was destined to acquire in the whole world would be a powerful factor in the regeneration of peoples crushed by Oriental tyranny and plunged in the darkest ignorance. But all these beautiful dreams, these thrilling hopes, ended in bitter disappointment; for at length it was realised from experience. dearly bought, that the fine promises of Europe to civilise the world and to deliver the oppressed from the yoke of tyrants had only served to dissimulate her avarice and establish her arbitrary and demoralising sway. The Oriental conscience discovered a little too late the consequences of its lamentable and unsophisticated credulity. Europe must blame herself for this sudden and complete change, to her prejudice, of the sentiments of the Moslem world; it is the work of her own hands and the inevitable result of her violent passion for wealth and dominion. To impute this change to the supposed hatred that Mussulmans feel towards Christianity, or towards Christians because they profess a faith different from their own, would be the height of absurdity, and would amount to an absolute denial of undeniable truth. It is in this desire of rendering impossible the regeneration of the Islamic world, or of retarding it for as long as possible, that Europe has missed the eminently humanitarian and civilising rôle which it was her natural destiny to fulfil. Her violent instincts of profit and domination, however, have blinded her, and now there is no quibble, no slimness,' no methods however equivocal, that she is above employing in order to exculpate herself and lay at the door of her victims what is her own fault. If Europe had taken the trouble to educate the Mussulman peoples that had come under her direct domination, would not the 'fanaticism' of which she complains have disappeared altogether, or at any rate been greatly attenuated? Conscious of her guilt, Europe will not allow herself to be taken by surprise; she is forearmed; she is quite ready with a defence she prepared years ago. She argues that Mussulman races have always proved themselves refractory towards Western culture, are incapable of understanding its spirit and of adapting themselves to European morality—that in a word they are incapable of being civilised. This thesis could only have possessed any value at all when pseudo-scientific theories of the relative inferiority of all other races to the European were in full vogue. But ever since the events in the Far East have practically discredited these pretty theories, and since their scientific value has nowadays become highly problematical, this European thesis has entirely lost its prestige. It is always difficult to defend a bad cause, and the argument put forward by Europe fails to justify her conduct. The Oriental who has observed her doings at close quarters, who has suffered from the methods of civilisation especially designed for her colonies, and who is consequently in a position to judge at their true value her pretended efforts, can detect in this argument the avowal of her culpability. It cannot be maintained that Europe has ever desired the intellectual and moral elevation of the Mussulman peoples under her sway; it cannot even be admitted that she has ever tried to do so in good faith. On what else indeed does her exploitation of the East, and her peaceful enjoyment of the possessions she has so profitably acquired there, rest, if not on the difference of intellectual level that exists between her and the people she has subjugated, working like beasts of burden for their masters; on the rivalries she has fomented and keeps up between these benighted peoples, incapable of understanding their own true interests and unable to keep clear of the traps laid to entangle them? Is it conceivable then that Europe should have helped them to shake off her own yoke; that she should have been so inconsistent as to try to sap with her own hands the foundations on which are based her prestige and her dominion? The attempts then which she professes to have made could not, in any case, have been sufficiently sincere to deserve a better fate. As for the spirit she has tried to infuse, with no more success, into the Islamic world, it was that of the most abject and most degrading submission: the spirit which would raise to the dignity of a religious cult the acceptance of her natural supremacy, and would foist off all the caprices of her domination as so many blessings for those who would submit to them. Finally, if even Western morality has not been fated to meet with a better reception among Orientals, it is due to the unedifying pictures of it presented to their view by missionaries and colonial functionaries. Surely, to take the Mussulmans to task for having disdained the moral code of the intruders and preferred their own would be to disregard altogether the true and wholesome principles of ethics. That is why this re-awakening of the Mussulman conscience, which should have marked the dawn of an era of peace and solidarity between the East and the West, manifests itself to-day in the shape of distrust and rancour. I have now summed up in all sincerity and without any arrière pensée the causes which have given birth to Pan-Islamism. This exposition contains substantially the grievances and the sentiments of the Moslem world at the present moment-felt in a manner more or less precise, more or less intense, according to the degree of intellectual development attained by the respective communities concerned. It is possible that in the camps that are hostile to Mussulman aspirations our detractors may wish to contradict all my statements and may employ all the arts of rhetoric to deprive them of all semblance of truth and logic. It is possible that they may find a mare's nest, and for the purpose of combating our thesis may condescend to make use of some small isolated incident, some act committed without reflection and on the spur of the moment in some part of the Mussulman East. Past-masters in the art of interpreting to their own advantage any facts whatsoever, these pleaders will here find a splendid opportunity of showing off their subtle and resourceful art. But what it will not be in their power to do is to detract from the real and intrinsic value appertaining to Mussulman aspirations, from the fact of their being the aspirations of such a vast mass of humanity. Whatever may happen, this fact alone will impart to them an unquestionable importance, calculated sooner or later seriously to influence the course of events. It is certain that the consideration and respect these 'revindications' will inspire will depend more on the wise and moderate but persistent activity which Pan-Islamism will display in obtaining them, than on any attempts at persuasion by the most ingenious arguments possible. That is why I have here confined myself to an honest and true exposition of