Having turned 70, Galal Amin* understands his father's equivocal reception of the events of 1952 When it comes to pan-Arabism and Arab unity the gap between my generation and that of my children could not be wider. My generation developed gushing support for Arab unity from the time Egypt and Syria merged in early 1958 until Syria seceded at the end of the summer of 1962. Between these two dates everything that happened in the region fortified our belief in Arab unity. Iraq had a revolution in July 1958 and its new leaders expressed solidarity with the Egyptian-Syrian union. In the same year the Jordanians expelled Glubb Pasha, the British commander of Jordan's armed forces and the Lebanese ousted President Camille Chamoun, who was hostile to Egyptian-Syrian unity. I was 25 at the time. When I look at people of the same age today I can see how indifferent they are about pan-Arabism. Most of them see Arab unity as an irrelevant dream. Most see loyalty to pan-Arabism as impractical. What happened exactly over the past 50 years that changed us so much? As far as I am concerned nothing happened that diminishes the obvious merits of Arab unity. In economic, political and cultural terms unity remains as relevant as ever. What has happened over the past 50 years, however, is that some Arab countries became more introspective, having realised, perhaps, that pan-Arab commitments involve political and economic costs. Yet even in my time domestic interests often clashed with pan-Arab dreams, though this didn't dampen our enthusiasm for unity. It was in the early 1970s that perceptions began to change. It was then that writers in the West suddenly discovered that something was seriously wrong with the Arabs, with the way we thought, reacted and interacted, with our language, our religion, and our politics. These were the reasons, it was said, that Arabs couldn't achieve unity. While at first such claims were restricted to Western writers they soon came to be embraced by people from the region. Egyptian writers began to say that pan-Arabism was a burden and that we should put Egypt first. The idea caught on in other countries and "Kuwait first" and "the Gulf first" soon became common slogans. A spirit of isolationism eventually spread across the Arab world. The curious thing is that the assault on the Arab character focused on traits that had been around for centuries and which did not prevent us from launching a great civilisation. What is even more curious is that the arguments against Arab unity all sprouted in the 1970s. A decade earlier no one thought this way. Had these arguments been so compelling I wonder why they didn't crop up earlier? The shift in how people see us happened because of short-term factors. The appeal of pan- Arabism was triggered by certain events and reduced by others. I recall clearly the way most Egyptians -- myself included -- felt about Arab unity and Arab issues in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. While we were all for the "Egypt first" idea it did not mean we were hostile to the idea of pan-Arabism, it was simply that we wanted to focus on Egyptian problems and not be distracted. For us the Arabs were brothers, though not in the sense that we wanted to unite with them in one state. The only political union popular in Egypt back then was with Sudan. The most stunning thing about the 1952 Revolution is how it parlayed the nation's belief in unity with Sudan into a dream of Arab unity. The revolution's leaders demanded full Arab unity, and their focus was mainly on the countries to our east. That was a new idea. It first came up in the mid-1950s, when Gamal Abdel-Nasser started talking about pan-Arabism and Arab unity. Overnight Abdel-Nasser turned from an Egyptian leader to an Arab leader. At the time Egypt created the Voice of the Arabs radio station to rally people to the cause of unity. The shift towards Arab unity happened suddenly and as a result of a political decision. The shift away from Arab unity happened just as suddenly and as a result of the 1967 defeat. It was only after 1967 that anti-Arab writers began finding fault with pan-Arabism and with Arab ideas and character. The rise and fall of pan-Arabism was not a result of any drastic revelation about the merits of union or the shortcomings of the Arabs. It was a result of a shift in the course of political events. We moved from a period of jubilation that lasted for a few years to one of humiliation and disappointment that lasts to this day. The pan-Arab enthusiasm felt by my generation was a result of our high expectations and our optimism about the future. The absence of enthusiasm among the current generation is related to its despair of any political progress, whether in cooperation with the Arabs or without them. I was 17 when the 1952 Revolution took place. Everything was promising at the time. A corrupt king had been ousted, a hated political and social regime collapsed. The men in charge of the revolution were young and seemed patriotic enough. They had risked their lives for the country, and their demeanour seemed akin to that of ordinary Egyptians, something that most of us found refreshing. I was pleased that the revolution had taken place. My father was 65 when the revolution happened. I don't think I ever heard him say anything against the revolution and, knowing his views about the king and pre-revolutionary political parties, I assume he thought a change was due. Yet he didn't demonstrate any particular enthusiasm for the revolution. At the time I attributed his lack of enthusiasm to his poor health. Now, with hindsight, and having just turned 70, an age at which I can see things the way my father used to, I am having second thoughts. My father had already lived through events that resembled the 1952 Revolution in some ways. The emotions that the officers of the