Nour Al-Haqiqa of "Snipit-And-Snapit" blog commented on on an article I posted on blog long time ago. At the time, I was caught up in the current news, and was absorbed in writing a few short stories for my second blog "literature: short and long stories and linguistics". Anyways, while browsing the "draft" articles on this blog, I came across my incomplete answers to Nour. Therefore I decided to finish the article and post it. It is not too late, as the article is a summation of the history of Egypt after the 23 of July, 1952 revolution.
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Dear Nour Al-Haqiqa,
In your comment on one of the articles I published on my blog, you said: "I am old enough to remember those other presidents but I was not all that Middle East politically aware as I am now. It was not until the USS Liberty incident that I began to tie Egypt into MODERN stuff. Up until then, Egypt was just part of my own personal history and memories from the long distant past. I remember lives in Egypt very well, but somehow I had not looked at it today...What I do not understand is, if Egypt was already kissing Israeli butt, why did they have that 6 day massacre, hardly a war? Why were the early Zionists going around blowing up Egyptian?"
Here is the answer, rather detailed though, from someone who was born in the year during which the July 23, 1952 revolution took place.But let me introduce you to the three Pharaohs who ruled Egypt since the 1952 revolution; one of them is still on the throne.
Asynopsis about myself
I was born in a small village 35 miles away from Cairo. my father has just had his master degree in education and was preparing himself for his PhD. In 1956, I was 4 years old. I still remember my paternal uncle's visit after the tri-partitte aggression on Port Sa'eed. Britain and France bombarded the city from the Mediterranean sea, and Israel crossed the Sinai desert to participate in the attack. The reason for the aggression was the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Details are provided below. In the same year, I was admitted to the elementary school.
Who is Gamal Abdul-Nasser? - Picture below.
For the biography of this president, please click here. I grew up during the rein of Nasser. He was so beloved by the nation including myself. I remember when I was a kid, I sent a letter to the presidency office, expressing my love to they president and asking them to send me his picture. The presidency responded and sent me exactly the picture shown above. I was so excited and showed the picture to all my friends in the village. In my mind - at the time - Nasser was a hero "Who could cross the Nile river -from one bank to the other - in one step". Nasser vivid picture started to dim gradually in my mind when I heard the atrocities and arrests that occurred. The arresting government officers were known as "The-Visitors-At-The_Dawn" which can be parallel to the "Men-In-Black" in the USA. Nasser - on fake legal ground - hung Sayyed Qutub,a profound thinker, by the nick until death. I did not know that two decades later, his statue - in my mind - will shatter and fall into the muck.
Who is Anwar Al-Sadat? - Picture below
Who is Hussney Mubarak? - Picture below.
For the biography of this president, please click here. As far as Sadat is concerned, and learning my lesson from Nasser's time, I perceived him finally until just before the 1973 war with Israel. The student of Cairo, Al-Azhar, Ein-Shams universities demonstrated as they were not happy about the Israeli occupation of Sinai. The demonstrators were brutally beaten, and my student-hostel roommate, who did not demonstrate but was at the wrong place at the wrong time (I succeeded to escape, he did not), was caught and sent to prison. A week later he was released.
Back to the student hostel, he was a completely different person. He never lifted his eyes from the floor whenever I talked to him. A feeling of shame was overwhelming him. I, then, guessed what happened to him in the prison whose methods never changed since Shams Badran's time (Nasser's time). Months later, my roommate confirmed what I have guessed. He was sexually molested by the invistigators (sticking a broom's stick in his anus).
After crossing the Suez canal and the partial restoring of Sinai, Sadat announced his will for negotiation aiming at a peaceful solution even if he had to go to Israel. I was in favor of his dession; in favor of peace. Negotiations took place in Camp David in the USA. The nation was not happy about the conclusion.
Anyways, during the post war period, Sadat kicked the Russian from Egypt and opted to having relation with the USA instead (thus replacing the devil by another devil). He then initiated an economic "open-door policy" with the USA, which, as a matter of fact, hurt the Egyptian economy rather than helped it. A new class of post war "Fat Cats" emerged, and corruption deepened.
Sadat, the cunning man and hero of the war, started to act like a tyrant. People hated him. I hated him. Sadat was assassinated on 6 October 1981 after his crackdown on those who were opposing him (approx. 1500 Egyptians including intellectuals and activists were arrested).
For the biography of this president, please click here. The first few years of Mubarak rein were not bad until he started showing his ugly face. Corruption spread deeper in the society, elections were fixed, favoritism reached its peak. His rein lasted until to-date (a period even greater than Pharaoh Ramasis II). And to top up misery in Egypt, he is grooming his son to follow him, thus, turning Egypt into monarchy as it was before the revolution, but this time in a different guise. There is no doubt in my heart that he is an American agent in the area regardless of what one hears in the American news about the corruption of his regime. Don not be tricked. His closure of the passages to Gaza, in a time of Gazan dire need of usage of passages, is self-explanatory.
Three presidents, three clowns
