Forty-three years after his death millions in Egypt and throughout the Arab world still hold dear the memory of the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdul-Nasser.
However it is also true that many others are either ambivalent about his legacy or harbor negative feelings about it.
I was 13 years when Nasser died on 28m September 1970 and like others in occupied Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab world I bitterly mourned the Zaim. We really felt orphaned by the loss of the man many viewed as the greatest Arab leader in living memory.
But our infatuation with Nasser originated mostly in the heart not the mind. Most people were in no mood to hear the slightest negative remark about Nasser. Anyone not supporting Nasser was rather automatically dismissed as “a traitor an Israeli spy a reactionary or agent of Zionism and western imperialism… or a Muslim brother.”
“Nasseromania” was the fashion of the day thanks to the overwhelming influence of Egyptian propaganda outlets especially Sawt al-Arab (the Voice of the Arabs) Radio which galvanized most of the Arab masses.
Many Arabs simply reached the point where they thought the Almighty was God in heavens and Abdul Nasser was God on earth.
Abdel Nasser appeared in an era when most Third world nations including Egypt were struggling to rid themselves of European colonialism. Issues that are important and relevant today such as human rights civil liberties and democratic legitimacy didn’t weigh much during that era.
In addition illiteracy was so rampant in Egypt and other Arab countries which made democracy even civility and humanity look a distant afterthought especially for the political elites of newly-independent nations such as Egypt.
Their priorities simply didn’t include democracy and human rights. They rather centered on national efforts to stand on their own feet and break the still crippling fetters of western colonialism.
None the less Abdul Nasser was no Salahuddin or even Mahatma Ghandi. Indeed when viewing his legacy unemotionally and objectively Gamal Abdul Nasser looks very much an unmitigated disaster.
I remember that when I was a college student in the U.S. in the late 1970s I once asked Hamid Algar a British-American Professor Emeritus at the University of California Berkeley for his views on Nasser .
Algar without patting an eyelash said Nasser was the second major disaster befalling the Muslim world in the past 100 years-after the downfall of the Ottoman State .
I didn’t then fully fathom the terse answer but eventually I was able to understand why Professor Algar said what he said about Egypt ‘s modern Pharaoh.
I don’t know if Nasser was a traitor in the classical sense of the word. But this is not a very important issue because a ruler could conceivably inflict a gigantic and indelible disaster on his country without being a traitor. Syria’s Bashar el-Assad may serve as a classical example in this regard. Tyranny can simply be more destructive than treason. History has numerous examples vindicating this view.
But one doesn’t have to be an erudite scholar or an accomplished historian to count Nasser’s numerous flaws and crimes.
Nasser whether we like it or not was directly responsible for the greatest Arab-Muslim defeat since the downfall of Muslim Spain more than 500 years ago namely the 1967- disaster when Israel occupied Jerusalem including the Aqsa Mosque Islam’s third holiest sanctuary.
This cardinal calamity alone should be sufficient to condemn Nasser and his legacy irrespective of what the chorus of ignoramuses would say in defense of their false god. I wouldn’t even bother to respond to these idiots including master liars such as Muhammed Hasanin Haykal.
These charlatans don’t have a minimum amount of correct knowledge a minimum amount of decency and a minimum amount of intelligence that would enable them to put up a genuine case in Nasser’s defense. They also conspicuously lack the rectitude and intellectual honesty that would make one relate seriously to their piles of lie.
Nasser was also responsible for building a society based on fear and lies causing an immense societal disintegration and schizophrenia. The main criterion for merit under Nasser was loyalty to the Zaim. In a certain sense everything revolved around Nasser .
Needless to say this is the root-cause of the gigantic defeat of the Egyptian army at Israel’s hands. The average Egyptian soldier simply felt he was fighting for the leader not for God or the country or any other noble cause.
Even his closest aides e.g. Abdul Hakim Amer betrayed Nasser and collaborated with Israel from his behind. As to Nasser’s military pilots who were supposed to keep an eagle’s eye on the skies of the country they were too drunk on the fateful night of the war enabling Israel to destroy Nasser’s warplanes while still on the ground. For those who still don’t know that was a direct result of Nasser’s policy of excluding religious people from the army and air-force.
Nasser wanted the people to worship him as God. They did and the result was the 1967-disaster. In the Holy Quran it is related that “إن الله لا يصلح عمل المفسدين” (Verily God does not make the work of Al-Mufsidun -the evil-doers and corrupts- prosper.
In addition Nasser committed some of the most heinous crimes under the sun. He ordered the execution of inter alia Sayyed Qutb one of the greatest Islamic thinkers in the 20th century because of his Islamic views.
As is the case with the 1967 disaster the execution of Sayyed Qutb should be sufficient to pass an eternal guilty judgment on Nasser.
Interestingly the present murderous rulers of Egypt especially Abdul Fattah Sisi are invoking Nasser to gain legitimacy in the eyes of some Egyptians and Arabs.
But Nasser himself lacks any religious or moral legitimacy and therefore can’t bestow it on others. In the final analysis one can’t give what one doesn’t possess.
Besides even if Nasser for the sake argument had a modicum of historical legitimacy this wouldn’t mean that Sisi and cohorts are in a position to benefit from that presumed legitimacy. Sisi and cohorts are after all murderous cutthroats who should belong behind bars given the amount of innocent blood on their dirty hands.
