Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life (652) Fascist celebration Erecting a statue of should have gone smoothly but proved a difficult undertaking. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk explains why "The King will unveil the statue of his grandfather Ismail -- the day of Ismail the Great." This was the top headline of Al-Ahram 's Monday, 5 December 1938 issue. It must seem to readers today that Al-Ahram at that time was participating in a celebratory occasion revolving around one of the most prominent personalities in the ruling family of Egypt. Yet following the story of the erection of this statue shows that its installation in Alexandria in fact took place with the utmost difficulty. Difficulties of the like would have been understandable with regard to the statues created by the sculptor Mahmoud Mukhtar given their symbolic reference to a nationalist awakening, as in the sculpture "Egypt's renaissance." They would have likewise been understandable with regard to the embodiment of major national figures, as in the two Saad Zaghloul statues in Cairo and Alexandria. King Fouad had laid in wait for those statues, and they were only erected during the short periods the Wafd Party governed at the time of his reign, and only by pulling teeth. Yet such difficulties are incomprehensible for the erection of a statue of one of the incredibly important personalities of the ruling family. The matter grows more incomprehensible still in light of the conditions under which Ismail's statue was sculpted. The occasion was King Fouad's visit to Italy in 1927, during which the Italian people greatly honoured the Egyptian king. As part of this welcome, the Italian community in Egypt, which was the second largest after the Greeks, wanted to immortalise the occasion. The Italian consul in Alexandria thus wrote to the chief of security to inform him that the city's Italian community wished to install a monument commemorating the visit of the king of Egypt to the king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel. Following consultation between Abdin Palace circles represented by Firochi Bey, the chief engineer of the royal palaces, and Count Lagrossi, the Italian consul in Alexandria, as well as seeking the opinion of King Fouad, it was settled that the statue would be of . The reason, as explained by Al-Ahram, was that the man perched on the throne "leant heavily towards exalting the memory of his great father and highlighting his glorious deeds". We can add to this the special relationship that had developed between Ismail and Italy. Ismail had used Italian engineers and artists on a wide scale in the construction endeavours he undertook in Cairo and Alexandria. Moreover, when he was removed from his position under French and British pressure, he chose Italy as his place of exile. This is where his children, including Fouad, received their education. Following the king's return from his visit, Count Lagrossi began to collect donations from the Italian community in Alexandria. Within a few days, he had collected LE13,000, a sum that seemed sufficient for the sculpting of the statue to begin. He then travelled to Italy and "began taking measures for the crafting of the statue and the selection of appropriate marble." As usual in such projects representing an occasion of sorts, they soon dissipated following the occasion's end. It seems that the endeavour required additional funds, and this necessitated waiting another six years until another royal occasion took place. This time it was the visit of King Emmanuel and the queen of Italy to Egypt in early 1933 to return the visit of King Fouad. Al-Ahram stated that Egypt warmly welcomed the royal family and that "the Italian community's interest in the statue project has increased to the point that newspaper journalists are considering its undertaking a commemoration of the king's visit to Egypt." The contributions campaign was thus renewed and all of the Italians residing in Alexandria participated. This endeavour was aided by the fact that some of the Italian community's youth had formed Fascist organisations during that period and they played an effective role in collecting donations, making it possible to cover all the costs of sculpting the statue. The fashioning of the statue was entrusted to the famous Italian sculptor Pedro Calonica, while Firochi Bey designed its constructed surrounds, selecting a Roman architectural style. This was paid for by the Alexandrian municipality, which paid LE2,900 for the tiling of the platform, LE300 for the tiling of the sidewalk, and LE2,200 for decorative lampposts around it. A team of Italian engineers and builders who were well-known in Alexandria volunteered to undertake the construction work and installation of the statue free of compensation. All work on the statue's constructed surrounds was completed by October 1935. On the 16th of that month, a cover was placed over the statue and everyone waited for the day that His Majesty the King would attend the curtain-raising ceremony. Yet this day was delayed for more than three years, and it was not Fouad who presided over the raising of the curtain from his father's statue, but rather his son Farouk who raised the curtain from the statue of his grandfather. Al-Ahram explained this lengthy delay concerning the statue of "Ismail the Great" as being related to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia the year its installation was completed and the resulting tension in British-Italian relations. It further clarified that Egypt was not to blame for this, and