SIDE GLANCE AT SYRIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1943, Page 4

SIDE GLANCE AT SYRIA

PART & PLACE IN THE WAR LINK WITH ARAB RACES. TERRITORY STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT. (By Violet Alleyn Storey, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) Syria has rightly been referred to as the keystone in the arch of United Nations defences in the Near East. Had Syria been invaded by the Nazis—a prospect once greatly feared —not only would Great Britain have been obliged to forfeit her control of Near Eastern affairs from Haifa to the Persian Gulf but the valuable oil wells of Iran and Iraq would have been endangered. In fact, the present war might already have been lost to the Allies in Syria.

Three years ago, in June of 1940, Syria stood in grave danger of Nazi domination through the Vichy government in France. Under Turkish domination from the sixteenth century until the close of the first world war, Syria was made a French mandate in 1920. It was as a protest against the Vichyites that, on September 27, 1941, Syria proclaimed herself an independent nation, to be known thenceforth as the Republic of Syria, and named as its President, Sheik Taj Eddm Hassani. f

Although Sheik Hassani appealed, last September, on the first anniversary of Syria’s Independence Day, to the President of the United States for the recognition by this country of Syria s independence, no formal recognition has yet been made by the American Government. However, Syrian Independence Day was openly and joyously celebrated by all Americans of Syrian origin. On that first Syrian Independence Day. this writer happened to be a guest in the Manhattan home of a family of loyal Americans, all of whom were born in Damascus. Three still young men of the family had served in the United States Army in the last war and all were eager to be accepted for military service in this war. Another brother, too old for active service in the armed forces, had volunteered to do work of a propaganda nature for the United States War Department. It was he who pointed out that, not only is Syria itself of strategic importance to the Allies but the attitude taken by the Syrians themselves in the present conflict is of the utmost importance. “Just as Syria is the keystone in the arch of British defences in the Near East,” this gentleman observed, “so are the Syrians themselves the arbiters of Arab opinion throughout the Arab ( world, so to speak, beyond the borders of Syria.” “I have noticed,” this writer remarked, “that you speak of Syrian-born Americans like yourself as ‘Americans of Arab origin.’ Are the Syrians actually Arabs?” Her host smiled and then answered: “It is, I suppose, the propagandist m me- —speaking of ourselves in that way, for, you see, we have stressed our Arab origin in making an appeal to Arabs everywhere to support the United Nations and to ignore the false overtures of the Nazis. Our propaganda, let me assure you, makes no false promises but is always truthful, while that of the Nazis, as we try to make plain io the Arabs in all lands, is viciously false and outrageously mendacious. But. to answer your question, all Syrians undoubtedly have some Arab blood in their veins, being a mixed race, fundamentally of Aramaean stock and, of course, we recognise Arabic as our native tongue. We possess, therefore, in common with Arabs all over the world, the same language.” “The Syrians are, I take it,” this writer ventured, “fully in sympathy with the United Nations.”

■Fully.” her host replied proudly

“Although their racial memories are neither of freedom nor of democracy —of peace or of plenty —the Syrians arc natural lovers of freedom and natural advocates of a democratic way of life. If I may say so, they are peaceloving, generous, hospitable, kind, philosophical, poetical and, at the same time. practical in their outlook upon daily living. Naziism represents the antithesis of all they care for, individually and. collectively. In many ways, the American and the Syrian have much in common. The German and the Syrian nothing at all. In Syria, Nazi propaganda has gotten nowhere, and the Syrians and the Americans of Syrian, or Arab, origin are desirous that none of Arab origin anywhere shall be misled by it. Britain did not conquer Syria in the last war or. rather, the Allies did not. They delivered the Syrians from the Turks. So, in this war, the Allies have prevented Syria and the Syrians from falling' into Nazi hands and have permitted Syrian independence to evolve.”

Casting a side glance at Syria, aware of the part she has already played as a point of mobilisation for a huge army, one wonders what part she is destined soon to play. *