Word: nasserism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Operation Spark. The political developments encouraged by Nasser coincided with momentous social changes taking place throughout the Arab world. A generation ago, Egypt did not even have free primary education; today there are more than 200,000 students in its universities. Twenty-five years ago the Arabian-American Oil Co. started a small school to teach Saudis to read and write well enough to take low-level clerical jobs in the company. Today Saudis with advanced degrees in economics and engineering have not only learned how to run their petroleum industry; as the West is finding to its discomfort, they...
Bungled Plots. T.E. Lawrence once remarked that the Arabs believe in people rather than institutions. To the extent that this is true, Egypt-and the rest of the Arab world as well-has suffered for the lack of a living hero since Nasser's death in 1970. Certainly, few Arabs at first noticed anything particularly charismatic about his successor...
Sadat first met Nasser in 1938, when both men were lieutenants in the army. At the time, Sadat was a hothead who schemed and dreamed about blowing up British installations; Nasser was the cooler one who dissuaded him from such wild plots. With others, the two soldiers formed the nucleus of what became the Free Officers' Committee, which eventually ousted King Farouk in 1952. For all his antimonarchical zeal, Sadat almost missed the coup. On the night that it was scheduled to take place, Sadat somehow failed to receive his tip-off message and spent the evening...
...Under Nasser, Sadat rose from director of army public relations to editor of the semiofficial Cairo newspaper al Gumhouriya to president of the National Assembly. Nasser valued his loyalty but sometimes called him the Bikbashi Sah (Colonel Yes-Yes) because of his excessive docility. "If he would only vary the way in which he agreed," Nasser was known to quip, "I would feel a lot better." But in the year before his own death, Nasser made Sadat his Vice President...
Sadat's first years as President were difficult ones. As a leader of his people, he was something of a comedown from Nasser. He had no single power base of his own. He clashed with some of his ministers and in 1971 summarily fired his powerful Vice President, Ali Sabry. Sadat also faced rising resentment from his officers over the presence of Soviet advisers. Moreover, as Arab frustration grew over the unresolved "no war, no peace" situation with Israel, Sadat had an unfortunate habit of promising action but never delivering. His "year of decision," 1971, passed uneventfully...