner than on the Bosphorus. This Tartar revival, though
little known, is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in all
nationalist history. The Tartars, once masters of Russia, though long
since fallen from their high estate, have never vanished in the Slav
ocean. Although many of them have been for four centuries under Russian
rule, they have stubbornly maintained their religious, racial, and
cultural identity. Clustered thickly along the Volga, especially at
Kazan and Astrakhan, retaining much of the Crimea, and forming a
considerable minority in Transcaucasia, the Tartars remained distinct
"enclaves" in the Slav Empire, widely scattered but indomitable.
The first stirrings of nationalist self-consciousness among the Russian
Tartars appeared as far back as 1895, and from then on the movement grew
with astonishing rapidity. The removal of governmental restrictions at
the time of the Russian revolution of 1904 was followed by a regular
literary florescence. Streams of books and pamphlets, numerous
newspapers, and a solid periodical press, all attested the vigour and
fecundity of the Tartar revival. The high economic level of the Russian
Tartars assured the material sinews of war. The Tartar oil millionaires
of Baku here played a conspicuous rôle, freely opening their capacious
purses for the good of the cause. The Russian Tartars also showed
distinct political ability and soon gained the confidence of their
Turkoman cousins of Russian Central Asia, who were also stirring to the
breath of nationalism. The first Russian Duma contained a large
Mohammedan group so enterprising in spirit and so skilfully led that
Russian public opinion became genuinely uneasy and encouraged the
government to diminish Tartar influence in Russian parliamentary life by
summary curtailments of Mohammedan representation.[161]
Of course the Russian Mohammedans were careful to proclaim their
political loyalty to the Russian Empire. Nevertheless, many earnest
spirits revealed their secret aspirations by seeking a freer and more
fruitful field of labour in Turkish Stambul, where the Russian Tartars
played a prominent part in the Pan-Turk and Pan-Turanian movements
within the Ottoman Empire. In fact, it was a Volga Tartar, Yusuf Bey
Akchura Oglu, who was the real founder of the first Pan-Turanian society
at Constantinople, and his well-known book, _Three Political Systems_,
became the text on which most subsequent Pan-Turanian writings have been
based.[162]
Down to the Young-Turk revolution of 1908, Pan-Turanism was somewhat
under a cloud at Stambul. Sultan Abdul Hamid, as already remarked, was a
Pan-Islamist and had a rooted aversion to all nationalist movements.
Accordingly, the Pan-Turanians, while not actually persecuted, were
never in the Sultan's favour. With the advent of Young-Turk nationalism
to power, however, all was changed. The "Ottomanizing" leaders of the
new government listened eagerly to Pan-Turanian preaching, and most of
them became affiliated with the movement. It is interesting to note that
Russian Tartars continued to play a prominent part. The chief
Pan-Turanian propagandist was the able publicist Ahmed Bey Agayeff, a
Volga Tartar. His well-edited organ, _Turk Yurdu_ (_Turkish Home_),
penetrated to every corner of the Turko-Tartar world and exercised great
influence on the development of its public opinion.
Although leaders like Ahmed Bey Agayeff clearly visualized the entire
Turanian world from Finland to Manchuria as a potential whole, and were
thus full-fledged "Pan-Turanians," their practical efforts were at first
confined to the closely related Turko-Tartar segment; that is, to the
Ottomans of Turkey, the Tartars of Russia, and the Turkomans of central
Asia and Persia. Since all these peoples were also Mohammedans, it
follows that this propaganda had a religious as well as a racial
complexion, trending in many respects toward Pan-Islamism. Indeed, even
disregarding the religious factor, we may say that, though Pan-Turanian
in theory, the movement was at that time in practice little more than
"Pan-Turkism."
It was the Balkan wars of 1912-13 which really precipitated full-fledged
Pan-Turanism. Those wars not merely expelled the Turks from the Balkans
and turned their eyes increasingly toward Asia, but also roused such
hatred of the victorious Serbs in the breasts of Hungarians and
Bulgarians that both these peoples proclaimed their "Turanian" origins
and toyed with ideas of "Pan-Turanian" solidarity against the menace of
Serbo-Russian "Pan-Slavism."[163] The Pan-Turanian thinkers were
assuredly evolving a body of doctrine grandiose enough to satisfy the
most ambitious hopes. Emphasizing the great virility and nerve-force
everywhere patent in the Turanian stocks, these thinkers saw in Turan
the dominant race of the morrow. Zealous students of Western
evolutionism and ethnology, they were evolving their own special theory
of race grandeur and decadence. According to Pan-Turanian teaching, the
historic peoples of southern Asia--Arabs, Persians, and Hindus--are
hopelessly degenerate. As for the Europeans, they have recently passed
their apogee, and, exhausted by the consuming fires of modern
industrialism, are already entering upon their decline. It is the
Turanians, with their inherent virility and steady nerves unspoiled by
the wear and tear of Western civilization, who must be the great dynamic
of the future. Indeed, some Pan-Turanian thinkers go so far as to
proclaim that it is the sacred mission of their race to revitalize a
whole senescent, worn-out world by the saving infusion of regenerative
Turanian blood.[164]
Of course the Pan-Turanians recognized that anything like a realization
of their ambitious dreams was dependent upon the virtual destruction of
the Russian Empire. In fact, Russia, with its Tartars, Turkomans,
Kirghiz, Finns, and numerous kindred tribes, was in Pan-Turanian eyes
merely a Slav alluvium laid with varying thickness over a Turanian
subsoil. This turning of Russia into a vast "Turania irredenta" was
certainly an ambitious order. Nevertheless, the Pan-Turanians counted on
powerful Western backing. They realized that Germany and Austria-Hungary
were fast drifting toward war with Russia, and they felt that such a
cataclysm, however perilous, would also offer most glorious
possibilities.
These Pan-Turanian aspirations undoubtedly had a great deal to do with
driving Turkey into the Great War on the side of the Central Empires.
Certainly, Enver Pasha and most of the other leaders of the governing
group had long been more or less affiliated with the Pan-Turanian
movement. Of course the Turkish Government had more than one string to
its bow. It tried to drive Pan-Turanism and Pan-Islamism in double
harness, using the "Holy War" agitation for pious Moslems everywhere,
while it redoubled Pan-Turanian propaganda among the Turko-Tartar
peoples. A good statement of Pan-Turanian ambitions in the early years
of the war is that of the publicist Tekin Alp in his book, _The Turkish
and Pan-Turkish Ideal_, published in 1915. Says Tekin Alp: "With the
crushing of Russian despotism by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish
armies, 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 Turanians will receive their
independence. With the 10,000,000 Ottoman Turks, this will form a nation
of 50,000,000, advancing toward a great civilization which may perhaps
be compared with that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and
energy to rise even higher. In some ways it will be superior to the
degenerate French and English civilizations."
With the collapse of Russia after the Bolshevik revolution at the end of
1917, Pan-Turanian hopes knew no bounds. So certain were they of triumph
that they began to flout even their German allies, thus revealing that
hatred of all Europeans which had always lurked at the back of their
minds. A German staff-officer thus describes the table-talk of Halil
Pasha, the Turkish commander of the Mesopotamian front and uncle of
Enver: "First of all, every tribe with a Turkish mother-tongue must be
forged into a single nation. The national principle was supreme; so it
was the design to conquer Turkestan, the cradle of Turkish power and
glory. That was the first task. From that base connections must be
established with the Yakutes of Siberia, who were considered, on account
of their linguistic kinship, the remotest outposts of the Turkish blood
to the eastward. The closely related Tartar tribes of the Caucasus must
naturally join this union. Armenians and Georgians, who form minority
nationalities in that territory, must either submit voluntarily or be
subjugated.... Such a great compact Turkish Empire, exercising hegemony
over all the Islamic world, would exert a powerful attraction upon
Afghanistan and Persia.... In December, 1917, when the Turkish front in
Mesopotamia threatened to yield, Halil Pasha said to me, half vexed, half
jokingly: 'Supposing we let the English have this cursed desert hole and
go to Turkestan, where I will erect a new empire for my little boy.' He
had named his youngest son after the great conqueror and destroyer,
Jenghiz Khan."[165]
As a matter of fact, the summer of 1918 saw Transcaucasia and northern
Persia overrun by Turkish armies headed for Central Asia. Then came the
German collapse in the West and the end of the war, apparently dooming
Turkey to destruction. For the moment the Pan-Turanians were stunned.
Nevertheless, their hopes were soon destined to revive, as we shall
presently see.
Before describing the course of events in the Near East since 1918,
which need to be treated as a unit, let us go back to consider the
earlier developments of the other "second-stage" nationalist movements
in the Moslem world. We have already seen how, concurrently with Turkish
nationalism, Arab nationalism was likewise evolving into the "racial"
stage, the ideal being a great "Pan-Arab" empire, embracing not merely
the ethnically Arab peninsula-homeland, Syria, and Mesopotamia, but also
the Arabized regions of Egypt, Tripoli, French North Africa, and the
Sudan.
Pan-Arabism has not been as intellectually developed as Pan-Turanism,
though its general trend is so similar that its doctrines need not be
discussed in detail. One important difference between the two movements
is that Pan-Arabism is much more religious and Pan-Islamic in character,
the Arabs regarding themselves as "The Chosen People" divinely
predestined to dominate the whole Islamic world. Pan-Arabism also lacks
Pan-Turanism's unity of direction. There have been two distinct
intellectual centres--Syria and Egypt. In fact, it is in Egypt that
Pan-Arab schemes have been most concretely elaborated, the Egyptian
programme looking toward a reunion of the Arab-speaking lands under the
Khedive--perhaps at first subject to British tutelage, though ultimately
throwing off British control by concerted Pan-Arab action. The late
Khedive Abbas Hilmi, deposed by the British in 1914, is supposed to have
encouraged this movement.[166]
The Great War undoubtedly stimulated Pan-Arabism, especially by its
creation of an independent Arab kingdom in the Hedjaz with claims on
Syria and Mesopotamia. However, the various Arab peoples are so
engrossed with local independence agitations looking toward the
elimination of British, French, and Italian control from specific
regions like Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Tripoli, that the larger
concept of Pan-Arabism, while undoubtedly an underlying factor, is not
to-day in the foreground of Arab nationalist programmes.
Furthermore, as I have already said, Pan-Arabism is interwoven with the
non-racial concepts of Pan-Islamism and "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." This
latter concept may seem a rather grotesque contradiction of terms. So it
may be to us Westerners. But it is not necessarily so to Eastern minds.
However eagerly the East may have seized upon our ideas of nationality
and patriotism, those ideas have entered minds already full of concepts
like Islamic solidarity and the brotherhood of all True Believers. The
result has been a subtle coloration of the new by the old, so that even
when Moslems use our exact words, "nationality," "race," etc., their
conception of what those words mean is distinctly different from ours.
These differences in fact extend to all political concepts. Take the
word "State," for example. The typical Mohammedan state is not, like
the typical Western state, a sharply defined unit, with fixed boundaries
and full sovereignty exercised everywhere within its frontiers. It is
more or less an amorphous mass, with a central nucleus, the seat of an
authority which shades off into ill-defined, anarchic independence. Of
course, in the past half-century, most Mohammedan states have tried to
remodel themselves on Western lines, but the traditional tendency is
typified by Afghanistan, where the tribes of the Indian north-west
frontier, though nominally Afghan, enjoy practical independence and have
frequently conducted private wars of their own against the British which
the Ameer has disavowed and for which the British have not held him
responsible.
Similarly with the term "Nationality." In Moslem eyes, a man need not
be born or formally naturalized to be a member of a certain Moslem
"Nationality." Every Moslem is more or less at home in every part of
Islam, so a man may just happen into a particular country and thereby
become at once, if he wishes, a national in good standing. For
example: "Egypt for the Egyptians" does not mean precisely what we
think. Let a Mohammedan of Algiers or Damascus settle in Cairo.
Nothing prevents him from acting, and being considered as, an
"Egyptian Nationalist" in the full sense of the term. This is because
Islam has always had a distinct idea of territorial as well as
spiritual unity. All predominantly Mohammedan lands are believed by
Moslems to constitute "Dar-ul-Islam,"[167] which is in a sense the
joint possession of all Moslems and which all Moslems are jointly
obligated to defend. That is the reason why alien encroachments on any
Moslem land are instantly resented by Moslems at the opposite end of
the Moslem world, who could have no possible material interest in the
matter.
We are now better able to understand how many Moslem thinkers, combining
the Western concept of nationality with the traditional idea of
Dar-ul-Islam, have evolved a new synthesis of the two, expressed by the
term "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." This trend of thought is well set forth
by an Indian Moslem, who writes: "In the West, the whole science of
government rests on the axiom that the essential divisions of humanity
are determined by considerations of race and geography; but for
Orientals these ideas are very far from being axioms. For them, humanity
divides according to religious beliefs. The unity is no longer the
nation or the State, but the 'Millah.'[168] Europeans see in this a
counterpart to their Middle Ages--a stage which Islam should pass
through on its way to modernity in the Western sense. How badly they
understand how religion looks to a Mohammedan! They forget that Islam is
not only a religion, but also a social organization, a form of culture,
and a nationality.... The principle of Islamic fraternity--of
Pan-Islamism, if you prefer the word--is analogous to patriotism, but
with this difference: this Islamic fraternity, though resulting in
identity of laws and customs, has not (like Western Nationality) been
brought about by community of race, country, or history, but has been
received, as we believe, directly from God."[169]
Pan-Islamic nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon and has not
been doctrinally worked out. Nevertheless it is visible throughout the
Moslem world and is gaining in strength, particularly in regions like
North Africa and India, where strong territorial patriotism has, for one
reason or another, not developed. As a French writer remarks:
"Mohammedan Nationalism is not an isolated or sporadic agitation. It is
a broad tide, which is flowing over the whole Islamic world of Asia,
India, and Africa. Nationalism is a new form of the Mohammedan faith,
which, far from being undermined by contact with European civilization,
seems to have discovered a surplus of religious fervour, and which, in
its desire for expansion and proselytism, tends to realize its unity by
rousing the fanaticism of the masses, by directing the political
tendencies of the élites, and by sowing everywhere the seeds of a
dangerous agitation."[170] Pan-Islamic nationalism may thus, in the
future, become a major factor which will have to be seriously reckoned
with.[171]
III
So ends our survey of nationalist movements in the Moslem world. Given
such a tangled complex of aspirations, enormously stimulated by
Armageddon, it was only natural that the close of the Great War should
have left the Orient a veritable welter of unrest. Obviously, anything
like a constructive settlement could have been effected only by the
exercise of true statesmanship of the highest order. Unfortunately, the
Versailles peace conference was devoid of true statesmanship, and the
resulting "settlement" not only failed to give peace to Europe but
disclosed an attitude toward the East inspired by the pre-war spirit of
predatory imperialism and cynical _Realpolitik_. Apparently oblivious of
the mighty psychological changes which the war had wrought, and of the
consequent changes of attitude and policy required, the victorious
Allies proceeded to treat the Orient as though Armageddon were a
skirmish and Asia the sleeping giant of a century ago.
In fact, disregarding both the general pronouncements of liberal
principles and the specific promises of self-determination for Near
Eastern peoples which they had made during the war, the Allies now
paraded a series of secret treaties (negotiated between themselves
during those same war-years when they had been so unctuously orating),
and these secret treaties clearly divided up the Ottoman Empire among
the victors, in absolute disregard of the wishes of the inhabitants. The
purposes of the Allies were further revealed by the way in which the
Versailles conference refused to receive the representatives of Persia
(theoretically still independent), but kept them cooling their heels in
Paris while British pressure at Teheran forced the Shah's government to
enter into an "agreement" that made Persia a virtual protectorate of the
British Empire. As for the Egyptians, who had always protested against
the protectorate proclaimed by England solely on its own initiative in
1914, the conference refused to pay any attention to their delegates,
and they were given to understand that the conference regarded the
British protectorate over Egypt as a _fait accompli_. The upshot was
that, as a result of the war, European domination over the Near and
Middle East was riveted rather than relaxed.
But the strangest feature of this strange business remains to be told.
One might imagine that the Allied leaders would have realized that they
were playing a dangerous game, which could succeed only by close
team-work and quick action. As a matter of fact, the very reverse was
the case. After showing their hand, and thereby filling the East with
disillusionment, despair, and fury, the Allies proceeded to quarrel over
the spoils. Nearly two years passed before England, France, and Italy
were able to come to an even superficial agreement as to the partition
of the Ottoman Empire, and meanwhile they had been bickering and
intriguing against each other all over the Near East. This was sheer
madness. The destined victims were thereby informed that European
domination rested not only on disregard of the moral "imponderables" but
on diplomatic bankruptcy as well. The obvious reflection was that a
domination resting on such rotten foundations might well be overthrown.
That, at any rate, is the way multitudes of Orientals read the
situation, and their rebellious feelings were stimulated not merely by
consciousness of their own strength and Western disunion, but also by
the active encouragement of a new ally--Bolshevik Russia. Russian
Bolshevism had thrown down the gauntlet to Western civilization, and in
the desperate struggle which was now on, the Bolshevik leaders saw with
terrible glee the golden opportunities vouchsafed them in the East. The
details of Bolshevik activity in the Orient will be considered in the
chapter on Social Unrest. Suffice it to remember here that Bolshevik
propaganda is an important element in that profound ferment which
extends over the whole Near and Middle East; a ferment which has reduced
some regions to the verge of chaos and which threatens to increase
rather than diminish in the immediate future.
To relate all the details of contemporary Eastern unrest would fill a
book in itself. Let us here content ourselves with considering the chief
centres of this unrest, remembering always that it exists throughout the
Moslem world from French North Africa to Central Asia and the Dutch
Indies. The centres to be here surveyed will be Egypt, Persia, and the
Turkish and Arab regions of the former Ottoman Empire. A fifth main
centre of unrest--India--will be discussed in the next chapter.
The gathering storm first broke in Egypt. During the war Egypt, flooded
with British troops and subjected to the most stringent martial law, had
remained quiet, but it was the quiet of repression, not of passivity.
We have seen how, with the opening years of the twentieth century,
virtually all educated Egyptians had become more or less impregnated
with nationalist ideas, albeit a large proportion of them believed in
evolutionary rather than revolutionary methods. The chief hope of the
moderates had been the provisional character of English rule. So long as
England declared herself merely in "temporary occupation" of Egypt,
anything was possible. But the proclamation of the protectorate in 1914,
which declared Egypt part of the British Empire, entirely changed the
situation. Even the most moderate nationalists felt that the future was
definitely prejudged against them and that the door had been irrevocably
closed upon their ultimate aspirations. The result was that the
moderates were driven over to the extremists and were ready to join the
latter in violent action as soon as opportunity might offer.
The extreme nationalists had of course protested bitterly against the
protectorate from the first, and the close of the war saw a delegation
composed of both nationalist wings proceed to Paris to lay their claims
before the Versailles conference. Rebuffed by the conference, which
recognized the British protectorate over Egypt as part of the peace
settlement, the Egyptian delegation issued a formal protest warning of
trouble. This protest read:
"We have knocked at door after door, but have received no answer. In
spite of the definite pledges given by the statesmen at the head of the
nations which won the war, to the effect that their victory would mean
the triumph of Right over Might and the establishment of the principle
of self-determination for small nations, the British protectorate over
Egypt was written into the treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain
without the people of Egypt being consulted as to their political
status.
"This crime against our nation, a breach of good faith on the part of
the Powers who have declared that they are forming in the same Treaty a
Society of Nations, will not be consummated without a solemn warning
that the people of Egypt consider the decision taken at Paris null and
void.... If our voice is not heard, it will be only because the blood
already shed has not been enough to overthrow the old world-order and
give birth to a new world-order."[172]
Before these lines had appeared in type, trouble in Egypt had begun.
Simultaneously with the arrival of the Egyptian delegation at Paris, the
nationalists in Egypt laid their demands before the British authorities.
The nationalist programme demanded complete self-government for Egypt,
leaving England only a right of supervision over the public debt and the
Suez Canal. The nationalists' strength was shown by the fact that these
proposals were indorsed by the Egyptian cabinet recently appointed by
the Khedive at British suggestion. In fact, the Egyptian Premier,
Roushdi Pasha, asked to be allowed to go to London with some of his
colleagues for a hearing. This placed the British authorities in Egypt
in a distinctly trying position. However, they determined to stand firm,
and accordingly answered that England could not abandon its
responsibility for the continuance of order and good government in
Egypt, now a British protectorate and an integral part of the empire,
and that no useful purpose would be served by allowing the Egyptian
leaders to go to London and there advance immoderate demands which could
not possibly be entertained.
The English attitude was firm. The Egyptian attitude was no less firm.
The cabinet at once resigned, no new cabinet could be formed, and the
British High Commissioner, General Allenby, was forced to assume
unveiled control. Meanwhile the nationalists announced that they were
going to hold a plebiscite to determine the attitude of the Egyptian
people. Forbidden by the British authorities, the plebiscite was
nevertheless illegally held, and resulted, according to the
nationalists, in an overwhelming popular indorsement of their demands.
This defiant attitude determined the British on strong action.
Accordingly, in the spring of 1919, most of the nationalist leaders were
seized and deported to Malta.
Egypt's answer was an explosion. From one end of the country to the
other, Egypt flamed into rebellion. Everywhere it was the same story.
Railways and telegraph lines were systematically cut. Trains were
stalled and looted. Isolated British officers and soldiers were
murdered. In Cairo alone, thousands of houses were sacked by the mob.
Soon the danger was rendered more acute by the irruption out of the
desert of swarms of Bedouin Arabs bent on plunder. For a few days Egypt
trembled on the verge of anarchy, and the British Government admitted in
Parliament that all Egypt was in a state of insurrection.
The British authorities met the crisis with vigour and determination.
The number of British troops in Egypt was large, trusty black regiments
were hurried up from the Sudan, and the well-disciplined Egyptian native
police generally obeyed orders. After several weeks of sharp fighting
and heavy loss of life, Egypt was again gotten under control.
Order was restored, but the outlook was ominous in the extreme. Only the
presence of massed British and Sudanese troops enabled order to be
maintained. Even the application of stern martial law could not prevent
continuous nationalist demonstrations, sometimes ending in riots,
fighting, and heavy loss of life. The most serious aspect of the
situation was that not only were the upper classes solidly nationalist,
but they had behind them the hitherto passive fellah millions. The
war-years had borne hard on the fellaheen. Military exigencies had
compelled Britain to conscript fully a million of them for forced
labour in the Near East and even in Europe, while there had also been
wholesale requisitions of grain, fodder, and other supplies. These
things had caused profound discontent and had roused among the fellaheen
not merely passive dislike but active hatred of British rule.
Authoritative English experts on Egypt were seriously alarmed. Shortly
after the riots Sir William Willcocks, the noted engineer, said in a
public statement: "The keystone of the British occupation of Egypt was
the fact that the fellaheen were for it. The Sheikhs, Omdehs, governing
classes, and high religious heads might or might not be hostile, but
nothing counted for much while the millions of fellaheen were solid for
the occupation. The British have undoubtedly to-day lost the friendship
and confidence of the fellaheen." And Sir Valentine Chirol stated in the
London _Times_: "We are now admittedly face to face with the ominous
fact that for the first time since the British occupation large numbers
of the Egyptian fellaheen, who owe far more to us than does any other
class of Egyptians, have been worked up into a fever of bitter
discontent and hatred. Very few people at home, even in responsible
quarters, have, I think, the slightest conception of the very dangerous
degree of tension which has now been reached out here."
All foreign observers were impressed by the nationalist feeling which
united all creeds and classes. Regarding the monster demonstrations held
during the summer of 1919, an Italian publicist wrote: "For the first
time in history, the banners flown showed the Crescent interwoven with
the Cross. Until a short time ago the two elements were as distinct from
each other as each of them was from the Jews. To-day, precisely as has
happened in India among the Mussulmans and the Hindus, every trace of
religious division has departed. All Egyptians are enrolled under a
single banner. Every one behind his mask of silence is burning with the
same faith, and confident that his cause will ultimately triumph."[173]
And a Frenchwoman, a lifelong resident of Egypt, wrote: "We have seen
surprising things in this country, so often divided by party and
religious struggles: Coptic priests preaching in mosques, ulemas
preaching in Christian churches; Syrian, Maronite, or Mohammedan
students; women, whether of Turkish or Egyptian blood, united in the
same fervour, the same ardent desire to see break over their ancient
land the radiant dawn of independence. For those who, like myself, have
known the Egypt of Tewfik, the attitude of the women these last few
years is the most surprising transformation that has happened in the
valley of the Nile. One should have seen the nonchalant life, the almost
complete indifference to anything savouring of politics, to appreciate
the enormous steps taken in the last few months. For example: last
summer a procession of women demonstrators was surrounded by British
soldiers with fixed bayonets. One of the women, threatened by a soldier,
turned on him, baring her breast, and cried: 'Kill me, then, so that
there may be another Miss Cavell.'"[174]
Faced by this unprecedented nationalist fervour, Englishmen on the spot
were of two opinions. Some, like Sir William Willcocks and Sir Valentine
Chirol, stated that extensive concessions must be made.[175] Other
qualified observers asserted that concessions would be weakness and
would spell disaster. Said Sir M. McIlwraith: "Five years of a
Nationalist régime would lead to hopeless chaos and disorder.... If
Egypt is not to fall back into the morass of bankruptcy and anarchy from
which we rescued her in 1882, with the still greater horrors of
Bolshevism, of which there are already sinister indications,
superadded, Britain must not loosen her control."[176] In England the
Egyptian situation caused grave disquietude, and in the summer of 1919
the British Government announced the appointment of a commission of
inquiry headed by Lord Milner to investigate fully into Egyptian
affairs.
The appointment was a wise one. Lord Milner was one of the ablest
figures in British political life, a man of long experience with
imperial problems, including that of Egypt, and possessed of a
temperament equally remote from the doctrinaire liberal or the hidebound
conservative. In short, Lord Milner was a _realist_, in the true sense
of the word, as his action soon proved. Arriving in Egypt at the
beginning of 1920, Lord Milner and his colleagues found themselves
confronted with a most difficult situation. In Egypt the word had gone
forth to boycott the commission, and not merely nationalist politicians
but also religious leaders like the Grand Mufti refused even to discuss
matters unless the commissioners would first agree to Egyptian
independence. This looked like a deadlock. Nevertheless, by infinite
tact and patience, Lord Milner finally got into free and frank
discussion with Zagloul Pasha and the other responsible nationalist
leaders.
His efforts were undoubtedly helped by certain developments within Egypt
itself. In Egypt, as elsewhere in the East, there were appearing
symptoms not merely of political but also of social unrest. New types of
agitators were springing up, preaching to the populace the most extreme
revolutionary doctrines. These youthful agitators disquieted the regular
nationalist leaders, who felt themselves threatened both as party chiefs
and as men of social standing and property. The upshot was that, by the
autumn of 1920, Lord Milner and Zagloul Pasha had agreed upon the basis
of what looked like a genuine compromise. According to the intimations
then given out to the press, and later confirmed by the nature of Lord
Milner's official report, the lines of the tentative agreement ran as
follows: England was to withdraw her protectorate and was to declare
Egypt independent. This independence was qualified to about the same
extent that Cuba's is toward the United States. Egypt was to have
complete self-government, both the British garrison and British civilian
officials being withdrawn. Egypt was, however, to make a perpetual
treaty of alliance with Great Britain, was to agree not to make treaties
with other Powers save with Britain's consent, and was to grant Britain
a military and naval station for the protection of the Suez Canal and of
Egypt itself in case of sudden attack by foreign enemies. The vexed
question of the Sudan was left temporarily open.
These proposals bore the earmarks of genuinely constructive compromise.
Unfortunately, they were not at once acted upon.[177] Both in England
and in Egypt they roused strong opposition. In England adverse official
influences held up the commission's report till February, 1921. In Egypt
the extreme nationalists denounced Zagloul Pasha as a traitor, though
moderate opinion seemed substantially satisfied. The commission's
report, as finally published, declared that the grant of self-government
to Egypt could not be safely postponed; that the nationalist spirit
could not be extinguished; that an attempt to govern Egypt in the teeth
of a hostile people would be "a difficult and disgraceful task"; and
that it would be a great misfortune if the present opportunity for a
settlement were lost. However, the report was not indorsed by the
British Government in its entirety, and Lord Milner forthwith resigned.
As for Zagloul Pasha, he still maintains his position as nationalist
leader, but his authority has been gravely shaken. Such is the
situation of Egypt at this present writing: a situation frankly not so
encouraging as it was last year.
Meanwhile the storm which had begun in Egypt had long since spread to
other parts of the Near East. In fact, by the opening months of 1920,
the storm-centre had shifted to the Ottoman Empire. For this the Allies
themselves were largely to blame. Of course a constructive settlement of
these troubled regions would have been very difficult. Still, it might
not have proved impossible if Allied policy had been fair and
above-board. The close of the war found the various peoples of the
Ottoman Empire hopeful that the liberal war-aims professed by the Allied
spokesmen would be redeemed. The Arab elements were notably hopeful,
because they had been given a whole series of Allied promises (shortly
to be repudiated, as we shall presently see), while even the beaten
Turks were not entirely bereft of hope in the future. Besides the
general pronouncements of liberal treatment as formulated in the
"Fourteen Points" programme of President Wilson and indorsed by the
Allies, the Turks had pledges of a more specific character, notably by
Premier Lloyd George, who, on January 5, 1918, had said: "Nor are we
fighting to deprive Turkey of its capital or of the rich and renowned
lands of Asia Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in
race." In other words, the Turks were given unequivocally to understand
that, while their rule over non-Turkish regions like the Arab provinces
must cease, the Turkish regions of the empire were not to pass under
alien rule, but were to form a Turkish national state. The Turks did not
know about a series of secret treaties between the Allies, begun in
1915, which partitioned practically the whole of Asia Minor between the
Allied Powers. These were to come out a little later. For the moment the
Turks might hope.
In the case of the Arabs there were far brighter grounds for
nationalist hopes--and far darker depths of Allied duplicity. We have
already mentioned the Arab revolt of 1916, which, beginning in the
Hedjaz under the leadership of the Shereef of Mecca, presently spread
through all the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and contributed so
largely to the collapse of Turkish resistance. This revolt was, however,
not a sudden, unpremeditated thing. It had been carefully planned, and
was due largely to Allied backing--and Allied promises. From the very
beginning of the war Arab nationalist malcontents had been in touch with
the British authorities in Egypt. They were warmly welcomed and
encouraged in their separatist schemes, because an Arab rebellion would
obviously be of invaluable assistance to the British in safeguarding
Egypt and the Suez Canal, to say nothing of an advance into Turkish
territory.
The Arabs, however, asked not merely material aid but also definite
promises that their rebellion should be rewarded by the formation of an
Arab state embracing the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
Unfortunately for Arab nationalist aspirations, the British and French
Governments had their own ideas as to the future of Turkey's Arab
provinces. Both England and France had long possessed "spheres of
influence" in those regions. The English sphere was in southern
Mesopotamia at the head of the Persian Gulf. The French sphere was the
Lebanon, a mountainous district in northern Syria just inland from the
Mediterranean coast, where the population, known as Maronites, were
Roman Catholics, over whom France had long extended her diplomatic
protection. Of course both these districts were legally Turkish
territory. Also, both were small in area. But "spheres of influence" are
elastic things. Under favourable circumstances they are capable of
sudden expansion to an extraordinary degree. Such a circumstance was the
Great War. Accordingly the British and French Foreign Offices put their
heads together and on March 5, 1915, the two governments signed a
secret treaty by the terms of which France was given a "predominant
position" in Syria and Britain a predominant position in Mesopotamia. No
definite boundaries were then assigned, but the intent was to stake out
claims which would partition Turkey's Arab provinces between England and
France.
