Algeria from Within/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
THE ARAB CHARACTER
Before studying a country and its people it is essential to endeavor to arrive at some conclusion regarding that people’s character.
All nations have their outstanding characteristics, characteristics which will always make it so difficult to carry out the ideals of the Bolshevik or even to make efficacious the worthy efforts of the League of Nations.
The Briton, adventurous, conservative, law-abiding; the Frenchman with his horizon and ambitions limited by his home and his family circle, his thrifty instincts, his sentimental patriotism; the German, persevering and disciplined, believing only in himself—give us at once well defined mentalities. The man in the street knows this, the most advanced idealist can not deny it, so that the various nations of Europe remain, as hitherto, defined nations.
It is not possible, however, to say this of the Arab, for though the words Inch Allah, (If God wills it), is the main doctrine of the Mohammedan, it is not absolutely Arab. In the first place, who are the Arabs? A race originating in Arabia is the obvious and not entirely erroneous reply. But the Arab is more than this, for since Mohammed appeared and made of his nomad followers a great force the race has passed through a great many evolutions.
There is not space in this book to write a long treatise on this subject, but to those whom this matter intereted let me recommend the works of Lothrop Stoddard and Gustave le Bon.
For the moment we are dealing mainly with the character of the Arab of Algeria, or rather the character of the real Arab of the South, and not that of the Kuropeanized waster one meets in the big centers, or of the effeminate and overcivilized chiefs one sees at tourist-infested centers such as Biskra and Bou Saada.
With few exceptions those men have lost all their fundamental principles and are but the apes of a rather poor class of European. The real Arab of the South belongs to a race to himself, and in spite of this very definite personality his character is difficult to study to any satisfactory conclusion.
Those who have attempted the task will put forward various reasons for this difficulty, but I am certain that the main obstacle is the way in which the question is envisaged.
It is out of the question to try to look at this people from any Western standpoint, utterly impossible because the whole of the conception of life is different from ours. In Europe and America of to-day it is the laws which follow the evolution of the people. As the races become more emancipated, more educated, they require new laws to suit the new conditions of life. Among the Arabs it is the reverse.
Mohammed made the laws, laws which were good and which in many cases remain good, but it must be remembered that they were more applicable to the days of the Arab splendor than to the daily life of the Faithful in the twentieth century.
How can one then attempt to look at these people as having any sort of relationship with us, how can we place ourselves in their position and look through their eyes? It is impossible.
All that we can do, if bent on this study, is to live among them and try to understand their reasoning. This I have attempted to do, and the conclusions I have drawn are set down here for what they may seem worth.
The Arab is primarily before all the world a man of great calm and dignity. His dignified walk down the street in his long robes is typical of his attitude in both private and public life. I have heard the foolish remark:
"Well, he could not hurry anyway in those cumbersome clothes!"
Perhaps not, but has an Arab ever been seen to hurry with his meals, with his prayers, with his ablutions? Does an Arab ever break into a trot or a canter when riding without some definite object of winning a race or hunting game? Never. The Arab eats, prays, washes, rides as slowly as he walks; the humblest shepherd will look dignified while some millionaire sheep-merchant shouts and gesticulates over the price of a ewe.
After his dignity we notice his courtesy. An Arab is never rude deliberately. He may be insincere and say what he thinks will please, but he will endeavor not to jar on any one’s sensitiveness.
His temper is quick where honor is concerned, and he will strike with the knife or shoot with the gun if the matter deserves his attention.
His hospitality is proverbial. No one coming to his house at the hour of a meal will be left waiting; rich man or poor man, relative or infidel, he will be asked to come in to share the repast. There are many chiefs I know who never sit down less than twelve to dinner year in, year out, and usually the number is more like twenty.
Charity and fraternal equality, being the chief principles of the Koran, are carried out rigorously. A beggar is never turned away empty handed, no man is despised because he is poor or not of a great family; at the same time those men well-born are very proud of their names and titles, and will tell you at length all about their lineage. One of the questions the chiefs always ask one when meeting some European is:
"Is he, or she, of good family?"
Often and again has my friend and partner in sheep-breeding said, referring to my lonely life in the oasis:
"What you ought to do is to return to England and marry somebody well-born, somebody we can know."
The arrogance of it! And yet there is not the slightest tone of superiority in the statement. It is a foregone conclusion that I must realize that they could not have some one sharing their intimacy who was not a lady by birth.
"All that counts is the blood," is another of their favorite phrases; "we are all brothers, but it is the great families who give the example to the less fortunate."
With this, however, they are very simple in their tastes. It is true that they enjoy putting on their scarlet burnouses smothered in decorations for official parties, and that they have a very extensive wardrobe, but they get tired of their finery in a few hours and return gladly to their more simple daily dress. Their life at home is not at all sumptuous. Few sleep in beds, practically none eat with knives and forks, and the meals, though sometimes lengthy, are all homely dishes cooked by their womenfolk.
