Nasser in New York

From MICHAEL ADAMS

BEIRUT

Nasser nas travelled farther West than Yugoslavia, though he has paid visits in the past to India and Pakistan. Bandung and Moscow. It b reasonable to hope that he may benefit from the trip, even that he May go home with a less jaundiced view. of Western life and policy than the one which normally colours his utterances fin the subject. Much will depend upon the recep- tion he gets in New York—and, possibly, in Washington. Whatever his hosts may think of his visit, it arouses mixed feelings back in the Arab world. today Nasser's leadership is more challenged Inday than it has been at any time since his triumph over Suez. Without a doubt he is still the most important---practically speaking, the only important—Arab leader; but it is no longer clear whom he is leading. or towards what goal. As to the goal, the obvious answer is still Arab tinity--but if we accept that answer; we must Arum accept the conclusion that the goal is further Arum attainment than ever, not only because most ab

„r governments continue to regard Nasser With caution which barely disguises their

extreme mistrust, but also (and here is the novelty) because he has lost momentum in the eyes of Many of the subjects of the other Arab governments, who find themselves bewildered by his repeated shifts of policy on the international evel and depressed by his authoritarian approach to the problems faced by Arab nationalism A good example of this was furnished by the• recent assassination of Mr. Hazza Majali. the is rime Minister of Jordan. Whether or not the authorities in the UAR had a hand in the murder that most people believe that they did not, but t nat their constant support for the Jordanian exiles in Damascus encouraged these wild spirits ti' commit the crime--Mr. Majali has been a 'avourite target for the commentators of the °ice of the Arabs in Cairo. A year or two ago, even eren an unsuccessful attempt to murder King rluss •n, s chief executive wouldha, touched (t)itll Pro-Nasser riots in Jordan and possibly given ,c signal for revoit amongst the Palestinians.

'`et this time, with the prime minister's body

Furled under the rubble of one wing of the and Ministry, with ambulances rushing up Qnd down the main street of Amman to remove the bodies, some dead and some living, of more thecapital and the rest of King Hussein's uneasy ttle Country remained perfectly quiet. Why?

A part of the explanation lies in the success with which the king and his ministers have tightened up their security system. The refugee camps, from which it used to be easy to recruit a mob of ready troublemakers, are now carefully controlled, and so are the familiar trouble spots on the west bank of the Jordan But this alone would not be enough to prevent a movement of revolt, provided that such a movement had the initial encouragement of a successful and well- publicised stroke which would humiliate the government and damage its prestige. What more could potential rebels---of whom there is not, and never has been, any shortage in the Kingdom of Jordan—ask than the murder of the prime minister at his desk in the government's head- quarters? And yet there was no follow-up, no rioting, no demonstrations. merely a vacuum of apathy and unconcern.

I asked a friend of mine in Amman (whose political background can be guessed from the fact that when he heard the explosions and learned what had happened, he telephoned to his wife to ask her to pack a little bag for him—just in case the government included him among the obvious suspects it rounded up during the next twenty-four hours) why there was no public reaction, why at least the stone-throwing mob for which Amman used to be faint k was not out in the streets. 'It's simple,' he said, 'who would they be rioting Mr? They don't like this govern- ment, but what is the alternative?—NasserT And tie went on to say that even if Nasser showed

any sign—which he does not—of being willing' to add Jordan to his dominions. or of being able to run it and pay for it if he did. the Jordanians would no longer want him in place of King Hussein. My friend's view was not necessarily a representative one. but I found it echoed in one form or another amongst those least bound by loyalty to King Hussein or the Hashemite regime. The concepts of Arab unity and Arab nationalism retain their appeal for Jordanians as they do for

Arabs elsewhere in the restless Middle East. But

Nasser in the eyes of many ardent nationalists has shown himself to be less sincerely interested in furthering Arab nationalism than in using it— even at the cost of distorting some of its ideals— to further his own political ambitions.

This is not to say that Nasser is any worse or any less sincere than the leaders of the other Arab States. One has only got to think of General

Kassem in Baghdad. or of King Saud. or of King Hussein himself, for Nasser to regain at once a

stature of his own as the one leader in the eastern Arab world who can claim that his own country is better off now than when he came to power.

But the tragedy of Nasser—and it is a tragedy for the tiny minority of Arabs in every country who have some understanding of political means and ends—is that he has shown himself to be basically no different from the test, a politician whose first aim is to consolidate his own power at the expense of any possible rival. This at least is the conviction that is gaining ground amongst that minority of informed and educated men who three years ago (just before the union of Egypt and Syria) looked to Nasser without question as the saviour of the Arab world. Now there is no saviour in sight, and the fate of the Arabs seems to be to drift forward into the future with their

goal of unity steadily receding in front of them, while the radio commentators, the time-servers, the office-seekers and the hired assassins continue to play their sordid roles in the melodrama of power politics.