Comments on: 1923 Amon Newsreel: Saad Zaghlul Returns from Exile https://arabawy.org/1621/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/ Hossam el-Hamalawy Mon, 28 Dec 2020 13:06:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Hossam el-Hamalawy https://arabawy.org/1621/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1444 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:54:39 +0000 http://arabist.net/arabawy/2007/07/01/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1444 “I don’t care if he was rich. I like Saad Basha. Same as I like all the rich socialists today.”
While being born rich or poor plays a role in shaping your political thought for sure, but what matters at the end of the day in the case of political activists is what class project they’ll commit themselves to. There are socialists who happened to be born from bourgeois backgrounds, but they commit their lives to the destruction of the system that made them privileged while enslaving the rest of the population, in exchange for a system they view to be better for the majority, those who deserve the say in how things run since they are the ones who work and produce the wealth in the first place….. And on the other hand, you can meet people who happened to be born poor, but commit their lives to the protection of the status quo and defending the existing regime.

“but maybe he was just thinking that a revolution that destroys the country and results in hundreds of thousands of deaths is no way forward?”
Who said this was the March and April 1919 revolt about? Your words give the impression that there were some angry crazy mob running around destroying things… It may help if you follow the links in the posting to the Arabic articles (and I know you know Arabic, so don’t fuck with me, or else I’ll call your tutor and express my disappointment).

“Maybe it was just a question of timing, and a desire not to send the workers and farmers out to be mowed down by machine guns?”
I think indeed it was a question of “timing” when it came to the machine guns… coz interestingly many of Saad’s counterparts from the elites under occupation in Third World countries who preferred compromises with the colonial authorities and refrained from militant mass mobilization used your above-mentioned argument, yet they were the first to use those machine guns on their populations following independence…. so yeah, “timing” is everything…

]]> By: Tim Seah https://arabawy.org/1621/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1443 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 07:27:44 +0000 http://arabist.net/arabawy/2007/07/01/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1443 Good find. Thanks, Hoss.

I don’t care if he was rich. I like Saad Basha. Same as I like all the rich socialists today.

Maybe it’s just my bougie mentality that makes me see Saad Basha’s nervousness more charitably, but maybe he was just thinking that a revolution that destroys the country and results in hundreds of thousands of deaths is no way forward? Maybe it was just a question of timing, and a desire not to send the workers and farmers out to be mowed down by machine guns?

]]> By: seneferu https://arabawy.org/1621/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1442 Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:59:37 +0000 http://arabist.net/arabawy/2007/07/01/1923-amon-newsreel-saad-zaghlul-returns-from-exile/#comment-1442 sigh…(at the Hoss:)

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