Commentary
Frederic Wehrey, Charles H. Johnson
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Source: Getty
Other
What the ‘Danish Lawrence’ Learned in Libya
Beyond his testimony about the depredations of interwar imperialism, there are other reasons to revisit Knud Holmboe. The arc of his life, with its stark conversions, straddled the schisms and categories that divide the world still.
Published on Nov 25, 2019
Source: New York Review of Books
In the summer of 1931, the security services in French-controlled Syria detained and deported a Danish journalist who had the previous year spent time in the Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in North Africa, part of what would later become the modern state of Libya. The Italian fascists had reportedly contacted the French to request the expulsion of the twenty-eight-year-old traveler on the grounds that he was a dangerous subversive. French officials in Syria needed little convincing: the tall, blue-eyed Dane’s reputation had preceded his arrival and some of his reporting about Libya, they believed, had inspired anti-Italian riots in Syria that had left several dead. Soon after these disturbances, an article in the British press called the young man a “Danish Lawrence,” referring to T.E. Lawrence, the British military officer in World War I better known as “Lawrence of Arabia.”
This article was originally published in the New York Review of Books.
About the Author
Frederic Wehrey
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program
Frederic Wehrey is a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on governance, conflict, and security in Libya, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf.
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Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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