The New World of Islam Part 6

The influence of the West is the great dynamic in the modern transformation of the East. The ubiquitous impact of Westernism is modifying not merely the Islamic world but all non-Moslem Asia and Africa,[72] and in subsequent pages we shall examine the effects of Western influence upon the non-Moslem elements of India. Of course Western influence does not entirely account for Islam's recent evolution. We have already seen that, for the last hundred years, Islam itself has been engendering forces which, however quickened by external Western stimuli, are essentially internal in their nature, arising spontaneously and working toward distinctive, original goals. It is not a mere copying of the West that is to-day going on in the Moslem world, but an attempt at a new synthesis--an a.s.similation of Western methods to Eastern ends. We must always remember that the Asiatic stocks which const.i.tute the bulk of Islam's followers are not primitive savages like the African negroes or the Australoids, but are mainly peoples with genuine civilizations built up by their own efforts from the remote past. In view of their historic achievements, therefore, it seems safe to conclude that in the great ferment now stirring the Moslem world we behold a real _Renaissance_, whose genuineness is best attested by the fact that there have been similar movements in former times.

The modern influence of the West on the East is quite unprecedented in both intensity and scope. The far more local, partial influence of Greece and Rome cannot be compared to it. Another point to be noted is that this modern influence of the West upon the East is a very recent thing. The full impact of Westernism upon the Orient as a whole dates only from about the middle of the nineteenth century. Since then, however, the process has been going on by leaps and bounds. Roads and railways, posts and telegraphs, books and papers, methods and ideas, have penetrated, or are in process of penetrating, every nook and cranny of the East. Steams.h.i.+ps sail the remotest seas. Commerce drives forth and scatters the mult.i.tudinous products of Western industry among the remotest peoples. Nations which only half a century ago lived the life of thirty centuries ago, to-day read newspapers and go to business in electric tram-cars. Both the habits and thoughts of Orientals are being revolutionized. To a discussion of the influence of the West upon the Moslem world the remainder of this book will be devoted. The chief elements will be separately a.n.a.lysed in subsequent chapters, the present chapter being a general survey of an introductory character.

The permeation of Westernism is naturally most advanced in those parts of Islam which have been longest under Western political control. The penetration of the British "Raj" into the remotest Indian jungles, for example, is an extraordinary phenomenon. By the coinage, the post-office, the railroads, the administration of justice, the encouragement of education, the relief of famine, and a thousand other ways, the great organization has penetrated all India. But even in regions where European control is still nominal, the permeation of Westernism has gone on apace. The customs and habits of the people have been distinctly modified. Western material improvements and comforts like the kerosene-oil lamp and the sewing-machine are to-day part and parcel of the daily life of the people. New economic wants have been created; standards of living have been raised; canons of taste have been altered.[73]

In the intellectual and spiritual fields, likewise, the leaven of Westernism is clearly apparent. We have already seen how profoundly Moslem liberal reformers have been influenced by Western ideas and the spirit of Western progress. Of course in these fields Westernism has progressed more slowly and has awakened much stronger opposition than it has on the material plane. Material innovations, especially mechanical improvements, comforts, and luxuries, make their way much faster than novel customs or ideas, which usually shock established beliefs or ancestral prejudices. Tobacco was taken up with extraordinary rapidity by every race and clime, and the kerosene-lamp has in half a century penetrated the recesses of Central Asia and of China; whereas customs like Western dress and ideas like Western education encounter many setbacks and are often adopted with such modifications that their original spirit is denatured or perverted. The superior strength and skill of the West are to-day generally admitted throughout the East, but in many quarters the first receptivity to Western progress and zeal for Western ideas have cooled or have actually given place to a reactionary hatred of the very spirit of Western civilization.[74]

Western influences are most apparent in the upper and middle cla.s.ses, especially in the Western-educated _intelligentsia_ which to-day exists in every Eastern land. These elites of course vary greatly in numbers and influence, but they all possess a more or less definite grasp of Western ideas. In their reactions to Westernism they are sharply differentiated. Some, while retaining the fundamentals of their ancestral philosophy of life, attempt a genuine a.s.similation of Western ideals and envisage a higher synthesis of the spirits of East and West.

