Al Sheraa Magazine, September 30, 2021
I had dozens, perhaps hundreds, of heated discussions about Gamal Abdel Nasser, including with Arabs, and most of them with Egyptians outside and inside Egypt. I chose to write about three cases, which I summarize as follows:
You are not Egyptian, and you know Egypt and what is happening there more than any Egyptian. Why is the secret of your intense interest in our country?
I told him: I am one of the millions of Arabs who have loved Egypt since Gamal Abdel Nasser appeared in it to the world. And Muhammad Abd al-Halim Abdullah, and I listened to Sheikh Abd al-Basit Muhammad Abd al-Samad and Sheikh Muhammad Rifaat, and I eagerly followed the readings of Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad al-Tablawi...
Then I surprised him with a question that challenged his knowledge of Egypt, saying:
Do you hear about Abdul Latif Abu Haif?
Do you hear about Muhammad al-Jundi?
Have you seen the pictures of the Egyptian farmer who was climbing the pyramid when Gamal was accompanying his great visitors, such as Khrushchev, to visit the pyramids?
Do you know how singer Afaf Radi appeared?
Did your family tell you about Radio Umm Kulthum and why did Gamal Abdel Nasser introduce it?
Do you know the story of the construction of the Cairo Tower and where is its financing?
Did you know that the son of Jamal's presidential car driver entered Cairo University because he got an academic score that qualifies him for that, while Abdel Nasser's daughter failed to provide the score, so she was denied study at the National University in order to repeat her academic year to get the score that qualifies her for that?
I continued my questions and the young Egyptian engineer was amazed at my Egyptian knowledge, so I told him:
I recently read in an Egyptian newspaper that is not Nasseriya al-Hawa a press interview for the school of Abdel Nasser's daughter, Mona, in which she literally said that she used to punish Abdel Nasser's daughter in the classroom as she used to punish any girl in school, and that she did that without any fear or fear when he was Jamal's name terrifies major countries?
Then she added that Jamal used to attend the meetings of the students’ parents, like any other father, refusing to have priority in the question, hoping for the teaching officials in the administration to preserve the role of each parent….
In my impatience and enthusiasm, the Bash engineer interrupted me with a loving question: Mr. Hassan, are you sure that you are not Egyptian? I smiled at his confidence and perhaps because he was convinced of what I told him, then I responded to his request to get my mobile number, hoping that he would have the opportunity to sit with me whenever he came from Port Said to Cairo, and he did not forget my invitation to the city of resistance to eat fish in his house and not in any restaurant.
So he denounced me:
This is the one who ruined it!!
I used to use logic in my discussion with any person who insulted Jamal, so I told him, “You are my brothers?”
He replied, shaking his head: Oh...
I told him, "Listen, Hajj... What is your name?"
He replied: Abdullah was amazed at me, so I said we are all servants of God..
- Look, brother Abdullah, we are now on the verge of elections, and if the Brotherhood succeeds in this election, we will not object. Rather, we wish them to work for the good of Egypt. We hope they will.
They practice the democracy that brought them to power, and the second thing is that they surrender it if they fail in the next elections!
Look, brother Abdullah.. You said a while ago that Abdel Nasser was the one who ruined it, and I want to tell you how Egypt was before Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power
Do you know the number of workers in Egypt before the 1952 revolution?
He said no..
She added: The population of Egypt was 22 million, and the number of workers was about 300,000. As for Gamal died in 1970, the number of workers was three million, and the population was about 30 million.
I mean, Abdullah, my love, the population has increased by about a third, while the number of workers has increased tenfold, isn't that?
He said: Oh..
I said:
O Hajj Abdallah, hasn't the number of workers increased tenfold, where will they work?
Don't we want factories to absorb them?
Do you know, Abdullah, that Abdel Nasser built thousands of factories to employ these millions? Abdel Nasser built it, not ruined it.
I continued my speech saying: You know before Abdel Nasser’s revolution in 52 that the percentage of the poor in universities was very small and that Abdel Nasser imposed education and made it free, so Egypt’s doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists, university professors, ambassadors, ministers and agents were mostly children of farmers, workers and employees.. So Abdel Nasser is the one who destroyed it, or is he the one who built it?
And I swear by Almighty God that as soon as the brotherly driver took me to the hotel, he took the initiative to say:
May I have your mobile phone number?
