EGYPT ON THE VERGE
Lens, Sidney
Egypt on the Verge Cairo FIVE WRITERS, including myself, were talking with Gen. Mohammed Naguib, Egypt's strong man. One of them—a bitterly anti-Semitic Swedish reporter—asked a leading question:...
...Under British rule the treasury flourished, the Aswan dam was built, irrigation was expanded so that two or three crops a year are now possible instead of one, and the population jumped to 20 million...
...We must get the British out first of all...
...today it is 0.8...
...He has forced the relatively new industrial class to end its accord with the landowners and has united within the new regime the army, the factory owners, socialist professors, and humanitarian friends of the fellah...
...But each time Naguib parried the question...
...Somewhere between 700,000 and 1,200,000 acres of a total of 6,000,000 is being "expropriated" at about half its value and will be distributed over a five-year period...
...Revolution in 1919 checked the British briefly...
...Nor is this the only criticism of Naguib's revolution...
...In 1882, 80 per cent of the people were illiterate...
...But the social story of British rule is something else again...
...While this can not be called a satisfactory form of democracy, it can hardly be scored as worse than the past...
...Nominal independence was established, schooling increased somewhat, a constitution drafted...
...Figures on dams, population, and treasuries are obviously unassailable...
...Whether future events will justify this faith remains to be seen: there are inner contradictions in his alliance which can easily explode under pressure...
...In his present alliance are socialists and humanitarians, as well as industrialists...
...He is full of "statistics" that make your head swim with British generosity...
...There is also the slow tempo of reform, the dictatorship, the failure to give labor real freedom...
...The General was only articulating the fervid hatred of British imperialism that prevails almost everywhere...
...What the British did in Egypt was typical of the pattern of events in this exploited slice of the earth...
...In the political sphere Naguib has dissolved all political parties and parliament for three years and has substituted his own "liberation movement...
...In 1882 average acreage per person was 1.5...
...No matter at what point you start, all political roads in Cairo lead to Britain...
...by 1920, under British rule, the number had risen to 90 per cent...
...If you ask an Arab whether he fears Soviet occupation, he invariably replies, "Why should we worry about Russian troops when we have British forces here now...
...But the measure of the new regime must be found in two basic features: what it has achieved negatively and what it has achieved positively...
...The pasha-led government, in collusion with the King, circumvented disaster by having the government buy up cotton at 30 to 40 per cent above world prices...
...They formed an alliance with the pasha class, made it fabulously rich, and kept the poor fellah in ignorance, disease, and destitution...
...the rest of the people had to be content with less than an acre per family...
...Persuasive as far as it goes, but far from the whole truth...
...If the pasha was richer his wealth manifested itself in the fact that he had a bigger mudhut and a fatter donkey to take him on infrequent trips to Cairo...
...With slight changes everything was "in order" again...
...He has deposed the monarch, and he has destroyed the feudal power of the pashas...
...The state took the loss, the rich took the booty, and the poor footed the bill...
...A Chicago labor leader, Lens is the author of two books, "Left, Right and Center" and "The Counterfeit Revolution" and has written for many publications, including The Yale Review, the Harvard Business Review, and The Bulletin of The Foreign Policy Association...
...By Sidney Lens talk with a Britisher...
...There are signs that he has good instincts for making pragmatic decisions...
...Until now 25,000 landlords owned more than half the land...
...In underdeveloped areas there can be no progress until the negative social factors which impede development are destroyed...
...Until Britain gets out of here," he said, "we ourselves are not even a nation...
...The circulation of a socialist paper, Ishtrakia, rose from 1,000 to 70,000 circulation because of its attacks on the monarchy...
...For the most part he lived close to his peasants and tilled some of his own land...
...When Britain came to Egypt 70 years ago the treasury was bankrupt, the irrigation system—life of the country— had broken down, and the population was only six million...
...Everything is different when you SIDNEY LENS, on a year-long swing around the world, is reporting his major findings in a series of articles for The Progressive, of which this is the fifth...
...then maybe we can solve this problem...
...By 1952 government was fantastically corrupt...
...The answers to these questions will go far toward determining Naguib's success as he moves into the positive sphere...
...But Naguib has probably broken the back of the monarchy, the pashas, and the British...
...II At this point, in July 1952, the army—the only unified force in the nation—seized the reins of government...
...With our Point Four help, the government hopes to reclaim an additional three million acres over a ten-year period...
...Yet the new regime finds itself without any real means of reacting to mass pressure...
...Symptomatic of this class stratification was the continuing fall in land-holding and literacy...
...at a certain stage they are bound to demand a halt...
...In addition, agriculture was lopsided because Egypt was so dependent on cotton as its major export...
...Without parties, a free press, and full civil rights, it is working in the dark...
...The reporter, anxious not to get an affirmative reply, kept restating his thesis in different form...
...First concern of Naguib's government is long overdue land reform...
...But the British soon reformed their lines and welded together a new four-cornered oligarchy composed of monarch, pashas, the nascent industrial class, and themselves...
...Naguib's action undoubtedly had the support of 90 per cent of the people...
...But under the British his opportunities for exploitation increased to the point where he moved to the cities, drove Cadillacs, sent his children to French schools, and kept in touch with his peasants only through overseers...
...In each village and town, people are supposed to elect their own representatives, who in turn will pick national spokesmen...
...But withal he lacks depth...
...Animal husbandry and vegetable and cereal growing will be greatly encouraged...
...He wouldn't admit that Israel wasn't a nation, and he wouldn't discuss peace...
...Beyond irrigation and land distribution, the state is concentrating on know-how...
...The peasant will be given some soil of his own...
...They made the rich far richer and the poor poorer...
...Will they agree to heavy taxation for the new capital projects or for social welfare projects...
...To provide fertility and assure electricity for an expanding industry, it hopes by 1959 to complete a new dam south of Aswan that will have 30 times the capacity of the older dam...
...The nascent capitalists of Egypt are on the bandwagon for the ride...
...Economically, postwar demand for Egypt's major export, cotton, had skyrocketed prices, but suddenly the world demand lapsed and prices fell...
...As the cost-of-living rose and hunger increased, tension mounted...
...Probably nowhere in the world will you find so many who are blind or near-blind...
...From here on there is a positive job of social reform and elevation of living standards...
...Ill Can Naguib fulfill this second task...
...One of them—a bitterly anti-Semitic Swedish reporter—asked a leading question: "Since you don't recognize Israel as a nation, you can't possibly make peace with its government, can you...
...Here alone, say the British, is proof invulnerable of the good Britain has done for Egypt...
...In that sense Naguib has moved a mountain: he has swept away the historical rubbish of British imperialism...
...Friendly pressure from liberals and socialists abroad, as well as aid to decent forces within Egypt, can help this latest semi-revolution find its way...
...At least two-thirds of the population suffers from bilharzia disease, and hundreds of thousands from trachoma...
...And if you insist that Soviet imperialism means terror and restriction of freedom, he snaps in reply, "What do you think British imperialism has been like...
...The new regime intends to alter both aspects...
...But the old order and the heritage of British rule were so unpopular that any change was bound to have widespread support...
...The lines on his face indicate a hardness tempered by a genuine feeling for people...
...He impressed me, as we talked for more than an hour, as a man of great charm and a pleasing sense of humor...
...A $25 million Point Four program, with Egypt putting up $15 million, is undertaking a variety of projects: housing (special mudbricks of a more durable and sanitary nature), sanitation, poultry improvement, and surveys for new industries...
...Will they yield to the wishes of the workers for a more equitable distribution of wealth or insist on profits that will conflict with the egalitarian forces in the Naguib alliance...
...When the British arrived, class cleavage between the landowners and peasants was relatively small...
...The British today are seeking allies in the theocratic Moslem Brotherhood to clip the wings of the new movement...
Vol. 17 • July 1953 • No. 7