Naturally the existence of this secret treaty was an embarrassment to
the British officials in Egypt in their negotiations with the Arabs.
However, an Arab rebellion was too valuable an asset to be lost, and the
British negotiators finally evolved a formula which satisfied the Arab
leaders. On October 25, 1915, the Shereef of Mecca's representative at
Cairo was given a document by the Governor-General of Egypt, Sir Henry
McMahon, in which Great Britain undertook, conditional upon an Arab
revolt, to recognize the independence of the Arabs of the Ottoman Empire
except in southern Mesopotamia, where British interests required special
measures of administrative control, and also except areas where Great
Britain was "not free to act without detriment to the interests of
France." This last clause was of course a "joker." However, it achieved
its purpose. The Arabs, knowing nothing about the secret treaty,
supposed it referred merely to the restricted district of the Lebanon.
They went home jubilant, to prepare the revolt which broke out next
year.
The revolt began in November, 1916. It might not have begun at all had
the Arabs known what had happened the preceding May. In that month
England and France signed another secret treaty, the celebrated
Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement definitely partitioned Turkey's
Arab provinces along the lines suggested in the initial secret treaty of
the year before. By the Sykes-Picot Agreement most of Mesopotamia was to
be definitely British, while the Syrian coast from Tyre to Alexandretta
was to be definitely French, together with extensive Armenian and Asia
Minor regions to the northward. Palestine was to be "international,"
albeit its chief seaport, Haifa, was to be British, and the implication
was that Palestine fell within the English sphere. As to the great
hinterland lying between Mesopotamia and the Syrian coast, it was to be
"independent Arab under two spheres of influence," British and French;
the French sphere embracing all the rest of Syria from Aleppo to
Damascus, the English sphere embracing all the rest of Mesopotamia--the
region about Mosul. In other words, the independence promised the Arabs
by Sir Henry McMahon had vanished into thin air.
This little shift behind the scenes was of course not communicated to
the Arabs. On the contrary, the British did everything possible to
stimulate Arab nationalist hopes--this being the best way to extract
their fighting zeal against the Turks. The British Government sent the
Arabs a number of picked intelligence officers, notably a certain
Colonel Lawrence, an extraordinary young man who soon gained unbounded
influence over the Arab chiefs and became known as "The Soul of the
Arabian Revolution."[178] These men, chosen for their knowledge of, and
sympathy for, the Arabs, were not informed about the secret treaties, so
that their encouragement of Arab zeal might not be marred by any lack of
sincerity. Similarly, the British generals were prodigal of promises in
their proclamations.[179] The climax of this blessed comedy occurred at
the very close of the war, when the British and French Governments
issued the following joint declaration which was posted throughout the
Arab provinces: "The aim which France and Great Britain have in view in
waging in the East the war let loose upon the world by German ambition,
is to insure the complete and final emancipation of all those peoples,
so long oppressed by Turks, and to establish national governments and
administrations which shall derive their authority from the initiative
and free will of the people themselves."
This climax was, however, followed by a swift _dénouement_. The war was
over, the enemy was beaten, the comedy was ended, the curtain was rung
down, and on that curtain the Arabs read--the inner truth of things.
French troops appeared to occupy the Syrian coast, the secret treaties
came out, and the Arabs learned how they had been tricked. Black and
bitter was their wrath. Probably they would have exploded at once had it
not been for their cool-headed chiefs, especially Prince Feisal, the son
of the Shereef of Mecca, who had proved himself a real leader of men
during the war and who had now attained a position of unquestioned
authority. Feisal knew the Allies' military strength and realized how
hazardous war would be, especially at that time. Feeling the moral
strength of the Arab position, he besought his countrymen to let him
plead Arabia's cause before the impending peace conference, and he had
his way. During the year 1919 the Arab lands were quiet, though it was
the quiet of suspense.
Prince Feisal pleaded his case before the peace conference with
eloquence and dignity. But Feisal failed. The covenant of the League of
Nations might contain the benevolent statement that "certain communities
formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of
development where their existence as independent nations can be
provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative
advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to
stand alone."[180] The Arabs knew what "mandatories" meant. Lloyd George
might utter felicitous phrases such as "Arab forces have redeemed the
pledges given to Great Britain, and we should redeem our pledges."[181]
The Arabs had read the secret treaties. "In vain is the net spread in
the sight of any bird." The game no longer worked. The Arabs knew that
they must rely on their own efforts, either in diplomacy or war.
Feisal still counselled peace. He was probably influenced to this not
merely by the risks of armed resistance but also by the fact that the
Allies were now quarrelling among themselves. These quarrels of course
extended all over the Near East, but there was none more bitter than the
quarrel which had broken out between England and France over the
division of the Arab spoils. This dispute originated in French
dissatisfaction with the secret treaties. No sooner had the Sykes-Picot
Agreement been published than large and influential sections of French
opinion began shouting that they had been duped. For generations French
imperialists had had their eye on Syria,[182] and since the beginning of
the war the imperialist press had been conducting an ardent propaganda
for wholesale annexations in the Near East. "La Syrie intégrale!" "All
Syria!" was the cry. And this "all" included not merely the coast-strip
assigned France by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but also Palestine and the
vast Aleppo-Damascus hinterland right across to the rich oil-fields of
Mosul. To this entire region, often termed in French expansionist
circles "La France du Levant," the imperialists asserted that France had
"imprescriptible historic rights running back to the Crusades and even
to Charlemagne." Syria was a "second Alsace," which held out its arms to
France and would not be denied. It was also the indispensable fulcrum of
French world-policy. These imperialist aspirations had powerful backing
in French Government circles. For example, early in 1915, M. Leygues had
said in the Chamber of Deputies: "The axis of French policy is in the
Mediterranean. One of its poles is in the West, at Algiers, Tunis, and
Morocco. The other must lie in the East, with Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine."[183]
After such high hopes, the effect of the Sykes-Picot Agreement on French
imperialists can be imagined. Their anger turned naturally upon the
English, who were roundly denounced and blamed for everything that was
happening in the East, Arab nationalist aspirations being stigmatized as
nothing but British propaganda. Cried one French writer: "Some
psychiatrist ought to write a study of these British colonial officials,
implacable imperialists, megalomaniacs, who, night and day, work for
their country without even asking counsel from London, and whose
constant care is to annihilate in Syria, as they once annihilated in
Egypt, the supremacy of France."[184] In answer to such fulminations,
English writers scored French "greed" and "folly" which was compromising
England's prestige and threatening to set the whole East on fire.[185]
In fine, there was a very pretty row on between people who, less than a
year before, had been pledging their "sacred union" for all eternity.
The Arabs were certainly much edified, and the other Eastern peoples as
well.
Largely owing to these bickerings, Allied action in the Near East was
delayed through 1919. But by the spring of 1920 the Allies came to a
measure of agreement. The meeting of the Allied Premiers at San Remo
elaborated the terms of the treaty to be imposed on Turkey, dividing
Asia Minor into spheres of influence and exploitation, while the Arab
provinces were assigned England and France according to the terms of the
Sykes-Picot Agreement--properly camouflaged, of course, as "mandates" of
the League of Nations. England, France, and their satellite, Greece,
prepared for action. British reinforcements were sent to Mesopotamia and
Palestine; French reinforcements were sent to Syria; an
Anglo-Franco-Greek force prepared to occupy Constantinople, and Premier
Venizelos promised a Greek army for Asia Minor contingencies. The one
rift in the lute was Italy. Italy saw big trouble brewing and determined
not to be directly involved. Said Premier Nitti to an English journalist
after the San Remo conference: "You will have war in Asia Minor, and
Italy will not send a single soldier nor pay a single lira. You have
taken from the Turks their sacred city of Adrianople; you have placed
their capital city under foreign control; you have taken from them every
port and the larger part of their territory; and the five Turkish
delegates whom you will select will sign a treaty which will not have
the sanction of the Turkish people or the Turkish Parliament."
Premier Nitti was a true prophet. For months past the Turkish
nationalists, knowing what was in store for them, had been building up a
centre of resistance in the interior of Asia Minor. Of course the former
nationalist leaders such as Enver Pasha had long since fled to distant
havens like Transcaucasia or Bolshevik Russia, but new leaders appeared,
notably a young officer of marked military talent, Mustapha Kemal Pasha.
With great energy Mustapha Kemal built up a really creditable army, and
from his "capital," the city of Angora in the heart of Asia Minor, he
now defied the Allies, emphasizing his defiance by attacking the French
garrisons in Cilicia (a coast district in Asia Minor just north of
Syria), inflicting heavy losses.
The Arabs also were preparing for action. In March a "Pan-Syrian
Congress" met at Damascus, unanimously declared the independence of
Syria, and elected Feisal king. This announcement electrified all the
Arab provinces. In the French-occupied coastal zone riots broke out
against the French; in Palestine there were "pogroms" against the Jews,
whom the Arabs, both Moslem and Christian, hated for their "Zionist"
plans; while in Mesopotamia there were sporadic uprisings of tribesmen.
Faced by this ominous situation, the "mandatories" took military
counter-measures. The French took especially vigorous action. France now
had nearly 100,000 men in Syria and Cilicia, headed by General Gouraud,
a veteran of many colonial wars and a believer in "strong-arm" methods.
On July 15 Gouraud sent Feisal an ultimatum requiring complete
submission. Feisal, diplomatic to the last, actually accepted the
ultimatum, but Gouraud ignored this acceptance on a technicality and
struck for Damascus with 60,000 men. Feisal attempted no real
resistance, fighting only a rearguard action and withdrawing into the
desert. On July 25 the French entered Damascus, the Arab capital,
deposed Feisal, and set up thoroughgoing French rule. Opposition was
punished with the greatest severity. Damascus was mulcted of a
war-contribution of 10,000,000 francs, after the German fashion in
Belgium, many nationalist leaders were imprisoned or shot, while Gouraud
announced that the death of "one French subject or one Christian" would
be followed by wholesale "most terrible reprisals" by bombing
aeroplanes.[186]
Before this Napoleonic "thunder-stroke" Syria bent for the moment,
apparently terrorized. In Mesopotamia, however, the British were not so
fortunate. For some months trouble had patently been brewing, and in
March the British commander had expressed himself as "much struck with
the volcanic possibilities of the country." In July all Mesopotamia
flamed into insurrection, and though Britain had fully 100,000 troops in
the province, they were hard put to it to stem the rebellion.
Meanwhile, the Allies had occupied Constantinople, to force acceptance
of the draft treaty of peace. Naturally, there was no resistance,
Constantinople being entirely at the mercy of the Allied fleet. But the
silence of the vast throngs gathered to watch the incoming troops filled
some Allied observers with disquietude. A French journalist wrote: "The
silence of the multitude was more impressive than boisterous protests.
Their eyes glowed with sullen hatred. Scattered through this throng of
mute, prostrated, hopeless people circulated watchful and sinuous
emissaries, who were to carry word of this misfortune to the remotest
confines of Islam. In a few hours they would be in Anatolia. A couple of
days later the news would have spread to Konia, Angora, and Sivas. In a
brief space of time it would be heralded throughout the regions of
Bolshevist influence, extending to the Caucasus and beyond. In a few
weeks all these centres of agitation will be preparing their
counter-attack. Asia and Africa will again cement their union of faith.
Intelligent agents will record in the retentive minds of people who do
not read, the history of our blunders. These missionaries of
insurrection and fanaticism come from every race and class of society.
Educated and refined men disguise themselves as beggars and outcasts, in
order to spread the news apace and to prepare for bitter
vengeance."[187]
Events in Turkey now proceeded precisely as the Italian Premier Nitti
had foretold. The Allied masters of Constantinople compelled the Sultan
to appoint a "friendly" cabinet which solemnly denounced Mustapha Kemal
and his "rebels," and sent a hand-picked delegation to Sèvres, France,
where they dutifully "signed on the dotted line" the treaty that the
Allies had prepared. The Allies had thus "imposed their will"--on paper.
For every sensible man knew that the whole business was a roaring farce;
knew that the "friendly" government, from Sultan to meanest clerk, was
as nationalist as Mustapha Kemal himself; knew that the real Turkish
capital was not Constantinople but Angora, and that the Allies' power
was measured by the range of their guns. As for Mustapha Kemal, his
comment on the Sèvres Treaty was: "I will fight to the end of the
world."
The Allies were thus in a decidedly embarrassing situation, especially
since "The Allies" now meant only England and France. Italy was out of
the game. As Nitti had warned at San Remo, she would "not send a single
soldier nor pay a single lira." With 200,000 soldiers holding down the
Arabs, and plenty of trouble elsewhere, neither France nor Britain had
the troops to crush Mustapha Kemal--a job which the French staff
estimated would take 300,000 men. One weapon, however, they still
possessed--Greece. In return for large territorial concessions, Premier
Venizelos offered to bring the Turks to reason. His offer was accepted,
and 100,000 Greek troops landed at Smyrna. But the Greek campaign was
not a success. Even 100,000 men soon wore thin when spread out over the
vast Asia Minor plateau. Mustapha Kemal avoided decisive battle,
harassing the Greeks by guerilla warfare just as he was harassing the
French in Cilicia at the other end of the line. The Greeks "dug in," and
a deadlock ensued which threatened to continue indefinitely. This soon
caused a new complication. Venizelos might be willing to "carry on" as
the Allies' submandatory, but the Greek people were not. Kept virtually
on a war-footing since 1912, the Greeks kicked over the traces. In the
November elections they repudiated Venizelos by a vote of 990,000 to
10,000, and recalled King Constantine, who had been deposed by the
Allies three years before. This meant that Greece, like Italy, was out
of the game. To be sure, King Constantine presently started hostilities
with the Turks on his own account. This was, however, something very
different from Greece's attitude under the Venizelist régime. The
Allies' weapon had thus broken in their hands.
Meanwhile Mustapha Kemal was not merely consolidating his authority in
Asia Minor but was gaining allies of his own. In the first place, he was
establishing close relations with the Arabs. It may appear strange to
find such bitter foes become friends; nevertheless, Franco-British
policy had achieved even this seeming miracle. The reason was clearly
explained by no less a person than Lawrence ("The Soul of the Arab
Revolution"), who had returned to civil life and was thus free to speak
his mind on the Eastern situation, which he did in no uncertain fashion.
In one of several statements given to the British press, Lawrence said:
"The Arabs rebelled against the Turks during the war, not because the
Turkish Government was notably bad, but because they wanted
independence. They did not risk their lives in battle to change masters,
to become British subjects or French citizens, but to win a State of
their own." The matter was put even more pointedly by an Arab
nationalist leader in the columns of a French radical paper opposed to
the Syrian adventure. Said this leader: "Both the French and the English
should know once for all that the Arabs are joined by a common religion
with the Turks, and have been politically identified with them for
centuries, and therefore do not wish to separate themselves from their
fellow believers and brothers-in-arms merely to submit to the domination
of a European nation, no matter what form the latter's suzerainty may
assume.... It is no use for M. Millerand to say: 'We have never thought
of trespassing in any respect upon the independence of these people.' No
one is deceived by such statements as that. The armistice was signed in
accordance with the conditions proclaimed by Mr. Wilson, but as soon as
Germany and its allies were helpless, the promises of the armistice were
trodden underfoot, as well as the Fourteen Points. Such a violation of
the promises of complete independence, so prodigally made to the Arabs
on so many occasions, has resulted in re-uniting closer than ever the
Arabs and the Turks. It has taken but a few months to restore that
intimacy.... It is probable that France, by maintaining an army of
150,000 men in Syria, and by spending billions of francs, will be able
to subdue the Syrian Arabs. But that will not finish the task. The
interior of that country borders upon other lands inhabited by Arabs,
Kurds, and Turks, and by the immense desert. In starting a conflict with
4,000,000 Syrians, France will be making enemies of 15,000,000 Arabs in
the Levant, most of whom are armed tribes, without including the other
Mohammedan peoples, who are speedily acquiring solidarity and
organization under the blows that are being dealt them by the Entente.
If you believe I am exaggerating, all you have to do is to investigate
the facts yourself. But what good will it do to confirm the truth too
late, and after floods of blood have flowed?"[188]
In fact, signs of Turco-Arab co-operation became everywhere apparent. To
be sure, this co-operation was not openly avowed either by Mustapha
Kemal or by the deposed King Feisal who, fleeing to Italy, continued his
diplomatic manoeuvres. But Arabs fought beside Turks against the
French in Cilicia; Turks and Kurds joined the Syrian Arabs in their
continual local risings; while Kemal's hand was clearly apparent in the
rebellion against the British in Mesopotamia.
This Arab _entente_ was not the whole of Mustapha Kemal's foreign
policy. He was also reaching out north-eastward to the Tartars of
Transcaucasia and the Turkomans of Persian Azerbaidjan. The Caucasus was
by this time the scene of a highly complicated struggle between Moslem
Tartars and Turkomans, Christian Armenians and Georgians, and various
Russian factions, which was fast reducing that unhappy region to chaos.
Among the Tartar-Turkomans, long leavened by Pan-Turanian propaganda,
Mustapha Kemal found enthusiastic adherents; and his efforts were
supported by a third ally--Bolshevik Russia. Bolshevik policy, which, as
we have already stated, was seeking to stir up trouble against the
Western Powers throughout the East, had watched Kemal's rise with great
satisfaction. At first the Bolsheviki could do very little for the
Turkish nationalists because they were not in direct touch, but the
collapse of Wrangel's "White" army in November, 1920, and the consequent
overrunning of all south Russia by the Red armies, opened a direct line
from Moscow to Angora via the Caucasus, and henceforth Mustapha Kemal
was supplied with money, arms, and a few men.
Furthermore, Kemal and the Bolsheviki were starting trouble in Persia.
That country was in a most deplorable condition. During the war Persia,
despite her technical neutrality, had been a battle-ground between the
Anglo-Russians on the one hand and the Turco-Germans on the other.
Russia's collapse in 1917 had led to her military withdrawal from
Persia, and England, profiting by the situation, had made herself
supreme, legalizing her position by the famous "Agreement" "negotiated"
with the Shah's government in August, 1919.[189] This treaty, though
signed and sealed in due form, was bitterly resented by the Persian
people. Here was obviously another ripe field for Bolshevik propaganda.
Accordingly, the Bolshevik government renounced all rights in Persia
acquired by the Czarist régime and proclaimed themselves the friends of
the Persian people against Western imperialism. Naturally the game
worked, and Persia soon became honeycombed with militant unrest. In the
early summer of 1920 a Bolshevist force actually crossed the Caspian Sea
and landed on the Persian shore. They did not penetrate far into the
country. They did not need to, for the country simply effervesced in a
way which made the British position increasingly untenable. For many
months a confused situation ensued. In fact, at this writing the
situation is still obscure. But there can be no doubt that Britain's
hold on Persia is gravely shaken, and she may soon be compelled to
evacuate the country, with the possible exception of the extreme south.
Turning back to the autumn of 1920: the position of England and France
in the Near East had become far from bright. Deserted by Italy and
Greece, defied by the Turks, harried by the Arabs, worried by the
Egyptians and Persians, and everywhere menaced by the subtle workings of
Bolshevism, the situation was not a happy one. The burden of empire was
proving heavy. In Mesopotamia alone the bill was already 100,000,000
sterling, with no relief in sight.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that in both England and
France Near Eastern policies were subjected to a growing flood of
criticism. In England especially the tide ran very strong. The
Mesopotamian imbroglio was denounced as both a crime and a blunder. For
example, Colonel Lawrence stated: "We are to-day not far from disaster.
Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept 14,000
local conscripts in the ranks and killed yearly an average of 200 Arabs
in maintaining peace. We keep 90,000 men, with aeroplanes, armoured
cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about 10,000 Arabs
in the rising this summer."[190] Influenced by such criticisms and by
the general trend of events, the British Government modified its
attitude, sending out Sir Percy Cox to negotiate with the Arabs. Sir
Percy Cox was a man of the Milner type, with a firm grip on realities
and an intimate experience with Eastern affairs. Authorized to discuss
large concessions, he met the nationalist leaders frankly and made a
good impression upon them. At this writing matters have not been
definitely settled, but it looks as though England was planning to limit
her direct control to the extreme south of Mesopotamia at the head of
the Persian Gulf--practically her old sphere of influence before 1914.
Meanwhile, in Syria, France has thus far succeeded in maintaining
relative order by strong-arm methods. But the situation is highly
unstable. All classes of the population have been alienated. Even the
Catholic Maronites, traditionally pro-French, have begun agitating.
General Gouraud promptly squelched the agitation by deporting the
leaders to Corsica; nevertheless, the fact remains that France's only
real friends in Syria are dissatisfied. Up to the present these things
have not changed France's attitude. A short time ago ex-Premier Leygues
remarked of Syria, "France will occupy all of it, and always"; while
still more recently General Gouraud stated: "France must remain in
Syria, both for political and economic reasons. The political
consequences of our abandonment of the country would be disastrous. Our
prestige and influence in the Levant and the Mediterranean would be
doomed. The economic interests of France also compel us to remain there.
When fully developed, Syria and Cilicia will have an economic value
fully equal to that of Egypt."
However, despite the French Government's firmness, there is an
increasing public criticism of the "Syrian adventure," not merely from
radical anti-imperialist quarters, but from unimpeachably conservative
circles as well. The editor of one of the most conservative French
political periodicals has stated: "Jealous of its autonomy, the Arab
people, liberated from the Ottoman yoke, do not desire a new foreign
domination. To say that Syria demands our protection is a lie. Syria
wishes to be entirely independent."[191] And recently Senator Victor
Bérard, one of France's recognized authorities on Eastern affairs made a
speech in the French Senate strongly criticising the Government's Syrian
policy from the very start and declaring that a "free Syria" was "a
question of both interest and honour."
Certainly, the French Government, still so unyielding toward the Arabs,
has reversed its attitude toward the Turks. Side-stepping the Sèvres
Treaty, it has lately agreed on provisional peace terms with the Turkish
nationalists, actually agreeing to evacuate Cilicia. In fact, both
France and England know that the Sèvres Treaty is unworkable, and that
Turkish possession of virtually the whole of Asia Minor will have to be
recognized.
In negotiating with Mustapha Kemal, France undoubtedly hopes to get him
to throw over the Arabs. But this is scarcely thinkable. The whole trend
of events betokens an increasing solidarity of the Near Eastern peoples
against Western political control. A most remarkable portent in this
direction is the Pan-Islamic conference held at Sivas early in 1921.
This conference, called to draw up a definite scheme for effective
Moslem co-operation the world over, was attended not merely by the high
orthodox Moslem dignitaries and political leaders, but also by heterodox
chiefs like the Shiah Emir of Kerbela, the Imam Yahya, and the Zaidite
Emir of Yemen--leaders of heretical sects between whom and the orthodox
Sunnis co-operation had previously been impossible. Most notable of all,
the press reports state that the conference was presided over by no
less a personage than El Sennussi. This may well be so, for we have
already seen how the Sennussi have always worked for a close union of
all Islam against Western domination.
Such is the situation in the Near East--a situation very grave and full
of trouble. The most hopeful portent is the apparent awakening of the
British Government to the growing perils of the hour, and its consequent
modifications of attitude. The labours of men like Lord Milner and Sir
Percy Cox, however hampered by purblind influences, can scarcely be
wholly barren of results. Such men are the diplomatic descendants of
Chatham and of Durham; the upholders of that great political tradition
which has steered the British Empire safely through crises that appeared
hopeless.
On the other hand, the darkest portent in the Near East is the continued
intransigeance of France. Steeped in its old traditions, French policy
apparently refuses to face realities. If an explosion comes, as come it
must unless France modifies her attitude; if, some dark day, thirty or
forty French battalions are caught in a simoom of Arab fury blowing out
of the desert and are annihilated in a new Adowa; the regretful verdict
of many versed in Eastern affairs can only be: "French policy has
deserved it."
Leaving the Near Eastern problem at this critical juncture to the
inscrutable solution of the future, let us now turn to the great
political problem of the Middle East--the nationalist movement in
India.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] For these early stages of the Turkish nationalist movement, see
Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_; and his
_Western Culture in Eastern Lands_. Also the articles by Léon Cahun in
_Lavisse et Rambaud_, previously cited; and L. Rousseau, _L'Effort
Ottoman_ (Paris, 1907).
[139] Bérard, _Le Sultan, l'Islam et les Puissances_, p. 16 (Paris,
1907).
[140] Cited by Bérard, p. 19.
[141] Cited by Bérard, p. 20.
[142] _Le Revéil de la Nation arabe_, by Negib Azoury (Paris, 1905).
[143] The semi-legendary founder of the Ottoman Empire.
[144] The texts of both the above documents can be most conveniently
found in E. Jung, _Les Puissances devant la Révolte arabe: La Crise
mondiale de Demain_, pp. 23-25 (Paris, 1906).
[145] A good analysis of Arab affairs on the eve of the Great War is
that of the Moslem publicist "X," "Les Courants politiques dans le Monde
arabe," _Revue du Monde musulman_, December, 1913. Also see G. W. Bury,
_Arabia Infelix, or the Turks in Yemen_ (London, 1915).
[146] For Arab affairs during the Great War, see E. Jung,
"L'Indépendance arabe et la Révolte actuelle," _La Revue_, 1 August,
1916; I. D. Levine, "Arabs versus Turks," _American Review of Reviews_,
November, 1916; A. Musil, _Zur Zeitgeschichte von Arabien_ (Leipzig,
1918); G. W. Bury, _Pan-Islam_ (London, 1919); S. Mylrea, "The
Politico-Religious Situation in Arabia," _The Moslem World_, July, 1919;
L. Thomas, "Lawrence: The Soul of the Arabian Revolution," _Asia_,
April, May, June, 1920.
[147] Georg Schweinfurth, _Die Wiedergeburt Ägyptens im Lichte eines
aufgeklärten Islam_ (Berlin, 1895).
[148] Low, _Egypt in Transition_, p. 260 (London, 1914).
[149] _The Asiatic Review_, April, 1914.
[150] "L'Égypte et les Débuts du Protectorat," _Revue des Sciences
Politiques_, 15 June, 1915.
[151] Mohammed Farid Bey, "L'Égypte et la Guerre," _Revue Politique
Internationale_, May, 1915.
[152] Abd-el-Malek Hamsa, "Die ägyptische Frage," _Asien_, November,
1916.
[153] A good summary of Berber history is H. Weisgerber, _Les Blancs
d'Afrique_ (Paris, 1910).
[154] For analyses of differences between Arabs and Berbers, see Caix de
Saint-Aymour, _Arabes et Kabyles_ (Paris, 1891); A. Bel, _Coup d'Oeil
sur l'Islam en Berbérie_ (Paris, 1917).
[155] For short historical summary, see A. C. Coolidge, "The European
Reconquest of North Africa," _American Historical Review_, July, 1912.
[156] For these nationalist movements in French North Africa, see A.
Servier, _Le Nationalisme musulman_ (Constantine, Algeria, 1913); P.
Lapie, _Les Civilisations tunisiennes_ (Paris, 1898); P. Millet, "Les
Jeunes-Algériens," _Revue de Paris_, 1 November, 1913.
[157] A good analysis of the pre-revolutionary reformist movements is
found in "X," "La Situation politique de la Perse," _Revue du Monde
musulman_, June, 1914. See also Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern
Lands_; General Sir T. E. Gordon, "The Reform Movement in Persia,"
_Proceedings of the Central Asian Society_, 13 March, 1907.
[158] See W. Morgan Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia_ (New York,
1912). Also, for earlier phase of the revolution, see E. G. Browne, _The
Revolution in Persia_ (London, 1910).
[159] E. G. Browne, "The Present Situation in Persia," _Contemporary
Review_, November, 1912.
[160] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, pp.
11-12.
[161] For the Tartar revival, see S. Brobovnikov, "Moslems in Russia,"
_The Moslem World_, January, 1911; Févret, "Les Tatars de Crimée,"
_Revue du Monde musulman_, August, 1907; A. Le Chatelier, "Les Musulmans
russes," _Revue du Monde musulman_, December, 1906; Fr. von Mackay, "Die
Erweckung Russlands asiatischen Völkerschaften," _Deutsche Rundschau_,
March, 1918; Arminius Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_; H.
Williams, "The Russian Mohammedans," _Russian Review_, February, 1914;
"X," "Le Pan-Islamisme et le Pan-Turquisme," _Revue du Monde musulman_,
March, 1913.
[162] For these activities, see article by "X," quoted above; also Ahmed
Emin, _The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by its Press_ (New
York, 1914).
[163] For these Pan-Turanian tendencies in Hungary and Bulgaria, see my
article "Pan-Turanism," _American Political Science Review_, February,
1917.
[164] See article by "X," quoted above; also his article "Les Courants
politiques dans la Turquie contemporaine," _Revue du Monde musulman_,
December, 1912.
[165] Ex-Chief of General Staff (Ottoman) Ernst Paraquin, in the
_Berliner Tageblatt_, January 24, 1920. For Turkish nationalist
activities and attitudes during the war, see further I. D. 1199--_A
Manual on the Turanians and Pan-Turanianism. Compiled by the
Geographical Section of the Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff,
Admiralty_ (London, 1919); E. F. Benson, _Crescent and Iron Cross_
(London, 1918); M. A. Czaplicka, _The Turks of Central Asia: An Inquiry
into the Pan-Turanian Problem_ (Oxford, 1918); H. Morgenthau,
_Ambassador Morgenthau's Story_ (New York, 1918); Dr. Harry Stürmer,
_Two War-Years in Constantinople_ (New York, 1917); A. Mandelstam, "The
Turkish Spirit," _New Europe_, April 22, 1920.
[166] For Pan-Arab developments, see A. Musil, _Zur Zeitgeschichte von
Arabien_ (Leipzig, 1918); M. Pickthall, "Turkey, England, and the
Present Crisis," _Asiatic Review_, October 1, 1914; A. Servier, _Le
Nationalisme musulman_; Sheick Abd-el-Aziz Schauisch, "Das Machtgebiet
der arabischen Sprache," _Preussische Jahrbücher_, September, 1916.
[167] Literally "House of Islam." All non-Moslem lands are collectively
known as "Dar-ul-Harb" or "House of War."
[168] _I. e._, the organized group of followers of a particular
religion.
[169] Mohammed Ali, "Le Mouvement musulman dans l'Inde," _Revue
Politique Internationale_, January, 1914. He headed the so-called
"Khilafat Delegation" sent by the Indian Moslems to England in 1919 to
protest against the partition of the Ottoman Empire by the peace
treaties.
[170] A. Servier, _Le Nationalisme musulman_, p. 181.
[171] For Pan-Islamic nationalism, besides Servier and Mohammed Ali,
quoted above, see A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au dix-neuvième Siècle_
(Paris, 1888); same author, "Politique musulmane," _Revue du Monde
Musulman_, September, 1910; Sir T. Morison, "England and Islam,"
_Nineteenth Century and After_, July, 1919; G. Démorgny, _La Question
Persane_, pp. 23-31 (Paris, 1916); W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia, Past
and Present," _Quarterly Review_, October, 1920.
