28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
Issue No.514
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001 Issue No.514 |
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Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (370)
The remaking of Suez
Several factors helped put Suez, a city of modest means at the start of the 19th century, firmly on the map. It was strategically located; it was a staging post for pilgrims visiting Mecca; Mohamed Ali used it as a base from where to suppress the Wahabi uprising in the Hijaz; petroleum was discovered there; and the Suez Canal ushered in a new era of commercial navigation. But years of neglect by British occupation forces brought the port to near economic ruin. Enter The Society for the Advancement of Suez, founded by its residents to call the attention of the authorities and newspapers -- including Al-Ahram -- to its plight and find ways of breathing life back into it. Dr Yunan Labib Rizk* traces its growth
On Saturday, 4 April 1925, Al-Ahram announced to its readers in Suez that a delegation from the Society for the Advancement of Suez "met with government officials to present several demands for the improvement of their city" and that the officials "appeared ready to respond favourably."
A ship being loaded at Suez harbour
photos: Al-AhramThis news ushered in a new phase in the history of the ancient port city, at the time run down and neglected compared to the other ports that had opened with the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869. Such was the attention given to the maintenance and development of Port Said and Ismailia, the headquarters of the Suez Canal Authority, that Suez almost seemed an afterthought whereas, in fact, it predated its northern sisters by hundreds of years.
In his encyclopedic Al-Khitat Al-Tawfiqiya, Ali Mubarak could not fix a precise date for the founding of Suez, but he said, "The city of Al-Qulzum turned to ruins and in its place what is known as Suez emerged. However, we have been unable to set a date for the renovation of the city, when it was called Suez or the reason for choosing this name." No such ambiguity surrounded the origins of Port Said and Ismailia, which have very clear birth certificates, down to the day and month.
Discussing life in Suez at the beginning of the 19th century, Ali Mubarak writes that it was "a small town inhabited by a small number of people from the Hijaz, Al-Tor and Egypt, although Bedouin flock to the city in the pilgrimage season to sell their wares, then return to their homes due to the lack of potable water in the village." Elsewhere he describes it as an extremely poor place with very rudimentary buildings, "most of which are only one storey high, crudely built of rubble and clustered haphazardly along narrow, twisting alleyways."
Nevertheless, the famous late 19th century Egyptian historian readily admitted to the historical importance of the port, strategically located at the tip of the gulf bearing its name. During the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 the British fleet laid siege to the port in order to thwart French plans to revive the old route to the Orient that passed through Egypt. The contemporary historian Sheikh Abdel-Rahman El-Jabarti refers to the assault on several occasions in his writings, relating in one instance that "two British ships (although some reports say four) headed for Al-Qulzum, took up positions in front of Suez and opened fire, causing the inhabitants of Suez to flee to Cairo where they reported this incident."
A little over a decade later, the desolate port received a new lease on life, this time as the staging post for Mohamed Ali's campaign to suppress the Wahabi uprising in the Hijaz. We return to Ali Mubarak who observes that at the time Suez was "a simple village without the facilities or materials to build a single boat." He continues, "But the determination of Mohamed Ali Pasha did not wane. Quite the contrary, he gave orders to Alexandria to send wood and all the necessary materials to build 15 ships. The shipment was forthcoming and the materials were stored in Boulaq in Cairo where it was prepared for assembly and then transported by camel to Suez where the ships were assembled." Apparently, too, Mohamed Ali had bigger plans for Suez for Al-Jabarti writes that the founder of modern Egypt had the various building materials sent to Suez "for the purpose of constructing a palace for his personal use when he visited."
The stability and prosperity that emerged with the growth of the modern state enticed the British to avail themselves once more of the land route between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, over which they would transport their goods by camel from Suez to Cairo and from Cairo to Alexandria by Nile barge. To facilitate and encourage commercial transit, from which the Egyptian government gained considerable revenues in transport tariffs, Abbas I (1848-1854) had the road between the ancient port and Cairo paved. However, a bigger step in the history of Suez was taken during the reign of Said Pasha (1854-1863), who had a railway constructed to link the port with Cairo, with the resultant "increase in the numbers of commercial vessels docking in the port and growth in the numbers of visitors and inhabitants."
The construction of the Suez Canal ushered in a new era of commercial navigation and strategic importance for Egypt in general and Suez in particular. Along with the influx of ships and the growth of commercial activity, for the first time a permanent supply of much needed fresh water was made available through the construction of an extension to the Ismailia Canal, making it possible, as Ali Mubarak relates, "to turn the arid land into lush fecundity and to plant splendid gardens and parks along the canal and to cultivate wheat, barley, clover and every sort of vegetable." Suez also became a major coal depot where all ships in transit would refuel, "whether travelling up or down the canal."
How different Suez had become by the 1870s, only a few years after the canal opened. Mubarak observes, "Its urban area has expanded to cover more than 200,000 square metres, new buildings have cropped up everywhere, its stores are filled with Egyptian and foreign products and its marketplace has everything one finds in the major cities, from coffeehouses and pubs to hotels. The city also has a governorate bureau, a police station, a hospital and a religious court."
