Coll 6/43 'Pan Arab Congress 1933. Attitude of H.M.G. to a Pan Arab Movement' [‎358v] (717/1144)

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(2) Saudi Arabia and its dependencies of Hasa and Azir.
(3) The Yemen. ^ v • a
(4) The Arab States in Southern Arabia under British influence or
protection.
Religio-politically, the North African countries come within the scope of
what has been described as a pan-Islamic movement, but which is in reali \ on y
an extension of the pan-Arab movement. . . . ,
This grouping of Islamic countries is open to objection; it is, howevei con-
venient and applicable to the present purpose. In order to avoid undue P^xity,
only the Arab movement in the first group of countries will be considered, although
it is a well-known fact that political activity in any of the countries in this group
produces immediate reactions in the Berber-Arab North African countries.
The leaders of the movement are themselves extremely vague as to the
meanings they attach to the terms nation, nationalism confederation or pan-
Arabism, but, in any case, their interpretations differ widely from our own. I hey
will, on occasion, look upon Syria, Palestine and Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan as the Arab
“ nation ” having a population of 5 million Arabs, or englobe the countries o
Arabic-speaking peoples in Asia and think of a “ nation ’ of Id million Arabs.
In more expansive moments they claim all Moslems as their brothers, and ta ^ o
an Arab people of 300 million. In the Nation arabe, Shakib Arslan and
Ihsan-al-Jabri (before the first-named became a remittance man of the Italian
Treasury) used to take up the cudgels, not only on behalf of Arab countries, but
of the whole of Asia and Africa, against Europe m general. . . ,
Amidst this confusion one finds the paradox of intense chauvinism m Aiab
clans and Moslem sects of all matters concerning their personal rights, hatreds and
beliefs. At first glance, the elements of disruption appear so potent that the
ideology of pan-Arabism seems an absurdity; yet it cannot be dismissed so easi y.
The movement in its modern guise began in 1905 with the creation by Syrian
students in Paris of an “Arab League “ to resuscitate the Arab empire; an empire
to be formed within what was then held to be its natural limits : from the va eys
of the Euphrates and Tigris to the Gulf of Suez, and from the Sea of Oman to the
Mediterranean.'’ , , i •
Subsequently the pan-Arab idea was nursed almost exclusively m the colonies
of Syrian emigres in North and South America, as well as m small groups ot
Syrian and Lebanese students in France, Germany, Austria and Egypt. At that
time the object of the conspirators was revolutionary and directed solely against
the Turks; it was racial and in no way religious. It was equally so during the
war when the services of Bedouin bands, under the leadership of the late King
Hussain and his sons Feisal and Abdullah, were available in exchange foi Bn is
gold and certain ill-defined promises. , ,
The war over, the movement, which had flourished and been fostered (not
altogether disinterestedly) in European capitals, became anti-European. I he
celerity with which the Svrians and Iraqis, after having for nearly four years been
at one with the Turks in opposing the Allies, claimed as brothers the Bedouin
whom they had hitherto despised and welcomed the British forces as liberators,
almost immediately after to execrate them and the French as oppressors, exposes
the inconstancy of the Arab, which is the outstanding characteristic ot his
nature * a fact that in England, romanticism has sometimes tended to obscure.
With this change of front the movement developed a unifying rehgrous
aspect, which had hitherto been absent, and spread beyond the limits ot the
P16 "'Notwdhstandhig P however, this newly acquired religious force the congress
held in Cairo in 1924 for the purpose of appointing a Caliph of Islam did little
but bring into relief the jealous cultivation of separate and independent
nationalism, which had developed in each of the Arab States that had come m o
as a result of the Allied victory over the Turks, let the Aiab leaaeis in
these States, with an inconsequence so natural in them yet so disconcerting to e
European observer, have never ceased to accuse England and France of Mach -
vellian cunning in the post-war parcelling of Arabia into the very States that now
insis ^P^ a j^^^£ C ^^^ ) j 1 ^tel^ctuals aim perhaps not so much at the attainment
nf a “United States of Arabia” or federation as at a conglomeration of Arab
States imder the moral*control of a central congress (a sort of Arabian League of