There is something everyone should know about the slogans Egyptian students tend to chant in their protests: some of these slogans go back almost a century to the time of the anti-British uprising of 1919. The mysterious figure called Amm Hamza, or Uncle Hamza, has been a refrain in many of these chants for years simply because the name Hamza rhymes with the word talamza, or students. In 1919, the students chanted “ya Amm Hamza, ihna al-talamza, wakhdin al-eish al-haafe wa-al-nawm men gheir lehaf.” In English, this can be translated as “Uncle Hamza, we are the students, eating plain bread and sleeping without a blanket.” In the 1935 and 1946 uprisings, the revolutionary lyrics were altered to “ya Amm Hamza ihna al-talamza, halfin neharrar ard baladna, yakoll ghaseb men al-talamza haseb.” In English, this can be rendered as “Uncle Hamza, we are the students, vowing to liberate our country. So usurpers, stay at bay.” By 1977, revolutionary students sang the lyrics of a song by the famous duo Ahmed Fouad Negm and Sheikh Imam that went “regou talamza ya Amm Hamza lelgadd tani, regou talamza ward al-ganayen, ismaa ya Anwar weshouf weayen.” In English, the song says “Uncle Hamza, the students are back, meaning business, like flowers in the garden, so listen, Anwar, and see for yourself.” In January 2011 and June 2013, the students chanted, “ya Amm Hamza eshhad aleina, Masr ya om weladek ahom, sawretna eish, horreya, adala egtemaeya.” In English, these slogans can be translated as “Uncle Hamza bear witness. Egypt, your sons are here, seeking bread, freedom and social justice.” In all of these instances, the students acted out of a patriotic sense of duty, managing to stay united, transcending ideological lines and sectarian standpoints. Egyptian students have never been known to assault their colleagues, however ideologically different they may be. There have never been known to attack a place of learning or worship. But in 2013, divisions surfaced. Students began beating fellow students, sabotaging places of learning, and preventing others from attending classes. Attacks on professors were also on the rise. In some cases, professors' homes and cars were attacked. NATIONALIST SENTIMENTS: The student movement in Egypt can be traced back at least a couple of centuries. The students of Al-Azhar are known to have been at the forefront of resistance to the French occupation during Napoleon Bonaparte's abortive campaign of 1798-1801. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, educators and reformists also made a habit of conferring with students in the hope of creating momentum for their ideas. Abdallah Al-Nadim, the poet and journalist of the Orabi Revolution of 1882, used to engage students in conversation and have them address public meetings that he attended or organised. Once the young and energetic orator and writer Mustafa Kamel (1874-1908) had appeared on the national scene, the students were impressed by his energetic charisma. Kamel's impassioned plea for Egypt's independence became the rallying cry of the next half a century. The Azharite student Saad Zaghloul used to attend the intellectual gatherings the Ottoman scholar and reformist Gamal Al-Din Al-Afghani held in Cairo in the 1870s. Many of the reformist ideas of al-Afghani found their way into Egyptian mainstream politics once Saad Zaghloul became parliamentary speaker and prime minister in later years. Zaghloul, a mature man in his sixties by the time he became prime minister, was a favourite politician in student circles until his death in 1927. For the first half of the twentieth century, the main focus of the student movement was the question of independence, for which both Kamel and Zaghloul dedicated their lives. The pressure that the students put on the occupation forces was such that they were often repulsed with lethal force, as happened on 21 February, 1946, when 23 students fell in confrontation with the British-led police forces. This day was later celebrated in Egypt as Student Day. However, the idea of a student movement may seem to be ideologically muddled. Some may understand it as referring to a community of young people who have an affiliation with the productive apparatus or its class interests. But others may prefer to think of the student movement as a community of young and educated people who have an awareness of the political and social conditions in the country and wish to improve or reform these conditions. As a student activist myself 40 years ago, my interest in the student movement has not abated. Studies I have read on this topic do not seem to suggest that students revolt to improve the conditions of any specific group or class, including themselves, but instead they do so to enhance the future of the nation as a whole. Until the 1952 Revolution, the main focus of the student movement in Egypt was the British occupation, and after that social justice. Israel gained prominence in student activities. Unfortunately, there is still a paucity of research into the student movement, although it clearly influenced the course of the country more than once. Many would say that the students inspired the 1952 Revolution, and few would doubt the impact of the student uprisings on the government's decision to go to war with Israel in 1973. The students were the first to break the national silence after 1967, when they demanded harsher sentences for negligent air force generals following the defeat. Discontent with the country's lack of decisions led to renewed protests in 1972, during which the students occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo to demand military action by the then president, Anwar Al-Sadat, who had seemed indecisive on the matter of Israel's occupation of Sinai. Al-Sadat was not popular in student circles, and the Open Door economic policies he later initiated triggered student-led bread riots in 1977. