EGYPT'S INFERIORITYCOMPLEX

KERMIT ROOSEVELT

INA few years there will be only fiveKings in the world-the King ofEngland and the four Kings in a pack

of cards." That, at least, is what Farouk Iof Egypt is fond of saying. And comingfrom a King it makes interesting hearing.

So far, the Arab world has been kinderto royalty in the twentieth century thanhave other parts of the globe. In therapidly dwindling stock of ruling Kings,four are from countries of the ArabLeague. The old Lord of the Desert,Abdul Aziz ibn Saud; the boy KingFaisal of Iraq; his great uncle, Abdulla,recently promoted from Amir to King ofTransjordan; and Farouk himself. (TheImam of Yemen might almost count asa fifth.) If Farouk is right in his predic-tion, there are stormy days ahead for theMiddle East-a point on which manyother prophets are agreed-and storm inthe Middle East may well send peoplescurrying for shelter-atomic bomb shel-ters-in other parts of the world.

Of course Farouk may be joking. Hehas a pronounced and occasionally far-fetched sense of humor. Other prophetsin agreement may be dismissed as pro-fessional Cassandras (by equally profes-sional Pollyannas). But the speculationmakes Egypt an interesting place, worthyof study. It is a land of violent contrast,in an area fromwhich violencemay spread.

Study of Farouk himself makes a goodpoint of departure for study of his country.He is a man young in years but notappearance, trying to rule an ancientcountry, which in many ways has hardlychanged since the days of the Pharaohs.

THE King of Egypt is a heavy-set,balding man who looks far olderthan his twenty-seven years. He has

been King for eleven of those years, butuntil recently his political life has beenone of almost complete frustration. Per-haps to compensate, his social life hasbeen active, notably unmarred by frustra-tion of any kind. This political frustrationis reflected in his appearance but rarely inhisphotographs, in which the royal physiog-nomy receivesmost favorable presentation.

Farouk is the only son among six chil-dren. His father, King Fuad I, believedthat "F" was a favorable letter for him,so Farouk's older halfsister is namedFawkiya, and his four remarkably beauti-ful sisters are called Fawzia (now Empressof Iran but separated from her husband),Faiza, Faika, and Fathia. His wife, theQueen, changed her name to Farida uponmarriage. To complete the pattern theirthree daughters are named Ferian,Fawzia, and Fadia.

Like most wealthy Egyptians, Faroukhas travelled much in Europe; he was at

Kermit Roosevelt's controversial U The ArabsLive There Too" appeared in o1.lr October 1946issue; here he returns to the Middle East.

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school in England when the death of hisfather brought an end to his education.Alsolike many wealthy Egyptians, Faroukis not of Egyptian origin; the royal familydescends from Mohammed Ali, an AI·banian in the service of the Turks, whosuccessfullyrevolted against the decayingOttoman (Turkish) Empire.

Particularly indicative of his country'sproblems have been Farouk's relationswith the British. These have played animportant part in the development of hischaracter, and in the character of present-day Egypt. King Farouk as a boy was aproud youngster, intelligent, very muchaware of his kingly status and of hiscountry's recently won independence. This"independence" was recognized by theAnglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, alreadyin negotiation when Farouk came to thethrone and signed formally a few monthsafter his accession. As one result of thistreaty the British High Commissioner inEgypt, who had played a very active rolein the ruling of the country, was to bereplaced by an Ambassador who wouldpresumably serveas other Ambassadorsdo.

Unfortunately--so far as Egypt andEngland were concerned-the British kepton the former High Commissioner (SirMiles Lampson, later Lord Killearn) astheir new Ambassador. Killearn nevergrasped, or at least never accepted, theimplications of his change of status. Hewent on treating Egypt, and particularlyEgypt's King, as though nothing hadhappened. Farouk might have been ayoung schoolboy in the hands of a bluffand hearty but, when necessary, severetutor.