wrote, "if Egypt were independent in its public foreign policies and not connected to England in alliance and through a treaty, the celebration would have proven to all that the loyal friendship between Egypt and Italy comprises the two nations, the two governments, and the two peoples." We do not concur with Al-Ahram on holding the British party responsible for the three-year delay. There were also Egyptian fears over the Ethiopian sources of the Nile and Italian threats of mobilising on Egypt's western border in Libya that made it difficult at that particular time for Fouad or anyone else to celebrate an occasion bespeaking Egyptian-Italian friendship. Moreover, it was during that period that Fouad fell ill and passed away, and no one remained interested in the statue hidden under thick cover in Alexandria. It was also a period that witnessed the longest serving Wafdist government, and El-Nahhas Pasha and his associates were not interested in a statue eternalising the memory of its foe, the royal family. Their attention was directed instead towards the completion of the two statues of Saad Zaghloul and the celebration of their installation. The situation remained thus until King Farouk assumed his constitutional powers in July 1937 and subsequently succeeded in doing away with the El-Nahhas government by the end of the year. It was common knowledge that the young king was impressed by the power of his grandfather Ismail more than he was with his own father, Fouad, and it was thus expected that he would rush to remove the cover from the famed khedive. This, however, took place only a full year after the removal of the El-Nahhas government. To our view, the reason for this is that after the young king dismissed the Wafdist government under the urging of Ali Maher, and after people had imagined that the era of dismissing Wafdist governments had ended with the passing away of King Fouad, he simply had to wait some time before making his move. This was especially the case given that during that same period he significantly postponed attending the curtain-raising ceremony for the Saad Zaghloul statue in Alexandria. It would have been unacceptable for him to have done this for the great Egyptian leader while acting in a contrary manner for the statue of his grandfather. AS TYPICAL WITH AN IMPENDING OCCASION and especially one related to the royal family, Egyptians celebrated in numerous forms ranging from composing poetry about the exemplary characteristics of the statue bearer to presentations of his biography, or at least its positive aspects. There were also mentions of Egyptian-Italian relations, given that the new statute represented, before anything else, their solidness. Among a collection of poems written by Ali El-Garim, Mohamed Abdel-Ghani Hassan and El-Awadi El-Wakil, allow us to select a few representative lines of a poem by Ali El-Garim entitled "The father of lion cubs": Glory upon the waves overseeing from high above, this is your battle Egypt, in a statue. This is the son of Ibrahim, who gave to his people the good of life and spread hope. This is he whose great striving is beyond the reach of imagination, this brilliant king to whom nations submitted themselves with the strength of heroes. Al-Ahram published lengthy articles on Ismail, including the editorial in the 9 December issue titled "The modern history of Egypt and the immortalisation of the memory of the great." It opened with stating that this khedive deserved to have a statue, and indeed statues, of him erected throughout the country "which he spent his life in service of, it and the raising of its conditions. Perhaps the delay in erecting the statue of this great ruler stems from the successive political conditions affecting the country since he was removed from the throne in 1879 and Tawfiq assumed it and England occupied Egypt. Since then the arena has not been open to bring the works of Ismail to the forefront, especially as there has been organised foreign propaganda against him to mar and defame his works and projects and to picture him as an extravagant, spendthrift ruler whose rule consisted of a chain of mistakes." It was perhaps this negative side to the image of the statue's bearer that settled in the collective consciousness of Egyptians. It was under no circumstances of national creation, but yet it was also forgotten who in fact drew the picture. Those who accepted it forgot how exaggerated was the image drawn of the opening celebration for the Suez Canal, an image filled with stories of spendthrifts and the costs of Verdi composing the opera Aida and so on. They forgot many important matters, including the fact that the canal itself, despite Egypt's shares in it being sold, formed a new society in Egypt's east. Cities were created out of what had not been more than small fishing villages, and opportunities that had not previously been possible were opened to the residents. In addition, the Nile Valley became connected to this area that had previously been nothing more than an extension of the Sinai desert. They also forgot that the overwhelming majority of Ismail's debts were created for the development of infrastructure in Egyptian cities and particularly Cairo, which had come out from behind the walls that had protected it throughout the Middle Ages. Since that period, most of these cities have consisted of new and ancient neighbourhoods existing side by side. People were encouraged to accept them by the government services offered, including pure water and paved streets. But more importantly than all this, they forgot Ismail's desire