Tag: memory of the class

Here’s another video clip from one of Muhammad Bayoumi’s works: “Amon Newsreel: Saad Zaghlul returns from Exile,” about the Egyptian nationalist leader’s return from his second exile in 1923.

Government and mainstream historians always focus on kings, presidents, “leaders” and “heroes”. Saad Zaghloul may have disliked the Brits, and wanted them out, but his class loyalty was always clear. We are taught how “Saad Zaghloul led the revolution”, but you hardly hear about those who ignited the revolution were in fact the tram workers whose strike brought the capital to halt, encouraging their brothers at the railways to join in… then confrontations with the British troops (and the Egyptian police) broke out all across the country… They don’t tell you how Saad and his exiled friends, horrified by the increasing militancy of their workers and peasants (yes, they were rich in case you forgot), rushed in to send messages “denouncing violence” and asking the protesters to stop “destroying private property,” while their minions back in Egypt were doing their best to control the protests, not push them forward… MORE IMPORTANTLY the Wafd Beiks and Bashas were pissing in their pants by the thought that their peasants were getting armed to fight the Brits…. “What will happen when the peasants are done with the Brits?” Saad and his comrades must have been thinking in exile… “Damn, they’ll turn them on us later if we mess with their land rights….” Such thoughts I’m sure did not amuse them… And once in power, Saad legislated anti-strike laws, and unleashed his police on leftists and labor activists. The successive security crackdowns and infiltrations led to the decimation of the first Egyptian Communist Party in 1924.

For more background on the 1919 revolution in Arabic, check this and this.

We need to write our history from below.