EGYPTIAN NATIONALISM'
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SHI,—As one of the " trousered class " I should like to be allowed to reply to the letter from " A.B.C. Cairo " in your issue of December 27th. He says the silent fellah and the shopkeeper continue to follow their own -business of planting crops and making piastres, whilst the student leaves his desk to indulge in political agitation without any understanding of its meaning.
As a man on the spot " A.B.C." perhaps remembers the day when Nessim Pasha and the Minister of Finance were chaizeid by these students through the streets of Cairo on thie under- standing that they were about to restore the constitution. Once in power his Cabinet proceeded to dig itself in for'i*n indefinite period until it lost all other support thanq thai. of 1.-11P British Residency. It showed no sign whatever of,respecting the constitution until the riotous students insisted on it.
In the absence of the franchise what more effective method of relieving political suppression could be devised than the public demonstrations of that class which carries no vital service ? The European method of a strike in some essential service entails suffering amongst the poor. A student strike or demonstration merely ridicules the authority of an undesir- able government and apart from accidents hurts no one.
The description of Egypt as traditionally Moslem and the nationalists as educated snobs with no culture or tradition is pure nonsense. Traditionally Egypt is non-moslem, as shown by the preference for something " pharonic " in new buildings. The National party in Egypt is the Ward. It is the articulate portion of the fellaheen who are only silent when destitute. Whatever A.B.C. and other foreign officials may think, the simple fellah, much exalted for his silence, invariably becomes politically active as soon as he acquires wealth and indepen- dence. Nor is it right to deny Egyptian nationality to the educated class because they may be of Syrian or Arab, Turk or Greek extraction. This would be as stupid as-excluding West- Saxons or East-Anglians from British Nationality.
Egyptian Nationalism will always present a united front against all foreigners, and in common with nationalist move- ments in other countries will inevitably split into independent or exclusive parties for the solution of their more domestic problems. The surprising uniqueness of Egyptian politics discovered by " A.B.C." is merely the product of his own imagination. His patronage of the educated Egyptian is typi- cal of the disgruntled foreign official against whom the Egyptian nationalists now safeguard themselves by short-term contracts. Since A.B,C. objects to the pseudo-French why does he affect the French spelling of Pasha ? At all events he chose a fitting nom-de-plume as superficial as the student he despises.—Yours
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