The New World of Islam Part 10

[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 a.n.a.lysis, nationalism is something over and above all its const.i.tuent 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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.semblage 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 palaeolithic 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 ident.i.ty 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-h.e.l.lenism," "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 pa.s.sed 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 "Imamat," 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 mediaeval 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 ma.s.ses. The ma.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.saults 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. Pa.s.sing 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 Berard: "Such are the two languages and such the two peoples: in the lat.i.tude of Rome and in the lat.i.tude 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. 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 b.o.o.by 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, ent.i.tled _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 h.o.m.ogeneity, 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 const.i.tutional 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 ill.u.s.trious t.i.tle 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 sp.a.w.n 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 pa.s.sive 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 _debacle_ 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sively to a long series of conquerors, albeit this pa.s.sivity has been occasionally broken by outbursts of volcanic fury presently dying away into pa.s.sivity once more. Above the Nilotic ma.s.ses stands a relatively small upper cla.s.s descended chiefly from Egypt's more recent Asiatic conquerors--Arabs, Kurds, Circa.s.sians, Albanians, and Turks. In addition to this upper cla.s.s, 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.