THE climax came on the 4th ofFebruary, 1942, when Rommel wasthreatening to sweep through the

British armies to the Suez Canal andbeyond. Killearn rightly or wrongly at-tached great importance to the appoint-ment of Nahas Pasha, leader of the Waf-dist party, as Prime Minister. Faroukrefused to appoint him. Killearn didn'thesitate. The schoolboy flouting his tutor?Rap his knuckles! British tanks rolled intoAbdin Palace courtyard, trained theirguns on the doors. In walked Killearnwith a paper in his hand, a royal decree

appointing Nahas, all prepared for sig-nature. It was signed. But Killearn inparticular, and the British in general,have not been forgiven by the Egyptians.And even though Farouk, now that Kil-learn has gone, is personally friendly withthe new Ambassador, his hatred of Nahasis unflagging.

The King was not allowed by Killearnto be a King on big affairs, so he took itout by being extra arbitrary in smallthings. Not that his behavior was alwaysaloofly regal. During the war, for ex-ample, he was on occasions very "demo-cratic" and hail-fellow-well-met in hisrelations with foreigners, particularlyAmericans. But apparently he had toshow that laws were for ordinary people,not for him. If he couldn't appoint hisown prime minister, at least he coulddrive as fast as he liked. He had a' collec-tion of great shiny new cars in which hetore around the country at fantastic speed-thus demonstrating his kingship. Or ifhe saw something he liked, he must have it.Cairo, one of the most extravagant, im-aginative and uninhibited gossip centersof the world, was full of stories aboutwhat happened when somebody else'scigaret case or electric razor happened tostrike the royal fancy.

Since the departure of Lord Killearnand his replacement by Sir.Ronald Camp-bell, King Farouk has somewhat relaxed.The British Ambassador's behavior isscrupulously correct; British forces haveevacuated Alexandria and Cairo (theEnglish Bridge in Cairo is now popularlyknown as Evacuation Bridge).. If thesedevelopments had occurred earlier, theattitude of Farouk and Egypt might beeven more relaxed. .

THE King's personal reaction to Brit-ish pressure and its sudden relaxa-tion is shared, though in different,

nonregal form, by many of his subjects.Old-time foreign residents of Egypt, partic-ularly Britishers, speak of antiforeignfeeling, and newspaper correspondentswrite about Egyptian xenophobia (whichis the same thing). Probably, however,that is not a fair description.

The fact is that foreigners are used tobeing treated like masters in Egypt. The

EG YPT'S INFERIORITY COMPLEX

readjustment which results from beingtreated more or less as equals is hard formany of them to make. It is also true thatsome Egyptians, exuberant in their newlyfound "equality," express it by rudenessand adolescent arrogance.

Nevertheless this writer at least noticedlittle difference in the way he was treatedthis year and when he was last in Egypt,during the war, four years ago. Streeturchins occasionally make rude remarksor gestures, but that is neither new norpeculiar to Egypt. The horde of dragomenand beggars around the big hotels isinfuriating, but it has always been. In-dividually, the Egyptian seems un-changed. He is still a. friendly fellow,especially if the foreigner makes someeffort to speak his language and observehis customs. And certainly many of themeasures of which foreigners complainare, in the light of modern Egyptianhistory, quite understandable. For ex-ample, the requirement that firms operat-ing in Egypt employ at least ninety percent native personnel may work hardshipon individual foreigners, and will almostcertainly be an economic handicap toEgypt for some period, until local peoplecan receive more training for technicaltasks. But business has for so long beenalmost exclusively in the hands of for-eigners that drastic action was necessaryif Egyptians were to take over. A govern-ment regulation that accounts be kept inArabic has also caused complaint fromforeigners. But imagine the reaction ofAmerican tax inspectors to a firm operat-ing in the United States which kept itsbooks in Arabic only.

However, the friendliness of the averageEgyptian and new regulations such asthose discussed above' do not tell thewhole story. Nationalism is rising in theMiddle East generally, and new national-ism, lacking self-confidence, is often touchyand extreme. Moreover, political partiesin Egypt vie for popular favor chiefly byexpressions of anti-British, and in somecases generally antiforeign, sentiments.

