The British National Library blog published documents dating back to the British colonial era in India. The archive documents included letters issued by the local office in India of the British Colonial Ministry at the beginning of the twentieth century and containing a racist tone towards the Arabs.

The blog sheds light on examples of racist attitudes documented in one of the files of the Political and Intelligence Department of the Office of Indian Affairs, and the examples show how these positions formed part of the intelligence information collected by the British in the Middle East during the First World War, and how they contributed to enriching discussions and decision-making.

The same people who gathered this intelligence, issued reports, and commented on it, shaped British policy in the Middle East.

To understand this history, it is important to pay attention to the diversity of motivations and attitudes adopted by the people concerned, including racist attitudes.

Arab Region Report

In February 1916, the Intelligence Department of the British Admiralty sent a report to the Political and Intelligence Department of the Bureau of Indian Affairs detailing the military and political situation in the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Western Sahara, Syria and the Sinai.

This was the first of 27 reports that were initially called "The Reports of the Arabian Peninsula," followed by reports on the Arab region, the last of which was in January 1917.

In June 1916, an uprising broke out in Mecca under the leadership of Sharif Hussein and with the support of the British, and the revolution succeeded in driving the Ottomans out of Mecca.

Later on, however, the British were no longer sure whether they should continue to support Hussein with troops.

The situation was complicated by agreements with the French who made contradictory promises to Hussein, and by the need to win the war.

The opening part of the first report on the Arab region focused on the position of the Sharif of Mecca and his activities, especially his "current goal which is [reconciliation] among all the Arab powers in the Arabian Peninsula by persuading them to abandon all side issues and assisting him in expelling the Turks from the country."

The other parts of the report dealt with the details of the war, specifically the transfer of forces, their movements, weapons, and the results of the battles and clashes.

The reports are based on a mixture of official and unofficial accounts and some rumors.

There were doubts about the correctness of the information and its usefulness.

The researchers balance this ambiguity with personal judgments about the reliability of the sources or the accuracy of the available material.

Beginning in June 1916, the reports were accompanied by observations from Political and Diplomatic Counselor Sir Mark Sykes (1879-1919), in which he highlights a number of sections and adds his own thoughts.

Racial prejudices

The comments and observations of senior members of the political and intelligence department in the "records" attached to each report provide evidence of the writers' positions and racial biases.

For example, the seventeenth report on the Arabian Peninsula contains a statement about the founder of the Idrisid state in Sabya and Tihama in the Arabian Peninsula, Mr. Muhammad al-Idrisi (1876-1923), after he reported unconfirmed information that Al-Idrisi "made peace with the Turkish ruler of Yemen", the author notes that Although "this is unlikely, we must not forget that Al-Idrisi is an Arab," the implication being that the British cannot trust him.

A similar sentiment appears in Sykes' "notes" in the 17th Arabian Peninsula Report.

Referring to "the hostility of the Arabs in Rabaj", Sykes expressed his resentment at what happened and described the participants as "perhaps rebels, suspicious and impulsive", noting that "the incident is a clear example of the difficulties that we will face. We have to deal with what a famous writer described as an impish people." Owns a fox heart. "

There are many other examples of racial discrimination in the Sykes "Notes" and the rest of the reports.

According to Sykes, the dissonance between al-Idrisi and the Sharif of Mecca is partly due to "the obstacles that Arab ethnic peculiarities placed in their path."

These racist insinuations are repeated about the Arabs' tendency for differences and divisions in more than one place.

The author of the first report on the Arabian Peninsula notes that "an Arab by nature does not like stability."

While discussing the representation of the peoples of the world in the press, Sykes offers his opinion, stating that "the indigenous people in the swamps of Mesopotamia are wild and unreliable, while the mixed tribes that live on the banks of the rivers are innately anarchic tribes for geographical and historical reasons."

Along with the official reports, these racist attitudes held by the authors of these documents contributed to shaping British policy in the Middle East region.