A new weekly series about Egypt 

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (9 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (9): Tal'at Harb and Egyptian Economic Nationalism.

He was born in 1867 and died in 1941. He graduated from Fu'ad University as an economist. The university was staffed by Britishers and most subjects, the sciences and the social sciences, were taught in English. The Egyptians who later joined the university staff would also study in England. A few were educated in France, Italy or Germany. This was a time when the government was lavish with its scholarships. In 1907, Tal'at Harb wrote a pamphlet on the urgency for Egyptians to create their bank. Shareholders ought to be Egyptian. Depositors, of course, would be. Harb preached endlessly for this idea. He pointed to what was happening to Egypt when it remained in foreign hands.

Talaat Harb

His words did not fall on deaf ears. The Khediviate and, later, the Monarchy were in favour of regaining control of the land they were losing to the Khawagat. Amongst the landowning class, the intellectuals and the civil service who had grown loyal to Sa'd Zaghlul and to the Wafd Party, the time had come to change the course of Egyptian history.

As he stood still facing what is now Tahrir Square, Harb was pondering over the future from his high pedestal. His statue had replaced that of Sulayman Basha (al-Faransawi). Maydan al-Isma'liyyah had also been renamed after Liberation lest one was reminded too often of the House of Muhammad 'Ali. He stared in the direction of Kasr el-Nil Barracks, symbol of occupation, and the River Nile where permanence flowed. Our family had moved from Maadi into the heart of the city so that we be close to our schools and to my father's work. My mother also could easily drop by the Cairo Women's Club, on Maydan Mustafa Kamil, where Arabic and English were spoken, not French. Tal'at Harb and I had become neighbours now that he had moved into the quarter of the Khawagat.

It should be reminded that, no sooner did Muhammad 'Ali Basha order the creation of a centre for translation of European works, Madrasat al-Alsun, that there appeared on the book stalls texts of all kinds. The Age of Egyptian Liberalism to which Tal'at Harb belongs owes it vision of the future not only to the teachings of Muhammad 'Abduh, that Islam and Science were not in opposition, but also to the works of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, Rousseau and Montesquieu, and many more in translation.

Yet another book whom Fathi Zaghlul, the brother of Sa'd, had made available to the avid Egyptian readership was Edmond Demolins' A Quoi Tient la Superiorité des Anglo-Saxons, published in French in 1897. It told of the breeding of Britain's elites: education, sports and moral fiber had made tiny Britain powerful and rich. Character was an individual's strength and character building ought to be at the root of upbringing and education. Tal'at Harb appears to have acquired both.   

In 1911, Harb published The Reform of the Egyptian Economy and the Project for a National Bank. It took another nine years till Bank Misr was founded. And, from 1920 till 1940, his bank's Board of Governors approved or initiated more than 20 projects, companies and plants, who would form the nucleus of an industrial and commercial sector in Egypt's economy that, in some cases, resembled that of the Khawagats'; in others, it was, again, dedicated to promote the modernization of the country. These projects invariably received financing from Bank Misr. They were all directed by Egyptians although foreign expertise was inevitably sought. They also operated entirely in Arabic. These realizations provided employment to the Egyptians who had studied abroad or in Egypt itself. They induced more Egyptians to seek a university education. Bank Misr financed a printing house and the manufacturing of paper, cotton ginning, and cotton, linen and silk weaving and dyeing, fisheries, transportation, mines and quarries, and a travel agency to compete with Thomas Cook who controlled the growing tourist industry which brought Europeans and a smack of Americans to Ancient Egypt. All these companies which Bank Misr assisted or partly owned had Misr, Egypt, included in their name, like Misr li'l Nasig, Misr li'l Siyaha or Misr li'l Ta'min. In 1932, MisrAir was founded.

Um Kalthum

So far for commerce and industry. In 1935, Studio Misr which had been producing films with the technical assistance of Germans and Frenchmen, since a decade earlier, presented Wadad, a movie picture starring Um Kulthum, the rising feminine voice in the country. The movie was shown at Cinema Misr, on 'Imad ed-Din Street. It was a success. Nagib al-Rihani's comedies also hit the screen. Egypt was on the way of regaining the pride it had lost when the British stopped the armies of Muhammad 'Ali that marched on Istambul at Kutahya, in 1833, and when the British again defeated 'Urabi Pasha at Tall al-Kabir, in 1882, thus subsequently occupying Egypt. Meanwhile, the new social class which Bank Misr represented was not unlike that which, in Germany, shortly before Bismarck, had caused a Kultuurkampf. It brought the intellectuals and the civil servants, the entrepreneurs and the political elites, the landlords and the Court of King Fu'ad together in this national initiative. This was a class of liberal nationalists who shared in the effort of uplifting Egyptian society.

