Thursday, 18 January 2018

The centenary and the future




Some will interpret that media, political, intellectual, cultural and also sentimental momentum accompanying celebration of the birth centenary of leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser saying it’s ill nostalgia and that it’s a degree of political salafism that is not less worse than religious salafism. Also, that it’s a manifestation of a multi-faceted complication inflicting on Egyptians making them slaves to past experiments that were not void of failure and defeat despite all their achievements, and that this complication will not end unless we have total disconnection to the intellectual and political foundations related to that experiment.

I also do think that such tackling of the event will turn into a vicious attacking campaign in which all political ammunition of doubting, belittling, and maybe bad language will be used, as there are some who definitely went appalled of this rebirth of the man whom they considered a nightmare to them, and before them, to their fathers and folks. What makes them that appalled is that they spared no money, effort, conspiracy, false accusation or fallacy to assassinate the character, ideology, method and reputation of Nasser after he physically left our world almost half a century ago.

Usually, those appalled some do not possess the intellectual or linguistic capacity to produce the media content needed to fulfill the tasks I mentioned at the beginning of those lines. Therefore, they will pay for the pens and names that will do this mission. Such agreement between these two groups is more like Nikah mu’tah or “pleasure marriage”; meaning a mission with a legitimate cover based on offer and acceptance, as both parties have common interests in such mission, and because some pens realize that marketing what they write is connected to the consent and cooperation have revenge upon July 1952 revolution and Nasser.

The more vicious the attack over July revolution and Nasser, the more the reward, even if they produced nothing new as all that may come to the imagination of that bunch of attack, grounds of conviction and accusations for July revolution, Nasser, Arab-nationalism and liberation have already been said in writings, seminars, conferences, radio and TV stations since the mid-seventies until few weeks ago when we read a column for a writer in one of the private newspapers – whom I described recently as of unknown social and intellectual descent – attacking Nasser because Dr. Huda Abdel-Nasser commented over some of what was written in Amr Moussa’s memoirs!!

In my opinion, there are others required to present a different tackling for such intellectual and media momentum accompanying this centenary; a tackling aiming at filling the gaps between the lessons learnt from the Nasserist experiment on all political, economic, social and intellectual levels and necessities of the reality and future in Egypt and the Arab nation. As the principles upon which July experiment and Nasser’s ideology and vision were based still exist and it’s likely that they will continue for a long time for the strategic, historical, geo-political and geographical reality that yielded such principles still exists and did not change… not to mention that the challenges that came to exist since conflict between international powers of national liberation, and colonization powers were defined still are present on the ground, even if their priorities and some of their features changed. What affirms such thing is that the imperialist colonization powers including the Zionist state did not change their vision or strategies since long time.

For those who underestimate such thing, I hope they can see the behavior of the American administration, especially the American president; the legitimate representative of the policies and changes of his administration and who did not cease to practice a highly significant media and political discourse giving evidence how the superior colonization mentality still exists. Therefore, the challenges that we faced during our national history still exist, even if some claimed that time changed and we can no longer manage Egypt’s international relations using old loud-voice policy.

Moreover, Egypt’s relation to the African continent and to the East; India, China and Eastern Asia, also Russia, and its relation to international communities in South America are still open and more compelling issues. It’s not a coincidence that Egypt during the Nasserist regime had very strong relations with Africa, mid-eastern Asia and South America. Unfortunately, during the time period of post-October 1973 until the end of Mubarak’s era, such role of Egypt shrank and other rival ones replaced it, atop of them is the Zionist Israeli role that did not miss the chance and had significant existence in African countries and has growing relations with India and China, after those countries and nations were once proud of their strong relations with Nasser’s Egypt.

Realizing this and witnessing that intellectual and media momentum accompanying birth centenary of Nasser, I believe getting busy in tackling the future is the right thing to do.

Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar




This article was published in Al Ahram newspaper on January 18, 2018.

To see the original article, go to:


#alahram #ahmed_elgammal #Egypt #Gamal_Abdel_Nasser

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