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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 September 1999 Issue No. 447 
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Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 September 1999 Issue No. 447
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| Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (303)
By the end of World War I Tanta would become known for something other than the city which housed the tomb of El-Sayed Ahmed El-Badawi. Its strategic position at the heart of the Delta and an increase in business opportunities would make Tanta a flourishing city which would compete with Cairo and Alexandria not just in industry but as a hotbed of political activism. The city's lively and often confrontational street rallies would inevitably lead to the events of 29 April 1921, when policemen and demonstrators fighting for Egyptian independence from Britain clashed, leaving several protestors dead. The fighting reflected the larger picture of the conflict being waged at the time between the Wafd, led by nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul and the government. From the pages of Al-Ahram,Dr Yunan Labib Rizq * traces the events that led up to the riot, the clash itself, the ensuing trial and its surprising outcome
illustration: Makram Henein
Death on the streets of Tanta
In April 1921, Tanta, capital of the Delta as some call it, became the scene of a deadly confrontation. On Friday, the 29th of that month, a mass rally was held in which demonstrators cheered "Long live Saad Zaghlul!" and "Down with the government and the government delegation!" The delegation in question was scheduled to travel to London to negotiate an end to the British protectorate over Egypt and the granting of Egyptian independence. The rally ended with a confrontation between the protesters and the police which claimed the lives of five demonstrators. Just over two years after the 1919 Revolution the country once again stood on the brink of violence.
Before turning to the day's events, it is important to take a look at the city of Tanta itself. Until perhaps the second half of the 19th century, the capital of the Delta was noted primarily for the tomb of El-Sayed Ahmed El-Badawi. This religious figure was and continues to be highly revered among the rural populace, making Tanta at the time of his yearly mawlid, or anniversary celebrations, the centre of a mass pilgrimage. The celebrated 19th century Egyptian historian, Abdel-Rahman El-Jabarti, in his well-known 'Aja'ib Al-Athar fi Al-Tarajim wal-Akhbar (The Wonders of Relics in Great Lives and Momentous Events) confirms this fact. In the entire four-volume work, the name Tanta arises only in connection with the famous tomb. In fact, the author laid particular emphasis on the revenues accrued from the offerings to the venerated holy man, offerings that often sparked disputes among the tomb custodians and between the custodians and the authorities in Cairo, whether Ottoman, Mameluke or even French at the time of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt (1798 to 1801).
However, from the latter half of the 19th century to the first two decades of the 20th century the identity of the city changed. Increasingly, El-Badawi's tomb would take a back seat in the social and economic life of the city as other factors assumed priority.
Tanta's rise to prominence was the product of a number of factors. It is located at the heart of the Delta and naturally became a major stop along the main Cairo-Alexandria railway, construction of which began in 1854. Activity in the Delta city increased dramatically with the construction of the Kafr Al-Zayyat Bridge in 1859, which shortened the duration of the train ride from the capital to the coast from 42 to seven hours. Also, during the 1850s, under the reign of Said Pasha, the home of El-Sayed El-Badawi became the junction of numerous railway stations: to Mehalla Ruh and Samanoud and on to Damietta, an important river port; to Mit Birra to serve the royal agricultural estates; and to Shebin Al-Kom to link the two major directorates of the Delta, Al-Gharbiya and Al-Menoufiya. This is not to mention the many railway lines constructed during the same period that would link Tanta to other rural capitals.
El-Sayed Ahmed El-Badawi Mosque
Lord Allenby
Sidqi Bek
In addition to being a railway hub, Tanta was also the capital of the largest directorate in northern Egypt. A provincial capital meant bureaucracy, which meant large numbers of civil servants, or effendis, as members of the educated urban elite from which civil servants were drawn were referred to at the time. The effendis brought to the rural capital their urban lifestyle, which was manifested in the construction of schools for their children, not to mention parks and entertainment spots for themselves.
Another major impetus for change in Tanta was the introduction of private land ownership under Khedive Ismail. This development would ensure that the capital of Al-Gharbiya would have its own considerable share of beks and pashas, the titles generally accorded to members of the burgeoning class of landholders of the time. Although they tended to reside in the large villas they constructed on their estates, many possessed townhouses in Tanta itself, from which they were better placed to oversee the disposal of their produce, to conduct other commercial and administrative affairs and, not least of all, to engage in the requisite social activities of persons of their status. They, too, would have sought to take advantage of the amusement and entertainment locales not available in their country estates.
