The new weekly “Al Youm 7” published a nearly complete list of the infamous 1960s Vanguard Organization members in Egypt. Already this list was revealed for the first time in a book published earlier this year in Beirut written by Egyptian historian Hamda Hosni Ahmed under the title : “Abd El-Nasser and the Vanguard Organization 1965-1971 a documented Study” .Before I elaborate more ,I must explain what the Vanguard Organization in Egypt was. In 1963 President Nasser formed a secret vanguard organization that included his top cabinet ,members of the socialist union,celebs and most importantly youth. That Organization didn’t have any other mission except spying on the people of Egypt , writing reports about them to their superiors,it was a police state in the Nasser era after all. They even used to spy on each ,yes the members themselves used to spy on each other , of course some of them didn’t know that the others were members in that secret organization too. They were informers to the regime.
The Organization was said to be a leftist one still I can’t forget that Nasser used to jail communists during that time and some of the communist members used to spy on other communists of course beside the Muslim brotherhood. To be precise Nasser took the model from the communism and tailored it to serve his proposes and to protect his police state.
Some of the names in the report are well known to all of us like Sami Sharaf , Heikel ,Ali Sabri, Sharaway Gomaa and other members of Nasser Cabinet but the shock are in the names of those from the celebs and the youth then who were members in that organization and used to spy on other people.
I mean it included the names of Late journalist and historian Gamal Badawy ,famous legendary Poet Salah Gahin “I should check with his daughter Samia about this dangerous allegation” , late minister Ibrahim Shukri ,former minister Hasaballah El-Kafarawy “the famous housing minister who sent a letter to Mubarak complaining from corruption and in the next ministerial change he found himself out and since then he became a critic to the NDP”, Dr. Aisha Rateb,the former minister of social affairs in the Sadat Cabinet “who resigned after the events of 1977”
Some of the leaders of the leftist and Nasserite movements now were members in their youth in that Vanguard organization like Former minister Rafaat El-Said and the current Kafya Coordinator Abd El-Galil Mustafa.
Of course the leaders of the NPD now and in the past were members in the Vanguard organization ,don’t be surprised ,it is something natural, here are few names :
- Late PM Atef Sedki
-Former Minister of Youth ,the political training and education coordinator and a member of the Secretariat of the NDP currently Ali El-Din Halal. “One of GM’s Men”
-Former minister and NDP tycoon Kamal Al-Shazely along with his sister in law Nawal Amar.”May be he married her sister through this organization too !!”
-The Current speaker of people’s assembly Dr. Ahmed Fathi Sorour.
-Former education minister Hussein Kamal Baha El-Din. “I hate this man”
-Current MP/former Foreign affairs advisor to President Mubarak Dr. Mustafa El-Faky. “I once read that he used to write reports against his professors in the Faculty of Political sciences at Cairo University , his reward of course was joining the diplomatic service !!”
- Current head of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate Dr. Hamdy El-Said.
The young people who joined that infamous organization surely knew the rules of the game and served the successive regimes in order to grow in power , I mean you read the above names and you will know what I am saying.
Sometimes I try to understand why someone would join this organization , of course for the leftists and communists it can be explained but there are names I don’t why they joined that disgraceful organization , may be it was a phase in their life and they were young ,for instance late Journalist Gamal Badawy became later from the major attackers of Nasser who exposed his cruelty in his writings , may be he used to believe in socialism during that time. Just like Ibrahim Shukri who used to be a socialist before becoming an Islamist
Strangely Shukri and Badawy years later knew what it was like to become a real opponent and to find the whole regime following you “Badawy was once attacked physically in mid 1990s because of something he wrote”
May be some of them did that dirty mission to protect themselves,it was hard time for sure because they know if they did not do someone else would do it, I don’t defend them but I am trying
Most of those names were searchers for power and strangely most of them continued to serve the two successive regimes despite each of them was different from the Nasserite era. But again they will find their way in.
The Vanguard Organization was officially over in 1971 correction movement President led to wipe out the members who were plotting against him.
The newspaper by the way published some examples from the reports titles and they are so pathetic like those who wrote them and those who read them. For instance two members writing reports against each. A journalist in Al Ahram writing a report about Heikel !! Famous Radio Host Ahmed Said was a victim of these reports “he was famous for his role in 1967 false announcement despite his role was only to read what he was given” . Said is known to be a Nasserist despite in his latest interview to Radio & TV Magazine from couple of months he attacked the Nasserite era.
Some will defend them,some will attack them,We do not play here the role of God but those people made a huge mistake in pleasing a Pharaoh spying on their brothers and sisters , some of them regretted years later and some of them continued to become the eye and ear of the regime.
By the way none of the people who are still alive mentioned in that list commented about it.
Strangely all the journalists and politicians my grandfather hated were in that list ,May Allah bless his soul he knew them and what they were.
The list isn't shocking at all, but I'm really shocked by the tone of generalization in "alyom alsabe3's" article. It's known that Nasser started this vanguard "altanzeem altalee3i" as a party-like organization, and some critics even went to the extent that he was planning a multi-party political system, and this secret vanguard was an attempt to be organizationally ahead in the forthcoming political race.
ReplyDeleteThis is not an attempt to defend Nasser of course; after all he is primarily responsible for all the atrocities committed by his police regime. It is completely unfair though to taint the names of people like Salah Jaheen, Khaled Mohey-Eldeen, Hasab-Allah Elkafrawy, Aziz Sedky and many others because other members were professional spies.
You are right about the generalization tone and the fact that they did not explain it as it should was a weakness point
ReplyDeleteThey were not all spies as they are portrayed ,the names you mentioned can't be in the same basket like Kamal El-Shazley and co. !!
But I do not know about the multi-party system political system , already I do not see it how if most of the vanguard organization were brainwashed to become a part of the President's cult