[172] _Egyptian White Book_: Collection of Official Correspondence of
the Egyptian Delegation to the Peace Conference (Paris, 1919).
[173] G. Civimini, in the _Corriere della Sera_, December 30, 1919.
[174] Madame Jehan d'Ivray, "En Égypte," _Revue de Paris_, September 15,
1920. Madame d'Ivray cites other picturesque incidents of a like
character. See also Annexes to _Egyptian White Book_, previously quoted.
These Annexes contain numerous depositions, often accompanied by
photographs, alleging severities and atrocities by the British troops.
[175] Contained in the press statements previously mentioned.
[176] Sir M. McIlwraith, "Egyptian Nationalism," _Edinburgh Review_,
July, 1919. See also Hon. W. Ormsby-Gore, "The Future in Egypt," _New
Europe_, November 6, 1919.
[177] For unfortunate aspects of this delay, see Sir Valentine Chirol,
"Conflicting Policies in the East," _New Europe_, July 1, 1920.
[178] For a good account of Lawrence and his work, see series of
articles by L. Thomas, "Lawrence: The Soul of the Arabian Revolution,"
_Asia_, April, May, June, July, 1920.
[179] A notable example is General Maude's proclamation to the
Mesopotamian Arabs in March, 1917.
[180] Article xxii.
[181] From a speech delivered September 19, 1919.
[182] For examples of this pre-war imperialist propaganda, see G.
Poignant, "Les Intérêts français en Syrie," _Questions diplomatiques et
coloniales_, March 1-16, 1913. Among other interesting facts, the author
cites Premier Poincaré's declaration before the Chamber of Deputies,
December 21, 1912: "I need not remark that in the Lebanon and Syria
particularly we have traditional interests and that we intend to make
them respected." See also J. Atalla, "Les Trois Solutions de la Question
syrienne," _Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_, October 16, 1913; L.
Le Fur, _Le Protectorat de la France sur les Catholiques d'Orient_
(Paris, 1914).
[183] Quoted by Senator E. Flandrin in his article "Nos Droits en Syrie
et en Palestine," _Revue Hebdomadaire_, June 5, 1915. For other
examples of French imperialist propaganda, see, besides above article,
C. G. Bassim, _La Question du Liban_ (Paris, 1915); H. Baudouin, "La
Syrie: Champ de Bataille politique," _La Revue Mondiale_, February 1-15,
1920; Comte Cressaty, _La Syrie française_ (Paris, 1916); F. Laudet, "La
France du Levant," _Revue Hebdomadaire_, March 1, 1919.
[184] Baudouin, _supra_. For other violent anti-British comment, see
Laudet, _supra_.
[185] For sharp British criticisms of the French attitude in Syria, see
Beckles Wilson, "Our Amazing Syrian Adventure," _National Review_,
September, 1920; W. Urinowski, "The Arab Cause," _Balkan Review_,
September, 1920. Both of these writers were officers in the British
forces in the Arab area. See also strong articles by "Taira" in the
_Balkan Review_, August and October, 1920.
[186] For accounts of French severities, see articles just quoted.
[187] B. G. Gaulis in _L'Opinion_, April 24, 1920.
[188] _Le Populaire_, February 16, 1920.
[189] For the details of these events, see my article on Persia in _The
Century_, January, 1920.
[190] Statement given to the press in August, 1920.
[191] Henri de Chambon, editor of _La Revue Parlementaire_. Quoted by
Beckles Wilson, "Our Amazing Syrian Adventure," _National Review_,
September, 1920.
CHAPTER VI
NATIONALISM IN INDIA
India is a land of paradox. Possessing a fundamental geographical unity,
India has never known real political union save that recently imposed
externally by the British "Raj." Full of warlike stocks, India has never
been able to repel invaders. Occupied by many races, these races have
never really fused, but have remained distinct and mutually hostile,
sundered by barriers of blood, speech, culture, and creed. Thus India,
large and populous as Europe or China, has neither, like China, evolved
a generalized national unity; nor, like Europe, has developed a
specialized national diversity; but has remained an amorphous, unstable
indeterminate, with tendencies in both directions which were never
carried to their logical conclusion.
India's history has been influenced mainly by three great invasions: the
Aryan invasion, commencing about 1500 B.C.; the Mohammedan invasion,
extending roughly from A.D. 1000 to 1700, and the English invasion,
beginning about A.D. 1750 and culminating a century later in a complete
conquest which has lasted to the present day.
The Aryans were a fair-skinned people, unquestionably of the same
general stock as ourselves. Pressing down from Central Asia through
those north-western passes where alone land-access is possible to India,
elsewhere impregnably guarded by the mountain wall of the Himalayas, the
Aryans subdued the dark-skinned Dravidian aborigines, and settled down
as masters. This conquest was, however, superficial and partial. The
bulk of the Aryans remained in the north-west, the more adventurous
spirits scattering thinly over the rest of the vast peninsula. Even in
the north large areas of hill-country and jungle remained in the
exclusive possession of the aborigines, while very few Aryans ever
penetrated the south. Over most of India, therefore, the Aryans were
merely a small ruling class superimposed upon a much more numerous
subject population. Fearing to be swallowed up in the Dravidian ocean,
the Aryans attempted to preserve their political ascendancy and racial
purity by the institution of "caste," which has ever since remained the
basis of Indian social life. Caste was originally a "colour line." But
it was enforced not so much by civil law as by religion. Society was
divided into three castes: Brahmins, or priests; Kshatriyas, or
warriors; and Sudras, or workers. The Aryans monopolized the two upper
castes, the Sudras being the Dravidian subject population. These castes
were kept apart by a rigorous series of religious taboos. Intermarriage,
partaking of food and drink, even physical propinquity, entailed
ceremonial defilement sometimes inexpiable. Disobedience to these taboos
was punished with the terrible penalty of "outcasting," whereby the
offender did not merely fall to a lower rank in the caste hierarchy but
sank even below the Sudra and became a "Pariah," or man of no-caste,
condemned to the most menial and revolting occupations, and with no
rights which even the Sudra was bound to respect. Thus Indian society
was governed, not by civil, but by ceremonially religious law; while,
conversely, the nascent Indian religion ("Brahminism") became not
ethical but social in character.
These things produced the most momentous consequences. As a "colour
line," caste worked very imperfectly. Despite its prohibitions, even the
Brahmins became more or less impregnated with Dravidian blood.[192] But
as a social system caste continued to function in ways peculiar to
itself. The three original castes gradually subdivided into hundreds and
even thousands of sub-castes. These sub-castes had little or nothing of
the original racial significance. But they were all just as exclusive as
the primal trio, and the outcome was a shattering of Indian society into
a chaos of rigid social atoms, between which co-operation or even
understanding was impossible. The results upon Indian history are
obvious. Says a British authority: "The effect of this permanent
maintenance of human types is that the population is heterogeneous to
the last degree. It is no question of rich and poor, of town and
country, of employer and employed: the differences lie far deeper. The
population of a district or a town is a collection of different
nationalities--almost different species--of mankind that will not eat or
drink or intermarry with one another, and that are governed in the more
important affairs of life by committees of their own. It is hardly too
much to say that by the caste system the inhabitants of India are
differentiated into over two thousand species, which, in the intimate
physical relations of life, have as little in common as the inmates of a
zoological garden."[193]
Obviously, a land socially atomized and politically split into many
principalities was destined to fall before the first strong invader.
This invader was Islam. The Mohammedans attacked India soon after their
conquest of Persia, but these early attacks were mere border raids
without lasting significance. The first real Mohammedan invasion was
that of Mahmud of Ghazni, an Afghan prince, in A.D. 1001. Following the
road taken by the Aryans ages before, Mahmud conquered north-western
India, the region known as the Punjab. Islam had thus obtained a firm
foothold in India, and subsequent Moslem leaders spread gradually
eastward until most of northern India was under Moslem rule. The
invaders had two notable advantages: they were fanatically united
against the despised "Idolaters," and they drew many converts from the
native population. The very antithesis of Brahminism, Islam, with its
doctrine that all Believers are brothers, could not fail to attract
multitudes of low-castes and out-castes, who by conversion might rise to
the status of the conquerors. This is the main reason why the
Mohammedans in India to-day number more than 70,000,000--over one-fifth
of the total population. These Indian Moslems are descended, not merely
from Afghan, Turkish, Arab, and Persian invaders, but even more from the
millions of Hindu converts who embraced Islam.
For many generations the Moslem hold on India was confined to the north.
Then, early in the sixteenth century, the great Turko-Mongol leader
Baber entered India and founded the "Mogul" Empire. Baber and his
successors overran even the south, and united India politically as it
had never been united before. But even this conquest was superficial.
The Brahmins, threatened with destruction, preached a Hindu revival; the
Mogul dynasty petered out; and at the beginning of the eighteenth
century the Mogul Empire collapsed, leaving India a welter of warring
principalities, Mohammedan and Hindu, fighting each other for religion,
for politics, or for sheer lust of plunder.
Out of this anarchy the British rose to power. The British were at first
merely one of several other European elements--Portuguese, Dutch, and
French--who established small settlements along the Indian coasts. The
Europeans never dreamed of conquering India while the Mogul power
endured. In fact, the British connection with India began as a purely
trading venture--the East India Company. But when India collapsed into
anarchy the Europeans were first obliged to acquire local authority to
protect their "factories," and later were lured into more ambitious
schemes by the impotence of petty rulers. Gradually the British ousted
their European rivals and established a solid political foothold in
India. The one stable element in a seething chaos, the British
inevitably extended their authority. At first they did so reluctantly.
The East India Company long remained primarily a trading venture, aiming
at dividends rather than dominion. However, it later evolved into a real
government with an ambitious policy of annexation. This in turn awakened
the fears of many Indians and brought on the "Mutiny" of 1857. The
mutiny was quelled, the East India Company abolished, and India came
directly under the British Crown, Queen Victoria being later proclaimed
Empress of India. These events in turn resulted not only in a
strengthening of British political authority but also in an increased
penetration of Western influences of every description. Roads, railways,
and canals opened up and unified India as never before; the piercing of
the Isthmus of Suez facilitated communication with Europe; while
education on European lines spread Western ideas.
Over this rapidly changing India stood the British "Raj"--a system of
government unique in the world's history. It was the government of a few
hundred highly skilled administrative experts backed by a small
professional army, ruling a vast agglomeration of subject peoples. It
was frankly an absolute paternalism, governing as it saw fit, with no
more responsibility to the governed than the native despots whom it had
displaced. But it governed well. In efficiency, honesty, and sense of
duty, the government of India is probably the best example of
benevolent absolutism that the world has ever seen. It gave India
profound peace. It played no favourites, holding the scales even between
rival races, creeds, and castes. Lastly, it made India a real political
entity--something which India had never been before. For the first time
in its history, India was firmly united under one rule--the rule of the
_Pax Britannica_.
Yet the very virtues of British rule sowed the seeds of future trouble.
Generations grew up, peacefully united in unprecedented
acquaintanceship, forgetful of past ills, seeing only European
shortcomings, and, above all, familiar with Western ideas of
self-government, liberty, and nationality. In India, as elsewhere in the
East, there was bound to arise a growing movement of discontent against
Western rule--a discontent varying from moderate demands for increasing
autonomy to radical demands for immediate independence.
Down to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, organized political
agitation against the British "Raj" was virtually unknown. Here and
there isolated individuals uttered half-audible protests, but these
voices found no popular echo. The Indian masses, pre-occupied with the
ever-present problem of getting a living, accepted passively a
government no more absolute, and infinitely more efficient, than its
predecessors. Of anything like self-conscious Indian "Nationalism" there
was virtually no trace.
The first symptom of organized discontent was the formation of the
"Indian National Congress" in the year 1885. The very name showed that
the British Raj, covering all India, was itself evoking among India's
diverse elements a certain common point of view and aspiration. However,
the early congresses were very far from representing Indian public
opinion, in the general sense of the term. On the contrary, these
congresses represented merely a small class of professional men,
journalists, and politicians, all of them trained in Western ideas. The
European methods of education which the British had introduced had
turned out an Indian _intelligentsia_, conversant with the English
language and saturated with Westernism.
This new _intelligentsia_, convinced as it was of the value of Western
ideals and achievements, could not fail to be dissatisfied with many
aspects of Indian life. In fact, its first efforts were directed, not so
much to politics, as to social and economic reforms like the suppression
of child-marriage, the remarriage of widows, and wider education. But,
as time passed, matters of political reform came steadily to the fore.
Saturated with English history and political philosophy as they were,
the Indian intellectuals felt more and more keenly their total lack of
self-government, and aspired to endow India with those blessings of
liberty so highly prized by their English rulers. Soon a vigorous native
press developed, preaching the new gospel, welding the intellectuals
into a self-conscious unity, and moulding a genuine public opinion. By
the close of the nineteenth century the Indian _intelligentsia_ was
frankly agitating for sweeping political innovations like representative
councils, increasing control over taxation and the executive, and the
opening of the public services to Indians all the way up the scale.
Down to the closing years of the nineteenth century Indian discontent
was, as already said, confined to a small class of more or less
Europeanized intellectuals who, despite their assumption of the title,
could hardly be termed "Nationalists" in the ordinary sense of the word.
With a few exceptions, their goal was neither independence nor the
elimination of effective British oversight, but rather the reforming of
Indian life along Western lines, including a growing degree of
self-government under British paramount authority.
But by the close of the nineteenth century there came a change in the
situation. India, like the rest of the Orient, was stirring to a new
spirit of political and racial self-consciousness. True nationalist
symptoms began to appear. Indian scholars delved into their musty
chronicles and sacred texts, and proclaimed the glories of India's
historic past. Reformed Hindu sects like the Arya Somaj lent religious
sanctions. The little band of Europeanized intellectuals was joined by
other elements, thinking, not in terms of piecemeal reforms on Western
models, but of a new India, rejuvenated from its own vital forces, and
free to work out its own destiny in its own way. From the nationalist
ranks now arose the challenging slogan: "Bandemataram!" ("Hail,
Motherland!")[194]
The outstanding feature about this early Indian nationalism was that it
was a distinctively Hindu movement. The Mohammedans regarded it with
suspicion or hostility. And for this they had good reasons. The ideal of
the new nationalists was Aryan India, the India of the "Golden Age."
"Back to the Vedas!" was a nationalist watchword, and this implied a
veneration for the past, including a revival of aggressive Brahminism.
An extraordinary change came over the _intelligentsia_. Men who, a few
years before, had proclaimed the superiority of Western ideas and had
openly flouted "superstitions" like idol-worship, now denounced
everything Western and reverently sacrificed to the Hindu gods. The
"sacred soil" of India must be purged of the foreigner.[195] But the
"foreigner," as these nationalists conceived him, was not merely the
Englishman; he was the Mohammedan as well. This was stirring up the past
with a vengeance. For centuries the great Hindu-Mohammedan division had
run like a chasm athwart India. It had never been closed, but it had
been somewhat veiled by the neutral overlordship of the British Raj. Now
the veil was torn aside, and the Mohammedans saw themselves menaced by a
recrudescence of militant Hinduism like that which had shattered the
Mogul Empire after the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb two hundred years
before. The Mohammedans were not merely alarmed; they were infuriated as
well. Remembering the glories of the Mogul Empire just as the Hindus did
the glories of Aryan India, they considered themselves the rightful
lords of the land, and had no mind to fall under the sway of despised
"Idolaters." The Mohammedans had no love for the British, but they hated
the Hindus, and they saw in the British Raj a bulwark against the
potential menace of hereditary enemies who outnumbered them nearly five
to one. Thus the Mohammedans denounced Hindu nationalism and proclaimed
their loyalty to the Raj. To be sure, the Indian Moslems were also
affected by the general spirit of unrest which was sweeping over the
East. They too felt a quickened sense of self-consciousness. But, being
a minority in India, their feelings took the form, not of territorial
"patriotism," but of those more diffused sentiments, Pan-Islamism and
Pan-Islamic nationalism, which we have already discussed.[196]
Early Indian nationalism was not merely Hindu in character; it was
distinctly "Brahminical" as well. More and more the Brahmins became the
driving-power of the movement, seeking to perpetuate their supremacy in
the India of the morrow as they had enjoyed it in the India of the past.
But this aroused apprehension in certain sections of Hindu society. Many
low-castes and Pariahs began to fear that an independent or even
autonomous India might be ruled by a tyrannical Brahmin oligarchy which
would deny them the benefits they now enjoyed under British rule.[197]
Also, many of the Hindu princes disliked the thought of a theocratic
régime which might reduce them to shadows.[198] Thus the nationalist
movement stood out as an alliance between the Brahmins and the
Western-educated _intelligentsia_, who had pooled their ambitions in a
programme for jointly ruling India.
Quickened by this ambition and fired by religious zeal, the nationalist
movement rapidly acquired a fanatical temper characterized by a mystical
abhorrence of everything Western and a ferocious hatred of all
Europeans. The Russo-Japanese War greatly inflamed this spirit, and the
very next year (1905) an act of the Indian Government precipitated the
gathering storm. This act was the famous Partition of Bengal. The
partition was a mere administrative measure, with no political intent.
But the nationalists made it a "vital issue," and about this grievance
they started an intense propaganda that soon filled India with seditious
unrest. The leading spirit in this agitation was Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
who has been called "the father of Indian unrest." Tilak typified the
nationalist movement. A Brahmin with an excellent Western education, he
was the sworn foe of English rule and Western civilization. An able
propagandist, his speeches roused his hearers to frenzy, while his
newspaper, the _Yugantar_, of Calcutta, preached a campaign of hate,
assassination, and rebellion. Tilak's incitements soon produced tangible
results, numerous riots, "dacoities," and murders of Englishmen taking
place. And of course the _Yugantar_ was merely one of a large number of
nationalist organs, some printed in the vernacular and others in
English, which vied with one another in seditious invective.
The violence of the nationalist press may be judged by a few quotations.
"Revolution," asserted the _Yugantar_, "is the only way in which a
slavish society can save itself. If you cannot prove yourself a man in
life, play the man in death. Foreigners have come and decided how you
are to live. But how you are to die depends entirely upon yourself."
"Let preparations be made for a general revolution in every household!
The handful of police and soldiers will never be able to withstand this
ocean of revolutionists. Revolutionists may be made prisoners and may
die, but thousands of others will spring into their places. Do not be
afraid! With the blood of heroes the soil of Hindustan is ever fertile.
Do not be downhearted. There is no dearth of heroes. There is no dearth
of money; glory awaits you! A single frown (a few bombs) from your eyes
has struck terror into the heart of the foe! The uproar of panic has
filled the sky. Swim with renewed energy in the ocean of bloodshed!" The
assassination note was vehemently stressed. Said S. Krishnavarma in _The
Indian Sociologist_: "Political assassination is not murder, and the
rightful employment of physical force connotes 'force used defensively
against force used aggressively.'" "The only subscription required,"
stated the _Yugantar_, "is that every reader shall bring the head of a
European." Not even women and children were spared. Commenting on the
murder of an English lady and her daughter, the _Yugantar_ exclaimed
exultantly: "Many a female demon must be killed in course of time, in
order to extirpate the race of Asuras from the breast of the earth." The
fanaticism of the men (usually very young men) who committed these
assassinations may be judged by the statement of the murderer of a high
English official, Sir Curzon-Wyllie, made shortly before his execution:
"I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual
state of war. Since open battle is rendered impossible to a disarmed
race, I attacked by surprise; since guns were denied to me, I drew my
pistol and fired. As a Hindu I feel that wrong to my country is an
insult to the gods. Her cause is the cause of Shri Ram; her service is
the service of Shri Krishna. Poor in wealth and intellect, a son like
myself has nothing else to offer the Mother but his own blood, and so I
have sacrificed the same on Her altar. The only lesson required in India
at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach it is to
die ourselves; therefore I die and glory in my martyrdom. This war will
continue between England and India so long as the Hindee and English
races last, if the present unnatural relation does not cease."[199]
The government's answer to this campaign of sedition and assassination
was of course stern repression. The native press was muzzled, the
agitators imprisoned or executed, and the hands of the authorities were
strengthened by punitive legislation. In fact, so infuriated was the
European community by the murders and outrages committed by the
nationalists that many Englishmen urged the withdrawal of such political
privileges as did exist, the limiting of Western education, and the
establishment of extreme autocratic rule. These angry counsels were at
once caught up by the nationalists, resulted in fresh outrages, and were
answered by more punishment and fresh menaces. Thus the extremists on
both sides lashed each other to hotter fury and worsened the situation.
For several years India seethed with an unrest which jailings, hangings,
and deportations did little to allay.
Presently, however, things took at least a temporary turn for the
better. The extremists were, after all, a small minority, and cool
heads, both British and Indian, were seeking a way out of the _impasse_.
Conservative Indian leaders like Mr. Gokhale condemned terrorism, and
besought their countrymen to seek the realization of their aspirations
by peaceful means. On the other hand, liberal-minded Englishmen, while
refusing to be stampeded, sought a programme of conciliation. Indian
affairs were then in the hands of the eminent Liberal statesman John
Morley, and the fruit of his labours was the Indian Councils Act of
1909. The act was a distinct departure from the hitherto almost
unlimited absolutism of British rule in India. It gave the Indian
opposition greatly increased opportunities for advice, criticism, and
debate, and it initiated a restricted scheme of elections to the
legislative bodies which it established. The salutary effect of these
concessions was soon apparent. The moderate nationalist elements, while
not wholly satisfied, accepted the act as an earnest of subsequent
concessions and as a proof of British good-will. The terrorism and
seditious plottings of the extremists, while not stamped out, were held
in check and driven underground. King George's visit to India in 1911
evoked a wave of loyal enthusiasm which swept the peninsula and augured
well for the future.
The year 1911 was the high-water mark of this era of appeasement
following the storms of 1905-9. The years after 1911 witnessed a gradual
recrudescence of discontent as the first effect of the Councils Act wore
off and the sense of unfulfilled aspiration sharpened the appetite for
more. In fact, during these years, Indian nationalism was steadily
broadening its base. In one sense this made for stability, for the
nationalist movement ceased to be a small minority of extremists and
came more under the influence of moderate leaders like Mr. Gokhale, who
were content to work for distant goals by evolutionary methods. It did,
however, mean an increasing pressure on the government for fresh
devolutions of authority. The most noteworthy symptom of nationalist
growth was the rallying of a certain section of Mohammedan opinion to
the nationalist cause. The Mohammedans had by this time formed their own
organization, the "All-India Moslem League." The league was the reverse
of nationalist in complexion, having been formed primarily to protect
Moslem interests against possible Hindu ascendancy. Nevertheless, as
time passed, some Mohammedans, reassured by the friendly attitude and
promises of the Hindu moderates, abandoned the league's anti-Hindu
attitude and joined the moderate nationalists, though refraining from
seditious agitation. Indeed, the nationalists presently split into two
distinct groups, moderates and extremists. The extremists, condemned by
their fellows, kept up a desultory campaign of violence, largely
directed by exiled leaders who from the shelter of foreign countries
incited their followers at home to seditious agitation and violent
action.
Such was the situation in India on the outbreak of the Great War; a
situation by no means free from difficulty, yet far less troubled than
it had been a few years before. Of course, the war produced an increase
of unrest and a certain amount of terrorism. Yet India, as a whole,
remained quiet. Throughout the war India contributed men and money
unstintedly to the imperial cause, and Indian troops figured notably on
European, Asiatic, and African battlefields.
However, though the war-years passed without any serious outbreak of
revolutionary violence, it must not be thought that the far more
widespread movement for increasing self-government had been either
quenched or stilled. On the contrary, the war gave this movement fresh
impetus. Louder and louder swelled the cry for not merely good
government but government acceptable to Indian patriots because
responsible to them. The very fact that India had proved her loyalty to
the Empire and had given generously of her blood and treasure were so
many fresh arguments adduced for the grant of a larger measure of
self-direction. Numerous were the memoranda presented to the British
authorities by various sections of Indian public opinion. These
memoranda were an accurate reflection of the different shades of Indian
nationalism. The ultimate goal of all was emancipation from British
tutelage, but they differed widely among themselves as to how and when
this emancipation was to be attained. The most conservative contented
themselves with asking for modified self-government under British
guidance, while the more ambitious asked for the full status of a
dominion of the British Empire like Australia and Canada. The
revolutionary element naturally held aloof, recognizing that only
violence could serve their aim--immediate and unqualified independence.
Of course even the more moderate nationalist demands implied great
changes in the existing governmental system and a diminution of British
control such as the Government of India was not prepared at present to
concede. Nevertheless, the government met these demands by a
conciliatory attitude foreshadowing fresh concessions in the near
future. In 1916 the Viceroy, Lord Harding, said: "I do not for a moment
wish to discountenance self-government for India as a national ideal. It
is a perfectly legitimate aspiration and has the sympathy of all
moderate men, but in the present position of India it is not idealism
that is needed but practical politics. We should do our utmost to
grapple with realities, and lightly to raise extravagant hopes and
encourage unrealizable demands can only tend to delay and will not
accelerate political progress. I know this is the sentiment of wise and
thoughtful Indians. Nobody is more anxious than I am to see the early
realization of the legitimate aspirations of India, but I am equally
desirous of avoiding all danger of reaction from the birth of
institutions which experience might prove to be premature."
As a matter of fact, toward the close of 1917, Mr. Montagu, Secretary of
State for India, came out from England with the object of thoroughly
canvassing Indian public opinion on the question of constitutional
reform. For months the problem was carefully weighed, conferences being
held with the representatives of all races, classes, and creeds. The
result of these researches was a monumental report signed by Mr. Montagu
and by the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, and published in July, 1918.
The report recommended concessions far beyond any which Great Britain
had hitherto made. It frankly envisaged the gift of home rule for India
"as soon as possible," and went on to state that the gift was to be
conferred not because of Indian agitation, but because of "the faith
that is in us." There followed these memorable words: "We believe
profoundly that the time has come when the sheltered existence which we
have given India cannot be prolonged without damage to her national
life; that we have a richer gift for her people than any that we have
yet bestowed on them; that nationhood within the Empire represents
something better than anything India has hitherto attained; that the
placid, pathetic contentment of the masses is not the soil on which such
Indian nationhood will grow, and that in deliberately disturbing it we
are working for her highest good."
The essence of the report was its recommendation of the principle of
"diarchy," or division of governmental responsibility between
councillors nominated by the British executive and ministers chosen
from elective legislative bodies. This diarchy was to hold for both the
central and provincial governments. The legislatures were to be elected
by a much more extensive franchise than had previously prevailed and
were to have greatly enlarged powers. Previously they had been little
more than advisory bodies; now they were to become "legislatures" in the
Western sense, though their powers were still limited, many powers,
particularly that of the purse, being still "reserved" to the executive.
The British executive thus retained ultimate control and had the last
word; thus no true "balance of power" was to exist, the scales being
frankly weighted in favour of the British Raj. But the report went on to
state that this scheme of government was not intended to be permanent;
that it was frankly a transitional measure, a school in which the Indian
people was to serve its apprenticeship, and that when these first
lessons in self-government had been learned, India would be given a
thoroughly representative government which would not only initiate and
legislate, but which would also control the executive officials.
The Montagu-Chelmsford Report was exhaustively discussed both in India
and in England, and from these frank discussions an excellent idea of
the Indian problem in all its challenging complexity can be obtained.
The nationalists split sharply on the issue, the moderates welcoming the
report and agreeing to give the proposed scheme of government their
loyal co-operation, the extremists condemning the proposals as a snare
and a sham. The moderate attitude was stated in a manifesto signed by
their leaders, headed by the eminent Indian economist Sir Dinshaw Wacha,
which stated: "The proposed scheme forms a complicated structure capable
of improvement in some particulars, especially at the top, but is
nevertheless a progressive measure. The reforms are calculated to make
the provinces of India reach the goal of complete responsible
government. On the whole, the proposals are evolved with great
foresight and conceived in a spirit of genuine sympathy with Indian
political aspirations, for which the distinguished authors are entitled
to the country's gratitude." The condemnation of the radicals was voiced
by leaders like Mr. Tilak, who urged "standing fast by the Indian
National Congress ideal," and Mr. Bepin Chander Pal, who asserted: "It
is my deliberate opinion that if the scheme is accepted, the Government
will be more powerful and more autocratic than it is to-day."
Extremely interesting was the protest of the anti-nationalist groups,
particularly the Mohammedans and the low-caste Hindus. For it is a fact
significant of the complexity of the Indian problem that many millions
of Indians fear the nationalist movement and look upon the autocracy of
the British Raj as a shield against nationalist oppression and
discrimination. The Mohammedans of India are, on the question of
self-government for India, sharply divided among themselves. The
majority still dislike and fear the nationalist movement, owing to its
"Hindu" character. A minority, however, as already stated, have rallied
to the nationalist cause. This minority grew greatly in numbers during
the war-years, their increased friendliness being due not merely to
desire for self-government but also to anger at the Allies' policy of
dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and kindred policies in the Near and
Middle East.[200] The Hindu nationalists were quick to sympathize with
the Mohammedans on these external matters, and the result was a
cordiality between the two elements never known before.
The predominance of high-caste Brahmins in the nationalist movement
explains the opposition of many low-caste Hindus to Indian home rule. So
great is the low-caste fear of losing their present protection under the
British Raj and of being subjected to the domination of a high-caste
Brahmin oligarchy that in recent years they have formed an association
known as the "Namasudra," led by well-known persons like Doctor
Nair.[201] The Namasudra points out what might happen by citing the
Brahminic pressure which occurs even in such political activity as
already exists. For example: in many elections the Brahmins have
terrorized low-caste voters by threatening to "out-caste" all who should
not vote the Brahmin ticket, thus making them "Pariahs"--untouchables,
with no rights in Hindu society.
Such protests against home rule from large sections of the Indian
population gave pause even to many English students of the problem who
had become convinced of home rule's theoretical desirability. And of
course they greatly strengthened the arguments of those numerous
Englishmen, particularly Anglo-Indians, who asserted that India was as
yet unfit for self-government. Said one of these objectors in _The Round
Table_: "The masses care not one whit for politics; Home Rule they do
not understand. They prefer the English District Magistrate. They only
ask to remain in eternal and bovine quiescence. They feel confidence in
the Englishman because he has always shown himself the 'Protector of the
Poor,' and because he is neither Hindu nor Mussulman, and has a
reputation for honesty." And Lord Sydenham, in a detailed criticism of
the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals, stated: "There are many defects in our
system of government in India. Reforms are needed; but they must be
based solely upon considerations of the welfare of the masses of India
as a whole. If the policy of 'deliberately' disturbing their
'contentment' which the Viceroy and the Secretary of State have
announced is carried out; if, through the 'whispering galleries of the
East,' the word is passed that the only authority that can maintain law
and order and secure the gradual building-up of an Indian nation is
weakening; if, as is proposed, the great public services are
emasculated; then the fierce old animosities will break out afresh, and,
assisted by a recrudescence of the reactionary forces of Brahminism,
they will within a few years bring to nought the noblest work which the
British race has ever accomplished."[202]
Yet other English authorities on Indian affairs asserted that the
Montagu-Chelmsford proposals were sound and must be enacted into law if
the gravest perils were to be averted. Such were the opinions of men
like Lionel Curtis[203] and Sir Valentine Chirol, who stated: "It is of
the utmost importance that there should be no unnecessary delay. We have
had object-lessons enough as to the danger of procrastination, and in
India as elsewhere time is on the side of the troublemakers.... We
cannot hope to reconcile Indian Extremism. What we can hope to do is to
free from its insidious influence all that is best in Indian public life
by opening up a larger field of useful activity."[204]
As a matter of fact, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was accepted as the
basis of discussion by the British Parliament, and at the close of the
year 1919 its recommendations were formally embodied in law.
