The Old Order Crumbles

In the swirl of events, not the cold war but the decline of empires held the headlines last week. The West's two great empires--Britain and France--put in a damaging week. Bowing to the inevitable, France conceded a resentful Morocco the independence it might have granted, and thereby earned more gratitude, more than two years ago. Fighting the unthinkable, France watched in anguish and anger as its leaders fumbled and Algeria slipped away, and with it France's inexorably dwindling claim to world power.

Britain suffered its worst humiliation in years when Jordan's young King Hussein sacked the famed Lieut. General John Bagot Glubb and sent him out of the country under armed guard. In the golden years when Britain's political writ ran clear and strong through all the ancient kingdoms from Egypt to Iran, Britain created Jordan. Over the years Britain protected the new Arab nation, supported it, gave it an army that was the Arab world's finest. Britain educated its young King, helped maintain him on his throne as it had his grandfather before him. Now young King Hussein cried to cheering mobs: "I pray God will help us regain our stolen rights."

Never Again! The West's foreign ministers did not take all this sitting down. Instead, they did what foreign ministers now do when they get in a jam: hop a plane. Britain's Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, on his way to Pakistan for a meeting of the SEATO council, had planned a swing through the Middle East to shore up Britain's wobbly prestige. Glubb's ejection caught him in Cairo in the awkward moment of conferring with Egypt's triumphant Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser, who has been energetically egging King Hussein on. Crowed Egypt's Minister of State: "We Arabs are no more a merchandise to be bought and sold in the market of domination and imperialism. Never again will anybody lead Arab forces in defense of honor except the sons of Arab nations."

For the British there were other embarrassments. Cyprus, its last major Middle East bastion since the British were forced out of Egypt and Suez, is still restlessly demanding self-determination. And as Lloyd headed east to Pakistan, his plane stopped at Bahrein Island, a rich oil sheikdom under British protection, off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Foreign Minister Lloyd's cavalcade was met with a shower of stones from a rioting mob shouting, "Down with Britain."

As Lloyd flew on to Karachi, by way of New Delhi, Pakistan chose that moment to declare itself an Islamic republic and to emphasize its optional ties to the British Empire. "We accept the Queen not as our sovereign, but as the symbol of free association of the Commonwealth," declared Prime Minister Chaudri Mohammed Ali.

In today's world, the British were more apt to be grateful than angry at Pakistan's action. Pakistan's formula for membership in the Commonwealth (the same as India's) may sound intolerable to empire diehards, but it actually reflects a successful transition from the old master-servant relationship of empire to voluntary partnership in equality.*

Get Together. Also flying toward Karachi at week's end were France's Foreign Minister Christian Pineau and U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Between sessions with SEATO's other five foreign ministers, the Big Three plan to confer on the Middle East. There the troubles were not, by any means, all of Russia's making, though the Russians are ready to profit from the divisions and hatreds.

Britain, France and the U.S. have some getting together to do. The U.S. has been fathering the impression that, all in all, things are going pretty well all over; Britain, specifically affected by the turn of events, was stunned by the latest blows to its prestige; weary France saw no easy way out of its colonial problems. An old order was crumbling, and a new coherence was still to be found.

* Emphasizing its new status, however, Pakistan let it be known it would not welcome Lord Louis Mountbatten, last Viceroy of India and now Britain's First Sea Lord, who planned to visit Pakistan in the course of a round-robin visit to Commonwealth naval commanders. Pakistan links Mountbatten with bitter memories of the partition of India and Pakistan. Mountbatten bowed gracefully to the protests and canceled his visit.

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