Nearly a century of tragedy and
instability seen in the Middle East could have been avoided or at least
mitigated if the promises made to the leaders of the Arab Revolt during
World War I had been honoured instead of dividing the region into
"artificial nations", said a biographer of Lawrence of Arabia.
And
the way the Ottoman empire in the Middle East was carved out by two
relatively junior officials - Mark Sykes for Britain and Francois George
Picot for France - even as the war was in progress would have been
comic had it not been for the consequences that have followed and the
anti-Western feeling it has engendered, said Scott Anderson, author of
"Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the making of the
Modern Middle East".
But the Arab Spring and recent events
indicate that the final dismantling of "artificial nations" like Iraq,
Libya, Syria and maybe later even Jordan has begun and the region will
return to the shape it held during the Ottoman empire, Anderson said at a
session on the opening day of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2015.
"Iraq
has effectively been three countries for some time now... similarly
Libya which again seems to be breaking into the three 'vilayets'
(provinces) it was under Ottoman rule," he said.
"The Ottoman
empire is seen as lousy but they were clever... tribes had autonomy. So
long they paid taxes, they were entitled to self-rule, the
decentralisation and the lack of central cohesion kept their empire
together," he said.
The Arab revolt's success was followed by
British or French rule, where the Shakesparean tragedy of Lawrence
arose - the increasingly divided man who inspired and led the Arabs to
freedom on the basis of promises he knew his country had no intention of
keeping, while trying to stay loyal to his country, Anderson said.
"Lawrence
was aware of the Sykes-Picot agreement but he tried to oppose it - even
telling Prince Feisal (to who he was the British liason) of its
provisions. He perhaps knew it would have been folly to bring the region
under its control," he said.
Anderson said this was based on
Lawrence's knowledge of the mosaic of tribes and clans of Arabian
society and how it would make them ungovernable under a central
authority - and his experience then of how the Egyptians (under British
rule since the 1880s) were chafing and the difficulties the French faced
in Morocco.
And Lawrence's achievements were considerable - given the circumstances.
"Lawrence
had a touch of genius .. otherwise how could have a 28-year-old junior
officer with no combat training become a battlefield commander," he
said, adding this was possible to him being "the right person at the
right time". "An eccentric Oxford scholar had great freedom of movement
with the region seen as a backwater in the conflict," Anderson said.
But
Lawrence was not alone. There was an American oil operative who became
the chief field agent for the region - but saw all his analysis go
wrong, said Anderson.
Anderson is a long time journalist with
several books to his credit but the Lawrence book is his first book of
history. He says what drew him to profile Lawrence was the fascinating
story of a man who became a matinee figure in his time, was later almost
forgotten until the David Lean movie in 1962 resurrected his reputation
- at least in the West.
"He is, however, not seen in similar
light in the Middle East. One, because there is legitimate resentment
that the Arab 'creation story' has a white guy at the helm. And then in
view of what happened, they suspect he was a British agent all along,"
he said.
"Lawrence's enduring legacy is the great lost
opportunity that could have prevented or at least mitigated a century of
tragedy in the region," he said.
"All other insurgencies, be it
the Colombian rebels or the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, were fighting
for something but the Arabs were only fighting against something - the
Western imperialism that fostered a culture of grievances," noted
Anderson.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at [email protected])
