A new weekly series about Egypt (Saturdays)

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 (15 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (15): What If...

What if ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 in Cairo) was mistaken when he predicted, in his Introduction to Universal History, his Muqaddimah, that Horus the Falcon God who came out of his defeat and humiliation at Falujah, in the Neguev, would storm al-Qahira, the Victorious, and loot, in vengeance, the country of his birth?

Horus the Falcon God

The god with one eye representing the sun and the other the moon, had started with noble and wise purpose: he spared the life of a King, he called for Muslims and Copts to join in his dream of renewal, he induced the 6% who owned 65% of the most fertile land to share it with the destitute Fallah. After all, the Falcon God and the middle rank officers who followed him were children of Egypt's recent past. They were the immediate heirs to Muhammad 'Ali Basha, the Founder of Modern Egypt. Their nationalism had been forged for them by S'ad Zaghlul, the Father of the Nation. They were finally schooled in the verses of Ahmad Shawqi, the Prince of Poets, who proclaimed: "innama al-Umamu bil Akhlaqi wa idha ma Dhahabat Akhlaqahum Dhahabu", it is Morality which makes a People; once a Nation loses its principles, it is bound to vanish.

At the initial stages of their government, the inexperienced members of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), under the chairmanship of Gamal 'abd il-Nasir, showed unmistakeably their dedication to pursue the tasks ahead. Egypt had grown into an unjust society in which the King flaunted his riches while the peasant earned fifteen piasters a day. Dysentery, bilharzia and trachoma were chronic diseases that disabled society. The military and its people had been humiliated by British occupation and by defeat in Palestine. What if, having appraised the changes that were occurring in the world and in the Middle East, as a result of the Second World War, and after Ambassador Caffery of the United States had contributed to the success of their Coup d'État in 1952, what if the Free Officers would intelligently have taken advantage of our new age to bring about revolution and change, modernization and prosperity? 

One of the earliest slogans used by the RCC, in 1952, became "al-Din li'llah wa al-Watan lil-gami' ". Religion should not interfere with Citizenship. Posters had been pasted across the land that showed a Coptic Church steeple and a Minaret side by side. The problem with Egyptian Society, after 1945, lay in that the world war had divided the nation instead of uniting it. The Arabic-speaking majority had to contend, on the one hand, with a significant Coptic minority that had been drawn closer to the British and, on the other hand, with originally foreign Khawagat residents, often Egyptian born, whose numbers and influence had increased as a result of war in Europe and whose roles, as agents of economic and social progress, was undeniable. The task ahead for the Free Officers ought to have been that of forging a new sovereign nation in which Muslims and Copts shared in a common purpose while the Khawagat continued their modernizing influence, this time, under the aegis of a national government as had been the case since Muhammad 'Ali Pasha and his descendants when they invited them to Egypt, until 1878, when a system of Capitulations shielded them from Egyptian Law.  The time was ripe for a constitution to be drafted and submitted to the people that would define citizenship and correct social and political anomalies that had resulted from Lord Cromer’s imperialist administration.

Yet another task awaited the RCC, that of negotiating the end of British military presence in the Suez Canal by putting a full stop at the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1924.

John Foster Dulles

In 1953, John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in President Dwight Eisenhower's cabinet, toured the Middle East. During his stop in Cairo, he met with Nasir and presented the Egyptians with a project to set up a Middle Eastern Defense Organization (MEDO) whose Head Quarters would be in Fayid, along the Suez Canal. The aim of this military alliance in which the United States, Britain and the states of the region would guarantee the security of the international waterway and the Middle East against the Soviet Union, this alliance, not unlike NATO in Europe, would assure Egypt, the host country, a role of prominence. The British would surrender their installations on the Canal to MEDO. Their contingent would fall under a unified command in which Egyptian officers would hold significant positions. In the alliance, the Egyptian Armed Forces would be equipped and modernized by America, as had been the case with Turkey’s Forces in NATO. No member of the alliance would attack another, as Israel has been doing repeatedly ever since. The United States, also, committed itself to finance the building of a High Dam in Aswan, a pet project of the Revolutionary government, and to contribute to the industrialization of Egypt, a tall agenda indeed, which would have touched upon education and training at all levels of Egypt’s activities. 

