Why is ISIS Attacking
France? Ho Chi Minh knew the answer in 1924.
The war in Syria has been raging for
almost a century. Control of Syria determines
control of the entire Middle East. The war is a fight between the nationalists,
who want an independent country called Syria, and the pan-Arabists who want a
return to open borders in the Middle East like those in the Ottoman Empire that
existed before World War I. This is why
the creation of Israel, at the crossroads of Africa and Asia, is such an
important and emotional issue.
After
World War I, the League of Nations awarded the
European victors mandates over areas in the Middle East. Allegedly, these mandates were temporary,
given in order to “lead the people to freedom and self-government.” That the affected people themselves had no
say in the creation of these mandates goes without saying. To the natives, the mandates looked like an
occupation by a foreign power.
France was awarded what is now Syria and Lebanon. Britain got
Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. While the formal creation of Israel had to await
the end of World War II, Jews started moving to Palestine from Europe and other
Arab countries in numbers after World War I, with every intention of creating a
Jewish State.
While World War I
was touted in the United States, as the war to end war, and to make the world
safe for democracy, in Europe it was called the Just War but it was fought to
gain and keep colonies. Often forgotten
is that many of the troops that fought in Europe came from the colonies of the combatants. Almost 100,000 Vietnamese came to Europe, and
30,000 died there. Once the war was
over, the justice and rights for which the troops were told they were fighting
were denied the very colonial soldiers who served. In the Middle East, both
Britain and France made promises to the Arabs during the war in exchange for
them rebelling against their Ottoman rulers.
But once the war ended, the victors reneged on their promises of
independence for the Arabs because the promises were incompatible with promises
made to the Jews, a bigger, stronger domestic political constituency.
Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese
Revolutionary, wrote a booklet in 1924 called The Case Against French Colonization. Although most of its 30,000 words deal with
Vietnam, there are occasional references to France’s other colonies in Africa
and Asia. Here is what he wrote about
Syria:
III. IN SYRIA
The
population of Syria was happy, very happy with the administration of General Gouraud, officials said. But the
following facts proved otherwise:
In March 1922, Mustapha Kemal went
to Messina. To receive him, the Moslems in Syria raised a triumphal arch
decorated with black flags bearing the inscriptions: “Turkish-Arab
brotherhood”, “Do not forget your Syrian brothers!” “Deliver us!”, etc. etc.
Mustapha Kemal’s visit to Adana
generated enthusiastic demonstrations. The irredentists of Antioch and
Alexandretta[1] had
paraded black flags in the streets of the city for two days uttering hostile
shouts against the French Mandatory
administration.
In reply to the manifesto of the
irredentist delegation, Mustapha Kemal had said: “A home dating back many
centuries can not remain in the hands of foreigners.”
French colonialism had not changed
its motto: “Divide and conquer.” Thus the empire of Annam – the country
inhabited by descendants of the same race, people with the same mores, the same
history, the same traditions and speaking the same language – was divided into
five parts. By hypocritically exploiting this division, the French hoped to
cool the feelings of solidarity and brotherhood in the heart of Annamese and compensated for them with antagonism of
brother against brother. After having set one against the other, the same
elements were artificially grouped into a “union,” the Indochinese Union.
The same tactic can be seen in the new colonies. After having
divided Syria into a “series of States”, the French high commissioner in Beirut
claimed to form a Syrian “Federation” from the “States” of Aleppo, Damascus and
Alawites. A flag had been invented for
this purpose. Like the flag of Annam, the French did not forget to graft onto
this federal flag – at the top and near the flagpole – the “protective color.”
December 11, 1922, was the “solemn” day
when this flag flew for the first time on
the federal palace in Aleppo.
On this occasion, official speeches
were made. Soubhi Barakat Bey, federal president, spoke of a “generous
protector,” of a “sincere guide,” of “victorious leaders” and a lot of things.
Mr. Robert de Caix, the acting High Commissioner, also talked a lot. Among other
things, this official said that “independent Syria is not the first people
whose cradle France has watched over,”
etc … All these palavers, however, deceived no one. And at the Lausanne
Conference, the Syria-Palestinian delegation, to defend the independence and
unity of the true Syria - sent a protest letter, a letter that was published by
our colleagues at The Tribune of the East
and that we are pleased to reproduce here.
“Minister,
“When one tries to
repair the breaches the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) has opened in the question of the
Middle East, where the Arab people are located, one finds, unfortunately, that
the voices of its representatives from the various districts most directly
affected by the evils resulting from this treaty, proportional to the sacrifice
they made (in the great war), still have no echo in this conference that was
convened to establish a firm and lasting peace.
“And
this is when the French authorities find it timely to crown solemnly the work of colonization undertaken four years
ago by displaying the emblem of eternal slavery, the Tricolor, on the flag that
has just been adopted by the so-called Syrian Confederation. It rejects, once
again, the statements of the Allies, the commitments England made on their
behalf vis-à-vis the Arabs, and even the promises of French statesmen ensuring
independence to that unhappy country. Syria, which has clear title to prompt
and complete independence, and that is not less worthy than any other country
in the east or west, is deprived of a
national flag. As a sign of the mandate, which camouflages annexation, it
imposes three colors in its national flag.
