[a series of stamps of King Farouk were censored by the Nasser regimefollowingg the fall of the monarchy in 1952]

The Dreamworld of Pan-Arabism

Territorial Pharaonic nationalism began to decline in the 1930s and 1940s in favor of more populist Arab and Islamic themes and eventually, in the 1950s, was replaced by the Pan-Arabism of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was heavily influenced by socialist views of industrialization and promoted the dream of Arab unity. This form of nationalism focuses less on the tribal or primordial connectedness of a nation and more on the connection towards a common interest, it is often associated with a charismatic leader that established a supreme authority for the state.[1]

Nasser created a mass-utopia[2] where goals of mass sovereignty and Arab supremacy were fused with a military ideology. He was unprecedented in his charismatic appeal, which was often difficult to separate from mass propaganda. Nevertheless, his influence on Egyptians could not be easily discounted, as he still remains to many, a symbol of powerful leadership and the first native Egyptian to lead Egypt since the pharaohs. His Pan-Arabism and goals of uniting the Arab world –separate from religious ideologies- was also highly regarded as his legacy to both Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs alike. Nasser’s strong charismatic leadership and military background and expansion goals fused ideas of honor and dignity with militarism in Egypt.

Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, major industries and the banking sector brought Egypt closer to a vision of self-sufficiency and production of everything from the “needle to the rocket” as he preached in one of his iconic speeches. History glorified the nationalization of the Suez Canal into an iconic moment of Egypt’s history, replayed on national television and celebrated in films and popular media. Nasser’s Egypt was the ultimate utopian modernist dreamworld of nationalism promising “social justice, progress, development and dignity.”[3]

Susan Buck-Morss, the American philosopher and intellectual historian introduces the concept of ‘dreamworld’ in her book Dreamworld and Catastrophe as a product of the mass utopia of industrial modernization. Her analysis is evocative of Nasser’s goals of mass expansion and industrialization, she states:

The construction of mass utopia was the dream of the twentieth century. It was the driving ideological force of industrial modernization in both its capitalist and socialist forms. The dream was itself an immense material power that transformed the natural world, investing industrially produced objects and built environments with collective, political desire.[4]

Products made in Nasser’s military factories replaced imports and were branded and marketed using a persuasive language of nationalist rhetoric. In the search for signs or symbols to represent Egypt, designers adopted Pharaonic logos and brand identities to evoke a sense of quality, pride, and connection with the land. The tropes of Pharaonism artistically utilized by the territorial nationalists of the 1920s became signifiers of local mass-produced goods in the 1950s and 1960s. Cigarettes carried the image of Cleopatra, sewing machines bore the bust of Nefertiti[5] and locally assembled cars were named ‘Ramses’.

The eventual decline in Egyptian production, the open-market introduced by President Sadat, and the poor quality of products transformed Egyptian national brands into ubiquitous symbols representing sub-quality, poorly produced products and remnants of a failed era. As Buck-Morss explains, “if the dreamed-of potential for social transformation remains unrealized, it can teach future generations that history has betrayed them.” [6]

Iconoclastic practices were prevalent in the years following the coup of 1952 and many representations of the monarchy in films or photographic reproductions were destroyed or erased.

[1] See Max Weber’s concept of ‘Charismatic authority.’

[2] The concept of mass-utopia is introduced by Susan Buck Morss’s book as the belief that industrial modernization can bring about the good society.

[3] Osman, Tarek. Egypt on the Brink: from Nasser to Mubarak, 2010.

[4] Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworlds and Catastrophe, 2002.

[5] See Ala Younis’s project “Nefertiti” which exemplifies this era of Nasserist industrialization.

[6] Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworlds and Catastrophe, 2002.