Old Egyptian Chronicles know how much I love this old lost stuff !! Thanks to online treasures diggers we found this interview with Nasser that goes back to 1969. The interview was conducted by NY Times managing director then and it was filmed to be aired in some US TV channel in what is considered the first interview with foreign TV channel since 1967. Of course its main topic was Egyptian and Arab Israeli conflict. Watch and tell me what you think about the interview.
I have always wondered how Americans thought about president Nasser back in the 1950's and 60's. I also used to think that president Nasser did not speak English very well. I was certainly wrong and in this interview president Nasser proved that he was better than president Sadat, president Mubarak, and definitely president Morsi as far as giving an interview in English. You might agree or disagree with the man but the sure thing is that he was a visionary and his ideas of land reform, social justice, and industrial revolution were paramount in his time. What was Nasser like was an article written by Richard D. Robinson, a lecturer at Harvard university, in 1958 about president Nasser. RIP my hero.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting.
ReplyDelete1. Notice his English and compare it to today's rulers. His English was the product of the Education system that was during the King and the British. This education system is lost forever.
2. He knows his answers, he has been a ruler for 15 years.
3. Ruler, in Arabic, is Hakem, it is derived from Hikmah, meaning wisdom. A wise ruler, like a wise ship captain stirs his ship away from rocks and storms. Unwise captain complains about the rocks and blames the storm and the sea sea.
4. For those who admire him, please find an 80 year old relative and ask them how they remember the time before him. Or better, watch an old movies and see the difference.
5. Don't blame the storm, its the captain's responsibility, period. South Korea has worse political situation on its border, just see where south Korea is today. It is the wisdom of the ruler.
6. Never mind South Korea, how about Saudi Arabia, and their 60 years of intimate relation to the West. They are Arabs, and Muslims, but they are ruled by wise ruler who know how to take care of their people. Their citizen come first before their personal glory.
7. for those who admire him, please ask those who lived under his rule. Ask Mohamed Naguib and Nahas. Ask Abdel Hakim Amer, ask any average person how they lived in fear, millions of them. Ask those women who lost everything in the three cities on the Canal during the war of attrition, ask them what happened to them when they lost their men, families and everything they had.
8. If one admires his assertiveness, look at the map of Egypt under the King and the map of Egypt in 1969. Don't blame storms because Japan, Korea, Brasil, the Philippines, and may others, had worse storms, but the Ship Captain was wise enough to steer the ship away. Don't blame the storm, blame the captain who sails into the storm not caring about the unlucky passengers.
9. He promised social justice, how may Egyptian lived in poverty in 1969? and the undemocratic unrepresentative political structure that he left, how did this regime take care of those two dozen millions Egyptian destitute?
10. Don' blame the storm, look at the rulers who said that the only Problem "Quadia" is educating their people and lifting their standard of living, period.
Living in Egypt during Nasser's time started with good intentions but progressed to oppression, control, secret police and eventually turned into a Socialistic Eastern European/Soviet style regime. Nasser gave Egyptians pride through false propaganda and empty slogans which got exposed after the 1967 war.
DeleteEgyptians today would welcome anything from their past history over their present broken country...
And the world still wait "real peace" between Arab and Israel !
ReplyDeleteNasser seems a bit thick and devious... Make a good politician I guess!
ReplyDeleteNasser was a typical moderniser of that era who wanted Egypt to acquire technology & development whether from the West or the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, his scope for realising these aims was severely constrained by the accident of having Israel next door, which meant repeated turmoil during his years.
ReplyDeleteHe also had to deal with the horrible choices forced on many countries during the Cold War. Uncle Sam or Uncle Joe(Stalin)?
He is an Israeli bogeyman along with Arafat and others. Anyone trying to unite Arabs & Muslims would make the Israelis nervous.
Which is understandable. Despite their war machine, they are vastly outnumbered demographicaly and due to their history cannot rely on others to defend their existence. Dayan said famously "if I was Palestinion, I would be a militant" so by the same logic you can see why an Israeli would think that nothing less than terrifying force & violence inflicted on a wide scale will preserve the country.
Two sides with no alternatives....