The growing complexity of life in Tanta gave rise to new and varied social forces that could never have come into being had Tanta remained simply the city of El-Sayed El-Badawi. The merchant class, which had once primarily catered to the demands of religious pilgrims, diversified greatly. Although famed for its chickpeas and certain sweets associated with the mawlid, which never diminished perhaps even up to the present, the emergence of cash crops would inevitably alter the demographic composition of its mercantile sector. Cotton, in particular, became the "white gold" of the Egyptian countryside. Tanta, thus, became a hub of the cotton industry and became filled with cotton merchants and brokers. And the money generated by the yearly yields brought farmers and peasants to the city to purchase their clothing, jewelry and furniture. It was no coincidence that the wedding season in the countryside coincided with the cotton harvest and a flux in the demand for such products. Certainly, the growth of new economic forces and the concomitant growth in capital generated more industries and trade.
The diversification of life and the rising standards of living in Tanta would naturally prove attractive to the liberal professions. Doctors, educated in Cairo and abroad, opened clinics in the city, certain to profit from the declining reliance on traditional herbalists and physicians. Lawyers' offices naturally proliferated with the increase in the conflicting interests and disputes the growing capitalist relations would engender.
In education, teachers and professors at all levels were required to meet the educational demands of Tanta's growing cosmopolitan classes. Various forms of more secular education began to vie with the traditional religious education provided by Al-Ahmedi Mosque. Thus, in addition to the many schools founded by foreign missionaries, numerous community schools at the primary and secondary levels were built in the city. Needless to say, the proliferation of schools, particularly at higher educational levels, generated a rapidly growing student population which had its distinct needs, not to mention an urge for political involvement.
With commercial and professional diversification came religious plurality. Large numbers of Copts flocked into the large Muslim communities that were established around El-Sayed El-Badawi Mosque. A majority of these were of the effendi classes employed in certain government authorities such as the railway authority and in the financial departments of the directorate. The Muslim and Coptic communities would find common ground in their resentment of the British occupation and their growing patriotic fervour would eventually express itself in the 1919 Revolution.
It is clear then that by World War I all the components of mass political activism were present in the capital of the Delta. There were societies of lawyers which would steer the nationalist movement during the war and the revolution. Student groups were to fill the front ranks of the movement. Moreover, there was a thriving press that was highly instrumental in spreading national awareness. Al-Ahram had an agent in Tanta who dispatched news of the city to Al-Ahram headquarters in Cairo and who managed the distribution operations for the newspaper in Tanta.
In light of the above, it is not surprising that as early as 24 November 1910, Tanta secondary school students rallied along a platform to shout out their demands for a constitution as the train bearing the khedive passed through the station. The seeds for Tanta's involvement in the nationalist movement had germinated. By 1919 the capital of the Delta would vie with Cairo and Alexandria as the centre for political activism.
Before 29 April 1921, two other dates in Tanta's history deserve our attention. The first is 12 March 1919, immediately following the outbreak of the revolution, and 20 January 1920, at the time of the mass demonstrations against the Milner Commission.
On the first date, thousands of Tanta protesters swarmed the train station. Because of the strategic importance of the railway hub, the British had deployed a considerable military force to protect it. The confrontation between the British forces and the demonstrators resulted in 22 dead and more than 50 wounded, a larger toll than any similar incident at the height of the revolution. It is little wonder that historians refer to the incident as the Tanta Massacre.
The events of the second date began at 9.00 am. As they were taking a walk through the centre of the city, three British soldiers sparked a brawl with some of the locals. One soldier was wounded in the head. In response, the British forces that were stationed in the vicinity of Tanta mobilised and raided the area in which the fight took place. They targeted the area around Abdel-Aal Theatre, which was frequented by many of the city's youth. In the ensuing battle many were wounded. At the same time, a British imperial Indian unit chased fleeing demonstrators and opened fire on them, wounding several more people and killing three, including two children only 12 years old.
