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Lawrence of Arabia Redux
by Matthew Rarey
"I deem him one of the greatest beings alive in our time. We shall never
see his like again. His name will live in history. It will live in the annals of
war. It will live in the legends of Arabia!"
~ Winston Churchill
Like a mirage, the best film of the season appeared suddenly, without
fanfare, out of a desert of ephemeral flicks destined for the cinematic
cemetery. Just as suddenly it vanished. It won't be winning any Academy
Awards next spring, either. No sore bones about it, though: "Lawrence
of Arabia" swept the Awards in 1962, winning Oscars for Best Picture,
Director, Score, Cinematography and then some. No mere nod to
nostalgia, the fortieth-anniversary re-release of David Lean's haunting
masterpiece about the Englishman who fought for Arab freedom in
World War I could not have re-appeared on the big screen at a more
apt time.
"Lawrence" is an artistic tour de force, affirming great cinema's
pedagogical role of teaching through images and words that linger in the
mind. Since the images and lessons of "Lawrence" are nothing but
subtle, they might make the less-than-subtle minds of the men and
boys in the War Party reconsider making the Middle East safe for
democracy through military conquest.
Of course, this presupposes that the historically innocent, younger hawks
could skip "Friends" for an evening and watch "Lawrence." Second, it
presupposes the sincerity of the older hawks' public commitment to
democracy and such enigmatic concepts as "peaceful Islam." Two big
presuppositions, surely. But first, on to the feature presentation.
I saw "Lawrence" twice during its week-long run in Washington, D.C.,
before it exited for "Harry Potter." The theater was packed each time,
mostly with older movie buffs. Where were the children, I wondered,
who were being denied something exponentially greater than the boy
wizard of banality? Then the lights dimmed, the velvet curtains swept
back, and "Lawrence" opened to a staccato outburst of kettle drums as
memorable as the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth.
How to describe the movie before exploring its salient lessons? Imagine
sensuous excitement and heraldry on par with a Nuremberg rally
orchestrated by Elgar to depict the beauty of British martial discipline on
one hand, and on the other, the romance, brutality and savage honor of
Arab tribesmen and their desert, "an ocean in which no oar is dipped."
Flesh this out with a poignant script enlivened with performances by
some of the era's finest actors � from old-timers Alec Guinness, Claude
Rains and Jack Hawkins, to ascending stars Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif
and Peter O'Toole as Lawrence � and you have a movie grander than
anything imaginable today. (True to its masculine subject, there is not
one female speaking role. Surely there would be a love interest inserted
nowadays, as improbable as that would be: Lawrence, a strange bird,
did not even like being touched � except in flagellation, but that's
another story.)
The movie's correlation to historical truth is neither clear nor simple.
This being the general state of truth in the Middle East, it seems fitting.
For Thomas Edward ("T.E.") Lawrence (1889�1935) was a complex and
peculiar man, perhaps best described in the opening scene at his
funeral: "He was a poet, a scholar, and a mighty warrior. He was also
the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey." Though
Lawrence's feats were legendary, he did not bother to separate the
myths that inevitably shrouded them. Indeed, he even invented some �
quite a few, actually � himself, out of an overgrown schoolboy's sense of
mischievous, but basically harmless, fun. "History isn't made up of truth,
anyway, so why worry?" he confessed.
While scholars debate the particulars, a few things are certain. An
Oxford-trained scholar who was at an archaeological dig in modern-day
Iraq when war broke out, Lawrence accompanied an expedition to
assess the situation among the Bedouin Arabs, who had revolted against
the Ottoman Empire and become, ipso facto, British allies. He became
enthralled with the Arab cause and set to win them independence from
the Turks and prevent their subjugation by the British. Donning Arab
robes and accused by some of "going native," he gave them victory in
conducting a guerrilla warfare that exploited their natural fighting ability.
(Like al-Qaeda, they would strike unexpectedly then disappear into the
desert, leaving the modern Turkish army bogged down and
bewildered.) When his idealistic crusade collapsed amid Arab in-fighting
and the British took control as colonial overlords, he despaired.
