ANGLO-RUSSIAN FRIENDSHIP A VITAL NECESSITY FOR PEACE AND PROGRESS IN ASIA—MOSLEMS AND TURKISH RULE—ARMENIANS PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC BY TEMPERAMENT
The exaggerated panegyrics on the virtues of the Turk, while the Turk is at war with England and her Allies and Turkish emissaries are busy making all the mischief they can among loyal subjects of the British Empire, exploiting religion as a weapon of squalid intrigue, point to the existence of influences which have been at work ever since Turkey joined the war, to screen from public view and to palliate the enormity of Turkish perfidy in making common cause with England's enemies in the hour of England's difficulty. These same influences seem to regard with disfavour the growth of Anglo-Russian friendship and would apparently not be sorry to see some hitch or other occur that would weaken or endanger the permanence of that friendship.
This may be an unfounded assumption, and I hope it is. But if these pro-Turkish and anti-Russian influences exist in fact, and gain enough strength to exercise any influence on the course of events after the war, it will be a calamity for the smaller nations of the Near and Middle East, and in fact for all Asia. It will be a hindrance and a deterrent to the tranquillity and development that has been so long denied to these regions. Close and cordial friendship between England and Russia are almost as indispensable a condition of life and growth and progress to these backward countries as light and heat. It is scarcely for me to say that it is also necessary for the future peace of Asia and the world. The unnatural and unfounded mutual distrust that shadowed Anglo-Russian relations throughout almost the whole of the past century has been chiefly responsible for the woes and miseries of the peoples of the Near East, Moslems as well as Christians. It has kept back the clock of progress and civilization for at least fifty years. We have felt its effect in our daily lives and regard any prospect of its return with the utmost apprehension and regret. Pan-Turanian intrigues under the cloak of Pan-Islamism will not end with the war. They will be continued after the war by their protagonists, whose chief concern is, not the interests of the Mohammedan religion, but the unscrupulous exploitation of religious sentiment for personal ends, and the disturbance of the tranquillity and ordered government which in the present chaotic state of these countries are only possible under the strong and just arm of British, Russian, or French protection. Any weakening in Anglo-Russian friendship would give these intriguers their chance, of which they would not be slow to take the fullest advantage, with injurious consequences to the countries concerned and to the general interests of peace. The best elements of Islam, and specially the peasant populations which form the vast majority of the Moslem world, know and have proved by their loyalty that they have nothing to fear from Britain, Russia and France, who have always not only respected, but fostered their religious interests and given them, in addition, the inestimable blessings of freedom, justice, security and prosperity such as they could never expect to enjoy under any other rÉgime.
It is idle to pretend that any subject race loves any form of domination for its own sake. But many races and countries in Asia and Africa are so situated that independence is beyond the bounds of practicability. Any change would result in an exchange of one domination for another. Some forms of domination are sincerely welcomed because, as against the evil of domination, they have not only conferred upon the peoples under their rule benefits and blessings which they themselves could not possibly have achieved, but have allowed them freedom of development on their national lines. Such in varying degrees is the nature of British, French, Russian, and I may add, Dutch dominion over the alien races under their rule. What has Turkish domination been to its subject races? An unmitigated curse to Christian, Moslem and Jew alike, with this difference, that while the Moslem and Jew have been reduced by merciless taxation and robbery to extreme poverty, the Christian races have been bled almost to death. The Turks have deliberately fostered the criminal propensities of large sections of their people and encouraged their free indulgence to check the growth and progress of the moral and civilizing elements in their dominions. If some of the Moslems of India, Egypt or Tunis, whose sympathy with the Turks on religious grounds every one will understand and respect, would live under Turkish rule for a few months, I have no doubt they would be completely cured of their love for the Turk as such, hasten back to their homes and beg the British and the French to remain in their countries for ever. Similarly, if it were possible for the most rabid pro-Turks in this or any European country to live some time under the Turk, disguised as Armenians or Syrians, they would also be cured and more than cured of their admiration for the Turk; then only would they come to understand his real nature.
The following account of the experiences of some Indian pilgrims at Kerbela at the outbreak of war, which appeared in The Times of June 6, 1916, bears out my contention—
"The Bombay Government have published the story of an Indian Moslem pilgrim, Zakir Husain, who recently escaped from Kerbela (Baghdad Vilayet), whither he went on pilgrimage with his mother and sister in the summer of 1914.
