54. I feel it to be my first duty, as the representative of one of the ten sponsors of resolution 1237 (ES-II) which the General Assembly adopted unanimously on 21 August 1958, to recall the highly commendable spirit of conciliation and sense of responsibility which marked the Assembly's deliberations and consultations and which led to that rewarding and encouraging result.
55. The Assembly has before it for its information and consideration the report [A/3934/Rev.1] which the Secretary-General presented to it on 30 September 1958 in pursuance of that resolution. In a world of imperfection, this report is not perfect. But, I submit, it is both timely and abounding in useful elements of information and material for careful thought although, mostly through no fault of the Secretary-General, it falls short of clarity and definiteness in relation to a few relevant matters of basic importance, particularly the time of the completion of the withdrawal of foreign armed forces from Lebanon and Jordan.
55. The burden which the Secretary-General and his aides have been carrying for several years has been as heavy and unwieldy as they have been patient, courageous and resourceful; and the least we should say in this regard is that they are as well deserving of our plaudits and our deep gratitude as they are of every co-operation that we have in the past or shall in the future extend to them.
57. Since 15 July last and until this late hour, the peoples of the United Nations and the world have been deeply concerned over the stationing of armed forces from the United Kingdom and the United States in Jordan and Lebanon. Serious questions were asked. Could the dispatch of those forces be justified in point of law? Has it been warranted by facts? Is it proper international practice? Is it not a reversion towards primitivism in human relations? Is it wise? For our part, we have constantly believed with virtually the whole world that, besides being an extremely disturbing event, that action has been as unjustified and unwarranted as it has been unwise, and that those forces should be promptly withdrawn. There are indications that this withdrawal will be affected soon. We trust that it will happen without demur and that the sad story of which it is a counterpart will not happen again.
58. I do not propose to dwell for long on this topic. We have all convened in this hallowed place of assembly not in order to condemn or to condone each other's acts, but to serve, in humility and as well as we can, the purposes of constructiveness and of peace. And peace is riding rather rough seas nowadays. While we all talk about peace and try to do whatever we can in its behalf, tests of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons continue in spite of strong and repeated appeals by the peoples of the world and by their Governments for the cessation of those tests. The United Arab Republic which, as Egypt and Syria, participated in the Bandung Conference in 1955, and which this year took part in the Accra Conference, wishes, equally as a member of the United Nations and of the world community of nations at large, to reaffirm the stand it has always taken on this supremely vital issue — for the immediate cessation, and against the continuance, of those tests. The United Arab Republic finds it, furthermore, natural to welcome the progress which has been made at the Geneva talks relating to the detection of nuclear and thermonuclear explosions.
59. Looking in another direction, we find that there has recently been commotion over the Middle East, and that there is alarm at present in relation to developments in the Far East.
60. Obviously, whenever peace is affected in any way, our first duty is to give it first aid. But this is not enough. We all know that peace must rest on solid foundations and must be devotedly and adequately served if it is to be maintained. This cannot be accomplished by the tight-rope-walking-over-the-inferno which some leaders of some Powers recklessly take for a hobby and a sport. Nor can peace be maintained by palliatives or tranquillizers or by the mere existence of solemn commitments.
61. It did not suffice, before, to have the Covenant of the League of Nations; and it does not suffice now to have the Charter of the United Nations. These are all empty things unless and until they are matched with palpable realities and sober deeds, deeds and realities which are consonant with our days, their impact, their concepts, their relationships and the vigour of their dynamisms. Dominating the present scene is science, with its giant stature, its accomplishments, its dangers, and its promise.
62. Then there is the new posture of a growing number of States as dedicated to the welfare and the elevation of all their people and not as a monopoly for only a few.
63. Then, again, there is the United Nations, representing a further endeavour, after the League of Nations, to serve all mankind and help the world community to become a community of really free peoples and equal sovereignties, instead of consisting, in great part, as unfortunately it still does at present, of serfs, vassals and pawns of some big Powers. Thus shall the United Nations, in active devotion to its own Charter and principles and in heartening and fascinating parallelism with the evolution within national boundaries, help in the exclusion of domination and exploitation from the relations between the peoples of the world. Such, in part, is the vision before us or, as some might prefer to call it, the dream. And ours is distinctly an age of active longings, of positive hope, of visions becoming facts and of the realization of dreams. Yet, before dreams become realities, one has to wake up and, waking up, one is apt to find that the road is still rugged, though not impassable.
64. While the area of freedom is spreading and deepening in some parts, it recedes and shrinks in others; and the struggle for human dignity and welfare will have to continue against such plagues as foreign domination, race discrimination and appallingly low physical and moral standards of living.