Recently a Belgian woman, whose fatherhad bought up and developed what be-came one of Cairo's best residential sub-urbs, was sitting with an Englishman in acabaret she had inherited from her father.

The son of a prominent Egyptian politi-cian joined them, and a political discussionensued. In the course of the argument theBelgian woman said that Egyptians werefoolish to force the British out of theircountry. The Egyptian took offense, askedby what right she made such a statement."You are a foreigner yourself and haveno more right here than the British," hetold her. She replied that, on the contrary,she had more right than he did, sheowned the land, and the building inwhich they were sitting; she could havehim ejected if she wished. As the argumentcontinued she made a gesture as if shemight have the Egyptian thrown out. Herushed to a telephone, called Abdin Pal~ace (the King's official residence in Cairo),and the Belgian woman was expelledfrom Egypt within twenty-four hours.

This incident illustrates the extremesensitivity of the Egyptians as well as thearbitrary action which may follow anyoffense to that sensitivity. Certainly in acountry whose independence and nationalpride was assured, such remarks mighthave aroused contempt, or even rage;but except in a nervous police state, sayin Soviet Russia, they would be regardedas too trivial for official notice.

The incident also illustrates the ill-advised, unnecessary provocation whichsome foreigners, resentful of the Egyptians'change in demeanor, continue to offer.

Even so, the question remains: whyis it that Egypt, particularly its "rulingclasses," are so lacking in. confidence inthemselves? Surely it is not only becausethey recall that they have been underBritish domination since 1862. Anotheranswer can be found by consulting someof Egypt's staggering statistics.

IT

ATHE time of Farouk's forbear, Mo-hammed Ali, little more than acentury ago, Egypt had a popula-

tion estimated at 2,000,000. Now its popu-lation is about 19,500,000, and is increas-ing at a rate of over-20 per cent every tenyears. Yet the arable land in Egypt hasincreased but little', and most of thepopulation lives and depends upon theland. For Egypt, though it is big on the

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map, is mostly uninhabitable desert. Only1/125 of it is covered by water; only 3.5per cent of Egypt's land, 8,600,000 acres,is fertile; and only 5,350,000of these acresare under cultivation. Thus Egypt, forpractical purposes, consists of the Nilevalley; it is the most densely populatedcountry in the world, far exceeding Bel-gium and Bengal. Egypt'S density ofpopulation is now estimated at one personto each third of an acre of arable land.

The fact that a country is densely popu-lated does not necessarily mean that itspeople are destitute. Belgium, for ex-ample, is a comparatively wealthy coun-try. But Egypt is, unfortunately, more like

. India than like Belgium. The Egyptianfellaheen, or peasant farmer, is lucky if heearns as much as ten piasters (forty cents)a day, and usually the land he works on,the crops he tends, are not his own.Ninety-five per cent of the populationlive in extreme poverty. Eighty per cent areillitetate. It is when one gets into the fieldof public health, however, that the statis-tics become really shocking.

Diseases which are endemic in Egyptinclude worms and other parasites, amoe-bic dysentery, malaria, and, in somelocalities, filaria, a worm transmitted bymosquitoes" which causes elephantiasis.Eye infections are almost universal-theiromnipresence is one of the facts of Egyptwhich impresses itself first and moststrongly upon the visitor. A doctor on themedical faculty of Fuad I University inCairo told me that he estimated overninety per cent of the population sufferedfrom trachoma-and that other eye infec-tions were also prevalent. The most seriouspublic health problem is presented bybilharzia, a worm whose life cycle carriesit from human to water to snail and back.While in the human body it settles in theportal veins which carry blood from theintestines to the liver. There the wormsmate. Their young secrete a poison whichdissolves the human tissue so that thebilharzia can pass from the veins to theintestines themselves, and thence to waterto continue the cycle: The destruction oftissuescreates wounds and internal bleed-ing, and though it is not likely to be fatalitselfit is extremely debilitating and lowersresistance to other infections. The inci-

dence of bilharzia in rural districts is75 per cent. For the country as a wholeit is 60 per cent. Ankylostoma, a hookworm,is another widely prevalent parasite. Oneout of every two rural Egyptians suffersfrom it. Fifteen per cent of the country'sinhabitants suffer from pellagra as well.

