INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: A SURVEY

By Prof. M. VENKATARANGAIYA, M.A.

The Middle East in ferment is the key to the current international situation. Everything else has become secondary to this. This problem has been engaging the attention of statesmen to a far greater extent than even the truce talks in Korea, the problem of Germany, federation of Western Europe, and the proceedings of the United Nations General Assembly which is holding its session in Paris. It will be of some value if at this stage a few of the salient features of situation in the Middle East are noted clearly.

When one speaks of the Middle East it is best to understand that it consists of all the countries on the coast of Northern Africa from Morocco to Egypt, the countries in the Eastern Mediterranean including Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and Saudi Arabia Iraq and Iran. Excepting Greece all the other countries in this are Islamic; and except Turkey and Iran all the other Islamic countries are more or less Arabic, though here and there are to be found some minorities like the Berbers in Morocco. The major problem of the Middle East is therefore a problem of the Arabic world. This is not to say that the non-Arabic countries are less important. They are, as a matter of fact, of greater importance in certain respects and this applies especially to Greece, Turkey and Iran. Bordering as they do on Soviet Russia they are, from the strategic standpoint, of greater significance than the countries further South.

The problem of the Middle East is a highly complicated one. There are various factors which form part of it and in certain respects there is conflict among these factors. One feature of the problem is the intensity of national feeling in the Arab world. It is as intense in Morocco as it is in Egypt. Peoples in these countries are determined to get rid of foreign rule and of foreign influence, however small it may appear to be. In Morocco, Tunisia and Algiers the fight is against the French. In Egypt it is against the British. In Iraq the anti-British feeling is a little dormant for the present, but it is bound to come to the surface sooner or later. How strong the anti-British feeling is in Iran the whole world knows by this time.

The French have succeeded in seeing that the subject of their rule in Morocco or Tunisia is not brought up for discussion in the present session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. But this does not mean that there is nothing to be discussed. On the other hand the French are terribly afraid of their intrigues, tactics and highhandedness being exposed to the world and it is this that is at the back of their unwillingness to have the subject discussed at all. In a recent look on ‘The Sultan of Morocco’, Mr. Rom Landan, a well-known author, has described in a most convincing manner the nature of French rule in Morocco. Any amount of pressure has been brought to bear on the present Sultan, Sidi Mohammed V, by the French authorities to prevent him from working for the independence of his country–a cause which he has taken up as his life mission. But the only result of this pressure is that the leading political organisation in the country–the Istiqlal–has risen considerably in the estimation of the public. It is now carrying on the nationalist agitation with redoubled vigour. All other political parties have now made common cause with it and the rest of the Arab world is determined to give it all the support that it can. There is thus a crisis in Morocco which is of a sufficiently serious character and it does not look as if the French will succeed in resolving it. The difficulties they are experiencing in Indo-China have to some extent their counterpart in Morocco, though the world knows less of them.

The situation is equally bad in Tunisia. The political parties in that French Colony have also planned a kind of joint action to secure self-government. They are not satisfied with the formation of a Franco-Tunisian State, to be ruled by the French and the Tunisians as joint partners, which was recently recommended in a French memorandum. Party leaders are now active in discussing the subject of their country’s independence with the responsible leaders of the other countries in the Islamic world and with the Secretary-General of the Arab League.

Conditions have not improved in Egypt during the last two months. On the other hand they have grown worse. Actual war has been going on in the Canal Zone, though neither party–Egypt or Britain–is anxious to precipitate a real war on a large scale. The oil crisis in Iran is not nearer solution.

Observers of the conditions in the Middle East have drawn attention to several other factors besides the growing force of nationalism. One is the economic backwardness of the people. A hundred million people have to be supported in a region which is mainly a desert. The cultivated area is subject to feudal landlordism, with all the evils associated with it. There are very few industries of the modern type. The result is that the standard of life of the people is low and economic discontent is acute. Till recently the masses were given to a fatalistic view of life and did not complain very much of their poverty. Things have however, undergone a great deal of change in the post-war years. The masses have begun to attribute their poverty to the selfishness of the owning classes. The Communists have taken advantage of this and they have been carrying on their propaganda systematically. This has been responsible for the large amount of political instability that is found throughout the area.