Others break with their traditional pasts, steep themselves in Westernism, and become more or less genuinely Westernized. Still others conceal behind their Western veneer disillusionment and detestation.[75]

Of course it is in externals that Westernization is most p.r.o.nounced. The Indian or Turkish "intellectual," holding Western university degrees and speaking fluently several European languages, and the wealthy prince or pasha, with his motor-cars, his racing-stables, and his annual "cure" at European watering-places, appear very Occidental to the casual eye. Such men wear European clothes, eat European food, and live in houses partly or wholly furnished in European style. Behind this facade exists every possible variation of inner life, from earnest enthusiasm for Western ideals to inveterate reaction.

These varied att.i.tudes toward Westernism are not parked off by groups or localities, they co-exist among the individuals of every cla.s.s and every land in the East. The entire Orient is, in fact, undergoing a prodigious transformation, far more sudden and intense than anything the West has ever known. Our civilization is mainly self-evolved; a natural growth developing by normal, logical, and relatively gradual stages. The East, on the contrary, is undergoing a concentrated process of adaptation which, with us, was spread over centuries, and the result is not so much evolution as revolution--political, economic, social, idealistic, religious, and much more besides. The upshot is confusion, uncertainty, grotesque anachronism, and glaring contradiction. Single generations are sundered by unbridgeable mental and spiritual gulfs. Fathers do not understand sons; sons despise their fathers. Everywhere the old and the new struggle fiercely, often within the brain or spirit of the same individual. The infinite complexity of this struggle as it appears in India is well summarized by Sir Valentine Chirol when he speaks of the many "currents and cross-currents of the confused movement which is stirring the stagnant waters of Indian life--the steady impact of alien ideas on an ancient and obsolescent civilization; the more or less imperfect a.s.similation of those ideas by the few; the dread and resentment of them by those whose traditional ascendancy they threaten; the disintegration of old beliefs, and then again their aggressive revival; the careless diffusion of an artificial system of education, based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and bereft of all moral or religious sanction; the application of Western theories of administration and of jurisprudence to a social formation stratified on lines of singular rigidity; the play of modern economic forces upon primitive conditions of industry and trade; the constant and unconscious but inevitable friction between subject races and their alien rulers; the reverberation of distant wars and distant racial conflicts; the exaltation of an Oriental people in the Far East."[76] These lines, though written about India, apply with fair exact.i.tude to every other portion of the Near and Middle East to-day. As a French writer remarks with special reference to the Levant: "The truth is that the Orient is in transformation, and the Mohammedan mentality as well--though not perhaps exactly as we might wish. It is undergoing a period of crisis, wherein the past struggles everywhere against the present; where ancient customs, impaired by modern innovations, present a hybrid and disconcerting spectacle."[77]

To this is largely due the unlovely traits displayed by most of the so-called "Westernized" Orientals; the "stucco civilization"[78] of the Indian Babu, and the boulevardier "culture" of the Turkish "Effendi"--syphilized rather than civilized. Any profound transformation must engender many worthless by-products, and the contemporary Westernization of the Orient has its dark as well as its bright side.

The very process of reform, however necessary and inevitable, lends fresh virulence to old ills and imports new evils previously unknown. As Lord Cromer says: "It is doubtful whether the price which is being paid for introducing European civilization into these backward Eastern societies is always recognized as fully as it should be. The material benefits derived from European civilization are unquestionably great, but as regards the ultimate effect on public and private morality the future is altogether uncertain."[79]

The good and the evil of Westernization are alike mostly clearly evident among the ranks of the educated elites. Some of these men show the happiest effects of the Western spirit, but an even larger number fall into the gulf between old and new, and there miserably perish. Lord Cromer characterized many of the "Europeanized" Egyptians as "at the same time de-Moslemized Moslems and invertebrate Europeans";[80] while another British writer thus pessimistically describes the superficial Europeanism prevalent in India: "Beautiful Mogul palaces furnished with cracked furniture from Tottenham Court Road. That is what we have done to the Indian mind. We have not only made it despise its own culture and throw it out; we have asked it to fill up the vacant s.p.a.ces with furniture which will not stand the climate. The mental Eurasianism of India is appalling. Such minds are nomad. They belong to no civilization, no country, and no history. They create a craving that cannot be satisfied, and ideals that are unreal. They falsify life.