"Zakir Husain states that after the outbreak of war all routes homewards were blocked, and the many Indian pilgrims at Kerbela were subjected to the utmost discomfort and cruelty. The Turkish authorities issued orders that the goods and women of Indians were the legal property of those who plundered them. Their houses were searched, their goods taken, and dozens of Indians were arrested and deported to the Aleppo side, while their families and children were left in Kerbela.
"Throughout these fourteen months," he continued, "we never got meals more than once a day. We could not get any work, and consequently we had to beg from door to door in order to get a few scraps of bread to eat, and the state of the women and children was worse even than that of the men. For a man to be an Indian was considered a sufficient reason by Turks to torture and imprison him. We protested that we were Moslems, but they never paid heed. They themselves are no Moslems, and do not act according to the precepts of Islam. According to what I heard, the Indians in Nejef, Kazimain, and Baghdad have also been treated in the same cruel way as we were; hundreds have been deported and their houses pillaged."
The following from The Times of December 26, 1916, is another illustration of the way Turks treat Moslems of another race who refuse to become the blind slaves of their political madness—
"Emir Faisal, commander of the Arabian forces in the vicinity of Medina, has telegraphed to Mecca stating that the Turks have hanged and crucified and employed every species of barbarity against the population of Medina."
Turn now from that picture to the following appeal made to Armenians by one of their principal Tiflis daily papers, Mschak (Labourer), of May 16, 1915—
"To-day the Moslem Benevolent Society is organizing a collection for building and maintaining a shelter for the children of the (Moslem) refugees. War causes suffering to the population of the country without distinction of race or creed. Moslems as well as Christians have to face the effects of the war, therefore the scheme of the Moslem Benevolent Society to establish a shelter for the children of Moslem refugees is deserving of all sympathy and support. We are convinced that the Armenian community also, having in mind the universal idea of humanity, will take part in the collection and do their duty as a humane people and good neighbours."
These incidents, small in themselves, bring into strong relief the difference between the mentality and degree of civilization of the two races. The Armenian appeal on behalf of refugee Moslem children at a time when one half of their own race was in the throes of the most ferocious of the numerous attacks made upon its existence, is also incidentally a reply, more trenchant than the most eloquent argument in words, to those pro-Turks who have from time to time expressed fears for the rights of the Turks, Kurds, Tcherkesses, Kizilbashis, etc., in an autonomous Armenia. Such a fear is either due to ignorance of the characteristics of the races concerned, or to prejudice. It is inconceivable that any Armenian Government would tolerate, much less impose upon orderly and good citizens, an injustice which Armenians have themselves endured and struggled against for generations, and which is, for that reason, abhorrent to their very nature. A study of the Armenian Church organization will prove to the most sceptical that the Armenian temperament is essentially democratic. In the smallest village the candidate for priesthood must be elected by a vote of the inhabitants before he can be ordained by the bishop of the diocese. The Armenian deputies in the Russian State Duma as well as the late members of the Ottoman Parliament are and were supporters of the Progressives. Armenians who have risen to positions of influence in the service of foreign countries have invariably used their influence in the cause of progress. General Loris Melikoff as Minister of the Interior had actually prepared a scheme for the reform of the Government of Russia when his Imperial Master, the Czar Alexander II, died, and the scheme was shelved. Nubar Pasha, the famous Egyptian-Armenian statesman, for many years Prime Minister, was largely responsible for the abolition of the corvÉe in Egypt, and the introduction of many other reforms. The writer of Nubar Pasha's biography in the EncyclopÆdia Britannica, referring to his substitution of Mixed Courts in place of the "Capitulations," says (Eleventh Ed., Vol. 19, p. 843), "That in spite of the jealousies of all the Powers, in spite of the opposition of the Porte, he should have succeeded, places him at once in the first rank of statesmen of his period." Prince Malcolm Khan, for some years Persian Minister in London, sowed the first seeds of constitutional government in Persia, for the defence of which another Armenian, Yeprem Khan, laid down his life while leading the constitutional struggle against Mohamed Ali Shah. The first constitution of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Midhat Constitution, was largely the work of Midhat Pasha's Armenian Under-Secretary, Odian Effendi. These are but a few outstanding instances. It must appear inconceivable to right-minded men that a race with such a past record, achieved under all sorts of handicaps, will either establish a rÉgime of tyranny over other races or prove incapable of self-government after a transition period under European advisers, as is alleged by some.
