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1794338

DIFFERENT NASSER AND EGYPT IMAGES IN CHAHINE’S CINEMA: THE

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE YEAR 1967

1967 Arab-Israeli War is a historical turning point in the modern Middle East history.

It was important for both Israel and Arab states: Israel proved itself as a stable and

powerful nation within a hostile environment. On the contrary, the main centre

against Israel in the region and the grassroot movement against colonialism, namely

pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism or Arab socialism, had an absolute defeat and

decline. After this war, postcolonial era of the Middle East (especially Egypt) opened

a new chapter: Arab regimes, based on secularism and nationalism, loosened the

strings of Islamism, gradually gave the etatist economy policies up, in foreign policy

a shift from the USSR to the USA was clear, ideologically pan-Arabist themes started

to be disappear. The losers of the so-called “Arab Cold War” clearly Gamal Abdel

Nasser and Arab socialism, against Islamism and Saudi petro-dollars. Although

Nasser physically died in 1970, his symbolic death occured in 1967, after the Six-

Day War. This striking moment was not an important point for military officials or

politicians: It was a milestone also for Arab intellectuals.

In this paper, I would try to show that how 1967 Arab-Israeli War shapes the Nasser

and Egypt images in one of the most prominent Egyptian filmmakers, Youssef

Chahine’s films. Before and after the war, his films draw different Nasser portraits.

To put it clearly, while at first he shows his audience a heroic Nasser figure, clearly

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he became more and more critical about postcolonial Egypt, and after 1967, the

disappointment is obvious.

First I give a brief information about 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Second, the article

covers Chahine’s short biography and filmography. After that, I choose three Chaine

films to show the figure of Nasser and Egypt: Saladin the Victorious (1963), The

Land (1969), The Sparrow (1973).

A TURNING POINT: 1967 ARAB-ISRAELI WAR

At least one occasion, Youssef Chahine himself points his finger to the significance

of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He said that “the filmmaker working after 1967 is

almost a different person. The agenda had changed dramatically following that

humiliation” (Kiernan, 1995). So, what is the importance of this historical event?

After the foundation of the state of Israel and 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the relations

between Israel and its neighboring Arab countries seemed relatively calm. But

beyond the surface, there were always clashes such as 1956 Suez crisis, guerilla

warfare against Israel from territories of Egypt and Jordan, and so on. After 1948,

Israel had shaped its security concept according to an “all-out coordinated Arab

surprise attack” (Bar-Joseph, 2007). Also, during the Suez crisis, the USSR actively

joined the Arab-Israeli conflict and started to give its support to the Arab side. Also,

Israel’s borders were not fixed during that period, she occupied the Palestinian

territory and created a mass exodus of Palestinians (they called this “Al Nakba”)

which had been governed officially by military rule until 1966. Therefore, until 1967

Arab-Israeli War, despite the relative calm, the situation was very tense.

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But, on the other side, Egypt had a great transformation during this period. In 1952,

Free Officers Movement conquested the power and diminished the royal family. After

a brief internal struggle, Gamal Abdel Nasser seized the power and started a huge

political transformation process: land reform which was resulted with the demise of

the old social classes, rapid industrialisation, secular state structure and the creation

of massive state bureaucracy, building a large army, anticolonial foreign policy and

agression towards Israel and the other “reactionary” Arab regimes such as Saudi

Arabia. This whole developments binded with a inclusive ideology: Arab socialism,

pan-Arabism, or the so-called Nasserism.

During that time, Nasser tied with Syria (“United Arab States” for 3 years, 1958-1961

including North Yemen), fight against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, supported Algerian

liberation movement against France and inspired other Arab countries with his

movement, Free Officers. As a charismatic leader, he tried to give a balance

between Egyptian nationalism and pan-Arabism. But the most important point about

his ideology was anticolonialsim and antizionism. His Free Officers movement was

affected by the foundation of state of Israel and 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The defeat of

the Arab states in 1948 had given to the Free Officers their main motives, both

internal politics and foreign policy. The humiliation of 1948 had paved the way for

Nasserist ideology.

So, in 1967, Egypt and Nasser seems to be at top of their fames, and also they have

an international backer, the USSR. In May, when Egypt received a message from

the USSR about Israeli mobilization in the Syrian border, Egyptian officers just

wanted to deter Israel from an attack (James, 2012). Egyptian troops started to

mobilize in Sinai. Than, the second step was expelling the United Nations

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Emergency Force. Third one is closing the Straits of Tiran, and finally, escalation and

the war.