By then he was famous thanks to a press that had grown disillusioned
with the Western Front and found in Lawrence a romantic hero
inconceivable in the trenches. Like the American hero Sergeant Alvin
York, Lawrence refused to profit from celebrity hood. In the early
Twenties he enlisted as a private in the Tank Corps and later the RAF
under an assumed name. While in remote postings in India, "Airman
Shaw" wrote a partly fictional account of the Arab Revolt and his role in
it, "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom," which is said to be one of the most
popular books in the English language ever. (Ironically, it popularized
guerrilla wars of attrition in which a little people beats a Great Power
that can afford to give something up, a strategy effectively used against
the British in mid-century.) Shortly after his discharge, he died in a
motorcycle crash and was interred in Westminster Cathedral, an honor
accorded Great Britain's greatest.
Rule Britannia may have decayed into "Cool Britannia," a glitzy wraith of
her former self, but the Arabs have changed little in eighty years,
despite their rulers' oil wealth. Yet history books needn't be pondered to
arrive at the same essential lessons Lawrence himself learned.
"Lawrence of Arabia" is a picture that speaks a thousand words, thus
making its subject accessible to more people than have time to study
weighty tomes. Several hours of viewing entertainment have the same
cumulative effect as reading Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.
The lessons come quick and hard. A few especially illuminating ones
deserve a closer look.
While Lawrence is en route from British HQ in Cairo to survey the scene
in Arabia, he and his guide stop for refreshment at a well belonging to a
tribe hostile to the guide's own. Their repast is disturbed when a dark,
rapidly advancing figure appears on the horizon. When it turns out to be
a black-robed Arab astride a camel, the guide runs for his gun and
takes aim, but before he can fire, the "fellow" Arab shoots him dead.
The newcomer, Sherif Ali, cooly surveys the scene, but Lawrence is
indignant. Why did you shoot my friend, he demands.
"He was nothing," Ali says. "The well is everything. The Hasami may not
drink at our wells. He knew that." Then he picks the dead man's body
for his pistol.
Lawrence is exasperated at this glib disregard for another man's life.
Although Ali offers to take him to Prince Feisal � future first king of Iraq
and son of the Arabs' titular head, Hussein ibn Ali, the emir of Mecca �
Lawrence refuses with a reply that wipes the smirk off Ali's face. "So long
as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people,
a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are, Sherif Ali."
Now why did Ali, who later became Lawrence's most trusted companion
in battle, casually bump off another Arab? At that time, "Arab" was a
mere ethnic determination encompassing various tribes tenuously united
under Islam. Blood feuds were common. If an Arab killing another Arab
of a different tribe could spark a nasty tit-for-tat, how much bloodier
would it be should Arab blood be drawn by outsiders, say European
Jews who sought to reclaim their ancestral home after a lengthy
absence, or Americans who wish to teach democracy on the tail of
Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.
There was, and remains, logic to the Arabs' behavior � however greedy,
barbarous, and cruel. The Arabs are honorable, but theirs is a primitive
form of honor, held prey to their passions. It was alien to the British then
and the West still, evidenced by bewilderment over why those
Palestinians should remain so obstreperous over land taken from them
fifty years ago. Lesson: remember the well.
Later, after Lawrence takes a liking to the local color and leads the
Arabs to victories that surprise his superiors in Cairo, the press smells a
good story. Enter the character depicting Lowell Thomas, the first- ever
journalist to exploit the medium of motion pictures. Thomas, portrayed
by a character called Jackson Bentley in order to avoid slander charges
(Thomas was still alive in '62), has an audience with Prince Feisal,
played with typical genius by Alec Guinness. He gives the prince a
shallow spiel designed to mask his real intensions.
"Your Highness, we Americans were once a colonial people and we
naturally feel sympathetic to any people, anywhere, who are struggling
for their freedom," he tells Feisal (ironic, given that Americans once were
British subjects).
"Very gratifying," Feisal responds, eyeing him craftily. Maybe the Arabs
weren't so stupid after all.
