My days and thoughts....

I have been following this TV Series about King Farouq I, the overthrown monarch and the last ruling member of the royal family. Although nominaly King Ahmed Fouad II was the list king of Egypt, but he was 6 months old when he was a declared as a king and he was in Italy with his family till the declaration of the republic and abolishment of monarchy one year later. That particular part of history, the reign of king Farouq is a much contested part of our modern history. All what we learnt in school is that the monarchy was full of corruption, agency of the palace to the British, social injustice and lack of development. Unfortunately there aren't many "unbiased" sources about that period. Either the bull crap of the pro Nasserists idiots or the pro royalists who linger to their lost titles and lands. However, its possible to gather some bits pieces of information form some articles published here and there or some books (who mostly happen to be about other nations) that mentions Egypt during the 1940s. Historians are also very biased, not to mention Mohamed Hassanein Heikal. I think Dr. Younan Labib Rizk is not that biased but I haven't read much for him.

Hereby, I am writing about what I the opinion I am starting to formulate about that period. Unfortunately I have no academic or solid sources on the internet or current published books and it would take me sometime to state my references and distinguish that from my own analysis.

First of all, Egypt was governed by the 1923 constitution. This constitution gave more powers to the Prime Minister than the King and also to the parliament. I am not sure but I think the king had the right to remove or force the Prime Minister to resign which would result in new elections. I am trying to find the text of that constitution to read more about it. This constitution faced more challenges from the British occupation. At the onset of the World War II, the british Ambassador forced the palace backed prime minister who happened to the be the royal bureau chief to declare martial law. This setback to democracy was forced upon us by the brittons. Also I believe that martial law was declared once more during the 1948 war against the newly declared State of Israel. Also the constitution was replaced from 1930-1936 by the Sedqi Constitution which put more more into the hands of the King Ahmed Fuad I. So Basically, the 1923 constitution which was abolished in which lasted from 1924 till 1952 was actually in action for a maximum of 16 years. So we had a maximum of 16 years of true democracy. Now back to King Farouk's reign. He ascended to the thrown at the age of 16 and actually got power at the age of 17 in 1937. Actually his royal bureau were taking decision on his behalf most of the time and they were his advisers. He inherited them from his father, he didn't choose them. Right after he assumed powers he was faced by the British snobbishness. In 1942, a British tank brigade surrounded the Abdeen palace and confronted the king with a throne surrender or accept a ministry of Wafd. The British Ambassador was the actual ruler of the country not the prime minister who just administered the government or the king. Sir Miles Lampson is one of the people who caused setback to democracy in Egypt before Nasser.

The High Dam is one of the achievements that is attributed to the Nasser Regime which is the offspring of the military coup. According to one of the Wafd Party writers a couple of years ago, I think either Gamal Badawy, Abdel Rahman Fahmy or Abbas El Tarabily, the High Dam project was discussed by the Wafd Party before in the 1940s. Why didn't the Wafd party carry ahead with it. Just for the same reasons that faced the Military Regime of Nasser, the lack of funding. How did Nasser solve that problem? He expropriated the Suez Canal, 11 years before its official return to Egypt and engaged the country in a new war that led to the tri Anglo Franco Israeli aggression against Egypt!!! I believe if the Coup was delayed 3-4 years, we would have seen a lot of new investments in the country specially after the payments and british reimbursements to the Egyptian government after leasing and devastating the country in the World War II. All the industrial projects that took place after the revolution were inherited from pre 1952 governments such as the steel factory that was built in Helwan. The source of the next information is from a sociology book and partly supplemented by the sociology professor at university. That giant steel factory in Helwan was already planned to be at aswan near the iron mines pre 1952. But Nasser decided to ruin that ancient city that was a rehabiliatation resort more prominent during the era of the Umayyid Caliph Abdel Malek ibn Marwan, by placing the factory in it, causing the economy more costs in transportation and devastating the environment because he wanted to gather popular support for him at any time the need arises.

I will edit that post later.

I might get comments like why are you talking about a 50 years old issue and leaving the current unrest and uprising in Egypt like the recent 30'000 employee strike in Mahalla or the connection to the current sad affairs in the country. Well, I am trying to embark on showing a direct connection to the illegitimacy of the current Mubarak and his NDP gangsters rule.

PS. I have nothing against the British. I am just talking about history. I am an avid lover of the English football and of London and Oxford.

Labels: corruption, disasters, egypt, elections, Monarchy, politics

Two trains collided this morning coming from delta during the morning rush hour at 7.15am. Number of deaths so far ranges from 51 as of 11.15am - 8.15 GMT, according to the Egyptian, and as many as 80 according to Egyptian Security sources who said so to BBC. About 160 were injured. Rescue and evacuations continue at this moment including the separations of the metal bodies of the trains. Main reasons behind the accident are attributed to the overspeeding of the second train or malfunction in the semaphores. Anyways, it is because of negligence and corruption. The victims are the poor people who are not seeking their rights and seem to be appeased by all the bad things happening to them.

As usual, president Mubarak is following the incident, instead of being proactive and fighting corruption and improving the affairs of his country. Rather he is busy with some more important issues.

Damn, these images from the deadly train accident in Badrasheen, more than 4 years ago is still vivid in my memory. 360 were burnt to death, although unofficial sources say upto a 1000 were perished.

Here is a link to Reuters article.
Better coverage, more info and tragic pictures can be found at the arabist.

Update: An eyewitness living at the site on Nile News said that the fire trucks were constraining the rescue efforts and it was a chaos when people gathered around to watch what is going on. Its a habbit when an accident happens that curiousity drives people to watch and hinder rescue efforts in many accidents.

1.00PM: number of deaths reach 56 according to health minister. It seems that they will catch up with the 80+ figure previously announced by security forces.