The Story of Iraq

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20284, 28 August 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

The Story of Iraq

A STRANGE DEMOCRACY :: STRONG NATIONAL SPIRIT

(English Paper.)

OF ALL THE STRANGE NATIONS which were created by pen and ink at the Treaty of Versailles, perhaps the strangest of all was Iraq. Taking a handful of Arabs, a few Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Persians, and lesser breeds, the diplomats created a kingdom which now occupies a seat on the League of Nations, and has its own sovereign, its own diplomats, and even the germ of a strong nationalist spirit. * To most of us the name Iraq suggests very little. It is a shadowy little kingdom, tucked away between Arabia and Persia and running like an arrowhead from Turkey and Syria down to the Persian Gulf. Its older name of Mesopotamia suggests more to anyone who is old enough to remember what happened before 1918. But the pedigree of Iraq is probably the longest and most honourable of any nation in the world. Its capital, Bagdad, is a survival from the “Arabian Nights,” and its great river, the Euphrates, is named in the Book of Genesis as one of the four rivers which Watered the Garden of Eden. When Iraq was carved out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire Great Britain was appointed tutor to watch over the young Government and bring it to years of discretion. The Iraq Government had a difficult task trying to convert the hardy bands of Bedouins into respectable taxpayers, and it was fortunate to have the shadow, and sometimes the substance, of the Royal Air Force at its back to suppress revolts and maintain order. Mr A. D. Macdonald was one of the intelligence officers attached to the Air Force, whose duty was to learn all that was to be learned about the habits, the feelings, the political sympathies, and the religious zeal of the tribes and their leaders. He had to decide when an administrative venture from Bagdad was likely to cause trouble, and thus involve the Air Force and the British taxpayer. To do this ho had to exile himself and his family in obscure Arab towns on the banks of the ancient Euphrates. He had to keep watch over the hundreds of thousands of the worshippers of Islam who went about the streets, paddled in rice fields, drove sheep, or rode their camels in the desert. He had to talk with them, gain their confidence, and understand them. In {loing so he gained an insight into the East and its ways of which few travellers can boast. The record of his observations is set forth in prose of unusual suppleness and eloquence in a recently-published book, “Euphrates. Exile.” In a world where democracy is tottering so precariously, it is reassuring to learn that the Turkish despotism •has been replaced by a sound democratic system, of which Abraham Lincoln might have approved. A general election in Iraq has unusual features, but it serves its purpose admirably. Before the election there is a complicated process whereby a group of 50 secondary electors is chosen from each sub-district. As there are no records showing who exists and who does not, the officials are forced to rely largely on their own judgment in Picking Out the Squad of Dignitaries to represent the wishes of the people in the main election. The names of the. Government candidates are circulated, and on the appointed day the secondary electors gallop in to the district headquarters, and are told the names they are to mark. As most of them are illiterate, the obliging clerks rectify their mistakes before putting the votes into the ballot-box. While the votes are being counted the electors hover round in groups, relishing the sense of their own importance. The names of the successful Government candidates are then read aloud. Each, unless there has been a clerical error, has the same number of votes. It is rather like a senate election. The voters then retire to the coffee shops to disouss the political situation. The one innovation from the West which has instantly seized hold of the Oriental imagination, oddly enough, is the motor-car. For centuries the Arabs have been traversing the deserts slowly and awkwardly by camel train or even on foot. Distances were translated into the time they occupied, and a Sabbath day’s journey was Just as far as it was in Biblical days. Then the motor-car appeared. • There was no painful evolution as there was In the West, no absurd horseless carriage to herald the coming of the new form of transport. In a few years car roads, garages, and petrol pumps appeared where there had been nothing but camel routes. The motor-car has become the infallible sign of importance, and the tribal leader who cannot borrow enough to buy a sedan is a person of little or no consequence. The austere sheik does not feel incongruous rattling over the desert in a four-cylinder motor-car; he feels immensely happy and immensely important. The coming of the motor-car has had its effect upon the Arabs. It has produced a new race of men—the taxidrivers. Instead of the lazy, inquisitive, feckless loiterer, he has become a demon of energy and speed. With worn tyres, insufficient petrol, broken tools, and an overladen car, he will Charge Into the Desert at Breakneck Speed, or rush down the crowded street of a bazaar like the demon he is. He expects breakdowns and he gets them by the score. His clothes are sodden with grease and thick with sand, because he spends half his life changingwheels or tinkering with the engine. But he is a cheerful and tireless patcher, and he will work with feverish energy under a blazing- sun while his fare squats on the ground patiently waiting for the next start. In his four-seater the Iraq taxi-driver will cheerfully accept 14 passengers with their luggage of bedding rolls, crated chickens, water-melons, and perhaps a sheep or two. A motor-service which operates the largest buses in the world connects Bagdad with Palestine and this famous desert service is the enterprise of two New Zealanders, the Nairn brothers.