Generally speaking, laziness is predominant in the Arab. A few work very hard, but they are in a great minority. The remainder do nothing which is not necessary for their livelihood, and those who are obliged to earn their daily bread just earn it and no more. This is partly due to the climate and partly to the precept of the Koran, which forbids man to provide for the future as, in so doing, he will lack faith in the infinite power of God alone.
Sportsmen they all are—loving a gun and a horse more than anything else in the world, and ready for any form of hunting.
These, roughly, are the good points in their character, and we must perforce turn to the other side of the picture. To the uninitiated the calm mask of haughty indifference which characterizes their faces conceals a great deal of Oriental wisdom. I do not think this is the case. From an intellectual point of view the Arab is densely stupid, very ill-read and utterly inartistic. With an Arab of good upbringing there are two subjects which he can discuss—religion and sport. If he is interested in business he will talk about his own particular line but nothing else. They have not heard of the most world-famed authors. Shakespeare, Goethe, Voltaire, are not even names to them except when they happen to have been applied to streets which they have frequented.
Music outside their own is an unknown quantity; pictures other than photographs of people they know do not exist. All that which counts for us in the literary, musical, artistic world is as complete a blank to them as a Babylonian cuneiform to an able seaman.
It is staggering sometimes to realize their ignorance. Even those who have been to the French Lycée do not seem to have absorbed anything beyond reading, writing, arithmetic and a little geography. And yet they travel abroad. They go to France, some go to England and Switzerland, and what do they bring back? A recollection of streets and people and racemeetings and gaming-tables.
"Un point, c'est tout!"
I think that the appellation of "Wise Men of the East" as it applies to Arabs must come from their profound knowledge of the Koran and its precepts, which in many ways imbues them with utterances of some depth and of a veiled meaning.
I do not say that they would be better off if they had all our Northern learning; probably not. I merely set down what is a fact about the reverse side of the impenetrable mask!
In business the Arab is honest if it is worth while. That is to say, the poor and uneducated shopman or pedler will cheat as much as possible, but the well-to-do merchant or landowner will not risk his name to gain a little more unless he is quite sure of passing undetected. This, however, applies in some degree to most races.
The nomads in their sheep deals are usually quite straight.
The Arab has a sense of humor and will tell a good story; he will lie when required, but it is very rare to find one who will do so on oath with his hand on the Koran.
One side of the Arab is rather unpleasant, and let it be said at once that it applies more to those who have come in contact with Europeans than to others. I refer to their dealings with European women. Their own are sacred subjects not to be mentioned, whose names and position are respected, but the European woman, and chiefly American and English women, do not share the same regard. This again is greatly due to the foolish attitude of a minority of Anglo-Saxon women who come to the country and are carried away by the glamour of the surroundings, by the starlit nights and the graceful robes of their admirers. If only they could see these men, as I have sometimes in Europe, in bowler hats, they would shudder at the contrast. Now they only see them in their robes under the African sky and-well, they fall very easily. The only altercation I have had with my Arab friends has been on this subject. A common remark one often hears is:
"Oh, les Anglaises!" or "Oh, les Americaines!" and a knowing wink. French women and Italian have not this reputation, and what is so lamentable is that through the fact of a few of our race acting in this way, believing they are far from home and unnoticed, these morals are attributed to us in general.
There is little else to add about the Arab; some of these remarks have been elaborated in subsequent chapters, other points dealing with the superstitious side of the character have been raised.
One little story to illustrate the childish side of their nature seems appropriate here:
I was sitting one evening some years ago in the Casino at Biskra with a caïd friend of mine. As we sat sipping our coffee an Englishwoman, whom I knew vaguely, came in, and the caïd pointed her out to me excitedly, asking many questions about her. I gave him all the information I could, and it then transpired that he was deeply in love with her, but that as she could not speak any French their conversation was somewhat limited. He sat for a while and then, turning, asked me rather diffidently if I would teach him a few words which would express to the object of his passion all he felt.
I was rather amused at his anxious tone and laughingly gave him the following formula:
"I love you.
"Kiss me.
"Forgive me.
"Forget me." He repeated it again and again until he had got it quite fixed in his mind, and then left me, presumably to offer it to the lady. I did not see my friend again nor the lady, so I do not know how the courtship, based on my nine words, fared, but one day some years after this incident I was reading a novel, written also long after the little English lesson, by an author who could not have known of the incident; the scene was laid at Biskra; a fictitious agha was speaking:
. . . "I am learning English," he said gently; "tell me, please, if my pronunciation is correct." And in a curiously indefinable accent he proceeded to recite the little set piece that some one had mischievously taught him:
"Love me.
"Kiss me.
"Forgive me.
"Forget me." . . . [1]
The Arab mind had learned nothing more, but he had kept that sentence fixed in his brain to repeat when the opportunity presented itself!
They are all children, delightful children who never grow up.
Twelve hundred years ago they came to Algeria with their customs and their clothes and their sheep, and they are still in the same place with the same customs and the same clothes and the same breed of sheep. And, Inch Allah, they will be there in the same way when Jesus comes to judge the faithful.
- ↑ Quotation from Make Believe, by Clare Sheridan.