The White Man's Burden

Years ago, I came across a curious narrative concerning the conquest of Egypt by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, completed by the end of 642 CE. Muslim chroniclers have from time immemorial glorified what undoubtedly was an impressive military achievement and a seminal event in the epical history of Egypt. According to Muslim tradition, the conquered peoples of Egypt and Syria—the overwhelming majority of whom were Christians—welcomed their Muslim brethren from Arabia with open arms as deliverers from the Byzantine yoke and went out of their way to collaborate with them against their Roman oppressors.

There certainly is a kernel of truth in this account, and this goes a long way in explaining the ease with which Muḥammad’s followers were able to defeat the vast and—in theory—mighty Eastern Roman Empire. I stress “in theory,” for Byzantium at the time was a mere shadow of its former self; it barely survived a protracted and ruinous conflict with Sassanid Persia, and its people were engaged in an endless and bloody civil strife concerning the nature of Christ: did Jesus have a divine nature? Human nature? or both? The Incarnation Controversy preoccupied legions of theologians and was slowly but surely tearing the Byzantine Empire asunder. For the sake of brevity, suffice it to say that Egypt’s Christians followed the Monophysite Doctrine, which maintained that Jesus had one single divine nature as opposed to the Chalcedonian creed that insisted that Jesus had two natures, one divine and the other human; the latter doctrine was promoted by Constantinople to the exclusion of others.

Relieved to see the back of the Romans, the Copts lost no time in dispatching a delegation to the victor. They congratulated ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ on his great exploit, professed allegiance to the rising Arab Empire, and proceeded to explain to the conqueror the irreconcilable differences between them and Byzantium. They mourned the persecution they had to endure for adhering to their faith. Perhaps they also harbored the hope that ʿAmr would exact revenge against their erstwhile foes on their behalf.

Unfortunately for them, ʿAmr understood next to nothing about their esoteric disputes. He was a brilliant general and an astute politician, but a theologian he was not. His practical mind could not fathom the nuanced and convoluted arguments about the nature of Christ. Worse still, he expressed not the least interest in the subject. He laconically replied that since they all were Christians, they all were subject to the poll tax (ǧizīā), and no retaliation would be tolerated. The rest is history, or at least the victor's version of it.

It would be too simplistic to attribute cynical motives to ʿAmr or many other great conquerors for that matter. It is indeed quite likely that he and his fellow desert warriors genuinely believed that they were “liberating” the Copts from Byzantine occupation, the same way Saʿd ibn abi Waqqāṣ “freed” Sassanid Iraq from Persian tyranny. Most humans love to attribute lofty, even altruistic motives to their deeds, and many manage to convince themselves at some level of the truthfulness of those motives. I see no reason to doubt the good intentions of Napoléon or that Tamerlane considered himself a devout Muslim, though everyone knows that those two men perpetrated or at least played a dominant role in wholesale slaughters.

Fast forward to the year 1920, when General Henri Gouraud marched on Damascus, deposed King Fayṣal, and inaugurated the French Mandate of Syria. British arms “liberated” Syria from Ottoman rule in 1918, and now came the French to “civilize” a then barbarous Syria. The “Liberating Mission” of Great Britain begat the “Civilizing Mission” of France, or, as the French would put it, “la Mission Civilisatrice.” Enfranchising and civilizing the backward peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were sacrosanct goals in the best tradition of “the White Man’s Burden.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, the French managed to commit quite a few atrocities during their relatively brief stay in Syria—a little more than 25 years—but the Mandate was more than a brutal occupation by a ruthless colonial power. Along with soldiers and high commissioners came educators, missionaries, scientists, archeologists, financiers, and administrators. True, many of these came pursuing a career, but quite few truly believed that they had the best interests of the natives at heart.

The Mandate was doomed to fail, however, and for numerous reasons, both internal and external. The French discovered that there was no peaceful way to keep Syria, and they were too weakened by WWII to impose their will by crude force. Had they tried to do so, the price in blood and treasure would have been unacceptable. The year 1946 witnessed the last French soldiers leaving Syria; for most Syrians it was a day to celebrate, but for the French it was a mere episode in a long series of retreats that would culminate in evacuating Algeria in the early 1960s following a bloodbath that disillusioned all but the most fanatic believers in “civilizing missions.”

Decades would pass before the West, led by a rising transatlantic empire, recovered its appetite for “liberating” and civilizing.” I no longer can keep track of how many countries were “liberated” within the last 25 years: Kuwait, Bosnia, Iraq, Libya… To name but a few. Syria is the most recent candidate for “liberation,” a process that started in 2011 and is still underway today.

Just to be clear about where I stand and what I believe in, the vast majority of Syria’s would-be “liberators” are acting according to their own geopolitical calculations and with utter disregard to Syria’s best interests. To add to the confusion, those “benefactors” represent numerous nations with different goals and varying methods of achieving those goals.

That those nations would pursue their perceived interests is not surprising in the least. What I find hard to digest is the ease with which many Syrians have put their trust in outsiders. It would be tedious to analyze the motives of each and every actor separately, and I don’t even believe that I qualify for such a complex task. I will therefore choose one actor, unquestionably the major actor, without whom the Syrian scene would have been drastically different as I type those sentences: the American Union, or its government, to be precise.

Not all those who advocate “liberating” Syria are cynics, though there is no dearth of hypocrisy. I have no doubt in my mind that some American statesmen would love to help Syria and Syrians, and perhaps they—like many warriors throughout history—really believe that the best way to do it would be through some military intervention that may include bombing the hapless country into “freedom and democracy,” whatever those terms mean.

 My questions to those Syrians who would entrust outsiders (the USA) with their fate are:

1. Regardless of what American politicians state and what their media repeat, do you really think that Syria is a priority for the USA? One has to separate rhetoric from fact. Americans have many issues to worry about that are far more important to them than anything that might or might not happen in Syria: jobs, healthcare, education, retirement benefits, and so on. This is totally understandable.

2. Do you know that millions of Americans can’t locate Syria on a map if their life depended on it? Do you know that millions of Americans (perhaps most Americans) can’t tell the difference between Arab and Muslim, let alone between a Sunni and an Alawite?

3. Suppose America does indeed “liberate” Syria. How long would it take for Syria to vanish from US news like magic, the way Libya did after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi? Heck, the Kardashians’ exploits are a much higher priority for many Americans than anything happening or that might happen in the Near East.


Syria is imploding before our eyes while some Syrians busy themselves imploring foreigners to “liberate” them. They seem to be anticipating a Messiah or a Mahdi, but I am afraid they’ll be waiting for a very long time.