“Mr. Speaker, we have always
protested against the mandate, we have never recognized it, and we now strongly
protest against the adoption of its symbol in our flag.
“Almost
all the powers, even those that are no less great than France, did not adopt
this method in humiliating their most backward colonies.
“The Covenant of the League of
Nations specifies the provisional character of mandates (Article 22, Paragraph
4). On what basis, therefore, are French authorities empowered to have their
colors adopted by a country they claim to lead to the independence already
recognized by the aforementioned pact?
“Minister, consider our
protest about this, and we reaffirm our
very keen desire to assert our just claims to the conference.
“Sincerely, etc…
“For the head of the Syrian-Palestinian delegation,
“The
Secretary general,
“Emir
Chékib Arslan”
On the other hand, the inhabitants
of Hama, many of whom were civil servants, lawyers, professors, journalists, and traders, addressed to the
President of the Council of Ministers of France, a letter including the
following key passages:
“We have the honor, Mr. Council President, to present our
claims, as well as to protest against the
reaction of the Council that we consider not in our interests or the country in general.
“1st Said Federal Council
is not elected by the votes of the
nation. Its members are not, in any way, the representatives of the nation, nor
do they reflect its thinking.
“2nd Said Council is
devoid of any power; it can not even address the vital issues concerning the
country, constrained to dealing only with business submitted to it. Finally,
its decisions are at the discretion of the High Commission,
who can execute or reject them.
“3rd The very basis of
that Council is skewed by the fact that each State has one vote despite the
population inequality of the States. Add to this, the inexplicable oddity, that
only unanimity counts on this Council, and that any differences end the debate. The question is then brought before the High Commissioner.
“4th
Said Council, presented as a step on the path to unity, is the negation of
unity and even the personality of the country. This Council, appointed to
office, in no way reflects national thought; maybe it is even against this thought
while in the eyes of the world it would be considered the interpreter of
national aspirations and provide an argument against the nation itself.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....
+
“As for our wishes, we can formulate
them in the following manner:
“a) Actual
recognition of the independence and unity of Syria;
“b) Once the census currently
underway is completed, we will conduct the election of a National Assembly by universal suffrage that
will enact the constitution and determine the form of government of the
country. This Assembly could be held
toward the end of 1922, the date when the Federal Council will have convened.
“c) The formation of a government
responsible to the Assembly with full legislative power.
“These are the real
aspirations of the people of Hama; they
are equally those of the majority of the Syrian people.”
The Case Against French Colonization p.
106-110
The Life of Colonial Subjects
While Britain claimed the mantle of “white
man’s burden” and France touted its “civilizing mission,” life in the colonies for the natives was miserable, far worse
than for the American blacks living under Jim Crow. At least in the United States, the blacks had
rights on paper even if they were ignored
in fact. But colonial subjects had no
rights.
Keeping the natives ignorant is an
essential tool of oppression, so while the European occupiers ran the countries
and extracted raw materials, the natives were reduced to subsistence living, a
mass market for the products of the colonizers. There were only 22 native college graduates in the Congo when it became
independent in 1960, out of a population of 15 million. The same was generally
true in Vietnam.
The
Middle East has been the West’s gas station from the end of World War I. While Britain and France extracted raw
materials from their colonies and protectorates in the Middle East, the money
and profits went to the mother country.
In Rick Atkinson’s An Army at Dawn,
his book about World War II in North Africa, he says that the peasants in
Algeria were useless for intelligence purposes because most of them could not
count beyond the number twenty. Civilizing
mission my foot.
When people are illiterate, there is little need for
censorship, but just in case, there was no such thing as “freedom of the press”
in French colonies and mandates. Even
private mail was subject to censorship.
In fact, there isn’t even freedom of the press in France today, it just
depends on whose speech the government wants to suppress. Jean-Marie
Le Pen, the right-wing politician, was fined
$250,000 for saying the Holocaust was a
detail. But the whole world is supposed
to rally round when Charlie Hebdo mocks
Mohammed.
Now France, with its Jewish president,
joined the coalition and is once again
bombing Syria. Terror bombing of civilians was
started in Iraq by the British in the 1920’s and promoted by that fine
humanitarian Winston Churchill. Israel
summarily executes its “terrorists” and innocent bystanders alike. The Bataclan
attacks were not the mindless nihilistic acts depicted in the press. The Middle East never had borders until after
World War I and the West took over the
area. The western desire to impose
nation states on people who identify
primarily with their tribe and religion has led to military dictatorships. Any truly democratic country in the Middle
East will be an implacable opponent of Israel and all fixed borders because the
nations of the Middle East are all artificial. The armies are the only cohesive
force, ergo, military dictatorships. As
in Vietnam, we’re on the wrong side again.
Failure to understand the legitimate rage of the Arabs in the Middle
East against the military occupation and plundering of their resources means a
viable plan for peace is impossible. The western media and Israeli lobbying is preventing the true facts about the Middle East from getting into the public
forum. This
is why the United States has been at war for fifteen years, with no end
in sight.
Even Ho Chi Minh was complaining almost
one hundred years ago about the conduct of France in Syria. Yet, that
would be news to most people in the west today.
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