Now return to the King and theruling classes,which constitute lessthan 5 per cent of the population

and hold probably 95 per cent of thecountry's wealth. The fellah lives with hisfamily, his gamoos (water buffalo), hisdonkey or camel and goats, and whateverother livestockhe's lucky enough to have,all in one little mud hut. (The animals,being more valuable than humans, usuallyget the best quarters.) The King, on theother hand, with an income of about £. E.1,000,000a year, has two palaces in Cairo,two in Alexandria, one in Inchass, andone in Helwan, as well as other propertieswhich, as one member of the Palace staffput it, "are too numerous to mention."A pasha may leave untouched on' histable after one evening's entertainmentenough to feed a peasant and his familyfor several weeks. Surely contrasts of thatsort are part of the explanation of the lackof confidence shown by so many educated,well-to-do Egyptians.

Moreover the wealthy Egyptian withoutsocial conscience is now losing, with thedeparture of the British, his standardinfallible excuse for the miserable condi-tions of his country, which were easilyblamed on foreign occupation. As long asissues remain unsettled with the British-such as the presence of troops in the CanalZone, the future of the Anglo-EgyptianSudan, and so forth-unscrupulous dema-gogues will continue to seek popularityby berating the British instead of tryingto grapple with the real problems ofEgypt. Undoubtedly, too, the efforts ofworkers to improve their lot will be dis-missed as Communist agitation. But theseexcuses are going to wear thin very soon. .

A THE moment, Egyptian politicalparties are a pretty meaninglesslot. The present government of

Mahmoud Fahmy el Nokrashi Pasha is acoalition of Saadists and Liberals. Nok-

EG YPT'S INFERIORITY COMPLEX

rashi is an honest and able man, but hisgovernment is weak. The chief issue ofinterparty debate is the manner ill whichEgypt's differences with the British shouldbe pressed. It isa senselessdebate in whichthe shades of opinion are often hard todetect and the inadequate basis of Egyp-tian "democracy" is clearly shown. In afree election, without coercion of anykind, so small a section of the populationwould vote that it is.difficult.to talk of thepopular backing enjoyed by anyoneparty. The masses are indifferent; theinterested fraction is so volatile that thereal followingof any party may vary fromzero to one hundred per cent in a fewdays. In such a situation, strong partyorganization is at a premium.

The Saadists and Liberals, who havecombined to back Nokrashi, have no suchorganization. Together they would prob-ably be unable to corral as many votes aseither of the two well-organized parties inEgypt-the Wafd and the Ikhwan alMuslimum or Moslem Brotherhood.

The Wafd was once, under the leader-ship of Egypt's "liberator" Saad Zaghloul,a great party. But Zaghloul is dead, hiscolleagues have died or fallen away, andonly Nahas Pasha remains. Nahas hasbeen hated by the King ever since Kil-learn forced his appointment as PrimeMinister on the famous 4th of Februaryincident. After several years in power theWafd government became so notoriously

.corrupt that the censors would. not allownewspapers to print any kind of cartoonshowing thieves or highwaymen becausethey knew the public would immediatelyregard them as antigovernment satire.Eventually, after protracted difficultieswith the British, Farouk was able todismiss Nahas. Subsequent governments,if more honest, have been no more ef-fective. People have forgotten their griev-ances against the Wafd and Nahas haskept the party machine together. Someobservers claim that in a fairly free elec-tion the Wafd would get as much as 60per cent of the vote (presupposing, in a"free" election, a very light vote). Thisseems far too high a figure; it is probablysafe to assume that the Wafd would get aplurality-if not a majority-say at least35 per cent, of the votes cast.