They deprive men of the nourishment of their cultural past, and the subst.i.tutes they supply are unsubstantial.... We sought to give the Eastern mind a Western content and environment; we have succeeded too well in establis.h.i.+ng intellectual and moral anarchy in both."[81]

These patent evils of Westernization are a prime cause of that implacable hatred of everything Western which animates so many Orientals, including some well acquainted with the West. Such persons are precious auxiliaries to the ignorant reactionaries and to the rebels against Western political domination.

The political predominance of the West over the East is, indeed, the outstanding factor in the whole question of Western influence upon the Orient. We have already surveyed Europe's conquest of the Near and Middle East during the past century, and we have seen how helpless the backward, decrepit Moslem world was in face of the twofold tide of political and economic subjugation. In fact, the economic phase was perhaps the more important factor in the rapidity and completeness of Europe's success. To be sure, some Eastern lands were subjugated at a stroke by naked military force, as in the French expedition to Algiers, the Russian conquest of central Asia, and the Italian descent upon Tripoli. Much oftener, however, subjection began by the essentially economic process known as "pacific penetration"--the acquirement of a financial grip upon a hitherto independent Oriental country by Western capital in the form of loans and concessions, until the a.s.sumption of Western political control became little more than a formal registration of what already existed in fact. Such is the story of the subjection of Egypt, Morocco, and Persia, while England's Indian Empire started in a purely trading venture--the East India Company. The tremendous potency of "pacific penetration" is often not fully appreciated. Take the significance of one item alone--railway concessions. Says that keen student of _Weltpolitik_, Doctor Dillon: "Railways are the iron tentacles of latter-day expanding Powers. They are stretched out caressingly at first. But once the iron has, so to say, entered the soul of the weaker nation, the tentacles swell to the dimensions of brawny arms, and the embrace tightens to a crus.h.i.+ng grip."[82]

On the question of the abstract rightness or wrongness of this subjection of the East by the West, I do not propose to enter. It has been exhaustively discussed, pro and con, and every reader of these pages is undoubtedly familiar with the stock arguments on both sides.

The one thing certain is that this process of subjugation was, broadly speaking, inevitable. Given two worlds at such different levels as East and West at the beginning of the nineteenth century--the West overflowing with vitality and striding at the forefront of human progress, the East sunk in lethargy and decrepitude--and it was a foregone conclusion that the former would encroach upon the latter.

What does concern us in our present discussion is the effect of European political control upon the general process of Westernization in Eastern lands. And there can be no doubt that such Westernization was thereby greatly furthered. Once in control of an Oriental country, the European rulers were bound to favour its Westernization for a variety of reasons.

Mere self-interest impelled them to make the country peaceful and prosperous, in order to extract profit for themselves and reconcile the inhabitants to their rule. This meant the replacement of inefficient and sanguinary native despotisms inhibiting progress and engendering anarchy by stable colonial governments, maintaining order, encouraging industry, and introducing improvements like the railway, the post, sanitation, and much more besides. In addition to these material innovations, practically all the Western governments endeavoured to better the social, intellectual, and spiritual condition of the peoples that had come under their control. The European Powers who built up colonial empires during the nineteenth century were actuated by a spirit far more enlightened than that of former times, when the early colonial empires of Spain, Portugal, Holland, and the English East India Company had been run on the brutal and short-sighted doctrine of sheer exploitation. In the nineteenth century all Western rule in the Orient was more or less impregnated with the ideal of "The White Man's Burden."

The great empire-builders of the nineteenth century, actuated as they were not merely by self-interest and patriotic ambition but also by a profound sense of obligation to improve the populations which they had brought under their country's sway, felt themselves bearers of Western enlightenment and laboured to diffuse all the benefits of Western civilization. They honestly believed that the extension of Western political control was the best and quickest, perhaps the only, means of modernizing the backward portions of the world.