65. There have been on the road some luminous signposts, such as Geneva, League of Nations, 1919; Cairo, Arab League, 1945; San Francisco, United Nations, 1945; Bandung, Asian-African Conference, 1955; and Accra, Conference of Independent African States, 1958.
66. But we are all duty-bound not to lull ourselves into the illusion that the battle is even half won. In fact, it has barely begun and victory is not brought nearer by the failure or the refusal of many leaders of men and some powerful Governments to recognize the full portent and the inevitability of the present mighty evolution towards a new world, one world, a world of freedom and of respect for the dignity and the worth of the human person. Even when those leaders and Governments seem to step out of some of their anachronisms, out of postures and positions of theirs which have become indefensible and untenable, they often try hard, try desperately, to retrieve and recapture whatever they have abandoned. We all remember or watch the happenings of this greatest of all games, the game between slavery and freedom, which Has been going on with increasing intensity and with mankind as its prize.
67. It is heartening to see that most of Asia has regained its freedom, but it is distressing to note, on the other hand, that most of the peoples of that vast continent remain poor, uneducated and in an unsatisfactory state of health. A similar and sometimes more distressing picture can be drawn of some other parts of the world, especially of the greater part of Africa, which is still groaning miserably under the yoke or in the wake of foreign domination and exploitation.
68. Whether in Asia or in Africa, the Arabs, whose power had temporarily waned, particularly during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, have had the degrading and humiliating misfortune- some of them still have this misfortune — of falling under the yoke.
69. Most of the Arabs have, by now, regained their freedom and rehabilitated themselves, and the world is watching what many call the resurgence of Arab nationalism. Some of us prefer to describe this phase of history as the reassertion of Arab nationhood, and are reluctant to — as they say — unrealistically crowd it with the many dissimilarisms of human gregariousness which have been in vogue for quite some time. Be that as it may with the busy terminologists, Arab nationalism — or nationhood — is there, genuine and real. Denying it its right to be, to grow and to express itself freely in peaceful ways, is one of the many peace-shattering denials of which the Powers and the leaders to whom I have referred are guilty. They deny evolution. They call it revolt. They deny freedom for others. They call it chaos. They deny other people's right to choose their own government. They call it connivance. They deny other people's right and duty to tell the truth. They call it roundabout aggression — or do they call it indirect aggression? And they — these determined denyers — deny the very time in which we all live, and they act as if that were centuries ago, back in the dark Middle Ages.
70. How otherwise can we explain the policy and the actions of some Governments and groups in relation to such problems as those of Algeria, Palestine, the southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman and Cyprus?
71. The answer to tire by now unnecessary question whether the people of Algeria want to be independent has been given already, in no equivocal terms, by the sons and daughters of Algeria, who have decided, with their sacrifices and their blood, to live or die in dignity and to be free. This is the real referendum which all the fair-minded and the peace-loving can honestly recognize; this and not the spurious one manufactured in France — in a France which may not yet have run out of glory and of noble deeds, although too many of its leaders are by no means at their finest hour.
72. The formation of a provisional Government of Algeria was announced on 19 September 1958. A few days later that Government made a statement of policy in which it declared that the Algerians will not lay. down arms until their right to national sovereignty is recognized; that the Algerian people are not the enemies of the French people, but are the enemies of French imperialism; and that the Government of Algeria is ready to enter into negotiations with France at any time. The road to a sane and peaceful future in relation to Algeria is therefore clear, and we should all rejoice in realizing that today is indeed a new day and that the hands of the clock will not be set back.
73. Regarding the question of Palestine, the rights, equities and injustices remain the same. So does the policy of my Government.
74. In the southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula and in Oman there can be no peace and stability as long as foreign armed forces fight the people and deny them their inalienable rights.
75. As to Cyprus, the mess which some quarters in London call policy must be speedily gotten out of, and the right of the valiant and martyred people of that island to self-determination must be recognized.
76. During the last few years the Arabs have had a relatively big share of problems and of cares due, probably, to the geography of their lands and to the sequence and rhythm of historical events. The Balfour Declaration, 1917; Palestine, 1947; Algeria, 1954; and Suez, 1956, are only a few of the many crises which have beset the Arabs' road to finding themselves again and to being themselves.
77. It is no wonder, therefore, that, within the brief space of thirteen years since the inception of the United Nations and besides the discussions on Arab questions at the regular sessions and meetings of this Organization, the General Assembly has held three special sessions to discuss problems and crises in relation to the Arabs and their lands, and only one special session to deal with a non-Arab question. In 1948 there was a special session on Palestine; in 1956 an emergency special session was held to discuss the Suez crisis; and in 1958 it was again in relation to the Arabs and their lands that the third emergency special session of the General Assembly was held.