Unfortunately, during the eighteen months which elapsed between the
publication of the report and its legal enactment, the situation in
India had darkened. Militant unrest had again raised its head, and India
was more disturbed than it had been since 1909.
For this there were several reasons. In the first place, all those
nationalist elements who were dissatisfied with the report began
coquetting with the revolutionary irreconcilables and encouraging them
to fresh terrorism, perhaps in the hope of stampeding the British
Parliament into wider concessions than the report had contemplated. But
there were other causes of a more general nature. The year 1918 was a
black one for India. The world-wide influenza epidemic hit India
particularly hard, millions of persons being carried off by the grim
plague. Furthermore, India was cursed with drought, the crops failed,
and the spectre of famine stalked through the land. The year 1919 saw an
even worse drought, involving an almost record famine. By the late
summer it was estimated that millions of persons had died of hunger,
with millions more on the verge of starvation. And on top of all came an
Afghan war, throwing the north-west border into tumult and further
unsettling the already restless Mohammedan element.
The upshot was a wave of unrest revealing itself in an epidemic of
riots, terrorism, and seditious activity which gave the British
authorities serious concern. So critical appeared the situation that a
special commission was appointed to investigate conditions, and the
report handed in by its chairman, Justice Rowlatt, painted a depressing
picture of the strength of revolutionary unrest. The report stated that
not only had a considerable number of young men of the educated upper
classes become involved in the promotion of anarchical movements, but
that the ranks were filled with men belonging to other social orders,
including the military, and that there was clear evidence of successful
tampering with the loyalty of the native troops. To combat this growing
disaffection, the Rowlatt committee recommended fresh repressive
legislation.
Impressed with the gravity of the committee's report, the Government of
India formulated a project of law officially known as the Anarchical and
Revolutionary Crimes Act, though generally known as the Rowlatt Bill. By
its provisions the authorities were endowed with greatly increased
powers, such as the right to search premises and arrest persons on mere
suspicion of seditious activity, without definite evidence of the same.
The Rowlatt Bill at once aroused bitter nationalist opposition. Not
merely extremists, but many moderates, condemned it as a backward step
and as a provoker of fresh trouble. When the bill came up for debate in
the Indian legislative body, the Imperial Legislative Council, all the
native members save one opposed it, and the bill was finally passed on
strictly racial lines by the votes of the appointed English majority.
However, the government considered the bill an absolute pre-requisite to
the successful maintenance of order, and it was passed into law in the
spring of 1919.
This brought matters to a head. The nationalists, stigmatizing the
Rowlatt law as the "Black Cobra Act," were unmeasured in their
condemnation. The extremists engineered a campaign of militant protest
and decreed the date of the bill's enactment, April 6, 1919, as a
national "Humiliation Day." On that day monster mass-meetings were held,
at which nationalist orators made seditious speeches and inflamed the
passions of the multitude. "Humiliation Day" was in fact the beginning
of the worst wave of unrest since the mutiny. For the next three months
a veritable epidemic of rioting and terrorism swept India, particularly
the northern provinces. Officials were assassinated, English civilians
were murdered, and there was wholesale destruction of property. At some
moments it looked as though India were on the verge of revolution and
anarchy.
However, the government stood firm. Violence was countered with stern
repression. Riotous mobs were mowed down wholesale by rifle and
machine-gun fire or were scattered by bombs dropped from low-flying
aeroplanes. The most noted of these occurrences was the so-called
"Amritsar Massacre," where British troops fired into a seditious
mass-meeting, killing 500 and wounding 1500 persons. In the end the
government mastered the situation. Order was restored, the seditious
leaders were swept into custody, and the revolutionary agitation was
once more driven underground. The enactment of the Montagu-Chelmsford
reform bill by the British Parliament toward the close of the year did
much to relax the tension and assuage discontent, though the situation
of India was still far from normal. The deplorable events of the earlier
part of 1919 had roused animosities which were by no means allayed. The
revolutionary elements, though driven underground, were more bitter and
uncompromising than ever, while opponents of home rule were confirmed in
their conviction that India could not be trusted and that any relaxation
of autocracy must spell anarchy.
This was obviously not the best mental atmosphere in which to apply the
compromises of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. In fact, the extremists
were determined that they should not be given a fair trial, regarding
the reforms as a snare which must be avoided at all costs. Recognizing
that armed rebellion was still impossible, at least for the present, the
extremists evolved the idea known as "non-co-operation." This was, in
fact, a gigantic boycott of everything British. Not merely were the new
voters urged to stay away from the polls and thus elect no members to
the proposed legislative bodies, but lawyers and litigants were to avoid
the courts, taxpayers refuse to pay imposts, workmen to go on strike,
shopkeepers to refuse to buy or sell British-made goods, and even pupils
to leave the schools and colleges. This wholesale "out-casting" of
everything British would make the English in India a new sort of
Pariah--"untouchables"; the British Government and the British community
in India would be left in absolute isolation, and the Raj, rendered
unworkable, would have to capitulate to the extremist demands for
complete self-government.
Such was the non-co-operation idea. And the idea soon found an able
exponent: a certain M. K. Gandhi, who had long possessed a reputation
for personal sanctity and thus inspired the Hindu masses with that
peculiar religious fervour which certain types of Indian ascetics have
always known how to arouse. Gandhi's propaganda can be judged by the
following extract from one of his speeches: "It is as amazing as it is
humiliating that less than 100,000 white men should be able to rule
315,000,000 Indians. They do so somewhat, undoubtedly, by force, but
more by securing our co-operation in a thousand ways and making us more
and more helpless and dependent on them, as time goes forward. Let us
not mistake reformed councils (legislatures), more law-courts, and even
governorships for real freedom or power. They are but subtler methods of
emasculation. The British cannot rule us by mere force. And so they
resort to all means, honourable and dishonourable, in order to retain
their hold on India. They want India's billions and they want India's
man-power for their imperialistic greed. If we refuse to supply them
with men and money, we achieve our goal: namely, _Swaraj_,[205]
equality, manliness."
The extreme hopes of the non-co-operation movement have not been
realized. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms have been put in operation, and
the first elections under them were held at the beginning of 1921. But
the outlook is far from bright. The very light vote cast at the
elections revealed the effect of the non-co-operation movement, which
showed itself in countless other ways, from strikes in factories to
strikes of school-children. India to-day is in a turmoil of unrest. And
this unrest is not merely political; it is social as well. The vast
economic changes which have been going on in India for the past
half-century have profoundly disorganized Indian society. These changes
will be discussed in later chapters. The point to be here noted is that
the extremist leaders are capitalizing social discontent and are
unquestionably in touch with Bolshevik Russia. Meanwhile the older
factors of disturbance are by no means eliminated. The recent atrocious
massacre of dissident Sikh pilgrims by orthodox Sikh fanatics, and the
three-cornered riots between Hindus, Mohammedans, and native Christians
which broke out about the same time in southern India, reveal the hidden
fires of religious and racial fanaticism that smoulder beneath the
surface of Indian life.
The truth of the matter is that India is to-day a battle-ground between
the forces of evolutionary and revolutionary change. It is an anxious
and a troubled time. The old order is obviously passing, and the new
order is not yet fairly in sight. The hour is big with possibilities of
both good and evil, and no one can confidently predict the outcome.
FOOTNOTES:
[192] According to some historians, this race-mixture occurred almost at
once. The theory is that the Aryan conquerors, who outside the
north-western region had very few of their own women with them, took
Dravidian women as wives or concubines, and legitimatized their
half-breed children, the offspring of the conquerors, both pure-bloods
and mixed-bloods, coalescing into a closed caste. Further infiltration
of Dravidian blood was thus prevented, but Aryan race-purity had been
destroyed.
[193] Sir Bampfylde Fuller, _Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment_, p.
40 (London, 1910). For other discussions of caste and its effects, see
W. Archer, _India and the Future_ (London, 1918); Sir V. Chirol, _Indian
Unrest_ (London, 1910); Rev. J. Morrison, _New Ideas in India: A Study
of Social, Political and Religious Developments_ (Edinburgh, 1906); Sir
H. Risley, _The People of India_ (London, 1908); also writings of the
"Namasudra" leader, Dr. Nair, previously quoted, and S. Nihal Singh,
"India's Untouchables," _Contemporary Review_, March, 1913.
[194] For the nationalist movement, see Archer, Chirol, and Morrison,
_supra_. Also Sir H. J. S. Cotton, _India in Transition_ (London, 1904);
J. N. Farquhar, _Modern Religious Movements in India_ (New York, 1915);
Sir W. W. Hunter, _The India of the Queen and Other Essays_ (London,
1903); W. S. Lilly, _India and Its Problems_ (London, 1902); Sir V.
Lovett, _A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement_ (London, 1920);
J. Ramsay Macdonald, _The Government of India_ (London, 1920); Sir T.
Morison, _Imperial Rule in India_ (London, 1899); J. D. Rees, _The Real
India_ (London, 1908); Sir J. Strachey, _India: Its Administration and
Progress_ (Fourth Edition--London, 1911); K. Vyasa Rao, _The Future
Government of India_ (London, 1918).
[195] I have already discussed this "Golden Age" tendency in Chapter
III. For more or less Extremist Indian view-points, see A. Coomaraswamy,
_The Dance of Siva_ (New York, 1918); H. Maitra, _Hinduism: The
World-Ideal_ (London, 1916); Bipin Chandra Pal, "The Forces Behind the
Unrest in India," _Contemporary Review_, February, 1910; also various
writings of Lajpat Rai, especially _The Arya Samaj_ (London, 1915) and
_Young India_ (New York, 1916).
[196] For Indian Mohammedan points of view, mostly anti-Hindu, see H. H.
The Aga Khan, _India in Transition_ (London, 1918); S. Khuda Bukhsh,
_Essays: Indian and Islamic_ (London, 1912); Sir Syed Ahmed, _The
Present State of Indian Politics_ (Allahabad, 1888); Syed Sirdar Ali
Khan, _The Unrest in India_ (Bombay, 1907); also his _India of To-day_
(Bombay, 1908).
[197] This attitude of the "Depressed Classes," especially as revealed
in the "Namasudra Association," has already been discussed in Chapter
III, and will be further touched upon later in this present chapter.
[198] Regarding the Indian native princes, see Archer and Chirol,
_supra_. Also J. Pollen, "Native States and Indian Home Rule," _Asiatic
Review_, January 1, 1917; The Maharajah of Bobbili, _Advice to the
Indian Aristocracy_ (Madras, 1905); articles by Sir D. Barr and Sir F.
Younghusband in _The Empire and the Century_ (London, 1905).
[199] A good symposium of extremist comment is contained in Chirol,
_supra_. Also see J. D. Rees, _The Real India_ (London, 1908); series of
extremist articles in _The Open Court_, March, 1917. A good sample of
extremist literature is the fairly well-known pamphlet _India's
"Loyalty" to England_ (1915).
[200] Discussed in the preceding chapter.
[201] Quoted in Chapter IV.
[202] Lord Sydenham, "India," _Contemporary Review_, November, 1918. For
similar criticisms of the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals, see G. M.
Chesney, _India under Experiment_ (London, 1918); "The First Stage
towards Indian Anarchy," _Spectator_, December 20, 1919.
[203] Lionel Curtis, _Letters to the People of India on Responsible
Government_, already quoted at the end of Chapter IV.
[204] Sir V. Chirol, "India in Travail," _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1918.
[205] _I. e._, self-government, in the extremist sense--practically
independence.
CHAPTER VII
ECONOMIC CHANGE
One of the most interesting phenomena of modern world-history is the
twofold conquest of the East by the West. The word "conquest" is usually
employed in a political sense, and calls up visions of embattled armies
subduing foreign lands and lording it over distant peoples. Such
political conquests in the Orient did of course occur, and we have
already seen how, during the past century, the decrepit states of the
Near and Middle East fell an easy prey to the armed might of the
European Powers.
But what is not so generally realized is the fact that this political
conquest was paralleled by an economic conquest perhaps even more
complete and probably destined to produce changes of an even more
profound and enduring character.
The root-cause of this economic conquest was the Industrial Revolution.
Just as the voyages of Columbus and Da Gama gave Europe the strategic
mastery of the ocean and thereby the political mastery of the world, so
the technical inventions of the later eighteenth century which
inaugurated the Industrial Revolution gave Europe the economic mastery
of the world. These inventions in fact heralded a new Age of Discovery,
this time into the realms of science. The results were, if possible,
more momentous even than those of the age of geographical discovery
three centuries before. They gave our race such increased mastery over
the resources of nature that the ensuing transformation of economic life
swiftly and utterly transformed the face of things.
This transformation was, indeed, unprecedented in the world's history.
Hitherto man's material progress had been a gradual evolution. With the
exception of gunpowder, he had tapped no new sources of material energy
since very ancient times. The horse-drawn mail-coach of our
great-grandfathers was merely a logical elaboration of the horse-drawn
Egyptian chariot; the wind-driven clipper-ship traced its line unbroken
to Ulysses's lateen bark before Troy; while industry still relied on the
brawn of man and beast or upon the simple action of wind and waterfall.
Suddenly all was changed. Steam, electricity, petrol, the Hertzian wave,
harnessed nature's hidden powers, conquered distance, and shrunk the
terrestrial globe to the measure of human hands. Man entered a new
material world, differing not merely in degree but in kind from that of
previous generations.
When I say "Man," I mean, so far as the nineteenth century was
concerned, the white man of Europe and its racial settlements overseas.
It was the white man's brain which had conceived all this, and it was
the white man alone who at first reaped the benefits. The two
outstanding features of the new order were the rise of machine-industry
with its incalculable acceleration of mass-production, and the
correlative development of cheap and rapid transportation. Both these
factors favoured a prodigious increase in economic power and wealth in
Europe, since Europe became the workshop of the world. In fact, during
the nineteenth century, Europe was transformed from a semi-rural
continent into a swarming hive of industry, gorged with goods, capital,
and men, pouring forth its wares to the remotest corners of the earth,
and drawing thence fresh stores of raw material for new fabrication and
exchange.
Such was the industrially revolutionized West which confronted an East
as backward and stagnant in economics as it was in politics and the art
of war. In fact, the East was virtually devoid of either industry or
business, as we understand these terms to-day. Economically, the East
was on an agricultural basis, the economic unit being the
self-supporting, semi-isolated village. Oriental "industries" were
handicrafts, carried on by relatively small numbers of artisans, usually
working by and for themselves. Their products, while often exquisite in
quality, were largely luxuries, and were always produced by such slow,
antiquated methods that their quantity was limited and their market
price relatively high. Despite very low wages, therefore, Asiatic
products not only could not compete in the world-market with European
and American machine-made, mass-produced articles, but were hard hit in
their home-markets as well.
This Oriental inability to compete with Western industry arose not
merely from methods of production but also from other factors such as
the mentality of the workers and the scarcity of capital. Throughout the
Near and Middle East economic life rested on the principle of status.
The Western economic principles of contract and competition were
virtually unknown. Agriculturalists and artisans followed blindly in the
footsteps of their fathers. There was no competition, no stimulus for
improvement, no change in customary wages, no desire for a better and
more comfortable living. The industries were stereotyped; the apprentice
merely imitated his master, and rarely thought of introducing new
implements or new methods of manufacture. Instead of working for profit
and advancement, men followed an hereditary "calling," usually hallowed
by religious sanctions, handed down from father to son through many
generations, each calling possessing its own unchanging ideals, its
zealously guarded craft-secrets.
The few bolder, more enterprising spirits who might have ventured to
break the iron bands of custom and tradition were estopped by lack of
capital. Fluid "investment" capital, easily mobilized and ready to pour
into an enterprise of demonstrable utility and profit, simply did not
exist. To the Oriental, whether prince or peasant, money was regarded,
not as a source of profit or a medium of exchange, but as a store of
value, to be hoarded intact against a "rainy day." The East has been
known for ages as a "sink of the precious metals." In India alone, the
value of the gold, silver, and jewels hidden in strong-boxes, buried in
the earth, or hanging about the necks of women must run into billions.
Says a recent writer on India: "I had the privilege of being taken
through the treasure-vaults of one of the wealthiest Maharajahs. I could
have plunged my arm to the shoulder in great silver caskets filled with
diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies. The walls were studded with hooks
and on each pair of hooks rested gold bars three to four feet long and
two inches across. I stood by a great cask of diamonds, and picking up a
handful let them drop slowly from between my fingers, sparkling and
glistening like drops of water in sunlight. There are some seven hundred
native states, and the rulers of every one has his treasure-vaults on a
more or less elaborate scale. Besides these, every zamindar and every
Indian of high or low degree who can save anything, wants to have it by
him in actual metal; he distrusts this new-fangled paper currency that
they try to pass off on him. Sometimes he beats his coins into bangles
for his wives, and sometimes he hides money behind a loose brick or
under a flat stone in the bottom of the oven, or he goes out and digs a
little hole and buries it."[206]
Remember that this description is of present-day India, after more than
a century of British rule and notwithstanding a permeation of Western
ideas which, as we shall presently see, has produced momentous
modifications in the native point of view. Remember also that this
hoarding propensity is not peculiar to India but is shared by the entire
Orient. We can then realize the utter lack of capital for investment
purposes in the East of a hundred years ago, especially when we remember
that political insecurity and religious prohibitions of the lending of
money at interest stood in the way of such far-sighted individuals as
might have been inclined to employ their hoarded wealth for productive
purposes. There was, indeed, one outlet for financial activity--usury,
and therein virtually all the scant fluid capital of the old Orient was
employed. But such capital, lent not for productive enterprise, but for
luxury, profligacy, or incompetence, was a destructive rather than a
creative force and merely intensified the prejudice against capital of
any kind.
Such was the economic life of the Orient a hundred years ago. It is
obvious that this archaic order was utterly unable to face the
tremendous competition of the industrialized West. Everywhere the flood
of cheap Western machine-made, mass-produced goods began invading
Eastern lands, driving the native wares before them. The way in which an
ancient Oriental handicraft like the Indian textiles was literally
annihilated by the destructive competition of Lancashire cottons is only
one of many similar instances. To be sure, some Oriental writers contend
that this triumph of Western manufactures was due to political rather
than economic reasons, and Indian nationalists cite British governmental
activity in favour of the Lancashire cottons above mentioned as the sole
cause for the destruction of the Indian textile handicrafts. But such
arguments appear to be fallacious. British official action may have
hastened the triumph of British industry in India, but that triumph was
inevitable in the long run. The best proof is the way in which the
textile crafts of independent Oriental countries like Turkey and Persia
were similarly ruined by Western competition.
A further proof is the undoubted fact that Oriental peoples, taken as a
whole, have bought Western-manufactured products in preference to their
own hand-made wares. To many Westerners this has been a mystery. Such
persons cannot understand how the Orientals could buy the cheap, shoddy
products of the West, manufactured especially for the Eastern market, in
preference to their native wares of better quality and vastly greater
beauty. The answer, however, is that the average Oriental is not an art
connoisseur but a poor man living perilously close to the margin of
starvation. He not only wants but must buy things cheap, and the wide
price-margin is the deciding factor. Of course there is also the element
of novelty. Besides goods which merely replace articles he has always
used, the West has introduced many new articles whose utility or charm
are irresistible. I have already mentioned the way in which the
sewing-machine and the kerosene-lamp have swept the Orient from end to
end, and there are many other instances of a similar nature. The
permeation of Western industry has, in fact, profoundly modified every
phase of Oriental economic life. New economic wants have been created;
standards of living have been raised; canons of taste have been altered.
Says a lifelong American student of the Orient: "The knowledge of modern
inventions and of other foods and articles has created new wants. The
Chinese peasant is no longer content to burn bean-oil; he wants
kerosene. The desire of the Asiatic to possess foreign lamps is equalled
only by his passion for foreign clocks. The ambitious Syrian scorns the
mud roof of his ancestors, and will be satisfied only with the bright
red tiles imported from France. Everywhere articles of foreign
manufacture are in demand.... Knowledge increases wants, and the
Oriental is acquiring knowledge. He demands a hundred things to-day that
his grandfather never heard of."[207]
Everywhere it is the same story. An Indian economic writer, though a
bitter enemy of Western industrialism, bemoans the fact that "the
artisans are losing their occupations and are turning to agriculture.
The cheap kerosene-oil from Baku or New York threatens the oilman's[208]
existence. Brass and copper which have been used for vessels from time
immemorial are threatened by cheap enamelled ironware imported from
Europe.... There is also, _pari passu_, a transformation of the tastes
of the consumers. They abandon _gur_ for crystal sugar. Home-woven
cloths are now replaced by manufactured cloths for being too coarse. All
local industries are attacked and many have been destroyed. Villages
that for centuries followed customary practices are brought into contact
with the world's markets all on a sudden. For steamships and railways
which have established the connection have been built in so short an
interval as hardly to allow breathing-time to the village which
slumbered so long under the dominion of custom. Thus the sudden
introduction of competition into an economic unit which had from time
immemorial followed custom has wrought a mighty change."[209]
This "mighty change" was due not merely to the influx of Western goods
but also to an equally momentous influx of Western capital. The
opportunities for profitable investment were so numerous that Western
capital soon poured in streams into Eastern lands. Virtually devoid of
fluid capital of its own, the Orient was bound to have recourse to
Western capital for the initiation of all economic activity in the
modern sense. Railways, mines, large-scale agriculture of the
"plantation" type, and many other undertakings thus came into being.
Most notable of all was the founding of numerous manufacturing
establishments from North Africa to China and the consequent growth of
genuine "factory towns" where the whir of machinery and the smoke of
tall chimneys proclaimed that the East was adopting the industrial life
of the West.
The momentous social consequences of this industrialization of the
Orient will be treated in subsequent chapters. In the present chapter we
will confine ourselves to a consideration of its economic side.
Furthermore, this book, limited as it is to the Near and Middle East,
cannot deal with industrial developments in China and Japan. The reader
should, however, always bear in mind Far Eastern developments, which, in
the main, run parallel to those which we shall here discuss.
These industrial innovations were at first pure Western transplantings
set in Eastern soil. Initiated by Western capital, they were wholly
controlled and managed by Western brains. Western capital could not
venture to entrust itself to Orientals, with their lack of the modern
industrial spirit, their habits of "squeeze" and nepotism, their lust
for quick returns, and their incapacity for sustained business
team-play. As time passed, however, the success of Western undertakings
so impressed Orientals that the more forward-looking among them were
ready to risk their money and to acquire the technique necessary for
success. At the close of Chapter II, I described the development of
modern business types in the Moslem world, and the same is true of the
non-Moslem populations of India. In India there were several elements
such as the Parsis and the Hindu "banyas," or money-lenders, whose
previous activities in commerce or usury predisposed them to financial
and industrial activity in the modern sense. From their ranks have
chiefly sprung the present-day native business communities of India,
exemplified by the jute and textile factories of Calcutta and Bombay,
and the great Tata iron-works of Bengal--undertakings financed by native
capital and wholly under native control. Of course, beside these
successes there have been many lamentable failures. Nevertheless, there
seems to be no doubt that Western industrialism is ceasing to be an
exotic and is rooting itself firmly in Eastern soil.[210]
The combined result of Western and Eastern enterprise has been, as
already stated, the rise of important industrial centres at various
points in the Orient. In Egypt a French writer remarks: "Both banks of
the Nile are lined with factories, sugar-refineries and cotton-mills,
whose belching chimneys tower above the mud huts of the fellahs."[211]
And Sir Theodore Morison says of India: "In the city of Bombay the
industrial revolution has already been accomplished. Bombay is a modern
manufacturing city, where both the dark and the bright side of modern
industrialism strike the eye. Bombay has insanitary slums where
overcrowding is as great an evil as in any European city; she has a
proletariat which works long hours amid the din and whir of machinery;
she also has her millionaires, whose princely charities have adorned her
streets with beautiful buildings. Signs of lavish wealth and, let me
add, culture and taste in Bombay astonish the visitor from the inland
districts. The brown villages and never-ending fields with which he has
hitherto been familiar are the India which is passing away; Bombay is
the presage of the future."[212]
The juxtaposition of vast natural resources and a limitless supply of
cheap labour has encouraged the most ambitious hopes in Oriental minds.
Some Orientals look to a combination of Western money and Eastern
man-power, expressed by an Indian economic writer in the formula:
"English money and Indian labour are the two cheapest things in the
world."[213] Others more ambitiously dream of industrializing the East
entirely by native effort, to the exclusion and even to the detriment
of the West. This view was well set forth some years ago by a Hindu, who
wrote in a leading Indian periodical:[214] "In one sense the Orient is
really menacing the West, and so earnest and open-minded is Asia that no
pretence or apology whatever is made about it. The Easterner has thrown
down the industrial gauntlet, and from now on Asia is destined to
witness a progressively intense trade warfare, the Occidental scrambling
to retain his hold on the markets of the East, and the Oriental
endeavouring to beat him in a battle in which heretofore he has been an
easy victor.... In competing with the Occidental commercialists, the
Oriental has awakened to a dynamic realization of the futility of
pitting unimproved machinery and methods against modern methods and
appliances. Casting aside his former sense of self-complacency, he is
studying the sciences and arts that have given the West its material
prosperity. He is putting the results of his investigations to practical
use, as a rule, recasting the Occidental methods to suit his peculiar
needs, and in some instances improving upon them."
This statement of the spirit of the Orient's industrial awakening is
confirmed by many white observers. At the very moment when the above
article was penned, an American economic writer was making a study tour
of the Orient, of which he reported: "The real cause of Asia's poverty
lies in just two things: the failure of Asiatic governments to educate
their people, and the failure of the people to increase their productive
capacity by the use of machinery. Ignorance and lack of machinery are
responsible for Asia's poverty; knowledge and modern tools are
responsible for America's prosperity." But, continues this writer, we
must watch out. Asia now realizes these facts and is doing much to remedy
the situation. Hence, "we must face in ever-increasing degree the rivalry
of awakening peoples who are strong with the strength that comes from
struggle with poverty and hardship, and who have set themselves to master
and apply all our secrets in the coming world-struggle for industrial
supremacy and for racial readjustment."[215] Another American observer of
Asiatic economic conditions reports: "All Asia is being permeated with
modern industry and present-day mechanical progress."[216] And Sir
Theodore Morison concludes regarding India's economic future: "India's
industrial transformation is near at hand; the obstacles which have
hitherto prevented the adoption of modern methods of manufacture have
been removed; means of transport have been spread over the face of the
whole country, capital for the purchase of machinery and erection of
factories may now be borrowed on easy terms; mechanics, engineers, and
business managers may be hired from Europe to train the future captains
of Indian industry; in English a common language has been found in which
to transact business with all the provinces of India and with a great
part of the Western world; security from foreign invasion and internal
commotion justifies the inception of large enterprises. All the
conditions are favourable for a great reorganization of industry which,
when successfully accomplished, will bring about an increase hitherto
undreamed of in India's annual output of wealth."[217]
The factor usually relied upon to overcome the Orient's handicaps of
inexperience and inexpertness in industrialism is its cheap labour. To
Western observers the low wages and long hours of Eastern industry are
literally astounding. Take Egypt and India as examples of industrial
conditions in the Near and Middle East. Writing of Egypt in 1908, the
English economist H. N. Brailsford says: "There was then no Factory Act
in Egypt. There are all over the country ginning-mills, which employ
casual labour to prepare raw cotton for export during four or five
months of the year. The wages were low, from 7-1/2_d._ to 10_d._ (15 to
20 cents) a day for an adult, and 6_d._ (12 cents) for a child. Children
and adults alike worked sometimes for twelve, usually for fifteen, and
on occasion even for sixteen or eighteen hours a day. In the height of
the season even the children were put on night shifts of twelve
hours."[218]
In India conditions are about the same. The first thorough investigation
of Indian industry was made in 1907 by a factory labour commission, and
the following are some of the data published in its report: In the
cotton-mills of Bombay the hours regularly worked ran from thirteen to
fourteen hours. In the jute-mills of Calcutta the operatives usually
worked fifteen hours. Cotton-ginning factories required their employees
to work seventeen and eighteen hours a day, rice and flour mills twenty
to twenty-two hours, and an extreme case was found in a printing works
where the men had to work twenty-two hours a day for seven consecutive
days. As to wages, an adult male operative, working from thirteen to
fifteen hours a day, received from 15 to 20 rupees a month ($5 to
$6.35). Child labour was very prevalent, children six and seven years
old working "half-time"--in many cases eight hours a day. As a result of
this report legislation was passed by the Indian Government bettering
working conditions somewhat, especially for women and children. But in
1914 the French economist Albert Métin, after a careful study, reported
factory conditions not greatly changed, the Factory Acts systematically
evaded, hours very long, and wages extremely low. In Bombay men were
earning from 10 cents to 20 cents per day, the highest wages being 30
cents. For women and children the maximum was 10 cents per day.[219]
With such extraordinarily low wages and long hours of labour it might at
first sight seem as though, given adequate capital and up-to-date
machinery, the Orient could not only drive Occidental products from
Eastern markets but might invade Western markets as well. This, indeed,
has been the fear of many Western writers. Nearly three-quarters of a
century ago Gobineau prophesied an industrial invasion of Europe from
Asia,[220] and of late years economists like H. N. Brailsford have
warned against an emigration of Western capital to the tempting lure of
factory conditions in Eastern lands.[221] Nevertheless, so far as the
Near and Middle East is concerned, nothing like this has as yet
materialized. China, to be sure, may yet have unpleasant surprises in
store for the West,[222] but neither the Moslem world nor India have
developed factory labour with the skill, stamina, and assiduity
sufficient to undercut the industrial workers of Europe and America. In
India, for example, despite a swarming and poverty-stricken population,
the factories are unable to recruit an adequate or dependable
labour-supply. Says M. Métin: "With such long hours and low wages it
might be thought that Indian industry would be a formidable competitor
of the West. This is not so. The reason is the bad quality of the work.
The poorly paid coolies are so badly fed and so weak that it takes at
least three of them to do the work of one European. Also, the Indian
workers lack not only strength but also skill, attention, and liking for
their work.... An Indian of the people will do anything else in
preference to becoming a factory operative. The factories thus get only
the dregs of the working class. The workers come to the factories and
mines as a last resort; they leave as soon as they can return to their
prior occupations or find a more remunerative employment. Thus the
factories can never count on a regular labour-supply. Would higher wages
remedy this? Many employers say no--as soon as the workers got a little
ahead they would quit, either temporarily till their money was spent, or
permanently for some more congenial calling."[223] These statements are
fully confirmed by an Indian economic writer, who says: "One of the
greatest drawbacks to the establishment of large industries in India is
the scarcity and inefficiency of labour. Cheap labour, where there is no
physical stamina, mental discipline, and skill behind it, tends to be
costly in the end. The Indian labourer is mostly uneducated. He is not
in touch with his employers or with his work. The labouring population
of the towns is a flitting, dilettante population."[224]
Thus Indian industry, despite its very considerable growth, has not come
up to early expectations. As the official Year-Book very frankly states:
"India, in short, is a country rich in raw materials and in industrial
possibilities, but poor in manufacturing accomplishments."[225] In fact,
to some observers, India's industrial future seems far from bright. As a
competent English student of Indian conditions recently wrote: "Some
years ago it seemed possible that India might, by a rapid assimilation
of Western knowledge and technical skill, adapt for her own conditions
the methods of modern industry, and so reach an approximate economic
level. Some even now threaten the Western world with a vision of the
vast populations of China and India rising up with skilled organization,
vast resources, and comparatively cheap labour to impoverish the West.