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, didn't generate strong feelings until 1986, when students demonstrated in support of Suleiman Khater, a recruit who had shot and killed Israeli tourists climbing in a restricted zone. Some students showed support for an underground group known as Egypt's Revolution. This group, led by Khaled Abdel-Nasser and Mahmoud Noureddin, planned and carried out a limited number of attacks against Israelis in Egypt. Following the former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 2000, Egyptian students demonstrated in protest against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Their protests picked up pace after the death of Mohamed Al-Dorrah, a Palestinian child, by Israeli fire. As of 2008, student groups began to act in coordination with human rights groups, and their collaboration accelerated the course of events that led to the January 2011 Revolution. ACROSS THE WORLD: The Egyptian student scene has often reverberated with similar energies to those seen in other parts of the world. The 1968 worldwide student protests offer one example, and the recent 2011 uprisings can also be seen in the light of wider global dissatisfaction among the young. In France, students changed the course of society in 1968, triggering a wholesale change in art and literature. In the US, students forced the government to pull out of Vietnam. And in Eastern Europe, students were part of the uprisings that eventually brought Soviet influence to an end. In Egypt, the tradition of student protest runs all the way back to colonial times. Al-Azhar students led the Egyptian people's revolution against Napoleon's army at the turn of the 19th century. Seventy years later, they conferred with Al-Afghani in a coffeehouse on Al-Ataba Square in Cairo. Among those in attendance was Saad Zaghloul, the country's most influential politician in monarchical times. The first clash between the students and the British occupation forces happened on 28 March, 1909. The government had just declared a state of emergency in the country, but the students challenged the order and managed to assault the chief of police, Harvey Pasha, and pulled him from his horse. Not long afterwards, a student named Ibrahim Al-Wardani shot and killed prime minister Boutros Pasha Ghali. The prime minister was a target of hate in student circles since he had presided over the Denshwai trials four years earlier. The trials, involving the execution of Egyptian peasants for allegedly attacking British soldiers, were a cause celebre for the nationalist politician Mustafa Kamel, who used them in essays and lectures as evidence that the British were brutalising the country. When sultan Hussein Kamel visited the Law School in Cairo in 1915, the students boycotted classes to spite the ruler, also seen as a collaborator with the British. On these and later occasions, students managed to work together across ideological and sectarian divides. The only exceptions were in the 1930s, when divisions within the Wafd Party ripped the student movement apart. Over the past two years a new type of estrangement has crept into the student movement due to frictions between the Islamists and their adversaries. KAMEL'S EXAMPLE: Credit for kick-starting the Egyptian student movement should go to Mustafa Kamel who in 1905 encouraged Egyptian students to form a High School Club that acted as an umbrella group to plan and coordinate student activities. The club became active in promoting political awareness among students, mobilising them against the British occupation. Kamel also created the National Party, a pro-monarchy liberal party that militated against the British occupation but wanted Egypt to remain part of the Ottoman Empire. After Kamel's death in 1908, his successor as leader of the National Party, Mohamed Farid, continued to coordinate with the students and help to organise protests against the British occupation. As leftist thinking took root among Europe's forward-looking intelligentsia, Marxism started gaining proponents on the Egyptian scene. The bourgeois outlook of the National Party became less popular as other mainstream parties, including the formidable Wafd, began propagating semi-socialist agendas. The National Party tried to cope with the changes in the public mood by having its youth department issue at least one leaflet in 1907 that called on Egyptians to “examine” socialist ideas and learn from them. At Cairo University students have had their own union since the 1930s. But a major change in the student scene happened in the 1964, when the then ruling Arab Socialist Union (ASU) proposed the formation of student unions in all schools and universities in the country. This step gave a large number of students the chance to