I asked him: Why?
He answered me with all the honesty and respect he showed me: Because you told me something that makes sense.
I just took his phone number from him, hoping to communicate.
Muhammad Moatasem Al-Sharif was interested in knowing why I am a Lebanese Nasserist?
Why do I love Egypt more, as many Egyptians told me... even though Abdel Nasser made many mistakes?
I asked him affectionately: Have you read anything about the achievements of Gamal Abdel Nasser?
He answered me with a question: Are you going to talk to me about building the High Dam?
I told him: This is an example
He replied with the enthusiasm of the youth and his wife enthusiastically with him: The High Dam has advantages, but one of its disadvantages is that it prevents siltation from agricultural land....
I asked him: Do you think, O Muhammad, that the builder of the dam would not have known this negativity? Do you think that Jamal, when he decided to build the High Dam, did not adopt a feasibility study to realize that the positives of building the dam are far outweighed by the negatives? Depriving the agricultural land of some silt is a negative matter. As for the positives of the dam, let us enumerate some of them:
* Lighting thousands of Egyptian villages all over Egypt by generating electricity from the dam's generators
* Providing fresh water and service to all cities, villages and villages of Egypt
* Transferring one million acres from temporary irrigation that produces agricultural materials according to the seasons to permanent irrigation that can produce several seasons in one year...
And come to the most important thing:
Do you know, Muhammad, that the High Dam protected Egypt and its people from floods that used to flood villages and reach Cairo, as happened in 1959?
Also, the High Dam in Egypt is caused by a drought that lasted for years in East Africa, and the Egyptians did not feel it because of the dam?
Did you know that the electricity of the High Dam allowed the establishment of thousands of factories to employ millions of Egyptian workers? They established a solid base for production in all aspects of life...
Muhammad's husband said to me: The Nasserites are proud of the free education that Abdel Nasser came with. Look at the deteriorating level of education in Egypt, and the reason for this free education!!
I smiled and said to her: First, Abdel Nasser is probably responsible for every matter until the moment of his departure on Monday, September 28, 1970. The era of Gamal... and if it fell to number 28 after his absence, then this is the responsibility of those who came after Gamal.. as it is the responsibility of those who received higher education after Gamal when 500 universities in the world are ranked that do not have any Egyptian university...
Then I looked at Muhammad and Mrs. Amina confirmed my information and said to him: My love, did you know that Egypt and India manufactured a warplane in 1961 and that Egypt manufactured the engine and that India manufactured the structure?
Look and compare between Egypt and India now. India manufactured an atomic bomb, sent men into space and launched artificial satellites. Egypt buys Ramadan lanterns from China.
And I said with excitement: Is there more disappointment than that, Muhammad?
It seemed that Muhammad and his wife responded to my defense of Abdel Nasser's Egypt. The young man told me honestly: Uncle, we never read this information in Egypt.
I said to him: You are right, my love, because Abdel Nasser's enemies took over most of the media and started publishing about all his achievements in order to frustrate the Egyptians and promote the enemies of Egypt and say that Abdel Nasser ruined it!!
Then she recalled a video interview with Tahia Carioca at one of the stations, as she mocked the construction of the High Dam and that it prevented silt from agricultural land in Egypt. So I repeated to Muhammad what was mentioned above, and said Tahia that the nationalization of the Suez Canal was not necessary because the British were going to hand it over to Egypt for a year. 1969, so I said to Muhammad and his wife: If the British had returned the canal after 13 years...why did they do the tripartite aggression? And when they were returning it, they were studying its expansion and deepening, why?
I concluded my story about Tahia Carioca by saying: Do you know, O Muhammad, how Tahia answered the broadcaster when he asked her about what she had done when she learned of Jamal's death? She sat down and tore her clothes like any Egyptian peasant who received the news of her father's death.
The broadcaster was surprised by her response, asking her: Didn't you make fun of his achievements a while ago?
She replies in disapproval: This Abdel Nasser was the roof of the house, and when the roof fell, we were all out in the open.
After this dialogue in the home of my Egyptian brother-in-law's family, my colleague Amina Al-Sharif wrote an article about him in Al-Musawwar and asked me to write about Jamal so that generations can read what they do not know about our hero and our leader... Perhaps I will do that and I will continue what God destined me to do my duty towards him and the successive generations
Sail
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