To the present writer this is a mere bogey. The peril is of a very
different kind. Instead of a growing approximation, he sees a growing
disparity. For every step India takes toward mechanical efficiency, the
West takes two. When India is beginning to use bicycles and motor-cars
(not to make them), the West is perfecting the aeroplane. That is merely
symbolic. The war, as we know, has speeded up mechanical invention and
produced a population of mechanics; but India has stood comparatively
still. It is, up to now, overwhelmingly mediæval, a country of domestic
industry and handicrafts. Mechanical power, even of the simplest, has
not yet been applied to its chief industry--agriculture. Yet the period
of age-long isolation is over, and India can never go back to it;
nevertheless, the gap between East and West is widening. What is to be
the outcome for her 300 millions? We are in danger in the East of seeing
the worst evils of commercialism developed on an enormous scale, with
the vast population of India the victims--of seeing the East become a
world slum."[226]
Whether or not this pessimistic outlook is justified, certain it is that
not merely India but the entire Orient is in a stage of profound
transition; and transition periods are always painful times. We have
been considering the new industrial proletariat of the towns. But the
older social classes are affected in very similar fashion. The old-type
handicraftsman and small merchant are obviously menaced by modern
industrial and business methods, and the peasant masses are in little
better shape. It is not merely a change in technique but a fundamental
difference in outlook on life that is involved. The life of the old
Orient, while there was much want and hardship, was an easygoing life,
with virtually no thought of such matters as time, efficiency, output,
and "turnover." The merchant sat cross-legged in his little booth amid
his small stock of wares, passively waiting for trade, chaffering
interminably with his customers, annoyed rather than pleased if brisk
business came his way. The artisan usually worked by and for himself,
keeping his own hours and knocking off whenever he chose. The peasant
arose with the dawn, but around noon he and his animals lay down for a
long nap and slept until, in the cool of afternoon, they awoke,
stretched themselves, and, comfortably and casually, went to work again.
To such people the speed, system, and discipline of our economic life
are painfully repugnant, and adaptation can at best be effected only
very slowly and under the compulsion of the direst necessity. Meanwhile
they suffer from the competition of those better equipped in the
economic battle. Sir William Ramsay paints a striking picture of the way
in which the Turkish population of Asia Minor, from landlords and
merchants to simple peasants, have been going down-hill for the last
half-century under the economic pressure not merely of Westerners but of
the native Christian elements, Armenians and Greeks, who had partially
assimilated Western business ideas and methods. Under the old state of
things, he says, there was in Asia Minor "no economic progress and no
mercantile development; things went on in the old fashion, year after
year. Such simple business as was carried on was inconsistent with the
highly developed Western business system and Western civilization; but
it was not oppressive to the people. There were no large fortunes; there
was no opportunity for making a great fortune; it was impossible for one
man to force into his service the minds and the work of a large number
of people, and so to create a great organization out of which he might
make big profits. There was a very large number of small men doing
business on a small scale."[227] Sir William Ramsay then goes on to
describe the shattering of this archaic economic life by modern business
methods, to the consequent impoverishment of all classes of the
unadaptable Turkish population.
How the agricultural classes, peasants and landlords alike, are
suffering from changing economic conditions is well exemplified by the
recent history of India. Says the French writer Chailley, an
authoritative student of Indian problems: "For the last half-century
large fractions of the agricultural classes are being entirely despoiled
of their lands or reduced to onerous tenancies. On the other hand, new
classes are rising and taking their place.... Both ryots and
zamindars[228] are involved. The old-type nobility has not advanced with
the times. It remains idle and prodigal, while the peasant proprietors,
burdened by the traditions of many centuries, are likewise improvident
and ignorant. On the other hand, the economic conditions of British
India are producing capitalists who seek employment for their wealth. A
conflict between them and the old landholders was predestined, and the
result was inevitable. Wealth goes to the cleverest, and the land must
pass into the hands of new masters, to the great indignation of the
agricultural classes, a portion of whom will be reduced to the position
of farm-labourers."[229]
The Hindu economist Mukerjee thus depicts the disintegration and decay
of the Indian village: "New economic ideas have now begun to influence
the minds of the villagers. Some are compelled to leave their
occupations on account of foreign competition, but more are leaving
their hereditary occupations of their own accord. The Brahmins go to the
cities to seek government posts or professional careers. The middle
classes also leave their villages and get scattered all over the country
to earn a living. The peasants also leave their ancestral acres and form
a class of landless agricultural labourers. The villages, drained of
their best blood, stagnate and decay. The movement from the village to
the city is in fact not only working a complete revolution in the
habits and ideals of our people, but its economic consequences are far
more serious than are ordinarily supposed. It has made our middle
classes helplessly subservient to employment and service, and has also
killed the independence of our peasant proprietors. It has jeopardized
our food-supply, and is fraught with the gravest peril not only to our
handicrafts but also to our national industry--agriculture."[230]
Happily there are signs that, in Indian agriculture at least, the
transition period is working itself out and that conditions may soon be
on the mend. Both the British Government and the native princes have
vied with one another in spreading Western agricultural ideas and
methods, and since the Indian peasant has proved much more receptive
than has the Indian artisan, a more intelligent type of farmer is
developing, better able to keep step with the times. A good instance is
the growth of rural co-operative credit societies. First introduced by
the British Government in 1904, there were in 1915 more than 17,000 such
associations, with a total of 825,000 members and a working capital of
nearly $30,000,000. These agricultural societies make loans for the
purchase of stock, fodder, seed, manure, sinking of wells, purchase of
Western agricultural machinery, and, in emergencies, personal
maintenance. In the districts where they have established themselves
they have greatly diminished the plague of usury practised by the
"banyas," or village money-lenders, lowering the rate of interest from
its former crushing range of 20 to 75 per cent. to a range averaging
from 9 to 18 per cent. Of course such phenomena are as yet merely
exceptions to a very dreary rule. Nevertheless, they all point toward a
brighter morrow.[231]
But this brighter agricultural morrow is obviously far off, and in
industry it seems to be farther still. Meanwhile the changing Orient is
full of suffering and discontent. What wonder that many Orientals
ascribe their troubles, not to the process of economic transition, but
to the political control of European governments and the economic
exploitation of Western capital. The result is agitation for
emancipation from Western economic as well as Western political control.
At the end of Chapter II we examined the movement among the Mohammedan
peoples known as "Economic Pan-Islamism." A similar movement has arisen
among the Hindus of India--the so-called "Swadeshi" movement. The
Swadeshists declare that India's economic ills are almost entirely due
to the "drain" of India's wealth to England and other Western lands.
They therefore advocate a boycott of English goods until Britain grants
India self-government, whereupon they propose to erect protective
tariffs for Indian products, curb the activities of British capital,
replace high-salaried English officials by natives, and thereby keep
India's wealth at home.[232]
An analysis of these Swadeshist arguments, however, reveals them as
inadequate to account for India's ills, which are due far more to the
general economic trend of the times than to any specific defects of the
British connection. British governance and British capital do cost
money, but their undoubted efficiency in producing peace, order,
security, and development must be considered as offsets to the higher
costs which native rule and native capital would impose. As Sir Theodore
Morison well says: "The advantages which the British Navy and British
credit confer on India are a liberal offset to her expenditure on
pensions and gratuities to her English servants.... India derives a
pecuniary advantage from her connection with the British Empire. The
answer, then, which I give to the question 'What economic equivalent
does India get for foreign payments?' is this: India gets the equipment
of modern industry, and she gets an administration favourable to
economic evolution cheaper than she could provide it herself."[233] A
comparison with Japan's much more costly defence budgets, inferior
credit, and higher interest charges on both public and private loans is
enlightening on this point.
In fact, some Indians themselves admit the fallacy of Swadeshist
arguments. As one of them remarks: "The so-called economic 'drain' is
nonsense. Most of the misery of late years is due to the rising cost of
living--a world-wide phenomenon." And in proof of this he cites
conditions in other Oriental countries, especially Japan.[234] As warm a
friend of the Indian people as the British labour leader, Ramsay
Macdonald, states: "One thing is quite evident, a tariff will not
re-establish the old hand-industry of India nor help to revive village
handicrafts. Factory and machine production, native to India itself,
will throttle them as effectively as that of Lancashire and Birmingham
has done in the past."[235]
Even more trenchant are the criticisms formulated by the Hindu writer
Pramatha Nath Bose.[236] The "drain," says Mr. Bose, is ruining India.
But would the Home Rule programme, as envisaged by most Swadeshists,
cure India's economic ills? Under Home Rule these people would do the
following things: (1) Substitute Englishmen for Indians in the
Administration; (2) levy protective duties on Indian products; (3) grant
State encouragement to Indian industries; (4) disseminate technical
education. Now, how would these matters work out? The substitution of
Indian for British officials would not lessen the "drain" as much as
most Home Rulers think. The high-placed Indian officials who already
exist have acquired European standards of living, so the new official
corps would cost almost as much as the old. Also, "the influence of the
example set by the well-to-do Indian officials would permeate Indian
society more largely than at present, and the demand for Western
articles would rise in proportion. So commercial exploitation by
foreigners would not only continue almost as if they were Europeans, but
might even increase." As to a protective tariff, it would attract
European capital to India which would exploit labour and skim the
profits. India has shown relatively little capacity for indigenous
industrial development. Of course, even at low wages, many Indians might
benefit, yet such persons would form only a tithe of the millions now
starving--besides the fact that this industrialization would bring in
many new social evils. As to State encouragement of industries, this
would bring in Western capital even more than a protective tariff, with
the results already stated. As for technical education, it is a worthy
project, but, says Mr. Bose, "I am afraid the movement is too late, now.
Within the last thirty years the Westerners and the Japanese have gone
so far ahead of us industrially that it has been yearly becoming more
and more difficult to compete with them."
In fact, Mr. Bose goes on to criticize the whole system of Western
education, as applied to India. Neither higher nor lower education have
proven panaceas. "Higher education has led to the material prosperity
of a small section of our community, comprising a few thousands of
well-to-do lawyers, doctors, and State servants. But their occupations
being of a more or less unproductive or parasitic character, their
well-being does not solve the problem of the improvement of India as a
whole. On the contrary, as their taste for imported articles develops in
proportion to their prosperity, they help to swell rather than diminish
the economic drain from the country which is one of the chief causes of
our impoverishment." Neither has elementary education "on the whole
furthered the well-being of the multitude. It has not enabled the
cultivators to 'grow two blades where one grew before.' On the contrary,
it has distinctly diminished their efficiency by inculcating in the
literate proletariat, who constitute the cream of their class, a strong
distaste for their hereditary mode of living and their hereditary
callings, and an equally strong taste for shoddy superfluities and
brummagem fineries, and for occupations of a more or less parasitic
character. They have, directly or indirectly, accelerated rather than
retarded the decadence of indigenous industries, and have thus helped to
aggravate their own economic difficulties and those of the entire
community. What they want is more food--and New India vies with the
Government in giving them what is called 'education' that does not
increase their food-earning capacity, but on the contrary fosters in
them tastes and habits which make them despise indigenous products and
render them fit subjects for the exploitation of scheming capitalists,
mostly foreign. Political and economic causes could not have led to the
extinction of indigenous industry if they had not been aided by change
of taste fostered by the Western environment of which the so-called
'education' is a powerful factor."
From all this Mr. Bose concludes that none of the reforms advocated by
the Home Rulers would cure India's ills. "In fact, the chances are, she
would be more inextricably entangled in the toils of Western
civilization, without any adequate compensating advantage, and the grip
of the West would close on her to crush her more effectively."
Therefore, according to Mr. Bose, the only thing for India to do is to
turn her back on everything Western and plunge resolutely into the
traditional past. As he expresses it: "India's salvation lies, not in
the region of politics, but outside it; not in aspiring to be one of the
'great' nations of the present day, but in retiring to her humble
position--a position, to my mind, of solitary grandeur and glory; not in
going forward on the path of Western civilization, but in going back
from it so far as practicable; not in getting more and more entangled in
the silken meshes of its finely knit, widespread net, but in escaping
from it as far as possible."
Such are the drastic conclusions of Mr. Bose; conclusions shared to a
certain extent by other Indian idealists like Rabindranath Tagore. But
surely such projects, however idealistic, are the vainest fantasies.
Whole peoples cannot arbitrarily cut themselves off from the rest of the
world, like isolated individuals forswearing society and setting up as
anchorites in the jungle. The time for "hermit nations" has passed,
especially for a vast country like India, set at the cross-roads of the
East, open to the sea, and already profoundly penetrated by Western
ideas.
Nevertheless, such criticisms, appealing as they do to the strong strain
of asceticism latent in the Indian nature, have affected many Indians
who, while unable to concur in the conclusions, still try to evolve a
"middle term," retaining everything congenial in the old system and
grafting on a select set of Western innovations. Accordingly, these
persons have elaborated programmes for a "new order" built on a blend of
Hindu mysticism, caste, Western industry, and socialism.[237]
Now these schemes are highly ingenious. But they are not convincing.
Their authors should remember the old adage that you cannot eat your
cake and have it too. When we realize the abysmal antithesis between the
economic systems of the old East and the modern West, any attempt to
combine the most congenial points of both while eschewing their defects
seems an attempt to reconcile irreconcilables and about as profitable as
trying to square the circle. As Lowes Dickinson wisely observes:
"Civilization is a whole. Its art, its religion, its way of life, all
hang together with its economic and technical development. I doubt
whether a nation can pick and choose; whether, for instance, the East
can say, 'We will take from the West its battleships, its factories, its
medical science; we will not take its social confusion, its hurry and
fatigue, its ugliness, its over-emphasis on activity.'... So I expect
the East to follow us, whether it like it or no, into all these
excesses, and to go right through, not round, all that we have been
through on its way to a higher phase of civilization."[238]
This seems to be substantially true. Judged by the overwhelming body of
evidence, the East, in its contemporary process of transformation, will
follow the West--avoiding some of our more patent mistakes, perhaps,
but, in the main, proceeding along similar lines. And, as already
stated, this transformation is modifying every phase of Eastern life. We
have already examined the process at work in the religious, political,
and economic phases. To the social phase let us now turn.
FOOTNOTES:
[206] F. B. Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_, p. 53 (New York, 1920).
[207] Rev. A. J. Brown, "Economic Changes in Asia," _The Century_,
March, 1904.
[208] _I. e._ the purveyor of the native vegetable-oils.
[209] R. Mukerjee, _The Foundations of Indian Economics_, p. 5 (London,
1916).
[210] On these points, see Fisher, _op. cit._; Sir T. Morison, _The
Economic Transition in India_ (London, 1911); Sir Valentine Chirol,
_Indian Unrest_ (London, 1910); D. H. Dodwell, "Economic Transition in
India," _Economic Journal_, December, 1910; J. P. Jones, "The Present
Situation in India," _Journal of Race Development_, July, 1910.
[211] L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage oriental_, pp. 20-21 (Paris, 1910).
[212] Sir T. Morison, _The Economic Transition in India_, p. 181.
[213] Quoted by Jones, _supra_.
[214] _The Indian Review_ (Madras), 1910.
[215] Clarence Poe, "What the Orient can Teach Us," _World's Work_,
July, 1911.
[216] C. S. Cooper, _The Modernizing of the Orient_, p. 5 (New York,
1914).
[217] Morison, _op. cit._, p. 242.
[218] H. N. Brailsford, _The War of Steel and Gold_, p. 114 (London,
1915).
[219] A. Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: Étude sociale_, p. 336 (Paris,
1918).
[220] In his book, _Trois Ans en Perse_ (Paris, 1858).
[221] Brailsford, _op. cit._, pp. 83, 114-115.
[222] Regarding conditions in China, especially the extraordinary
discipline and working ability of the Chinaman, see my _Rising Tide of
Colour against White World-Supremacy_, pp. 28-30, 243-251.
[223] Métin, _op. cit._, p. 337.
[224] A. Yusuf Ali, _Life and Labour in India_, p. 183 (London, 1907).
[225] "India in the Years 1917-1918" (official publication--Calcutta).
[226] Young and Ferrers, _India in Conflict_, pp. 15-17 (London, 1920).
[227] Sir W. M. Ramsay, "The Turkish Peasantry of Anatolia," _Quarterly
Review_, January, 1918.
[228] _I. e._ peasants and landlords.
[229] J. Chailley _Administrative Problems of British India_, p. 339
(London, 1910--English translation).
[230] Mukerjee, _op. cit._, p. 9.
[231] On the co-operative movement in India, see Fisher, _India's Silent
Revolution_, pp. 54-58; R. B. Ewebank, "The Co-operative Movement in
India," _Quarterly Review_, April, 1916. India's economic problems, both
agricultural and industrial, have been carefully studied by a large
number of Indian economists, some of whose writings are extremely
interesting. Some of the most noteworthy books, besides those of
Mukerjee and Yusuf Ali, already quoted, are: Dadabhai Naoroji, _Poverty
and Un-British Rule in India_ (London, 1901); Romesh Dutt, _The Economic
History of India in the Victorian Age_ (London, 1906); H. H. Gosh, _The
Advancement of Industry_ (Calcutta, 1910); P. C. Ray, _The Poverty
Problem in India_ (Calcutta, 1895); M. G. Ranade, _Essays on Indian
Economics_ (Madras, 1920); Jadunath Sarkar, _Economics of British India_
(Calcutta, 1911).
[232] The best compendium of Swadeshist opinion is the volume containing
pronouncements from all the Swadeshi leaders, entitled, _The Swadeshi
Movement: A Symposium_ (Madras, 1910). See also writings of the
economists Gosh, Mukerjee, Ray, and Sarkar, above quoted, as well as the
various writings of the nationalist agitator Lajpat Rai. A good summary
interpretation is found in M. Glotz, "Le Mouvement 'Swadeshi' dans
l'Inde," _Revue du Mois_, July, 1913.
[233] Sir T. Morison, _The Economic Transition in India_, pp. 240-241.
Also see Sir Valentine Chirol, _Indian Unrest_, pp. 255-279; William
Archer, _India and the Future_, pp. 131-157.
[234] Syed Sirdar Ali Khan, _India of To-day_, p. 19 (Bombay, 1908).
[235] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _The Government of India_, p. 133 (London,
1920).
[236] In _The Hindustan Review_ (Calcutta), 1917.
[237] Good examples are found in the writings of Mukerjee and Lajpat
Rai, already quoted.
[238] G. Lowes Dickinson, _An Essay on the Civilizations of India,
China, and Japan_, pp. 84-85 (London, 1914).
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIAL CHANGE
The momentous nature of the contemporary transformation of the Orient is
nowhere better attested than by the changes effected in the lives of its
peoples. That dynamic influence of the West which is modifying
governmental forms, political concepts, religious beliefs, and economic
processes is proving equally potent in the range of social phenomena. In
the third chapter of this volume we attempted a general survey of
Western influence along all the above lines. In the present chapter we
shall attempt a detailed consideration of the social changes which are
to-day taking place.
These social changes are very great, albeit many of them may not be so
apparent as the changes in other fields. So firm is the hold of custom
and tradition on individual, family, and group life in the Orient that
superficial observers of the East are prone to assert that these matters
are still substantially unaltered, however pronounced may have been the
changes on the external, material side. Yet such is not the opinion of
the closest students of the Orient, and it is most emphatically not the
opinion of Orientals themselves. These generally stress the profound
social changes which are going on.
And it is their judgments which seem to be the more correct. To say that
the East is advancing "materially" but standing still "socially" is to
ignore the elemental truth that social systems are altered quite as much
by material things as by abstract ideas. Who that looks below the
surface can deny the social, moral, and civilizing power of railroads,
post-offices, and telegraph lines? Does it mean nothing socially as well
as materially that the East is adopting from the West a myriad
innovations, weighty and trivial, important and frivolous, useful and
baneful? Does it mean nothing socially as well as materially that the
Prophet's tomb at Medina is lit by electricity and that picture
post-cards are sold outside the Holy Kaaba at Mecca? It may seem mere
grotesque piquancy that the muezzin should ride to the mosque in a
tram-car, or that the Moslem business man should emerge from his harem,
read his morning paper, motor to an office equipped with a prayer-rug,
and turn from his devotions to dictaphone and telephone. Yet why assume
that his life is moulded by mosque, harem, and prayer-rug, and yet deny
the things of the West a commensurate share in the shaping of his social
existence? Now add to these tangible innovations intangible novelties
like scientific education, Occidental amusements, and the partial
emancipation of women, and we begin to get some idea of the depth and
scope of the social transformation which is going on.
In those parts of the Orient most open to Western influences this social
transformation has attained notable proportions for more than a
generation. When the Hungarian Orientalist Vambéry returned to
Constantinople in 1896 after forty years' absence, he stood amazed at
the changes which had taken place, albeit Constantinople was then
subjected to the worst repression of the Hamidian régime. "I had," he
writes, "continually to ask myself this question: Is it possible that
these are my Turks of 1856; and how can all these transformations have
taken place? I was astonished at the aspect of the city; at the stone
buildings which had replaced the old wooden ones; at the animation of
the streets, in which carriages and tram-cars abounded, whereas forty
years before only saddle-animals were used; and when the strident shriek
of the locomotive mingled with the melancholy calls from the minarets,
all that I saw and heard seemed to me a living protest against the old
adage: 'La bidaat fil Islam'--'There is nothing to reform in Islam.' My
astonishment became still greater when I entered the houses and was able
to appreciate the people, not only by their exteriors but still more by
their manner of thought. The effendi class[239] of Constantinople seemed
to me completely transformed in its conduct, outlook, and attitude
toward foreigners."[240]
Vambéry stresses the inward as well as outward evolution of the Turkish
educated classes, for he says: "Not only in his outward aspect, but also
in his home-life, the present-day Turk shows a strong inclination to the
manners and habits of the West, in such varied matters as furniture,
table-manners, sex-relations, and so forth. This is of the very greatest
significance. For a people may, to be sure, assimilate foreign
influences in the intellectual field, if it be persuaded of their
utility and advantage; but it gives up with more difficulty customs and
habits which are in the blood. One cannot over-estimate the numerous
sacrifices which, despite everything, the Turks have made in this line.
I find all Turkish society, even the Mollahs,[241] penetrated with the
necessity of a union with Western civilization. Opinions may differ as
to the method of assimilation: some wish to impress on the foreign
civilization a national character; others, on the contrary, are
partisans of our intellectual culture, such as it is, and reprobate any
kind of modification."[242]
Most significant of all, Vambéry found even the secluded women of the
harems, "those bulwarks of obscurantism," notably changed. "Yes, I
repeat, the life of women in Turkey seems to me to have been radically
transformed in the last forty years, and it cannot be denied that this
transformation has been produced by internal conviction as much as by
external pressure." Noting the spread of female education, and the
increasing share of women in reform movements, Vambéry remarks: "This is
of vital importance, for when women shall begin to act in the family as
a factor of modern progress, real reforms, in society as well as in the
state, cannot fail to appear."[243]
In India a similar permeation of social life by Westernism is depicted
by the Moslem liberal, S. Khuda Bukhsh, albeit Mr. Bukhsh, being an
insider, lays greater emphasis upon the painful aspects of the
inevitable transition process from old to new. He is not unduly
pessimistic, for he recognizes that "the age of transition is
necessarily to a certain extent an age of laxity of morals, indifference
to religion, superficial culture, and gossiping levity. These are
passing ills which time itself will cure." Nevertheless, he does not
minimize the critical aspects of the present situation, which implies
nothing less than the breakdown of the old social system. "The clearest
result of this breakdown of our old system of domestic life and social
customs under the assault of European ideas," he says, "is to be found
in two directions--in our religious beliefs and in our social life. The
old system, with all its faults, had many redeeming virtues." To-day
this old system, narrow-minded but God-fearing, has been replaced by a
"strange independence of thought and action. Reverence for age, respect
for our elders, deference to the opinions of others, are fast
disappearing.... Under the older system the head of the family was the
sole guide and friend of its members. His word had the force of law. He
was, so to speak, the custodian of the honour and prestige of the
family. From this exalted position he is now dislodged, and the most
junior member now claims equality with him."[244]
Mr. Bukhsh deplores the current wave of extravagance, due to the
wholesale adoption of European customs and modes of living. "What," he
asks, "has happened here in India? We have adopted European costume,
European ways of living, even the European vices of drinking and
gambling, but none of their virtues. This must be remedied. We must
learn at the feet of Europe, but not at the sacrifice of our Eastern
individuality. But this is precisely what we have not done. We have
dabbled a little in English and European history, and we have commenced
to despise our religion, our literature, our history, our traditions. We
have unlearned the lessons of our history and our civilization, and in
their place we have secured nothing solid and substantial to hold
society fast in the midst of endless changes." In fine: "Destruction has
done its work, but the work of construction has not yet begun."[245]
Like Vambéry, Bukhsh lays strong emphasis on the increasing emancipation
of women. No longer regarded as mere "child-bearing machines," the
Mohammedan women of India "are getting educated day by day, and now
assert their rights. Though the purdah system[246] still prevails, it is
no longer that severe, stringent, and unreasonable seclusion of women
which existed fifty years ago. It is gradually relaxing, and women are
getting, step by step, rights and liberties which must in course of time
end in the complete emancipation of Eastern womanhood. Forty years ago
women meekly submitted to neglect, indifference, and even harsh
treatment from their husbands, but such is the case no longer."[247]
These two descriptions of social conditions in the Near and Middle East
respectively enable one to get a fair idea of the process of change
which is going on. Of course it must not be forgotten that both writers
deal primarily with the educated upper classes of the large towns.
Nevertheless, the leaven is working steadily downward, and with every
decade is affecting wider strata of the native populations.
The spread of Western education in the East during the past few decades
has been truly astonishing, because it is the exact antithesis of the
Oriental educational system. The traditional "education" of the entire
Orient, from Morocco to China, was a mere memorizing of sacred texts
combined with exercises of religious devotion. The Mohammedan or Hindu
student spent long years reciting to his master (a "holy man")
interminable passages from books which, being written in classic Arabic
or Sanskrit, were unintelligible to him, so that he usually did not
understand a word of what he was saying. No more deadening system for
the intellect could possibly have been devised. Every part of the brain
except the memory atrophied, and the wonder is that any intellectual
initiative or original thinking ever appeared.
Even to-day the old system persists, and millions of young Orientals are
still wasting their time at this mind-petrifying nonsense. But alongside
the old there has arisen a new system, running the whole educational
gamut from kindergartens to universities, where Oriental youth is being
educated along Western lines. These new-type educational establishments
are of every kind. Besides schools and universities giving a liberal
education and fitting students for government service or the
professions, there are numerous technical schools turning out skilled
agriculturists or engineers, while good normal schools assure a supply
of teachers qualified to instruct coming student-generations. Both
public and private effort furthers Western education in the East. All
the European governments have favoured Western education in the lands
under their control, particularly the British in India and Egypt, while
various Christian missionary bodies have covered the East with a
network of schools and colleges. Also many Oriental governments like
Turkey and the native states of India have made sincere efforts to
spread Western education among their peoples.[248]
Of course, as in any new development, the results so far obtained are
far from ideal. The vicious traditions of the past handicap or partially
pervert the efforts of the present. Eastern students are prone to use
their memories rather than their intellects, and seek to cram their way
quickly through examinations to coveted posts rather than acquire
knowledge and thus really fit themselves for their careers. The result
is that many fail, and these unfortunates, half-educated and spoiled for
any sort of useful occupation, vegetate miserably, come to hate that
Westernism which they do not understand, and give themselves up to
anarchistic revolutionary agitation. Sir Alfred Lyall well describes the
dark side of Western education in the East when he says of India:
"Ignorance is unquestionably the root of many evils; and it was natural
that in the last century certain philosophers should have assumed
education to be a certain cure for human delusions; and that statesmen
like Macaulay should have declared education to be the best and surest
remedy for political discontent and for law-breaking. In any case, it
was the clear and imperative duty of the British Government to attempt
the intellectual emancipation of India as the best justification of
British rule. We have since discovered by experience, that, although
education is a sovereign remedy for many ills--is indeed indispensable
to healthy progress--yet an indiscriminate or superficial administration
of this potent medicine may engender other disorders. It acts upon the
frame of an antique society as a powerful dissolvent, heating weak
brains, stimulating rash ambitions, raising inordinate expectations of
which the disappointment is bitterly resented."[249]
Indeed, some Western observers of the Orient, particularly colonial
officials, have been so much impressed by the political and social
dangers arising from the existence of this "literate proletariat" of
semi-educated failures that they are tempted to condemn the whole
venture of Western education in the East as a mistake. Lord Cromer, for
example, was decidedly sceptical of the worth of the Western-educated
Egyptian,[250] while a prominent Anglo-Indian official names as the
chief cause of Indian unrest, "the system of education, which we
ourselves introduced--advisedly so far as the limited vision went of
those responsible; blindly in view of the inevitable consequences."[251]
Yet these pessimistic judgments do not seem to make due allowance for
the inescapable evils attendant on any transition stage. Other observers
of the Orient have made due allowance for this factor. Vambéry, for
instance, notes the high percentage of honest and capable native
officials in the British Indian and French North African civil service
(the bulk of these officials, of course, Western-educated men), and
concludes: "Strictly conservative Orientals, and also fanatically
inclined Europeans, think that with the entrance of our culture the
primitive virtues of the Asiatics have been destroyed, and that the
uncivilized Oriental was more faithful, more honest, and more reliable
than the Asiatic educated on European principles. This is a gross error.
It may be true of the half-educated, but not of the Asiatic in whose
case the intellectual evolution is founded on the solid basis of a
thorough, systematic education."[252]
And, whatever may be the ills attendant upon Western education in the
East, is it not the only practicable course to pursue? The impact of
Westernism upon the Orient is too ubiquitous to be confined to books.
Granting, therefore, for the sake of argument, that colonial governments
could have prevented Western education in the formal sense, would not
the Oriental have learned in other ways? Surely it is better that he
should learn through good texts under the supervision of qualified
teachers, rather than tortuously in perverted--and more
dangerous--fashion.
The importance of Western education in the East is nowhere better
illustrated than in the effects it is producing in ameliorating the
status of women. The depressed condition of women throughout the Orient
is too well known to need elaboration. Bad enough in Mohammedan
countries, it is perhaps at its worst among the Hindus of India, with
child-marriage, the virtual enslavement of widows (burned alive till
prohibited by English law), and a seclusion more strict even than that
of the "harem" of Moslem lands. As an English writer well puts it:
"'Ladies first,' we say in the West; in the East it is 'ladies last.'
