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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781842774700 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication date: | 10/04/2005 |
| Edition description: | Special and 1985/Chicago Bears/20 Annivers ed. |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.85(d) |
About the Author
He is the author of Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom (Zed 2003)
Alan George gained his PhD, on Syria, at Durham in 1978. Since 1984 he has worked as a freelance jourbanalist and researcher, contributing to a wide range of UK and international publications including the Observer, the Independent and the Guardian, and commentating on Middle Eastern affairs for radio and television. He is a former assistant director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), of whose Executive Committee he has been a member for many years. He has visited Syria repeatedly since 1967.
He is the author of Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom (Zed 2003)
Read an Excerpt
Jordan
Living in the Crossfire
By Alan George
Zed Books Ltd
Copyright © 2005 Alan GeorgeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84813-152-1
CHAPTER 1
'Fulfilling our Promises': The Creation of Jordan
'HE IS A HERO for another country, not for us', declared Bassam Saket, urbane, Oxford-educated chairman of the Jordan Securities Commission – the agency that regulates the Amman stock exchange – and a former minister of trade and industry. 'He was a British officer who helped his own country's cause' in a campaign that 'ended up in disappointment for the Arabs', he told me during our meeting at his well-appointed office. 'The freedom-fighters were stabbed in the back'. Laith Shubailat, Islamist, civil engineer, ex-MP and leading democracy campaigner who in November 1992 was sentenced to death but pardoned 48 hours later, takes the same view. T. E. Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia – was 'an instrument of the British government who felt ashamed of himself for helping his government lie to the Arabs'. Even more caustic was Dr Mustafa Hamarneh, a connoisseur of Cuban cigars who directs the University ofJordan's Centre for Strategic Studies. 'Jordanians don't know him. They just know he was some white man who ran around in the desert'.
It's a far cry from the Western love-affair with the Lawrence myth, a tale of courage and derring-do set against the vastness and purity of the desert. 'I was fascinated by Lawrence', said Wilfred Thesiger, the greatest of modern desert travellers, whose crossing of Arabia's Empty Quarter is chronicled in his classic Arabian Sands. 'How others have tried to diminish him! Rubbish! I stand no talk against Lawrence!'1 met Thesiger, a figure in his way as enigmatic as Lawrence, at his nursing home in Coulsdon on the Surrey Downs, shortly before his death. At age 94 his eyes still shone with the vigour that once propelled him across the arid sand seas.
Sharif Hussain ibn Ali was not only the ruler of Islam's holiest city of Mecca and a Hashemite – a member of the Prophet Muhammad's branch of the Quraish tribe; he was also a direct descendant of the Prophet. These attributes underpinned his claim to leadership of the nationalist movement that was stirring in the Ottoman Empire's Arab territories early last century. In June 1916, when Sharif Hussain launched the Arab Revolt against the Turks, setting in train events that shape the Middle East to this day, Lawrence was a young Arabist officer based at British headquarters in Cairo. Posted as liaison officer to the rebels, Lawrence fought with them throughout their campaign. Bedu tribesmen formed the core of the rag-tag Sharifian army although its ranks also included numbers of Arab officers and men from the towns and settled agricultural areas of Iraq and Syria who had defected from the Ottoman forces. The army was commanded by Hussain's third son, the Amir (Prince) Faisal.