That standpoint is ably presented by a British "liberal imperialist,"

Professor Ramsay Muir, who writes: "It is an undeniable fact that the imperialism of the European peoples has been the means whereby European civilization has been in some degree extended to the whole world, so that to-day the whole world has become a single economic unit, and all its members are parts of a single political system. And this achievement brings us in sight of the creation of a world-order such as the wildest dreamers of the past could never have antic.i.p.ated. Without the imperialism of the European peoples North and South America, Australia, South Africa, must have remained wildernesses, peopled by scattered bands of savages. Without it India and other lands of ancient civilization must have remained, for all we can see, externally subject to that endless succession of wars and arbitrary despotisms which have formed the substance of their history through untold centuries, and under which neither rational and equal law nor political liberty, as we conceive them, were practicable conceptions. Without it the backward peoples of the earth must have continued to stagnate under the dominance of an unchanging primitive customary regime, which has been their state throughout recorded time. If to-day the most fruitful political ideas of the West--the ideas of nationality and self-government--which are purely products of Western civilization, are beginning to produce a healthy fermentation in many parts of the non-European world, that result is due to European Imperialism."[83]

The ethics of modern imperialism have nowhere been better formulated than in an essay by Lord Cromer. "An imperial policy," he writes, "must, of course, be carried out with reasonable prudence, and the principles of government which guide our relations with whatsoever races are brought under our control must be politically and economically sound and morally defensible. This is, in fact, the keystone of the imperial arch.

The main justification of imperialism is to be found in the use which is made of imperial power. If we make good use of our power, we may face the future without fear that we shall be overtaken by the Nemesis which attended Roman misrule. If the reverse is the case, the British Empire will deserve to fall, and of a surety it will ultimately fall."[84]

Such are the basic sanctions of Western imperialism as evolved during the nineteenth century. Whether or not it is destined to endure, there can be no question that this prodigious extension of European political control greatly favoured the spread of Western influences of every kind.

It is, of course, arguable that the East would have voluntarily adopted Western methods and ideas even if no sort of Western pressure had been applied. But they would have been adopted much more slowly, and this vital element of time renders such arguments mere academic speculation.

For the vital, expanding nineteenth-century West to have deliberately restrained itself while the backward East blunderingly experimented with Westernism, accepting and rejecting, buying goods and refusing to pay for them, negotiating loans and then squandering and repudiating them, inviting in Europeans and then expelling or ma.s.sacring them, would have been against all history and human nature.

As a matter of fact, Western pressure was applied, as it was bound to be applied; and this constant, ubiquitous, unrelenting pressure, broke down the barriers of Oriental conservatism and inertia as nothing else could have done, forced the East out of its old ruts, and compelled it to take stock of things as they are in a world of hard facts instead of reminiscent dreams. In subsequent chapters we shall examine the manifold results of this process which has so profoundly transformed the Orient during the past hundred years. Here we will continue our general survey by examining the more recent aspects of Western control over the East and the reactions of the East thereto.

In my opinion, the chief fallacy involved in criticisms of Western control over Eastern lands arises from failure to discriminate between nineteenth-century and twentieth-century imperialism. Nineteenth-century imperialism was certainly inevitable, and was apparently beneficial in the main. Twentieth-century imperialism cannot be so favourably judged.

By the year 1900 the Oriental peoples were no longer mere fanatical obscurantists neither knowing nor caring to know anything outside the closed circle of their ossified, decadent civilizations. The East had been going to school, and wanted to begin to apply what it had been taught by the West. It should have been obvious that these peoples, whose past history proved them capable of achievement and who were now showing an apparently genuine desire for new progress, needed to be treated differently from what they had been. In other words, a more liberal att.i.tude on the part of the West had become advisable.