That sums up succinctly the difference in the domestic ideas of the two
civilizations."[253]
Under these circumstances it might seem as though no breath of the West
could yet have reached these jealously secluded creatures. Yet, as a
matter of fact, Western influences have already profoundly affected the
women of the upper classes, and female education, while far behind that
of the males, has attained considerable proportions. In the more
advanced parts of the Orient like Constantinople, Cairo, and the cities
of India, distinctly "modern" types of women have appeared, the
self-supporting, self-respecting--and respected--woman school-teacher
being especially in evidence.
The social consequences of this rising status of women, not only to
women themselves but also to the community at large, are very important.
In the East the harem is, as Vambéry well says, the "bulwark of
obscurantism."[254] Ignorant and fanatical herself, the harem woman
implants her ignorance and fanaticism in her sons as well as in her
daughters. What could be a worse handicap for the Eastern "intellectual"
than his boyhood years spent "behind the veil"? No wonder that
enlightened Oriental fathers have been in the habit of sending their
boys to school at the earliest possible age in order to get them as soon
as possible out of the stultifying atmosphere of harem life. Yet even
this has proved merely a palliative. Childhood impressions are ever the
most lasting, and so long as one-half of the Orient remained untouched
by progressive influences Oriental progress had to be begun again _de
novo_ with every succeeding generation.
The increasing number of enlightened Oriental women is remedying this
fatal defect. As a Western writer well says: "Give the mothers education
and the whole situation is transformed. Girls who are learning other
things than the unintelligible phrases of the Koran are certain to
impart such knowledge, as daughters, sisters, and mothers, to their
respective households. Women who learn housewifery, methods of modern
cooking, sewing, and sanitation in the domestic-economy schools, are
bound to cast about the home upon their return the atmosphere of a
civilized community. The old-time picture of the Oriental woman spending
her hours upon divans, eating sweetmeats, and indulging in petty and
degrading gossip with the servants, or with women as ignorant as
herself, will be changed. The new woman will be a companion rather than
a slave or a toy of her husband. Marriage will advance from the stage of
a paltry trade in bodies to something like a real union, involving
respect towards the woman by both sons and fathers, while in a new pride
of relationship the woman herself will be discovered."[255]
These men and women of the newer Orient reflect their changing ideas in
their changing standards of living. Although this is most evident among
the wealthier elements of the towns, it is perceptible in all classes of
the population. Rich and poor, urban and rural, the Orientals are
altering their living standards towards those of the West. And this
involves social changes of the most far-reaching character, because few
antitheses could be sharper than the living conditions prevailing
respectively in the traditional East and in the modern Western world.
This basic difference lies, not in wealth (the East, like the West,
knows great riches as well as great poverty), but rather in
_comfort_--using the word in its broad sense. The wealthy Oriental of
the old school spends most of his money on Oriental luxuries, like fine
raiment, jewels, women, horses, and a great retinue of attendants, and
then hoards the rest. But of "comfort," in the Western sense, he knows
virtually nothing, and it is safe to say that he lives under domestic
conditions which a Western artisan would despise.[256]
To-day, however, the Oriental is discovering "comfort." And, high or
low, he likes it very well. All the myriad things which make our lives
easier and more agreeable--lamps, electric light, sewing-machines,
clocks, whisky, umbrellas, sanitary plumbing, and a thousand others: all
these things, which to us are more or less matters of course, are to the
Oriental so many delightful discoveries, of irresistible appeal. He
wants them, and he gets them in ever-increasing quantities. But this
produces some rather serious complications. His private economy is more
or less thrown out of gear. This opening of a whole vista of new wants
means a portentous rise in his standard of living. And where is he going
to find the money to pay for it? If he be poor, he has to skimp on his
bare necessities. If he be rich, he hates to forgo his traditional
luxuries. The upshot is a universal growth of extravagance. And, in this
connection, it is well to bear in mind that the peoples of the Near and
Middle East, taken as a whole, have never been really thrifty. Poor the
masses may have been, and thus obliged to live frugally, but they have
always proved themselves "good spenders" when opportunity offers. The
way in which a Turkish peasant or a Hindu ryot will squander his savings
and run into debt over festivals, marriages, funerals, and other social
events is astounding to Western observers.[257] Now add to all this the
fact that in the Orient, as in the rest of the world, the cost of the
basic necessaries of life--food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, has risen
greatly during the past two decades, and we can realize the gravity of
the problem which higher Oriental living-standards involves.[258]
Certain it is that the struggle for existence is growing keener and that
the pressure of poverty is getting more severe. With the basic
necessaries rising in price, and with many things considered necessities
which were considered luxuries or entirely unheard of a generation ago,
the Oriental peasant or town working-man is finding it harder and harder
to make both ends meet. As one writer well phrases it: "These altered
economic conditions have not as yet brought the ability to meet them.
The cost of living has increased faster than the resources of the
people."[259]
One of the main (though not sufficiently recognized) causes of the
economic-social crisis through which the Orient is to-day passing is
over-population. The quick breeding tendencies of Oriental peoples have
always been proverbial, and have been due not merely to strong sexual
appetites but also to economic reasons like the harsh exploitation of
women and children, and perhaps even more to religious doctrines
enjoining early marriage and the begetting of numerous sons. As a
result, Oriental populations have always pressed close upon the limits
of subsistence. In the past, however, this pressure was automatically
lightened by factors like war, misgovernment, pestilence, and famine,
which swept off such multitudes of people that, despite high
birth-rates, populations remained at substantially a fixed level. But
here, as in every other phase of Eastern life, Western influences have
radically altered the situation. The extension of European political
control over Eastern lands has meant the putting down of internal
strife, the diminution of governmental abuses, the decrease of disease,
and the lessening of the blight of famine. In other words, those
"natural" checks which previously kept down the population have been
diminished or abolished, and in response to the life-saving activities
of the West, the enormous death-rate which in the past has kept Oriental
populations from excessive multiplication is falling to proportions
comparable with the low death-rate of Western nations. But to lower the
Orient's prodigious birth-rate is quite another matter. As a matter of
fact, that birth-rate keeps up with undiminished vigour, and the
consequence has been a portentous increase of population in nearly every
portion of the Orient under Western political control. In fact, even
those Oriental countries which have maintained their independence have
more or less adopted Western life-conserving methods, and have
experienced in greater or less degree an accelerated increase of
population.
The phenomena of over-population are best seen in India. Most of India
has been under British control for the greater part of a century. Even a
century ago, India was densely populated, yet in the intervening
hundred years the population has increased between two and three
fold.[260] Of course, factors like improved agriculture, irrigation,
railways, and the introduction of modern industry enable India to
support a much larger population than it could have done at the time of
the British Conquest. Nevertheless, the evidence is clear that excessive
multiplication has taken place. Nearly all qualified students of the
problem concur on this point. Forty years ago the Duke of Argyll stated:
"Where there is no store, no accumulation, no wealth; where the people
live from hand to mouth from season to season on a low diet; and where,
nevertheless, they breed and multiply at such a rate; there we can at
least see that this power and force of multiplication is no evidence
even of safety, far less of comfort." Towards the close of the last
century, Sir William Hunter termed population India's "fundamental
problem," and continued: "The result of civilized rule in India has been
to produce a strain on the food-producing powers of the country such as
it had never before to bear. It has become a truism of Indian statistics
that the removal of the old cruel checks on population in an Asiatic
country is by no means an unmixed blessing to an Asiatic people."[261]
Lord Cromer remarks of India's poverty: "Not only cannot it be remedied
by mere philanthropy, but it is absolutely certain--cruel and
paradoxical though it may appear to say so--that philanthropy enhances
the evil. In the days of Akhbar or Shah Jehan, cholera, famine, and
internal strife kept down the population. Only the fittest survived. Now
internal strife is forbidden, and philanthropy steps in and says that no
single life shall be sacrificed if science and Western energy or skill
can save it. Hence the growth of a highly congested population, vast
numbers of whom are living on a bare margin of subsistence. The fact
that one of the greatest difficulties of governing the teeming masses of
the East is caused by good and humane government should be recognized.
It is too often ignored."[262]
William Archer well states the matter when, in answer to the query why
improved external conditions have not brought India prosperity, he says:
"The reason, in my view, is simple: namely, that the benefit of good
government is, in part at any rate, nullified, when the people take
advantage of it, not to save and raise their standard of living, but to
breed to the very margin of subsistence. Henry George used to point out
that every mouth that came into the world brought two hands along with
it; but though the physiological fact is undeniable, the economic
deduction suggested will not hold good except in conditions that permit
of the profitable employment of the two hands.... If mouths increase in
a greater ratio than food, the tendency must be towards greater
poverty."[263]
It is one of the most unfortunate aspects of the situation that very few
Oriental thinkers yet realize that over-population is a prime cause of
Oriental poverty. Almost without exception they lay the blame to
political factors, especially to Western political control. In fact, the
only case that I know of where an Eastern thinker has boldly faced the
problem and has courageously advocated birth-control is in the book
published five years ago by P. K. Wattal, a native official of the
Indian Finance Department, entitled, _The Population Problem of
India_.[264] This pioneer volume is written with such ability and is of
such apparent significance as an indication of the awakening of
Orientals to a more rational attitude, that it merits special attention.
Mr. Wattal begins his book by a plea to his fellow-countrymen to look at
the problem rationally and without prejudice. "This essay," he says,
"should not be constituted into an attack on the spiritual civilization
of our country, or even indirectly into a glorification of the
materialism of the West. The object in view is that we should take a
somewhat more matter-of-fact view of the main problem of life, viz., how
to live in this world. We are a poor people; the fact is indisputable.
Our poverty is, perhaps, due to a great many causes. But I put it to
every one of us whether he has not at some of the most momentous periods
of his life been handicapped by having to support a large family, and
whether this encumbrance has not seriously affected the chances of
advancement warranted by early promise and exceptional endowment. This
question should be viewed by itself. It is a physical fact, and has
nothing to do with political environment or religious obligation. If we
have suffered from the consequences of that mistake, is it not a duty
that we owe to ourselves and to our progeny that its evil effects shall
be mitigated as far as possible? There is no greater curse than
poverty--I say this with due respect to our spiritualism. It is not in a
spirit of reproach that restraint in married life is urged in these
pages. It is solely from a vivid realization of the hardships caused by
large families and a profound sympathy with the difficulties under which
large numbers of respectable persons struggle through life in this
country that I have made bold to speak in plain terms what comes to
every young man, but which he does not care to give utterance to in a
manner that would prevent the recurrence of the evil."[265]
After this appeal to reason in his readers, Mr. Wattal develops his
thesis. The first prime cause of over-population in India, he asserts,
is early marriage. Contrary to Western lands, where population is kept
down by prudential marriages and by birth-control, "for the Hindus
marriage is a sacrament which must be performed, regardless of the
fitness of the parties to bear the responsibilities of a mated
existence. A Hindu male must marry and beget children--sons, if you
please--to perform his funeral rites lest his spirit wander uneasily in
the waste places of the earth. The very name of son, 'putra,' means one
who saves his father's soul from the hell called Puta. A Hindu maiden
unmarried at puberty is a source of social obloquy to her family and of
damnation to her ancestors. Among the Mohammedans, who are not
handicapped by such penalties, the married state is equally common,
partly owing to Hindu example and partly to the general conditions of
primitive society, where a wife is almost a necessity both as a domestic
drudge and as a helpmate in field work."[266] The worst of the matter is
that, despite the efforts of social reformers child-marriage seems to be
increasing. The census of 1911 showed that during the decade 1901-10 the
numbers of married females per 1000 of ages 0-5 years rose from 13 to
14; of ages 5-10 from 102 to 105; of 10-15 from 423 to 430, and of 15-20
from 770 to 800. In other words, in the year 1911, out of every 1000
Indian girls, over one-tenth were married before they were 10 years old,
nearly one-half before they were 15, and four-fifths before they were
20.[267]
The result of all this is a tremendous birth-rate, but this is "no
matter for congratulation. We have heard so often of our high death-rate
and the means for combating it, but can it be seriously believed that
with a birth-rate of 30 per 1000 it is possible to go on as we are doing
with the death-rate brought down to the level of England or Scotland? Is
there room enough in the country for the population to increase so fast
as 20 per 1000 every year? We are paying the inevitable penalty of
bringing into this world more persons than can be properly cared for,
and therefore if we wish fewer deaths to occur in this country the
births must be reduced to the level of the countries where the
death-rate is low. It is, therefore, our high birth-rate that is the
social danger; the high death-rate, however regrettable, is merely an
incident of our high birth-rate."[268]
Mr. Wattal then describes the cruel items in India's death-rate; the
tremendous female mortality, due largely to too early childbirth, and
the equally terrible infant mortality, nearly 50 per cent. of infant
deaths being due to premature birth or debility at birth. These are the
inevitable penalties of early and universal marriage. For, in India,
"everybody marries, fit or unfit, and is a parent at the earliest
possible age permitted by nature." This process is highly disgenic; it
is plainly lowering the quality and sapping the vigour of the race. It
is the lower elements of the population, the negroid aboriginal tribes
and the Pariahs or Outcastes, who are gaining the fastest. Also the
vitality of the whole population seems to be lowering. The census
figures show that the number of elderly persons is decreasing, and that
the average statistical expectation of life is falling. "The coming
generation is severely handicapped at start in life. And the chances of
living to a good old age are considerably smaller than they were, say
thirty or forty years ago. Have we ever paused to consider what it means
to us in the life of the nation as a whole? It means that the people who
alone by weight of experience and wisdom are fitted for the posts of
command in the various public activities of the country are snatched
away by death; and that the guidance and leadership which belongs to age
and mature judgment in the countries of the West fall in India to
younger and consequently to less trustworthy persons."[269]
After warning his fellow-countrymen that neither improved methods of
agriculture, the growth of industry, nor emigration can afford any real
relief to the growing pressure of population on means of subsistence, he
notes a few hopeful signs that, despite the hold of religion and
custom, the people are beginning to realize the situation and that in
certain parts of India there are foreshadowings of birth-control. For
example, he quotes from the census report for 1901 this official
explanation of a slight drop in the birth-rate of Bengal: "The
postponement of the age of marriage cannot wholly account for the
diminished rate of reproduction. The deliberate avoidance of
child-bearing must also be partly responsible.... It is a matter of
common belief that among the tea-garden coolies of Assam means are
frequently taken to prevent conception, or to procure abortion." And the
report of the Sanitary Commissioner of Assam for 1913 states: "An
important factor in producing the defective birth-rate appears to be due
to voluntary limitation of birth."[270]
However, these beginnings of birth-control are too local and partial to
afford any immediate relief to India's growing over-population. Wider
appreciation of the situation and prompt action are needed. "The
conclusion is irresistible. We can no longer afford to shut our eyes to
the social canker in our midst. In the land of the bullock-cart, the
motor has come to stay. The competition is now with the more advanced
races of the West, and we cannot tell them what Diogenes said to
Alexander: 'Stand out of my sunshine.' After the close of this gigantic
World War theories of population will perhaps be revised and a reversion
in favour of early marriage and larger families may be counted upon.
But, (1) that will be no solution to our own population problem, and (2)
this reaction will be only for a time.... The law of population may be
arrested in its operation, but there is no way of escaping it."[271]
So concludes this striking little book. Furthermore, we must remember
that, although India may be the acutest sufferer from over-population,
conditions in the entire Orient are basically the same, prudential
checks and rational birth-control being everywhere virtually
absent.[272] Remembering also that, besides over-population, there are
other economic and social evils previously discussed, we cannot be
surprised to find in all Eastern lands much acute poverty and social
degradation.
Both the rural and urban masses usually live on the bare
margin of subsistence. The English economist Brailsford thus describes
the condition of the Egyptian peasantry: "The villages exhibited a
poverty such as I have never seen even in the mountains of anarchical
Macedonia or among the bogs of Donegal.... The villages are crowded
slums of mud hovels, without a tree, a flower, or a garden. The huts,
often without a window or a levelled floor, are minute dungeons of baked
mud, usually of two small rooms neither whitewashed nor carpeted. Those
which I entered were bare of any visible property, save a few cooking
utensils, a mat to serve as a bed, and a jar which held the staple food
of maize."[273] As for the poorer Indian peasants, a British sanitary
official thus depicts their mode of life: "One has actually to see the
interior of the houses, in which each family is often compelled to live
in a single small cell, made of mud walls and with a mud floor;
containing small yards littered with rubbish, often crowded with cattle;
possessing wells permeated by rain soaking through this filthy surface;
and frequently jumbled together in inchoate masses called towns and
cities."[274]
In the cities, indeed, conditions are even worse than in the country,
the slums of the Orient surpassing the slums of the West. The French
publicist Louis Bertrand paints positively nauseating pictures of the
poorer quarters of the great Levantine towns like Cairo, Constantinople,
and Jerusalem. Omitting his more poignant details, here is his
description of a Cairo tenement: "In Cairo, as elsewhere in Egypt, the
wretchedness and grossness of the poorer-class dwellings are perhaps
even more shocking than in the other Eastern lands. Two or three dark,
airless rooms usually open on a hall-way not less obscure. The plaster,
peeling off from the ceilings and the worm-eaten laths of the walls,
falls constantly to the filthy floors. The straw mats and bedding are
infested by innumerable vermin."[275]
In India it is the same story. Says Fisher: "Even before the growth of
her industries had begun, the cities of India presented a baffling
housing problem. Into the welter of crooked streets and unsanitary
habits of an Oriental city these great industrial plants are wedging
their thousands of employees. Working from before dawn until after dark,
men and women are too exhausted to go far from the plant to sleep, if
they can help it. When near-by houses are jammed to suffocation, they
live and sleep in the streets. In Calcutta, twenty years ago,[276] land
had reached $200,000 an acre in the overcrowded tenement
districts."[277] Of Calcutta, a Western writer remarks: "Calcutta is a
shame even in the East. In its slums, mill hands and dock coolies do not
live; they pig. Houses choke with unwholesome breath; drains and
compounds fester in filth. Wheels compress decaying refuse in the roads;
cows drink from wells soaked with sewage, and the floors of bakeries are
washed in the same pollution."[278] In the other industrial centres of
India, conditions are practically the same. A Bombay native sanitary
official stated in a report on the state of the tenement district, drawn
up in 1904: "In such houses--the breeders of germs and bacilli, the
centres of disease and poverty, vice, and crime--have people of all
kinds, the diseased, the dissolute, the drunken, the improvident, been
indiscriminately herded and tightly packed in vast hordes to dwell in
close association with each other."[279]
Furthermore, urban conditions seem to be getting worse rather than
better. The problem of congestion, in particular, is assuming ever
graver proportions. Already in the opening years of the present century
the congestion in the great industrial centres of India like Calcutta,
Bombay, and Lucknow averaged three or four times the congestion of
London. And the late war has rendered the housing crisis even more
acute. In the East, as in the West, the war caused a rapid drift of
population to the cities and at the same time stopped building owing to
the prohibitive cost of construction. Hence, a prodigious rise in rents
and a plague of landlord profiteering. Says Fisher: "Rents were raised
as much as 300 per cent., enforced by eviction. Mass-meetings of protest
in Bombay resulted in government action, fixing maximum rents for some
of the tenements occupied by artisans and labourers. Setting maximum
rental does not, however, make more room."[280]
And, of course, it must not be forgotten that higher rents are only one
phase in a general rise in the cost of living that has been going on in
the East for a generation and which has been particularly pronounced
since 1914. More than a decade ago Bertrand wrote of the Near East:
"From one end of the Levant to the other, at Constantinople as at
Smyrna, Damascus, Beyrout, and Cairo, I heard the same complaints about
the increasing cost of living; and these complaints were uttered by
Europeans as well as by the natives."[281] To-day the situation is even
more difficult. Says Sir Valentine Chirol of conditions in Egypt since
the war: "The rise in wages, considerable as it has been, has ceased to
keep pace with the inordinate rise in prices for the very necessities of
life. This is particularly the case in the urban centres, where the
lower classes--workmen, carters, cab-drivers, shopkeepers, and a host
off minor employees--are hard put to it nowadays to make both ends
meet."[282] As a result of all these hard conditions various phenomena
of social degradation such as alcoholism, vice, and crime, are becoming
increasingly common.[283] Last--but not least--there are growing
symptoms of social unrest and revolutionary agitation, which we will
examine in the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[239] _I. e._ the educated upper class.
[240] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p.
13.
[241] _I. e._ the priestly class.
[242] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p.
15.
[243] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p.
51.
[244] Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_, pp. 221-226.
[245] Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_, p. 240.
[246] The purdah is the curtain separating the women's apartments from
the rest of the house.
[247] Bukhsh, _Essays: Indian and Islamic_, pp. 254-255.
[248] For progress in Western education in the Orient, under both
European and native auspices, see L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage oriental_, pp.
291-392; C. S. Cooper, _The Modernizing of the Orient_, pp. 3-13, 24-64.
[249] In his Introduction to Sir Valentine Chirol's _Indian Unrest_, p.
xii.
[250] Cromer, _Modern Egypt_, Vol. II., pp. 228-243.
[251] J. D. Rees, _The Real India_, p. 162 (London, 1908).
[252] Vambéry, _Western Culture in Eastern Lands_, pp. 203-204.
[253] H. E. Compton, _Indian Life in Town and Country_, p. 98 (London,
1904).
[254] Vambéry, _La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans_, p.
32.
[255] Cooper, _op. cit._, pp. 48-49.
[256] On this point of comfort _v._ luxury, see especially Sir Bampfylde
Fuller, "East and West: A Study of Differences," _Nineteenth Century and
After_, November, 1911.
[257] L. Bertrand, _op. cit._, 145-147; J. Chailley, _Administrative
Problems of British India_, pp. 138-139. For increased expenditure on
Western products, see A. J. Brown, "Economic Changes in Asia," _The
Century_, March, 1904; J. P. Jones, "The Present Situation in India,"
_Journal of Race Development_, July, 1910; R. Mukerjee, _The Foundations
of Indian Economics_, p. 5.
[258] For higher cost of living in the East, see Chirol, _Indian
Unrest_, pp. 2-3; Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_, pp. 46-60; Jones,
_op. cit._; T. T. Williams, "Inquiry into the Rise of Prices in India,"
_Economic Journal_, December, 1915.
[259] Brown, _op. cit._
[260] At the beginning of the nineteenth century the population of India
is roughly estimated to have been about 100,000,000. According to the
census of 1911 the population was 315,000,000.
[261] Sir W. W. Hunter, _The India of the Queen and Other Essays_, p. 42
(London, 1903).
[262] Cromer, "Some Problems of Government in Europe and Asia,"
_Nineteenth Century and After_, May, 1913.
[263] Archer, _India and the Future_, pp. 157, 162 (London), 1918.
[264] P. K. Wattal, of the Indian Finance Department, Assistant
Accountant-General. The book was published at Bombay, 1916.
[265] Wattal, pp. i-iii.
[266] Wattal, p. 3.
[267] _Ibid._, p. 12.
[268] Wattal, p. 14.
[269] _Ibid._, pp. 19-21.
[270] Wattal, p. 28.
[271] _Ibid._, p. 82.
[272] For conditions in the Near East, see Bertrand, pp. 110, 124,
125-128.
[273] H. N. Brailsford, _The War of Steel and Gold_, pp. 112-113. See
also T. Rothstein, _Egypt's Ruin_, pp. 298-300 (London, 1910), Sir W. W.
Ramsay, "The Turkish Peasantry of Anatolia," _Quarterly Review_,
January, 1918.
[274] Dr. D. Ross, "Wretchedness a Cause of Political Unrest," _The
Survey_, February 18, 1911.
[275] Bertrand, _op. cit._, pp. 111-112.
[276] _I. e._, in 1900.
[277] Fisher, _India's Silent Revolution_, p. 51.
[278] G. W. Stevens, _In India_. Quoted by Fisher, p. 51.
[279] Dr. Bhalchandra Krishna. Quoted by A. Yusuf Ali, _Life and Labour
in India_, p. 35 (London, 1907).
[280] Fisher, pp. 51-52.
[281] Bertrand, p. 141.
[282] Sir V. Chirol, "England's Peril in Egypt," from the London
_Times_, 1919.
[283] See Bertrand and Fisher, _supra_.
CHAPTER IX
SOCIAL UNREST AND BOLSHEVISM
Unrest is the natural concomitant of change--particularly of sudden
change. Every break with past, however normal and inevitable, implies a
necessity for readjustment to altered conditions which causes a
temporary sense of restless disharmony until the required adjustment has
been made. Unrest is not an exceptional phenomenon; it is always latent
in every human society which has not fallen into complete stagnation,
and a slight amount of unrest should be considered a sign of healthy
growth rather than a symptom of disease. In fact, the minimum degrees of
unrest are usually not called by that name, but are considered mere
incidents of normal development. Under normal circumstances, indeed, the
social organism functions like the human organism: it is being
incessantly destroyed and as incessantly renewed in conformity with the
changing conditions of life. These changes are sometimes very
considerable, but they are so gradual that they are effected almost
without being perceived. A healthy organism well attuned to its
environment is always plastic. It instinctively senses environmental
changes and adapts itself so rapidly that it escapes the injurious
consequences of disharmony.
Far different is the character of unrest's acuter manifestations. These
are infallible symptoms of sweeping changes, sudden breaks with the
past, and profound maladjustments which are not being rapidly rectified.
In other words, acute unrest denotes social ill-health and portends the
possibility of one of those violent crises known as "revolutions."
The history of the Moslem East well exemplifies the above
generalizations. The formative period of Saracenic civilization was
characterized by rapid change and an intense idealistic ferment. The
great "Motazelite" movement embraced many shades of thought, its radical
wing professing religious, political, and social doctrines of a violent
revolutionary nature. But this changeful period was superficial and
brief. Arab vigour and the Islamic spirit proved unable permanently to
leaven the vast inertia of the ancient East. Soon the old traditions
reasserted themselves--somewhat modified, to be sure, yet basically the
same Saracenic civilization became stereotyped, ossified, and with this
ossification changeful unrest died away. Here and there the radical
tradition was preserved and secretly handed down by a few obscure sects
like the Kharidjites of Inner Arabia and the Bettashi dervishes; but
these were mere cryptic episodes, of no general significance.
With the Mohammedan Revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
however, symptoms of social unrest appeared once more. Wahabism aimed
not merely at a reform of religious abuses but was also a general
protest against the contemporary decadence of Moslem society. In many
cases it took the form of a popular revolt against established
governments. The same was true of the correlative Babbist movement in
Persia, which took place about the same time.[284]
And of course these nascent stirrings were greatly stimulated by the
flood of Western ideas and methods which, as the nineteenth century wore
on, increasingly permeated the East. What, indeed, could be more
provocative of unrest of every description than the resulting
transformation of the Orient--a transformation so sudden, so intense,
and necessitating so concentrated a process of adaptation that it was
basically revolutionary rather than evolutionary in its nature? The
details of these profound changes--political, religious, economic,
social--we have already studied, together with the equally profound
disturbance, bewilderment, and suffering afflicting all classes in this
eminently transition period.
The essentially revolutionary nature of this transition period, as
exemplified by India, is well described by a British economist.[285]
What, he asks, could be more anachronistic than the contrast between
rural and urban India? "Rural India is primitive or mediæval; city India
is modern." In city India you will find every symbol of Western life,
from banks and factories down to the very "sandwichmen that you left in
the London gutters." Now all this co-exists beside rural India. "And it
is surely a fact unique in economic history that they should thus exist
side by side. The present condition of India does not correspond with
any period of European economic history." Imagine the effect in Europe
of setting down modern and mediæval men together, with utterly disparate
ideas. That has not happened in Europe because "European progress in the
economic world has been evolutionary"; a process spread over centuries.
In India, on the other hand, this economic transformation has been
"revolutionary" in character.
How unevolutionary is India's economic transformation is seen by the
condition of rural India.
"Rural India, though chiefly characterized by primitive usage, has been
invaded by ideas that are intensely hostile to the old state of things
It is primitive, _but not consistently primitive_. Competitive wages are
paid side by side with customary wages. Prices are sometimes fixed by
custom, but sometimes, too, by free economic causes. From the midst of a
population deeply rooted in the soil, men are being carried away by the
desire of better wages. In short, economic motives have suddenly and
partially intruded themselves in the realm of primitive morality. And,
if we turn to city India, we see a similar, though inverted, state of
things.... In neither case has the mixture been harmonious or the fusion
complete. Indeed, the two orders are too unrelated, too far apart, to
coalesce with ease....
"India, then, is in a state of economic revolution throughout all the
classes of an enormous and complex society. The only period in which
Europe offered even faint analogies to modern India was the Industrial
Revolution, from which even now we have not settled down into
comparative stability. We may reckon it as a fortunate circumstance for
Europe that the intellectual movement which culminated in the French
Revolution did not coincide with the Industrial Revolution. If it had,
it is possible that European society might have been hopelessly wrecked.
But, as it was, even when the French Revolution had spent its force in
the conquests of Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution stirred up enough
social and political discontent. When whole classes of people are
obliged by economic revolution to change their mode of life, it is
inevitable that many should suffer. Discontent is roused. Political and
destructive movements are certain to ensue. Not only the Revolutions of
'48, but also the birth of the Socialist Party sprang from the
Industrial Revolution.
"But that revolution was not nearly so sweeping as that which is now in
operation in India. The invention of machinery and steam-power was, in
Europe, but the crowning event of a long series of years in which
commerce and industry had been constantly expanding, in which capital
had been largely accumulated, in which economic principles had been
gradually spreading.... No, the Indian economic revolution is vastly
greater and more fundamental than our Industrial Revolution, great as
that was. Railways have been built through districts where travel was
almost impossible, and even roads are unknown. Factories have been
built, and filled by men unused to industrial labour. Capital has been
poured into the country, which was unprepared for any such development.
And what are the consequences? India's social organization is being
dissolved. The Brahmins are no longer priests. The ryot is no longer
bound to the soil. The banya is no longer the sole purveyor of capital.
The hand-weaver is threatened with extinction, and the brass-worker can
no longer ply his craft. Think of the dislocation which this sudden
change has brought about, of the many who can no longer follow their
ancestral vocations, of the commotion which a less profound change
produced in Europe, and you will understand what is the chief
motive-power of the political unrest. It is small wonder. The wonder is
that the unrest has been no greater than it is. Had India not been an
Asiatic country, she would have been in fierce revolution long ago."
The above lines were of course written in the opening years of the
twentieth century, before the world had been shattered by Armageddon and
aggressive social revolution had established itself in semi-Asiatic
Russia. But even during those pre-war years, other students of the
Orient were predicting social disturbances of increasing gravity. Said
the Hindu nationalist leader, Bipin Chandra Pal: "This so-called unrest
is not really political. It is essentially an intellectual and spiritual
upheaval, the forerunner of a mighty social revolution, with a new
organon and a new philosophy of life behind it."[286] And the French
publicist Chailley wrote of India: "There will be a series of economic
revolutions, which must necessarily produce suffering and
struggle."[287]
During this pre-war period the increased difficulty of living
conditions, together with the adoption of Western ideas of comfort and
kindred higher standards, seem to have been engendering friction between
the different strata of the Oriental population. In 1911 a British
sanitary expert assigned "wretchedness" as the root-cause of India's
political unrest. After describing the deplorable living conditions of
the Indian masses, he wrote: "It will of course be said at once that
these conditions have existed in India from time immemorial, and are no
more likely to cause unrest now than previously; but in my opinion
unrest has always existed there in a subterranean form. Moreover, in the
old days, the populace could make scarcely any comparison between their
own condition and that of more fortunate people; now they can compare
their own slums and terrible 'native quarters' with the much better
ordered cantonments, stations, and houses of the British officials and
even of their own wealthier brethren. So far as I can see, such misery
is always the fundamental cause of all popular unrest.... Seditious
meetings, political chatter, and 'aspirations' of babus and demagogues
are only the superficial manifestations of the deeper disturbance."[288]
This growing social friction was indubitably heightened by the lack of
interest of Orientals in the sufferings of all persons not bound to them
by family, caste, or customary ties. Throughout the East, "social
service," in the Western sense, is practically unknown. This fact is
noted by a few Orientals themselves. Says an Indian writer, speaking of
Indian town life: "There is no common measure of social conduct....