revolution inspired in people of my generation didn't look as pure and lofty to him. He must have thought the ambitions of the young officers exceeded their abilities and that the difficulties ahead would be immense. My generation's enthusiasm for the revolution peaked in the early 1960s, a decade or so after the revolution took place. I was one of many Egyptian students doing graduate studies in the UK and we were all impressed with the way the revolution had made progress towards Arab unity, development, income redistribution and the provision of free education and health care. Given these achievements we were ready to overlook the tyrannical inclinations of the revolution and the police state it had created. It was hard for us to understand the new regime's policy on national identity, historic legacy and the issue of Westernisation. For us these seemed secondary issues, insignificant when compared with economic recovery and political independence. We didn't think much about the grave mistakes the regime was making. We didn't worry that the regime was putting incompetent people in top jobs and in command of the army. We believed what we wanted to believe. We wanted to think that we had a strong army so we ignored everything we heard about the actions of army commanders. We wanted to believe that Egypt was about to become a major industrial state and so convinced ourselves that Egypt had already gone through the "take-off" period and henceforth economic progress was going to be automatic. We didn't worry that Egypt was reliant on US assistance, which came in the form of wheat and food stuffs. It didn't Russian assistance, mostly concerning the Aswan High Dam and industrial development. It didn't occur to us that once such assistance stopped -- which happened later -- our development would be halted. One week -- five days actually -- were enough to wake us from our dreams. It all happened between 5 and 9 June 1967. My generation still hasn't regained its balance since the 1967 defeat; even today, 40 years later, we're still reeling from the consequences. And the sense of disillusion has never abated. Back in 1952 the sky was the limit. After 1967, it was all downhill. In the 1970s, President Sadat turned his back on the revolution's commitment to a fairer distribution of income. He gave up Egypt's political independence, acquiescing to US and Israeli pressures, bowing to the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF. In return Sadat promised us a democracy of sorts, a promise he failed to keep; only a few weeks before his assassination he threw his opponents in prison. As for the economic recovery that Egypt witnessed under Sadat, it was as phoney as the democracy we'd been promised. Most of the was related to expatriate remittances, US aid funds, higher oil prices and tourism. All of these sources of income were hard to maintain. As soon as oil prices dropped remittances fell. Egyptians began paying a heavy price for the neglect of agriculture and industry. In the 1980s and 1990s the economic slump returned, only to continue throughout Mubarak's reign. The regime did nothing to alleviate the gap between rich and poor, a gap that widened as the recession continued and unemployment grew. Under pressure from the US, Israel and international financial organisations, the regime made political and economic concessions, from Palestine to the economy. Long-promised political democracy became more fraudulent by the day. Under Mubarak the "brightest days of freedom" became a farce. After 9/11 US officials began to talk of the need for democratic reform in Egypt and other Arab countries. Ironically it is the US that has told the Egyptian regime what to do for more than 25 years, ever since Nixon came to Egypt in 1974 to be exact. Not surprisingly Egyptians took Washington's newly-discovered love of democracy with a pinch of salt. A half a century or more has passed since the 1952 Revolution and most of our hopes have been dashed. We've failed to achieve democracy or liberate Palestine. We've failed to advance economically or eliminate poverty. We've failed to provide the nation with decent health care and education. Yes, standards of living have improved but not as much as we'd hoped. Egyptians are no freer political or intellectually than they were in 1952. Our social system is no more just. But we are 70 million now, instead of 22 million in 1952. We have tripled in number. It is the only growth one can confidently note. If I am asked to sum up the last 50 years or so I would call it the American era. I was 10 when the second World War came to a close and since then the US has been supplanting UK and French colonialism everywhere. Egypt fell under US influence in 1952 and remains under it to this day. During the past 50 years we've had periods of relative independence and others of complete capitulation. But looking at the period as a whole it would seem to me that Egypt simply exchanged one master for another. And when you have a master you cannot stray far from your master's wishes. Perhaps this is what my father knew back in 1952. Perhaps this is why he wasn't excited about the revolution. My father was only 20 when the Denshway incident took place. In Denshway, a small town in the Delta, the British hanged a number of Egyptian peasants for a crime they did not commit. It was an intimidation tactic, meant to teach the entire nation a lesson. My father told me once that he bitterly wept over Denshway. For him that was a defining moment. When my father looked at the 1952 Revolution he saw it framed against a backdrop of similar events and that is why he was circumspect. As for me and my generation, we have had to live through the ups and downs that followed, only to reach a very similar conclusion. * The writer is professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.
