at the end of the article. there is 3 questions ( related to the article ) that need to be answered in a page long. also, i need 2 quotes ( prefer 3 ) to support the answers.
GamalAbdel Nasser was the leader of the Free Officers who overthrew the Egyptian
monarchy in the 1952 Revolution. Nasser and his colleagues had been able to take
advantage of the opening up of the army officer corps to native Egyptians. They were
motivated by nationalism to remove the corrupt monarchy and the last vestiges of the British
occupation. British armed forces continued to enjoy military-strategic advantages in Egypt
and to occupy the Suez Canal. The Free Officers blamed the Egyptian government for the
poor performance of the army in the 1948 Palestine War against Israel. A republic was
declared by January 1953, but Nasser did not immediately emerge publicly as its leader
until 1954.
It was only over time that Nasser adopted the ideas of Pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and
positive neutralism, with which his years as president of Egypt (1954-70) were to become so
identified. Beyond a strong sense of nationalism, Nasser espoused a frankly pragmatic
approach to solving problems in his early years in power. Positive neutralism meant that
while Egypt would not align with either side in the Cold War, it would make deals with one
or the other as the interests of the country would best be served. Over time, however, Nasser
began to tilt more towards the Soviet Union. His positive neutralism was greatly influenced
by his attendance at the 1955 Bandung Conference of nonaligned nations. Nasser’s biggest
triumph was the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956, which completed Egypt’s
independence from Britain. As a result, Nasser became a truly popular figure both within
Egypt and among the Arab masses outside of it for the first time. His Pan-Arabism, which
sought the political unity of the Arabs, henceforth resonated with tbem. It had its origins in
Pan-Islam, the ideology of the Ba’th Party, and the Arab League. Pan-Arabist sentiment led
to the creation of the United Arab Republic of 1958, which included Egypt and Syria.
Personal and political rivalries as well as the different nationalisms, however, soon rent the
union asunder. Egypt then found itself embroiled in a civil war in Yemen between 1962 and
1967, in which Nasser backed the republicans and Saudi Arabia supported the royalists.
Nasser’s Arab socialism developed, in part, in response to the 1956 Suez War, in which
Israel, Britain, and France attacked Egypt.
1
Prior to the war, Nasser simply had a sense that
government should act to extend social justice to the people. The building of the Aswan
High Dam was to be the panacea that would expand agriculture, provide cheap electrical
power, and encourage industrialization. Now, he retaliated against the European powers by
nationalizing foreign-owned companies in Egypt. The nationalization of businesses owned
by the native bourgeoisie accused of cooperating with foreign imperialists soon followed.
The government established rent controls and food subsidies to help the masses.
Part of Nasser’s popularity stemmed from his unremitting hostility to the existence of Israel.
Most of his presidency coincided with the time in which the Palestinians looked outside
themselves to Arab rulers to champion their cause, and Nasser was the foremost among
these. He sponsored, for instance, commando raids from the Gaza Strip against Israel; this,
along with the Egyptian blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, provoked the Israeli participation in
the Suez War against Egypt. Nasser was fortunate in that a military defeat for Egypt turned
into a political triumph because of the intervention of the superpowers, the United States and
the Soviet Union, to force the withdrawal of Britain, France, and Israel from Egypt. Nasser,
1
P.J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and His Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), p. 212.
on the other hand, blundered into the disastrous Six-Day War, in June 1967, in which Egypt
lost the Gaza Strip and Sinai Desert to Israel.
2
His resumption of the blockade and forging of
the alliance with Jordan and Syria prompted the devastating Israeli first strike. Nasser then
returned to a strategy of “no war, no peace,” that is, a war of attrition.
The last years of Nasser’s rule, therefore, were marred by military defeat and growing
economic problems exacerbated by the defeat, Gains in electricity and agricultural
production, furthermore, that stemmed from the completion of the Aswan High Dam were
negated by population growth. Nasser, however, remained immensely popular with the
Egyptian masses. His sudden death from a heart attack led to a funeral in 1970 that still
holds the Guinness record for a turnout for a funeral of about six million people. The
following selections from his writings and speeches contain his key ideas that continue to
inspire many in the Arab world.
Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Egypt’s Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution
3
I do not claim for myself the Chair of History. That is the last thing I could think of. Yet
were I to attempt, as the mere primary schoolboy might, to study the history of our national
struggle, I would, for instance, straight away say that the July 23 [1952] Revolution
represented the realisation of a long-cherished hope a hope entertained by the Egyptian
people since they began in modern times to aspire to self-government and to have the last
word in the determination of their own destiny. …
Indeed, had the Army officers attempted to revolt to avenge themselves for having been
duped in Palestine, or because the defective arms had shattered their nerves, or because their
pride had been wounded in the Army Officers’ Club elections, the matter would not have
deserved to be called a revolution. A mere mutiny would have been the nearest appropriate
description, no matter how fair and just might have been the motives that prompted the
movement.
