Taiwan Today

On top of the unspectacular but basically significant progress made in NATO, the European Defense Community, the European Coal and Steel Authority and what not, it is heartening to read of the passage on December 2, 1952 by a majority of 86 against 7 in the lower house of the Netherlands Parliament of constitutional amendments whereby (1) power is granted the government to entrust legislative, administrative and judicial authority by agreement to international organizations and (2) Parliament, when required by "the development of the international legal order", may by a two­-thirds vote ratify treaties, even when they conflict with provisions of the Netherlands Constitution. While the tolling of the death­-knell of the Austinian theory of national sovereignty may admittedly not be scheduled for the morrow, such a solemn act of renunciation bodes well for a sovereign Western Europe. If of late, Western Europe has been giving frequent indications of greater solidarity, the same tendency does not seem to obtain in many other parts of the world. The Middle East, for instance, has been giving cause for concern to all lovers of peace and security in the free world. The open breach between the Anglo­-Iranian Oil Company and Iranian nationalism is still a festering wound through which further infection of alien ills may gain easy entrance. Iraq, in spite of its having been the Garden of Eden and being watered by both the Tigris and Euphrates which join together in the Shattel-Arab to enter the Persian Gulf, is rich only in dates and oil. Since achieving full independence in 1932 after a period under a British mandate, Iraq has been maintaining close military and economic ties with the United Kingdom. British troops are stationed in Iraq and British and American oil companies have concessions entitling them to exploit the Mosul and Kirkuk oil fields on a fifty-fifty basis with the Iraq Government. The 50% of the income from oil of the Iraq Government would amount to US$90,000,000 in 1952, US$120,000,000 in 1953 and US$180,000,000 in 1954. For the intelligent expenditure of 70% of this wealth which is reserved for long-term capital improvement, there has been set up in Bagdad the National Development Board. Regent Abdul Illah rules Iraq on behalf of King Faisal II, 17, who will come of age and become the sovereign in May. Among the illiterate peasants, the ill, paid civil servants and the small but vociferous urban middle class, dissatisfaction is intense. The influence of the politically conscious iterate middle class and the civilly servants is far wider and more telling than their numbers seem to justify. They read about or hear of the fabulous riches of their oil resources but they can not see any tangible benefits to the people. To their demand for land reform, the ruling clique which includes the big absentee owners have so for turned a deaf ear. To their demand for political reform, the old-guard politicians have been cagily defensive. Election for Parliament is indirect through electors. When opposition groups presented last November a petition to the Government and Regent for direct election of members of Parliament, no action was taken. Discontent burst out in demonstrations. Into the sizzling crowd stepped the small and, technically Illegal Communist party, acting in concert with extreme die-hard nationalist groups. This coalition maintains that oil nationalization, expulsion of British troops and a foreign policy of "neutrality" instead of friendship with the West will cure Iraqi ills. Early last month, under the organizing talent of Iraq's 500 Reds, the demonstrations were turned into a drive against "forged elections" and "foreign imperialism" and for the "partisans of peace". The trepidations of Miss Siham Salih of Bagdad's Royal College of Pharmacy and Chemistry were just a pretext for covering up the real intentions of the Communists. On resignation of the care-taker government, a sullen mob, clearly engineered and directed by the Communist cadres gathered at one end of downtown Rashid Street and attacked the USIS offices causing damages estimated at US$125,000, the Iraq Times, the only daily published in English, and the offices of the National Development Board. On December 9, 1952, by order of the Regent, Nuriddin Mahmoud, 53, Army Chief of Staff, was appointed premier. Premier Mahmoud is a Kurd, son of a Turkish Army colonel and himself a World War I Turkish soldier. On assuming power, the new premier arrested almost all of the 500 Reds, jailed all opposition leaders, dissolved all parties and suspended 17 newspapers not to the Government's liking. Among the premier's measures for strengthening the domestic security of Iraq, those which propose to go through the following classes of people with fine combs will have priority: (1) professors and teachers to be screened to rid faculties of Communists; (2) intellectual workers to be examined to expose seditious elements, (3) the Lawyers Association, having provided the center from which outright seditious actions have projected, to be reorganized and (4) newspaper workers who have incited a considerable part of the unrest with their unfounded attacks against the National Development Board to be thoroughly investigated. General Mahmoud announced that his Government will first of all provide food, clothing and living quarters for the poor and then it will ease the tax burden by a more equitable spread of the incidence of taxation. As a start, some of the National Development Board funds would be diverted to the purchase of consumers' goods to be dumped on the market to lighten the suffering of the people from high prices. Several thousand houses are to be built in Bagdad for minor officials. These steps, while catering to the general desire of the men on the street for seeing things done immediately to make life easier, do not take care of the long term interest of the country. It may, if the worst possible should happen cause the country to lose its chance to establish an economy that would raise it high above the Middle Eastern standard of living. It may mean forfeiting a very good chance to make it, in terms of the well-being of the population, perhaps the leading country in that part of the world. In so far as the Middle East may be the road of least resistance for Soviet world imperialism, that chance should not be lightly tossed aside, even from the point of view of the rest of the free world. Then, the premier would amend the Constitution to permit of direct elections which had been the clamor of all parties. The change would affect primarily 3 or 4 of the larger towns, with the rest of the country hardly feeling the effect of the change. The new Government pledged also to keep the population better informed about its plans. The attack on the National Development Board indicated that the Board's failure to keep the nation informed about its activities was a misguided policy at aloofness. Where the people shows so much concern about the expenditure of its national revenues, full information furnished to the people will certainly call up better cooperation and support. The riots, while disturbing to Iraqi peaceful development, should give cause for serious reflection to other countries of the free world. The Communists, using the extreme nationalists as tools, were successfully capitalizing on the discontent of the people. How far the Iranian Communist party contributed to fanning the flames of disorder may not be easy to gauge accurately, but that they did make their contribution is easily proved. The riots came just after the annual pilgrimage season of the Shia Sect of Islam during which large numbers of Iranians come to Iraq to visit the holy cities. A number of Tudeh Party members were said to have been picked up during the demonstrations in Karabala and Najaf. Three truckloads of Tudeh Party members carrying Communist literature were reported to have been taken into custody north of Bagded. The Iraqi Ambassador to Egypt stated that 80 Tudeh Party members had been picked up by the Iraqi police. To the question whether or not Communist leadership has made a strategic blunder in rioting at this moment, it must be remarked that the question betrays an innocence regarding Communist tactics which would be risible, were the subject not so serious in nature. Whether or not, under martial law, the Government of General Nuriddin Mahmoud has made a clean sweep of the Communist leadership in Iraq matters not at all. In the open or under cover, the Iraqi Communists will not be permitted to lie idle by their Kremlin masters. You may lay to that. Until this trite saying is recognized as true, General Nuriddin Mahmoud will be fighting a formidable enemy with one hand tied behind him. Art of Choosing Tang Ming Huang, while feasting with his courtiers at his private lodging, turned to Li Po and said. "What difference can you detect between my way of selecting the right people for the government and that of Queen Wu?" Li Po replied, "Queen Wu's way of choosing her officials may be likened to the children buying melons, preferring the big plump ones, with little regard to their smell and taste; whereas Your Majesty's way of picking your men is like sifting gold from sands or extracting jade from stone. You aim only at the quintessence." This made the Emperor laugh heartily. —Anecdotes of the Tang Dynasty