Forty Years Later: Why is Nasser still remembered in the Arab World?

The elder son of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser (ruled 1954-1970), Khaled, has an interesting story to tell. One day in the 1960s, the then teenage Khaled joined his father on a private car ride. Unintentionally, a crowd of people noticed Nasser's presence in the car, and they waved to the revolutionary leader whose speeches and decisions had electrified them for years. And Nasser as usual waved back. But when Nasser noticed that Khaled, overwhelmed by the emotional zeal, was waving too to the crowds from his car window, he looked at him and said: have you gone nuts, boy?

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Nasser's death. If Nasser is not remembered in Egypt and the Arab world for his achievements – driving the British out after 70 years of occupation, nationalizing the Suez Canal Company, and building the High Dam in Aswan – he is today certainly remembered for his integrity, and his moral revulsion of all sorts of nepotism.

The rise, in some cases consolidation, of hereditary republics in the Arab world has evoked powerful nostalgia for Nasser's days. After the long struggle of Arab peoples to turn monarchies into constitutional republics, a number of Arab autocrats have been reversing the process by turning their countries into "Gumlukiyas," a term coined by sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim merging the Arabic words 'gumhuriya' (republic) and 'mamlukiya' (monarchy).

The precedent was set in Syria, where Bashar Al-Assad took over power after his father's death in 2000. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was ripe for another father-to-son succession of power before the deposal of his regime at the hands of the US-led invasion in 2003.

In Yemen, the son of incumbent President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ahmed, is widely seen as his heir apparent. Ahmed is commander of Yemen's Republican Guards and Special Forces, the military establishment's two deadliest units. He also enjoys extensive tribal backing, a very valuable asset in a country that is, essentially, considered a "tribal state."

In Libya, family succession oscillates between two of Gaddafi's sons: Seif Al-Islam, last October named by his father as the regime's second-in-command; and Mu'tasim, who controls the security apparatus. Because of Libya's weak institutions and the non-existence of political parties, opposition to Gaddafi's four-decade rule comes only from within — not within the regime, but rather within the ruling family.

In Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, banker-turned-politician Gamal Mubarak meteorically rose in the ranks of the ruling party until he became its Deputy Secretary General. President Hosni Mubarak has bequeathed some of his powers to Gamal, who in the eyes of many observers has become a "shadow president." The deteriorating health of Mubarak Sr. and his reluctance to declare whether he will run in next year's presidential elections has fueled rumors that Gamal is being groomed for the presidency.

Witnessing the emergence of the dynastic republicanism phenomenon, Arabs lament the days of Nasser who, despite his legendary popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, has not showed any tendency to groom a son, or bestow political authority and economic influence on any family member.

Arabs have for many centuries personified power; their judgment of leaders has relied more on personal idiosyncrasies and traits than on ideological agendas and political blueprints. That’s why Nasser's many drastic failures, such as the humiliating defeat against Israel in 1967, the debacle in Yemen, and human rights breaches, are in historical hindsight condoned. Nasser was free from any aura of corruption, and utterly sincere in his desire to serve his nation, and this counts most.

To Arabs, military defeat, economic underperformance, and social mismanagement certainly count too. But corruption, nepotism and using power to selfish ends could never be forgiven; they constitute an offense, a gross insult that is not forgotten with the passage of time, or the change of political moods.

To obtain Washington's endorsement for his political ambitions, Gamal Mubarak visited the US many times and met with nearly all its top officials. It is hard to imagine the reaction of Nasser, who sharply rebuked his son for merely waving to the masses, had his son became a "shadow president" promoting himself in international capitals. But Nasser is no Mubarak, and that’s why his memory evokes so much nostalgia for the past and so much contempt for the present.

Nael M. Shama

* This article was published in Daily News (Egypt) on September 30, 2010.

Gamal Abdel Nasser vs. Gamal Mubarak

Two chapters in the chronicles of modern Egyptian leaders narrate the story of two men and the sea of change separating the nature of the country's political leadership in fifty years. Generations apart, both men are influential politicians with wide aspirations, a penchant for change and the spirit of youth. The first is Gamal Abdel-Nasser (ruled 1954-1970) and the second is Gamal Mubarak, Egypt's current quasi-president and, most probably, the next resident of the presidential palace.

While Gamal Abdel-Nasser's ascendancy to the presidency was based on his own merits, political authority was handed over to Gamal Mubarak on a silver plate. In the late 1940s, Nasser formed - and led - the clandestine 'Free Officers' movement that overthrew the monarchy smoothly in 1952. The group expanded to include more than 250 officers, kept its secrecy for years and seized power without firing a shot, quite an exception by the standards of conventional Third World coups. Hence, Nasser's rise to the presidency came as a result of hard work, minute planning, a sense of initiative and a great deal of risk-taking, and the whole venture was motivated by the 'noble' cause of purging foreign troops and eliminating the rotten regime. Even though the revolution has, in the eyes of many, deviated from its initial goals, quite nobody denounces the necessity of ending the rule of Mohamed Ali's family whose last monarch had saved no chance to prove his incompetence and ignorance.