The Arab of the town is very different from the Bedouin, and the English have always preferred the hardy and independent wanderer, who sets up his tent for a night and is gone in the morning-. The sentimental tradition of the romantic sheik persists in cheap fiction, and the unsentimental admiration lavished on the desert Arab by T. E. Lawrence has had even more influence. Mr Macdonald is bold enough to say a word for the settled Arab and even the educated Arab, who wears a soft collar and a flannel' suit and talks about Arab independence. The Bedouin is a hardy fellow with the simplicity of a child and the tiresome persistence if one. Although he is often poverty stricken and dirty, he welcomes the British intelligence officer with dignified ritual, and slaughters a sheep, which he can ill afford, in his honour. Strict Bedouin morality insists that he shall be hospitable, and it also insists- that he shall not soil his hands with trade. He may gain his living by honourable robbery under arms or by any other form of extortion short of undignified begging. As this method of supporting the family has become more difficult than it was in the good old days he is usually reduced to borrowing money from wealthy merchants. Being unable to repay the debt, he is forced to part with his camels, but he escapes the stigma of having sold them. The predatory life is giving way to the parasitic, and it seems that the nomad tribes will be forced to settle and cultivate the land or beg for their bread. The holy cities of Mecca and Medin have exercised the Fascination of the Forbidden over the minds of travellers. Iraq has its holy cities as well as Arabia and Mr Macdonald’s duties have taken him down their cramped and sunless alleys, where few Europeans have been before him. Approaching Nejef over the desert the traveller sees the high glittering dome of the mosque floating upon the mirage, beckoning pilgrims to enjoy its contemplative peace after the hot, sweaty clamour of the outside world. But once inside the walls the traveller finds himself in a squalid warren of narrow alleys, crowding round the great mosque. Forty thousand Arabs live in this coffin, where the sun cannot penetrate between the high walls and where men do not wish to talk nor laugh. Once inside the holy city the spirit feels crushed, and it is the outside world which seems to glitter. “ Down the dark bazaar I pass,” he writes. “ Dull, resentful eyes, set in pallid faces, follow me as I pass each shop. Up and down glide the young religious students and alims, their minds oblivious to their own miseries, and arrogantly shut off from those of their fellows, their pulses stirring to phrases, words, ritual; their unresponsive hearts closed to every living thing. As I crush past them, in the dimness of narrow alleys, I feel the hot breath of their hatred in my face, and sense about me the obstinacies, the ruthless prejudices of a thousand weary years; the dark, undiminished ignorances and superstitions of 50 generations of humanity; generation after generation of men who have trodden down the human spirit, and have turned the ennobling words of a simple camel-driver into thongs for the binding of the human soul.” The statesmen of Iraq sitting in their offices in Bagdad, and framing laws for their free, democratic people, cannot lose sight of the grim walls of Nejef, and they must know that the gilded mosque in the desert means more to vast numbers of their people than all the Parliament buildings and Royal palaces in the world. But the progress of Iraq is unchecked. For example a German expert has been hard at work during the winter producing designs for a new town-planned Bagdad. It is, of course, not possible to do very much with the congested streets and alley-ways of the old town. But the west side of the Tigris is being developed into a very fine pity, with open avenues radiating from the Maude Bridge and fine villas stringing themselves down by the river. At North Gate and South Gate also the open spaces designed in the British building schemes since the Armistice are being further conserved, and it may be said now that all the approaches to Bagdad are Worthy of the Great and Ancient City. The airport is one of the finest in the East, although it bids fair to be outshone by the new airport at Basra, which has been moved from Shaibah (17 miles out in the desert) to Margil, on the Shatt-al-Arab, where, in one compact enclave, are the headquarters of the Port Directorate, of the British Flying Boat Squadron (No. 203 Squadron, R.A.F.), the power station and a large part of the British community. Railway expansion, too, plays a large part in Iraq’s new programme. The great driving force of Colonel J. C. Ward, Director of Railways, and formerly Director of the Port Administration, has cut down expenses, increased efficiency and seen a start made with the linking up of the Iraq railway system with the Turkish line through Anatolia to the Bosphorus. It should be noted m this regard that the new through line will run Bagdad-Maiji-Mosul and not Bagdad-Kirkuk-Mosul. In other words the line from Turkey will not touch the producing fields of the Iraq Petroleum Company. Bagdad’s stations will be linked up by a new bridge—a much-needed reform. Hikmet Sulaiman, the Prime Minister, is credited with designs for a 20 years’ plan for the regeneration and reconstruction of the country. Oil revenues ought to be increased within the next year or two, when Mosul Oilfields, Ltd., starts its production. It may be that in the interval there will be political upsets, but the money is undoubtedly there, and no future Cabinet will be permitted to reduce the pace of the reconstruction efforts that have been initiated by the present Ministers. Hilmet Sulaiman is not likely to be led away into following any pan-Arab will-o’-tne-wisp. Their motto appears to be “ Iraq for the Iraqis,” and it must be conceded that not only have they made an excellent start, but they seem to have the nation behind them.