THE TABLET September Sth, 1956. VOL. 508. No. 6068

Publishes as a N e ^ sp s p «

THE t \ b ; I A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria FOUNDED IN 1840 SEPTEMBER 8th, 1956 NINEPENCE

Trades Unions and the State: Disregarded Responsibilities of a New Relationship

Christianity and the Orient: Oriental Nationalism: I. By Christopher Dawson

Sidelights on Cologne: Experiments in Art and Architecture

At the Katholikentag: A Bishop from Eastern Germany. By Gordon Albion

In the Service of Truth: a Sermon for Scientists. By D. J. B. Hawkins

“Under Which King? ; Dr. Toynbee’s Approach to Religion. By Professor David Knowles

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Tetters : Chess

THE ANGRY FRENCH

1ITHEN M. Vincent Auriol was coaxed from his retire^ ment as ex-President of the Republic and an old French Socialist to try to make British Socialists more bellicose, he wrote about the immense service that, he claims, France is rendering to Europe in withstanding the resurgent power of Islam. This is something no British politician would have written, but it is in the tradition of France, which has been for centuries the spearhead of Europe in North Africa and the Levant, with a tradition far older than the British ; a consciousness of being the successors of the Romans in this part of their achievement. It is interesting to find a Frenchman of M. Vincent Auriol’s general make-up becoming in a crisis a Frenchman of a much older tradition than those which the Revolution and nineteenth century Socialism have bequeathed to him. But what he wrote was ill-conceived for the particular audience he was addressing, to whom the notion of a militant religious creed is wholly unfamiliar—people who can only understand revolt in terms of the poor demanding an improvement in their material lot, and are on that account by inclination rather sympathetic to any popular movements in the poor countries of North Africa and the Middle East. The argument that the present intensity of feeling is widespread and rooted in the population is not the way to make the British Labour Movement more hostile to it.

The way to approach them would be to tell them that a man'like President Nasser represents a small and ambitious and upper-class clique, and the overtones of the epithet “ Fascist ” carry that connotation : the wickedness of Fascist dictators lying less in their disregard of democratic and constitutional processes than in their misleading the masses in the interests of a small capitalist minority. This was the interpretation of Fascism popularized by the Communists ever since the early days of Mussolini’s first emergence against the Communists and Socialists of Italy in 1919.

President Nasser’s dictatorship derives its power from his ability to identify himself and the way he is treated with the Egyptian nation. For this reason Sir Anthony Eden’s attitude was from the first unfortunate, both in its exaggeration of the economic consequences to Britain of any interruption in the flow of traffic in the Canal, and in its derogatory language. It amounted to saying “ You hold our economic life in your hands, you dirty Fascist dictator, and we are going to teach you a lesson ! ” , This language, like that of The Times and some other newspapers supporting the Government, was toned down after a week or two. But over the last week there has been an intensification of the campaign. The Government has realised that they took it far too much for granted that the public would support them in whatever they chose to do.

The French give every appearance not of playing a part in concert with the Americans, but of having been thrown off their balance by the violence of the affront, and seeing the opportunity of obtaining allies in their effort to regain control in Algeria. Otherwise it might be argued that it has been worked out as the best way to make President Nasser amenable, that the British and French should make a great display of readiness to seize the Canal by force, while the Americans should show themselves much less excited, much more conscious of Egyptian sovereignty.

President Nasser has so far, like most of his countrymen, over-estimated rather than under-estimated the closeness of Anglo-American solidarity. Ever since the creation of Israel, and the joint Anglo-American Guarantee of 1950. which is the chief safeguard for the existence of Israel, the Arab world has been very sceptical of the American attempt to convince it that democratic America is never to be identified with the Powers of the old imperial tradition, Britain and France. Fundamentally all alike stand for the Christian West, for that which has. dominated and overshadowed native Muslim life for a hundred and fifty bitter years; the alien influence whose long day can now be thought to be drawing to its overdue close. If American policy is disappointed with the results of President Eisenhower’s markedly different way of talking about both the Egyptian Government and its action, the reason will be that to the