1919

P.S This post has nothing to do with the 6th of April strike in any way ever, it is a very late post for important occasion in our Egyptian history that I though I must speak about but I could not then

1919 is the year of the first and the last revolution Egypt has seen up till now . It was the year that the British occupation and all other foreign colonial forces knew that this great nation was still alive and can fight back.

What happened on the 8th of March 1919 and afterwards was more than incredible ; I considered it just like what happened in 1804 when the Egyptian people chose Mohamed Ali as their ruler.  By all means what happened then was more great in a way I can’t understand up till now.

How can you unite millions of people across the country where no TVs or radios or internet or facebook or even real roads !! How can you send your message to all those millions across a country and most of those millions could not read or write !!??? I do not get how Saad Pasha had become the leader of the nation in such way with no media !!??

Those who could read and write were the minority then yet the majority had a huge political awareness unlike now !! What was more inspiring that we did not receive any help from abroad on the contrary we depended upon ourselves.

Look to what the Egyptian people had accomplished that year:

• They proved that they were one nation whether they were Muslims,Christians or Jews,they rose the historical slogan “Religion for God and the National for all”. The priests preached in the Mosques ,even Al- Azhar and the Sheikhs preached in the churches “Rev. Sergius said his word at Al-Azhar”

• They forced the British to declare the independence of Egypt in 1922 and the Egyptian kingdom came to light again for the first time since 1840.
• In 1923 we had our first constitution.
• In 1924 we had our first elections and Saad Pasha won and became the first elected prime minister.
• In 1919 the Egyptian women stood beside their men defending and demanding the right of their country announcing by that the start of feminist movement not only in Egypt but in the Middle East too.

Do I need to speak more about this great revolution which I believe it was neglected on propose whether internationally or even locally thanks to coup 1952.

The best description I have ever read to describe the 1919 revolution was that part mentioned in Tawfik El-Haikm’s play“The return of the soul” ; that part where the French Egyptologist warns his British friend as I remember from those peasants who can turn in no time like a hurricane. It is said that this part has influenced Nasser and that this play was his favourite.

Here is a photo album for rare photos I have not seen before to the revolution from the Modern Egypt memory website , to be honest I found them in some forum and I had to upload them to Flickr , but later I knew it is from that great wonderful website.  Unfortunately the website is in Arabic.

By the way I stopped at a wonderful photo that made me so sad. The photo of the mass funeral held by the Egyptian people for our martyrs who fell in the revolution by the fires of the British forces. Yes Egyptians were killed on that and we rarely remember them as we should , I feel so ashamed that we do not remember and remember only the leaders of the revolution.The view of the Egyptian people standing in respect to those great men and women was wonderful,was more than wonderful. I have to remind you again most of the Egyptian people did not know how to read and write then with no access what so to any sort of media what so ever except few newspapers or magazines.

This is the end of our talk about 1919 revolution ,it is never too late.

Links :

• Egyptian Revolution 1919 from Wikipedia “brief and quick”
• The New Wafd Party album covering the revolution “very poor considering the fact that the new Wafd party !!”

Technorati Tags: Citizen Journalism,Egypt,Follow Up,History,Politics,National,1919 revolution,1919,Zaad Zaglol,Revolution,democracy,Photos,Mideast,Middle East