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However 'it would require pretty des-perate circumstance to persuade Farouk toappoint Nahas premier again, and thereis no one else in the Wafd he could ap-point. Moreover the Wafd is growing old.There is a young extremely leftist wingwhich keeps the name Wafd, but other-wise the leaders are elderly men who havemade small fortunes and who aren't feel-ing aggressive. They will not, in an oldParis expression current in Cairo, "des-cendre dans les rues," go into the streets 'anddemonstrate-or fight. The Wafd is un-likely to get in power while Nahas lives,and will probably break to pieces whenhe dies.

The Moslem Brotherhood, on the otherhand, is only too eager to "descendre dansles rues." It is a young aggressive partyled by a fiery orator-demagogue, SheikhHassan el Banna. Its members are mostlystudents and laborers. Fanatically reli-gious, antiforeign and reactionary, it iswell organized and growing in strength.Nahas always opposed it, but its develop-ment was assisted, only a few years ago,by the Saadists as a counter-balance tothe Wafd. Even now the government issaid to be paying it to keep quiet andattack only the Wafd. Nokrashi and hissuccessors may some day look on theBrotherhood as Frankenstein looked onhis own handiwork.

There is no open Communist party,but the leftist element in the Wafd hasbeen suspected of Communist affiliations,as has the Labor Party of Prince AbbasHalim. Prince Abbas, a sporting gentle-man who flies airplanes and shoots biggame, was a pilot in the German airforceduring the first World War, but no onetakes his party very seriously. There isalso a young leftist party known as "YoungEgypt" led by Ahmed Hussein, who hasbeen spreading the gospel in America byway of full-page newspaper advertise-ments. "Young Egypt" was, until thedefeat of the Axis, a strongly Fascist party.Its conversion to the Left is a little hard totake seriously. However, that is what, toooften, Egyptian political parties are like.

It is obvious that Egypt is not, andcannot immediately become, a democracyin any real sense of the word. Aside fromanything else it is too much to expect that

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a people 80 per cent illiterate, infested byparasites which sap the very blood fromtheir veins, and often so close to starvationthat they can scarcely work-it is toomuch to expect that such a people canspare the energy or develop the skillsnecessary to effective democratic rule. Itis obvious also, that although Communismhas made very little progress in Egypt todate, conditions are such as to be anopen invitation to Soviet propaganda.

III

THAT is the black side of the picture.It is not by any means the only

side. There is plenty of white to beseen too. (Cairo is a city where everyonetalks pitch black or dazzling white; onewho listens and looks hard is likely, aftersome time, to see everything in palemuddy brown, the color of the Nile.)

The Egyptians argue that their presentlow estate cannot be blamed on them.For centuries they have been under for-eign rule. When, in the early nineteenthcentury under Mohammed Ali theygained practical independence from Tur-key some progress was made-particularlyin irrigation projects. Foreign interestssoon intervened; in 1882 the British tookover effective direction of the country,which they retained, in spite of gesturesto the contrary, at least until 1936. It wasnot until 1923 that Egypt gained a con-stitution .which gave it a pretence ofdemocratic self-rule. By this constitution(which is still in effect today) the King,who appoints or dismisses the PrimeMinister, governs in conjunction with aSenate and a Chamber of Deputies. Two-fifths of the former are chosen by theKing, the remainder, together with all theDeputies, are directly elected by thepeople.

The British, even after the adoption ofthe constitution, still retained the effectivepower. And, in discussing the social prog-ress Egypt has made in the last few years(since the elimination of British influence),Egyptians point to the budgets of todayin contrast with those of the past. In 1924,for example, one half million pounds (anEgyptian pound equals about four U. S.dollars) was allocated for public educa-

tion. Now the Ministry of Public Educa-tion has an annual budget of almost tenmillion pounds. The Health Departmentin 1924 has an allocation of two hundredthousand pounds; in 1936 this had in-creased to nearly three million pounds.After the 1936 treaty the Departmentwas elevated to a Ministry and will spendin 1947/8 over eight million pounds. Twomillion of these are, however, not in theregular budget but part of a five-yearcampaign against poverty, disease, andignorance.

