Haunted histories: Nasserism and the promises of the past (original) (raw)
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International Politics Reviews, 2021
There has been a consistent effort over the last couple of decades to re-think the translation and the instantiation of anticolonial nationalism, with its hopes, desires, betrayals, and exhilaration, into the reality of the postcolonial state (Scott 2004, Prashad 2007, Wilder 2015, Sajed and Seidel 2019, Gruffydd-Jones, 2019, Getachew 2019). The debates have brought forth a number of heavy and important questions: why has the postcolonial state ‘failed’? Was anticolonial nationalism the wrong question to ask? Can the promise of anticolonial nationalism be revived and redeemed? David Scott (2004: 2, 4) talks about ‘anticolonial utopias […] gradually wither[ing] into postcolonial nightmares,’ and wonders whether the questions asked by the anticolonial narrative continue to be questions worth responding to at all. Indeed, he echoes many current criticisms of the ‘failures’ of postcolonial states to materialize the aspirations of their revolutionary beginnings. The contributions to this book forum by Adam Hanieh, Randolph Persaud and Zeyad el Nabolsy both deepen and complicate Salem’s excellent discussion of the politics of the Nasserist project. It is obviously beyond the scope of this introduction to the forum to do proper justice to the nuanced, layered and rich engagements of each of the contributors. The reader will benefit immensely from each of these fantastic conversations with Salem’s book. However, I want to focus on and highlight three main areas of discussion on which the three contributions seemed to converge in consensus. First, the attachment of the term ‘socialist’ to the Nasserist project requires a more careful engagement. Second, all three contributors see the book’s emphasis on the ruptures and breaks between the Nasser and Sadat eras in need of further discussion. Rather, we should examine what focusing on continuities (and indeed deep complicities) between these eras might reveal. Third, the three contributors offer a re-thinking of Fanon’s deployment of ‘national bourgeoisie’ and its role in the decolonization and post-independence eras.
'Nasserism'. In: Ghazal, Amal and Hanssen, Jens, (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016., 2016
This chapter revisits the political phenomenon of “Nasserism,” acknowledging that it has multiple connotations and yet enduring significance across the Arab world. It discusses Nasserism under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) during his 1952–70 leadership, and Nasserism as the political tradition that survived him. The chapter’s range generates the conclusion that Nasserism has transcended its historical origins. It is now widely employed in political contestation to signal a set of enduring principles and aspirations for sovereignty and dignity across the Arab world. At the same time, it is an important node in critiques of contemporary political centralization and authoritarian rule in Arab republics. Sparking debate between these poles continuously, and as a political tradition with movements in most Arab countries today, Nasserism is set to remain a force to be reckoned with in Egyptian and Arab politics for the foreseeable future.
Socialism without Socialists: Egyptian Marxists and the Nasserist State, 1952-65
This thesis investigates the interaction between Egyptian Marxists and the Egyptian State under Gamal Abd Al-Nasser from 1952 to 1965. After the Free Officer coup of July, 1952, the new government launched a period of repression that targeted many political organizations, including the communists. Repression against the communists was interrupted during a brief interlude from mid-1956 until the end of 1958, when Nasser launched a second period of repression heavily aimed at the communist left. Utilizing quantitative data of the communist prisoner population as well as qualitative first-hand accounts from imprisoned communists, this thesis reconstructs the conditions, demographics, and class status of the communists targeted by the repressive apparatus of the Egyptian state. It also explores the subjective response of the Egyptian communists and their ideological shifts vis-à-vis changing material and repressive conditions. It argues that a combination of state-capitalist reforms, intense state repression, pragmatic influence of the Soviet Union, capitulation to a hegemonic nationalist discourse, and imperialist threat converged to direct Egyptian communist thought. In the end, the Marxist movement was incapable of acting as the vanguard of the Egyptian revolution.
