Coll 6/43 'Pan Arab Congress 1933. Attitude of H.M.G. to a Pan Arab Movement' [‎385v] (771/1144)

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It must be remembered that the feelings of the Arab Mahometans in general
were exceedingly pro-British, and anti-British propaganda carried out in Egypt
had little effect on them. They were witnessing with their own eyes the
prosperity, the advancements and the liberty enjoyed in Egypt through British
rule and longed to en joy a similar position themselves.
The expulsion of King Feisal from Damascus, the end of their dreams of an
Arab State, the Balfour promise, Zionist policy and French rule in Syria have
gone far to alienate their feelings. The Arab Mahometans, who enjoyed immense
material privileges and moral and social ascendancy under the Turks and who
were looking forward to improving their social and political status and their
future prospects, suddenly found themselves handed over, in Syria to French
misrule, and in Palestine to the prospects of a Jewish State. In Syria they found
all progress in their social and political life arrested and their country
impoverished by the greedy economic policy of the French, and in Palestine they
discovered the Jews, upon whom they have ever looked with scorn and contempt
as inferior creatures, suddenly raised by the British to a degree of equality, with
a threat of future suzerainty and supremacy in the country.
Their general disillusionment and their conviction that Great Britain and
France have misled and cheated them has altered their attitude altogether, and
has totally wrecked their past confidence in Great Britain’s honesty and loyalty.
They are now firmly convinced that the creation of the essentially Christian State
of Great Lebanon in Syria and the Zionist State in Palestine are political strokes
of France and Great Britain intended to create two non-Mahometan Arab buffer
States in order to separate the Syrians and Mesopotamians from the Egyptian
and Sudanese and other African Mahometans. The Syrians and Mesopotamians
now believe that the political anti-British movement in Egypt, upon which they
looked in the past with indifference, is genuine and worthy of their sympathy.
The feeling throughout the whole of the Mahometan world may be safely
described as one of restlessness, and in Syria, Palestine and Egypt as one of
serious political fermentation.
Hitherto the “ Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. and old Arab notable classes ’’ have been scattered,
disunited and self-interested; they have lacked experience and political
individuality and have no common ties or interests. Circumstances have now
greatly changed. Better communications and the advent of the motor have
brought all the Arab States and peoples into close touch with each other. The
morning papers of Cairo are read in Syria and Palestine in the course of the same
day and in Mesopotamia a day or two later. The Arab youth, collected from all
parts of Egypt, Syria. Mesopotamia, Hejaz and Yemen, now live and study
together in large numbers in schools and universities. In the American
University of Beirut, the pivot of Near Eastern education, nearly a thousand
Mahometan Arab young men, from all the above countries, associate and enjoy
perfect freedom of self-expression. They dwell on past grievances of their race
and are inspired with future ambitions; when they return to their homes in the
vacations they relate to the older generations the precarious political status of
Islam and of the Arabs, denouncing the infamy and treacherous policy of Great
Britain and France.
This undercurrent of political unrest and dissatisfaction, based on the
conviction that instead of advancing the Mahometan Arab has been thrown some
generations backward, is now the problem to be tackled by statesmen in the Near
East. The movements are now led by educated men who understand the world,
but they lack a leader to co-ordinate the activities in different localities. At one
time King Feisal of Mesopotamia was looked upon as the likely future man. But
his career was cut short, and the movement will continue to be irregular so long
as France keeps her large army in Syria and deals with the movement in the high
handed manner she adopts at present, and so long as Great Britain can quell the
movement in Palestine. But the students’ factor which has now come on to the
stage, and which will develop and increase, is naturally going to keep this restive
spirit awake and active.
French corruption and misrule in Syria, unfortunately, is adding fuel and
accelerating events. The present rising is due to a feeling of despair owing to
the stifling of all national ambition for an autonomous Government in Damascus,
and owing to the extremely bad economic and financial position to which the
country has been allowed to fall. The movement is now widespread and more
serious than the French authorities will admit. Recent arrivals from Syria state