This is a radio interview recorded on May Day. I hope you find it useful, it includes some background history on the Egyptian labor movement.
Tag: nasser
Egypt’s 1968: The revival of street politics
Above is Chapter IV of the MA Thesis I wrote 10 years ago, when studying at the American University in Cairo’s Political Science department. This chapter discusses the revival of the student movement following the 1967 defeat.
Of course reading it today I wish if I would have edited some parts, changed the lingo here and there, and added more resources and info I’ve been learning over the past years.
But in general I still think the thesis stands, and could help shed some light on this critical period in the history of the left in Egypt.
Haj Omar
Haj Omar doesn’t know how old he is exactly, but he says he approaches 80. An Ababda tribe member, and a Marsa Alam native, he’s probably done it all. He worked in the gold mines as a child, spent years on boats fishing across the Red Sea, traveled around the desert with his cattle.
You get to know of the breaking news today within seconds via the internet and satelite TV. Haj Omar, as a child working in the gold mines, recalls how the news of the “1952 revolution” took “a long time” to reach him in Marsa Alam. “News used to travel by the word of mouth. I learned about Muhammad Nagib and Gamal Abdel Nasser through a talk in the mine with other workers. They heard the news from people coming from Quseir. The people from Quseir heard it from elsewhere. We didn’t have newspapers or radio.”