to protect Egypt's national interests as represented by the security and continued flow of Nile water. This had driven him to send successive campaigns to the south that ended with the annexation of Darfur to Sudan and also extended to Uganda and the signing of a treaty with its king acknowledging Egyptian sovereignty. Egyptian forces also reached Somalia and Eritrea, leading to war with the Ethiopian kingdom that cost Egypt so exorbitantly that it comparatively made the costs of the Suez Canal opening celebration seem a joke. In the view of Al-Ahram, and we concur with its opinion, the policies of were among the greatest factors of stability in the country. They included "the weakening of Turkish power while strengthening the army and fleet, building factories, spreading education, establishing the councils of representatives and consultation, forming the first cabinet, introducing the Egyptian judicial system, and combating the slave trade." Yet Al-Ahram was not alone in this recital of the accomplishments of the khedivial bearer of the statue. It was joined by a number of other newspapers, including Al-Muqattam, which opened an editorial with the following words: "They long did him wrong but then gave him his worth, for after lengthy research and discernment it became clear to them that he deserves this epithet. Ismail was great in his deeds and in his mistakes. He wanted to realise the wishes of his great grandfather and to bring this country up to its highest zenith. He wanted to open himself up to workers, and to forge roads of glory such as those he forged in the capital of his sovereign land. His reign was replete with noble deeds and his era was a threshold between epochs." In the same vein, an editorial in Al-Balagh titled "Ismail and his noble deeds for Egypt" stated, "He was a spreader of reform and order, an animator of the army, a constructor of independence, and to a large degree he liberated Egypt from Ottoman dominion. He implanted the core of representative rule and removed the restrictions that had been built upon it by the system of throne ascension in the late years of the reign of Mohamed Ali through the firman of 13 February 1841." This paper loyal to the palace added that Ismail had breathed new life into the Egyptian army and navy that took impressive steps towards their advancement and increased their strength. "He took Egypt from a state of judicial chaos to another of order. During his reign the Suez Canal opened, education underwent a blessed renaissance, and an agricultural agency was established." Egyptian newspapers, most predominately Al-Ahram, also addressed what they called the "historical relations" between Egypt and Italy. There was a large Italian community in Egypt that cooperated with the country's native residents in all various aspects of life, and Italians had numerous scientific institutes, factories, and commercial outlets. "A significant number of Egyptian artists have greatly borrowed from Byzantine art, and Egypt even has a well-known Egyptian art academy in the Italian capital." At the time of the statue's curtain-raising ceremony, Al-Ahram commented on the good relations between the two countries by stating that Italy had supported Egypt's viewpoint in numerous occasions over the previous period. It had accepted the Egyptian theory on paying public debenture bonds and due coupons with paper money rather than gold "just as Italian lenders stood on the side of the Egyptian delegates to the Montreaux Convention including in the discussion related to the debt fund. The final proof of the Italians' keenness on this friendship was support of the agreement concerning Lake Tana." THE CELEBRATION HELD IN ALEXANDRIA at 11.30am on Sunday, 4 December 1938 to unveil the statue of was noteworthy for the fact that despite the personality being honoured having been a former ruler of Egypt and the location being within Egypt, it was a purely Italian occasion. The Egyptians present seemed more like guests than hosts. The celebration began with the arrival of a representative of the Italian government aboard the Aspiria steamboat four days prior to the event. He was a major political figure named Cavalieri Luigi Fedrizoni and was the head of the Italian senate. The Italian minister plenipotentiary in Egypt and the Italian consul general in Alexandria awaited for him in a motorboat, while one of the top men of the royal protocol stood at the harbour to represent the king, along with the mayor of Alexandria as a representative of the government, Firochi Bey, the chief engineer of the royal palaces, and a number of prominent personalities from the Italian community in the city. After resting for awhile in his hotel, he headed for Montazah Palace where King Farouk greeted him. He then visited the Fascist headquarters in the city and the party's youth welcomed him. After that he headed to Cairo where he spent a few days before the anticipated date of the ceremony. There was nothing unusual in all this, but what happened next was certainly a source of surprise for Alexandrians and Egyptians in general -- members of the Italian community filled the area to prepare for the anticipated ceremony. Al-Ahram acknowledged that they "excel in organisation and arrangement and have bestowed the celebration with a rare splendour." They prepared three grandstands; the first and largest was set up directly in front of the statue, while the second, to the right, was before the indigenous courts headquarters and the third, to the left, was in front of the French consulate. The top-notch royal seating area was in the