The Israeli response was quick and devastating. Israeli forces destroyed most of

Egyptian airfields and gained the upper hand of air force. Humiliation was absolute:

the war continued for just 6 days and than Eygpt decided to evacuate the Sinai

Peninsula. Israel occupied Sinai, Gaza of Egypt, West Bank and East Jerusalem of

Jordan, Golan Heights of Syria. This was a total collapse of the Arab armies.

James (2012) cites the situation of Nasser clearly:

One Egyptian diplomat remembers seeing the president walking in his garden

just before the cease-fire, stooped over like a broken man. On 9 June, Nasser

publicly resigned his office. “His face was pale,” remembers Amin Howeidy,

who saw him shortly afterwards. “His eyes were wide open and staring

straight ahead.” (p. 75)

After the defeat, not only Nasser’s, but also the Egyptians’ morale were collapsed.

Nasser quickly resigned and took the full responsibility of the defeat. Although a

popular response was shown to dissuade him from his decision (actually, people

achieved this goal) it is clear that there was a start of a regime crises. A real strife

was occured between Nasser and his army generals, and Nasserists tried the army

officers for their defeat against the Israeli army. The political structure of the

Nasserist party divided according to pro-Western right and pro-Soviet left, rightist

sector of the state started to support Islamist movements due to the anti-Soviet

position and the failure of the Arab nationalism. Also, economic situation had been

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getting worse and worse, and Egypt was now more dependent to foreign funding.

Nasser promoted his relationships with the “reactionary” Arab kingdoms, and his

claim on Arab leadership became vain.

EGYPT’S YOUSSEF CHAHINE

Youssef Chahine was born in 1926 in Alexandria. The cosmopolitan culture of

Alexandria, mixture of Mediterrenean, North African and European civilisations

always affected Chahine’s production.

His father was a lawyer, and his family had Christian origin. He was educated in a

British school in Alexandria and this was an important aspect for his intellectual

development because he can speak several languages fluently (Kiernan, 1995).

He studied acting in the USA, and after his return started to make films. His first

experience was Father Amin (1950), but what made him famous and an independent

auteur in cinema was Cairo Station (1958). With that film, Chahine started to develop

an “authentic and personal style of filmmaking.” (p. 130) According to Khoury (2005),

Cairo Station “draws on similar incorporation of neo-realism, German expressionism

and Eisenstein’s montage techniques, yet fundamentally maintains the classical

Hollywood structural paradigm.” She underlines the eclecticism of Egyptian cinema

more generally.

Due to his Alexandrine roots, Chahine’s cinema is a sort of determined by this city’s

cultural tendencies. On the contrary to Arabic and central Egypt, Alexandria had

always been the center of multi-culturalism and mixture of different societies. This

makes Chahine’s films more “cosmopolitan” in that sense, and gives Chahine as title

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of “outsider.” His autobiographic quartet, Alexandria... Why? (1978), An Egyptian

Story (1982), Alexandria, Again and Again (1990), and Alexandria...New York (2004)

display genuine information about his childhood and cosmopolitan Alexandria.

Also, in Cairo Station, one can see the complex class, gender and ethnic relations in

the Egyptian society. Kiernan (1995) states that, in Cairo Station, Kinawi marks “a

significant break with Egypt’s commercial cinema.” (p. 133) He then continues with

one of Chahine’s remarks:

Chahine himself has stated that one of his main concerns as a filmmaker is to

address "what is needed in a particular society at a particular historical

moment. In Central Station, I wanted to address universal concerns but

always within the Egyptian context.

Clearly, this Egyptian context gives Chahine a sort of “marginal” title. This

marginalisation definitely occured in 1994, when an Islamist lawyer sued Youssef

Chahine’s The Emigrant (1994) film due to its display of one of the Qoranic prophets

although he changed names of religious figures. Chahine fighted back to clear his

film’s name, and won the case, but after that, another lawyer, this time a Christian,

sued the film due to the claim of distorting Biblical story.

Also, his Destiny (1997) depicts Islamic forces as “dark forces preying on the weak

and using terror against every kind of enlightenment and pleasure”

(Chahine&Massad 1999, p. 81) and “a fantastic mix of Protestant puritans, ruthless

assassins, evil mafiosi, and obscurantist cultists” (p. 82). The plot has a struggle

between philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Islamist forces who are representing

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the corrupt state. The Islamists are trying to silence the philosopher and at the end,

ironically, they collaborate with Spanish invaders and “sell” the last Andalusian

Muslims.