Of course the situation has become more complicated with the establishment of the State of Israel. The whole Arab world regards it as an intruder. No Arab State has as yet extended its recognition to it. There has been an armistice between it and the Arab States which fought against it in 1948-49 and in spite of the efforts of the U.N. Special Commission, which has been working there for the last three years, no treaty has become possible. There is still uncertainty regarding the future of Israel, its boundaries and the status of Jerusalem. There is also the problem of the thousands of Arab refugees who had to flee from their homes in Palestine when the Jewish State of Israel was founded. Until the question of Israel is amicably settled there cannot be real or permanent peace in the Middle East. It has, therefore, become one of the complicating factors.

There are two other features associated with the internal economy of the Middle East. One is the large amount of misunderstanding existing between State and State and the mutual suspicion that it has created. Egypt is suspicious of Jordan and its Greater Syria movement. Saudi Arabia is suspicious of Egypt. This has made any kind of concerted action among them an impossibility. The Arab League which was founded in 1945 remains a league like the discredited Leauge of Nations. It has not become a live force. The other feature is the backwardness of governments. They are all medieval in their outlook. They continue to be strangers to any kind of modernisation. To perpetuate their paternalistic feudal rule is their only objective. This has created a dilemma especially in the minds of the Americans who are anxious to do something to introduce conditions of stability thro economic aid. There is no guarantee that any funds which they may place at the disposal of these governments would be utilised to modernise agriculture or industry and to improve the economic conditions of the people.

The most important factor responsible for the complicating situation in the Middle East has now to be noted. It is an area where the rivalry between the two Power blocs–the Soviet and the Anglo-American–is most intense. Each is anxious to bring it within its sphere of influence, and this for two reasons. One reason is strategic in character. The Middle East is at the meeting place of the three Continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Any bloc which secures control over it can prevent the other bloc from making use of it for obtaining access to these Continents. If, for instance, Soviet Russia were to establish its control over it, she would gain access to the Indian Ocean and to the Mediterranean, and she would be in a position to place obstacles in the way of Britain’s communications with Pakistan, Ceylon, Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. One of the life-lines of the British Commonwealth would thus be completely cut off. Naturally the Anglo-American bloc is anxious that the Middle East should never fall into the grip of Soviet Russia. The other reason is the vast oil resources that the Middle East possesses in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other regions; and in this age of oil the economic reconstruction and the rearmament programmes have to depend for their efficacy on regular supplies of oil. If today the Anglo-American bloc is concentrating so much of its attention on formulating a plan for the joint defence of the Middle East, it is because of considerations like these.

But the whole question is whether any defence plan can be worked out if it is opposed by the nations of the Middle East–nations like Egypt and Iraq. Every one realises the utter futility of all schemes of defence to which these nations are not a party. So the immediate issue is how to get their co-operation. It is only by treating them as equals, by conceding to them the full rights of sovereignty and by withdrawing all foreign military troops stationed in their territories, that this co-operation could be obtained. It was through the transfer of power into the hands of the people of India and Pakistan in 1947 that the British have been able to secure their goodwill. If today relations between Britain and these countries are less bitter and more friendly, it is due to this complete transfer of power and to the complete withdrawal of their forces. The same policy has to be adopted by Britain in respect of the countries of the Middle East, if it is to regain their goodwill and organise a workable plan of defence. Otherwise she will be aiding the introduction and spread of Soviet influence–the very thing which she wants to avert.

The British and the Americans should also realise that the peoples the Middle East, like the peoples of most of the other countries of Asia, are not enamoured of democracy and free enterprise about which they know little; and they should also realise that these peoples cannot expected to dislike or hate Communism with the same bitterness as the free peoples of the West do. Under these circumstances they must adopt a different approach to the problems of the Middle East–different from the approach to those of Western Europe for instance. They have not as yet discovered this method of approach and every delay in this connection makes the problem more complicated.

It is, therefore, no wonder that at his first Press Conference since his return from the sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris, Dean Acheson, the U.S. Secretary of State, said that the Western nations had lost ground in their efforts to obtain some reasonable solution of the Iranian and Egyptian crisis and that the situation in the Middle East had grown more serious.