But no such change was made. On the contrary, in the West itself, the liberal idealism which had prevailed during most of the nineteenth century was giving way to that spirit of fierce political and economic rivalry which culminated in the Great War.[85] Never had Europe been so avid for colonies, for "spheres of influence," for concessions and preferential markets; in fine, so "imperialistic," in the unfavourable sense of the term. The result was that with the beginning of the twentieth century Western pressure on the East, instead of being relaxed, was redoubled; and the awakening Orient, far from being met with sympathetic consideration, was treated more ruthlessly than it had been for two hundred years. The way in which Eastern countries like Turkey and Persia, striving to reform themselves and protect their independence, were treated by Europe's new _Realpolitik_ would have scandalized the liberal imperialists of a generation before. It certainly scandalized present-day liberals, as witness these scathing lines written in 1912 by the well-known British publicist Sidney Low:

"The conduct of the Most Christian Powers during the past few years has borne a striking resemblance to that of robber-bands descending upon an unarmed and helpless population of peasants. So far from respecting the rights of other nations, they have exhibited the most complete and cynical disregard for them. They have, in fact, a.s.serted the claim of the strong to prey upon the weak, and the utter impotence of all ethical considerations in the face of armed force, with a crude nakedness which few Eastern military conquerors could well have surpa.s.sed.

"The great cosmic event in the history of the last quarter of a century has been the awakening of Asia after centuries of somnolence. The East has suddenly sprung to life, and endeavoured to throw itself vigorously into the full current of Western progress. j.a.pan started the enterprise; and, fortunately for herself, she entered upon it before the new Western policy had fully developed itself, and while certain archaic ideals about the rights of peoples and the sanct.i.ty of treaties still prevailed. When the new era was inaugurated by the great j.a.panese statesmen of the nineteenth century, Europe did not feel called upon to interfere. We regarded the j.a.panese renaissance with interest and admiration, and left the people of Nippon to work out the difficulties of their own salvation, un.o.bstructed. If that revolution had taken place thirty years later, there would probably have been a different story to tell; and New j.a.pan, in the throes of her travail, would have found the armed Great Powers at her bedside, each stretching forth a mailed fist to grab something worth taking. Other Eastern countries which have endeavoured to follow the example of j.a.pan during the present century have had worse luck. During the past ten years a wave of sheer materialism and absolute contempt for international morality has swept across the Foreign Offices of Europe, and has reacted disastrously upon the various Eastern nations in their desperate struggles to reform a const.i.tutional system. They have been attempting to carry out the suggestions made to them for generations by benevolent advisers in Christendom.

"Now, when they take these counsels to heart, and endeavour, with halting steps, and in the face of immense obstacles, to pursue the path of reform, one might suppose that their efforts would be regarded with sympathetic attention by the Governments of the West; and that, even if these offered no direct aid, they would at least allow a fair trial."

But, on the contrary, "one Great Power after another has used the opportunity presented by the internal difficulties of the Eastern countries to set out upon a career of annexation."[86]

We have already seen how rapid was this career of annexation, extinguis.h.i.+ng the independence of the last remaining Mohammedan states at the close of the Great War. We have also seen how it exacerbated Moslem fear and hatred of the West. And the West was already feared and hated for many reasons. In the preceding chapter we traced the growth of the Pan-Islamic movement, and in subsequent chapters we shall trace the development of Oriental nationalism. These politico-religious movements, however, by no means exhaust the list of Oriental reactions to Westernism. There are others, economic, social, racial in character. In view of the complex nature of the Orient's reaction against Westernism, let us briefly a.n.a.lyse the problem in its various const.i.tuent elements.

Anti-Western feeling has been waning in some quarters and waxing in others during the past hundred years. By temperamental reactionaries and fanatics things Western have, of course, always been abhorred. But, leaving aside this intransigeant minority, the att.i.tude of other categories of Orientals has varied greatly according to times and circ.u.mstances. By liberal-minded persons Western influences were at first hailed with cordiality and even with enthusiasm. In the opening chapter we saw how the liberal reformers welcomed the Western concept of progress and made it one of the bases of their projected religious reformation. And the liberals displayed the same att.i.tude in secular matters. The liberal statesmen who governed Turkey during the third quarter of the nineteenth century made earnest efforts to reform the Ottoman State, and it was the same in other parts of the Moslem world.