According to Shafik (2007), this conservative-Islamist revival’s way was paved by

Anwar Sadat, against his Nasserist rivals. He slightly increased the effect of Islamists

against secular and socialist Nasserists, and in 1980 he planned a new code, which

called “shame-al ayb” to improve Islamic values and sharia in Egyptian society.

During that era, veiling of Egyptian actresses increased and some of them forced to

quit acting.

In his quasi-documentary, Cairo (1991), Chahine was also in trouble with critics and

censor institution. He again criticizes Islamist fundamentalism and poverty in Egypt

and also the film has a scene that Cairo University students were protesting the

Egyptian involvement in the First Gulf War. After the case, the Higher Council of

Culture ruled that the demonstration scene could stay, but the scenes of Islamists

must go. Chahine refused this rule.

But there is more about Chahine’s opposition to Islamism. According to Haller

(2004), for his cosmopolitan purpose, Chahine tries to counter the fundamentalist

version of Saudi/Gulf Islamism with the so-called “Arabic-Mediterranean version of

Islam.” Chahine’s praise for Alexandria and his cyrptic pro-Arab Nasserism are main

themes of this confrontation. For Haller, Chahine develops his counter-narrative

against the fundamentalist version of Islam within local values below:

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 - the widespread consciousness of coastal dwellers to distinguishing

themselves from the inhabitants of the landlocked interior;

- the frequent verbal reference to "the" Mediterranean people at other places

with whom one has something in common and shares something;

- the idea of geography (above all, the sea itself) generating a unique common

lifestyle;

- the awareness of historical membership in multi-ethnic and multi-religious pre-

national empires. (p. 7)

When Chahine started to distance himself from commercial Egyptian cinema, he had

been accused of elitism. Also, complexity, sexual implications, homosexuality and

the other aspects in his films were questioned by some intellectuals. But Chahine

insisted that he makes his films for Egyptians and he doesn’t know any other

people’s stories (Kiernan 1995, p. 135).

Therefore, Chahine’s cinema transformed from a commercial and popular themes to

more complex and -may be- introverted and multi-layered style. In his famous

Nasser imitation, Saladin The Victorious (1963) or Algerian independence movie

Jamila, the Algerian (1958) the audience feels the effects of political currents of

those days: Nasserist, pan-Arab, defender of Arab unity, protecting other Arab

countries against colonial aggressors.

But then, he returned for a more rural narrative after 1967. The most famous one

was a novel adaptation, The Earth (1970). It mainly focuses on a fellaheen family

and depicts a struggle between the landlord (Muhammad Pasha) and farmers.

According to Kiernan (1995), the most striking point of the film is the absent of

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colonial power of Britain. Instead, British occupation is represented by Sudanese

soldiers, and there is a deep contrast between “black” Sudanese soldiers who

attacked the Egyptian people and their “white” masters (p. 139). Kiernan thinks the

film is an evidence of the “inability of Egyptian cinema to represent the colonial

presence in any direct way.” (p. 139).

This is an important point about Chahine’s filmography. Except Saladin the

Victorious, Chahine’s depiction of Egypt and Nasser, whether critical or supportive,

both mainly focus on internal dynamics rather than any external interventions. Just

like the absence of British colonisers, also one cannot find a trace of “Zionist enemy”

in Chahine’s films. Chahine, in that manner, distances himself from other “Third

World” or postcolonial-era cinema because he develops a critical position against

postcolonial states and underlines postcolonial societies and states’ inner

contradictions. In The Earth, he draws a picture of class struggle in a pastoral

landscape, in The Sparrow (1972) he concludes that the humiliation of 1967 War

was not caused by Israel, but Egypt’s corrupt state. So, although Chahine cannot

break with the film technique establishment for a long time, his narrative style and

grasping the Egyptian reality are too far from established Egyptian national cinema.

As Bouzid and Ezabi (1995) cite Chahine:

Confrontation-there must be confrontation; confrontation with the self…

Where has all this started? How have we come to this? How have we been

deceived and put in the wrong? How and where have we erred? Only then

can we begin to settle the account with ourselves, so that we could possibly

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 begin to accept ourselves, a necessary precondition for others to accept us.

(p. 243)

This point is very obvious in The Sparrow which is embellished with complex

symbols and allegories. Kiernan states that “on first viewing, it is too complex for

most audiences to unravel.” (p. 140) Chahine’s film was banned by Sadat’s censor,

and was only released after 1973 War.

Before his death in 2008, he directed a movie called This is Chaos (2007). The film

mainly focuses on a corrupt police officer who makes gains from his neighbors.