As early as 1907, the National Sporting Club, al-Nadi al-Ahli, was inaugurated on al-Gazirah, adjacent to the

Gezirah Sporting Club

Guerzirah Sporting Club which, like the Maadi Sporting Club, had been established by the British for themselves and was for long out of bound to the Natives. European sports like foot ball, tennis and swimming, athletics and rowing had caught the imagination of Egyptians. In the narrow lanes of Cairo where the workshops were located, young apprentices spent their lunch breaks playing football with a ball of fortune. On the Nile banks, crowds cheered as 'Abd al-Latif abu Hayf, Mar'i Hammad and Hasan 'abd al-Rahim, trained for the Channel crossing that would make them world famous. In 1948, Mahmud Fayyad, would win gold at the Olympics and Mahmud 'abd al-Karim would later become world champion in Squash Racquet. The new Egyptian elites showed interest and support for physical training, the spirit of competitiveness and fair play. The game of cricket, furthermore, puzzled rather than attracted people like myself: the Brits competing passionately at the game then suddenly stopped for tea, then carrying on with their playing, sometimes the following day. Come to think of it, economic development was such a game where ingenuity, patience and tenacity paid dividends back.

The new elites used the grounds of Nadi al-Ahli to meet and exchange ideas. Eventually, they moved from coffee houses and tea rooms to private clubs, like the Muhammad 'Ali Club on Sulayman Basha and the Royal Automobile Club, on Qasr al-Nil, in which business ventures, electoral strategies and the latest from the outside world in terms of inventions were discussed. The rise of Communism and Fascism in the West, and of totalitarianism in Egypt itself, was obviously of great interest to Egyptian Liberals. The dangers to the 1923 Constitution by an authoritarian monarch in 'Abdine Palace was as well. But, more on this later.

Abdine Royal Palace

The new elites of Egypt were obviously not impervious to the business ventures of the Khawagat. In fact, when sporting clubs were eventually opened to the Locals, as they were referred to, Egyptians started getting to be more informed about the strengths and the weaknesses of Khawagat society. They met at the Maadi, Heliopolis and Guezirah sporting clubs and at the Alexandria Sporting Club at Smouha. English was now competing with French as the main foreign language of communication. Otherwise, Egyptians spoke amongst themselves in Arabic. As I said, the mood was one of liberalism, of laisser faire, laisser passer.

The Misr group had inspired more financial and industrial conglomerates to form. Ahmad 'Abbud, was yet another baron in the business world: this magnate of the sugar industry, bought out the British Khedivial Mail Lines and his Khedewiyyah connected Alexandria with Haifa, Beirut, Latakiyyah, Limasol and Athens. Not since the sinking of Muhammad 'Ali's fleet at Navarino, in 1827, had the Egyptian flag been seen flapping on the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean. And there was Shabrawishi whose perfumes sent a sweet Breeze from the Nile in the air when people congregated around the ladies that had removed their Yasmak, their Ottoman-designed veil. Not in their wildest dreams could Rifa'a al-Tahtawi and Muhammad 'Abduh fathom such changes amongst a few Egyptians would happen in such a short time. These new elites moved with great ease between the modern world and the realm of their ancestry. They could telegraph to Europe to put in an order or close a deal then return home to their customs and their mores, to their daily religious practices and to listening, in the concert hall, to the compositions of Muhmmad 'abd al-Wahhab and the voice of Umm Kulthum. Someone once remarked that, in this respect, Egypt and Japan had much in common. 

The Ingiliz had, no doubt, introduced a growing number of Egyptians to values which were not indigenous to their culture. This was certainly the case with the Liberal elites. Socially, they rubbed shoulders with Foreigners. In clubs, they could be seen drinking beer. Their spouses and daughters dressed like Christians and Jewesses and wore bathing suites in pools and along the beaches. In the villas they had built for their families, they raised pets like the English did, who carried English names and were ordered around in English: sit, Rex. And, they had the fondest memories of their journeys to Europe. In the Canal City of Isma'iliyyah, one Hasan al-Banna, objected to the way in which his country had been evolving: "ya nas, he used to preach in some café to his growing audience, taraktum dinakum wa dhahabat akhlakukum", you have abandoned your religion and lost your souls to immorality. al-Banna and the formation he brought about, al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, should adorn the next frescoe.