Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/154

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138
THE FIRE OF DESERT FOLK

likewise clear to me that my interlocutor was a partisan neither of violent change nor of Holy War, but that he hoped the white race would properly evaluate the situation and come to understand the psychology of Islam and would consequently direct the course of events into other and more tranquil channels. Referring to this he added: "Such thoughts are germinating deeply in the souls of the Faithful, and everybody is waiting to see what the white race will do here, in Egypt, in India and in all those parts of the Moslem world where they look upon us as dying peoples and refuse to recognize in us the powerful fire which lights our spiritual life."

The scholar was terrified at the thought of war, which had already begun in Egypt, in parts of Syria and in Spanish Morocco. He told me that the unrest among the scattered tribes in the south of French Morocco and the revolt in the north cannot be taken to be disconnected phenomena but are instigated and controlled from one or two general centers, for staffs directing the Moslem movement for liberty and superintending the general Holy War are located in Anatolia, Kurdistan, Egypt and the Spanish Rif. The watchwords of pan-Islamism and of political communism become strangely mixed in these staff headquarters, but the agents of both currents work together. Partisans of the Holy War have great hope in Abd el-Krim, who has already distinguished himself in the fighting against the Spaniards. Many Moslem officers who have gone through the military academy for Moslems in Russia are known to be in his army, while agents spreading propaganda against the white race can be met in every corner of the country. Yet these agents