An interesting example is the attempt made by General Kheir-ed-Din to modernize Tunis. This man, a Circa.s.sian by birth, had won the confidence of his master, the Bey, who made him vizier. In 1860 he toured Europe and returned greatly impressed with its civilization. Convinced of Europe's infinite superiority, he desired pa.s.sionately to transplant Western ideas and methods to Tunis. This he believed quite feasible, and the result would, so he thought, be Tunis's rapid regeneration.

Kheir-ed-Din was not in the least a hater of the West. He merely recognized clearly the Moslem world's peril of speedy subjection to the West if it did not set its house rapidly in order, and he therefore desired, in a perfectly legitimate feeling of patriotism, to press his country along the road of progress, that it might be able to stand alone and preserve its independence.

So greatly was the Bey impressed by Kheir-ed-Din's report that he gave him a free hand in his reforming endeavours. For a short time Kheir-ed-Din displayed great activity, though he encountered stubborn opposition from reactionary officials. His work was cut short by his untimely death, and Tunis, still unmodernized, fell twenty years later under the power of France. Kheir-ed-Din, however, worked for posterity.

In order to rouse his compatriots to the realities of their situation he published a remarkable book, _The Surest Means of Knowing the State of Nations_. This book has profoundly influenced both liberals and nationalists throughout the Near East, especially in North Africa, where it has become the bible of Tunisian and Algerian nationalism. In his book Kheir-ed-Din shows his co-religionists the necessity of breaking with their att.i.tude of blind admiration for the past and proud indifference to everything else, and of studying what is going on in the outer world. Europe's present prosperity is due, he a.s.serts, not to natural advantages or to religion, but "to progress in the arts and sciences, which facilitate the circulation of wealth and exploit the treasures of the earth by an enlightened protection constantly given to agriculture, industry, and commerce: all natural consequences of justice and liberty--two things which, for Europeans, have become second nature." In past ages the Moslem world was great and progressive, because it was then liberal and open to progress. It declined through bigotry and obscurantism. But it can revive by reviving the spirit of its early days.

I have stressed the example of the Tunisian Kheir-ed-Din rather than the better-known Turkish instances because it ill.u.s.trates the general receptivity of mid-nineteenth-century Moslem liberals to Western ideas and their freedom from anti-Western feeling.[87] As time pa.s.sed, however, many of these erstwhile liberals, disillusioned with the West for various reasons, notably European aggression, became the bitterest enemies of the West, hating the very spirit of Western civilization.[88]

This anti-Western feeling has, of course, been greatly exacerbated since the beginning of the present century. As an influential Mohammedan wrote just before the Great War: "The events of these last ten years and the disasters which have stricken the Mohammedan world have awakened in its bosom a sentiment of mutual cordiality and devotion hitherto unknown, and a unanimous hatred against all its oppressors has been the ferment which to-day stirs the hearts of all Moslems."[89] The bitter rancour seething in many Moslem hearts shows in outbursts like the following, from the pen of a popular Turkish writer at the close of the Balkan Wars: "We have been defeated, we have been shown hostility by the outside world, because we have become too deliberative, too cultured, too refined in our conceptions of right and wrong, of humanity and civilization. The example of the Bulgarian army has taught us that every soldier facing the enemy must return to the days of barbarism, must have a thirst of blood, must be merciless in slaughtering children and women, old and weak, must disregard others' property, life, and honour. Let us spread blood, suffering, wrong, and mourning. Thus only may we become the favourites of the civilized world like King Ferdinand's army."[90]

The Great War itself was hailed by mult.i.tudes of Moslems as a well-merited Nemesis on Western arrogance and greed. Here is how a leading Turkish newspaper characterized the European Powers: "They would not look at the evils in their own countries or elsewhere, but interfered at the slightest incident in our borders; every day they would gnaw at some part of our rights and our sovereignty; they would perform vivisection on our quivering flesh and cut off great pieces of it. And we, with a forcibly controlled spirit of rebellion in our hearts and with clinched but powerless fists, silent and depressed, would murmur as the fire burned within: 'Oh, that they might fall out with one another! Oh, that they might eat one another up!' And lo! to-day they are eating each other up, just as the Turk wished they would."[91]

Such anti-Western sentiments are not confined to journalists or politicians, they are shared by all cla.s.ses, from princes to peasants.

