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The
Gamal
Abdul Nasser is often remembered as a great Arab leader who not only
returned the control of the Suez Canal to Egypt but was also the key
founder of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Arab League. His policies
against Anglo-American interest in the Middle East cannot be denied. He
was not a corrupt leader either. Even while he was the President of Egypt,
his father used to work as a messenger. An Arab nationalist by
orientation, his socialist policies remained ingrained in Egyptian society
for over a decade after his death despite the subservience of his
successors to Washington. However, that is where the good about Nasser
ends. Speak about human rights abuses and Nasser suddenly falls into the
pit of infamy.He was a totalitarian of the first order. He tried to silence every dissenting voice and fought every opponent. The Soviets were his masters. It was on one of his visits to Moscow in early 1960s that he stood by the grave of Stalin and swore that he will never forgive anyone involved in an attempt to assassinate him. Nasser stood by his words. He did not forgive. Neither was he expected to do so. Oppose him, or be a member of a group he disliked, and you will be arrested, tortured very severely, and jailed indefinitely, if you are lucky to survive.
The people who suffered most from his highhandedness were members of the
Muslim Brotherhood. This group, founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1927, is
dedicated to reforming the Egyptian society using Islam as a rallying
point. There was no doubt that Western (including communist)
establishments were uncomfortable with its growth. Within fifteen years of
its formation it had covered every nook and corner of Egypt and extended
its branches to neighboring Jordan, Syria and Palestine. Luckily for
al-Banna, he was assassinated while returning from his morning prayer in
1948. Western establishments could not hide their delight.
I said al-Banna was lucky to be assassinated because he did not share the
regime of torture and executions that became the hallmark of Nasser's
human right record. Within two years of being on power, Nasser, using an
assassination attempt, cracked down mercilessly on the Brothers, the same
group that assisted him to overthrow the monarchy. From then until his
death in 1970, Nasser subjected the Brothers to every conceivable measure
of repressive treatment: arrests, interrogation, torture, disappearances,
executions, exile, etc. So brutal was Nasser to the Brothers that they
received the news of his death with utter disbelief.
Nasser maintained elaborate machinery for torture that employed various
techniques. Routinely, cables were used to beat mercilessly; dogs were set
to devour people, often to death; cigarettes were used to burn sensitive
areas on human body; people were hanged from their feet; cold rooms were
common place; plaster of Paris was used to block urinary tracks until the
prisoner died; etc.
Eminent scholars received the severest and inhuman punishments. To date,
there exist a section in the Ministry of Interior in Egypt that deals with
research, procurement and maintenance of torture equipment.
To the craze of intolerance Egypt lost its finest intellectuals, people
like Sayyid Qutb and Sheikh Audan, despite their age. Yet, they ended up
better than Nasser. They were never replaced. The then septuagenarian
Audan who served as Qadi for over forty years went to exile in Saudi
Arabia where he was received at the Airport by King Faisal. He wrote a
will in two verses saying, "God, save us from every difficulty by the
guidance of The Chosen (Muhammad), the best of all. And give me in his
City a place, provision and then a burial in (the graveyard of) Baqi'."
Faisal granted his request: He gave him a chair for commentary on the Holy
Qur'an in the Prophet's mosque in Medina, maintained him and then buried
him in Baqi'.
Nasser did not spare his friend, Sayyid Qutb, the foremost ideologue of
the Brotherhood, the poet, the famous author of In the Shade of the Qur'an
and dozens of other books, one of the finest brain I ever come across
among Muslim writers. Nasser arrested him in 1954, only to re-arrest him
in 1955. He remained in prison for ten years until the President of Iraq,
Arif, interceded on his behalf. Shortly after, Nasser rearrested him and
hanged the sixty year old man after ten months in 1966. Sayyid died a true
martyr, unlike the false ones that people want us to believe.
Women were not spared. The inhuman treatment of Zainab Ghazali was a
typical example. She was among those arrested in 1965 and remained in
Nasser's prison until she was released after his death by Sadat in 1971.
Throughout her jail term, Nasser took particular interest in persecuting
her in a manner which, as described in her book, Ayyamun Min Hayati
(Return of the Pharoah), was the worst any sadist will inflict on his
victim.