We turn now to the events of 29 April. Al-Ahram of 2 May 1921 relates the official version of what happened. It reads: "After Friday prayers in the Al-Ahmedi Mosque, students assembled in the mosque's courtyard and began to deliver speeches on the current situation. They then left the courtyard in a protest march in which many of the rabble and riffraff (which was the official jargon for people who participated in protest marches) joined. The police force that was brought in was unable to disperse the demonstrators. The force was small and unable to prevent the demonstrators from pelting them with stones and wrenching sticks and truncheons from them. The demonstrators continued their march until they reached the police station. There the police attempted to disperse them by spraying them with water from fire hoses. Not to be outdone, the demonstrators pelted the police with stones and wounded several policemen. The police commissioner appealed to the demonstrators to stop. When his appeal went unheeded, he ordered the police to open fire in the air to frighten them away. One policeman, however, fired into the crowds, wounding two. The angered protesters, whose numbers had increased, surrounded the police station. When this was reported to the directorate chief, he rushed to the scene with his deputy and several notables who attempted to placate the demonstrators but to no avail."
As the violence escalated, the directorate official took shelter in the police station. The demonstrators set fire to his car and then to the station itself. Once again the police were "forced" to open fire on the crowds which sustained their assault well into the late afternoon. "The situation continued in this manner until 8.00 pm when army forces from Cairo reached the city, dispersed the demonstrators and restored order."
Bahaaeddin, Al-Ahram's correspondent in Tanta, reported that three people died in the clashes. Undoubtedly, he was quoting official sources, for secret British documents contain a letter from British High Commissioner Lord Allenby to his superiors in London informing them that five had died and that many had been taken to hospital in serious condition.
Unlike the clashes of 1919, both sides in this confrontation were Egyptian. British forces had not intervened in any manner. Moreover, the issue involved Egyptian parties: the Wafd led by Saad Zaghlul and the government headed by Prime Minister Adli Yakan.
Less than a week before this incident, the two leaders had traded allegations across the pages of Al-Ahram. The interview in which these allegations appeared was tantamount to an open declaration of war culminating in a lengthy period of barely suppressed tensions between the Wafd and the government. Simultaneously, it had come to light that Yakan had issued instructions to government employees forbidding them to participate in celebrations marking Zaghlul's homecoming after a two-year absence. Such activities "do not conform with the duties incumbent upon them as members of a public institution," he contended, adding that the right to ban their involvement "is a right that cannot be denied any government otherwise all order would be disrupted and chaos would prevail." The prime minister also issued an edict banning demonstrations on the pretext that "perpetual demonstrations are abnormal to the life of all countries. People have daily affairs to conduct. Public thoroughfares were created to facilitate the conduct of these affairs, not to pave a way upon which demonstrators can shout their slogans. In addition, the police who are charged with the maintenance of public order have too many duties of greater importance than to observe these demonstrations which have begun to become routine."
In spite of these measures, the Yakan government did all in its power, following the Tanta demonstrations, not to lose public support to Zaghlul. As a result, it undertook actions that would have been inconceivable on the part of the authorities during the previous clashes between Egyptian protesters and British occupation forces. On the day after the incident, the minister of interior went in person to Tanta and visited the hospital in which the wounded were being treated. Al-Ahram reports on this occasion: "His Excellency expressed his utmost grief that matters had escalated to this tragic level and he conveyed his sympathies to those ill-fated victims whose misfortune landed them in such an abyss. The minister also donated money from his own pocket to assist many of the poor among the wounded. Afterwards, His Excellency went to the government building where he met with the family of the dead and seriously wounded, consoled them with his customary compassion, offered them assistance from his personal funds and promised them that the government would bring to account all those responsible, no matter how high their station."
The minister of interior's apparent attempt to soften the reaction against the government failed to have its desired effect. Zaghlul was not about to let the government escape the consequences of its actions so easily. He vehemently protested "the intervention of the police in the peaceful demonstrations that took place in Tanta and the opening of fire on innocent civilians leading to immense bloodshed and untold numbers of wounded. What adds to my distress at this tragic affair is that it took place in order to prevent a demonstration in support of me."
At the same time, citizens' petitions of protest flooded the Yakan government. One that appeared in Al-Ahram was signed by more than 30 lawyers who expressed their "profound sorrow at the events that took place in Tanta and the tragic shedding of innocent blood. We share the sentiments of our fellow citizens of Tanta concerning this painful incident."
