The Revolution and students (9), Aftermath of the 1967 catastrophe For nearly a decade, student unrest disappeared from the vocabulary of political life in Egypt, if there has been anything that can be called political life at that time. The revolution government had by then firmly established the one-party system. First, there was the Liberation Rally which had obviously failed to effectively or fully fill the vacuum resulting from the dissolution and later banning of all political parties and with them the Muslim Brotherhood (The Ikhwan). The Liberation Rally was succeeded by what came to be called the National Union, and later still by what was known as the Arab Socialist Union (ASU), members of which were known as 'the people's working forces', including workers, farmers, students and nationalist capitalists', the latter being the phrase used to refer to medium and smaller merchants and businessmen who had survived the severe wave of nationalisation. The ASU wielded a commanding presence in Egyptian universities. Its main fabric included 'specialised secretariats' for workers, farmers, youth, women and the nationalist capitalists. However, the painful defeat of the Egyptian (and other Arab armies) in the 6-day war of 1967 has brought about a very significant change, mainly manifested in a serious erosion in the ASU as many of its younger members, either becoming politically apathetic under the crumbling shock of the national disaster and the disillusionment it caused, or secretly defecting to re-emerging forces such as the Ikhwan or the so-called Arab Nationalists. Students openly discussed on campuses the real causes of the humiliating defeat, including external factors which should have been carefully calculated and hence reckoned with. However, many other issues were spontaneously raised once it was possible to debate openly after many years of suppression. These issues included whether or not socialism was the appropriate path for Egypt, and to what extent the corruption that had then permeated the revolutionary regime was also responsible for the unprecedented catastrophe which came to be termed as 'the setback', a term allegedly coined by Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Nasser's favourite journalist known in the West as 'his master's voice'. Initially, youth demonstrations the week after the war had taken a nationalistic tone. Spontaneous or ASU-orchestrated, those demonstrations were an expression of the people's rejection of the defeat and their unwavering support for Nasser who had so courageously took full responsibility for the debacle, and even declared his resignation as President. Believing that 'all was not lost', the people's response was one of utter support and a vague expectation that he would be able to re-organise, re-arm and re-structure the armed forces and rid them of corrupt commanders and figures such as Field Marshal Abulhakim Amer, who was the Commander-in-Chief, and must in this capacity be held responsible. [email protected]
