After watching the England v India one day cricket match at Lords last summer, I had a drink with Peter O’Toole and then walked with him to his car. Outside Lords Tavern we passed a large group of young Indians having a few beers to celebrate their team’s victory. The moment they spotted O’Toole they broke into a chant of “Lawrence. . . Lawrence . . Lawrence.” Thinking about it later I realised how extraordinary this was. It was not O’Toole’s presence as an actor that excited them but the image of Lawrence of Arabia, a man who had lived and died before they were even born.
Before Tony Blair joins the new crusaders trying to impose a “regime change”, a Western “settlement” on Iraq, he should at least look at the historical facts that explain the rise of nationalist leaders such as Saddam Hussein. And while he is at it, since he is good at empathy, he might try looking at Britain through Iraqi eyes. Seen from Baghdad, the British have bombed and invaded their country, lied to them, manipulated their borders, imposed on them leaders they did not want, kidnapped ones they did, fixed their elections, used collective terror tactics on their civilians, promised them freedom and then planned to turn their country into a province of India populated by immigrant Punjabi farmers. Small wonder that the author Said Aburish said to me recently: “If you think Saddam Hussein is a hard man to deal with, just wait for the next generation of Iraqi leaders.”
The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, Nelson (London and New York), tells the amazing story of the many secret lives of this international hero, British intelligence officer and saviour of the Middle East.
The book, written in 1969, came after Phillip and fellow Sunday Times reporter Colin Simpson were allowed access to the TE Lawrence document collection at the Bodleian Library in Oxford by Lawrence’s youngest brother Arnold.
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