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INDIA'S ROLE IN ASIA
[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.]
Sut,—Whereas in your issue of February 15th you have touched upon the present Asian question in relation to the West with considerable insight and fairness, yet allow me to expose another very important facet of that vast problem— I mean the present trends of the Moslems in the Near and the Middle East. The idea that the developments of the future events in Japan, China and India—though seemingly on divergent paths today—indicate a "common danger" to the West is potent only to the extent to which these stirrings are capable of being absorbed by an even greater moveinent in the World of Islam. In making this statement I presuppose that the tremendous political, economic and even social factors which are raising their heads in the Middle East are perceptible only to the seeing eye. All along the belt of men dwelling in the lands stretching from the western-most point of Northern Africa to the fringes of the Far East, thus girdling the earth, and embracing twenty-seven nationalities, and bowing to Allah five times a day, whether in the mandated territories of Syria or Palestine, under the direct rule of the Europeans, as the Moslems of India or Chinese Turkestan, or as independent nations, like the Arabs or the Afghans, word has gone round to say that the Near and the Middle East must now come to its own.
Over their other Eastern brothers in India, China or even
in Japan, the people of the Middle East have one great advan- tage: that being their traditional ideals based upon an International. The blackest of black Sudanese is a Moslem brother of the blondest German Moslem, no distinction of race exists, all regard each other with a surprising degree of equality; and more, they make a common cause of every item of life that affects any particular group of Middle Eastern peoples. And their Holy Mecca further pulls their heart- strings, where they meet in thousands every year to give a final touch to their Internationalism. Amongst such men an amazing sense of regeneration is creeping up, and the only agency known to the Western man today which can ally itself to this remarkable force is undeniably the League of Nations.
If, therefore, the League of Nations, as the only real re- presentative of the Western Internationalism, and the peoples of the Middle East, as standard-bearers of the Asian Inter- nationalism, could make a common cause, at least three- fourths of the human race will be made secure from all war menace. Indeed, without such a coming together, and that immediately, war-clouds which are thickening will increase to an uglier shape.—Yours, &c.,
AN ORIENTAL.
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