Word: nasser
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...split over the summit was symbolic of everything wrong with so-called Arab unity. Four years ago, Nasser and Feisal took different sides in the war in Yemen, a microcosm of the far larger struggle between the Socialist and conservative forces in the Middle East. By early this year, Feisal was talking up the possibility of an "Islamic" summit meeting next March that would theoretically include all Moslems, but clearly had the aim of rallying anti-Nasser leaders into a single alliance. So far, Feisal has strong support from non-Arab but strongly Moslem Iran, as well as Tunisia...
...little over two years ago, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser convened the Arab world's first summit conference in Cairo, and managed to build a façade of "Arab Unity" against the common Israeli enemy. In a swirl of fellowship and flowing robes, Arab Kings and Presidents embraced as brothers, organized the Palestine Liberation Organization, set up a joint Arab military command, and created a committee to plan the diversion of Jordan River headwaters flowing into Israel's Sea of Galilee. The façade has been crumbling almost ever since, and last week with...
...Hours. The ritual has been going on for 32 years, making squat, swarthy Um Kalthoum, now a matron of 64, the most famous personality in the Arab world, better known than Nasser, especially among desert folk. When she appeared for the first time at Lebanon's Baalbek Festival last month, her followers came by the busload from points as distant as the Persian Gulf. Her two concerts in the 4,000-seat tent theater amid the Roman ruins were sold out months in advance, and scalpers got up to $250 for tickets. While she conducted the 20-piece orchestra...
...performance. At 15, she bought her first dress, later switched from religious to romantic songs, and instantly became a Pan-Arabic institution. King Farouk awarded her Egypt's highest civilian decoration, and she reciprocated by singing political songs, first, Farouk, May You Live Forever and later, for Nasser, Gamal and the Nile Are Creators of the Dam. When, in 1953, a black-bordered box in Egyptian newspapers reported that a hyperthyroid condition endangered her voice, no doctor in the Middle East dared to treat her for fear of damaging "Allah's treasure." At the invitation...
Eternal Shrine. Today, with an annual income of $130,000, Um Kalthoum is the wealthiest woman in the Middle East. For her two performances at Baalbek, she pocketed $28,000, or four times the yearly salary of Nasser. She lives in a villa on Cairo's Zamalik Island with her doctor husband, a prosperous venereal disease specialist. There are no signs that the "Star of the East" is fading. The Arabs think that with age her voice has become mellower, richer, more touching. As her followers in Egypt like to say: In the Middle East only two things never...