If Suez had always served as a staging post for Egyptian pilgrims to Mecca, its importance in this respect vastly increased following the opening of the Suez Canal, to the extent that it virtually eclipsed the old land route across the Sinai and down the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, or the "pilgrims path" as it was called. But alongside the rise in the traditional importance of the port, it acquired modern economic significance with the discovery of petroleum in the nearby Jabal Al-Zeit.
Although exploration for oil began in this area in 1886, it only became commercially viable a quarter of a century later, in 1910. According to a contemporary authority, Jabal Al-Zeit produced lighting oil, fuel oil and various gases. In the first phase of exploration, geologists discovered ancient excavations indicating that the Pharaohs had exploited this site to extract tar which they used not only in mummification but to treat mange and for various domestic crafts. The authority added, "But the substance cannot be used for lighting in its natural form; rather, it must be refined in order to separate its component parts."
With the growing importance of Suez in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is hardly surprising that its population should follow a similar curve, climbing from 1,500 in 1833 to 13,498 in 1868 and to 30,966 in 1917. Nor was it odd that a group of citizens from the port city should come together to form the Society for the Advancement of Suez and that this society should be the focus of attention of the newspapers in the capital, including Al-Ahram.
Ali Mubarak
Abdel-Rahman El-Jabarti
The society, as we have seen, was formed to draw the attention of the authorities in Cairo to the years of neglect that the historic port passed through, a period for which it held the British occupation authorities largely responsible. Suez was the first of the canal ports to fall into the hands of the invading British forces, an act which took place with the complicity of the Khedive Tawfiq. The Egyptian ruler, having appealed for British assistance to quell the Orabi rebellion, authorised the commander of the British navy to secure a base on any spot of the canal. The commander readily obliged, occupying Suez on 1 August 1882, after most of the inhabitants had fled. The following day he announced to the governor of Suez that he had seized the city in compliance with the wishes of the khedive.
According to an article written by Al-Ahram's special correspondent in Suez on 20 May 1925, the society's claims were not without cause. Under the headline "Suez then and now," he wrote that before the British occupation a fleet of 30 warships had been stationed at the port, not to mention "cargo ships bearing all types of goods to be unloaded in the port and transported by train to the interior of Egypt, while the freight destined for Europe was dispatched to Alexandria for transshipment." In addition, every year the city received about 50,000 pilgrims as well as throngs of tourists. However, colonial policy, he writes, put an end to those booming businesses. "Most of the ships fell into disrepair and the remains were sold off to a British company, while Port Sudan went into operation with Egyptian money and Sudanese merchants compelled British ships to sail directly to their port. Then the World War drove away what remained of the pilgrimage traffic."
The Al-Ahram correspondent went on to mention that because of the British attack on the port city, it was in desperate need of refurbishment, and, as though to spur the Ziwar government into action, he added that although Suez had begun to receive some aid under the "People's Government" of Saad Zaghlul, Ziwar's predecessor, the people of Suez felt that their city was "not on this government's reform agenda."
To promote the interests of the city, the correspondent relayed several proposals that were being contemplated in Suez for reviving the city. One was to create a summer resort in Suez "because its climate is unparalleled anywhere and needs only modern advertising methods to promote it." Among the special attractions that would make it an ideal resort were the nearby natural sulphur springs "of which there are hot, lukewarm and cool springs." In addition, there was "the scenic desert lying in the embrace of mountains, and which, if planted with the appropriate trees and if hotels and swimming pools were built there, would attract wealthy entrepreneurs who would transform Suez into a resort rivalling the finest in Europe."
And if prospective investors had any fears with regard to the safety and stability of the city, the writer laid those to rest as well for, he points out, the city is so tranquil that it needed no more than "a single police officer with the rank of sergeant and a force of 75 policemen, for it has never experienced unrest."
Nevertheless, he cautions that the revival of "the most important port after Alexandria, the key to the Orient and the link between us and the Eastern League," can never take place unless modern lines of communication are established between Cairo and Suez, including both an upgraded railroad and an automobile highway.
Shortly after the correspondent filed this report, Deputy Minister of Transport Mohamed Zaghlul Pasha accompanied the director of roads and bridges on "a journey by car from Heliopolis to Suez in order to inspect the road that traverses the eastern desert." Al-Ahram continues, "According to the information we received, the journey took five hours and the return four. In the course of their inspection, they discovered that the repair work that had been done on this road by the Municipality of Suez under the government of the former prime minister did more harm than good. In certain areas that have been repaved with gravel, cars are forced to veer off the road into the desert because the stones are too loose and sharp to drive on."