Hitherto, social reform in India has taken account only of individual or
family life. As applied to mankind in the mass, and especially to those
soulless agglomerations of seething humanity which we call cities, it is
a gospel yet to be preached."[289] As an American sociologist remarked
of the growing slum evil throughout the industrialized Orient: "The
greatest danger is due to the fact that Orientals do not have the high
Western sense of the value of the life of the individual, and are,
comparatively speaking, without any restraining influence similar to our
own enlightened public opinion, which has been roused by the struggles
of a century of industrial strife. Unless these elements can be
supplied, there is danger of suffering and of abuses worse than any the
West has known."[290]
All this diffused social unrest was centring about two recently emerged
elements: the Western-educated _intelligentsia_ and the industrial
proletariat of the factory towns. The revolutionary tendencies of the
_intelligentsia_, particularly of its half-educated failures, have been
already noted, and these latter have undoubtedly played a leading part
in all the revolutionary disturbances of the modern Orient, from North
Africa to China.[291] Regarding the industrial proletariat, some writers
think that there is little immediate likelihood of their becoming a
major revolutionary factor, because of their traditionalism, ignorance,
and apathy, and also because there is no real connection between them
and the _intelligentsia_, the other centre of social discontent.
The French economist Métin states this view-point very well. Speaking
primarily of India, he writes: "The Nationalist movement rises from the
middle classes and manifests no systematic hostility toward the
capitalists and great proprietors; in economic matters it is on their
side."[292] As for the proletariat: "The coolies do not imagine that
their lot can be bettered. Like the ryots and the agricultural
labourers, they do not show the least sign of revolt. To whom should
they turn? The ranks of traditional society are closed to them. People
without caste, the coolies are despised even by the old-style artisan,
proud of his caste-status, humble though that be. To fall to the job of
a coolie is, for the Hindu, the worst declassment. The factory workers
are not yet numerous enough to form a compact and powerful proletariat,
able to exert pressure on the old society. Even if they do occasionally
strike, they are as far from the modern Trade-Union as they are from the
traditional working-caste. Neither can they look for leadership to the
'intellectual proletariat'; for the Nationalist movement has not emerged
from the 'bourgeois' phase, and always leans on the capitalists....
"Thus Indian industry is still in its embryonic stages. In truth, the
material evolution which translates itself by the construction of
factories, and the social evolution which creates a proletariat, have
only begun to emerge; while the intellectual evolution from which arise
the programmes of social demands has not even begun."[293]
Other observers of Indian industrial conditions, however, do not share
M. Métin's opinion. Says the British Labour leader, J. Ramsay Macdonald:
"To imagine the backward Indian labourers becoming a conscious regiment
in the class war, seems to be one of the vainest dreams in which a
Western mind can indulge. But I sometimes wonder if it be so very vain
after all. In the first place, the development of factory industry in
India has created a landless and homeless proletariat unmatched by the
same economic class in any other capitalist community; and to imagine
that this class is to be kept out, or can be kept out, of Indian
politics is far more vain than to dream of its developing a politics on
Western lines. Further than that, the wage-earners have shown a
willingness to respond to Trades-Union methods; they are forming
industrial associations and have engaged in strikes; some of the social
reform movements conducted by Indian intellectuals definitely try to
establish Trades-Unions and preach ideas familiar to us in connection
with Trades-Union propaganda. A capitalist fiscal policy will not only
give this movement a great impetus as it did in Japan, but in India will
not be able to suppress the movement, as was done in Japan, by
legislation. As yet, the true proletarian wage-earner, uprooted from his
native village and broken away from the organization of Indian society,
is but insignificant. It is growing, however, and I believe that it will
organize itself rapidly on the general lines of the proletarian classes
of other capitalist countries. So soon as it becomes politically
conscious, there are no other lines upon which it can organize
itself."[294]
Turning to the Near East--more than a decade ago a French Socialist
writer, observing the hard living conditions of the Egyptian masses,
noted signs of social unrest and predicted grave disturbances. "A
genuine proletariat," he wrote, "has been created by the multiplication
of industries and the sudden, almost abrupt, progress which has
followed. The cost of living has risen to a scale hitherto unknown in
Egypt, while wages have risen but slightly. Poverty and want abound.
Some day suffering will provoke the people to complaints, perhaps to
angry outbursts, throughout this apparently prosperous Delta. It is true
that the influx of foreigners and of money may put off the hour when the
city or country labourer of Egyptian race comes clearly to perceive the
wrongs that are being done to him. He may miss the educational influence
of Socialism. Yet such an awakening may come sooner than people expect.
It is not only among the successful and prosperous Egyptians that
intelligence is to be found. Those whose wages are growing gradually
smaller and smaller have intelligence of equal keenness, and it has
become a real question as to the hour when for the first time in the
land of Islam the flame of Mohammedan Socialism shall burst forth."[295]
In Algeria, likewise, a Belgian traveller noted the dawning of a
proletarian consciousness among the town working-men just before the
Great War. Speaking of the rapid spread of Western ideas, he wrote:
"Islam tears asunder like rotten cloth on the quays of Algiers: the
dockers, coal-passers, and engine-tenders, to whatever race they belong,
leave their Islam and acquire a genuine proletarian morality, that of
the proletarians of Europe, and they make common cause with their
European colleagues on the basis of a strictly economic struggle. If
there were many big factories in Algeria, orthodox Islam would soon
disappear there, as old-fashioned Catholicism has disappeared with us
under the shock of great industry."[296]
Whatever may be the prospects as to the rapid emergence of organized
labour movements in the Orient, one thing seems certain: the unrest
which afflicted so many parts of the East in the years preceding the
Great War, though mainly political, had also its social side. Toward the
end of 1913, a leading Anglo-Indian journal remarked pessimistically:
"We have already gone so far on the downward path that leads to
destruction that there are districts in what were once regarded as the
most settled parts of India which are being abandoned by the rich
because their property is not safe. So great is the contempt for the law
that it is employed by the unscrupulous as a means of offence against
the innocent. Frontier Pathans commit outrages almost unbelievable in
their daring. Mass-meetings are held and agitation spreads in regard to
topics quite outside the business of orderly people. There is no matter
of domestic or foreign politics in which crowds of irresponsible people
do not want to have their passionate way. Great grievances are made of
little, far-off things. What ought to be the ordered, spacious life of
the District Officer is intruded upon and disturbed by a hundred
distracting influences due to the want of discipline of the people. In
the subordinate ranks of the great services themselves, trades-unions
have been formed. Military and police officers have to regret that the
new class of recruits is less subordinate than the old, harder to
discipline, more full of complaints."[297]
The Great War of course enormously aggravated Oriental unrest. In many
parts of the Near East, especially, acute suffering, balked ambitions,
and furious hates combined to reduce society to the verge of chaos. Into
this ominous turmoil there now came the sinister influence of Russian
Bolshevism, marshalling all this diffused unrest by systematic methods
for definite ends. Bolshevism was frankly out for a world-revolution and
the destruction of Western civilization. To attain this objective the
Bolshevist leaders not only launched direct assaults on the West, but
also planned flank attacks in Asia and Africa. They believed that if the
East could be set on fire, not only would Russian Bolshevism gain vast
additional strength but also the economic repercussion on the West,
already shaken by the war, would be so terrific that industrial collapse
would ensue, thereby throwing Europe open to revolution.
Bolshevism's propagandist efforts were nothing short of universal, both
in area and in scope. No part of the world was free from the plottings
of its agents; no possible source of discontent was overlooked. Strictly
"Red" doctrines like the dictatorship of the proletariat were very far
from being the only weapons in Bolshevism's armoury. Since what was
first wanted was the overthrow of the existing world-order, any kind of
opposition to that order, no matter how remote doctrinally from
Bolshevism, was grist to the Bolshevist mill. Accordingly, in every
quarter of the globe, in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as
in Europe, Bolshevik agitators whispered in the ears of the discontented
their gospel of hatred and revenge. Every nationalist aspiration, every
political grievance, every social injustice, every racial
discrimination, was fuel for Bolshevism's incitement to violence and
war.[298]
Particularly promising fields for Bolshevist activity were the Near and
Middle East. Besides being a prey to profound disturbances of every
description, those regions as traditional objectives of the old Czarist
imperialism, had long been carefully studied by Russian agents who had
evolved a technique of "pacific penetration" that might be easily
adjusted to Bolshevist ends. To stir up political, religious, and racial
passions in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, especially against
England, required no original planning by Trotzky or Lenin. Czarism had
already done these things for generations, and full information lay both
in the Petrograd archives and in the brains of surviving Czarist agents
ready to turn their hands as easily to the new work as the old.
In all the elaborate network of Bolshevist propaganda which to-day
enmeshes the East we must discriminate between Bolshevism's two
objectives: one immediate--the destruction of Western political and
economic supremacy; the other ultimate--the bolshevizing of the Oriental
masses and the consequent extirpation of the native upper and middle
classes, precisely as has been done in Russia and as is planned for the
countries of the West. In the first stage, Bolshevism is quite ready to
respect Oriental faiths and customs and to back Oriental nationalist
movements. In the second stage, religions like Islam and nationalists
like Mustapha Kemal are to be branded as "bourgeois" and relentlessly
destroyed. How Bolshevik diplomacy endeavours to work these two schemes
in double harness, we shall presently see.
Russian Bolshevism's Oriental policy was formulated soon after its
accession to power at the close of 1917. The year 1918 was a time of
busy preparation. An elaborate propaganda organization was built up from
various sources. A number of old Czarist agents and diplomats versed in
Eastern affairs were cajoled or conscripted into the service. The
Russian Mohammedan populations such as the Tartars of South Russia and
the Turkomans of Central Asia furnished many recruits. Even more
valuable were the exiles who flocked to Russia from Turkey, Persia,
India, and elsewhere at the close of the Great War. Practically all the
leaders of the Turkish war-government--Enver, Djemal, Talaat, and many
more, fled to Russia for refuge from the vengeance of the victorious
Entente Powers. The same was true of the Hindu terrorist leaders who had
been in German pay during the war and who now sought service under
Lenin. By the end of 1918 Bolshevism's Oriental propaganda department
was well organized, divided into three bureaux, for the Islamic
countries, India, and the Far East respectively. With Bolshevism's Far
Eastern activities this book is not concerned, though the reader should
bear them in mind and should remember the important part played by the
Chinese in recent Russian history. As for the Islamic and Indian
bureaux, they displayed great zeal, translating tons of Bolshevik
literature into the various Oriental languages, training numerous secret
agents and propagandists for "field-work," and getting in touch with all
disaffected or revolutionary elements.
With the opening months of 1919 Bolshevist activity throughout the Near
and Middle East became increasingly apparent. The wave of rage and
despair caused by the Entente's denial of Near Eastern nationalist
aspirations[299] played splendidly into the Bolshevists' hands, and we
have already seen how Moscow supported Mustapha Kemal and other
nationalist leaders in Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and elsewhere. In the
Middle East, also, Bolshevism gained important successes. Not merely was
Moscow's hand visible in the epidemic of rioting and seditious violence
which swept northern India in the spring of 1919,[300] but an even
shrewder blow was struck at Britain in Afghanistan. This land of
turbulent mountaineers, which lay like a perpetual thundercloud on
India's north-west frontier, had kept quiet during the Great War, mainly
owing to the Anglophile attitude of its ruler, the Ameer Habibullah
Khan. But early in 1919 Habibullah was murdered. Whether the Bolsheviki
had a hand in the matter is not known, but they certainly reaped the
benefit, for power passed to one of Habibullah's sons, Amanullah Khan,
who was an avowed enemy of England and who had had dealings with
Turco-German agents during the late war. Amanullah at once got in touch
with Moscow, and a little later, just when the Punjab was seething with
unrest, he declared war on England, and his wild tribesmen, pouring
across the border, set the North-West Frontier on fire. After some hard
fighting the British succeeded in repelling the Afghan invasion, and
Amanullah was constrained to make peace. But Britain obviously dared not
press Amanullah too hard, for in the peace treaty the Ameer was released
from his previous obligation not to maintain diplomatic relations with
other nations than British India. Amanullah promptly aired his
independence by maintaining ostentatious relations with Moscow. As a
matter of fact, the Bolsheviki had by this time established an important
propagandist subcentre in Russian Turkestan, not far from the Afghan
border, and this bureau's activities of course envisaged not merely
Afghanistan but the wider field of India as well.[301]
During 1920 Bolshevik activities became still more pronounced throughout
the Near and Middle East. We have already seen how powerfully Bolshevik
Russia supported the Turkish and Persian nationalist movements. In fact,
the reckless short-sightedness of Entente policy was driving into
Lenin's arms multitudes of nationalists to whom the internationalist
theories of Moscow were personally abhorrent. For example, the head of
the Afghan mission to Moscow thus frankly expressed his reasons for
friendship with Soviet Russia, in an interview printed by the official
Soviet organ, _Izvestia_: "I am neither Communist nor Socialist, but my
political programme so far is the expulsion of the English from Asia. I
am an irreconcilable enemy of European capitalism in Asia, the chief
representatives of which are the English. On this point I coincide with
the Communists, and in this respect we are your natural allies....
Afghanistan, like India, does not represent a capitalist state, and it
is very unlikely that even a parliamentary régime will take deep root in
these countries. It is so far difficult to say how subsequent events
will develop. I only know that the renowned address of the Soviet
Government to all nations, with its appeal to them to combat capitalists
(and for us a capitalist is synonymous with the word foreigner, or, to
be more exact, an Englishman), had an enormous effect on us. A still
greater effect was produced by Russia's annulment of all the secret
treaties enforced by the imperialistic governments, and by the
proclaiming of the right of all nations, no matter how small, to
determine their own destiny. This act rallied around Soviet Russia all
the exploited nationalities of Asia, and all parties, even those very
remote from Socialism." Of course, knowing what we do of Bolshevik
propagandist tactics, we cannot be sure that the Afghan diplomat ever
said the things which the _Izvestia_ relates. But, even if the interview
be a fake, the words put into his mouth express the feelings of vast
numbers of Orientals and explain a prime cause of Bolshevik propagandist
successes in Eastern lands.
So successful, indeed, had been the progress of Bolshevik propaganda
that the Soviet leaders now began to work openly for their ultimate
ends. At first Moscow had posed as the champion of Oriental "peoples"
against Western "imperialism"; its appeals had been to "peoples,"
irrespective of class; and it had promised "self-determination," with
full respect for native ideas and institutions. For instance: a
Bolshevist manifesto to the Turks signed by Lenin and issued toward the
close of 1919 read: "Mussulmans of the world, victims of the
capitalists, awake! Russia has abandoned the Czar's pernicious policy
toward you and offers to help you overthrow English tyranny. She will
allow you freedom of religion and self-government. The frontiers
existing before the war will be respected, no Turkish territory will be
given Armenia, the Dardanelles Straits will remain yours, and
Constantinople will remain the capital of the Mussulman world. The
Mussulmans in Russia will be given self-government. All we ask in
exchange is that you fight the reckless capitalists, who would exploit
your country and make it a colony." Even when addressing its own people,
the Soviet Government maintained the same general tone. An "Order of the
Day" to the Russian troops stationed on the borders of India stated:
"Comrades of the Pamir division, you have been given a responsible task.
The Soviet Republic sends you to garrison the posts on the Pamir, on the
frontiers of the friendly countries of Afghanistan and India. The Pamir
tableland divides revolutionary Russia from India, which, with its
300,000,000 inhabitants, is enslaved by a handful of Englishmen. On this
tableland the signallers of revolution must hoist the red flag of the
army of liberation. May the peoples of India, who fight against their
English oppressors, soon know that friendly help is not far off. Make
yourselves at home with the liberty-loving tribes of northern India,
promote by word and deed their revolutionary progress, refute the mass
of calumnies spread about Soviet Russia by agents of the British
princes, lords, and bankers. Long live the alliance of the revolutionary
peoples of Europe and Asia!"
Such was the nature of first-stage Bolshevik propaganda. Presently,
however, propaganda of quite a different character began to appear. This
second-stage propaganda of course continued to assail Western
"capitalist imperialism." But alongside, or rather intermingled with,
these anti-Western, fulminations, there now appeared special appeals to
the Oriental masses, inciting them against all "capitalists" and
"bourgeois," native as well as foreign, and promising the "proletarians"
remedies for all their ills. Here is a Bolshevist manifesto to the
Turkish masses, published in the summer of 1920. It is very different
from the manifestoes of a year before. "The men of toil," says this
interesting document, "are now struggling everywhere against the rich
people. These people, with the assistance of the aristocracy and their
hirelings, are now trying to hold Turkish toilers in their chains. It is
the rich people of Europe who have brought suffering to Turkey.
Comrades, let us make common cause with the world's toilers. If we do
not do so we shall never rise again. Let the heroes of Turkey's
revolution join Bolshevism. Long live the Third International! Praise be
to Allah!"
And in these new efforts Moscow was not content with words; it was
passing to deeds as well. The first application of Bolshevism to an
Eastern people was in Russian Turkestan. When the Bolsheviki first came
to power at the end of 1917 they had granted Turkestan full
"self-determination," and the inhabitants had acclaimed their native
princes and re-established their old state-units, subject to a loose
federative tie with Russia. Early in 1920, however, the Soviet
Government considered Turkestan ripe for the "Social Revolution."
Accordingly, the native princes were deposed, all political power was
transferred to local Soviets (controlled by Russians), the native upper
and middle classes were despoiled of their property, and sporadic
resistance was crushed by mass-executions, torture, and other familiar
forms of Bolshevist terrorism.[302] In the Caucasus, also, the social
revolution had begun with the Sovietization of Azerbaidjan. The Tartar
republic of Azerbaidjan was one of the fragments of the former Russian
province of Transcaucasia which had declared its independence on the
collapse of the Czarist Empire in 1917. Located in eastern
Transcaucasia, about the Caspian Sea, Azerbaidjan's capital was the city
of Baku, famous for its oil-fields. Oil had transformed Baku into an
industrial centre on Western lines, with a large working population of
mixed Asiatic and Russian origin. Playing upon the nascent
class-consciousness of this urban proletariat, the Bolshevik agents made
a _coup d'état_ in the spring of 1920, overthrew the nationalist
government, and, with prompt Russian backing, made Azerbaijan a Soviet
republic. The usual accompaniments of the social revolution followed:
despoiling and massacring of the upper and middle classes, confiscation
of property in favour of the town proletarians and agricultural
labourers, and ruthless terrorism. With the opening months of 1920,
Bolshevism was thus in actual operation in both the Near and Middle
East.[303]
Having acquired strong footholds in the Orient, Bolshevism now felt
strong enough to throw off the mask. In the autumn of 1920, the Soviet
Government of Russia held a "Congress of Eastern Peoples" at Baku, the
aim of which was not merely the liberation of the Orient from Western
control but its Bolshevizing as well. No attempt at concealment of this
larger objective was made, and so striking was the language employed
that it may well merit our close attention.
In the first place, the call to the congress, issued by the Third
(Moscow) International, was addressed to the "peasants and workers" of
the East. The summons read:
"Peasants and workers of Persia! The Teheran Government of the Khadjars
and its retinue of provincial Khans have plundered and exploited you
through many centuries. The land, which, according to the laws of the
Sheriat, was your common property, has been taken possession of more and
more by the lackeys of the Teheran Government; they trade it away at
their pleasure; they lay what taxes please them upon you; and when,
through their mismanagement, they got the country into such a condition
that they were unable to squeeze enough juice out of it themselves, they
sold Persia last year to English capitalists for 2,000,000 pounds, so
that the latter will organize an army in Persia that will oppress you
still more than formerly, and so the latter can collect taxes for the
Khans and the Teheran Government. They have sold the oil-wells in South
Persia and thus helped plunder the country.
"Peasants of Mesopotamia! The English have declared your country to be
independent; but 80,000 English soldiers are stationed in your country,
are robbing and plundering, are killing you and are violating your
women.
"Peasants of Anatolia! The English, French, and Italian Governments hold
Constantinople under the mouths of their cannon. They have made the
Sultan their prisoner, they are obliging him to consent to the
dismemberment of what is purely Turkish territory, they are forcing him
to turn the country's finances over to foreign capitalists in order to
make it possible for them better to exploit the Turkish people, already
reduced to a state of beggary by the six-year war. They have occupied
the coal-mines of Heraclea, they are holding your ports, they are
sending their troops into your country and are trampling down your
fields.
"Peasants and workers of Armenia! Decades ago you became the victims of
the intrigues of foreign capital, which launched heavy verbal attacks
against the massacres of the Armenians by the Kurds and incited you to
fight against the Sultan in order to obtain through your blood new
concessions and fresh profits daily from the bloody Sultan. During the
war they not only promised you independence, but they incited your
merchants, your teachers, and your priests to demand the land of the
Turkish peasants in order to keep up an eternal conflict between the
Armenian and Turkish peoples, so that they could eternally derive
profits out of this conflict, for as long as strife prevails between you
and the Turks, just so long will the English, French, and American
capitalists be able to hold Turkey in check through the menace of an
Armenian uprising and to use the Armenians as cannon-fodder through the
menace of a pogrom by Kurds.
"Peasants of Syria and Arabia! Independence was promised to you by the
English and the French, and now they hold your country occupied by their
armies, now the English and the French dictate your laws, and you, who
have freed yourselves from the Turkish Sultan, from the Constantinople
Government, are now slaves of the Paris and London Governments, which
merely differ from the Sultan's Government in being stronger and better
able to exploit you.
"You all understand this yourselves. The Persian peasants and workers
have risen against their traitorous Teheran Government. The peasants in
Mesopotamia are in revolt against the English troops. You peasants in
Anatolia have rushed to the banner of Kemal Pasha in order to fight
against the foreign invasion, but at the same time we hear that you are
trying to organize your own party, a genuine peasants' party that will
be willing to fight even if the Pashas are to make their peace with the
Entente exploiters. Syria has no peace, and you, Armenian peasants, whom
the Entente, despite its promises, allows to die from hunger in order to
keep you under better control, you are understanding more and more that
it is silly to hope for salvation by the Entente capitalists. Even your
bourgeois Government of the Dashnakists, the lackeys of the Entente, is
compelled to turn to the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Russia
with an appeal for peace and help.
"Peasants and workers of the Near East! If you organize yourselves, if
you form your own Workers' and Peasants' Government, if you arm
yourselves, if you unite with the Red Russian Workers' and Peasants'
Army, then you will be able to defy the English, French, and American
capitalists, then you will settle accounts with your own native
exploiters, then you will find it possible, in a free alliance with the
workers' republics of the world, to look after your own interests; then
you will know how to exploit the resources of your country in your own
interest and in the interest of the working people of the whole world,
that will honestly exchange the products of their labour and mutually
help each other.
"We want to talk over all these questions with you at the Congress in
Baku. Spare no effort to appear in Baku on September 1 in as large
numbers as possible. You march, year in and year out, through the
deserts to the holy places where you show your respect for your past and
for your God--now march through deserts, over mountains, and across
rivers in order to come together to discuss how you can escape from the
bonds of slavery, how you can unite as brothers so as to live as men,
free and equal."
From this summons the nature of the Baku congress can be imagined. It
was, in fact, a social revolutionist far more than a nationalist
assembly. Of its 1900 delegates, nearly 1300 were professed communists.
Turkey, Persia, Armenia, and the Caucasus countries sent the largest
delegations, though there were also delegations from Arabia, India, and
even the Far East. The Russian Soviet Government was of course in
control and kept a tight hand on the proceedings. The character of these
proceedings were well summarized by the address of the noted Bolshevik
leader Zinoviev, president of the Executive Committee of the Third
(Moscow) International, who presided.
Zinoviev said:
"We believe this Congress to be one of the greatest events in history,
for it proves not only that the progressive workers and working peasants
of Europe and America are awakened, but that we have at last seen the
day of the awakening, not of a few, but of tens of thousands, of
hundreds of thousands, of millions of the labouring class of the peoples
of the East. These peoples form the majority of the world's whole
population, and they alone, therefore, are able to bring the war
between capital and labour to a conclusive decision....
"The Communist International said from the very first day of its
existence: 'There are four times as many people living in Asia as live
in Europe. We will free all peoples, all who labour.'... We know that
the labouring masses of the East are in part retrograde, though not by
their own fault; they cannot read or write, are ignorant, are bound in
superstition, believe in the evil spirit, are unable to read any
newspapers, do not know what is happening in the world, have not the
slightest idea of the most elementary laws of hygiene. Comrades, our
Moscow International discussed the question whether a socialist
revolution could take place in the countries of the East before those
countries had passed through the capitalist stage. You know that the
view which long prevailed was that every country must first go through
the period of capitalism ... before socialism could become a live
question. We now believe that this is no longer true. Russia has done
this, and from that moment we are able to say that China, India, Turkey,
Persia, Armenia also can, and must, make a direct fight to get the
Soviet System. These countries can, and must, prepare themselves to be
Soviet republics.
"I say that we give patient aid to groups of persons who do not believe
in our ideas, who are even opposed to us on some points. In this way,
the Soviet Government supports Kemal in Turkey. Never for one moment do
we forget that the movement headed by Kemal is not a communist movement.
We know it. I have here extracts from the verbatim reports of the first
session of the Turkish people's Government at Angora. Kemal himself says
that 'the Caliph's person is sacred and inviolable.' The movement headed
by Kemal wants to rescue the Caliph's 'sacred' person from the hands of
the foe. That is the Turkish Nationalist's point of view. But is it a
communist point of view? No. We respect the religious convictions of
the masses; we know how to re-educate the masses. It will be the work of
years.
"We use great caution in approaching the religious convictions of the
labouring masses in the East and elsewhere. But at this Congress we are
bound to tell you that you must not do what the Kemal Government is
doing in Turkey; you must not support the power of the Sultan, not even
if religious considerations urge you to do so. You must press on, and
must not allow yourselves to be pulled back. We believe the Sultan's
hour has struck. You must not allow any form of autocratic power to
continue; you must destroy, you must annihilate, faith in the Sultan;
you must struggle to obtain real Soviet organizations. The Russian
peasants also were strong believers in the Czar; but when a true
people's revolution broke out there was practically nothing left of this
faith in the Czar. The same thing will happen in Turkey and all over the
East as soon as a true peasants' revolution shall burst forth over the
surface of the black earth. The people will very soon lose faith in
their Sultan and in their masters. We say once more, the policy pursued
by the present people's Government in Turkey is not the policy of the
Communist International, it is not our policy; nevertheless, we declare
that we are prepared to support any revolutionary fight against the
English Government.
"Yes, we array ourselves against the English bourgeoisie; we seize the
English imperialist by the throat and tread him underfoot. It is against
English capitalism that the worst, the most fatal blow must be dealt.
That is so. But at the same time we must educate the labouring masses of
the East to hatred, to the will to fight the whole of the rich classes
indifferently, whoever they be. The great significance of the revolution
now starting in the East does not consist in begging the English
imperialist to take his feet off the table, for the purpose of then
permitting the wealthy Turk to place his feet on it all the more
comfortably; no, we will very politely ask all the rich to remove their
dirty feet from the table, so that there may be no luxuriousness among
us, no boasting, no contempt of the people, no idleness, but that the
world may be ruled by the worker's horny hand."
The Baku congress was the opening gun in Bolshevism's avowed campaign
for the immediate Bolshevizing of the East. It was followed by increased
Soviet activity and by substantial Soviet successes, especially in the
Caucasus, where both Georgia and Armenia were Bolshevized in the spring
of 1921.
These very successes, however, awakened growing uneasiness among Soviet
Russia's nationalist protégés. The various Oriental nationalist parties,
which had at first welcomed Moscow's aid so enthusiastically against the
Entente Powers, now began to realize that Russian Bolshevism might prove
as great a peril as Western imperialism to their patriotic aspirations.
Of course the nationalist leaders had always realized Moscow's ultimate
goal, but hitherto they had felt themselves strong enough to control the
situation and to take Russian aid without paying Moscow's price. Now
they no longer felt so sure. The numbers of class-conscious
"proletarians" in the East might be very small. The communist philosophy
might be virtually unintelligible to the Oriental masses. Nevertheless,
the very existence of Soviet Russia was a warning not to be disregarded.
In Russia an infinitesimal communist minority, numbering, by its own
admission, not much over 600,000, was maintaining an unlimited despotism
over 170,000,000 people. Western countries might rely on their popular
education and their staunch traditions of ordered liberty; the East
possessed no such bulwarks against Bolshevism. The East was, in fact,
much like Russia. There was the same dense ignorance of the masses; the
same absence of a large and powerful middle class; the same tradition of
despotism; the same popular acquiescence in the rule of ruthless
minorities. Finally, there were the ominous examples of Sovietized
Turkestan and Azerbaidjan. In fine, Oriental nationalists bethought them
of the old adage that he who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.
Everywhere it has been the same story. In Asia Minor, Mustapha Kemal has
arrested Bolshevist propaganda agents, while Turkish and Russian troops
have more than once clashed on the disputed Caucasus frontiers. In Egypt
we have already seen how an amicable arrangement between Lord Milner and
the Egyptian nationalist leaders was facilitated by the latter's fear of
the social revolutionary agitators who were inflaming the fellaheen. In
India, Sir Valentine Chirol noted as far back as the spring of 1918 how
Russia's collapse into Bolshevism had had a "sobering effect" on Indian
public opinion. "The more thoughtful Indians," he wrote, "now see how
helpless even the Russian _intelligentsia_ (relatively far more numerous
and matured than the Indian _intelligentsia_) has proved to control the
great ignorant masses as soon as the whole fabric of government has been
hastily shattered."[304] In Afghanistan, likewise, the Ameer was losing
his love for his Bolshevist allies. The streams of refugees from
Sovietized Turkestan that flowed across his borders for protection,
headed by his kinsman the Ameer of Bokhara, made Amanullah Khan do some
hard thinking, intensified by a serious mutiny of Afghan troops on the
Russian border, the mutineers demanding the right to form Soldiers'
Councils quite on the Russian pattern. Bolshevist agents might tempt him
by the loot of India, but the Ameer could also see that that would do
him little good if he himself were to be looted and killed by his own
rebellious subjects.[305] Thus, as time went on, Oriental nationalists
and conservatives generally tended to close ranks in dislike and
apprehension of Bolshevism. Had there been no other issue involved,
there can be little doubt that Moscow's advances would have been
repelled and Bolshevist agents given short shrift.