The government was also shaken the following day when the entire city came out to attend the funerals of those killed. As Al-Ahram relates, "All commercial establishments and coffeehouses closed for the day and every home and building displayed a flag in a sign of mourning. Religious officials, rural notables, noted intellectuals, students and senior local officials -- among whom were the chief of Al-Gharbiya directorate, the chief of Al-Menoufiya directorate and the commissioner of police -- walked in the procession to the sounds of a funeral march. When the bodies of the deceased were laid to rest, several speakers delivered moving speeches of homage. Then the people returned to the city in processions shouting slogans supporting freedom of the nation and their leaders."
In view of this expression of popular anger, the government was forced to provide the public with a scapegoat. The choice fell on the police commissioner of Al-Gharbiya who was brought to summary military trial. The government acted quickly. On 5 May 1921, the government issued a decree ordering "the suspension of the commissioner of police of Al-Gharbiya so that he may be brought before a supreme military tribunal for prosecution on charges brought against him by the public prosecutor."
The decree was based on a report, submitted by public prosecutor Mustafa Fathi, which said, "The police commissioner, Mahmoud Sidqi Bek, did not use the wisdom or foresight commensurate with his post as chief of police in handling the incident. He should not, under any circumstances, have sought recourse to force, even firing in the air. He should not have issued orders in circumstances that demanded considerable caution and, above all, should have recalled that he is a military officer at the head of armed troops and that he should have issued his orders in customary military fashion. Had he done so, the event would have passed peacefully."
The haste with which the report was drawn up and the fact that it was read publicly at a meeting of all government ministers underscores the political objective of the trial. Moreover, in its desperation to cast itself in a more favourable light, the government broadcast every step it was taking as the trial approached. During the brief investigative period, for example, Al-Ahram wrote, "The government has announced that the testimony of prosecution and defence witnesses in the Tanta case shall be heard in Alexandria on Wednesday, 18 May. The witnesses have been notified of this date."
The investigations lasted a little over a month. On 22 June, the Supreme Military Tribunal held its first session in the trial of Sidqi Bek. In his opening address, the public prosecutor appealed to the "representatives of the press and newspaper correspondents" to "transcribe faithfully and in full the entire hearings and not to choose for yourselves what should be recorded and what might be omitted." Clearly, the government was so concerned about its image in this trial that it hoped to take the fewest risks possible. Perhaps in a bid to drive the point home, the public prosecutor continued, "The purpose of this is to enable every individual in the nation who reads the newspapers or listens as they are being read, to feel that he is present in these hearings with us, lacking only a view of the people involved. Yes, martial law has permitted us to prevent the publication of the procedures and investigations until the end of the trial. However, I did not wish to take advantage of that. The conduct of our sessions here shall be open because there is nothing to hide. I, therefore, thought it appropriate to allow the public to bear testimony to this."
Certainly the defence was fully aware of the government's objectives. In the opening session, the police commissioner's lawyers asked for the names of the members of the Wafd Central Committee in Tanta. When the chief magistrate asked for the reason behind the request, the lawyer answered, "This case is political and rooted in politics. Some of the witnesses are members of that committee and back Saad Zaghlul's assertion that the police beat people who were shouting his name."
The trial of Sidqi Bek lasted for more than a month, during which Al-Ahram assiduously covered the details. The prosecution brought more than 20 witnesses to the stand. Most appeared to be citizens of good standing: Ismail Fahmi, a pharmacist, Mustafa Effendi El-Naklawi, the secondary school inspector, Mohamed El-Damardash, an employee in the Mustafa Badawi stores in Tanta, Hafez Mursi, a fruit merchant and Mohamed Zahran, a hotel employee. The major thrust of the prosecution's questioning of the witnesses was to determine the nature of the orders issued by the police commissioner during the clash with the demonstrators. Some witnesses testified that Sidqi became extremely agitated when he learned that demonstrators had marched to his house, thrown stones at it and alarmed his family. At this point, they stated, Sidqi issued the order to "shoot straight ahead," the order that caused the deaths.
The defence called no more than six witnesses to refute the prosecution's testimony. All of them testified that the police commissioner had ordered his soldiers to fire in the air and that the deaths and injuries that occurred were purely accidental.
On 13 July, the court issued its ruling. In the presence of members of the press, the chief magistrate declared Sidqi innocent of the charges brought against him. "His sword was handed back to him and the court declared that his suspension from duty had ended." The curtain had been drawn on the trial but only after the anger had subsided and the court had performed the role the government had expected of it.
* The author is a professor of history
and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
