LEADERS: Sir Wilfred Thesiger

David Pike asks: "Will no one who loves travel write a word of remembrance for Wilfred Thesiger, an explorer comparable with Livingstone, Stanley, Humboldt and Burton? He died last Sunday at 93."

RH:
The Economist (8/39/03) devoted its obituary to him. Despite my addiction to travel and travel literature, Thesiger scares me. In his photograph he looks like an al-Quaeda fighter. It may surprise some that I did not know the four explorers David names, but the one who comes closest to is Burton, if only because they ventured into Arabia Infelix, Burton to Mecca and Thesiger into Kuh al-Khali (the empty quarter), the world's largest sand desert, which he crossed twice.

He began his Middle East explorations in Shatt al-Arab, the marshy area where the Tigris and Euphrates pour into the Persian Gulf. He wrote an account of the area, The Marsh Arabs (1964). Among other things, he circumcised young boys. He then went on to lament that "civilization" was spoiling the marsh Arabs. The area is now within the British-controlled sector of Iraq. What did Thesiger think about it?

After Eton he had gone to Oxford, where he broke his nose captaining the boxing team against Cambridge. Perhaps that explains his ferocious look. He was born in 1910, the son of the British Ambassador to Abyssinia. (Can someone tell us when and exactly why it changed its name to Ethiopia? We must add place names to stamps, flags, history textbooks, etc).

He loved the Bedouins and regretted that they were becoming modernized. What did he think of the Wahabites and terrorists? He was knighted and awarded the Star of Ethiopia (Third Class) by Haile Selassie. (Why not first class?). With his tribal dress, turban and bushy beard, he would have been profiled had he come to the US and detained under the Homeland Security Act. He might have died in Guantanamo, a victim of the modernity he so hated.

I apologize for the tone of these remarks, inspired by my worries about the Middle East and the Arabs. Sir Wilfred must have been a fine man: he went to Magdalen, which later made him an Honorary Fellow. Moreover, the list of his awards proves that he merits David's eulogy.

To the list of his publications I should add;
Arabian Sands (1959)
Desert, Marsh and Mountain; The Life of a Nomad (1979
The Life of My Choice (autobiography, 1987)
Visions of a Nomad (1987)

He was very English at heart. When he went to England he dressed like a London gentleman, and he was a member of the Beefsteak Club, which I do not know but which sounds terribly British. He was able to lead three lives: as a traveler gone native, a writer and a man about town.

I imagine that the two Gulf Wars pained him deeply. Can anyone inform us about his ideas on them? Did he write anything on the subject? With his background he might have been a great force for peace in the Middle East.