A Hundred Years Since Sykes-Picot

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

This year, 2016, marks a hundred years since the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided and tore apart the land of Syria and Iraq. The French and the British conspired against Arab land, negotiating between themselves over how to divide the spoils of the Ottoman state and crush Arab hopes for unity and revival. In 1916 the two sides reached an agreement they named the Sykes-Picot Agreement, after the names of the British and French negotiators.

The agreement provided for dividing Syria into four fiefdoms, arranged as follows: Northern Syria — comprising what is now known as Lebanon, Syria, and part of southern Anatolia — was handed to France to hold under its mandate. Britain, for its part, would hold the mandate over Transjordan and Iraq, while Palestine would remain an internationalized zone, kept under consideration as a territory on which the Jewish national home might be established, in line with what the Zionist movement was proposing at the time. This agreement remained secret from the Arabs until the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in Russia and exposed the Western colonial conspiracy.

That same year, Sharif Hussein bin Ali reached an agreement with the British providing for the Arabs to join the Allies in the war against Turkey, in exchange for consideration of the possibility of establishing a united Arab kingdom in the Asian part of the Arab homeland. They betrayed him in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and betrayed him again when they issued the Balfour Declaration, which explicitly stated that a national home for the Jews would be established in Palestine, and in the end they accused him of mental instability and placed him in a sanatorium.

In the wake of Sykes-Picot, Syria was broken into four fiefdoms: the present-day rump Syria, which is now suffering a grinding war; Lebanon, which was fragmented along sectarian lines; Jordan, which was handed to the Hashemites; and Palestine, which was handed to the Jews, leaving the Palestinian people without a homeland.

Importantly, the Sykes-Picot Agreement was met with rejection by the Syrian public across all of Syria, on the grounds that no one had the right to dispose of Syrian geography or of the unity of the Syrian people. The army of the Syrian Kingdom confronted the French at the Battle of Maysalun in 1920, and though that army could not achieve victory, King Faisal was driven out of Syria to Iraq, where he established a Hashemite kingdom. The nationalists rejected the agreement and insisted on the unity of Syrian lands, and rejected the establishment of a Jewish national home — and this was likewise the position of Arab politicians and leaders, particularly in Damascus, Beirut, Nablus, Haifa, Tripoli, Aleppo, and Jerusalem. No one endorsed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, accepted it, or accepted the fragmentation of Syria.

Even now, there are those who reject the Sykes-Picot Agreement and regard the fragmentation of Syria as a sinful colonial scheme whose aim was to weaken the Arabs and establish the Jewish national home at the expense of the people of Palestine. Only a small handful of Arab leaders now speak of the agreement and reject it. In practice, however, the people, the leaders, and the rulers have been tamed, and have come to accept the agreement as an accomplished fact on the ground, averting their eyes from the course of colonial conspiracy. The rulers have even tamed their own peoples into accepting the will of colonialism and turning a blind eye to the idea of the unity of Syrian lands.

Even in the educational curricula taught across the various fiefdoms of Syria, we find no awareness-raising or education of the younger generations about the colonial conspiracy against Syria. Instead we find a false parochialism being promoted to schoolchildren, and hardly anyone — save those whom God has shown mercy — tries to point out to pupils that Syria is the land of Greater Syria, a single geographic and demographic unity. Even the nationalist rump state of Syria has, in practice, abandoned the question of unity.

Because of the wretchedness of the rulers and their misconduct, rump Syria and Jordan have demarcated the border between them, and there is now pressure from some Lebanese and from colonial states to demarcate the border between rump Syria and Lebanon. As for the colonial border between Palestine and Lebanon, the United Nations has demarcated it, except for the Shebaa Farms area, which sits at the Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian junction.

Such is the intensity of the desire for separation that Jordan raised the banner of “Jordan First,” and some Lebanese have followed the same path. Palestine and the Palestinians, meanwhile, have been left to face their fate alone — if, indeed, they are even left alone. Jordan pursues Palestinians who want to liberate their homeland, and so does the Palestinian Authority. Lebanon, for its part, bars Palestinians from engaging in work that would afford them a dignified life.

The Syrians have bowed to the will of colonialism, held fast to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and accepted it in practice, each clinging to the slice of the cake they were given. Even the Palestinians, who ought to insist on the national character of their cause, are searching for a little statelet alongside the Jews who seized their homeland. What this means is that we raise slogans against Sykes-Picot, but in practice we are lying to ourselves — we have internalized division and fragmentation and made our peace with them. The policies of the various Syrian fiefdoms betray leaders who deceive, delude, and mislead their peoples.

We need to turn the clock back: to reject Sykes-Picot in word and in deed, and to work toward the unity of Syrian culture and the unity of the societies that have grown up under the umbrella of that culture. It is shameful to say one thing and do its opposite, and all the masses across the Syrian lands ought to be confronted with their responsibilities regarding Palestine. Palestine is not a piece of Mars with no relation to Arab land. All Arabs must bear their responsibilities toward the liberation of Palestine, for it is the sacred Arab land that demands great sacrifices, and no Palestinian has the right to monopolize the Palestinian cause and work to sever it from its Arab roots. The will of colonialism decreed that Palestine be isolated from its surroundings, and it is the duty of the Palestinians not to submit to this will — they must impose their own will if they want freedom for their homeland and for themselves.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “مئة عام على سايكس بيكو” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.