Gamal Abdel Nasser
I | INTRODUCTION |
Gamal Abdel
Nasser (1918-1970), Egyptian statesman, who rose from humble beginnings
to become president of Egypt (1956-1970) and the most influential leader of the
Arab world.
II | EARLY CAREER |
Nasser was born in Alexandria on January 15,
1918, the son of a postman. After secondary schooling in Cairo, he entered the
Royal Military Academy, and graduated in 1938. There and in subsequent service
he formed friendships with a few fellow officers and with them created a secret
revolutionary society, the Free Officers. Egypt was ruled at the time by a small
landowning class that possessed one-third of the land and dominated parliament;
the British presence was all-pervasive, and the king, Faruk I, was an
irresponsible playboy. The Free Officers plotted to rid Egypt of the British and
the king, and the disastrous campaign against Israel in 1948 strengthened their
resolve. On July 23, 1952, they staged a coup and ousted King Faruk. Although he
was the real leader, Nasser initially remained in the background.
Radical measures were soon instituted:
landownership was limited and political parties banned. In 1953 the monarchy was
abolished and a republic proclaimed. It was first headed by General Muhammad
Naguib, but in 1954 Nasser stepped out of the shadows to assume power. He
subsequently negotiated a treaty with the British, by which Egypt was evacuated
after 72 years of occupation. Nasser was officially elected president in
1956.
III | WORLD FIGURE |
Following the Bandung Conference (1955), at
which he emerged as a world figure, having espoused a policy of nonalignment
(see Nonaligned Movement), Nasser's relations with the West deteriorated.
In 1956 Britain and the United States withdrew their financial support from his
Aswān High Dam project. In order to obtain funds for the project, Nasser then
nationalized the Suez Canal. This brought aggression from France and Britain in
alliance with Israel. Under pressure from the U.S., however, the three were
forced to withdraw, and a United Nations emergency force was subsequently placed
as a buffer between Egypt and Israel.
By this time Nasser had become a hero in the
Arab world. In 1958 Syria and Egypt united under his presidency, forming the
United Arab Republic. The union, however, broke up in 1961 after a coup in
Syria. Nasser subsequently espoused a program of Arab socialism, in which banks
and utilities were nationalized to finance a program of industrialization.
By 1967 the Arab-Israeli situation had
deteriorated. After the UN peacekeeping force, at Nasser's request, had been
withdrawn, and Egyptian guns blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli ships,
Israel attacked Egypt and occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez
Canal (see Six-Day War). Nasser, taking responsibility for the debacle,
resigned, but the people took to the streets, demanding his return to
government. He never, however, regained his previous stature. On September 28,
1970, he died suddenly of a heart attack.
IV | EVALUATION |
Opinion about Nasser is sharply divided. His
detractors stress his police-state methods and criticize his foreign policies,
which also involved Egypt in a war in Yemen (1962-67). Others praise his
internal reforms and see him as the man who wrested Egypt from the grasp of
foreigners and a decadent monarchy and gave it back to the Egyptians. Beyond
doubt, he was the foremost Arab leader of his time, who restored Arab dignity
after the long humiliation of Western domination.
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