engage in volunteer work and community-related action. The Arab Socialist Youth Organisation (ASYO) was formed in 1968, and for the next few years students helped dig canals, build roads and plant trees across the country. Al-Sadat, emerging victorious from a power struggle with the Egyptian socialists, dissolved the ASYO in 1975. RALLYING FOR ZAGHLOUL: After WWI, Zaghloul, then deputy speaker of the country's Legislative Assembly, decided to go to Paris to attend the peace conference that was intended to settle post-war differences. However, the British, aware that Zaghloul was going to demand Egypt's independence, refused to allow him to leave the country. Their pretext was that he didn't speak for the entire nation, but only for the aristocrats. To refute this charge, Zaghloul started collecting signatures from parliamentarians and the mayors of towns and villages. The country's students offered to help. Student committees began collecting signatures from ordinary citizens in every governorate in the country. Reaching out to peasants, factory workers and government employees, the millions of signatures they brought back to Cairo proved without doubt that Zaghloul spoke for the nation, not the privileged classes alone. This happened again during the June-July 2013 ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government of Egypt, when the Tamarod Movement collected signatures to force the then president, Mohamed Morsi, from power. In the earlier example, on 8 March, 1919, the British arrested Zaghloul. The next day, one of Zaghloul's aides, Abdel-Aziz Fahmi, told the protesters who had gathered at Zaghloul's house to stay calm “until the matter is settled.” Ignoring his advise, the protesters joined with the students in massive demonstrations calling for “full independence or death.” Law School students took to the streets, followed by those from the Engineering School. Soon the entire country was in revolt. One of the young politicians at the time, the future prime minister Ahmed Maher, told the students that “the place of students today is in the streets not on the classroom benches.” The British reacted brutally to the demonstrators. In the Cairo district of Sayyeda Zeinab, the clashes got particularly bloody, with the locals joining the students in the battle and inflicting casualties on the British. The beleaguered British forces called for reinforcements and were ultimately able to disperse the demonstrations and evacuate the wounded. Some 300 students were arrested in that single confrontation, however. Trying to stem the bloodshed, Wafd leaders issued a statement on behalf of the students calling for an end to the riots, but this tactic backfired, with the students accusing the party leaders of defeatism. By the fourth day of the uprising it had spread to all parts of the country. Students took to the streets in Zefta, Tanta, Assiut, Alexandria, Shebin Al-Kom and other places. Even students from the Military and Police Academies rioted on 2 April, 1919, in front of the royal palace in downtown Cairo. Eventually, the British had no choice but to release Zaghloul, who continued to agitate against the occupation until he was rearrested. The students rioted again and had him released once more. From this moment onwards, Zaghloul became the country's top national figure. The party that he was soon to form, the Wafd, dominated Egyptian politics until well into the 1950s. CONSTITUTIONAL ROW: The attempts to get the British out of the country may have failed, but the nationalist movement had won one concession, which was the 1923 constitution which limited the king's authority. Although the 1923 constitution was considered by some to be flawed, the then king Fouad suspended it in an act that added another twist to the demands of the nationalist movement, now fighting both for independence and democracy. Pro-palace minority-led governments tried to check the student movement through the introduction of legal obstacles. Article 1 of Law 22 for 1929, passed by prime minister Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha's cabinet with British prodding, stipulated that “punishment by imprisonment for no longer than six months or a fine of 20 to 50 pounds is to be handed down to anyone who uses force, violence, terrorism, threats, money or promises to get the students of schools and colleges and other educational institutions to boycott classes and to anyone who forms committees or political groups among students.” The aim of the law, which also banned the printing of political materials and the distribution of leaflets agitating against authority, was to prevent students from protesting against the constitutional changes the government had introduced in 1930 which undermined the essence of the 1923 constitution. Undaunted, the students kept coming up with initiatives of their own. In 1935, they staged an uprising that forced the country's divisive political parties to join together in an umbrella alliance called the National Front. The National Committee for Students and Workers, formed in 1946, also attempted for a while to provide a non-partisan basis for political action in the country. Many hoped that the new government, formed by Mohamed Tawfiq Nessim on 14 November, 1934, would be able to resuscitate the 1923 constitution. But although Nessim's