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Freedom In Service

Note 33 — II COMPULSORY SERVICE AND LIBERTY

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Shelley. Ode to Liberty, Canto 2. Compare the description of Huriyeh (Liberty) given by Sir Mark Sykes in The Caliphs' Last Heritage. I quote the following from a review in The Spectator, of November 27th, 1915: Sir Mark Sykes saw Huriyeh (Liberty) at work in the distant provinces of the Empire. "What, O father of Mahmud," he said to an old Arab acquaintance, "is this Huriyeh?" The "father of Mahmud" replied without hesitation "that there is no law and each one can do all he likes." Neither was this lawless interpretation of liberty confined to Moslems. The Greek Christians in the neighbourhood of Hebron were "armed to the teeth and glad of Huriyeh, for they say they can now raid as well as other men." In Anatolia, a muleteer who had been discharged from Sir Mark Sykes's service "spent all his time singing 'Liberty—Equality—Fraternity,' the reason being that the Committee at Smyrna released him from prison, where he was undergoing sentence for his third murder."

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