Captain Ghazali:

Simsimiya stories

Ghazali was born in November 1928 to an Upper Egyptian family living in Suez, but devoted to the traditions of its ancestors. His parents travelled to Abnoud, in Upper Egypt, for his birth, so that their son could first see the light of day in the town of his forefathers. They returned to Suez with Ghazali, then 17 days old, in their arms. He grew up watching the immense ships ply the Canal and learning his first lesson about the geopolitical importance of Suez to international navigation -- and the price this importance extracted from the city's people.

"My father was a carpenter who worked in shipbuilding for the Suez Canal Company. He was known as a 'Sheikh Arab', an older man whose wisdom people respected, and whom they consulted for assistance in settling their disputes. We lived in the district of Sidi Abdallah Al-Gharib, one of the oldest in Suez, and the hub of activity for all the political parties -- Al-Ahrar, the Saadists, the Muslim Brothers and the Socialist Party. The largest party was the Wafd. I grew up in an environment highly charged with nationalist feelings. The political parties held mass meetings to sensitise people to the evils of foreign occupation, to mobilise them in the struggle for independence and revolt against the British, who shared our wealth and our land, and impoverished our society. As for us, the people of Suez, our share in life was simply to toil. As this reality became clearer to me, I had only one course to take: to join the popular resistance movement against the British."

Ghazali distinguished himself in sports as a pupil at Al-Nahda primary school. He soon found a way to get the best coaching possible. He used to sneak into the British and Greek clubs and watch the training exercises in gymnastics and wrestling. He assimilated all he saw, and soon the club trainers noticed his eagerness and admitted him to their classes. He immediately taught his newly acquired sports skills to his friends in the alleys of Suez.

In 1948, he won the wrestling championship for the Suez Canal region, and came out third in nation-wide competitions. The same year, he was chosen as a member of the national team, and was admitted to the trainers' school. From 1952 to '67, Ghazali worked as a wrestling coach. His work in sports clubs brought him into close contact with foreigners, and he thus learned English, Greek and French.

Ghazali went to a technical secondary school, where he studied in the department of marine industries. He left school after his second year, however, because he had already become involved in the resistance movement. Not obtaining his diploma, however, did not create any difficulties in his career. Labour was in great demand in Suez until 1967. It was easy finding work in the city or on the boats. Ghazali was also fond of reading and was talented in drawing and calligraphy. Living in a more or less cosmopolitan city, he could attend concerts, too, and thus became familiar with Western music.

In 1947, he became involved in nationalist activity for the first time. The Palestinian-Jewish crisis had erupted, and there was talk of Egyptian military action in Palestine. Training camps established by the Muslim Brothers in Suez attracted scores of young people. Ghazali was only 19 when he joined the camp for a three-month training course.

"In 1948, I joined the feda'iyin. We were posted in difficult terrain, at a three-road intersection. Our task was to watch the roads and to notify the command of any vehicles passing. Each of us carried an old pistol and a knife. We stayed there for 20 days, until the Egyptian army replaced us and we were sent back home. But on that day, my devotion to the popular resistance and freedom fighting was ignited. I spent the next three years as a guerrilla fighter. Our target was the British camps, and we gave the British a very hard time, trying to force them to evacuate. The British called us thieves, because we were mainly interested in stealing their equipment and weapons. I remember once we stole all their boots from a camp in Geneifa."

Realising they would be unable to catch, let alone deter, the freedom fighters, the British attacked Kafr Ahmed Abduh in 1952. They demolished the houses and set about guarding the water pump at the Ismailiya Canal, which Ghazali and his companions had sabotaged to deprive them of water. "We were all in all about 90 young men drawn from the universities, the Muslim Brothers, other governorates, political parties and trade unions. We were divided into committees, so that some engaged in guerrilla attacks, others damaged enemy facilities."

With the nationalist goal accomplished, Ghazali devoted himself to his coaching career. During the '50s, he established the first club in Suez; despite its very modest resources, the club produced champions in various sports.

In 1967, he returned once more to the resistance. When the Gulf of Aqaba was closed on 15 May 1967, Ghazali knew that war was inevitable. "All the young men I had been training in various games came with me, and we put down our names as volunteers in the national resistance movement. After the defeat of 1967, we were the first to call for a popular guerrilla war. We refused to take the tragedy lying down."

The volunteers combed the country in search of weapons and created squads to cross the Canal in search of soldiers who had lost their way home, or of weapons left in the desert. They created armed squads to guard strategic positions in Suez, such as factories, refineries and houses.

During the displacement from the Canal Zone in September 1967, almost 4,000 civilians participated in the resistance effort. Ghazali was then one of the leaders of the resistance, in charge of organising operations in coordination with Egyptian intelligence and the Egyptian army. The Sinai Organisation was an offshoot of the popular resistance movement. The organisation commanded about 20 feda'iyin, who had been well trained by army officers and experts. Their task consisted in those missions which the military was not permitted to carry out. "Those feda'iyin," says Ghazali sadly, "were all my children. I personally trained them. Some of them died in action, and I have always felt that I trained them to meet this fate."

At the time, Ghazali was the commander of one of the most densely populated areas of the Suez region, including Port Tawfiq on the coast and the industrial area. He was at the head of a squad of 280 men, all volunteers. Half were responsible for monitoring the coast, for fear of enemy frogmen crossing over from the other bank, and the other half guarded buildings and facilities.

During the War of Attrition, resistance took a different turn. "After 1967, I established a musical troupe which I called Awlad Al-Ard. We basically played the simsimiya [a rudimentary harp-like instrument, and, by extension, the folklore of the Suez region], and simply replaced the old lyrics with lyrics which reflected new meanings and concepts relevant to the situation -- which expressed our feelings about the sacredness of the battle and the honour it is to die for one's country. We often went as far as the front line, and put on shows for the forces, playing the simsimiya to entertain them and to boost their morale."

Ghazali wrote the lyrics for the songs. His aim was "to communicate to all Egyptians a message of hope and reassurance, and to raise the morale of the forces. During leave, I usually travelled through the villages to sing the songs of Suez and tell the people that we were resisting."

Captain Ghazali likes to recall the beginnings of Awlad Al-Ard, which eventually became known throughout Egypt. "After 1967, it began as just an idea, but soon developed into something big. The commander of one of the units asked to see us. In addition to the simsimiya, our instruments consisted of tin cans, spoons and empty bottles to produce the various rhythms we sang to. The name of the troupe and its songs soon became popular and widely diffused. Today, there are troupes in different governorates which are linked to ours: one is the Friends of the Children of the Earth, another the Sons of the Children of the Earth, and there are even the Grandsons of Awlad Al-Ard!"

Captain Ghazali was disillusioned by the government's decision of 1971 to demobilise the popular resistance and retrieve their weapons. He is still disillusioned today, over 25 years later. He is 70, has six children and 10 grandchildren, and earns his living as a painter and calligrapher, but one feels the resistance movement ended only yesterday as far as he is concerned. He lives today on activities that were hobbies when he was an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture, from which he is now retired. But his fascination with politics and poetry has not abated. He still keeps a studio where intellectuals, writers and artists gather. And every October, "I spend the whole month going from one school to another, to remind the students of the unforgettable victory we won in October 1973."

photo: Saad Faggennour