Having taken control of the Hejaz – the mountainous western region of the Arabian Peninsula lapped by the Red Sea – the rebels moved into Greater Syria – the territory today fractured into Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. North of the Hejaz, they operated in tandem with a British army, commanded initially by Sir Archibald Murray and then, more successfully, by General Edmund Allenby, that had invaded Palestine along the coast from Egypt. For both the British and the Arabs, the prize was Damascus, that greatest of all Arab cities. While the British advanced via a series of set-piece battles, Faisal's highly mobile, camel-mounted irregulars harassed the Turks and disrupted their communications along the desert fringe to the east. A key target for the guerrillas was the Hejaz Railway, a 1,320 kilometre narrow gauge line linking Damascus and Medina built by the Ottomans with German technical assistance in 1900-08. Ostensibly, Sultan Abdul Hamid had launched the project to facilitate the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Its rolling stock included a novel mosque carriage with a large open floor area for prayers and a two-metre minaret that could be retracted to permit passage through tunnels. But the railway also had a critical strategic role as an imperial artery, supplying Turkish garrisons and outposts in a part of the Empire where the Ottomans' grip was tenuous. The fast-moving, colourful and decisive Middle Eastern war was a welcome diversion for a British public horrified by the slaughter in Flanders, where bloody advances and retreats were measured in metres. Faisal took Aqaba, at the head of the Red Sea, in July 1917 and Amman – today Jordan's capital but then little more than a large village – in September. Jerusalem fell to the British three months later. The first British unit – actually the Third Australian Division – entered Damascus on 1 October 1918, to be followed the next day by Amir Nasir, the brother of the Amir of Medina (Islam's second holiest city) and one of the key Sharifian leaders, Lawrence and the bedu, and on 3 October by Amir Faisal, who arrived on a Hejaz Railway train.
The Arab Revolt had been launched only after discreet negotiations with the British. In 1915–16 Sharif Hussain and Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, exchanged a series of letters known as the McMahon Correspondence. These outlined a quid pro quo under which Britain agreed to reward an Arab rebellion against its Turkish foe by recognising the independence of the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire, within certain limits. Britain excluded from the region where independence would apply the areas west of Mersin and Alexandretta, at the junction of Anatolia and Syria; the coastal regions to the west of a line linking the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus; and the Ottoman vilayets, or provinces, of Baghdad and Basra. It also stipulated that Arab independence would apply only where that did not conflict with the interests of its wartime ally, France. Hussain did not accept the British territorial exemptions. In the interests of securing a workable alliance, however, the two sides agreed to leave these outstanding issues for future discussion.
Perfidy
Perfidious Albion did not gain its appellation for nothing. At the same time as it was urging Sharif Hussain to rebel with promises of Arab independence, London was quietly negotiating a separate deal with France and Russia on the shape of a post-Ottoman Middle East. Concluded in May 1916, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, named after its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes, under-secretary to the War Cabinet, and François Georges-Picot, former French consul general in Beirut, divided the Arab Middle East north of the Arabian Peninsula into French and British spheres of influence. The French were allocated a zone corresponding roughly to modern Lebanon, Syria and northern Iraq while the British were allocated an area corresponding to modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq. At Russian insistence, Jerusalem and a part of Palestine were designated for some form of international administration in recognition of their religious significance. The Sykes-Picot Agreement – made public by the Russians after the 1917 Revolution – plainly conflicted with the British assurances in the Hussain-McMahon Correspondence. As if this was not enough, on 2 November 1917 the British issued the Balfour Declaration, named after the Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour. Concluded after negotiations with the Zionist movement, the Declaration affirmed that 'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object'. In a qualification that with hindsight looks at best naive and at worst cruelly cynical, the Declaration insisted that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'.
The capture of Damascus sealed the fate of Ottoman rule over the Arabs. But the latters' euphoria was short-lived. On 30 September 1918 supporters of the Arab Revolt in Damascus had proclaimed an Arab government loyal to Sharif Hussain, who in October 1916 had been proclaimed 'King of the Arabs' by religious and other notables in Mecca although Britain recognised him only as King of the Hejaz. His son Faisal took charge of the Damascus government, albeit that Britain remained the real power in Syria. Faisal, with Lawrence as his adviser, attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where they pressed in vain for the promises to the Arabs to be fulfilled. The treaties agreed in Paris provided for the former possessions of the defeated Germans and Ottomans to be administered as mandates, under the supervision of a new international body, the League of Nations. Officially, the mandates were intended to prepare the former colonies for independence. In reality, they represented a means by which France and the United Kingdom could maintain their interests under a slightly more benevolent guise than crude imperialism. It was agreed that France should have a mandate for Syria (including the area now comprising Lebanon) while Britain should have Palestine (including the area now comprising Jordan) and Iraq.