Each cla.s.s has its special reasons for hating European political control. The native princes, even when maintained upon their thrones and confirmed in their dignities and emoluments, bitterly resent their state of va.s.salage and their loss of limitless, despotic power. "Do you know, I can hardly buy a pen or a sword for myself without asking the Resident for permission?" remarked an Indian rajah bitterly. His att.i.tude was precisely that of Khedive Tewfik Pasha, who, in the early days of the British occupation of Egypt, while watching a review of British troops, said to one of his ministers: "Do you suppose I like this? I tell you, I never see an English sentinel in my streets without longing to jump out of my carriage and strangle him with my own hands."[92] The upper cla.s.ses feel much the same as their sovereigns. They regret their former monopoly of privilege and office. This is especially true of the Western-educated _intelligentsia_, who believe that they should hold all government posts and resent bitterly the reservation of high-salaried directive positions for Europeans. Of course many intelligent liberals realize so fully the educative effect of European control that they acquiesce in a temporary loss of independence in order to complete their modernization and ultimately be able to stand alone without fear of reaction or anarchy. However, these liberals are only a small minority, hated by their upper-cla.s.s fellows as time-servers and renegades, and sundered by an immense gulf from the ignorant ma.s.ses.

At first sight we might think that the ma.s.ses would, on the whole, be favourably disposed toward European political control. Despite certain economic disadvantages that Westernization has imposed, the ma.s.ses have unquestionably gained most by European rule. Formerly exploited ruthlessly by both princes and upper cla.s.ses, the peasants and town workers are to-day a.s.sured peace, order, justice, and security for their landholdings and the fruits of their toil. Now it would be a mistake to think that the ma.s.ses are insensible to all this. The fact is, they do recognize the benefits of European rule. Nevertheless, the new rulers, while tolerated and even respected, are never beloved.

Furthermore, as the generation which knew the old regime dies off, its evils are forgotten, and the younger generation, taking present benefits for granted, murmurs at the flaws in the existing order, and lends a readier ear to native agitators extolling the glories of independence and idealizing the "good old times."

The truth of the matter is that, despite all its shortcomings, the average Oriental hankers after the old way of life. Even when he recognizes the good points of the new, he nevertheless yearns irrationally for the old. "A Moslem ruler though he oppress me and not a _kafir_[93] though he work me weal" is a Moslem proverb of long standing. Every colonial administration, no matter how enlightened, runs counter to this ineradicable aversion of Moslems for Christian rule. A Russian administrator in Central Asia voices the sentiments of European officials generally when he states: "Pious Moslems cannot accommodate themselves to the government of _Giaours_."[94]

Furthermore, it must be remembered that most Orientals either do not recognize much benefit in European rule, or, even though they do recognize considerable benefits, consider these more than offset by many points which, in their eyes, are maddening annoyances or burdens. The very things which we most pride ourselves on having given to the Orient--peace, order, justice, security--are not valued by the Oriental anywhere near as highly as we might expect. Of course he likes these things, but he would prefer to get less of them if what he did get was given by native rulers, sharing his prejudices and point of view. Take the single factor of justice. As an English writer remarks: "The Asiatic is not delighted with justice _per se_; indeed, the Asiatic really cares but little about it if he can get _sympathy_ in the sense in which he understands that misunderstood word.... This is the real reason why every Asiatic in his heart of hearts prefers the rule of his own nationality, bad though it be, to the most ideal rule of aliens. For when he is ruled by his own countrymen, he is dealt with by people who understand his frailties, and who, though they may savagely punish him, are at least in sympathy with the motives which prompt his delinquencies."[95]

Take again the matter of order. The average Oriental not only does not appreciate, but detests, our well-regulated, systematic manner of life.

