General Abdel-Fattah Sisi is
No Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Nasser had first-hand experience with the 1948 war in
Palestine when he and his infantry battalion were besieged by
the Israelis, and he was wounded in a place called Fallouga.
The defeat of the Arab armies by Israel, according to Nasser
was caused by the corruption of existing Arab order, the
monarchies, the regimes of the beys and pashas, the large
landlords and the feudalists. The disastrous 1948 war set the
stage for the 1952 coup under Nasser by virtue of his war
record in Palestine and concern about Egypt that was a British
colony.
The 1952 Egyptian military coup was staged by members of the
“Free Officers” group under Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s leadership
and later on developed into a revolution that established
Egypt as an independent state and a major international
player. Nasser came at a critical moment in history when Egypt
was practically a British colony and the Egyptians were
searching for a leader to free their country. Historians
describe Nasser as one of the towering political figures of
the Middle East in the 20th century. The military coup forced
King Farouk to abdicate and sent him and his family aboard a
luxurious yacht into exile in the Principality of Monaco. King
Farouk was widely condemned by the Egyptian discontent public
for his corrupt and ineffectual governance, the British
continued occupation of Egypt, the foreign control over the
Suez Canal and Egypt’s dismal failure in the 1948 Arab-Israeli
war. Nasser paid the ex-king farewell on his way to exile with
an honorary ceremony, and never considered subjecting him to
humiliation or trial because Nasser had plans for Egypt that
needed all his time and energy. He referred to the Egyptian
people including the monarchy supporters, the Pasha class,
members of the dominant al-Wafd Party and the land-owners as
one family. This is what he described his government in one of
his speeches: “It is the government that looks on all
Egyptians as one big family.”
Nasser had an ideology, plans, strategy and roadmap for
reforming Egypt’s economy and lifting the standards of living
for the poor. His government’s most important events in the
five years between 1952 and 1957 were the Land Reform and the
start of industrialization. Land Reform was the policy on
which Nasser based most of his regime legitimacy not only to
keep the social peace, but as a means of transferring
resources from agriculture to industry. Thus on July 23 1952,
immediately after the coup had been successfully carried out
peacefully and without firing a shot, its leaders issued a
proclamation stated: “The General Headquarters have submitted
demands for the promulgation of laws that help raise the
standards of people. Foremost among such laws is for the
limitation of land-ownership.”
The aims of Land Reform were to raise the standards of living
of the peasants and to provide the participation in
industrializing the country as an alternative form of
investment for the wealthy landed group, who owned most of
Egypt’s cultivated land. In a speech given on the second
anniversary of the revolution, Nasser restated the aim of his
revolution: “…The agrarian reform that has served the farmers
has also rendered a service to the Egyptian capitalists…It has
guaranteed profits in some cases and has granted many
facilities to the capitalists who are willing to start new
industry. This is the government of the whole nation, the
government of the farmers, the workers, the students, the
financiers, the businessmen, the rich and the poor, the weak
and the strong, the beginners and those who have attained
success..”
Considering how small percentage (3%) of Egypt the area along
the Nile River that can be inhabited or cultivated, Nasser was
committed to expand the land available for agriculture by
building the High Dam project at Aswan and reclaiming part of
the surrounding desert. He made an agreement with the Soviets
to help reclaiming 300,000 acres in Western Nubaria.
Nasser’s objective was the establishment of heavy ‘strategic’
industries that were the hallmark of the power of the West and
the Soviet Union. These would produce the fertilizers,
tractors, pumps, etc.. necessary for agricultural
modernization. They would also produce basic consumer goods
and consumer durables such as steel plates, Aluminum ingots,
tubeless pipes, copper cables, and cement for the Egyptians
and eventually for exports. Nasser believed that with
urbanization, rising income and literacy, the birth rate would
fall and the revitalized agricultural sector would feed a
stable population. The average Egyptian would have his own
dwelling, perhaps even a car. The state then would be able to
tax the population’s growing prosperity to generate investment
for further growth. That was his vision for Egypt and that
would be within Egypt’s grasp at the end of a decade of
planned growth. At a later stage, Nasser realized that the
private sector was unable to undertake the task of
modernization at an accelerated pace because of the lack of
private capital and so he ordered the state including the
military to take over many industrial functions. Nasser could
have made the transition to democracy, ran on his domestic and
foreign policy record and won elections, but unfortunately he
did not.
Nasser made serious mistakes that contributed to the sad state
in Egypt today while trying to implement his vision, but his
armed forces never shed Egyptian blood in the streets and
squares of Cairo. One of Nasser’s mistakes was surrounding
himself with incompetent deputies and creation the template of
the strong leader cult that became a model for his successors
and for most revolutionary and non-revolutionary regimes in
the Middle East. He created a powerful political class at the
heart of the regime, the military officers’ class who believed
they had been given popular mandate to rule Egypt; and
ironically they adopted the lifestyle of the rich, except for
Nasser himself who lived a simple lifestyle. His most trusted
deputy, Abdel-Hakim Aamer miss-managed the 1958 EgyptianSyrian merger that came to be known as the United Arab
Republic (UAR). The UAR failed and Nasser made another mistake
by promoting Aamer to the highest military rank. Aamer was
responsible for Egypt’s crushing defeat by Israel in the 1967
Six Day War.
Unfortunately, Nasser’s successors including General Sisi
climbed to power by exploiting the enduring structure of an
authoritarian state under the military that Nasser created,
but without having his ambitious plans for improving the lives
of the Egyptians.
Supporters of General Sisi, Egypt’s strong man, compare him
with Nasser. The military uniform is the only thing in common
between the two men. If Nasser is remembered for achieving
Egypt’s independence from Britain, taking back the Suez Canal,
building the High Dam and carrying out the Land Reform,
General Sisi will be remembered for aborting the first
democratic experiment in Egypt; for dividing the nation into
“We-They” dichotomy based on difference of political views;
for being the first Egyptian military general to order his
forces to mow down hundreds and wound thousands of peaceful
anti coup Egyptian protesters in what is called the August 14
Rabia al-Adawiya and al-Nahda squares massacres. And General
Sisi is the first Arab leader to join Israel’s right wing
parties by publically declaring contacts with Hamas Party that
won the 2006 Palestinian Parliament elections, as acts of
treason. General Abdel-Fattah Sisi is no Colonel Gamal AbdelNasser.
– Hasan Afif El-Hasan, Ph.D. is a political analyst. His
latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora
Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes
&
Noble.
He
contributed
PalestineChronicle.com.
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