And Now, a Word from the Last of the Free Officers

A blast from the past for Egypt hands. As far as I am aware, every single one of the original Free Officers who overthrew the Egyptian monarchy on July 23, 1952, installing Naguib and then Nasser, has died, since the deaths of Hussein al-Shafi‘i in 2005 and Zakariyya Mohieddin in 2009, save one alone who survives to tell us: Khaled Mohieddin, the "Red Major" to his colleagues because he was to the left of most of them, founder and longtime head of the Tagammu‘ Party (the Progressive Socialist Rally), now retired and 88 years old. (More on his Arabic Wikipedia page for those who can read it.) This video for Al-Masry al-Youm, with subtitles in English, is of a pre-election interview (November 4) with Mohieddin. It may be one of our last looks at the old guard of the Revolution, and at one of them who really wanted a real revolution.



There's nothing revolutionary here in what the old revolutionary has to say (except implied praise of Israel as a democracy), but not long ago I found myself wondering if he was in fact, still alive. When he goes the last of the Free Officers are gone. He stayed in Parliament until 2005, when he was defeated by a Muslim Brother (the symbolism is obvious: old lefty replaced by Islamist, except that after the latest election the Tagammu‘ is the biggest opposition in Parliament). He did not write his memoirs until 1992 (in Arabic; translated 1995 into English but not now listed at AUC Press as far as I can tell). Even then the memoirs basically go through the Revolution and stop. I've seen the Arabic but haven't read it all, and don't have the English version.

Last man standing. A nostalgic way to start the week.

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The GCC Summits and a Personal Reminiscence

The 31st summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council has just ended in Abu Dhabi. It has spurred some memories, since as it happened I had the opportunity to attend the first, founding summit of the GCC in May of 1981. It was also in Abu Dhabi, and marked my first ever trip to the Gulf. I was working for a small publication at the time, but the press advisor to the UAE Embassy was an old friend from grad school, and got me an invite. I found myself rubbing elbows with such legendary correspondents as Peter Mansfield and Patrick Seale (but few Americans were in attendance: I recall only John Duke Anthony and myself).

The founding summit was in May, though later summits have been in November or December, when the temperatures are more tolerable. Already then, when the UAE was not quite 10 years old, Abu Dhabi was building everywhere, though many streets were just pavement in the desert, awaiting houses. The airport was an earlier one, not the current one. The Iran-Iraq war was less than a year old, and was the catalyst for the formation of the GCC. Of the six rulers who attended that summit, only Qaboos of Oman is still on the throne.

It was still the era of filing by telex. Old timers like me will remember having to punch those tapes. The UAE telecom people gave us a press room with open phones and telexes: call anywhere you like. I called friends in the States just to check in. Trying to locate the home number of a friend posted to Riyadh, I called his father in Pennsylvania. He lived in the Philadelphia area. To my puzzlement, he asked me to drop by, "since you're close by." I noted that I was in fact in the Gulf. It turned out he'd heard "Abu Dhabi" as "Upper Darby." For 30 years now I can never pass Upper Darby, PA, without thinking of Abu Dhabi.

No great point to this post; just reminiscing.

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Omar Effendi Again Has Egyptian Owners

This is one of those posts for the old Egypt hands, and may mean little to anyone else. Omar Effendi, Egypt's biggest department store chain, has been bought back by Egyptian investors after several years in Saudi hands. Descendant of a mercantile enterprise founded in the mid-1850s, it's a shopping institution. Comparing it to Macy's or Harrods would be misleading but not completely so, since it's a national institution, and I mostly knew it in its days as a nationalized institution with all the efficiency that "Egyptian state-run institution" implies. Like most of the big department stores, it was nationalized after the 1952 Revolution, mostly privatized more recently, though the state still holds a percentage. (The 1946 ad at left, complete with Royal "By Appointment to ..." logo, oddly uses pictures of fellahin, but is a reminder of its institutional status.)

The new ownership is Egyptian again, though there've been some questions about the purchase, and apparently the head of the investment company that bought it, Mohamed Metwalli, is alleged to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood. I have no idea if that's true, but many MB supporters are very much committed to capitalism. (His wife is from the Lokma family, also said to have links to the Brotherhood, and owners of Groppi, the tea room/cafe/chocalatier institution. (The Lokmas are also said to have Brotherhood links, and Groppi's Bar closed decades ago when the once-Italian institution fell under devout Muslim ownership. I remember Groppi's Bar. I'm old.)

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