Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal (This is your Uncle Gamal, My Son), Anwar El-Sadat, Cairo: Madbouli Bookshop, 2005. pp245 Ya waladi hadha amuk Gamal, written in early 1957 by the late president Anwar el-Sadat in the wake of the Tripartite Aggression on Egypt, is supposedly addressed to Sadat's son Gamal, Nasser's namesake, then only a few months old, and it is written in Sadat's usual anecdotal and rather chatty manner. The book was recently republished as part of a collection marking the 35th anniversary of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's death in 1970. Going through the text, one cannot help but recall President Sadat's later autobiography, In Search of Identity, written after his famous visit to Israel in 1977. While each of the two books should be viewed in its respective political and historical context, a comparative reading reveals many interesting, even amusing, changes of attitude. The 20 years that separate the writing of the two books means that each has a very different mood. However, it is not just a question of mood, since the interpretation of events presented and the understanding of the Nasser period promoted are also diametrically opposed. In the former book, Sadat talks of himself as an insider in the early years of the revolution, always using "we" when any important decisions are concerned. In contrast, in his later In Search of Identity Sadat distances himself from the Nasser regime, claiming he had many disagreements with Nasser and with other members of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) that had led the revolution. The essence of the first book is to be found in its final chapter, entitled Al-habib al-a'id (return of the beloved). Talking of Nasser, who had just come back from a trip to what was then the Soviet Union, Sadat writes that "Gamal, Oh God, is part of your marvelous creation. He is your believing servant who relies on you. Guided and inspired by you, he instills in his people a message of justice, pride and peace." This idea of Nasser as being in some way divinely inspired is repeated throughout the text, and Nasser, according to Sadat, is always "in control of events, directing them and not allowing them to direct him. He always thinks of Egypt before anything else." In another part of the book, Sadat tells his son that Nasser will "always defend your rights against those who transgress against your homeland, for you will never know peace while your homeland is transgressed upon. Man has no pride or honour if the pride of his homeland is downtrodden ...This is why we love your uncle Gamal, and that is why he is hated by the colonialist powers, such as Britain, France and the US." Yet, in his later autobiography Sadat takes a different line and is highly critical of Nasser's conduct, repeatedly accusing him of giving in to his emotions under pressure and of not acting rationally. He states, for example, that "Nasser spent [his life] under emotional tension: he was always anxious because he was a very suspicious person, and it was only natural that he should leave behind him a terrible legacy of hatred." Similarly, despite the fact that Sadat in the earlier book applauds Egypt's "victory" in the 1956 Suez War, in his later autobiography he writes that "Nasser was preoccupied with the 'myth' of victory linked to his name ... that he was the hero who had brought us victory over Britain and France and overlooking the real role played by [US President] Eisenhower in turning a military defeat into a political victory." Another change has to do with crucial decisions taken within the Revolutionary Command Council. Recalling early deliberations within the RCC, Sadat says in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal that Nasser raised the issue of whether Egypt should henceforth be a "democracy or a dictatorship. After he had given a speech on the advantages and disadvantages of each," Sadat writes, "the whole Council [with the exception of Khaled Mohieddin, who was not present] engaged in heated discussion. We all argued for the futility of democracy, saying that Egypt's democratic life before 1952 had been nothing but a mass of corruption, bribery and nepotism and that it had led to the break-up of national unity." Nasser, however, thought otherwise, Sadat says, and "he asked us not to ignore the fact that the Revolution would lose its meaning if we imposed dictatorship on the people. What existed before the Revolution was not democracy: it was a multi-party dictatorship masquerading as a democracy, Nasser said." A vote was taken, and the results indicated that seven members of the RCC had chosen dictatorship, only Nasser having voted for democracy. "Your uncle Gamal then said that he respected the decision of the majority, but he also announced his resignation and withdrawal from the RCC." This was "a catastrophe," Sadat writes, since he was "the Revolution's mastermind, and its engineer and leader. None of us, aside from your uncle Gamal, even knew the exact membership of the Free Officers ....[and] none of us, not even the eight of us combined, would ever be able to fill his place." Therefore, Sadat claims, it was decided that the path Nasser had indicated should be followed and that Egypt should not become a dictatorship. By contrast, in In Search of Identity Sadat says that "at that time I did not know that all this was about Nasser testing his power: he only wanted to prove to everyone that he was capable of making decisions." Similarly, in the same book Sadat claims that it was he, and not Nasser, who had founded the Free Officers movement, Nasser only taking over following "my arrest in the summer of 1942." Defending Nasser's strong stance regarding the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, Sadat writes in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal that "they [the West] claim that your uncle Gamal is stubborn and that he is causing trouble because he will not compromise. They also say that he is a dictator because he wants to impose his will." But what compromise can there be on this issue, since "the Canal belongs to Egypt according to all international agreements and with Britain's recognition? Egypt has only nationalised the Canal Company, which is an Egyptian company under