Desert Queen by Janet Wallach - Anchor Books (2005)
There have been few historical periods more repressive to female liberty than the English Victorian Era. Contrary to the popular notion that gender equality progresses along a linear trajectory, the Victorian Era in England witnessed a dramatic restriction in opportunities for women. Part of this had to do with the dwindling value of royal blood. Whereas a Republican or Parliamentary government can simply elect an unrelated male to fill a vacated seat, a government based on royal blood might choose to allow a female to rule as Regent or Sovereign rather than paddle beyond the immediate gene pool—as in the case of Elizabeth I. Despite the continuance of the English monarchy under Queen Victoria, commoners during the late nineteenth-century were finally allowed to nourish their own political ambitions, and the marginal space for females within government was further diminished. This is not to dismiss the powerful voices of discontent which did emerge under austere social conditions. Outstanding, resilient women such as George Egerton, Vernon Lee, and Charlotte Mew certainly did what they could to push conventional boundaries (for a comprehensive anthology, read Daughters of Decadence - Virago (1993)). But the pressure placed upon women to maintain the household and produce enough Englishmen to rule the ever-expanding British empire, made the choice to remain unmarried a somewhat treasonous act. Admittance to the domestic and political spheres was rigidly policed and gender-exclusive. Gertrude Bell was just one of many women whose loyalty to the English crown sometimes came into conflict with her desire for independence and her allegiance to the people of the Middle East. Desert Queen, Janet Wallach’s eye-opening account of Bell’s efforts to establish an independent Arab kingdom in Iraq, is a must-read for anyone whose conception of the Middle East begins with the Gulf War. Alongside the modern image of Iraq as a dusty wasteland, Wallach presents the cosmopolitan city of Baghdad as it must have appeared to Gertrude Bell—a city where an ambitious woman could have her say, live on her own, and discuss the future of the Arab world with leading Sheikhs and Emirs.
Janet Wallach is the author of nine books, including Seraglio: A Novel, and Chanel: Her Style and Her Life. She has also co-authored several books, including Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder, and The New Palestinians. Wallach is deeply committed to rehabilitating the soiled reputations of prominent politicians and intellectuals in the Middle East. As a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and The Smithsonian Magazine, Wallach has produced in-depth profiles of Queen Noor of Jordan, Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, and Saudi entrepreneur Adnan Khashoggi, among others. With her husband John, Wallach co-founded Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization committed to building bridges of communication between young thinkers from conflict zones around the world. Every year, gifted teenagers are brought to a Summer camp in Maine where they discuss their shared interests, reservations, and plans for the future. Thus far, Seeds of Peace graduates have included citizens from Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and America. The organization won a UNESCO peace prize in 2000.
Desert Queen is Wallach’s most successful book to date. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been translated into twelve languages and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Its popularity is owed, in part, to Gertrude Bell’s friendship with Lawrence of Arabia and her familiarity as the inspiration behind the movie Queen of the Desert. But Bell’s international fame does not entirely account for Wallach’s commercial success. Desert Queen is a comprehensive, vividly-rendered example of documentary research at its best. Wallach somehow manages to stuff a lifetime of private correspondence, local interactions, and international negotiations into a single volume, without abandoning her reader to a tidal wave of information. Proust might scoff in his mouldering coffin, but the average reader will applaud Wallach’s remarkable ability to organize data in a concise, logical manner.
Wallach’s biography can be described as a collection of lists. Gertrude Bell achieved so much during her lifetime, that the only way to accurately reflect her importance is to rattle of a list of accomplishments and responsibilities. This narrative technique is applied early on when Wallach writes,
…none could deny her achievements: the first woman to earn a first-class degree in Modern History at Oxford; the author of seven books, scores of articles in publications that ranged from academic journals to the pages of The Times, and a White Paper considered to be a masterpiece by the British Government. She was the only woman to earn the grade of Political Officer during the Great War and the only woman after the war to be named to the high post of Oriental Secretary; the winner of the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the honorary director of antiquities at the Baghdad museum; and the recipient of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
The semi-colon shines in all its glory in Wallach’s account. In fact, there is no better punctuation to emphasize Bell’s vigor and determination. Whether Wallach is discussing Bell’s scholarly ambitions, or her responsibilities as a British official in post-WWI Iraq, a percussive, rapid-fire delivery seems to be the best approach:
She wanted to inform the English of the ways of the East. She would tell them about the Arab world and its culture: its people, Bedouin tribesmen and educated townsmen; its language, flowery and circuitous; its manners, both primitive and polished; its delicate art; its intricate architecture; its history of holy wars and conquests; its literature filled with symbolism and poetry; its politics fraught with internecine rivalries and tribal revenge; its religion of Islam; its waling music; its food staples of flat bread and yogurt; its commerce of bazaar merchants and international traders; its agriculture of wheat farming and camel grazing; its oil-rich sand; its terrain of palm trees, incidental water and endless desert.
