Present-Day Economic and Social Conditions 251
A few may be strong enough to face the problem and create a new
unity out of discordant elements; but the majority are likely to take
the line of least resistance, and passively acquiesce in their division
of soul/1
In the melancholy which pervades this passage Mr. Hourani is
characteristic of the Arab intellectual of his generation—over-
formal, self-conscious, frustrated, politics-ridden. But there are
some signs that the teen-age adolescents of to-day, starting
their stage in the upward climb out of stagnation on the shoulders
of Messrs. Atiyah and Hourani, as it were, may find it easier to
laugh at life. The increased interest in sport of the schoolboys
of the present-day Levant should give them a healthier outlook
on life, and they may grow up more physically self-reliant and
extroverted, provided that the eventual achievement of self-
government in their countries is not followed by a reaction
against Western habits of body and mind. At all events the only
hope of the Middle East for the next generation lies in those
educated young men (and to a lesser degree young women
also) who are for the first time in the history of the region
studying the conditions of the masses and considering how
they may be improved. The Village Welfare Service in Syria
indicates the beginnings of such a movement.2 In Egypt also
'there is evidence that the younger and more thoughtful men—and
there are plenty of them—are tiring of the personality system'
which at present dominates Middle Eastern politics. 'Their goal is a
better Egypt. . . . Many Egyptians who hold aloof from party
affiliations would eagerly support a programme designed to rid
Egypt of poverty, ignorance, and disease.. . . But first the net of
narrow parochialism, meaningless slogans, mendacious pro-
paganda, and distorted history in which the older leaders have en-
meshed them must be cut away.'3 This can hardly be achieved as
long as foreign imperialism can be blamed for every defect in the
bodypolitic; andeven when these countries have achieved, full in-
dependence, habit and the self-interest of the political bosses
will be slow to allow the social conscience free scope and develop-
ment. In Egypt and the countries of the Fertile Crescent it is
doubtful whether, owing to the self-regarding conservatism of
1 Syria and Lebanon, 69 ff.
3 Dr. Bayard Dodge, in Middle East Agricultural Development Conference
(Cairo, 1944), 215.
3 Times Cairo correspondent, 23 December 1946,