government abolished the 1930 constitution, pressures from the palace and the British prevented it from restoring the 1923 constitution. It was around this time that Fascist Italy invaded Abyssinia, an action that caused tensions in Egypt where the public feared that the British might get the country involved in this conflict. In such difficult circumstances, efforts were made to resuscitate the 1923 constitution and set the legal terms for the country's ties with Britain. Trying to close ranks, the Egyptian parties called for clarification of relations with Britain. Since the 28 February 1922 Declaration in which Britain had admitted that Egypt was an independent country within certain limits, Egyptians had been left in a political limbo. Now that Britain was perhaps headed for war, the agitation was palpable. It was in this climate, already fraught with political bickering, that the then British foreign secretary Sir Samuel Hoare issued a statement in November 1935 saying that he was opposed to the reinstatement of the 1923 constitution because it was “unsuitable” and to the restoration of the 1930 constitution because Egyptians found it “objectionable.” The students were outraged. Holding a meeting on the campus of the then Fouad Al-Awal University in Giza on 13 November, later renamed Cairo University, they announced a Day of Struggle, and left the University in large numbers shouting anti-British slogans. In the subsequent clash with the police, two students were seriously injured. The next day, 14 November, the clashes renewed. The police surrounded nearly 300 student protesters on Abbas Bridge and fired at them, killing agriculture student Mohamed Abdel-Meguid Morsi and injuring literature student Mohamed Abdel-Hakam Al-Garrahi, who died of his wounds the next day. The student union fired off a cable of protest to the League of Nations, protesting both Hoare's statements and subsequent police brutality and informing the international organisation that the struggle would continue until Egypt gained its independence. On 16 November, 1935, the students pelted the police with stones and bottles. A senior British officer received a serious head wound, and another student, Ali Taha Afifi, received a bullet injury and died the next day. A general strike was held on 28 November, 1935, to commemorate the fallen. The entire nation took part in the strike: shops were closed in Cairo, newspapers did not appear and public transportation came to a halt. On 7 December, 1934, the students built a memorial for the university martyrs and unveiled it in a major ceremony. Throughout the confrontations, university professors acted in solidarity with their students. A group of professors in the literature department at Cairo University sent a memo to the education minister saying that the students had demonstrated in peace but had been met with excessive force. Egyptian judges were sympathetic. When students appeared on trial at the Abdin Court on 7 November, judge Hussein Idris gave them light fines ranging from between 20 piastres to one pound. In the verdict, the judge said that “the demonstrators were the students of the most prominent educational institute in the country, and they are in possession of the knowledge and judgement that allows them to expect their actions to have an impact on the authorities in the manner the law intended.” As for the charge the students had assaulted the police, the judge found that the students had acted “in self-defence.” Naturally, the British authorities informed the Egyptian judges that in the future they must pass the maximum penalty for students participating in demonstrations. On 21 November, 1935, the newly-formed Student Higher Committee issued a statement urging all political organisations to unite in demanding independence and the restoration of the 1923 constitution. Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha, leader of the Constitutional Liberals, was the first to agree. Then, as the students continued the pressure, the Wafd and other parties followed suit. BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS: The 1940s saw the rise of leftists within the ranks of the Wafd Party. Other Marxist organisations were also gaining ground in the country. The palace was dissatisfied with this trend and persuaded the Muslim Brotherhood to send in its supporters, armed with sticks and knives, to beat up student protesters. On 9 February, 1946, the security forces tried to stop a demonstration from Cairo University from reaching the downtown area through a new tactic. The police fired in the air and opened the bridge. Several students reportedly jumped into the River Nile, and dozens were injured. In reaction, a general strike was called for 21 February, 1946. On that day, thousands gathered in Ismailia (later Tahrir) Square, and most businesses remained closed. Young men such as future Free Officers Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Khaled Mohieddin and Zakariya Mohieddin, who had taken part in demonstrations over the previous decade, were by then enrolled in the army. Six years later, with the British holding on to power and the palace failing to make the concessions the nationalist movement demanded, the Free Officers staged the 1952 Revolution. The article was first published in Diwan Al-Ahram periodical.
