WHY AMANULLAH FELL

Hokitika Guardian, 11 July 1929, Page 2

WHY AMANULLAH FELL

TRAITORS ON HIS STAFF

(By SIR I’ERCLYAL PHILLIPS.) . The rise and fall of the ex-King Amanullah of Afghanistan is a melan- ■ holy example of the inability ol even an absolute monarch to modernise his kingdom overnight. He was the most enthusiastic reform’ er I have ever met. During the voyage from ...embay to Egypt in the P. and O. liner Bajputana a year and a hall ago, when he was on his way to Europe, he could scarcely talk of anything hut his plan for making Afghanistan a civilised State on Western lines. He was like a father intent on giving his children a better education than he himself had enjoyed. He had always been like that. When be came to the throne be startled the country by abolishing certain oldfashioned restrictions of the Royal Court. He surrounded himself with advisers from Europe who were experts in road-building, architecture, railway construction, sanitation, and townplanning.

HIGH PRIESTS ANGERED. •’ ! I Naturally, he brooked no opposition and bis officials did not dare offer even a suggestion that ran counter to the Hoyal will, i It was not until the fanatical Mullahs, the high priests of Islam, declared themselves against the ed 'caiion of women on European lines and their greater freedom that the tide of publ.c (.pinion began to turn against him.

He was determined to release the women from their seclusion behind the veil. This was evident the morning alter the Rajpatana put to sea, when the Queen and her ladies appeared for the first time in their lives in public without ve 's, and mingled freely and naturally with other passengers.

The Queen, her sisters and the sister of the King, who were of the party dir 1 noi. disguise their de’.iglit at thus being placed on an. equal 'footing with the women of non- Mohammedan countries They were eager to do as the latter did in other respects. When they saw men and women dancing to'ether for the first t ine, the night after the voyage l-egan -hoy asked permission to dance as well. “Not now-.” said the ex-King, “you must wait until you get to Europe.” Wl-rn they were forced to veil again on going ashore at Aden and Port Said it was done with open reluctance. I saw the Queen re-embark from a launch, and throw off the hateful covc’dng b<» f ore she 4\(as hallway up the companion ln klei'/;f':|

lALKS ON THE‘TOY AGE. During the voyage < the King talked to any passenger who showed the slightest interest in Afghanistan and always of his reforms. He would talk for hours of the new capital he had laid out at Kabul; the fine buildings which had already been erected, and those which had been planned; the improved system o'f roads intended to open up hitherto inaccessible regions, and extended their trade the new telephone service, the local markets and trade fairs organised by him and, above all, the chain of schools being established throughout the kingdom for the education of the masses. Unfortunately he had to contend with difficulties of a kind not unusual in Afghanistan. He could not rely implicity on the loyalty of certain officials The Governer of Kabul, Ali Ahmed Khan, that fine large man with the heavy blue-back moustache who figured so prominently in official photographs, was suspected of having designs on the throne. He married the King’s sister, but that fact did not weigh so much with the ex-King, when he ordered the Governor to make the Grand Tour, as the fear that he might make mischief if lie remained at Kabul Amanullah’s suspicions were well founded. When the revolt came...the Governor of Kabul took the field with a following of his own, and tried to make himself king.

Another member of the party, Gludam Sadiq, who came to Europe as Acting Foreign Minister, made no secret of his anti-British sentiments, and his scorn of the ex-King’s schemes for reform, He was in close touch with the Soviet Government. \

Amanullah returned to Afghanistan more enthusiastic than ever ifor the Westernisation of/the country in the shortest possible time. He was profoundly impressed by the changes in Turkey and by his interviews with Kemal Pasha at Angora. What Kemal Pasha had done he thought he could do, and as quickly. He did not realise that the Turks were a coherent, disciplined, entirely submissive people, ready to obey the Ghazi in all things, and that the power of Islam was broken. The ex-King has decided personal charm. He is an alert little man, intensely interested in all that he sees and hears, a great gentleman in his own way, with a strong sense of humour and a remarkable memory. He convinced nil who came in contact with him of his sincere and wholehearted devotion to his country, and of his desire to make it a strong and progressive nation.