During all the weeks of this growing seriousness of the situation in the Middle East, the General Assembly of the United Nations was sitting in Paris and carrying on discussions on a variety of matters, of which the debate on disarmament has attracted much of the attention of the world. Naturally the public have raised the question whether the United Nations Organisation is of any value at all and whether anything would be lost if it were scrapped. The question is natural because so far the U.N.O. has not done much to remove threats to peace, to suppress aggression and to establish security and order on an international level, even though these were the purposes for which it was founded. In many parts of India people have recently been celebrating the United Nations Day and the Human Rights Day in spite of such questions being raised. Of course the instinctive answer would be that nothing would be lost if the U.N.O. is scrapped. It has now become merely a forum for mutual recrimination and mud-slinging by the delegates of the two Power blocs. But this does not appear to be a correct or a healthy answer.

From more than one point of view it may be asserted that the U.N.O. deserves to live, and every lover of humanity should strive his best to make it stronger and more useful. Those who have given serious thought to the subject have shown that it is only through the Soviet delegates coming into contact with the Westerners on the platform of the U.N.O.–and that is the only common platform that they have–that they are being impressed with the superior achievements of the Western way of life in certain directions and that this makes them think on right lines. These contacts provide opportunities for lessening to some extent the friction between the two blocs. Moreover if the West is today more united and better organised for testing its strength with the Soviet, it is because of the many lessons it learnt from the discussions in the U.N.O. and its allied agencies. What is, therefore, needed is not the liquidation of the U.N.O. but the exploration of devices for making it a really effective instrument for peace and for the promotion of human welfare. It will be a bad day for humanity if faith in the only international organisation that it now has is completely lost.

One other question that has come to the forefront is whether the Conservative Government of Churchill which was returned to office at the October election will result in any re-orientation of British foreign policy. It does not however look as if there will be any great or violent departure from the general lines of policy pursued by the Labour Government during the last six years, the reason being that on all essentials there was a large amount of agreement between the party in office and the party in opposition. There are two issues in British foreign policy in regard to which the public are anxious to know how Mr. Churchill’s Government would react. One is the understanding with the United States and the other is the British attitude towards what may be called the West European Federation. It was rumoured that, in respect of the British rearmament programme, the policy pursued by the Labour Government in respect of the oil crisis in Iran and the British withdrawal from Egypt, there were some differences between the two countries. Of Course all these will be discussed by Mr. Churchill when he meets President Truman in January. It may, however, be safely asserted that all these differences will h be settled amicably. It has already been reported that, on the question of Egypt and the defence of the Middle East, the United States, Britain and France have come to an agreement, and that whatever policy is adopted it will be a policy based upon their complete co-operation. On the question of West European Federation Mr. Churchill’s attitude is not very much different from that of the Labour Government, although he was the first statesman to suggest the idea of a Council of Europe. Britain, as the leader of the Commonwealth of Nations with numerous interests outside Europe, is not prepared to commit herself to subordinate her policies to the dictates of a European Federal Government. This was the attitude of Labour and it is also the attitude of Mr. Churchill. The only point on which he seems to have yielded is in respect of the creation of a European army of which some of the British forces would be an integrated part. Mr. Churchill also seems to have agreed in a way to the Schumann plan for coal and steel. These are important steps in the process of integrating the democratic countries of Western Europe into a single political unit, so that when the time comes they may fight Soviet aggression in a really effective manner. But they are only the first steps. Many more such steps will have to be taken before Western Europe becomes a single political entity as conceived by the Federalists in Europe and the United States.

The Korean truce talks have been resumed. There has been a large amount of agreement between the two parties in regard to the truce line, the Committee to be appointed to supervise the military forces and to some extent on the question of prisoners. But all the same there is a great deal of mystery surrounding the negotiations, and the public have every reason to doubt, whether the two parties are really anxious to bring about a cease-fire. Negotiations are being unnecessarily prolonged, new points are being raised and the final settlement seems to be as far off as ever. A report on December 19 stated that the United Nations Command hinted renewal of aggressive warfare after Christmas and accused the Communists of wasting time.

Bombay,

December 20, 1951

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