But all above causes were incidental.
Perhaps their greatest effect has been to spur us to a swifter pace on the road to revolution,
but we had already been advancing with striding steps on that road all the same. …
Was it incumbent upon us the Army to undertake what we carried out on July 23rd?
The answer to this question was definitely in the affirmative. It was inevitable. There was no
escaping it.
Indeed, I can now say that we are going through two revolutions, not one.
Every people on earth go through two revolutions a political revolution that helps them
recover their right to self-government from the hands of a despot who had imposed himself
2
Vatikiotis, Nasser, p. 256.
3
Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Buffalo, NY: Economica Books, 1959), pp. 26-
27, 36-37, and 59-62.
upon them, or free themselves from the domination of alien armed forces which had installed
themselves in the land against their will; and a social revolution a class conflict that
ultimately ends in the realisation of social justice for all the inhabitants of the country.
People who preceded us on the path of human progress have all passed through those two
revolutions, but not simultaneously. In certain cases, centuries have separated the one from
the other. In our case, we are passing through the gruelling ordeal of experiencing the two
revolutions together. …
We cannot look stupidly at a map of the world, not realizing our place therein and the role
determined to us by that place. Neither can we ignore that there is an Arab circle
surrounding us and that this circle is as much a part of us as we are a part of it, that our
history has been mixed with it and that its interests are linked with ours. These are actual
facts and not mere words.
Can we ignore that there is a continent of Africa in which fate has placed us and which is
destined today to witness a terrible struggle on its future? This struggle will affect us
whether we want or not.
Can we ignore that there is a Muslim world with which we are tied by bonds which are not
only forged by religious faith but also tightened by the facts of history? I said once that fate
plays no jokes. It is not in vain that our country lies to the southwest of Asia, close to the
Arab world, whose life is intermingled with ours. It is not in vain that our country lies to the
northeast of Africa, a position from which it gives upon the dark continent wherein rages
today the most violent struggle between white colonizers and black natives for the possession
of its inexhaustible resources. It is not in vain that Islamic civilization and Islamic heritage,
which the Mongols ravaged in their conquest of the old Islamic capitals, retreated, and
sought refuge in Egypt, where they found shelter and safety as a result of the counterattack
which Egypt repelled the invasion of these Tartars at Ein Galout. …
The annals of history are full of heroes who carved for themselves great and heroic roles and
played them on momentous occasions on the stage. History is also charged with great heroic
roles which do not find actors to play them on the stage. I do not know why I always imagine
that in this region in which we live there is a role wandering aimlessly about seeking an actor
to play it. I do not know why this role, tired of roaming about in this vast region which
extends to every place around us, beckoning us to move, to dress up for it, and to perform it,
since there is nobody else who can do so.
Here I hasten to point out that this role is not a leading role. It is one of interplay of reactions
and experiments with all these factors aiming at exploding this terrific energy latent in every
sphere around us and at the creation, in this region, of a tremendous power capable of lifting
this region up and making it play its positive role in the construction of the future and
humanity.
There is no doubt that the Arab circle is the most important and the most closely connected
with us. Its history merges with ours. We have suffered the same hardships and lived the
same crises, and when we fell prostrate under the spikes of the horses of conquerors, they lay
with us. …
March 26, 1964 Address by Nasser to the National Assembly
4
The six principles [that guided Egypt’s political life in 1952-64] … were as follows: the
elimination of imperialism and its traitorous Egyptian agents; the eradication of feudalism;
the destruction of monopoly and of the domination of capital over the government; the
establishment of social justice; the establishment of strong national Army and the
establishment of a sound [democracy]. …
First: the first principle the elimination of imperialism. I do not think we need much
effort to prove that this nation today is foremost among the independent countries of the
world after having been a foreign-occupied base firmly gripped for more than 70 years and
terrorized by 80,000 armed British soldiers on the banks of the Suez Canal. …
Second: the second principle the elimination of feudalism. The ownership of the greater
and more fertile part of the agricultural land was in the hands of a small number of big
landlords, besides other vast areas held by agricultural companies that were owned by
foreigners, though they tried to conceal their real identity behind Egyptian facades. In
accordance with the socialist laws, including the Agrarian Reform Law, the area of lands
that has been expropriated for distribution to farmers amounted to 944,457 feddans. …
Third: the third principle is the abolition of monopoly and the domination of capital over
the government … the public sector … consolidated itself through the complete domination
of capital .. in banks, insurance companies, foreign and internal trade companies which were
nationalized and which became public property. It [i.e., the consolidation of the public
sector] was followed by the socialist decrees of July, 1961, which ensured the public
ownership of the larger part of the means of production, particularly in the industrial field.
