The New World of Islam

by Lothrop Stoddard

Furthermore, the European in the Orient is disliked not merely as a ruler and a disturber, but also as a man of widely different race. This matter of race is very complicated,[106] but it cuts deep and is of fundamental importance. Most of the peoples of the Near and Middle East with which our present discussion is concerned belong to what is known as the "brown" category of the human species. Of course, in strict anthropology, the term is inexact. Anthropologically, we cannot set off a sharply differentiated group of "brown" types as a "brown race," as we can set off the "white" types of Europe as a "white race" or the "yellow" Mongoloid types of the Far East as a "yellow race." This is because the Near and Middle East have been racially a vast melting-pot, or series of melting-pots, wherein conquest and migration have continually poured new heterogeneous elements, producing the most diverse ethnic amalgamations. Thus to-day some of the Near and Middle Eastern peoples are largely white, like the Persians and Ottoman Turks; others, like the southern Indians and Yemenite Arabs, are largely black; while still others, like the Himalayan and Central Asian peoples, have much yellow blood. Again, as there is no brown racial type-norm, as there are white and yellow type-norms, so there is no generalized brown culture like those possessed by yellows and whites. The great brown spiritual bond is Islam, yet in India, the chief seat of brown population, Islam is professed by only one-fifth of the inhabitants. Lastly, while the spiritual frontiers of the Moslem world coincide mainly with the ethnic frontiers of the brown world, Islam overlaps at several points, including some pure whites in eastern Europe, many true yellows in the Far East, and multitudes of negroes in Africa.

Nevertheless, despite these partial modifications, the terms "brown race" and "brown world" do connote genuine realities which science and politics alike recognize to be essentially true. There certainly is a fundamental comity between the brown peoples. This comity is subtle and intangible in character; yet it exists, and under certain circumstances it is capable of momentous manifestations. Its salient feature is the instinctive recognition by all Near and Middle Eastern peoples that they are fellow "Asiatics," however bitter may be their internecine feuds. This instinctive "Asiatic" feeling has been noted by historians for more than two thousand years, and it is true to-day as in the past.

The great racial divisions of mankind are the most fundamental, the most permanent, the most ineradicable things in human experience. They are not mere diverse colorations of skin. Matters like complexion, stature, and hair-formation are merely the outward, visible symbols of correlative mental and spiritual differences which reveal themselves in sharply contrasted temperaments and view-points, and which translate themselves into the infinite phenomena of divergent group-life.

Now it is one of these basic racial lines of cleavage which runs between "East" and "West." Broadly speaking, the Near and Middle East is the "brown world," and this differentiates it from the "white world" of the West in a way which never can be really obliterated. Indeed, to attempt to obliterate the difference by racial fusion would be the maddest of follies. East and West can mutually quicken each other by a mutual exchange of ideas and ideals. They can only harm each other by transfusions of blood. To unite physically would be the greatest of disasters. East and West have both given much to the world in the past, and promise to give more in the future. But whatever of true value they are to give can be given only on condition that they remain essentially themselves. Ethnic fusion would destroy both their race-souls and would result in a dreary mongrelization from which would issue nothing but degeneration and decay.

Both East and West instinctively recognize the truth of this, and show it by their common contempt for the "Eurasian"—the mongrel offspring of unions between the two races. As Meredith Townsend well says: "The chasm between the brown man and the white is unfathomable, has existed in all ages, and exists still everywhere. No white man marries a brown wife, no brown man marries a white wife, without an inner sense of having been false to some unintelligible but irresistible command."[107]

The above summary of the political, economic, social, and racial differences between East and West gives us a fair idea of the numerous cross-currents which complicate the relations of the two worlds and which hinder Westernization. The Westernizing process is assuredly going on, and in subsequent chapters we shall see how far-reaching is its scope. But the factors just considered will indicate the possibilities of reaction and will roughly assign the limits to which Westernization may ultimately extend.

One thing is certain: Western political control in the Orient, however prolonged and however imposing in appearance, must ever rest on essentially fragile foundations. The Western rulers will always remain an alien caste; tolerated, even respected, perhaps, but never loved and never regarded as anything but foreigners. Furthermore, Western rule must necessarily become more precarious with the increasing enlightenment of the subject peoples, so that the acquiescence of one generation may be followed by the hostile protest of the next. It is indeed an unstable equilibrium, hard to maintain and easily upset.

The latent instability of European political control over the Near and Middle East was dramatically shown by the moral effect of the Russo-Japanese War. Down to that time the Orient had been so helpless in face of European aggression that most Orientals had come to regard Western supremacy with fatalistic resignation. But the defeat of a first-class European Power by an Asiatic people instantly broke the spell, and all Asia and Africa thrilled with a wild intoxication which we can scarcely conceive. A Scotch missionary thus describes the effect of the Japanese victories on northern India, where he was stationed at the time: "A stir of excitement passed over the north of India. Even the remote villagers talked over the victories of Japan as they sat in their circles and passed round the huqqa at night. One of the older men said to me, 'There has been nothing like it since the mutiny'. A Turkish consul of long experience in Western Asia told me that in the interior you could see everywhere the most ignorant peasants 'tingling' with the news. Asia was moved from end to end, and the sleep of the centuries was finally broken. It was a time when it was 'good to be alive,' for a new chapter was being written in the book of the world's history."[108]

Of course the Russo-Japanese War did not create this new spirit, whose roots lay in the previous epoch of subtle changes that had been going on. The Russo-Japanese War was thus rather the occasion than the cause of the wave of exultant self-confidence which swept over Asia and Africa in the year 1904. But it did dramatize and clarify ideas that had been germinating half-unconsciously in millions of Oriental minds, and was thus the sign manual of the whole nexus of forces making for a revivified Orient.

Furthermore, this new temper profoundly influenced the Orient's attitude toward the series of fresh European aggressions which then began. It is a curious fact that just when the Far East had successfully resisted European encroachment, the Near and Middle East should have been subjected to European aggressions of unparalleled severity. We have already noted the furious protests and the unwonted moral solidarity of the Moslem world at these manifestations of Western Realpolitik. It would be interesting to know exactly how much of this defiant temper was due to the heartening example of Japan. Certainly our ultra-imperialists of the West were playing a dangerous game during the decade between 1904 and 1914. As Arminius Vambéry remarked after the Italian raid on Tripoli: "The more the power and authority of the West gains ground in the Old World, the stronger becomes the bond of unity and mutual interest between the separate factions of Asiatics, and the deeper burns the fanatical hatred of Europe. Is it wise or expedient by useless provocation and unnecessary attacks to increase the feeling of animosity, to hurry on the struggle between the two worlds, and to nip in the bud the work of modern culture which is now going on in Asia?"[109]