The third What If deals with character, morals, ethics and values. You may recall that, in 1907, Egyptians who were impressed by the ways of the British, founded a National Sporting Club, al-Nadi al-Ahli. Egyptians took, for the first time, to Western sports and, soon, excelled in them. The idea behind the founders of the NSC was to provide the youth with the means to build their personality and overcome any cultural traits that thwarted individual and group activities in an industrial age. Three words are still current amongst the people in their daily lingo, Insha'a l-lah, God Willing, Bukrah, Tomorrow, and Ma'lish, Not to Worry, the three conducive to slackness. Jokingly, Egyptians refer to this their indigenous IBM system, each of the letters referring to one of these three traits of character. This proverbial nonchalance has resulted in low rating at work and irresponsibility and continues to hamper the rise of a work ethic which would enable the Egyptian worker to compete in the world arena. To the Reformists of the beginning of the nineteenth century, IBM prevented Egypt from moving ahead. They believed this could be remedied amongst the upcoming elites by way of sports as well as schooling. Over sports, one had to visit, prior to 1952, the mushrooming sporting clubs across the land to see the young, boys and girls, train in earnest as they competed in the swimming pool, on the tennis and squash courts and in the football and basketball fields. The Egyptian Boy Scouts movement, also, took its lead from the British Lord Baden Powell with the same purpose in mind. In terms of schooling, secondary schools were finally established that would bridge the gap between national identity and modernity. One can safely say that, at the eve of the 1952 Coup, there existed in Egypt indigenous elites who were the envy of Arabs and Muslims alike. The RCC had, at their disposal a treasure of Egyptian skills, knowhow and expertise who were ready and dedicated to rebuilding their country.

After 1961, in an article in al-Ahram,

H. Haykal

Hasanayn Haykal, a spokesman of the President, wrote about the experts and the knowledgeable in Egypt, Ahl al-Khibra. The Regime, he emphasized had preferred Ahl al-Thiqa, the loyal elements of society, to Ahl al-Khibra. The military who had wrested power from the Civilians were asserting themselves and indicating that they would not share power with any civilian. Over the slogan `al-Din li-llah wa al-Watan lil-Gami'`, religion belongs to God and the Nation is everyone's: it was hoped it would become Article Two of the 1956 Constitution of the Republic? Instead, Article Two read: Islam is the Religion of the State. Egypt's opportunity to espouse Secularism was missed. Also, the chance for Egyptian Islam to rid itself of the shackles of Medieval Times was forsaken in the efforts of Nasir to compete with the Muslim Brotherhood who spoke for a majority of the people over matters of Religious Nationalism. Nasir was also vying for the leadership of Arab Nationalism. When he accused the Ikhwan to attempt against his life, during a speech he gave in Alexandria in 1954, the Brotherhood was banned and its leaders arrested. The Ikhwan went underground or else escaped to Saudi Arabia. During those police raids, the Left was also shipped to detention camps in an oasis of the Western Desert.

Al Sanhoury

The eminent jurist, ‘abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri (1895-1971), who headed the Supreme Court, warned publicly against the trampling of individual liberties. Thugs invaded his office and beat the elderly man up. Al-Sanhuri resigned his post and left the country. The Egyptian Military was well in control of the State. This was the beginning of their reign of terror.

In April 1955, Nasir was invited to Bandung, in Indonesia, to represent the Arab World and attend a Conference of Non-Aligned Countries. He was turning his back on MEDO and any friendship with the United States. That same year, the Soviet Bloc agreed to sell him arms.

The Aswan Dam would also be built by the Soviets at the cost of unilaterally nationalizing the Anglo-French Company of the Suez Canal in the summer of 1956. It became a matter of months before war erupted and Britain, France and Israel invaded the Canal Zone. The costly 1956 War in which the entire Egyptian Army was destroyed, would be followed by the wars of 1967 and 1973. These wars would not have occurred had Egypt joined MEDO, later to be renamed the Baghdad Pact. It is claimed that the GNP of the country had fallen 75% by 1972 and there was little money to invest in the youth and the future. Each military defeat, also, drew Egypt closer to the Soviet Union and Egypt became non-aligned in name only while, in reality, it had become involved in the Cold War on the side of the Soviets and Israel stood squarely on the opposite side with the United States. And, while Nasir’s adventurism took him all over the Third World, Egypt was being neglected and abandoned to incompetent stewardship. Egyptians had hoped for a new dawn in 1952.

What they inherited was two decades of disappointments brought about by the ignorant, pretentious, greedy and vindictive falcons that Horus unleashed against the City of their forefathers, to empty their granaries and to leave them materially and morally impoverished.

When one writes in hindsight half a century after the facts, one is bound to see reality in one’s own perspective, through one’s own experience and with the nostalgia of younger years. The Arab World, in general, and Egypt, in particular, are at their worse in standing today in the globe.

Early pictures of Suez Canal

Oil and the Suez Canal have represented a curse for their people and one wonders if their leaders could have handled the Neo-Colonialists better than their ancestors did with Colonialism. And, yet Egyptians have to look to Turkey to reflect on if, what if, the recent past could have been otherwise. In 1952, my Egyptian friends and I welcomed the Coup d’État. I had the privilege of listening to Nasir address the crowds and was mesmerized by his charisma. When I left, after the 1956 War to study in Beirut, I was angry with the West I once so much admired. Then I lived through the 1958 Lebanese Civil War and witnessed American Marines land on Lebanon’s beaches and thought to myself ``how dare they?``. That was when the military in Iraq toppled the Monarchy and put an end to the Baghdad Pact. Came then the Union of Egypt and Syria. Were the Arabs on track again? It took the Six-Day War for me and millions to experience our Rude Awakening. What If, I then told myself, what if the what ifs I reflected upon here and now had become reality.