the ideas current in the Moslem world. It is not indeed the fear of discussion that has made me avoid it, but its absolute futility at the present moment, when mental sobriety and impartiality are so conspicuous by their absence that it is hopeless to enter upon a discussion of this nature with any prospect of its being profitable. In fact, the contingency of the emancipation of the East makes uneasy the mind of Europe, and she contemplates with apprehension any transformation of this nature. She dreads a future which may place her present supremacy in question and create for her a new problem full of unknown factors. It is difficult for her to get accustomed to the idea of having sooner or later to abandon her colonial system which has proved so satisfactory in feeding both her purse and her vanity. It seems to us that these apprehensions have assumed an exaggerated form. The domination of Europe in the East undoubtedly rests on her intellectual superiority and her greater activity, and it is therefore natural that it should continue, while this difference of level between her and the people she has subjugated endures. But there is nothing to prove that it will last for ever, if one takes into account the fact that this superiority is of no earlier date than two centuries ago, and if there is any truth in the maxim that every beginning has an ending. The colonising Powers persist in thinking that their political supremacy and their domination are the indispensable guarantees of their material interests-and that explains the hostile attitude towards Pan-Islamism. But in our times political domination does not exercise the same influence on economic questions as it used to in bygone days; it may even become prejudicial to economic interests, inasmuch as it is a fruitful source of constant friction and trouble, and is engendering a spirit of hostility to all foreign domination. It is the comprehension of this truth that has enabled Germany, without striking a blow, without having recourse to needless coercion, to create for herself everywhere in the Moslem world lucrative openings and markets which she will in time be able to monopolise. Though not possessing a colonial Empire, the already prodigious development of her productions is constantly increasing, and her successes in worldcompetition are so many proofs of her far-sightedness and her superior comprehension of the moral and material requirements of the present day. She has grasped the fact that her chances of monopolising Mussulman markets depend on her abstention from meddling with the governments of the peoples with whom she desires to establish commercial relations, and on the care with which she can avoid all moral irritation and resort to force. She has realised that she will succeed in achieving her ends not so much by imposing on them her own law, spirit, and manners, as by efforts at a thorough understanding of the needs of the different peoples, and of the manners and customs peculiar to each, in order to give them satisfaction by adapting herself as far as possible to their special requirements. She has, in short, inaugurated the true system of exchange which ought by right to prevail in the twentieth century, and which secures to her an unprecedented prosperity and a moral supremacy which the Powers with colonial dominions will no longer be able to preserve. The contrast of this liberal system with the effete routine of colonial governance is entirely in her favour, because it serves to expose the abuses of her rivals, actuated always by their instincts of domination and conquest, and to give her the rôle of a patron and protector of local institutions, creating for her as compensation a privileged position. After all, Germany is only applying in an improved and more highly developed form brought up more to the level of modern requirements the same principles which built up the commercial and industrial greatness of England, principles which the latter no longer seems to appreciate at their true value, influenced as she is by the cosmopolitan capitalism of the Jews, by the narrow-minded intolerance and Chauvinism of her officialdom and her colonial bureaucracy, aided by their accomplices-too much occupied with their own privileges and personal interests to warn the mother country of the dangers that threaten her. Let us suppose for a moment that the East were to free herself to-morrow from all foreign control. Is it conceivable that she could on that account dispense with her commercial relations with the West? If she did so, what could she substitute for them? Besides, the very nature of the revindications put forth here on behalf of the East shows that they are not in any way economic in their character, and therefore any supposition such as that suggested above would be an absurdity. In fact, of all the relations subsisting between the East and the West, the only ones that are really normal and therefore durable are precisely these economic relations, because they are based on supply and demand, on production and consumption, and because they are established under the sole obligation of real and reciprocal business requirements. All this is so true that we find that these relations are the only ones that have conferred any benefits on the East and added to her material prosperity, at the same time remunerating liberally the industry and initiative of the West. These economic relations produced wealth by which everyone profited; and it is due to them that Western politicians can still perorate with some semblance of logic on the incalculable advantages of their civilising influence on the Moslem world, and complain of the ingratitude of the latter with regard to Europe. The economic supremacy of Europe over the East will certainly survive her political domination, and will last as long as anything is destined to do in this world. The great current of the world's riches will probably take new directions; Hamburg and Bremen will perhaps supplant London and Liverpool, but the productive power of Europe as a whole will not be affected by that. The fate of colonial Powers then will depend on the wisdom and moderation of their conduct, on the vitality they will display in world-competition, and not on the violence they will use in stifling Pan-Islamism. European obscurantism cannot therefore be defended under any pretext; its cause is the cause of the most narrow-minded and misconceived, therefore most injurious, egotism, and as such it is a cause that is indefensible. All honour and glory to Pan-Islamism, which is combating it. May truth and justice light her path, and may the strength which she draws from her faith in her humanitarian mission triumph with the least possible delay over the obstacles which will be placed in her way! BEHDJET WAHBY BEY. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake |