A capsule account of a hero who defied a colonial power

A journalist's remarks about Arabs having never produced a real hero, reminded me of the story of Gamal Abdel Nasser

A chance off-the-cuff remark by a foreign journalist about the Arabs having never produced a real hero, reminded me of the story of an Egyptian soldier from an impoverished country and how he took on everyone. His name was Gamal Abdel Nasser, a colonel in the Egyptian army and a fierce nationalist who had ousted the playboy king Farouk of Egypt, whose chief occupation appeared to be to fornicate with voluptuous women.

Nasser wanted desperately to improve agricultural production in his country, specifically for the cotton crop, and saw a solution to the problem in the construction of a dam on the Nile near Aswan. For this, he needed a huge amount of money and turned to the World Bank. At first, the loan was granted, but later withdrawn when a war broke out in the Middle East in 1966. Undaunted, Nasser realised the only way he could raise the money was by nationalising the Suez Canal, which earned £35 million a year in toll money for the company owned by foreigners, while the Egyptians received next to nothing.

And so he went ahead and did just that. A trusted soldier by the name of Mahmoud Younis, with a group of commandos, was to launch an attack on the employees of the Suez Canal Company. But first, they had to wait for the code word “de Lesseps”, which would be relayed from a speech Nasser would make from Alexandria. De Lesseps was mentioned 14 times.

The attack infuriated the British prime minister, Anthony Eden, who was worried about a disruption of vital oil supplies from the Gulf. As all the European pilots had been evacuated, Eden thought the Egyptians wouldn’t be able to navigate the canal. But they managed. As the first vessel smoothly passed through the waterway, a German on the bank shouted, “Hey pilot… good luck.”

Eden hated the Egyptian so much that when somebody mentioned his name, he wanted to chew up the carpet. Nasser also hated Eden but he hated the Israelis even more. Their very existence was an affront. Eventually, a secret plot was hatched between the French, the Israelis and the British. President Eisenhower sent John Foster Dulles to London to cool off Eden. But the British prime minister wouldn’t listen. Every month attempts were made to kill Nasser by the old cloak and dagger methods. But the Egyptian survived. The French, who had earlier sold the Israelis fighter aircraft when Britain and the United States had refused, asked them to attack the Egyptians in Sinai. The British and French would then join in the onslaught. A weary Eden said at the time, “I am utterly convinced that the action I have taken is right.” After the bombardment, Nasser’s message to the Egyptian people was: “We can bow our heads and accept the humiliation, or we can fight. I say… we will fight with the last drop of blood in our veins.”



It was then that the Soviet Union stepped in to defend an ally. Nikita Khrushchev had already sent a message to the West after brutally crushing a revolt in Budapest, that the Soviet Union was still a world power. After the attack on Egypt, he sent another message to the West. “How would you like to see nuclear bombs raining down on London and Paris?” Khrushchev knew Nasser was not a communist and supporting Egypt was a pragmatic decision. There had already been a drain on British currency and foreigners were dumping their pounds. They needed immediate financial help. Eden turned to Eisenhower who said, “First get the hell out of Egypt and then we can talk.” And so the Brits left the Egyptians alone.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2016.

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