Wallach’s style of writing is breathless and rapturous. It is also perfectly calibrated to the experience of a single woman exploring the ‘mystical Orient’ during the golden age of British imperialism. We see the Middle East as a fertile cultural oasis, bursting with spiritual and material possibilities. It is beautiful, and poetic, and draped in ancient symbolism. It is also glittering with natural wealth, and one can almost sympathize with the Western industrialists salivating over the promise of an oil-drenched paradise. Wallach is careful to remind modern readers of the British perspective during the Victorian Era. Appropriating the bombastic rhetoric of conquest, Wallach writes,
The greatest empire of all time, the one that stretched over a greater amount of ocean, covered a greater amount of land, contained a greater number of people than any before it, was the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Her superpower left its mark on continents and subcontinents, from Europe to Australia to India to America to Africa to Asia, from Adelaide to Wellington, Bombay to Rangoon, Ottawa to the Virgin Islands, Alexandria to Zanzibar, Aden to Singapore. The British navy ruled the seas, British coal fueled the ships and industries, British bankers financed the businesses, British merchants ran the trade, British food fed the stomachs and British factories clothed the bodies of one fourth of all human beings who lived and worked and played in every corner of the world.
Within this Anglo-centric vision of the world—a world ruled and governed by one tiny, damp island—the role for British females was not open for negotiation. They were, quite literally, the producers of empire. And ‘empire,’ during the Victorian age, was not defined by the same negative terms as it is today. Writes Wallach,
They took pride in the British Empire and its role as custodian of the universe. Whether in the huge and all-important colony of India or on some tiny island in the Caribbean, the British believed it was their duty to protect the natives, uphold the trade, spread morality and defend the territory. If the British did not do it, they assumed, someone else would, and no one—not the Germans, not the French, certainly not the Russians…could ever do it as well. Theirs was a world run by men of initiative, courage and conviction. It was a world graced by women who, in their domesticity, were no less than the guardians of the English race.
Only through a detailed examination of Victorian mentality can Wallach underscore the extent of Gertrude Bell’s bravery. Not only did Bell choose a life of independence—thereby neglecting her patriotic duty to reproduce—but she also allowed for the gradual dismantling of an entrenched superiority complex. When Bell first arrived in the Middle East, she thought of the native population as most Westerners did—as heathens in need of guidance and protection. After living for years in Baghdad and Cairo, riding alone through the desert to meet with prominent tribal leaders, organizing an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, negotiating the political status and geographical boundaries of the Middle East after the conclusion of WWI, traveling to Paris for the 1919 Peace Conference, and working with Prince Faisal to consolidate an Arab Kingdom in Iraq, her opinions had changed. It can be nearly impossible for a person to change her opinions when racial superiority is a factor. There is little room for cooperation when one side considers the other to be inherently incapable of self-rule. If the relationship between one country and another retains a paternal flavor, little can be accomplished. Burdened with the historical legacy of British arrogance, it is truly remarkable that Gertrude Bell was able listen to her Arab contacts with such an open mind. Wallach celebrates this unprecedented diplomatic accomplishment when she writes,
[Bell’s] ideas had turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees from where they had been before her trip. She had gone from believing the Arabs could never rule themselves to seeing them govern themselves in Syria. She had gone from denying the notion that there is an Arab nation comprised of one Arab people to seeing the fervor of Arab nationalism in Palestine and in Syria. She had gone from assuming that Britain must stay in control to recognizing the need for it to cede considerable authority.
Having survived such a destabilizing intellectual metamorphosis, it makes sense that Gertrude took pride in Prince Faisal’s simple, offhanded description of her as an ‘Iraqi.’ The title ‘Desert Queen,’ a reference to Bell’s Arabic nickname, is not really an accurate reflection of her diplomatic attitude. In her fantastic, list-filled biography, Janet Wallach makes it clear that Gertrude Bell was ready to leave behind any imperial baggage that couldn’t be carried by a camel.
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