Obituary: A breath of fresh air (1950-2006) By Roger Owen I am writing these words in grateful thanks for the life of my friend and to remind people of his enormous role for good in Egyptian life. I first met him when he came to Britain in his early 20s seeking help in getting into a British university. I remember him as a tall, charismatic young man whom it was easy to imagine leading the student demonstrations in Cairo in 1972 or defending the students' actions before President Anwar El-Sadat's ministers or in court. It was also easy to recognise his capacity to act as a powerful spokesman for the larger national demands of those days. Much of Abdallah's experience was then poured into his Cambridge University doctoral thesis situating his own intense period of student politics within the long tradition of Egyptian student activism going back to 1923. It is at once a very autobiographical work, with the last chapters based on his own memory and those of his scattered student colleagues. And yet it is also a great testimony to his modesty and belief in the importance of collective action that he himself is never personally present in his text which is entirely devoted to the accomplishments of the movement as a whole. Given the importance of this scholarly work it would have been reasonable to suppose that he would find a post at a major Egyptian university but this was not to be. Instead he devoted himself to work among Egypt's poor where he was most needed, displaying what is sadly a rare belief in a combination of social duty and a principled opposition to all the forces making for greater inequality among the different sections of Egypt's population. Just as he should have had a job in a university, so too should he have been able to obtain a seat in the People's Assembly to give voice to those most neglected by the state. Outside Egypt, on his visits to Britain and the United States, Abdallah always appeared as a breath of fresh air, while giving his own hard-hitting, no nonsense account of political conditions back home. His stories were almost always depressing. But they were also always accompanied by a spirit of great optimism, a belief that things could and should be better. Through him we had a glimpse of the many other Egyptians fighting like him for happier days ahead. To those who might count much of his life a failure, I would say, no, it was Egypt's failure not to recognise his talents better and to give him the means to accomplish all the good things he wanted to do. I feel proud to have known him. I will do my best to keep his memory alive. Roger Owen is A. J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History, Harvard University and Former Director, St Antony's College Middle East Center, Oxford.
