Memories on Liberation

Helmi Sharawy

19 May 2011

analysis

Helmi Sharawy takes Pambazuka News back to 1950s Cairo, remembering the host of African liberation movements that had offices in the Egyptian city. In part one of this two-part article, the second of which will be published by Pambazuka News next week, he reflects on the role of Egypt in the liberation struggle.

INTRODUCTION

The need for oral history, as exemplified in personal narratives of the actual actors in the history of Africa in particular, is obvious in view of the scarcity of authentic sources for that history. The same is true for social and cultural histories of societies in periods of social transformation. These personal narratives fill the many gaps that are sure to occur if we rely solely on official documents that may be biased by the interests and policies of the people in power.

My own experience in Egyptian politics – and probably in others – shows that official history is often subjected to processes of deconstruction and reconstruction of the facts to suit the changing moods of the main actors in power, or those who follow them. Thus, the multiplicity of narratives may be a source of control rather than a cause for confusion.

The relations between Egypt and the rest of Africa, before or after the 23 July revolution in 1952, are a model for the importance of oral history of those relations, whether in the fields of political and economic development or in the common struggle against foreign domination. The radical change of policy of the Anwar Sadat regime in 1971 immediately after the death of President Gamal Abdul Nasser resulted in an obvious lack of adequate documentation of the Nasser regime and hence the need for the contributions of oral history.

My present contribution in this area is a modest addition that needs to be complimented by contributions from other actors in this field, either from Egypt or from the Arab North of Africa. Indeed I have had the chance to record the memories of Mr. Mohammad Fayek, the assistant of President Nasser for African Affairs (2002). I also had a long interview with the late Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry in 1970 after he was ousted from power, and with former President Ben Bella (Algeria) in Bamako. Add to this my direct personal relations with a number of the leaders of African liberation movements that are exposed in this paper, or were referred to in previous contributions of mine.

The scope of this paper will not allow a detailed expose of all the events that took place after the end of World War II that led to the involvement of the Nasser regime in the process of national liberation. I believe this was prompted more by the course of events rather than by any prior belief of that nationalist leader as expressed in his booklet ‘Philosophy of the Revolution’ published in 1955, where he mentioned three spheres of interest of Egypt’s foreign policy.

After the end of World War II, the nationalist fervor in Egypt was very high. At the same time imperialist projects in the Middle East tried to create imperialist military bases and include our countries in anti-Soviet blocs. Confronting the popular attempt to gain full independence from Britain, we were confronted with the occupying British troops in the Suez Canal zone, and the attempts to lure Egypt into membership of the Bagdad Pact and then the Cento Pact. We also had to face imperialist bases in Tripoli in Libya and Canio Station in Ethiopia, apart from direct colonial rule in Africa. At the same time, Sudan was nominally under joint Anglo-Egyptian rule, while it was in fact a simple British colony.

The new ‘revolutionary’ regime allowed forms of resistance against British troops, while negotiating for the evacuation of those troops from both Egypt and the Sudan. However, it was careful to keep away from all imperialist military pacts in the region and not to become implicated in the Cold War, taking into consideration that Israel was one of the forward bases of imperialism in the Arab region.

Therefore, to write the national history of Egypt after World War II we should consider the ‘free officers’ led by Nasser in 1952 as part of a nationalist movement, and not as founders of the independence movement.

JOINING UP

One may consider the effects of this atmosphere on a young man born in 1935 and later joining the university in Cairo with a background of Wafdist and Moslem Brotherhood influences, beginning his studies in philosophy and sociology in a leftist atmosphere. Amid the wide nationalist propaganda of the free officers, he started frequenting the African Association in 1956, where he met young African students of Islamic studies, many of whom had rallied to the popular defense of Egypt against the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression that year. That aggression was to punish Egypt for its Nationalist spirit, its insistence on getting rid of all occupation troops, its breaking of the monopoly of the West for arms supply, and its nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.

In his long sessions of dialogue in 2002, Fayek told me of Nasser’s instructions during the Sudan negotiations with Britain in 1953 to deploy much effort against the British and American influence and to gain the support of Sudan’s neighbours in Ethiopia and East Africa. At the time the Egyptian Broadcasting System started its dedicated transmissions in Tigrean (for Ethiopia and Eritrea), and in Swahili (for East Africa). By the 1960s these transmissions were extended to cover 30 African languages.

The central pole of attraction for those youth was the late Mohammad Abdel Aziz Ishak, the well known intellectual. They also met Mohammad Fayek, who was keen to keep in touch with African youth, mostly Azhar students, with a few from Cairo University. For me, this experience of getting acquainted with these youth, who were full of enthusiasm to go back to their respective countries to help in their liberation and development efforts, was very instructive. Needless to point out that their activities were much influenced by the fervor of the Nasserist media.

I have always pointed out that Nasser’s mention in his booklet ‘Philosophy of the Revolution’ of the three spheres of interest in Egyptian politics (Arab, African and Islamic, in this order) did not indicate the real priority given to our relations with Africa. Indeed, in 1955 Nasser was exploring the Asian experience when he met in Bandung with the leaders of China, India and Indonesia (as well as Ethiopian and Ghanaian representatives).

Until that time his interest in Africa was mainly concerned with securing the situation of the newly independent Sudan, and hence he saw fit to support the independence efforts of the Nile basin countries: Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea and Congo. The regime had created the Tahrir publishing house to publish its own newspapers: Al Gomhouria daily and the weekly Al Tahrir Liberation. In the latter, we read about American military bases, and the Kenyan ‘Mau Mau’ revolution under Jomo Kenyatta. Between 1956 and 1958 there were many African and Asian developments that were followed by the Syrians asking for unity with Egypt and thus shifting our priority once more to the Arab sphere.

Thus the interaction with the Nile countries and the rest of Africa came before this talk about the three circles of interest. It seems to me that this latter theory was the brain child of some petty bourgeois intellectuals who were obsessed with the role of Egypt and its influence.

It was a period of rich experiences for Egypt and for a youthful student of Cairo University, who witnessed, among his newly acquired African friends (many of whom undertook military training with the Egyptian National Guard) the defeat of the imperialist aggression of 1956. Soon after came the first Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Conference (held in December of 1957 and January 1958) where scores of young delegates from African and Asian Countries thronged through the premises of the Cairo University’s halls.

Together with my African friends, I accompanied many of those delegates and thus improved my previous superfluous information about their countries. Such contacts prompted my increased interest in the African Association, and acceptance to contribute some modest articles to the new periodical ‘African Renaissance’ about African journalism as well as African music and sculpture. This periodical (1957) was the best known about Africa at the time, and an issue in English soon followed to make it more accessible to a wider audience. At the time I was also a researcher of the Egyptian Folklore Institute.

AllAfrica – All the Time