If I Were Dictator
by His Highness the Aga Khan III
My dictatorship would uphold, rather than break down, national autonomy within a super-national world. Excessive centralization would be avoided by the maintenance of local Parliaments, but with a World Parliament at Geneva or Latisanne, the heart of civilization, to advise and assist the Dictator, and to replace the present League of Nations.
It would be essential to the satisfactory working of the new order to readjust national groupings. where they form a source of irritation and unrest. From long and close study of world affairs I am driven to the conclusion that few things are more inimical to peace and good-will between neighbors than the tearing asunder of ethnic and linguistic groups at the dictate whether of a Napoleon or a President Wilson, to serve the ends of larger and more powerful competing interests. A general world-wide recasting of existing political units would not l)e necessary. The New World could be left untouched, for neither in North America nor South America is there any sense of seriates grievance. On the Continent of Europe there need be no territorial reshaping of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Muscovy and the Scandinavian countries. This is also broadly true of Italy. except that she might be asked to surrender some acquisitions along the Alps which, in my view, are essentially German and not Italian.
Remapping the World
The danger zones are Central Europe, the Balkans and Asia. I would make of Germany and Austria one nation, restoring to them such truly Germanic territory as has been acquired by others. In districts essentially Hungarian in population. I should return to that unjustly maimed hut generous and talented race such territories as desired by a free plebiscite to join her. In the Balkans, which have under-gone so many transformations in national groupings as a result of tell years' almost continual fighting, I would have a properly conducted and free plebiscite for all doubtful zones. Where racial and cultural unity existed in the past I would let the peoples concerned unite or re-main united. In a word, aggressor States would be compelled to disgorge and the map of Europe would be re-made on cultural and voluntary lines.
I would pursue the same policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, by aiming at re-uniting, each under one strong Government, the Persian and Turkish races. The Central Asian regions I would form into States on cultural and racial lines.
The present clumsy and ill-assorted provincial groupings in India are the issue of historical or administrative accident and not of planned design. They would be replaced by more homogeneous provinces bringing together to the fullest extent permitted by inexorable circumstance groups of the same linguistic tribe.
I advocated such remaking of the map of India in a book published in 1916 when the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were being shaped and I remain convinced today that this policy would provide one of the keys to an effective All-India Federation. The Arabs are today an unjustly treated race. They are under different governments and different mandatories. I would make a federal but united Arabia something on the lines of the old Germanic Empire, leaving here and there to hereditary principalities their internal autonomy but uniting the whole peninsula and its adjacent Arab lands by a central federal government at some central place on the lines of Washington or Canberra. Japan can retain unimpaired her island nationality. In China there is linguistic affinity and a tradition of centuries of unity, but, in view of the course of events in our day, I should be inclined to give large provinces the opportunity for contracting out-if they wished to do so.
In Africa the tendency would be toward aggregation rather than division. For instance, I would make of the North-West one State. Egypt and the Sudan would be left as at present. The South African Union would be retained, excepting that Natal, being so preponderatingly British, might be given the option to contract out. In all that I have said I have not lost sight of the needs of the less civilized peoples, who are to be found in Africa in greater measure than elsewhere. I would entrust them for a transitional period of from fifteen to twenty years to a general League of from fifteen to twenty years to a general League of all the nations. In Central Africa, for instance, thc administrative would be in charge of nominees of the League. One of their main responsibilities would be the steady preparation of the people, by culture, to take over the responsibility for the administration of their own affairs.
Enriching the Life of the Citizen
The re-groupings made as a means to cultural progress would need to be safeguarded from an excess of particularism. To-day the two main streams of civilization are fed from two widely divided cultures-the Asiatic and the European. Every Asiatic of is brought face to face with European culture in a variety of ways; but, broadly speaking, the European who has not lived in the East( and nine hundred and ninety nine out of a thousand of his fellow countrymen who have sojourned in Asia) does not know Eastern culture in any real sense. I would therefore make bi-culturalism an essential feature of education. I should aim at the ideal of every European child being taught an Eastern language, and every Asiatic child a European language. It is scarcely necessary to say that under my dictatorship compulsory education would be world-wide and kept up till, say, eighteen or twenty years of age. I should give to education a wider meaning than that which it now has in the public mind. The system would include teaching on health, on the laws of sex and parenthood, and on art and the life of the soul in the widest sense. The broad aim would be to give the workers a recognition of the value of their leisure in providing opportunities for spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual pursuits, for delight in nature and art in their manifold forms and, above all, for direct communion with the Unseen. The effort would be to enrich life through many channels. Travel like staff rides in the army, would be regarded as a normal part of education. Spiritual values would be given the preeminence which is their inherent right. By spiritual experience I must make it clear that nothing in the nature of asceticism or monkery or renunciation of the responsibilities, as well as of the enjoyment, of life is meant. Good and beautiful thoughts, kindliness and gentleness towards others as well as a constant feeling of communion with the obvious soul in the universe around us- these, rather than absurd inhibitions and taboos, would be the meaning of religious education. The value and importance for happiness and contentment or reflection over the fruits of knowledge and the direct reactions to outer nature would be taught to the young. The habit of contemplation would be as general during moments of leisure to-day the wastage of precious time. There would he full freedom and equality of religious opinion, and also of practice so long as it did not trench upon the rights of others. Poetry and imaginative literature of all countries, especially of the neglected Muslim world, would be brought within the reach of each and all. The promotion of the public health would be sought both by education theorem and by the encouragement of physical culture, hiking, sports and games.
