When the Suez Canal was inaugurated on 16 November 1869, the scene was one of pomp and circumstance. The empress Eugènie of France was so impressed by the grandeur of the event that she sent a cable to her husband, the emperor Napoleon III, describing how lavish the whole thing had been. The extravagance of the opening of the canal has filtered down to us through the accounts of the participants and also through the vivid images of the event. This was not the first time a canal had been inaugurated at Suez, however, and one can only surmise at the ancient ceremonies that took place in 609 BCE when the first canal was dug on the orders of the pharaoh Necho II to connect the Nile to the Bitter Lakes. Around 285 BCE, Ptolemy II widened the waterway, and in 117 CE the Roman emperor Trajan dredged the canal. In 640, the Arabs then dug the same or a similar canal from Fustat, today's Misr Al-Qadima, to Suez, but the waterway was filled in a hundred years later during a power struggle in the Arab Peninsula as a precaution ordered by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansour to block possible reinforcements from reaching rebels in Mecca. The idea of digging a new Suez Canal was revived in 1798 when French engineers brought by Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt examined the possibility of linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. Ironically, the idea was abandoned because the engineers concluded that the level of the Red Sea was higher than that of the Mediterranean. In 1833, the French Saint Simonian Prosper Enfantin tried to revive the project, but he couldn't get Egypt's then viceroy, Mohamed Ali, to grant him permission. In 1854, Said Pasha, the son of Mohamed Ali, granted permission to Ferdinand de Lesseps, a retired French diplomat who had family ties with the empress Eugènie, to dig the Suez Canal. A few months following the creation of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, the Suez Canal Company, in December 1858, work began in fits and starts after many mishaps, including strong resistance from the Ottomans, Egypt's nominal masters at the time. It took some deft mediation by Napoleon III before work was resumed on the Canal. Finally, in August 1869 the two seas were joined. Recreating the fantastic idea that the khedive Ismail had of turning Egypt into a “part of Europe,” an idea that brought financial ruin to Egypt along with eventual British occupation, is out of the question today. But parts of the khedive Ismail's dream survive, being those that focus on technological achievement, job creation and economic progress. The current plan to develop the Suez Canal as a logistical and industrial hub is one of immense proportions covering the three governorates of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez and spilling over into the long-neglected Sinai Peninsula. One part of the plan calls for the creation of a “technology valley” near Ismailia, with a tunnel under the canal to bring together an industrial zone, service centres and a polytechnic academy. Another part involves the creation of a seaport in east Port Said. The project calls for the creation of a shipping dock that is 1,200 metres long and 500 metres deep, complete with a wave breaker, service basins and a railway line. A third part focuses on the Gulf of Suez and the Ain Sokhna area, where an industrial zone is envisioned with facilities for ship-building, car-making, and steel, cement and fertiliser factories. If things go as planned, the project will be one of the largest in the country's history and a major step towards developing Sinai and ending the ability of terror groups to reside, train and recruit there. However, the reaction of Egypt's intelligentsia to the project has thus far been divided. The Suez Canal plan has been hastily put together, lacks transparency and even sacrifices part of the country's sovereignty, critics say. Writer and politician Mohamed Abul-Ghar is concerned at the lack of transparency in the project, for example. Writing in the newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm in May 2013, he said the Suez Canal project was a “potential disaster” and demanded to know why it had not been put out to international tender. Historian Tarek Al-Bishri has maintained that the project “sabotages” Egypt's control of the canal and “brings the region under the control of global financiers.” Journalist Salah Montasser claims that the speed with which the project was pushed through the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament, deprived it of the meticulous scrutiny it deserved. Do we really need “another Hong Kong” on our eastern border, he asks. Political science professor Hassan Nafaa has even demanded that the officials who approved the project be put on trial. The project, he claims, will turn the canal into Egypt's de facto eastern border, separating the mainland from Sinai. Writer Amr Abdel-Samei says that the government should consult more widely with experts and listen to the public before embarking on such grandiose projects. Former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi has said that his Popular Current Party is preparing an alternative project for developing the Suez Canal and its vicinity. Former presidential candidate Amr Moussa has proposed the formation of an Egyptian private company to draw up another vision for the project and then to implement it. The critics and the government are not at odds, however, when it comes to the need to kick start development in this part of the country. But wariness about what happened to Egypt a century-and-a-half ago, when financial obligations emanating from the Suez Canal brought the country under the heel of a global financial consortium and eventually ended its independence, must not be discounted. Yet, the project, covering an estimated 76,000 km sq on both sides of the canal, may generate a million jobs, according to some experts. And Mohab Mamish, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, says that revenues from the new project will more than double Suez Canal revenues, now standing at about $6 billion annually. If his predictions are correct, which assume that international shipping will keep growing at the current rate, Egypt will have no trouble recouping the canal expansion bill, estimated at $8 billion.