Having obtained the inspection report drafted by the deputy minister of transport, Al-Ahram decided to publish it, in view of the fact that "it contains a unique description of this road that one rarely comes across elsewhere." Zaghlul's report, which appears in Al-Ahram of 18 April 1925, opens with an account of the historical significance of the "Heliopolis-Suez Road." The sights he saw along the way testify to its antiquity. He writes, "On the mountain tops I could see several ancient fortresses, the position of which indicate that they were strongholds for the defence of Cairo. We decided to visit one of them and discovered that it was dilapidated and neglected because it is no longer serviceable."
As for the road itself, Zaghlul found it rugged but passable, "except in certain parts that have been eroded by floods." He adds, "A large portion has been macadamised, although the road itself needs to be levelled because the rises and dips are so close as to cause sudden surging sensations in the passengers stomachs."
The Society for the Advancement of Suez submitted a number of demands to the general director of the Railways Authority since, at the time, the Cairo-Suez railroad was the port city's primary lifeline. The demands, as summarised by Al-Ahram, included the construction of reinforced cement walls on both sides of the railway lines "starting from the railroad workers houses in Ezbet Charles, because in this populated area a wall would prevent many accidents." They also included paving Al-Nimsa market station with cobblestones, planting trees and gardens in the Suez stations, introducing electricity throughout Suez, "from the smallest store to the largest house," and in all the train stations, "which are still in the same condition they were last century." The introduction of electricity, the society pointed out, "would bring great economic advantage to the Railways Authority." The fifth demand was to reinstate the freight transport franchise between Suez and Alexandria "in order to encourage the unloading of transit freight in Suez instead of obliging it to pass through the canal."
A subsequent thank you letter from the society to the Railways Authority, published in Al-Ahram, indicates that the government agency had responded favourably to the society's demands and had already begun to refurbish Suez and Port Tawfiq stations and to supply them with electricity.
The society's efforts to light the city, however, encountered initial difficulty, but one that was quickly overcome. The franchise of the Suez Lighting Company had expired on 5 February 1925 and when it applied for a renewal for another 12 to 15 years, the government turned it down. It was decided, therefore, that the Suez municipality would assume control over the company, inclusive of its machinery and assets, estimated at LE60,000, a decision that was greeted with mixed reaction in Suez: relief because it was felt that the franchised company had overcharged its customers, and anxiety over the municipality's ability to run the company effectively.
Coming to the municipality's defence on this matter was Al-Ahram's special correspondent in Suez, who must certainly have been a native of the city in view of his evident familiarity with the conditions and the people there. He commented, "I have written extensively in Al-Ahram citing tangible evidence and irrefutable arguments in favour of the considerable benefit the city will gain from the municipality's assumption of control over the electricity plant. My view, thankfully, is consistent with the opinions of experts and, indeed, the government has implemented the purchase and has given the company a three-month deadline to prepare for the handover."
Even as the municipality was preparing to take over the Suez Lighting Company, a new governor took office in the city, and with the enthusiasm of all newcomers to office, "Governor Mahmoud Hassan Bek has begun to devote his utmost to the revitalisation and advancement of the port so that this city may resume its rightful place among the nation's ports and capitals."
One of the new governor's accomplishments was to obtain a permit for the Islamic Benevolence Society to hold a charity lottery six times a year, "which will render a great service to the poor and homeless in the city."
Meanwhile, the Society for the Advancement of Suez took up another issue to aid the cause of the city. Although the population of Suez had expanded enormously, the area of land under cultivation had remained static for decades. Simultaneously, it observed that along the old Cairo-Suez road that was currently under reconstruction there were "approximately half a million feddans of land suitable for the cultivation of fruits and trees for wood, and which can be irrigated in part by water from the Nile and by the flood waters from the mountains if some care is taken to regulate the flow." The society also suggested, "If we apportion the land into plots of 10 feddans each and lease them to poor farmers on easy terms, within less than five years this area will be a garden of opulence."
Also in the interests of promoting agriculture, the society proposed reviving the government's scheme of 1890 that was intended to "counter the loss of income from the naval fleet, merchant ships, coal distribution and pilgrims, leaving the city with few inhabitants apart from the assorted employees of government agencies and companies." This scheme entailed distributing plots of land located on the outskirts of the city free of charge and tax-exempt for a period of 10 years, during which time the beneficiaries would cultivate fruits and palm trees." At that time, too, the Ministry of Agriculture was in the process of founding agricultural cooperative societies.
King Fouad gave the people of Suez a much needed morale boost when he visited their city that year. The visit inspired, as Al-Ahram put it, "grievances most obediently presented to our noble king by 40,000 inhabitants of Suez. They fervently hoped their requests would receive the special attention of His Majesty on behalf of those families stung by the blight of poverty." One request suggested that the development of "the oasis of Suez" should take priority over that of the Siwa Oasis. Indeed, so emboldened was the Society for the Advancement of Suez by the king's visit that, in addition to its other demands, it asked for an extension of the electric tram line from Heliopolis to their city -- a request that was very difficult to meet.
* The author is a professor of history and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
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