Amira Howeidy wonders what lies behind the sudden interest in marking the 90th anniversary of the birth of late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser Last week a presidential decree was issued announcing that the house in Heliopolis that served as Gamal Abdel-Nasser's residence is to be turned into a museum. Thirty eight years after his death at the age of 52 it would seem that Nasser has suddenly become flavour of the month: as well as the museum announcement the Higher Council for Culture this week hosted a three-day conference to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Nasser's birth at which 38 speakers discussed -- in a highly charged atmosphere -- the life, thoughts, virtues and vices of the revolutionary president whose vision of independence and Arab nationalism acted as a catalyst in the modern history of Egypt and other Arab countries. Despite Nasser's powerful influence in the region -- he is, after all, the only Arab leader who has lent his name to an ideology -- there was no guarantee that the 90th anniversary of his birth would receive recognition from official quarters. Following his death in 1970 Nasser was succeeded by his deputy, Anwar El-Sadat, who swiftly turned against the policies espoused by the post-revolutionary regime headed by Nasser. Sadat forged strong ties with the US, made peace with Israel and embarked on an economic open-door policy. He was assassinated in 1981 by senior military officers. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, has followed more or less the same policy directions as Sadat. For the past 26 years Egypt's relations with the US and Israel have remained smooth, despite occasional hiccups, and Cairo -- under Nasser the capital of Arab nationalism and a vociferous defender of Arab rights -- is now a largely neutral party to the "Arab- Israeli" conflict. Domestically, the past three decades have seen a gradual but thorough turning away from Nasser's state-controlled, socialist-inspired policies to what officials today like to call a "liberal", market- driven economy. Egypt's once powerful public sector has been steadily privatised, opening the door to foreign ownership of national assets. Following the sale of the Bank of Alexandria in 2006, officials last year signalled their intention to sell off Banque du Caire, Egypt's second largest national bank. Last year the constitution was amended to remove, among other things, all references to socialism, while the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif appears determined to remove one of the few remaining planks of Nasserist social policy and cut state subsidies on basic commodities. References to the Nasser-led 1952 Revolution and its nationalist and anti- imperialist narrative have long been limited to the annual broadcast of the romantic Rudda Qalbi (Give me Back my Heart), a film set against the backdrop of the revolution. To mark the golden jubilee of the revolution in 2002, the Ministry of Culture tailored its celebrations in such a way as to ensure that all four of Egypt's post-1952 presidents received equal attention. In a telling comment, an aide to the former Iranian president Mohamed Khatami told Al-Jazeera TV on 21 June 2007 that during Khatami's visit to Egypt last year Mubarak had said that he would like to see stronger Egyptian- Iranian ties but that Iran's current president, Ahmadinejad, "reminded him of Nasser". As if to underline just how unsympathetic the current regime finds the legacy of Nasserism the daily pro- government Rose El-Youssef newspaper recently published a series of articles by its editor Abdallah Kamal announcing the "end" of Nasserism altogether. So why the sudden interest in commemorating the 90th anniversary? "The Higher Council for Culture had very little to do with the Nasser seminar," says Raouf Abbas, professor of modern history at Cairo University and president of the Egyptian Society of Historical Studies (ESHS), the NGO which organised the three-day event. "It allowed us to use its lecture hall to host the seminar but that was the sum total of their involvement. The rest is our work," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The aim of the event, he said, was to "evaluate an important chapter of Egypt's modern history, not just the person of Nasser". "History is the memory of the nation, it is the summary of our experiences. When we embark on a new era we must look back and make use of its achievements and learn from its mistakes." The decision to turn Nasser's house into a museum was only issued, Abbas claims, when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi brought up the possibility with Mubarak during a recent visit. Ironically, he says, "the house wouldn't be turned into a museum unless [the state] was confident that the bogeyman of Nasser was finally fading". "Don't forget that the state is not celebrating the anniversary, we are. Nobody in the government cares or wants to remind the people of that era. It's deliberate policy, there's no doubt about it." Events marking Nasser's 90th anniversary follow hot on the heels of the success of the TV series King Farouk -- based on the life of Egypt's last monarch -- which was broadcast during Ramadan last November. The series painted a negative picture of the 1952 Revolution and the Free Officers movement which Nasser led, triggering a debate across the Arab world on the accuracy of the series' depiction of events and personalities. "The series made an impact," says Nelly Hanna, professor of history at the American University in Cairo and a member of the ESHS, to the extent that society thought it necessary to offer a more balanced view of that period of Egypt's modern history. "We are living through a crisis [today] and it's important to understand how we got here," she says. So has anything new emerged on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Nasser's birth? "Not really," Hanna says, smiling. "We wanted to make sure we marked it because many of us might not be around to celebrate his centenary."
