Coll 6/43 'Pan Arab Congress 1933. Attitude of H.M.G. to a Pan Arab Movement' [‎359r] (718/1144)

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Nations) seeking inspiration, guidance and discipline from the head of the most
powerful State-member. Much hope of this died with the late King Feisal of
Iraq in 1933, for King Ghazi has not in this respect taken the place his father
held. Since then, eyes are turned rather in desperation and with little optimism,
to King Abdel Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who has at last, after years of jealous
hesitation, in signing a treaty with Iraq, taken the first tangible step in the
“ Halaf Arabi(Arabian Alliance) that was dear to the former King of Iraq.
The “ Halaf " was to comprise Iraq, 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 and Saudi Arabia and later be
extended to other Arabian States. The fundamental underlying idea of these
projected alliances was mutual protection against European Powers and Turkey.
Syrian and Palestinian Nationalists consider that the most important imme
diate hindrance to further progress lies (a) in the divisions effected by the French in
Syria and Lebanon and, as they see it, in the exaggerated regard the French are
showing for the protection of “ minorities,” even to the extent of importing fresh
f£ minority ” elements, in the Assyrians, from Iraq, and (b) in the rise of a Jewish
population in Palestine strong enough to resist Arab domination. So the
Nationalist executives in Syria and Palestine, like any Arab muleteer with his
beasts of burden, seek to keep every political sore open on the back of a docile and
ignorant population the better to goad it to self-impoverishing strikes and to
desperate and painful civil disobedience, with the object of developing a sense
of grievance and of wearying the mandatory Powers to the point of making them
anxious to be rid of their mandatory burden.
The programme sketched in 1932 at the Jerusalem meeting of Arab
Nationalists of different countries under the chairmanship of Yassin-al-Hashimi
(the leader of the Opposition party in Iraq and now Prime Minister there) avoided
discussions on religious problems and followed the advice of the late Saad Zaghlul
in Egypt to abstain from disputes over Islamic or quasi-Islamie rites and non-
Islamic faiths. The avowed object of such unaccustomed silence was to “ deprive
imperialistic policy of the arm of minorities that it finds so handy a means for
keeping the peoples of the East in subjection." The rest of the programme j
consisted in an Arabian Zollverein, the unification of currency systems, the
creation of an Arab bank and the abolition of passport formalities. Finally, as a
symbolic gesture, it recommended the adoption of a uniform flag and postage
stamp for Iraq, Syria 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 .
The congress which was to have been held in Bagdad under the presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent.
of the late King Feisal following this preparatory meeting to discuss and
approve the programme there fixed did not assemble because (so w^rote “ Fata-al-
Arab ” on the 8th October, 1932) of personal ambitions nurtured under British
inspiration.
This was a blow to the hopes of the pan-Arabists that proved all but fatal.
Out of the flames, however, of the Syrian disturbances in January 1936 (set
blazing by almost as small a spark as that which enflamed Palestine three months
later), the pan-Arab phoenix rose again with an astonishing display of vigour.
The Nationalist parties that had for three years remained divided by trivial
personal rivalries reunited in opposition to the French, just as the Arab parties
coalesced later, if somewhat awkwardly at first, against Zionism and the British
upholding of it. How long this united front will endure is a matter for doubt;
if the past is any guide, it will not long outlast the disturbances that gave it birth.
Dissension is the very lifeblood of the sons of Ismail.
Militating against the ideology of pan-Arabism is, as has already been men- j
tioned, the creation and growth of separate Arab States (imbued with all the 1
chauvinism and individuality that the word “nation ” implies) in the old Ottoman
provinces of Mesopotamia, Syria and the Arabian peninsula. Herein, perhaps,
exists a force that will grow increasingly inimical to Arab cohesion and
confederation. Slowly, yet surely, the national idea is developing. In each State
has been formed a Government with a permanent or semi-permanent officialdom,
recruited on European lines and jealous of its power and prospects. Autarky has
more than made an appearance and national defence forces have been
individually organised and infused with local esprit de corps. Legal and
political systems, grafted upon different roots, have grown quite dissimilar. Each
country has apart from the influence of the mandatory Powers tended to become
increasingly conscious and jealous of the boundaries fixed by the “victorious
allied Powers.” It is sufficient in this connexion to recall the frontier difficulties 1
[706 dd—1] b 2
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