Gamal Mubarak's tedious tale includes none of this. His hard work was, instead, limited to the arena of 'wasta', the magical solution utilized mostly by the incompetent to transcend the law in their quest for benefits. Furthermore, in contrast to Nasser's snail's pace, the impatient Gamal Mubarak was carried by a spaceship to the higher echelons of the National Democratic Party (NDP). He joined the party in the year 2000 straight into the General Secretariat, a position senior members have strived for decades to get hold of in total vain. Just two years later, a new secretariat was designed and set up specifically for him. Gamal commanded the 'Policies Secretariat' that was, then, portrayed by the NDP's Secretary-General Safwat Al-Sherif as the party's "heart and brain". A few days after his 42nd birthday, the whiz kid was further elevated to the position of Deputy Secretary-General, just two steps away from the man at the helm. To profess that the rise in the chain of command of Egypt's clogged political system was an accomplishment born of the golden boy's genius and talent reflects either a fatalistic type of naivety or a callous attempt at deception.

Furthermore, Gamal Abdel-Nasser's early and profound interest in politics is all too known. He was arrested during an anti-British demonstration at the age of sixteen, prowled around the underground world of revolutionary movements and moved about Egypt at length in his early years. In the Palestine war, Nasser's battalion survived a ten-week siege in Al-Faluja and got a hero's reception back home. Afterwards, Nasser indulged himself with creating and reinforcing the 'Free Officers' movement that, in due course, changed the face of Egypt and the whole Middle East. In brief, Nasser's life was, at all accounts, rich, dynamic and adventuresome.

Gamal Mubarak's life journey took on a different course, one that is staid, banal and unlikely to produce a deep understanding of the country's complex realities. Living behind the gates of presidential palaces under heavy security measures (ever since Hosni Mubarak was appointed Vice President thirty-two years ago) inhibited his social activity and provided him with little inspiration. In addition, it was not before his late thirties that he showed any serious interest in politics. By that phase in life, Nasser had already nationalized the Suez Canal Company and emerged as the mythical hero of the Arab world, a second 'Saladin' who would restore 'Arab dignity' and bring about independence from the great powers.

The absence of democratic practice notwithstanding, the popularity of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's political and ideological choices in the early years of the revolution gave him a mandate to proceed with the line of policy he had articulated and effectuated. His authority in Egypt - and beyond - closely corresponded to the 'charismatic' type of authority elucidated in detail by the German sociologist Max Weber in his masterpiece 'The Theory of Social and Economic organization'. In fact, if Weber's theory needed an ideal case study in the Arab world, then Nasser would be its best candidate.

In contrast, Gamal Mubarak is the paragon of toying with politics with no cover of legitimacy. His wide prerogatives are, indeed, unconstitutional and had stirred relentless public condemnation. To compensate for that deficiency, the wunderkind was introduced by his bird-brained entourage as the architect of future political reform, the only savior of Egypt's democracy against the heavy odds of tyranny and repression. But, ironically, the aspirant to injecting democracy into the congealed blood of the authoritarian state has never been elected by the people. Instead, he was parachuted into Egyptian politics by mere virtue of kinship. Even to the blind, five years in power have visibly shown that the lame 'reform from within' rationale was just a smokescreen shrewdly used by Gamal's henchmen to buy more time while authoritarianism endures and a hereditary republic approaches.

Apparently, no substantial change followed the sidelining of the party's 'old guard' from positions of authority. Gamal Mubarak and Kamal El-Shazly essentially represent - despite the visible difference in façade - the two sides of the same coin. The 'new thought' slogan propagated by Gamal's team scores high on the scale of political slogans, promising progress and emancipation of the chains of despotism. But, in reality, it is a cheap replica of the old days' defunct slogans; it hypnotizes masses while authoritarianism reproduces itself in a new dazzling outfit with excessive make-up and lots of accessories. Mournfully, some booby-traps in Egypt are disguised as 'heaven-sent gifts'.

On the personal level, Gamal Mubarak is a decent and well-educated man who has probably loads of good intentions, qualifications that make him an impressive groom for many brides― other than Egypt. Whether the President is grooming his son as successor (as the hawkish opposition papers assert) or the son hardly convinced his father to join the party (as the President once claimed), the discussion of Gamal's political career was confined to the domain of the small family, a painful reminder of the ways national issues are resolved in royal families.

One certain aspect of royal families is that they are glued to power like flies to fluorescent. Boutros-Ghali acknowledged that power is like alcohol, both are tragically prone to addiction. In this context, it is worthwhile to remember that Gamal Abdel-Nasser resigned after the humiliating defeat of 1967. He believed that a successor who was on good terms with the Americans would be in a better position to regain the occupied territories. On the other hand, Gamal Mubarak's thirst for political power will, if the current trend continues, lead to a father-to-son transmission of power.

In other words, Gamal Abdel-Nasser divested himself of the presidency to set his country free, while Gamal Mubarak will, by climbing to the presidential seat, enslave the country to a notorious hereditary republic precedent. The former resigned despite his glaring accomplishments in economy, development and foreign policy. And the latter is adamant about satisfying his political ambitions, in spite of the drastic failures of previous NDP governments in quite everything they undertook.

The American novelist Herman Melville argued that the meaning of anything is deserved by contrast, for 'nothing exists in itself'. The Arabic saying also goes that 'things are differentiated by contrast'. The power of contrast is, indeed, mind-boggling. Digging into the chronicles of Egyptian politics does provide some good evidence.

Nael M. Shama

* This article was published in Daily News (Egypt) on March 6, 2008.