School textbooks and assembling the puzzle of the past in revolutionary Egypt

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Notes

I would like to thank Amílcar Barreto (Northeastern University) and Sam Kaplan (Ben-Gurion University) for thoroughly reading earlier drafts of this article, and for sharing with me their constructive suggestions.

1. David Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p.162.

2. I differentiate between hegemony and domination whereby public dissent is muted by fear of reprisals. In this regard, Lisa Wedeen's book on the Asad's Syria is an illuminating example of dominance, but not hegemony. Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

3. See: Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Sam Kaplan, The Pedagogical State: Education and the Politics of National Education in Post-1980 Turkey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).

4. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp.98,166.

5. Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army, and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Robert Hunter, Egypt Under the Khedives, 1805–1879: From Household Government to Modern Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984).

6. Ehud Toledano, ‘Social and Economic Change in the “long Nineteenth Century”’, in Martin Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt – Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp.252–84.

7. Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, ‘Modernization among the Rectors of al-Azhar, 1798–1879’, in: William Polk and Richard Chambers (eds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).

8. M. McDonald, ‘Egyptian Education and Development,’ Journal of Arab Affairs, 5 (1986), pp.59–80; Donald Malcolm Reid, Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1990); Lawrence Murphy, The American University in Cairo: 1919–1987 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1987).

9. Taha Husayn, Mustaqbal al-Thaqafah fi Misr (Cairo: Matba'at al-Ma'arif, 1938).

10. See, for example, 'Uthman 'Abd al-Rahim, Ibrahim 'Issa Shahta, Ta'rikh Misr al-Ibtida'i: al-Juz al-Thalith (Cairo: Wizarat al-Ma'rif al-'Umumiyya, 1933), pp.56–79.

11. Joel Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp.110–18.

12. Majalat al-Katiba al-Thamina, Vol.4 (Oct. 1953), p.46.

13. Muhammad Farid Abu Hadid, President of the teachers' union, declared that for him the new regime represented a new eruption of patriotism, that exploded suddenly after a long period of dormancy. ‘I have discovered my homeland,’ he confessed privately, ‘as one who found his relatives after a prolonged time.’ Al-Thaqafa, 18 Aug. 1952.

14. Abd al-Salam Nuwer, al-Mu'alimun wal-Siyassa fi Misr (Cairo: Markaz al-Dirassat al-Siyasiyya wal-Istratijiyya, 2001), pp.64–6.

15. Jumhuriyyat Misr, Wizarat al-Ma'arif al-'Umumiyya, al-Mutala'a al-'Arabiyya lil-Madaris al-Thanawiyya (Cairo, 1953), 11. The four pages that were mentioned are 9–12.

16. The ‘silences’ of historical texts, including textbooks for studying history, have received the attention of more scholars in recent years. For a seminal example see: Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).

17. There developed in February and March 1954 a severe crisis over the army's direct involvement in ruling Egypt. Most of the Free Officers leadership (headed by the strongest person in the RCC, Abdel Nasser) called for the country to be ruled, during a transitional period, by the new regime (i.e., the army) until conditions for a new political order were achieved. This approach was challenged by various civil political parties backed by President Najib and other officers, who called for general elections and the army's return to its barracks. When the crisis was over, the army remained in power, but lost legitimacy in the eyes of many intellectuals and other Egyptians.

18. Muhsin Khdher, AL-Ittijah al-Qawmi al-Arabi fi al-Ta'lim al-Misri (Cairo: al-Hayah al-Misriyya al-'Amma Lil-Kitab, 1992).

19. Yoram Meital, ‘Revolutionizing the Past: Historical Representation During Egypt's Revolutionary Experience, 1952–67,’ Mediterranean Historical Review, 12 (Dec. 1997), pp.60–77.

20. An explicit expression of the general tendency of Egyptian national historiography to adopt the periodization accepted by many Western historians as regards the paradigm of ‘growth’ and ‘decline’ of the Ottoman Empire.

21. Jumhuriyyat Misr, Wizarat al-Ma'arif al-'Umumiyya, al-Mutala'a al-'Arabiyya, p.16.

22. Mayer divided 'Urabi's historical representation during the revolutionary period into three sub-periods. He convincingly shows how 'Urabi's image and centrality had been changed, and especially after 1961. The adoption of Arab socialism as the state ideology is reflected also in the historical writing of contemporary Egyptian historians. The emphasis was now on the crucial role that social sectors had played, and not on the role of a particular leader. This tendency is reflected in the studies of both veteran historians (first among them Muhammad Anis) and younger ones (Latifa Salim and 'Abd al-'Azim Ramadan). See Thomas Mayer, The Changing Past: Egyptian Historiography of the 'Urabi revolt, 1882–1983 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988), chs 4, 5, 6. For a critical analysis of writings on the 'Urabi's movement, see: Juan Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's 'Urabi Movement (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1999), pp.3–22.

23. al-Jumhuriyya al-'Arabiyya al-Muttahida, Wizarat al-Tarbiya wal-Ta'lim, al-Tariq al-Tawil, Najib al-Kilani, 3rd edn (Cairo, 1962), 275–6.

24. As already mentioned, Mayer was the first to describe this process. Nonetheless, he did not study the intensive discussion of these historical representations in school textbooks.

25. al-Jumhuriyya al-'Arabiyya al-Muttahida, Wizarat al-Tarbiya wal-Ta'alim, al-Tarbiyya al-Diniyya lil-Saf al-Thalith al-Thanawi (Cairo, 1963).

26. al-Jumhuriyya al-'Arabiyya al-Muttahida, Wizarat al-Tarbiya wal-Ta'alim, al-Naqd wal-Balagha (Cairo, 1963), 54–5.

27. Jumhuriyyat Misr, Wizarat al-Ma'arif al-'Umumiyya, al-Mutala'a al-'Arabiyya, 15.

28. The well documented contribution of Egypt's minority and foreign sectors to the development of the local finance and industry was not acknowledged as relevant in this historical narrative. See: Samir Radwan, Capital Formation in Egyptian Industry and Agriculture, 1882–1967 (London: Ithaca Press, 1974); Robert Tignor, Egyptian Textiles and British Capital, 1930–1956 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1989); Uri Kupferschmidt, Henri Naus Bey: Retrieving the Biography of a Belgian Industrialist in Egypt (Brussels: Koninklijke Academie, 1999).

29. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi'i, Thawrat 23 Yulyu Sanat 1952: Ta'rikhuna al-Qawmi fi 'Sab'ah Sanawat 1952–1959 (Cairo, 1959), p.10.

30. Al-Hilal, 61 (July 1953), 34. Yet another critical article was published by Ghorbal in al-Hilal, 63 (April 1955), pp.40–43. For Ghorbal's writing on Muhammad 'Ali and his regime, see: Shafik Ghorbal, The Beginnings of the Egyptian Question and the Rise of Mehemet Ali (London, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1928). Mayer described the tense debate between prominent contemporary Egyptian historians in the context of his study of the changing interpretations of the 'Urabi's revolution (which he termed a ‘revolt’). See: Mayer, The Changing Past: Egyptian Historiography of the 'Urabi Revolt, 1882–1983.

31. Lenin al-Ramli, Sa'dun al-Majnun (Cairo: Dar Su'ad, 1992), 7–8. The National Charter (al-Mithaq al-Watani) was released on 21 May 1962, with the prime objective of presenting the overarching ideology of the revolutionary regime in the social, economic and political fields.

32. Ibid., 8.

33. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp.263–4.