Remembering the revolution

Celebrating the anniversary of the 23 July revolution, Nasserists asked themselves some tough questions about what remained of its legacy. Nadia Abou El-Magd reports
Late President Gamal Abdel- Nasser peered out from a huge picture at a little fewer than 40 people who gathered at the Nasserist Party's downtown headquarters on Monday night to mark the 23 July revolution's 49th anniversary. The picture hung on the wall behind Mohsen Khedr, a Nasserist and a professor of education at Ain Shams University, who began his speech by saying: "The July revolution came to an end more than two decades ago, in 1974 to be exact [when the economic open door policy was launched]. However, Nasserism is still alive and we should continue to honour it."
Khedr said this year's anniversary received less press coverage than a football match between Egypt and Algeria, which took place on Saturday. "Let's admit to ourselves, frankly and with transparency, that the Nasserist forces have been at some distance from the Egyptian grassroots for more than 10 years," he said. "The Nasserist discourse needs to use a new language in order to find answers to new questions."
Khedr said that perceptions of pluralism, human rights and freedom of expression should be reconsidered in the Nasserist dialogue.
"In order to be better oriented to the future, we have to liberate ourselves from our fears and past heritage," Khedr added.
Forty-nine years after the revolution, some Nasserists are asking themselves the questions that were usually directed at them by challenging opponents.
Secretary-general of the Nasserist Party, Diaeddin Dawoud, differed with Khedr. "The 23 July revolution came to a halt but is not over." Blaming the standstill on government obstructions, Dawoud said they had "managed to gain many foes and a few friends."
"The July revolution is still continuing, albeit with different policies. What is over is Nasserism," Wahid Abdel-Meguid, a member of the Supreme Authority of the liberal Wafd Party and editor of The Arab Strategic Report issued by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"It's time for people to come to terms with the legacy of the July revolution. A generation yearned for it, another lived through its achievements and setbacks and a third was puzzled by conflicting assessments of the revolution's outcome," wrote Mohamed Hamad in Al-Arabi, the Nasserist party's weekly mouthpiece. "What I am calling for is a reconciliation with ourselves and our history, in order to be able to aspire for a better future."
Under the title July and the Black Days, Mohamed Badreddin wrote in Al-Arabi sarcastically: "The state is celebrating the 23rd of July this year by showing the film Sadat's Days. The state is protecting and supporting the film because it propagates its viewpoint and that of its protagonist, especially concerning peace with Israel and the open- door policy."
"I came out of the Sadat movie having greater faith in Gamal Abdel-Nasser," wrote Darwish Bergawi in the same newspaper.
This year's anniversary coincided with the screening of the blockbuster film in more than 44 cinemas. The box office revenue topped LE10 million in its first month.
Many Nasserists wrote to their newspaper complaining that the movie was given the highest awards by President Hosni Mubarak, while another film, Nasser 56, which was also a blockbuster in 1996, did not receive any similar state attention.
Salah Eissa, a leftist intellectual and editor of the weekly Al- Qahira, argued that cinemas should not be viewed as ballot boxes. "People go to cinemas to watch movies not to vote. The curiosity of the generations that didn't live under Nasser or Sadat is what drove them to watch those two movies," Eissa told the Weekly.
"Unlike extremist Nasserists, I don't think Sadat turned against the principles of the July revolution. What he did was one of the revolution's stages," Eissa said. He attributed the hostility between the Nasserist and Sadatist camps to "the struggle over power; which is vindictive and has nothing to do with policies."
Abdel-Meguid believes Sadat rescued the revolution and should be given credit for its continuation. Had Sadat's Nasserist opponents won in 1971, he said, the revolution would have been over. The author of Patriotism and Accusations of Treason: Egypt at the beginning and the end of the 20th century, Abdel-Meguid said the struggle between Nasserists and Sadatists is over both power and policies.
Eissa, who authored Intellectuals and the Military under Nasser and Sadat, said he believes the revolution has achieved a great deal but it missed out on even greater achievements. Despite this, Eissa said, "the revolution is, and will always be, the most important national event in the Egyptian nation's history."
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See also:
Nasser photo gallery
Nasser special supplement
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