On the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of July 23—our official National Day, regardless of whether it's considered a movement, a coup, or a revolution—I came across something by pure coincidence last week.
It was issue no. 926 of Akher Saa magazine, published on 23 July 1952.
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| “An International Conspiracy Implemented in Cairo.” The cover of Akher Saa issue no.926 on 23 July 1952 |
Gracing the cover was the beautiful (and now, most likely, late) daughter of Mr. Mahmoud Beik Saleh El-Falky, then undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance in Alexandria’s Corniche district. Strangely, the magazine never mentioned her name on the cover—despite prominently featuring her. I’m not sure why.
1952 was probably among the final years when Akher Saa still featured socialites on its covers.
What intrigued me even more is that I believe Mahmoud Beik and his daughter are buried in the famous El-Falky Cemetery, established by Mahmoud Pasha El-Falky—the pioneering father of modern Egyptian astronomy.
Sadly, the El-Falky Cemetery was demolished this past April to make way for a new highway, despite public outcry and campaigns to spare Cairo’s historic City of the Dead.
We lost that irreplaceable part of Cairo, despite all efforts and even a presidential committee formed to assess the situation, which concluded that there was no need to remove those cemeteries.
Back to the magazine: the headline on that same 23 July 1952 issue read, in bold—
“An International Conspiracy Implemented in Cairo.”
Yes—“An International Conspiracy Implemented in Cairo.”
Anyone familiar with Egypt’s political history knows that date changed everything—for Egypt, the Arab world, Africa, and the Middle East.
Honestly, given what I know about Akher Saa and its founder, Mohamed El-Tabii, I expected the headline to be related to the Free Officers Movement.
It turned out to be no less fascinating—this wasn’t about the Free Officers, but another episode in the long, tangled history of Iranian-Western relations, and even more so, Egyptian-Iranian relations.
It was an episode of the Abadan Crisis—where Cairo played a role.
In June 1952, the Honduran-flagged oil tanker Rose Mary became the unlikely protagonist in a geopolitical drama that exposed the raw nerves of post-colonial resistance.
Chartered by Ente Petrolifero Italia Medi-Oriente (E.P.I.M.) and the Swiss Bubenberg Maritime Transport Company to transport approximately 20 million tons of Iranian crude oil—nationalized by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1951—the tanker’s voyage represented a direct challenge to British oil dominance, with the two companies having purchased the oil in March.
This act of defiance was particularly bold. Iran’s Abadan Refinery—once the largest in the world—had been shut down by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in June 1951, just days after nationalization.
With refining capacity crippled and a global embargo in place, Iran’s oil exports had dropped to near zero.
The Rose Mary, carrying unrefined crude, was a daring attempt to bypass the blockade and reassert Iran’s economic sovereignty.
As the tanker approached Aden harbor on 17 June 1952, it was intercepted by the Royal Navy under legally dubious pretenses.
The AIOC claimed the cargo was stolen property and filed a legal case in Aden, securing a temporary injunction to detain the shipment.
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| Probably one of the few remaining photos online for the Rose Mary in Adan A screenshot from the Akhar Saa issue |
Under pressure, the Italian shipping company ordered the Rose Mary’s captain and radio officer to return silently to Italy aboard the Oceania vessel, where they confessed everything to Count Della Zonca—son of the company’s owner and managing director of E.P.I.M.
His testimony would become a crucial piece of evidence in the unfolding legal battle.
This is where Cairo enters the story. Count Ettore Della Zonca made his way to the city to enlist some of the finest lawyers he could find.
The defense team was led by Monsieur Zaris, a Greek-Egyptian lawyer, and Professor Magrian, an Armenian-Egyptian legal scholar.
Akher Saa interviewed Zaris and his wife, who was present during the conversation at their Cairo home. It was during this interview that they revealed documents related to the case had been stolen from their residence. (A scan from AUC's Rare Books and Special Collections Library 1 and 2)
This led to the headline: “An International Conspiracy Carried Out in Cairo.”
The interview claimed that Rose Mary was supposedly heading to Egypt; however, according to other archival sources, it was actually bound for Italy. Still, I believe that if the Rose Mary had passed through the Suez Canal, it would have created an entirely new reality.
The couple detailed the schemes of the British Intelligence and what Zaris and Magrain had done so far
Their work was nothing short of heroic: navigating surveillance, missing documents, and diplomatic sabotage, they flew to Aden to argue that the ship had been lured into port under false pretenses.
Just hours before their departure, critical legal documents were stolen—yet the British judge accepted their sworn statements and allowed the case to proceed.
The first hearing was held in early August 1952, with the next session scheduled for August 14. Meanwhile, the Rose Mary was rammed and damaged by a British vessel in Aden harbor—an incident reported in the Marlborough Express. Though the cargo remained intact, the ship was left immobilized for weeks.
Count Zonca remarked that the accident was “most opportune for some people,” hinting at the geopolitical sabotage playing out behind the scenes.
The trial revealed how colonial courts could be weaponized to suppress efforts at resource independence. Yet Egypt—represented by a multicultural legal team during the height, or rather the twilight, of its liberal era—emerged as a defiant voice from the Global South, confronting imperial overreach with both legal precision and moral clarity.
It would take decades, however, for the full significance of this moment to be understood.
Spoiler alert: Unfortunately, Iran and Count Della Zonca lost the trial. We know what followed in Iran. And we also know what happened in Egypt on July 24, 1952.
Now, why do I look back at Akher Saa covers?
In an attempt to escape the overwhelming stream of local and regional news, I’ve been spending time exploring how well AI art generation tools—like Midjourney—can replicate the styles of specific painters, illustrators, and visual artists.
This led me to start collecting and uploading covers from vintage Egyptian magazines and novels that featured the work of iconic Egyptian illustrators such as Gamal Kotb and Hussein Bicar.
Midjourney’s attempts at mimicking Bicar’s style have produced some intriguing results, though it still falls short of capturing the human warmth and emotional depth in his work. Moreover, its understanding of Egypt remains disappointingly shallow—rarely venturing beyond stereotypical imagery like the Nile and the Pyramids of Giza.
Akher Saa magazine, since its first issue in 1934, was a hub for Egypt’s most prominent cartoonists and illustrators—Saroukhan, Rakha, Bicar, and Mounir Canaan among them. So, I’ve been uploading some of their illustrated covers as part of this ongoing experiment.
Interestingly, Midjourney flagged and rejected a few of the racier or more provocative covers, which I found rather amusing.
What began as a technical experiment quickly turned into a spontaneous historical journey—a visual timeline of Egypt’s dramatic changes, as seen through the illustrated covers of what was once Egypt’s answer to Time magazine during the golden age of print media.
Covers, after all, can reveal a great deal about the spirit and character of a particular era.
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