78. Meanwhile, the Arab nation is there, not in isolation from what is going on in the world but communing and reacting with much of it, particularly with the renaissance, the awakening and the heeding of the call of freedom which have recently accompanied the most significant events in such sprawling areas as Asia, Africa and South America. And Arab nationhood is there, with no less claim to being and to self-expression than that of other nations, including several big Powers, whose people are not linked together with ties of race, language and culture as close as the ties permeating the very soul and the very substance of Arab existence.
79. History will, naturally, take its course. It will not and cannot be unduly deviated or hustled, but will flow into the coming years and centuries with whatever individuals or groups or nations have contributed to it. My people and my Government firmly believe that it would not be wise to try to do violence to history, and they are shaping their policy in the light of this belief. While history is taking its course, and wherever this course will ultimately lead, the world has recently seen unfolding, pending other developments and later growth, the birth certificate of what might be called the United Arab Nations.
80. The Arabs live in an area which, like several other areas of the world, is potentially rich to the extreme. It is potentially so rich in agriculture, in minerals, in oil, in trade and in industry. Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that the gap between this potential wealth -and the prevailing low standard of production and of living is painfully large. The Arab States are organizing and redoubling their efforts aiming at filling this gap, and they wish to trust that they will not be distracted by such interruptions, interventions and aggressions as those which have been absorbing much of their energy and sapping much of their strength in recent years.
81. The Government and people of the United Arab Republic are fully aware of the great and worthy task of economic and social progress which is so imperatively incumbent upon them; and they have made and will continue to make determined efforts in this direction. My Government is at the same time consulting and concerting action with the other Arab Governments for the activating of the resolution, which was adopted on 3 June 1957 by the Economic Council of the Arab League on the establishment of an Arab investment fund for economic development. In drafting that resolution the members of the Arab League had principally in mind such relevant provisions of the United Nations Charter as those of Article 55.
82. One of the basic freedoms of the Charter and of our times is the freedom of peaceful self-expression on which, as I have done already on economic and social development and rehabilitation. I ask leave, to make some brief comment.
83. It has been claimed that some Arab broadcasts do not conform to certain standards. The fact is that these broadcasts are feared and hated, not because they have a stronger financial backing, or are technically better equipped, but because they tell the truth which people today understand readily with their minds and feel deeply in their hearts, and because they tell this truth in the plain sun-baked language of 1958.
84. At the same time, those who are so critical in that respect are turning deaf ears to all the criticism, even by some from their own ranks, of their broadcasts of intrigue and of slander against the Arabs and their real leaders. It should, therefore, be clear to all by now that the Arabs hold no monopoly of verbosity or of piquant language, and that the self-complacent accusations in this regard against some of us Arabs must forthwith be disposed of. It might be that some broadcasts, including some of ours, require a little pruning here and there. As far as we are concerned in the United Arab Republic, we are already attending to this part of our business.
85. None of all this should mean, however, that the freedom, for all, of peaceful and constructive speech should be stifled or tampered with under the guise of moderation, or any other guise, or that we should be entitled to describe as nasty and destructive every word which does not exactly coincide with our way of thinking or which does not fall softly enough on our delicate ears. Nor should we allow ourselves even faintly to suggest that a comparison and a choice be made between the freedom of speech, even if occasionally roughshod, and the artificiality and spinelessness of the standardized, prefabricated and dolled-up kind of chatter which some wish us to adopt as our way of self-expression.
86. Not unrelated to the freedom of peaceful self- expression, there is still another freedom regarding which my Government welcomes the fact that, though in degrees varying from unhappy reluctance to near acceptance, the big Powers are showing more understanding of our neutrality, of our freedom to be neutral, than heretofore, and are outgrowing the childishness of being peeved and suspicious every time they note that we are on reasonable terms with all, and not exclusively so with one or the other of their respective blocs. They show less irritation than they did before, and less surprise, when we recall that ours is the stand of the Charter of the "United" Nations not the "divided" nations; and they appear to be almost resigned to the thought, even if less than almost resigned to the fact, of our neutrality.
87. In my statement to the Assembly today, and at the risk of seeming unduly self-conscious as an Arab, I have ventured, in my turn, to say a few words about the resurgence of Arab nationhood. In doing so, I have been speaking, as others have before me, of a wide range of problems, problems of growth, problems of cleavages and of struggles between old and new, and between so-called vested interests, which are war prizes of domination, and the inherent, legitimate rights of the erstwhile browbeaten peoples of the earth.
88. In this and similar connexions some friends, and some others, have been telling us facetiously or maliciously what a lot of quarrelsome people we Arabs are. "It is not being quarrelsome", we say, "it is being alive". It is that we find ourselves in this cycle of history and are faced with this avalanche of events. It is the time in which we live and the air which we breathe. This is what it is, we Say; yes, this is what it is.