Shortly after Faisal's administration was established in Damascus the French had landed troops in Beirut, and in November 1919 Britain withdrew its forces from Syria to make way for the French. To pre-empt French designs, a General Syrian Congress of nationalist figures convened in Damascus in March 1920 and elected Faisal king of a united Syria – i.e. of the territory today encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Twenty-nine Iraqis present proclaimed Faisal's elder brother, Abdullah, king of an independent Iraq. They were vain gestures. To formalise what had already been agreed in Paris, Britain and France hastily convened a meeting at San Remo of the Supreme Council of the League of Nations. On 5 May 1920 this granted France mandates over Syria and Lebanon and gave Britain mandates over Palestine and Iraq. Transjordan the territory east of the Jordan river – was not explicitly mentioned, but as it formed part of the Sykes-Picot Agreement's zone of British influence it was understood to form part of the Palestine mandate. French troops moved inland into Syria and, after defeating a hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned Syrian irregular force at the Pass of Maisaloun, occupied Damascus on 25 July 1920. Faisal was forced into exile, although by way of compensation the British installed him as king of Iraq the following year.
Despite the November 1918 signing of the armistice that formally ended the war in Europe, Fakhri Pasha, the commander of the Turkish garrison of Medina in the Hejaz, remained defiant until January 1919, when his own men forced him to capitulate. When Faisal had led his army north into Syria, Abdullah had stayed behind to act as his father's foreign minister and military chief in the Hejaz. The Medina garrison's surrender freed him to counter a new challenge to his family's ambitions, this time coming not from the imperial powers but from the central Arabian Peninsula. There, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, a tribal shaikh inspired by Wahhabism, a form of Islamic fundamentalism, was rapidly extending his rule, his formidable Ikhwan ('Brotherhood') fighters winning a string of victories against neighbouring rivals. By spring 1919 Ibn Saud was threatening the oases of Khurma and Turaba on the eastern borders of the Hejaz. On 21 May Abdullah captured Turaba. Within days the Ikhwan responded, to devastating effect. Abdullah's army was cut to shreds and he barely escaped with his life. 'The battle of Turaba was a turning point in Abdullah's life and in the history of Arabia', wrote the American historian Mary Wilson in her fascinating account of Jordan's creation and early history. 'From that time on, Husayn and his sons were on the defensive while Ibn Saud grew inexorably more powerful'.
By late summer 1920 Sharif Hussain's grandiose scheme for Arab independence under his family's rule was in tatters. His Hejaz kingdom was under pressure from Ibn Saud and Greater Syria and Iraq were under French and British control. Abdullah, no less than his father, felt cheated. His bitterness was fuelled by jealousy of his younger brother, Faisal, whom the British apparently intended to install on the Iraqi throne even though Abdullah felt that his claim to Iraq was stronger than Faisal's. Boxed in, Abdullah suddenly changed tack.
