IRAQ, THEN AND NOW
Nowhere in the war-shattered universe can we begin more speedily to make good the immense losses sustained by humanity. . . It's an immense opportunity, just at this time when the atmosphere is so emotional . . .”
- Gertrude Bell, in 1917, on the challenge of putting together worn-torn Iraq.
The challenges for invading Westerners to solve the question of Iraq in 1917 are very similar to the challenges facing the US and other occupying forces trying to reassemble it all over again just ninety years later.
In Gertrude Bell’s time, the British military had assumed control of the Mesopotamian territories previously occupied by the Turks. Then, in 1917, the British civil administration took over the problem of creating conditions for peaceful political settlement in the area. It was a daunting challenge. Arabs spoke a common language but were not a common people. Mesopotamia was not a country but a province of a derelict empire. Iraq was not a nation. The very names caused confusion. Mesopotamia, Greek for 'between the rivers', was the historic and archaeological term used in the West for what the Arabs called 'AI Iraq', 'the Iraq'.”
The retreating Turks, who in that era were practising Sunni Muslims, left behind only the animosity that they had fostered for so long in the desert between warring sheikhs. The Turkish occupiers had favoured the Sunni, building new Sunni mosques with Shia funds, and allowing Shia mosques and properties to fall into ruin.
The challenge for the British was not only to overcome the - now heightened - historic enmities between the majority Shia population and the Sunni, but also to unite the political leaders of the two religious groups.
“In a land where there were perhaps more races, creeds and allegiances than anywhere else in the world, it had to identify and engage every prominent man capable of persuading his adherents to cooperate. It had to persuade them of the benefits of the new economic initiatives and new regulations. . .No-one knew who would now own the land, or who would have to pay what taxes. Starvation, disaffection and lawlessness could well be just around the corner.”
ECHOES OF CURRENT CHAOS
This description fits almost eerily the scene in Iraq in the 21st century. The forces and the patterns echo those of 90 years ago.
Ninety years ago the occupying British administration found it could not pull the country together at once and get it running. “If Basra and Baghdad collapsed into anarchy, the army of some hundred thousand troops would not be able to hold the country down. Administrative problems were compounded by . . .an absence of co-operation (between the military and the people).”
So far, so familiar.
But in 1917 the approach to the problem was quite different. And so were some of the objectives and motives.
In 1917, “in spite of the massive difficulties, there was a noble determination on the part of Cox and his staff (the British civil administrators) to get it right. They were dedicated to instituting benevolent, effective government and serving honourably the peoples of Basra and Baghdad with their multitudinous identities and problems. It was this idea above all else that inspired and excited Gertrude Bell,” (who had spent years in the desert listening to the aspirations of the Arabs.)"
Gertrude, who helped identify a unifying leader in King Faisal – and supported him all her life - wrote: “Oh, if we can pull this thing off; rope together the young hotheads and the Shiah obscurantists, enthusiasts, polished old statesmen and scholars - if we can make them work together and find their own salvation for themselves, what a fine thing it would be. I see visions and dream dreams. . .”
Her dream of a united and peace-loving Iraq under one dynasty came true. It survived World War Two and lasted 33 years.
As Georgina Howell, author of Daughter in the Desert* wrote: “As long as Faisal lived, Iraq was a place where all its people could carry on their daily lives without fear and suffering. His son Prince Ghazi - the little boy for whom Gertrude had bought toys at Harrods - inherited the crown in 1933 and continued to rule the country strongly, perhaps too strongly: in suppressing an Assyrian uprising for independence, he allowed the massacre of 1933. After Gertrude's death, the dynasty she had put in place continued for thirty-two more years, while Europe plunged into war again after only thirteen, dragging the rest of the world with it. What would America and Britain not give today for the promise of a peaceful and well-governed Iraq for even four years?”
*Daughter of the Desert, by Georgina Bell (Macmillan, 2006) |
