04 February 2011 By Saeed
Qureshi
David Cameron the newly elected British
prime minister and the former
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
appeared utterly hypocritical while expressing their
views about the current volatile situation in
Egypt. David was talking to
Fareed Zakaria the CNN anchor of GPS
program and
Tony Blair
with CNN anchor
Piers Morgan.
Both were asked how they looked at the historic
uprising of the Egyptian people against the three
decades of tyrannical and despotic rule of
Hosni
Mubarak Cameron was babbling about the
process of transition over a period of time which is
what the standpoint of the disgraced and besieged
president of Egypt. This
conservative prime minister
whose parliament is known as the mother of all the
parliaments and
Britain being
the first
parliamentary democracy
seemed averse to the idea of Mubarak immediately
stepping down as demanded by his countrymen in their
unprecedented demonstrations. He was implicitly trying
to shield Mubarak whom the people of Egypt perceive as
a devil and have absolutely rejected him. Tony Blair a submissive pal of
George W Bush was repeating the same
logic with nonstop blurry and fuzzy rhetoric, as was
earlier dished out by the sitting prime minster. None
of these two guys categorically called for the
resignation of Hosni Mubarak or spoke candidly about
the people of Egypt who were demanding democracy,
equality, social freedom, and
fundamental human rights.
The protestors are venting their seething anger
against the grinding poverty, a culture of rampant
corruption, police cruelty, repression and torture.
The convoluted logic of these
leading British political luminaries, clearly
demonstrated their double standards as they want a
civil and humane society in their own country but not
in Egypt because it was ruled by an individual who was
serving the paramount interests of
Israel and other protectors of the
Jewish state including Britain than their own people.
This British duplicity and
hypocrisy has its precedence in the past history of
relations between the Arabs and the Anglo-British
imperialism. The British government persuaded Sharif
Hussain of
Mecca, the
Arab spiritual leader of Muslims not to endorse the
proclamation of
Jihad
by the Ottoman caliphate against the
allied forces and also made him agree to
fight against the
Ottomans
along with the allied forces. The Turkish forces were
fighting again the imperialist forces as an ally of
Germany. Sharif Hussain was assured that
in case of allied victory, all the Arab lands that
were under the Ottoman occupation would be returned to
Arabs. This assurance was given to Sharif Hussain
through three separate commitments. The first was the
correspondence between Sharif Hussain and the British
High commissioners in Egypt McMahon. The
second was the declaration of seven. The third is
known as the armistice communiqué of
November 7, 1918 issued at the end of
the war. The Arab troops under Sharif
Hussain liberated Mecca, and all Hejaz with the
exception of Medina. They also liberated
Damascus,
Homs,
Aleppo, and Beirut from the Ottomans' occupation. The
Arab sacrifices on the side of the allied forces were
staggering. Beside the innumerable Arab casualties on
the war front, some 300,000 Syrians alone perished
during the devastating famine of 1916. Yet another agreement known as
Skyes –Picot agreement (April 1916), was secretly
signed between Britain,
France and
Russia that stipulated division of
conquered Arab lands between the allied partners. This
secret agreement was the basis on which the British
and France divided the Arab liberated lands between
themselves. In 1921, in a brazen
contravention of their pledges held out to Arabs, the
Allied Supreme Council constituted in the aftermath of
the war, gave away the Arab lands retaken from the
Ottomans, to
Great
Britain and France. Thus
Iraq and Palestine were placed under
British domination, and France took control of
Syria
and
Lebanon. With the downfall of the Ottoman
Sultanate after Turks defeat in the
World War I, the Arabs waited for the
attainment of their sovereignty and independence as
promised by the British government. But instead of
getting their lands, the Arabs were placed under the
Western colonization instead of the Ottoman type of
colonialism. That mal-treatment of a trusted
ally which helped Allied forces on war front in a huge
manner is historically known as a treacherous betrayal
by the Britain joined by France. The post war
settlement of Arab lands left the Arabs with feeling
of deep seated grievances and a permanent scar of
British betrayal. As if to rub salt to the Arab
wounds, simultaneously in November 1917, the British
government unfurled the Belfour Declaration that
promised the Jews a national home in Palestine,
primarily an Arab land with 90 per cent Muslim
population. The Britain had no moral
compunctions or qualms in ditching Arabs in such an
audacious and outrightly dishonorable manner that
later resulted in the Palestinian struggle for their
national independence that continues to this day,
hedged and torpedoed by the British, United States and
the pro Israel regimes. But this does not exhaust the
saga of British hypocrisy and betrayal. There is
another story that highlights how the imperialist
powers with Britain in lead had been conspiring and
flexing their muscles to impede and stop the emergence
of national states in the
Middle East. One such story is about
Egypt. British occupied Egypt in 1882.
Despite renunciation of her protectorate rule of Egypt
in 1922 Britain still had many rights in that country.
King
Farouk a protégé of British was deposed
in July 23, 1952 by a group of young officer led by
General Najeeb later replaced by Lt Colonel
Gamal
Abdel- Nasser. As soon Col. Nasser took over the
government, USA withdrew the offer to finance the
Aswan dam. Six days later Colonel Nasser
announced nationalization of the
Suez
Canal. On
October 29,
the Israeli forces invaded Egypt. That was followed by
Anglo-French air operations. Despite immediate
resolution of the
United Nations General
Assembly, ordering the three aggressors
to withdraw their troops they did not comply with this
for several months. It is the same British devious
mentality of fostering autocrats and monarchs and
mercenaries, to serve their overseas vested interests,
mostly economic imperialism. They willfully violate
the solemn agreements and then justify them too. They
launch unprovoked attacks on the weaker nations as
they did in case of Egypt in 1956 and do not wink
their eyes. The people's fundamental rights
or the democracy or freedom do not matter for these
imperial powers as we can see in the lukewarm and
scant expression of sympathy and support by two tall
leaders of the leading parliamentary democracy for the
oppressed people of Egypt protesting against a
heartless dictator. This is what is happening now. The
skewed statements of these two stalwarts of the
British monarchy are despicably
self-evident. The writer is a Dallas-based journalist and a
former diplomat. Email: qureshisa2003@ yahoo.com Comments 💬 التعليقات |