North to Ma'an
During the brief Syrian monarchy, Transjordan had been administered – nominally at least – from Damascus. With Paris and San Remo, it fell nominally within the Palestine mandate, constituting a land bridge between British-ruled Palestine and Iraq. The precise borders of 'Palestine' had yet to be defined formally, however, and the Jordan river was the effective eastern limit of direct British control. Transjordan was thus a sparsely populated political and military no man's land located between Palestine proper, to the west, Syria to the north, the Hejaz and Najd to the south and south-east and Iraq to the east. Without pre-emptive action, London feared that the vacuum might be filled either by the French from the north or by Ibn Saud and the Wahhabis from the south-east. But Britain, exhausted after the Great War, was disinclined to commit the necessary funds and manpower to assert direct control. As a stopgap, it opted for local autonomy under British influence. In August 1920 Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner in Palestine, travelled to Salt to outline Britain's prescription to a gathering of 600 Transjordanian dignitaries. The outcome was a series of three British-advised mini-states. In the north was the Government of Ajloun, based in Irbid. To its south was the Government of Salt, based in the eponymous town; and in the south was the grandly named Government of Moab, centred on Karak. Underlining Transjordan's lack of political cohesion, even these statelets quickly fractured. Ajloun split into four: Irbid, Ajloun, Mazar and Jerash. In the south, the small towns of Tafila and Wadi Musa sought autonomy from Karak. 'With the powerful tribal confederations of the hinterland beginning to reassert themselves, the reach of the Karak government was by mid-November limited to the town itself ', records Oxford University's Philip Robins.
After the French occupation of Syria, nationalists had fled south to Amman, whence they had been calling on Abdullah to lead a campaign to recover Syria. In autumn 1920 he responded dramatically. Having agreed a truce with Ibn Saud, Abdullah gathered a force of tribesmen variously estimated at between 300 and 2,000 strong, went by camel caravan from Mecca to Medina and thence travelled by train to the small oasis town of Ma'an, today in southern Jordan but then in the kingdom of Hejaz. He arrived on 21 November 1920, basing himself at the railway station, a substantial but graceful structure of golden local limestone with a gabled roof which today houses a museum celebrating the exploits of Abdullah and his heirs. The following day Abdullah addressed a message to 'our Syrian brethren', urging them to join him in a march on Damascus to liberate Syria from the French usurpers and avenge his brother's exile. The threat was 'probably spurious and certainly unrealistic, since Abdullah was no military genius'. More likely it was 'a desperate attempt to bring himself forcefully to Britain's attention' as a first step in salvaging at least something of his family's dreams. Abdullah remained in Ma'an for three months awaiting the British reaction and putting in place the foundations of a power base, receiving delegations of local bedu chiefs and other notables, and of nationalist ex-colleagues of Faisal. Initially, Abdullah's audacious move threw the British off-balance but it forced them to focus their minds. A key concern was that he might complicate Britain's relations with France, and Abdullah plainly understood that this was his strongest card. Although his army was small it was sufficient to worry the French who were already facing armed resistance from nationalists in Syria. Paris pressed London to neutralise the threat by ejecting Abdullah from Transjordan. By early 1921 London had decided that Transjordan should be included formally in its Palestine mandate; that as a gesture to the wartime promises to the Arabs, the territory should be exempted from the mandate's provisions concerning a Jewish National Home; and that Abdullah should shelve his declared designs on Syria and instead head a British-sponsored Transjordanian administration.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Jordan by Alan George. Copyright © 2005 Alan George. Excerpted by permission of Zed Books Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction Chronology Vital StatisticsPART ONE: JORDAN 1: 'Fulfilling our Promises': The Creation of Jordan 2: 'Neither Democrat nor Demagogue': Jordan under King Hussain 3: 'Bread before Freedom': Jordan under King Abdullah IIPART TWO: JORDANIANS 4: Abdullah bin Al-Hussain: King 5: Barjas al-Hadid: Tribal Shaikh 6: Rajai Khoury: Businessman 7: 'Abd al-Fatah al-Bustani: Dentist 8: Abu Muhammad: Taxi driver 9: Awad ash-Shubaiki: Farmer 10: Anisa Salim: Palestinian refugeePART THREE : INSTITUTIONS 11: The 'Stratified Elite' : The Royal Family and Royal Court 12: 'Strengthening the Moderate Majority': Parliament and Parties 13: 'The Basis of Governance': The Legal System 14: The Sky's the Limit: The Media 15: 'Investing in a Mobile Resource': Higher Education 16: Visions and Realities: The Future Select Bibliography Index