Egyptian law." The western powers, he goes on, "wish to impose a 'collective colonialism' on Egypt in the guise of the 'international committee' running the canal. Previously, colonialism was only British colonialism; now the idea is that the US and France should also join in." Later, however, Sadat changes his view and records a meeting he had with Nasser at the time during which he argued that nationalising the company would be a reckless move. According to this later account in In Search of Identity Sadat told Nasser that "had I known about your decision before your speech [nationalising the company], I would have asked you to hold back. This step means war, and we are not ready for it. However, now that you have taken the decision, we will all back you." Egypt's relations with the former Soviet Union are another example of how sharply Sadat's political inclinations and beliefs changed between the former book and the later. Again, in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal Sadat strongly approves of the ultimatum delivered to Britain and France by the Soviet Union during the Suez War demanding their withdrawal and describing it as "powerful and daunting." But, once president, and having overseen the withdrawal of Soviet personnel from Egypt in the early 1970s, Sadat writes that "the truth is that this ultimatum was merely a demonstration of Soviet power and an attempt to act as the country's saviour. In fact, it was Eisenhower who really made the difference when he ordered Britain and France to withdraw in December 1956." This dismissive attitude towards the Soviet Union contrasts strongly with Sadat's earlier attitudes, when he thanked God in his earlier book for "giving us a friendship [with the Soviet Union] that is better than any other that life can give... This is the first honorable hand that has reached out to us, joining in our struggle with eagerness and honesty... May God bless this truthful friendship which is supported by the Soviet people with their love for Gamal," he wrote. Yet, later Sadat writes that after Nasser's death in 1970 the Chinese leader Chou En Lai told the Egyptian ambassador in China that the "Soviets had killed Nasser," and he comments that "I think this was true, since Nasser had severed relations with the US and the West, as well as with the Arabs and Iran. Only the Soviet Union was left. This did not give him much space to manoeuvre, particularly since they treated him in a manner that was far from generous or respectful, and this had its adverse effect on his health." Throughout the later book, in fact, Sadat accuses the Soviet Union of encouraging Egypt's confrontation with the West for its own advantage, as finally "it had found someone to fight the war on its behalf. The Soviets sold us weapons and got money in return without losing anything. They have been winning all along." Regarding the internal struggle for power among the Free Officers that took place during the early years of the revolution, Sadat says in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal that the immediate threat to the regime came from within in the shape of Nasser's rival, General Mohamed Naguib. "Naguib had departed from the principles of the Revolution," he writes. "We had chosen him to lead us at the beginning, but he chose instead to deal with the forces of reaction. All this would have ended in a catastrophe, had it not been for the alertness of your uncle Gamal." Sadat also says that he was the only member of the RCC who had objected to Naguib's appointment, feeling that this would be to appoint someone as leader who was not part of the Revolution. Nasser, however, once again showed superior wisdom, pointing out that "it was wiser to have Naguib in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts for power among the members of the Council, all of whom were of similar age." Sadat's view of Egyptian foreign policy in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal is also quite orthodox for the time and contrasts with his later positions. For example, he states that at the time of the Baghdad Pact in 1955 the Free Officers came to realise that "earlier US talk about friendship has only been a cover. Promises to sell Egypt weapons were only made to gain time in order to realise US aims in the region. Once these had been achieved, we should either have had to give in to US demands, or die." He asserts that seemingly friendly moves from the US should be distrusted, since US policy "is biased and is against the right to self- determination, or the support for young nations, despite what American propaganda claims." Rather, he continues, US "policy has specific and clearly drawn goals... and it is greedier and more murderous than all that colonialism has come up with over the past centuries." Analysing the Arab-Israeli conflict in Ya waladi hadha 'amuk Gamal Sadat says that this is "a matter of life or death, my son. We could give in to the US and Britain and make peace with Israel on Israeli conditions. But this would mean the end of Palestine, and the end of the one million Palestinian refugees. We would then be deprived of weapons, and Israel would eventually attack us. Then, the number of refugees would become 24 million, and they would stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates." (Egypt's population was 23 million at the time). Of course, 20 years later President Sadat made his own controversial separate peace with Israel. Finally, it is interesting, when reading this re-issued early work by Anwar el-Sadat, to see the transformation in his views over a 20-year period. From promoting views often seen as part and parcel of the 1952 Revolution, Sadat, when president, worked to discredit those same views, not least in his own later work In Search of Identity. Indeed, one of Sadat's earliest actions in departing from Nasser's legacy, once he felt strong enough to do so, was to orchestrate the palace coup that took place on 15 May 1971, what Sadat called the "Corrective Revolution" On this occasion, Sadat got rid of most of the symbols of the Nasser period, with the exception of himself. For, despite his later changes of view, Sadat was an essential part of the regime and a mouthpiece for it, as the re-issue of this 1957 book eloquently shows. By Hala Sakr
