Turning 80 this week, Anouar Abdel-Malek reviews the lessons contained in his experience of more than half a century I write these words in the early hours of Saturday, 23 October 2004, a date I had not expected to see. I have just crossed the threshold into my 80s in the long life God has granted me. Young people of my generation -- the 1940s generation or, more specifically, the "generation of the revolution" -- never anticipated reaching an age as venerable as 60, let alone 70 or 80. Our horizons were restricted by the challenges of liberating our land from foreign military occupation. World War II had just confirmed the control of western imperial nations -- Britain and the US in particular -- over the Arab world. Our major ally at the time, the Soviet Union, was preoccupied with mending its borders in the heart of Europe and recuperating from the wounds that had caused the death of 27 million of its people and the destruction of its cities and the bases of its economy. The regiments of the People's Liberation Army, led by the Chinese Communist Party, had yet to commence its march upon Beijing. Across the vast civilisation of the east, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and down to the Indian Ocean, American, and then NATO's, strategic hegemony tightened its grip, brandishing the nuclear weapons it had just used against Japan to forestall any change in the global order. Caught in such a formidable vice what could relatively weak nationalist forces hope to achieve? Who could possibly imagine that anything could be done? Such were the questions that preoccupied and spurred into action the generation that came to political awareness between the 1940s and the Suez crisis. This was the "generation of the Nationalist Movement", or the "Free Officers' generation". It was the generation of the Egyptian revolution, of the drive, combining national liberation with a movement to uproot the bases of colonialism and the systems of dependency, that culminated in the revolution of 23 July, 1952 and the dawn of a new era. What did those "relatively weak" nationalist forces do? How did they open a breach in the defences of imperialist hegemony and set foot on the long road to national independence? This story of light and fire, of leaps forward and setbacks, should be read closely and cherished, and it is to be found in many authoritative studies, most notably: The Political Movement in Egypt: 1945-1952 by Tareq El-Bishri, The 23 July Revolution by Ahmed Hamroush and the many memoirs published by members of this generation across the political and ideological spectrum. I, too, made a contribution in this endeavor in The Army and the Nationalist Movement. The choice that we faced was between conventional political action -- which intensified the tensions and contradictions between domestic political, social and ideological forces and, therefore, worked to dissipate their energies -- and the search for an alternative course of action that would minimise the dangers inherent in conventional approaches. At a crucial historical juncture, around 1946, the most effective course for Egypt was identified. The idea of creating a "United National Front" was proposed by two pioneers of the progressive nationalist movement, Shahdi Atiya El-Shafie and Abdel-Maaboud El- Gabali in Our National Aims, the book that inspired the creation of national and democratic forces by the National Committee for Workers and Students in the spring of 1946. From its inception this front formed the vanguard of a revolutionary nationalist movement that aspired to an historic status that could not be shaken by the superficial gleam of false slogans or recipes blessed by the dominant imperialist "others." Towards this end it was deemed essential to anchor the front on the core concept of the perpetuity of the specific character of the Egyptian personality and to affirm the notion and spirit of rallying around those philosophical and spiritual values that have characterised the Egyptian people over the course of seven millennia. It was feared that the revolutionaries would forget, or overlook, the need to address the element of social and class diversity, and the solution to this dilemma resided in the creation of a united national front gathering, without exception, members of all classes, political forces and ideological schools that subscribed to the struggle for independence and fully sovereign powers of self- determination. In order to realise such an inclusive national coalition a platform had to be devised with a raft of guiding -- though not ideological or technocratic -- principles that would enable the greater Egyptian masses to identify the unifying hopes, feelings, ideas and aspirations residing deep within their national and cultural consciousness. This task was accomplished in the manifesto of the National Committee for Workers and Students in 1946, and in the Six Point platform of the 1952 Revolution, in Abdel-Nasser's The Philosophy of the Revolution and in the revolution's Charter for National Action. It was the spirit enshrined in these documents that united the Egyptian people and the army throughout the war of attrition, while the nation was preparing for the October 1973 War. But such ideas are self-evident, some might counter. Yet they are not that obvious. If they were, we could hardly have ended up in the state we are now, when once again that pressing question resurfaces: What is to be done? The world is no longer what it was, we are told. In today's world our only choice is to compromise and, however, grudgingly, make dependency as palatable as possible, all in the name of modernisation and boarding the train of civilisation to which we are somehow not linked. Of course the world has changed. The western based bipolar order that prevailed from 1945 to 1991 is no longer. However, western hegemony still prevails in its traditional sphere. From the western coast of the Americas to the other side of the Pacific, from the American-European axis eastwards to the Urals and the Gulf -- these are the frontiers of the imperial circle, from which that same western hegemony is poised to reach out and grab areas of the civilisational east centering on Asia and containing two thirds of the world's population, in all its cultural, national and political diversity. It is important to realise that we are still in the same geo-political corner, which is to say in western hegemony's vice-like grip. However, the changes we see at home and abroad are neither proceeding smoothly or at a unified pace. Beginning at home, Egypt's 70-century history has proceeded from the fact that our country is the gift of the Nile. The Nile gives Egypt life and it gives it agriculture, part of the produce of which is transformed into manufactures in various ways, and a part of this production is channelled into exports. Apart from occasional periods of withdrawal this is how the Egyptian economy worked. It was a nationally-driven economy in all senses of the word: it was autonomous in its will, practices and power. Then came the counter-offensive to the Suez Canal crossing of October 1973 in the form of the second siege of the national economy since the age of Mohamed Ali. The code word for this operation was Camp David (1978), and it touted the banner of an economic open door which, in effect, meant that Egypt was expected to gradually convert from a production-based economy to an import-consumer society, totally dependent on foreign aid and thereby opening the gates to the domination of foreign interests parading under the catchwords of globalisation and progress. The result is the situation we are now experiencing: the broadening of the scope and the sharpening of the intensity of national resistance fired by the frustrated hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of the Egyptian people who are fed up with breadlines and the dismantling of the private sector, up to and including the conversion of our atomic energy base into a foreign tourist project. Against this encroachment on our national interests and affront to our national dignity, it has become both an imperative and a duty to create a united national front of a new sort, one that comprises all political forces, social sectors and ideological schools in Egyptian society, but that takes the idea of the generation of the revolution to a more profound level. As in the 1940s and 1950s, today's united national front must embrace all political parties, syndicates and professional federations without exception. However, at another, deeper level, it must comprise all ideological trends in all their diversity and regardless of the contradictions between them. This has become increasingly vital in order to counter the moral, psychological and intellectual impact of the globalised media age which relentlessly entrenches consumerism as a system of values and way of life. The age in which we are living is dominated by the ideology of the decimated market, the catchwords of which are unlimited production, unlimited consumption and unlimited pleasure. It is the May 1968 slogan -- the only prohibition is prohibiting anything -- taken to its extreme: there are no values, no restraints, nothing to halt the mad slide to nihilism. At a third and indispensable level this united front must be able to establish and assert itself effectively, a fact that has been demonstrated at the most crucial times in our modern history from Mohamed Ali through to Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the 6 October War. More than ever before we must consolidate and safeguard our national front by nurturing the close and special bond between the Egyptian people and their national army. "What about happiness?" my friend asks, adding, "how do you and the generation of the revolution look back on your 80-year journey?" I can only quote Simone de Beauvoir: "Happiness is to look truth in the face and feel content. Happiness is to learn the truth of life on the face of a friend."