But there is a twist, always. Nasser was neither saved by his rhetoric nor
by ruthlessness. He was crushingly defeated in 1967, a year after Qutb was
hanged. Within six days, the tyrannical regimes of Egypt, Syria and Jordan
that oppressed the Brothers were humiliated by the Israelis. Nasser
offered resignation to the Egyptian people. They refused. Three years
later, he collapsed and died. "And never think that God is unmindful of
what tyrants do…"
Nasser's Minister of War, Shamsuddin Badran, along with Hamza al-Basyuni,
oversaw his human rights abuses. Badran was as cunning as he was ruthless.
One day, he oversaw the cruel treatment of Zainab al-Ghazali who was
beaten to unconsciousness repeatedly. She begged to sit on the flow as her
feet were bleeding and she could not stand. Badran replied: "No! No! Where
is your God now? Call Him to save you from my hands! Yet call Nasser and
you'll see what will happen! Answer me, where is your God? Answer me, you
B…" In the end, Badran was himself accused of spying for the Soviets; he
was arrested and tried by Sadat for his heinous crimes.
As it turned out, the violent repression of the Brothers prolonged their
survival. Though outlawed, the group is the greatest opposition party in
Egypt, running the most efficient social services in the country.
Elsewhere in Palestine, Israel still has to confront its off-shoot, Hamas.
And throughout the Middle East, similar groups that are off-shoots of the
Brothers continue to be the nightmares of Washington, the only veritable
challengers of American imperialism.
Early this week, the half-brother of Saddam, Barzani, and Bandah, were
executed by hanging in Iraq. That is another twist. Tyrants do pay for
their sins. Whether it was in the Palace of the End or in villages, these
were people who had the liberty to kill, maim, and torture thousands of
fellow Iraqis that were not in the good books of Saddam. I am not among
those who sympathise with them. Count me out.
Whenever we express delight over the departure of tyrants like Nasser,
Badran, Saddam, Barzan or Banda, their sympathizers among Muslims remind
us of the Prophet's injunction to mention (only) the good deeds of our
dead. But as the late Abdulhamid Kisk asked, "Was Nasser among our dead.
And, in any case, had Nasser any good worth remembering?"
In the same vein, it is false consciousness to regard those who persecuted
their people as martyrs simply because they are no longer in the good
books of their Western masters. These were agents of imperialism, of the
East or West. They tortured by proxy; so when their masters came after
them, we must resist their attempt to exploit our sentiments for their
advantage.
I am surprised that before they were hanged neither Saddam nor any of his
close associates ever confessed his atrocities and sought for forgiveness
from those they persecuted or the families of those he killed. Yet,
without fulfilling this first pre-requisite for forgiveness, some Muslims
are willing to regard them as martyrs. Haba!
Together with those who plant bombs to kill innocent citizens all over the
world, the likes of Saddam are in the same wagon of murder as the
Americans who dropped bombs on innocent citizens. As I edited this
article, al-Jazeera reported the death of sixty-five university students
blown up by bombs in Baghdad. This is madness, not Islam, regardless of
what Osama, al-Zarqawi or al-Zawahiri would say.
Despite its rhetoric, the West, and US in particular, is yet to prove its
commitment to freedom, democracy and liberty. The brutal regimes in the
Middle East are sustained and funded by the West. A recent review of
torture in Egypt listed all the five members of the Security Council as
topping the list of countries that export torture equipment. America, of
course, is the gold medallist here with seventy-eight companies. Between
1997 and 2002 alone, US concluded deals for the provision of torture
equipment worth $97million to Middle Eastern governments, as shamelessly
stated by US Trade Department!
Now, which freedom and democracy is Bush talking about in Iraq? And from
where did Saddam source his VX, sarin, mustard gas and other chemical
weapons? They were supplied by America, France, Switzerland, India and
China. And since its application in 1987 until when the US was prepared to
attack Iraq recently, the CIA continued to misguide the world into
believing that it was the Iranians, not Saddam, that used chemical weapons
attack on Halabja.
So whom do we support among the culprits? The likes of Saddam or America?
It is my opinion that we must condemn both: the dictatorial regimes in the
Middle East on the one hand and the West, especially America, on whose
behalf the abuses were carried out, on the other. That is why if Barzan
al-Tikriti will be hanged one million times for his crimes, I will remain
least bothered. But for every innocent life killed in the jail of Nasser,
or the Palace of the End, or the street of Baghdad, or the World Trade
Centre, or Darfur, my heart will continue to bleed.
Tilde
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