In most books you come across, it’s worth noting that the Arab ’68 is largely forgotten in the international leftist literature, except for references to the radicalization of Palestinian resistance with the formation of the PFLP, and the victory of the Fatah fighters in the Karamah battle. However, Egypt and the other Arab countries were also having their own ’68.
It was in February 1968 that both the Egyptian student and the labor movements were revived with the outbreak of the first anti-Nasser demos since 1954.
Historians and ME scholars tend to trace the rise of Islamism as a mechanical reaction to the defeat of secular nationalist politics in 1967. But this is partially misleading and factually wrong coz the catastrophic defeat of Arab nationalism in 1967 led to a process of radicalization further to the left among a good number of those who looked up to Nasser as an agent of social change and liberation.
Someone like my father for example, who was a staunch Nasser supporter and a member of his Organization of Socialist Youth (the Nasserist regime youth group) was so SHOCKED by the defeat, but did not resort to the Quran in order to get out of his demoralization. He took down Nasser’s photo he had on the wall of his room, and put up Mao’s instead. And he wasn’t alone. 1968 witnessed the birth of the so called Third Communist Wave in Egypt.
I’ll try to put together a posting in the near future about that topic.