Chahine tries to show the police brutality, and when at the end of the film a protest

occurs, it resembles now, the film was an early warning of 2011 Tahrir Square

protests against Mobarak and state terror. But also, as Gordon (2013) states that the

timing of the film is significant: In 2005, Egypt bowled into a political turmoil and

Mubarak government -again- used its power to press political opponents. Chahine

depicts an Egypt that literally is going to collapse or on the brink of a chaos.

According to Gordon, This is Chaos is a “nostalgia” for the Nasser era:

If Hiyya Fawda [This is Chaos] is to be read as a last will and testament,

Chahine ended his days with a wave of nostalgia for the Nasser era (1952–

1970), in which he came of age as an artist, and in which or about which he

made most of his best films. (p. 105)

DIFFERENT EGYPTS AND NASSERS

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As we stated above, Chahine’s filmography contains mostly inner confrontations -

both in self, and society. Therefore, his depictions of Egyptian society and Nasser

himself are always should be read in that context.

Saladin the Victorious (1963) is the most striking tribute to memorable Egyptian

leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. At the first sight, the resemblance is obvious: The

Arabic title of the film is “al-Nasir Saladin”. Saladin the Victorious tries to build a

secular Arab identity beyond religious affiliations. Although Saladin was a Muslim

and fought against Christian crusaders, in the film, Saladin’s main deputy is a

Christian called Issa Al-Awam. There is a confrontation between Arabs and

European invaders. While Saladin is tolerant to the other religions, especially to

Christianity, Christian crusaders depict as bloodthirsty animals. The Crusaders are a

mixture of European people, but Chahine wants to put forward two nations: British

and French. Those were the two modern-times occupiers of Egypt (and the Middle

East). But there is one exception: Crusaders’ leader, Richard Lionheart, shows his

wisdom throughout the film.

According to Shafik (2007) Saladin the Victorious tries to show Nasser as a pan-

Arab incarnation, despite the fact that the failure of the United Arab Republic. It is

interesting that the film never mention Saladin’s real, historical identity: While he was

a Kurdish leader, Chahine develops a character as a pan-Arab hero. Saladin’s

wisdom and tolerance resembles with Nasser’s secular Egypt-Arab national identity.

Also, personal features of Saladin and Nasser are similar: Simplicity, magnanimity,

tolerance, good intentions.

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As Shafik states that “the idea of national liberation is explicitly evoked through

Saladin’s eventual success and his ability to persuade Lionheart to withdraw (just as

Nasser was able to press for British military withdrawal in 1955).” (p. 107) Also, the

alliance of Muslim-Christian against the Crusaders implies the alliance of Muslim and

Christian Arabs against Zionism in the 1960s (Chahine&Massad 1999, p. 81).

Kiernan (1999) puts it in that way:

The portrait of Salah al-Din and the emphasis on Christian-Muslim accord in

the Eastern camp certainly foreground the issue of Arab unity. The character

of Salah al-Din, wise and careful in his judgments, humane and considerate in

his treatment of subjects and enemies, is clearly meant as a flattering portrait

of Abdel Nasser. The narrative stress on Salah al-Din’s accomplishments

presents not only an Arab perspective on the Crusades, but a positive

appraisal of Nasser as well. (p. 137)

Also, the film is the first attempt to portrait the Arab side of the Crusades. Until

Saladin the Victorious, the most popular theme of the Crusades were romance,

conquest, hostility towards the Arabs. The first time, with Saladin the Victorious,

Arabs’ voices and thoughts about this particular historical moment can be heard and

grasped.

But for Shafik, although the film depicts Nasser/Saladin as a mythical character,

Nasser’s image is created with not mythical narratives, but visual interpretations. She

claims that “the promotion of Nasser’s ideas and his image during his lifetime was

rather word-oriented.” (p. 104). There is a claim that Nasser himself rejected the

symbolic deification, and “even though his photographic image seemed everywhere,

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no statues of him are found and his face was never printed on postage stamps.” (p.

105). This point is what put Chahine’s work in a very important place.

After this heroic Nasser-mythical Arab lands narrative, and also after the 1967

humiliation, Chahine’s works dramatically change. This time he focuses on rural

Egypt. The Earth is an adaptation of a popular writer Abdel Rahman Sharkawi’s

novel, The Earth (1968). His camera shots the fellaheen during the film. The plot

contains a peasant family that dives into an economic crisis due to the landowners. A

landowner, Muhammad Pasha (who reminds the founder of modern Egypt,

Muhammad Ali Pasha) wants to allow a railroad that goes ahead through the

fellaheen farm. At many times peasants protest the plan and the landowner; but

eventually the landowner would win and the hero of the film is killed by the

landowner.