This article addresses the Egyptian women's movement of the 1950s–1970s through a recent film entitled Four Women of Egypt, which focuses on the lives of four prominent Egyptian women active in the movement during that period. Using the concept of political memory, the article traces some of the major debates within the women's movement throughout this era. By focusing on the ways in which these women conceptualize the geopolitical, I show that the twin concepts of imperialism and capitalism were central to the ways in which they understood gender. The result was a complex understanding of how gender intersected with Egypt's position within a broader global system of imperial capitalism. Following the transition in the 1970s to an open-market economy, the women's movement shifted away from critiques of imperialism and capitalism. This shift can be understood only in terms of geopolitics: the rise of neoliberalism in Egypt. New neoliberal policies had dramatic effects on the women's movement, showing why both the rise and fall of the movement must be contextualized geopolitically and transnationally. The 1950s saw Egypt gain independence from Britain and establish its first independent government, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Free Officers. Memories of this period can often be nostalgic, as people recall a time during which there was a strong women's movement<1> that was active and that managed to achieve crucial gains. In this article I raise several questions about the Nasser years and the women's movement, and argue that in order to understand the ways in which it has been remembered, we need to look at the geopolitical situation on the one hand, the women's movement on the other, and the ways in which these constituted each other. What was the role of geopolitics in the Egyptian women's movement during the 1950s and 1960s, and how did this build on feminist activism of the previous era? How did this particular geopolitical context affect the ways in which feminists negotiated difference and what does this reveal about sites of contestation? Finally, how did the shift to an open-market economy in the 1970s affect feminist organizing and in turn construct the 1950s as a time of intense activity and advancement? Numerous scholars have pointed to the importance of regional and international factors in the development of the Egyptian women's movement (. I argue that in the case of the Nasser era, many feminists focused on geopolitics via the concepts of imperialism and capitalism, and that this stemmed from the 1952 revolution and the focus on Egyptian independence. This particular era also saw rich debates around Marxism and socialism, and this too affected the ways in which Egyptian feminists debated issues of gender as it provided a structural lens through which to understand inequality. Gender liberation was understood through the lens of independence— in the broadest sense of the word. There was an explicit critique of " Western feminism " that saw gender as the main axis of oppression that united women universally, and a clear articulation of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and anticapitalism as the main problems facing
Hikāyāt sha‛b - stories of peoplehood: Nasserism, popular politics and songs in Egypt, 1956-1973.
PhD Thesis, 2012
This study explores the popular politics behind the main milestones that shape Nasserist Egypt. The decade leading up to the 1952 revolution was one characterized with a heightened state of popular mobilisation, much of which the Free Officers’ movement capitalized upon. Thus, in focusing on three of the Revolution’s main milestones; the resistance to the tripartite aggression on Port Said (1956), the building of the Aswan High Dam (1960-1971), and the popular warfare against Israel in Suez (1967-1973), I shed light on the popular struggles behind the events. I argue that to the members of resistance of Port Said and Suez, and the builders of the High Dam, the revolution became a struggle of their own. Ideas of socialism and Arab nationalism were re-articulated and appropriated so that they became features of their identities and everyday lives. Through looking at songs, idioms and stories of the experiences of those periods, I explore how people experimented with a new identity under Nasser and how much they were willing to sacrifice for it. These songs and idioms, I treat as an ‘intimate language’. A common language reflecting a shared experience that often only the community who produces the language can understand. I argue that songs capture in moments of political imagination what official historical narratives may not. Furthermore, I argue that these songs reveal silences imposed by state narratives, as well as those silences that are self-imposed through the many incidents people would rather forget. The study contributes to an understanding of the politics of hegemony, and how an ideology can acquire the status of ‘common sense’ through being negotiated, (re)-articulated, and contributed to, rather than enforced on a people suppressed. It also contributes to our understanding of popular politics, and the importance of exploring the experiences and intentions of people behind historical and political milestones; understanding politics beyond the person of politicians and the boundaries of the nation state. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/687/1/Mossallam\_Stories\_of\_peoplehood.pdf
Africa Development
This article assesses Gamal Abdel Nasser’s efforts to transform Egypt’s postcolonial economy via his industrialisation policies, drawing lessons for today from both his successes and shortcomings. By analysing outcomes through indicators of industrial production, employment patterns, productivity, and main beneficiaries in the post-independence period, the article critiques Nasser’s incremental approach, the undermining of workers’ movements, and the limiting nature of ‘state feminism’, which contributed to the failure to achieve full economic and political independence, leading to its eventual collapse in the face of imperialist resurgence. Nasser’s industrialisation project, however, does demonstrate the superiority of active policy intervention, particularly of planning and import-substitution- industrialisation, and suggests the need to pursue central planning, economic inclusion, self-sufficiency, and social production aimed at meeting the material needs of the population in th...