centre of the first grandstand, with the area around it prepared for princes, ministers, and highly distinguished guests. The other two sides were for the prominent personalities of the Italian community resident in Alexandria and those arriving from Cairo, Port Said, and elsewhere in Egypt. In other words, it was not permitted for ordinary Egyptians to attend the celebration other than the policemen who lined up on both sides of Queen Nazli Street, the cornice, and the roads leading to Mohamed Ali and Ismail squares. "The commandant's office employed for this purpose 3,400 police, soldiers and guards." It grew increasingly clear that the celebration was Italian from A to Z starting from 10am when Senior Renasto Chinolini, the head of the Italian Fascist Association in Alexandria, and some of his colleagues brought 200 students from Italian schools including 60 or so from the Fascist Party from all corners of the country. He had them stand in the statue's courtyard, with the girls to the right and the boys to the left, each in a group of 100. Fifty of the girls wore shiny white dresses while another 50 wore black skirts and grey blouses. Similarly, 50 of the boys wore the typical Fascist gear consisting of a black shirt and grey slacks, while the other 50 wore white slacks and black seafaring shirts. In short, it was a Fascist demonstration in the heart of Alexandria. Although no places were allocated for Egyptians, Al-Ahram 's reporter noticed a large gathered crowd of people on the edge of the eastern harbour front, as well as large groups on the rooftops of buildings adjacent to the site and at the windows of homes and offices looking onto the area. After the prominent guests assembled, at 11.30am the royal motorcade arrived and royal music was played as His Majesty descended from his car. After inspecting the soldiers, he approached the area prepared for the celebration "wearing the navy felt apparel of a naval commander". The Fascists present were intent on imbuing the event with an Italian character and greeted the king as he passed raising small Italian flags they held in their hands. "Some of them called out in Arabic and those present repeated their call." The ceremony began with a speech given by the head of the Italian council that was closer to propaganda for the Fascist regime than it was in celebration of the occasion. It ended with words directed to King Farouk: "Your Majesty, modern Italy, which functions under the slogan of the "Roman Liknor" (a reference to the officer who walked before the rulers of Rome in ancient times) and the decisive and far-seeing administration of the Duchy, has renewed and multiplied its spiritual and moral sources. It has settled its domestic problems and has established a regime appropriate for its people and based upon solid pillars of national solidarity." The word then given by Prime Minister Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha was more even-handed. He began by thanking the Italian community for the marvellous work of art it had installed and the Italian government's official participation in the celebration. Yet he was sure to devote most of his speech to the khedive being commemorated and noted that his aims had been of a peaceful nature as are those of all great kings. He "was strongly aware of his duties, including peace at home and abroad, whose essence is order and effort. To him, the Suez Canal, whose opening he oversaw in awe-inspiring greatness and eternal glory and splendour, was nothing but a symbol of the unity of nations on the path to advancement." What is truly unusual is that the Italian community did not suffice with celebrating in Alexandria. Rather, its prominent personalities decided to hold a commemoration at the tomb of in Al-Rafaai Mosque. At the same time that the king was lifting the curtain from the statue in Alexandria, they headed to the mosque with flowers and then stood and raised their hands in the Fascist salute in an act of glorification. Yet matters did not end here, either. The Italian statue committee produced a handwritten document in Arabic and Italian granting the statue to the city of Alexandria. The day following the curtain-raising ceremony, the Italian consul in Alexandria, Silvio Camrani, delivered this document to the mayor of Alexandria. Its text read as follows: "On the fourth day of the month of December 1938, coinciding with the 17th Fascist year and the 12th of the month of Shawwal in the Islamic year 1357, at 11 o'clock in the morning in Ismail Square in Alexandria, Egypt, under the honour of His Majesty King Farouk I, the King of Egypt, and in the presence of Their Excellencies the Cavalieri Luigi Fedrizoni, representative of the government of His Majesty the King of Italy and the Emperor of Ethiopia, and Count Seravino Matsolini, the minister plenipotentiary of the royal Italian government in Egypt, the consul of the royal Italian government Silvio Camrani, in his capacity as the president of the committee for the statue of the great late , handed over the statue that the Italian community in Egypt installed to His Grace Mohamed Hussein Pasha, custodian of the city of Alexandria and the head of its municipality, and His Grace accepted it, showing his pleasure with this generous gift." We do not know whether this seeming pleasure was sincere after all the actions that had emptied the Italian generosity of its meaning. Nor do we know the fate of this document, whether it remains in the governorate files or in the municipality archives, or whether it has gone with the wind as so many other documents before it.