Clear limits for public ownership were then drawn so as to include the main skeleton of
production, such as railways, roads, ports, airports, motor power, the means for land, sea,
and air transport, then the heavy, medium, mining, and [the] building materials industries,
the effective part of the consumer industries, in a manner which leave no room for
exploitation. This was connected with the realization of complete popular supervision over
foreign trade, the breaking of any monopoly in internal trade which was thrown open to
private activity. …
Fourth: the fourth principle the establishment of social justice. Experience has proven
that social justice cannot be attained except upon the two bases of sufficiency and justice,
neither of which could attain the objective without the other. Indeed, each of them without
the other would take a course contradictory to the objective.
Sufficiency that is, increased production without justice means a further monopolization
of wealth. Justice that is, the distribution of national income without increasing its
4
Extracts from Address by Nasser at the Meeting of the National Assembly’s Ordinary Session, Cairo,
March 26, 1964 (Cairo: Information Department, 1964), pp. 3-47, passim.
potentiality ends only in the distribution of poverty and misery. But both together that is,
sufficiency and justice hand in hand [they] reach their objective. …
In the field of internal action: The final step lay in the liquidation of the ruling alliance
between reaction and imperialism as well as the liquidation of their inherited privileges.
There was no enmity toward any individual or family. …
Although I consider that this class has been liquidated, I find it important here to make two
remarks:
First: To see with tolerance that we were not against individuals. We were opposed to class
distinctions. It was our right to eliminate its effect but it was not our right to destroy the
dignity and humanity of individuals. Therefore, a new page should be opened in front of all
without distinction.
Second: We should not, at any cost, permit the emergence of a new class which would
believe that it is entitled to inherit privileges from the old class. …
We moved from the domination of one class which monopolized all privileges, to a position
which, for the first time in our country, allows for the establishment of a social democracy on
the basis of sufficiency and justice and social democracy.
The old picture of a state of princes, pashas, and foreigners has disappeared and [has been]
replaced by a state of farmers, workers, intellectuals, soldiers, and national capital the
working popular powers and its leading alliance. …
In the stage of the great upsurge which followed the stage of the great conversion, there are
three major objectives which we have unlimited capacity to achieve if we arm ourselves with
sincerity to both the experiences and to the hope.
First: There is the objective of continuous development, a comprehensive plan preparing for
another comprehensive plan, a doubling of the national income followed by another
doubling based on the result of the first doubling. …
Second: There comes after development the objective of democracy and the continuous
expansion of its framework and deepening of its concept. In the next stage, there are
interactions which we should allow to have full effect on life in our society.
We have to complete the structure of the political organization of the Socialist Union.
Through the general structure of this Union is now perceptible before us, this structure
should be full of effective and creative life. …
But we should not allow ourselves to get entangled in lengthy philosophical discussions on
the role of the Socialist Union.
The Socialist Union, in short, is the political organization of the working popular powers
through which they work to ensure that authority shall, at all times, remain in their hands
and shall not move into other hands.
This is the aim of all political organizations, including parties. But whereas a party
represents a certain interest in any country or class, the Socialist Union does not represent a
group or a class but expresses the political will of the active popular powers allied within its
framework. …
Third: There follows the stage of upsurge with development and democracy, the objective of
realizing over-all Arab unity.
Although we cannot, as yet, give this inevitable unity its final shape, the success in realizing
the aim of development and the aim of democracy in this country, which we consider to be
the base and vanguard of the Arab nation, will bring nearer the day of unity, define in final
form, and mold it in accordance with the will and requirements of national conscience. …
Questions
1. What reasons does Nasser stress for the July 23rd revolution? What are the two kinds of
revolutions that he sees it embodying simultaneously? What challenges does this duality
pose?
2. Describe Nasser’s socialist ideology and policies. To what extent does he subscribe to a
Marxian notion of class conflict? What is the relationship between imperialism and
economic exploitation in his thinking?
3. According to Nasser, what are the three circles with which Egyptian foreign policy must
be concerned especially? Which does he regard as the most important? What does he think a
nation must first accomplish domestically before Arab unity can be achieved?