Unfortunately, the Eastern nationalists feel themselves between the
Bolshevist devil and the Western imperialist deep sea. The upshot has
been that they have been trying to play off the one against the
other--driven toward Moscow by every Entente aggression; driven toward
the West by every Soviet _coup_ of Lenin. Western statesmen should
realize this, and should remember that Bolshevism's best propagandist
agent is, not Zinoviev orating at Baku, but General Gouraud, with his
Senegalese battalions and "strong-arm" methods in Syria and the Arab
hinterland.
Certainly, any extensive spread of Bolshevism in the East would be a
terrible misfortune both for the Orient and for the world at large. If
the triumph of Bolshevism would mean barbarism in the West, in the East
it would spell downright savagery. The sudden release of the ignorant,
brutal Oriental masses from their traditional restraints of religion and
custom, and the submergence of the relatively small upper and middle
classes by the flood of social revolution would mean the destruction of
all Oriental civilization and culture, and a plunge into an abyss of
anarchy from which the East could emerge only after generations, perhaps
centuries.
FOOTNOTES:
[284] For these early forms of unrest, see A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au
dix-neuvième Siècle_, pp. 22-44 (Paris, 1888).
[285] D. H. Dodwell, "Economic Transition in India," _Economic Journal_,
December, 1910.
[286] Bipin Chandra Pal, "The Forces Behind the Unrest in India,"
_Contemporary Review_, February, 1910.
[287] J. Chailley, _Administrative Problems of British India_, p. 339
(London, 1910--English translation).
[288] Dr. Ronald Ross, "Wretchedness a Cause of Political Unrest," _The
Survey_, 18 February, 1911.
[289] A. Yusuf Ali, _Life and Labour in India_, pp. 3, 32 (London,
1907).
[290] E. W. Capen, "A Sociological Appraisal of Western Influence on the
Orient," _American Journal of Sociology_, May, 1911.
[291] P. Khorat, "Psychologie de la Révolution chinoise," _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, 15 March, 1912; L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage orientale_, pp.
164-166; J. D. Rees, _The Real India_, pp. 162-163.
[292] Albert Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: Étude sociale_, p. 276
(Paris, 1918).
[293] Albert Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: Étude sociale_, pp. 339-345.
[294] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _The Government of India_, pp. 133-134
(London, 1920).
[295] Georges Foucart. Quoted in _The Literary Digest_, 17 August, 1907,
pp. 225-226.
[296] A. Van Gennep, _En Algérie_, p. 182 (Paris, 1914).
[297] _The Englishman_ (Calcutta). Quoted in _The Literary Digest_, 21
February, 1914, p. 369.
[298] For these larger world-aspects of Bolshevik propaganda, see Paul
Miliukov, _Bolshevism: An International Danger_ (London, 1920); also, my
_Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy_, pp. 218-221, and
my article, "Bolshevism: The Heresy of the Under-Man," _The Century_,
June, 1919.
[299] See Chapter V.
[300] See Chapter VI.
[301] For events in Afghanistan and Central Asia, see Sir T. H. Holdich,
"The Influence of Bolshevism in Afghanistan," _New Europe_, December 4,
1919; Ikbal Ali Shah, "The Fall of Bokhara," _The Near East_, October
28, 1920, and his "The Central Asian Tangle," _Asiatic Review_, October,
1920. For Bolshevist activity in the Near and Middle East generally, see
Miliukov, _op. cit._, pp. 243-260; 295-297; Major-General Sir George
Aston, "Bolshevik Propaganda in the East," _Fortnightly Review_, August,
1920; W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia, Past and Present," _Quarterly
Review_, October, 1920; Sir Valentine Chirol, "Conflicting Policies in
the Near East," _New Europe_, July 1, 1920; L. Dumont-Wilden, "Awakening
Asia," _The Living Age_, August 7, 1920 (translated from the French);
Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, "Moslems and the Tangle in the
Middle East," _National Review_, December, 1919; Paxton Hibben, "Russia
at Peace," _The Nation_ (New York), January 26, 1921; H. von Hoff, "Die
nationale Erhebung in der Türkei," _Deutsche Revue_, December, 1919; R.
G. Hunter, "Entente--Oil--Islam," _New Europe_, August 26, 1920;
"Taira," "The Story of the Arab Revolt," _Balkan Review_, August, 1920;
"Voyageur," "Lenin's Attempt to Capture Islam," _New Europe_, June 10,
1920; Hans Wendt, "Ex Oriente Lux," _Nord und Süd_, May, 1920; George
Young, "Russian Foreign Policy," _New Europe_, July 1, 1920.
[302] Ikbal Ali Shah, _op. cit._
[303] For events in the Caucasus, see W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia,
Past and Present," _Quarterly Review_, October, 1920; C. E. Bechhofer,
"The Situation in the Transcaucasus," _New Europe_, September 2, 1920;
"D. Z. T.," "L'Azerbaidjan: La Première République musulmane," _Revue du
Monde musulman_, 1919; Paxton Hibben, "Exit Georgia," _The Nation_ (New
York), March 30, 1921.
[304] Sir V. Chirol, "India in Travail," _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1918.
Also see H. H. The Aga Khan, _India in Transition_, p. 17 (London,
1918).
[305] Ikbal Ali Shah, _op. cit._
CONCLUSION
Our survey of the Near and Middle East is at an end. What is the
outstanding feature of that survey? It is: Change. The "Immovable East"
has been moved at last--moved to its very depths. The Orient is to-day
in full transition, flux, ferment, more sudden and profound than any it
has hitherto known. The world of Islam, mentally and spiritually
quiescent for almost a thousand years, is once more astir, once more on
the march.
Whither? We do not know. Who would be bold enough to prophesy the
outcome of this vast ferment--political, economical, social, religious,
and much more besides? All that we may wisely venture is to observe,
describe, and analyse the various elements in the great transition.
Yet surely this is much. To view, however empirically, the mighty
transformation at work; to group its multitudinous aspects in some sort
of relativity; to follow the red threads of tendency running through the
tangled skein, is to gain at least provisional knowledge and acquire
capacity to grasp the significance of future developments as they shall
successively arise.
"To know is to understand"--and to hope: to hope that this present
travail, vast and ill-understood, may be but the birth-pangs of a truly
renascent East taking its place in a renascent world.
INDEX
Aali Pasha, Pan-Islam agitation of, 54
Abbas Hilmi, Khedive, pro Turkish views of, 155;
deposition of, 156;
Pan-Arabianism supported by, 170
Abd-el-Kader, French resisted by, 41
Abd-el-Malek Hamsa, Pro-Germanism of, 156
Abd-el-Wahab, Mohammedan revival begun by, 21, 40;
birth of, 21;
early life of, 22 _ff._;
influence of, 22;
death of, 22
Abdul Hamid, despotism of, 32;
as caliph, 39;
Sennussi's opposition to, 39, 46;
Djemal-ed-Din protected by, 53 _ff._;
Pan-Islam policy of, 53 _ff._;
character of, 54 _ff._;
government of, 55;
deposition of, 56, 119;
tyrannical policy of, 116;
nationalism opposed by, 139, 165;
Arabs conciliated by, 142 _ff._
Abu Bekr 22;
policy of, 114 _ff._
Abyssinian Church, Mohammedan threat against, 50
Afghanistan, religious uprisings in, 41;
nineteenth-century independence of, 118;
Bolshevism in, 286 _ff._;
rebellion of, 286_ff._
Africa, Mohammedan missionary work in, 49 _ff._
_See_ also North Africa
Agadir crisis, 57
Ahmed Bey Agayeff, Pan-Turanism aided by, 165
Alexandria, massacre of Europeans in, 149
Algeria, French conquest of, 40, 158;
Kabyle insurrection in, 41;
compulsory vaccination in, 95;
liberal political aspirations in, 118 _ff._;
need for European government in, 122
Allenby, General, Egypt in control of, 177
Amanullah Khan, Bolshevism of, 286;
war on England declared by, 286;
present policy of, 298
Anatolia, Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Anglo-Russian Agreement, terms of, 159 _ff._
Arabi Pasha, Djemal-ed-Din's influence on, 148;
revolution in Egypt headed by, 148
Arabia, description of natives of, 21;
Turks fought by, 23;
defeat of, 23;
political freedom of, 113;
democracy in, 127;
nationalist spirit in, 140 _ff._;
Turkish rulers opposed by, 140 _ff._;
suppression of, 143;
1905 rebellion of, 143;
effect of Young-Turk revolution on, 145 _ff._;
1916 revolt of, 146;
Pan-Arabism in, 145;
religious character of Pan-Arab movement in, 169 _ff._;
effect of Great War on, 170, 183 _ff._;
Allied encouragement of, 184;
peace terms and, 185;
English agreement with, 185 _ff._;
revolt against Turks of, 185;
secret partition of, 185 _ff._;
Colonel Lawrence's influence in, 186;
secret treaties revealed to, 187;
France and England in, 187 _ff._;
Mustapha Kemal aided by 194, _ff._;
English negotiations with, 198;
Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Arabian National Committee, creation of, 143
Archer William, on over-population in India, 263
Argyll, Duke of, over-population in India, 263
Armenia, Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Arya Somaj, 208
Atchin War, 41
Azerbaidjan, Bolshevist revolution in, 290 _ff._
Babbist movement in Persia, 274
Baber, Mogul Empire founded by, 204
Baku, Congress of Eastern Peoples at, 291, 297
Balkan War, 57;
Mohammedans roused by, 58
Barbary States, French conquest of, 158
Bérard, Victor, on the enmity of Turks and Arabs, 141 _ff._;
France's Syrian policy criticised by, 199
Bertrand, Louis, anti-Western feeling in Orient described by, 95 _ff._;
on social conditions in the Levant, 269, 271
Bevan, Edwyn, nationalist views of, 125 _ff._
Bin Saud, Ikhwan movement led by, 72
Bolshevism, effects on Orient of, 175;
Mustapha Kemal aided by, 196 _ff._;
the East a field for, 283 _ff._;
propaganda of, 284 _ff._, 288 _ff._;
Oriental policy of, 285;
in Afghanistan, 286 _ff._;
manifesto to Mohammedans issued by, 288 _ff._;
manifesto to Turks issued by, 289 _ff._;
"Congress of Eastern Peoples" held by, 291 _ff._
Bombay, English character of, 100;
social conditions in, 270 _ff._
Bose, Pramatha Nath, on economic conditions in India, 245 _ff._
Brahminism, illiberalism of, 120
Brailsford, H. N., on modern industry in Egypt, 236 _ff._;
on social conditions in Egypt, 269 _ff._
British East India Company, 205
Bukhsh, S. Khuda, reform work of, 31 _ff._;
nationalism in India opposed by, 125 _ff._;
on Indian social conditions, 253 _ff._
Caetani, Leone, 63
Cahun, Léon, Turanism and, 163
Cairo, revolt in, 178;
modern women in, 258
Calcutta, English character of, 100;
social conditions in, 270
Caliphate, Islam strengthened by, 38 _ff._;
history of, 39;
Turkey the head of, 39 _ff._
Chelmsford, Lord, report of, 216 _ff._
China, Mohammedan insurrection in, 41, 51 _ff._;
Mohammedan missionary work in, 50;
number of Mohammedans in, 51;
Mohammedan agitation in, 60
Chirol, Valentine, Western influence in Orient described by, 79 _ff._;
on Egyptian situation, 179 _ff._;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report approved by, 220;
on Egyptian conditions since the war, 271 _ff._;
on Bolshevism in India, 298
Congress of Eastern Peoples, 291 _ff._
Constantine, King, recalled, 194
Constantinople, Allied occupation of, 192 _ff._;
changes since 1896 in, 251 _ff._;
status of women in, 258
Cox, Sir Percy, English-Arabian negotiations made by, 198;
influence of, 200
Cromer, Lord, on Islam, 29, 32;
Western influence in Orient described by, 80;
ethics of imperialism formulated by, 84, 102, 120 _ff._;
Egyptian administration of, 149;
resignation of, 152;
on western-educated Egypt, 257;
on over-population in India, 263
Curtis, Lionel, nationalism in India supported by, 130 _ff._;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report approved by, 220
Curzon-Wyllie, Sir, assassination of, 212
Damascus, French in, 191 _ff._
Dar-ul-Islam, 171 _ff._
Dickinson, G. Lowes, on Eastern economics, 249
Djemal-ed-Din, birth of, 52;
character of, 52;
anti-European work of, 52;
in India, 52;
in Egypt, 53;
Abdul Hamid's protection of, 53 _ff._;
death of, 53;
teachings of, 53 _ff._;
nationalism taught by, 138;
Egypt influenced by, 148;
in Russia, 285
Dutch East Indies, Mohammedan uprisings in, 41;
Mohammedan missionary work in, 52
Egypt, nationalism in, 32, 118 _ff._;
Mahdist insurrection in, 41;
1914 insurrection of, 61;
exiled Arabs in, 143;
characteristics of people of, 147 _ff._;
early European influences in, 147;
nationalist agitation in, 148 _ff._;
influence of Djemal-ed-Din in, 148;
1882 revolution in, 148 _ff._;
Lord Cromer's rule of, 149;
France's influence in, 150 _ff._;
failure of English liberal policy in, 153 _ff._;
Lord Kitchener's rule in, 153 _ff._;
effect of outbreak of World War on, 155 _ff._;
made English protectorate, 156 _ff._;
Pan-Arabism in, 169;
Versailles conference's treatment of, 174;
nationalist demands of, 177;
Allenby in control of, 177;
rebellion of, 178 _ff._;
martial law in, 178;
situation after rebellion in, 179 _ff._;
English commission of inquiry in, 181;
English compromise with, 182;
opposition to compromise in, 182 _ff._;
modern factories in, 234, 236;
industrial conditions in, 236 _ff._;
social conditions in, 269;
social revolution in, 281 _ff._
El-Gharami, 30
El Mahdi, 42
England, Egypt's rebellion against, 175 _ff._;
Commission of Inquiry into Egyptian affairs appointed by, 181;
Egyptian compromise with, 182;
opposition to compromise in, 182;
Arabia and, 184 _ff._;
in Mesopotamia, 185 _ff._;
in Palestine, 186;
French disagreement with, 188 _ff._;
at San Remo conference, 190;
Mesopotamian rebellion against, 192 _ff._;
Sèvres Treaty and, 193;
Greek agreement with, 193;
Arabian negotiation with, 198;
in India, 204 _ff._
Enver Pasha, Pan-Turanism and, 167;
in Russia, 285
Feisal, Prince, at peace conference, 187 _ff._;
peace counsels of, 188;
made king of Syria, 191
Fisher, on social conditions in India, 270 _ff._
France, Morocco seized by, 57;
anti-British propaganda of, 150 _ff._;
Arabia and, 184;
Syrian aspirations of, 185 _ff._;
at San Remo conference, 190;
Syrian rebellion and, 191 _ff._;
Sèvres Treaty and, 193;
Greek agreement with, 193;
present Syrian situation of, 198 _ff._
Gandhi, M. K., boycott of England advocated by, 224
Gorst, Sir Eldon, Lord Cromer succeeded by, 152;
failure of policy of, 153 _ff._
Gouraud, General, Feisal subdued by, 191;
danger in methods of, 299
Greece, anti-Turk campaign of, 193;
Venizelos repudiated by, 194;
Constantine supported by, 194
Habibullah Khan, Ameer, England supported by, 286;
death of, 286
Haifa, to be British, 186
Hajj, Islam strengthened by, 38 _ff._
Halil Pasha, Pan-Turanism and, 168
Hanotaux, Gabriel, 57
Harding, Lord, Indian nationalist movement supported by, 215
Hedjaz, Turkish dominion of, 140
Hindustan, Islam's appeal to 60;
anti-Western feeling in, 99 _ff._;
illiberal tradition of, 120
Hunter, Sir William, on over-population in India, 263 _ff._
Hussein Kamel, made Sultan of Egypt, 156
Ikhwan, beginning of, 71;
progress of, 71
Imam Yahya, 199
India, reform of Islamism in, 30;
English mastery of, 40;
Islam's missionary work in, 52;
1914 insurrection in, 61;
English towns and customs in, 100;
effect of Russo-Japanese War in, 105, 210 _ff._;
liberal political aspirations in, 118 _ff._;
democracy introduced by England in, 122 _ff._;
opposition to nationalism in, 124 _ff._, 218 _ff._;
support of nationalism in, 129 _ff._, 136 _ff._;
history of, 201;
Aryan invasion of, 201 _ff._;
beginning of caste system in, 202 _ff._;
Mohammedan invasion of, 203 _ff._;
Mogul Empire founded in, 204;
British conquest of, 205 _ff._;
beginning of discontent in, 206 _ff._;
Hindu nationalist movement in, 208 _ff._, 212 _ff._;
English liberal policy in, 213 _ff._;
result of outbreak of war in, 214;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report in, 216 _ff._;
militant unrest in, 220 _ff._;
effect of Rowlatt Bill in, 222 _ff._;
English boycotted by, 223 _ff._;
present turmoil in, 224;
industries in, 233 _ff._;
industrial conditions in, 237 _ff._;
industrial future of, 239 _ff._;
agriculture in, 243 _ff._;
Swadeshi movement in, 244 _ff._;
social conditions in, 253 _ff._;
status of women in, 254, 258 _ff._;
education in, 255 _ff._;
over-population in, 262 _ff._;
condition of peasants in, 269;
city and rural life in, 275 _ff._;
economic revolution in, 276 _ff._;
attitude of Bolshevists toward, 289 _ff._
Indian Councils Act, terms of, 213;
effect of 213
Indian National Congress, 206
Islam, eighteenth-century decadence of, 20 _ff._;
revival of, 21;
Christian opinions of, 26 _ff._;
present situation of, 27 _ff._;
agnosticism in, 32 _ff._;
fanatics in, 33 _ff._;
solidarity of, 37 _ff._;
Hajj an aid to, 38 _ff._;
caliphate an aid to, 38 _ff._;
Western successes against, 40;
proselytism of, 48 _ff._;
effect of Balkan War on, 58 _ff._;
effect of Russo-Japanese War on, 59, 105 _ff._;
Western influence on, 75 _ff._;
anti-Western reaction of, 88 _ff._;
race mixture in, 102 _ff._;
tyranny in, 111 _ff._;
early equality in, 113 _ff._;
political reformation in, 115 _ff._;
birth of nationalism in, 137 _ff._;
Bolshevist propaganda in, 284 _ff._
_See_ also Pan-Islam
Ismael, Hamet, on scepticism among Moslems, 32
Ismael, Khedive, tyrannical policy of, 116;
Egypt Europeanized by, 147 _ff._
Italy, Tripoli attacked by, 57;
San Remo Treaty opposed by, 190, 193
Japan, Mohammedan missionary work in, 59 _ff._
Jowf, Sennussi stronghold, 45
Kabyle insurrection, 41
Khadjar dynasty, Persian revolution against, 160
Kharadjites, Islamic spirit preserved by, 274
Khartum, capture of, 41
Kheir-ed-Din, attempt to regenerate Tunis made by, 89
Kitchener, Lord, Mahdist insurrection suppressed by, 41;
anti-nationalist beliefs of, 122;
nationalism in Egypt suppressed by, 153 _ff._
Krishnavarma, S., assassination commended by, 211
Lawrence, Colonel, influence of, 186;
Arab-Turk agreement, views of, 194 _ff._;
Mesopotamia, views of, 197
Lebanon, France's control of, 184
Lenine, manifesto to Mohammedans issued by, 288 _ff._
Low, Sidney, modern imperialism described by, 86 _ff._;
on Egyptian situation, 154
Lyall, Sir Alfred, on Western education in India, 256 _ff._
Lybyer, Professor A. H., democracy in Islam described by, 114, 127
Macdonald, J. Ramsay, on economic conditions in India, 245;
on social revolution in India, 280 _ff._
McIlwraith, Sir M., on Egyptian situation, 180
McMahon, Sir Henry, agreement with Arabs made by, 185 _ff._
Madras, English character of, 100
Mahdism, definition of, 42 _ff._
Mahdist insurrection, 42
Mahmud II, Sultan, liberal policy of, 115
Mahmud of Ghazni, India invaded by, 204
Mecca, decadence of, 21;
Abd-el-Wahab's pilgrimage to, 22;
Saud's subjugation of, 23;
Turkish reconquest of, 23;
aid to strength of Islam, 38 _ff._;
post cards sold at, 251
Medina, decadence of, 21;
Abd-el-Wahab's studies at, 22;
Saud's subjugation of, 23;
Turkish reconquest of, 23;
electricity at, 251
Mehemet Ali, army of, 23;
Turks aided by, 23;
Wahabi defeated by, 23;
liberal policy of, 115;
Egypt Europeanized by, 147
Mesopotamia, Turkish dominion of, 140;
England in, 184 _ff._;
rebellion against England of 192 _ff._;
denunciation of English policy in, 197;
Bolshevists' manifesto issued to, 292
Métin, Albert, on nationalist movement in India, 279 _ff._
Midhat Pasha, liberal movement aided by, 32
Milner, Lord, Egyptian inquiry commission headed by, 181;
character of, 181;
compromise agreed on by, 182 _ff._;
resignation of, 182;
influence of, 200
Mogul Empire, foundation of, 204
Mohammed Abdou, Sheikh, liberal movement aided by, 32;
Djemal-ed-Din's influence on, 148;
conservative teachings of, 150
Mohammed Ahmed, Sennussi's scorn of, 46
Mohammed Farid Bey, anti-English policy of, 152;
mistakes of, 152 _ff._;
pro German policy of, 156
Mohammedan Revival. _See_ Pan-Islam
Mollahs, anti-liberalism of, 30
Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 217 _ff._
Montagu, liberal policy of, 216 _ff._
Morison, Sir Theodore, on Moslem situation, 67, 70 _ff._;
on modern industry in India, 234 _ff._, 245
Morley, John, liberal policy of, 213
Morocco, French seizure of, 57, 158;
in nineteenth century, 118
Motazelism, re-discovery of, 26;
influence of, 30
Moulvie Cheragh Ali, reform work of, 31
Muhammed Ali, Shah, revolt in Persia against, 119
Muir, Ramsay, European imperialism described by, 83
Mustapha Kemal, character of, 150;
beliefs of, 151 _ff._;
death of, 151;
Allies defied by, 191;
Turkish denunciation of, 193;
Greek campaign against, 193 _ff._;
Arab aid given to, 194 _ff._;
policy of, 196;
Bolshevists allied with, 196 _ff._;
French negotiations with, 199;
Bolshevist support of, 286, 295
Mutiny of 1857, 205
Nair, Doctor T. Madavan, anti-nationalist opinions of, 124, 219
Nakechabendiya fraternity, 41
Namasudra, anti-nationalist organization, 124, 219
Nejd, birth of Abd-el-Wahab in, 21 _ff._;
description of, 21 _ff._;
return of Abd-el-Wahab to, 22;
conversion of, 22;
consolidation of, 23
Nitti, Premier, San Remo Treaty opposed by, 190 _ff._
North Africa, "Holy Men" insurrection in, 41;
lack of nationalism in, 157 _ff._;
races in, 158 _ff._
Nyassaland, Mohammedanism in, 49 _ff._
Orient, _See_ Islam
Pal, Bepin Chander, on Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 218;
on social revolution in India, 277
Palestine, Sykes-Picot Agreement and, 185;
England in, 185
Pan-Islam, fanatics' scheme for, 33 _ff._;
definition of, 37 _ff._;
Hajj an aid to, 38 _ff._;
caliphate an aid to, 39 _ff._;
anti-Western character of, 41 _ff._;
fraternities in, 43 _ff._;
Abdul Hamid's support of, 54 _ff._;
Young-Turk interruption of, 56;
renewal of, 57 _ff._;
effect of Balkan War on, 58 _ff._;
Great War and, 61 _ff._;
Versailles Treaty and, 62 _ff._;
press strength of, 67;
propaganda of, 67;
menacing temper of, 70 _ff._;
economic evolution in, 72 _ff._
Pan-Syrian Congress, 191
Pan-Turanism. _See_ Turanians
Pan-Turkism, _See_ Turkey, rise of nationalism in
Persia, 1914 insurrection in, 61;
an English protectorate, 62;
tyranny in, 116;
independence of, 118;
liberal movement in, 118;
1908 revolution in, 119, 159 _ff._;
need for European government in, 122;
nineteenth-century conditions in, 159;
Versailles conference's treatment of, 174 _ff._;
war conditions in, 196;
Bolshevism in, 196 _ff._, 287 _ff._;
Bolshevist manifesto issued to, 291
_Population Problem of India, The_, 264
Ramsay, Sir William, on economic conditions in Asia Minor, 241 _ff._
_Realpolitik_, treatment of Orient by, 86, 106
Reshid Pasha, liberal movement aided by, 32
Roushdi Pasha, nationalist demands of, 177 _ff._
Rowlatt Bill, nationalist opposition to, 222 _ff._
Russia, Turanian antagonism for, 167 _ff._
_See_ also Bolshevism and Soviet Russia
Russo-Japanese War, Islam roused by, 59, 105
Salafî, rise and growth of, 72;
spirit of, 72
San Remo, conference at, 190 _ff._
Saud, Abd-el-Wahab succeeded by, 22;
power and character of, 22;
government of, 22, 40;
holy cities subdued by, 23;
death of, 23
Saud, clan of, converted, 24
Schweinfurth, Georg, Egyptian nationalism described by, 149 _ff._
Sennussi-el-Mahdi, leadership won by, 44;
power of, 45
Sennussiya, foundation of, 43 _ff._;
leadership of, 45;
present power of, 45 _ff._;
government of, 45;
policy of, 46 _ff._;
proselytism of, 48 _ff._
Sèvres Treaty, 193, 199
Seyid Ahmed, state in India founded by, 24;
conquest of, 24
Seyid Ahmed Khan, Sir, reforms of, 30
Seyid Amir Ali, reform work of, 31
Seyid Mahommed ben Sennussi, in Mecca, 24, 39;
Abdul Hamid opposed by, 39, 44;
birth of, 44;
education of, 44;
"Zawias" built by, 44;
power of, 44 _ff._
Shamyl, Russia opposed by, 41
Shiah Emir, 199
Shuster, W. Morgan, Persia's political capacity described by, 127 _ff._
South Africa, Mohammedan threat against, 49
Soviet Russia, Afghanistan allied with, 287 _ff._;
Kemal supported by, 295;
success of, 297 _ff._
Sun-Yat-Sen, Doctor, 60
Sydenham, Lord, Montagu-Chelmsford Report criticised by, 219
Swadeshi movement, 244 _ff._
Sykes-Picot Agreement, terms of, 185 _ff._;
French opposition to, 189 _ff._;
fulfilment of, 190
Syria, Turkish dominion of, 140;
nationalist agitation in, 142 _ff._;
France in, 184 _ff._;
declaration of independence of, 191;
French suppression of, 191;
present situation in, 198 _ff._;
Bolshevist manifesto issued to, 293
Tagore, Rabindranath, on economic conditions in India, 248
Talaat, in Russia, 285
Tartars, liberal movement among, 32;
Mohammedan missionary work among, 50 _ff._;
nationalist revival of, 163 _ff._;
Bolshevism among, 285
Tekin Alp, on Pan-Turanism, 167
Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 149
Tewfik Pasha, anti-English feeling of, 92
Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, nationalist work of, 210, 218
Townsend, Meredith, anti-Western feeling in Orient explained by, 102, 104
Transcaucasia, Russian conquest of, 40;
after-the-war situation in, 196;
Mustapha Kemal supported by, 196
Tripoli, Italy's raid on, 57;
Mohammedan resistance in, 57;
1914 insurrection in, 61
Tunis, Kheir-ed-Din's reforms in, 89 _ff._
Turanians, peoples composing, 162 _ff._;
nationalist movement among, 163 _ff._;
effect of Young-Turk Revolution on, 165;
effect of Balkan Wars on, 166 _ff._;
effect of Great War on, 167 _ff._
Turkestan, Bolshevism in, 286;
social revolution in, 290
Turkestan, Chinese, Mohammedans in, 51;
revolt of, 51
Turkey, Islam conquered by, 23;
Arabs war against, 23 _ff._;
Mehemet Ali's aid of, 28;
liberal movement in, 31 _ff._;
1908 revolution in, 32, 119;
Balkan attack on, 57 _ff._;
anti-Western feeling in, 90 _ff._;
effect of Russo-Japanese War in, 106;
independence of, 118;
liberal movement in, 118;
democracy in, 126;
birth of nationalism in, 138;
language of, 138;
Pan-Turanism in, 140 _ff._, 161 _ff._, 183 _ff._;
Arabian rebellion against, 141 _ff._;
Allied treaty with, 193;
Arab aid given to, 194 _ff._;
Western educational methods in, 256;
status of women in, 258;
Bolshevists' manifesto to, 289 _ff._
_Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal, The_, 167
Vambéry, Arminius, warning against Mohammedans uttered by, 65 _ff._, 107;
Moslem politics described by, 114, 126;
Young-Turk party described by, 117;
Turanism and, 63;
on changes at Constantinople, 251 _ff._;
on native officials in East, 257 _ff._;
on status of woman in East, 259;
Venizelos, Allied agreement with, 193;
Greek repudiation of, 194
Versailles Peace, Islam affected by 107 _ff._, 173;
secret treaties revealed by, 174 _ff._
Victoria, Queen, made Empress of India, 205
Wacha, Sir Dinshaw, on Montagu-Chelmsford Report 217 _ff._
Wahabi, formation of state of, 22, 40;
government of, 22, 41;
successful fighting of, 23;
defeat of, 23;
end of political power of, 23;
spiritual power of, 24;
in India, 24;
English conquest of, in India, 24;
influence of, 24;
characteristics of, 25 _ff._
Wattal, P. K., on over-population in India, 264 _ff._
Willcocks, Sir William, on Egyptian situation, 179
Yahya Siddyk, on pro-war Mohammedan situation, 68 _ff._
Yakub Beg, Turkestan insurrection led by, 51
Young Arabia, 143 _ff._
Young-Turk party, rise of, 116 _ff._;
nationalist policy of, 140;
Arabian nationalism and, 145 _ff._
Young-Turk revolution, 56, 119
_Yugantar_, anti-English organ, 211 _ff._
Yunnan, Mohammedan insurrection in, 41, 51 _ff._;
Chinese Mohammedans in, 51
Yusuf Bey Akchura Oglu, Pan-Turanian society founded by, 165
Zagloul Pasha, Milner's discussions with, 181;
Milner's compromise with, 182;
opposition to, 182 _ff._
Zaidite Emir, 199
Zawia Baida, Sennussi's founding of, 44
Zinoviev, on Third International, 294 _ff._
[Illustration: THE WORLD OF ISLAM]
TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES
General: Accents and capitalisation, particularly on cited sources, have
been left as in the original.
Pages 8, 274, 303: Spelling of Kharijites/Kharidjites/Kharadjites left
as in source.
Page 21: Inquity replaced with iniquity.
Page 39: Hyphen added to El-Afghani for consistency.
Page 45: Zawais corrected to Zawias.
Page 49: Hyphen removed from repercussions for consistency.
Page 94: Hyphen removed from easy-going.
Footnote 257: Italicisation removed from March following The Century.
Footnotes 257 and 259 (originally on page 261): Full-stop (period) added
after op (in op. cit.) for consistency.
Page 290: Hyphen added to oil-fields for consistency.
End of Project Gutenberg's The New World of Islam, by Lothrop Stoddard
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