Accustomed as he has been for centuries to a slipshod, easygoing existence, in which, if there was much injustice, there was also much favouritism, he instinctively hates things like sanitary measures and police regulations. Accustomed to a wide "personal liberty" in the anarchic sense, he is not willing to limit this liberty for the common weal. He wants his own way, even though it involves possible dangers to himself--dangers which may always be averted by bribery, favouritism, or violence. Said an American who had listened to a Filipino's glowing words on independence: "What could you do, if you were independent, that you cannot do now?" "I could build my house there in the middle of the street, if I wanted to." "But suppose your neighbour objected and interfered?" "I would 'get' him." "But suppose he 'got' you?" A shrug of the shoulders was the only answer.[96]

The fact is that the majority of Orientals, despite the considerable penetration of Western ideas and methods that has been going on for the last century, still love their old ruts and hate to be budged out of them. They realize that Western rule furthers more than anything else the Westernization of their social system, their traditional manner of life, and they therefore tend to react fanatically against it. Every innovation imposed by the colonial authorities is apt to rouse the most purblind resistance. For example, compulsory vaccination was bitterly opposed for years by the natives of Algeria. The French officials pointed out that smallpox, hitherto rampant, was being rapidly extirpated. The natives replied that, in their opinion, it was merely a crafty scheme for sterilizing them s.e.xually and thus make room for French colonists. The officials thereupon pointed to the census figures, which showed that the natives were increasing at an unprecedented rate.

The natives merely shrugged their shoulders and continued to inveigh against the innovation.

This whole matter has been well summarized by a French writer with a wide knowledge of Mohammedan lands. Says Louis Bertrand:

"In reality, all these peoples, indisposed as they are by their traditions, customs, and climates to live according to our social ideal, hate to endure the constraint of our police, of our administration--in a word, of any sort of _regulated_ government, no matter how just and honest. Delivered from the most anarchic and vexatious of tyrannies, they remain in spirit more or less like our vagabonds, always hoping to escape from the gendarmes. In vain do we point out to the Arabs of North Africa that, thanks to the protection of France, they are no longer pillaged by Turkish despots nor ma.s.sacred and tortured by rival tribes.

They see only one thing: the necessity of paying taxes for matters that they do not understand. We shall never realize the rage, the fury, aroused in our Algerian towns by the simple health department ordinance requiring the emptying of a garbage-can at a fixed hour. At Cairo and elsewhere I have observed the same rebellious feelings among the donkey-boys and cab-drivers subjected to the regulations of the English policeman.

"But it is not merely our munic.i.p.al and administrative regulations which they find insupportable; it is all our habits, taken _en bloc_--in a word, the _order_ which regulates our civilized life. For instance: on the railway-line from Jaffa to Jerusalem the train stops at a station beside which stands the tomb of a holy man. The schedule calls for a stop of a minute at most. But no sooner had we arrived than what was my stupefaction to see all the Mohammedans on the train get off, spread their prayer-rugs, and tranquilly begin their devotions. The station-master blew his whistle, the conductor yelled at them that he was going to leave them behind; n.o.body budged. A squad of railway employees had to be mobilized, who, with blows and curses, finally bundled these pious persons back into the train again. The business lasted a good quarter of an hour, and was not easy. The more vigorous of the wors.h.i.+ppers put up an energetic resistance.

"The above is only a casual instance, chosen at random. What is certain is that these peoples do not yet understand what we mean by exact.i.tude, and that the concept of a well-regulated existence has not yet penetrated their heads."[97]

What has just been written of course applies primarily to the ignorant ma.s.ses. But this att.i.tude of mind is more or less common to all cla.s.ses of Oriental peoples. The habits of centuries are not easily transformed.

In fact, it must not be forgotten that the upper cla.s.ses were able to enjoy most fully the capricious personal liberty of the unmodified East, and that, therefore, though they may be better able to understand the value of Westernization, they have in one sense the most to lose.[98]

In fact, for all Orientals, high and low alike, the "good old times"