In this and other campaigns, such asthat for village improvement, Egypt hasin the last few years made considerableprogress. Water works are being built tobring the fellaheen pure drinking water forthe first time in history. New primary andsecondary schools are being built andstaffed throughout the country. Hospitals,dental and maternal clinics, social wel-fare institutes, agricultural education cen-ters, and health propaganda units aremaking their appearance in villages thathad never before seen a sign of outsideinterest in their welfare.

The most important progress has beenmade in public health. A vigorous cam-paign is being waged against bilharzia,including drives to exterminate the snailwhich plays an essential part in the lifecycle of the parasite, the draining ofmarshes and ponds and provision of purewater and sanitary toilet facilities, publichealth instruction, and the treatment ofthose already diseased, who are them-selves a source of further infection. Thislater phase has been running into diffi-culties on two scores. The treatment re-quires one month of intravenous injectionsof antimony (tartar emetic) which pro-duce painful symptoms. The fellaheen, dis-liking those symptoms and anxious todevote all their energy to their work, arelikely to stop the treatment as soon as theactive signs of bilharzia disappear, eventhough the disease is by no means con-quered. Another problem is that the fullstrength treatment proves fatal in aboutone case out of a thousand. Since thedeath of a patient undergoing treatmentis damaging to the doctor in charge, manydoctors do not risk the full treatment norachieve the full cure.

EG YPT'S INFERIORIT Y CO MPLEX

This is the first year in which Egypt hashad no epidemics. Doctors attribute thischiefly to the systematic widespread use ofDDT. Once every two months the villages-people, clothing, houses-have beenthoroughly dusted. As a result, up to themiddle of May this year there have been54 cases of typhus as against 1201 for theequivalent period last year. (In 1943 therewere over 40,000 cases.) For relapsingfever, the figures are 166 this year asagainst 77,519 for last; of plague, therehave been 2 cases instead of 76. In 1944there were 644 cases.

IV

ATHE moment, Egyptians not onlyhave an inferiority complex, but atthe same time a grossly exaggerated

notion of their own importance. Hereagain, King Farouk reflects his country'stendencies. His aspiration to become cham-pion of Islam has been shown on manyoccasions, most notably in the receptionhe has given to the Grand Mufti and theold anti-French Riff leader, Abd el Krim.His intentions are doubtless praiseworthy,but sober counsel might suggest thatEgypt has enough problems inside herown borders without taking on those ofPalestine and North Africa as well.

An American comes to Egypt with theidea that the country is important-as acommunications center, close to oil, as akey state in the Arab world where democ-racy and communism meet face to face.But after a few weeks in which Egyptiansgo all out to make a pusillanimous pikerof the Persian who coined the phrase"Isfahan is half the world," reaction setsin. One would think that foreign troopshad never evacuated a country before.You get tired of being told that the U nitedStates must prove thus and so by doingthus and so-or that a favorable decisionon Egypt'S case before UN is the lastchance UN has to gain world respect.They cannot see Egypt's problems as partof a larger picture. This is natural enough-but tiresome.

Americans throughout the Middle Eastare upbraided because of United Statesassistance to Zionism, which Arabs every-where regard as unwarranted aggression.

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(The Egyptians made great capital of therecent visit of members of a Senate com-mittee to Palestine, pointing out-unfor-tunately with truth-that the senatorsspent their whole time with the [ewishAgency and did not even call upon the rep-resentative of their own government-letalone the Arabs. "Is that," they ask point-edly, "an example of American open-mindedness?") But in Egypt, in addition tothe issue of Palestine, we are criticized forbacking the British everywhere and for notsupporting Egypt on the issue of evacua-tion and t'he Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. ;

On these two points the Egyptians arein a curious frame of mind. They insistthat justice is unquestionably on theirside and that no fairminded person couldoppose them. On the other hand, despiteexpressions of confidence they are in-wardly expecting little from their appealto UN. Justice means nothing in politics,they say, pointing to Palestine.