Political upheaval in Egypt: Disavowing troubling states of mind
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2015
The hope and optimism following the 2011 revolution that took place in Egypt have been replaced with anger, despair and disappointment. The majority of the Egyptian population is struggling due to dire material conditions that are causing immense suffering. For many, increasing authoritarianism and the stronghold of the 'Deep State' is of profound concern and is perceived as a return of oppression. This pessimistic situation is a repetition of the circumstances following the Egyptian revolution of 1952. This essay will explore the effects of colonisation on subjectivity, effects that have been profoundly internalised in Egypt, despite the arguments or pleas that assert the opposite. By focusing on exploring identification and inter-generational transmission I aim to draw out how history persists in the present and how the weight of the past paralyses the possibility of forging a future based on social justice and equality of opportunity. The essay focuses on issues of identification and generational transmission in order to look at how a colonised past persists relentlessly in the present.
From Marxism to anti-authoritarianism: Egypt’s New Left
Communist Parties in the Middle East 100 Years of History, 2019
Academic fields dedicated to the Egyptian process of politization during the 1970s are still scarce, although in crescendo. The vast majority of anarchists in Egypt at the time can be divided into different generational groups. Marxists in the Arab world, as Faleh Jabar points out in the introduction to his book, Post-Marxism and the Middle East, responded to the fall of Marxism only after the Soviet Union’s collapse. The Egyptian left suffered the same havoc as the global left after the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the ‘New Left’. For that reason, the figure of Samih represents an entire political generation and reveals, on the one hand, the local experience of the Egyptian New Left and, on the other, the local experience of anarchism, deeply connected to the global events of the time.
Revolutionary Egypt: Connecting Domestic and International Struggles. London: Routledge, 2015 (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Democratization and Government), 2015
Book Preview: https://www.book2look.com/embed/9781317508779 In 2011 the world watched as Egyptians rose up against a dictator. Observers marveled at this sudden rupture, and honed in on the heroes of Tahrir Square. Revolutionary Egypt analyzes this tumultuous period from multiple perspectives, bringing together experts on the Middle East from disciplines as diverse as political economy, comparative politics and social anthropology. Drawing on primary research conducted in Egypt and across the world, this book analyzes the foundations and future of Egypt’s revolution. Considering the revolution as a process, it looks back over decades of popular resistance to state practices and predicts the waves still to come. It also confidently places Egypt’s revolutionary process in its regional and international contexts, considering popular contestation of foreign policy trends as well as the reactions of external actors. It draws connections between Egyptians’ struggles against domestic despotism and their reactions to regional and international processes such as economic liberalization, Euro-American interventionism and similar struggles further afield. Revolutionary Egypt is an essential resource for scholars and students of social movements and revolution, comparative politics, and Middle East politics, in particular Middle East foreign policy and international relations. Table of Contents Introduction: Connecting Players and Process in Revolutionary Egypt Reem Abou-El-Fadl Part I: Contesting Authority, Making Claims: Inside Egypt 1.Reluctant Revolutionaries? The Dynamics of Labour Protests in Egypt, 2006-2013 Marie Duboc 2.After the 25 January Revolution: Democracy or Authoritarianism in Egypt? Nicola Pratt 3.Re-envisioning Tahrir: The Changing Meanings of Tahrir Square in Egypt’s Ongoing Revolution Mark Allen Peterson 4. The Iconic Stage: Martyrologies and Performance Frames in the January 25th Revolution Walter Armbrust 5. From Popular Revolution to Semi-Democracy: Egypt’s Experiment with Praetorian Parliamentarism Alexander Kazamias Part II: Contesting Authority, Making Claims: At the Interface 6. Egypt’s Foreign Policy from Mubarak to Mursi: Between Systemic Constraints and Domestic Politics Raymond Hinnebusch 7.Re-scaling Egypt’s Political Economy: Neoliberalism and the Transformation of the Regional Space Adam Hanieh 8. The Geopolitics of Revolution: Assessing the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions in the International Context Corinna Mullin Part III: Reactions and Recalibrations: Beyond Egypt 9. Between Cairo and Washington: Sectarianism and Counter-revolution in Post-Mubarak Egypt Reem Abou-El-Fadl 10. Liberation Square, Almost Unnoticed, Returns with a Vengeance: Perceptions of Tahrir and the Arab Revolutions in Turkey Kerem Öktem 11. Revolutions, the Internet, and Orientalist Reminiscence Miriyam Aouragh 12. The Egyptian Revolution and the Problem of International Solidarity Anthony C Alessandrini