By Mursi Saad El-Din Sometimes one misses what is near at hand, and at other times one takes the most important things for granted. The Nile is one of such thing. Although Egypt is always described as the gift of the Nile, we tend to forget the river's existence. As long as the great river runs through its course and its valley is irrigated, we do not give it a second thought. This is probably why the best books written about the Nile are by non- Egyptians. The classical example and a classic in itself is The Nile by Emil Ludwig. Another name that comes to mind is Alan Moorehead, author of The Blue Nile and The White Nile. In these two volumes, Moorehead traces the history of the Nile and its course from its sources to its mouth. Flowing from the volcanoes of central Africa to the Mediterranean, the Nile brings the waters of life to the people of 10 nations and many cultures. The eternal Nile, as it is often called, is the longest river in Africa, and according to some experts, the longest in the world. One would have thought that enough has been written about the Nile. But a book published a couple of weeks ago proves that the subject has not been exhausted. The volume, The River Nile In the Age of the British (American University in Cairo Press) adopts a new approach. The book is in four sections: "A River Conquered", "The British Nile", "Collapse of a River Empire" and "The Legacy". Within these four sections, there are chapters with intriguing titles: "The Imperial Water Strategy", The River War", "Churchill on the Nile", "The Nile as Stick and Carrot", etc. But perhaps the most revealing is the chapter entitled "A Last Roar: Turning the Nile Against Nasser". The chapter starts with a quotation from a Foreign Office minute in 1956: "Ministers have recently shown much interest in the possibility that, by stopping or reducing the flow of the White Nile at Owen Falls, severe damage may be caused to the Egyptian economy." This chapter reveals the first reaction of the British Government, headed by Sir Anthony Eden, to the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company. It was regarded as a blow to Britain that jeopardised Eden's policy in the region. As the author puts it, "London lost the very symbol of the empire." One option the British Tory government considered was to try to exploit control over the Nile waters upstream, in the most brutal and direct way, so as to "force Nasser into submission". The threat was not new. Back in 1945, Lord Killearn, the British Ambassador to Cairo, argued that should the Egyptian government be sufficiently provocative, Nile water policy, "could be changed for the purpose of compelling or punishing Egypt. The plan was then dropped because, according to experts in hydrology, even if it were physically possible to divert the summer waters of the Nile, "the diversion would take time". Following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, "the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office found that the time had come to implement the Killearn plan". In concluding this chapter, the author writes that "British Nile policy in the autumn of 1956 was based on false assumptions. The Nile, which the British had taken in hand in the 1890's, had slipped out of their grip. And yet they still believed that upstream control of the crucial sources of the Nile could still be used as an effective political weapon". The policy proved, in the words of the author, "to be based on illusions". The hydrological character of the Nile could not be manipulated to fit their "punishment scheme."