Why, then, have they appealed to UN?Partly because the maneuvers of inter-nal politics forced the present govern-ment to make an appeal. Partly becauseit was hoped that an appeal might forceconcessions from the British. And partlybecause, if the appeal fails, Egyptian poli-ticians will again be able to point outsideEgypt-away from themselves-to explainwhy things go wrong. A foreign scapegoatis useful, and once you become accustomedto it, you miss it very quickly when it'sgone.

On the issue of evacuation, he questionis purely one of timing. The Anglo-Egyp-tian Treaty of 1936 provided that Britishtroops could remain in the Canal Zoneuntil 1956. Egyptians argue that : thistreaty was negotiated under pressure andis contrary to the terms of the UN charter.Recent negotiations for a new treaty,during which the British offered to removetheir troops by 1949, were broken off with-out conclusion: Foreign Minister Bevinnow states that Britain will adhere to theold treaty. The Egyptians want evacuationimmediately, and insist that its date mustnot be used as a bargaining point in furthernegotiations. If they accomplish nothingelse at UN, they do expect to separate en-tirely the question of evacuation from thatof a new treaty.

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The future of the Sudan is likely to pro-duce far more headaches. According toEgyptians, the Nile is indivisible; theSudan and Egypt, living literally upon andout of the Nile, must be united ..The Brit-ish are proud of the job they have done inthe Sudan, which is indeed a model ofcolonial administration. They say that the'Sudanese' do not wish domination byEgypt and that they, the British, aremorally obligated not to "sell the Sudaneseinto bondage." As a matter of fact it ishard to prove just what the Sudanese dowant. Any rejection by them of union withEgypt would be attributed by the Egyp-tians to British pressure and propaganda.

WHEN I talked to Nokrashi Pasha,the Prime Minister, the questionof Russia inevitably came up.

Communism, he told me, had extremelylittle public support in Egypt. He empha-sized also that in presenting her case toUN Egypt was not acting at the insti-gation of any big power. "But," he wenton, "if the United States supports Britain'against us, and Soviet Russia supports usagainst Britain, then the Egyptian peoplewill surely say to themselves, 'Who is itthat is our friend?' "

It is certainly true that the Arabs arenot sympathetic to Communism. They donot expect much from Russia. But thisthey know: Russian policy is directed at

the removal of British forces from theMiddle East. That is what the Arabswant, too.

The United States, which is happierwhen interests of security and international

.morality go hand in hand, is thus pre-sented with a delicate diplomatic problem-in an area where Palestine alone pro-vides more difficulties than we can solve.How do we feel about troops of one coun-try occupying the territory of another, ordo we put the Middle Eastern countriesin the same category with certain Pacificislands? Is United States security harmedmore by weakening of the British positionin the Middle East, or by losing the friend-ship of the Arab people? And how much dowe depend upon Middle East oil?

Like the evacuation of British troops,these questions come down. to a matter oftiming. Clearly we want to see an inde-pendent and a democratic Egypt. Inde-pendence has been achieved, but there isstill a long hard road to travel beforeEgypt attains democracy. Peace andassistance along tha t road-for Egypt andthe other Middle Eastern countries-arewhat American interests dictate.

And this much is certain. To build upGreece 'and Turkey, as a first line of de-fense or anything else, is an empty gestureif the Arab countries fall away. It is likerelying on a Maginot Line-which stopstrustingly at the Belgian frontier.

The Poverty of Independence

MAN! The most complex of creatures, and for this reason the mostdependent of creatures. On everything that has formed you you

depend. Do not balk at this apparent slavery. . . . A debtor to many,you pay for your advantages by the same number of dependencies. Un-derstand that independence is a form of poverty; that many thingsclaim you, that many also claim kinship with you.

Andre Gide, Journal, 1893; from TheJOUTruzls of Andre Gide, Volume 1, 1889-1913, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1947.