The time and money now foolishly wasted by sections of the public in over-clothing and over-fitting would be replaced by rational diet and dress and the use of golf courses, tennis courts, cricket, football and hockey grounds, and other sports for which wide-spread provision would be made. In these ways the people would be encouraged to divert the mind and exercise the body. There would be no regimentation in the use of amusements, as each individual would be left free to choose his own form of recreation.
No Standing Still in Human Affairs
The dictatorship would recognize that there is no standing still in human affairs and that both science and economic policy must serve the ends of progress. As Sir J.J. Thomson showed in his presidential address to the selection of mathematical and physical sciences at the centenary meeting of the British Association a few weeks ago, there is too much mass production in University science teaching. Far too many unsuitable men are turned to laboratory work in various branches of research. The best results can be achieved, I am confident, by providing the fullest means for investigation to men of proved power and achievement. It would give a Faraday, a Ross and an Einstein adequate resources and let him choose his own assistance. In this way scientific research and progress would be revitalized with the fire of individual genius. The higher prizes would be offered- not only from the material, but from the social and the honorific points of view for scientific discoveries; while those who showed natural inclinations and promise by original thought and work would be placed in positions where they could carry forward their researches, not only in all inductive sciences, but in history, literature, and economic studies.
Warning Against the Force of Nature
From all that has been said it might appear that the necessity for man to face danger and adversity, to develop his mental resources for sudden decisions in the face of unforeseen events, for constant and hard effort, for preparation and foresight might be weakened. Peace, a higher development of contemplation and reflective education and more general possessions and variety of goods might, one would think, in the long run sap the foundations from which progress comes. But I maintain, on the contrary, that the twenty years of my dictatorship would go a long way to strengthen these qualities, and change their direction. Instead of having to combat man, to face danger from neighboring states, instead of making the effort for a painful production of goods, instead of years of spending and service in order to save a little, in order to buy as little, the society I should have prepared (for the super-national states that would take up the continuation of my work) would have learned that the greatest of all conquests, and the greatest of all struggles, and the greatest of all triumphs will be over the forces of nature. Through the constant encouragement of individual effort to overcome the impediment that nature has placed in the way of man's progress a new mentality would be gradually formed. The draining and reclaiming of Africa, of Siberia, of the deserts of Central Asia; the development of the vast sub-Himalayan forests by means intensely more powerful than those now at man's disposal, by even the conquest through science of the coldest North and the warmest areas of the equator, the qualities now wasted in fratricidal wars would be turned to the preparation of such organizations as would render a retrograde reaction after my twenty years' dictatorship came to an end, if not impossible, at least most improbable.
Recent events have shown how great are the reactions of economic policy upon the welfare of the world. As Dictator I would break down high Tariff walls and promote a real freedom of trade, subject only to the proviso that the circumstances of any given area of production might make it beneficial for the world (and not merely for the country itself) to secure temporary protection for the proper development of a given industry. The uncertainty and speculation which hold the world in thrall for so long as the value of goods depends entirely upon the precious metals would be replaced by a fixed unvarying exchange, whereby both gold and silver tokens and paper money (based upon the guarantees of the dictatorship) would balance goods. Private property in the holding of shares would be encouraged; and for purposes of production and development the State might make advances to industrialists at nominal rates. With freedom of trade I would restore the freedom of communication and travel which now suffer from so many post-war restrictions. It would be in accordance with the spirit of the policy I have outlined to reduce the volume of legislation in all countries.
The fact that, owing to scientific discovery, more and more goods can be placed on the market should not lead to such depreciation of general values as to render men workless and poor. On the contrary, money values would be so adjusted to goods as to make it the object of the world State to place at the disposal of each consumer (for very little money value) as large and as varied a quantity of materials as to make a position of leisure possible for him. He would thus benefit from the intellectual and physical advantages of the higher culture brought to his door not only by his proper education in youth, but by courses of lectures, private but voluntary tuition, and intellectual and explanatory series of visits to important cities and the countryside.
You will see that the broad general principles of the exercise of my dictatorship would be to secure the prevention of war, to break down the animosities and barriers to goodwill, to provide scope for both national and individual self-expression, and to seek to give each citizen capacity and opportunity to share in the rich heritage which the human race as a whole and not merely some portions of it, should receive, by reason of the toil, the teaching and the sacrifice of the past generations.
And then, when my twenty years' dictatorship was over, I should hope and believe that the better world for which I had prepared would not so easily have fallen back into the state of spiritual, intellectual, social, political, and economic anarchy which has last been the fate of mankind up till to-day.
Source: The Listener, 11th November, 1931
Epistle by Hazrat
Ali to the Governor of Egypt
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