There is a water crisis in the film, the farmers to be allowed by the authorities just a

few days in a month to water their land, and then fellaheen started to protest against

this plan. They open water channels for themselves and some villagers are arrested

for opening “illegal” water channels. When fellaheen realize that this water crisis is a

part of the bigger plan, they start to resist the railroad project, but the resistance is

futile. They lose their lands.

Downs (1995) underlines that both the novel and the film are created after historical

turning points. The former was given birth in 1953, just after the Free Officers

revolution, the latter is created after the 1967 War. For Downs, “Youssef Chahine's

adaptation of al-Sharqawi's novel, produced sixteen years after the novel appeared,

moved away from the collective struggle of the village against authority toward the

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responsibility of the individual in his struggle to maintain his existence and his

livelihood” (p. 157). Also, “Where the chain of authority in the novel is explicit and

imposing… the film’s narrative renders authority implicit and distant” (p. 160). In

1953, Sharqawi was showing the struggle against the concrete enemy: the feudal

landowners. But in 1970, after a disappointing defeat against Israel and suspicion

against secular Arab nationalism very high, Chahine tries to figure out an

anonymous chain of command.

The city and authority are in opposition to the village, and the opposition

clarifies the imposition of authority as an external force linked to the world

beyond the village. The telephone becomes the symbol for this chain of

external authority. (p. 162)

According to Downs, in an interview Chahine describes The Earth as “his response

to the defeat of 1967 and to Nasser’s lack of faith in the Egyptian people” (p. 164).

The film tries to create an Egyptian identity, a collective ideal for Egypt in the village

and through the protagonist.

As Shafik (2007) states, after the Six Day War, intellectuals’ main question was

“Who is to blame?” and Chahine’s answer to this question is obviously not an

external enemy, but the contradiction inside the Egyptian society. This question

implies also a more general judgement: What about the system? This implication

forces Chahine to be more critical about the postcolonial Egypt.

The tendency of Chahine is very obvious in The Sparrow. According to Kiernan

(1999) the film is representative of the new political agenda of Chahine. The female

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character as the representative of Egyptian people and the corruptive state

apparatus give a direct critique of the Egyptian state. Shafik (2007) thinks that the

female character is an allegory of raped nation. This notion is closely connected to

the Nasser image: In one of the most memorable scenes of the film, people are

listening President Nasser’s shocking defeat speech on the radio. We see the actual

images of sad-face Nasser and when he declares his resignation, a male character

starts to cry but the female protagonist shouts against Nasser and proclaims to fight

against the enemy. She calls to arms and does not want his president to resign.

Although the Egyptian nation is depicted as female, the female protagonist calls a

man to save her. Then, the people fill the streets and corrupt officials could not

understand who they are.

This is the critical point about the relationship between the Nasser image and Egypt.

Although the defeat of 1967 occured during Nasser’s reign, it is surprising to see that

he is rarely remembered as a defeated president. When people talk about Nasser,

they tend to remember the Suez crisis, land reform, the construction of the High

Dam, educational reform, struggle against Israel and so on. Why is this the case?

Moustafa El-Said Hassouna suggests that Nasser “incarnated the defeat as

completely as he had incarnated the nation.” Again, for him, in The Sparrow, the

audience see that in 1967 the Egyptian army was defeated, not the nation. The

political message of the film is a sort of obsession: It is either impossible to walk with

Nasser or without him.

CONCLUSION

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In this paper, I have tried to show how 1967 War affected Chahine’s cinema

concerning with Nasser and the Egyptian society.

After his tribute to Nasser with Saladin the Victorious, Chahine became more and

more critical about Nasser and his social project in The Earth and The Sparrow. But

interestingly, especially with his late films which fight against Islamism, he develops

a nostalgia for Nasser era Egypt. This nostalgia is related with the failure of the

Nasserist project: It no longer exist, but its effects still are haunting the Egyptian and

Arab people.

Also, one can see the critical aspect of Chahine’s films for their intense contradictory

narrative. Chahine depicts the Egyptian society as divided and does not blame

external factors for the failure of 1967 humiliation. The struggle between the

peasants and the landowner, the peasants and the state, the people and the corrupt

state are main themes in Chahine’s abovementioned films. The colonial enemy is

rarely seen in those films.

In conclusion, Chahine’s reaction against Nasser and Egypt transforms from a

mythical character and golden age towards a more critical narrative.

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