Bentley drops his pretenses. There are powerful American interests who
want his country to join the war, he says, and he "desperately needs a
hero" to entice Americans into war.
"Ah, now you are 'talking turkey,' are you not?" Feisal says with a smile.
He respects Bentley's honesty and gives him a guide to take him to
Lawrence.
(After the war, Lowell toured America and Britain, narrating his movie
reels of "Lawrence of Arabia," which were a smash hit. Occasionally,
Lawrence would sneak into theaters to behold the spectacle of war
turned into pop entertainment.)
One scene's Spartan exchange teaches how poorly propaganda about
Western idealism plays over in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera and print
media give Bentley-like pretenses short shrift, instead cutting to the
obvious: Americans want to project their (and, by association, Israel's)
hegemony over the Middle East, and Iraq does happen to have 92
billion barrels of oil in its reserves. Yet Washington insists in flowery
pretenses, if only for the benefit of a gullible and historically ignorant
home audience.
Lawrence also advocated democracy for the Arabs, but his was the
earnest dream of a young idealist. Eventually robbed by reality, he
vowed never to return to the Middle East.
In the movie's last major scene, Lawrence leads a flock of 3,500 Arabs
to capture Damascus, the Turks' key Arab stronghold. Backed by a
million-man British army, the Arabs "capture" Damascus as much as
DeGaulle's Free French "liberated" Paris. Even so, the British allowed
them the savor of victory as a cheap price to pay for the illusion that the
Brits were not calling the shots.
Lawrence's vision for pan-Arab democracy is dashed in Damascus. He
hosts an Arab town-hall meeting which quickly turns to bedlam. As the
various tribal chieftains bicker over who is in charge of what (the
electricity plant, the water works, etc.), insults are exchanged and
sword-play averted over Lawrence's impassioned pleas for unity.
Preferring the desert to democracy, the Arabs mount their camels and
leave Damascus. The British, who entertained none of Lawrence's
youthful idealism, calmly waited until the "wogs" behaved as expected
and took charge.
This scene depicts what a post-Saddam Iraqi "congress" might look like.
One can imagine the bickering factions of that state � which is not a
nation per se but an artificial creation of the Sykes-Picot Treaty �
behaving like their wog forebears. Given the impossibility of imposing
instant democracy among Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs on the ground and
their plutocratic exiles flown in from London, plus non-Arab Assyrians
and Kurds, Americans initially (one, ten, twenty years?) can be expected
to govern the raucous natives. Later, they undoubtedly will implement a
home-grown dictatorship, which is the only form of government that has
ever worked in the Middle East � or ever will, barring a miracle.
"Lawrence" offers a Cassandra-like prediction of the maelstrom America
will encounter if it unleashes an armada against Arabia. Yet there are
big differences between the avowedly imperialist British circa 1918 and
the squeamish American pseudo-imperialists of today. First, the British
were forthright about their aims, at least once the war was won: secure
the Suez Canal through erecting Arab puppet states. They didn't even
bother paying lip service to Wilsonian bosh. Second, the Arabs back then
were peasants who would agree, as Feisal said in the movie, that "No
Arab loves the desert. There is nothing in the desert" (wry chortles
rippled through the audience at that one). Thanks to British and
American oilmen who discovered the desert's hidden treasure, they now
are magnificently rich. And although they spurn Western values, they
have shown themselves capable of using modern technology against the
West.
Should President Bush decide to embark upon another idealistic crusade
against Arabia (for the Arabs' benefit, of course), he might end up like
the weary British diplomat Dryden, played by Claude Rains. In the film's
closing scene, he sits in conference with Feisal and the British
commander Lord Allenby to hash out the post-war Middle East.
Feisal: "You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise [the Sykes-
Picot treaty]. What do you think?"
Dryden: "Me, Your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in
Tunbridge Wells."
Or Crawford, Texas.
January 22, 2003
Matthew Rarey [send him mail] is a member of The Washington Times
editorial board.
Copyright � 2003 LewRockwell.com
Find this article at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/rarey1.html
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