24 - 30 January 2002
Issue No.570
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 January 2002 Issue No.570 |
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For national dignity
Some 50 years ago, civilians in Ismailia distinguished themselves by launching armed resistance against British occupation troops headquartered there. Amira Ibrahim listened to commandos' tales of bravery and honour
Among the cities of Suez Canal, Ismailia is famed as an operational stage for the commandos who launched a protracted armed resistance against the British occupation.
FAMILIAR IMAGES: (clockwise from top left) Fida'iyin (freedom fighters) in training; soldiers of the British occupation body-search civilians for concealed weapons; a resistance commander greets his men; the occupation soldiers' obtrusive presence; as a schoolboy, Abduh Mubada, 62, helped torch the occupation forces NAAFI stores in Ismailia; Hagg Saber, 72, provided fida'iyin with intelligence; while Mohamed Khalifa struck at occupation targets. Left: the 50-year old British wire-service caption, dated 18 February 1952, reads: "A British soldier stands guard over the wreckage of the War Department oil train which was blown up by terrorists at El Kap... 25 miles north of Ismailia"
On 9 October 1951, Egypt's Prime Minister El-Nahhas Pasha addressed parliament and announced the government's decision to abrogate its 1936 Treaty with the British government. A week later, parliament ratified the prime minister's decree. That same day, the people of Ismailia raided the British NAAFI's supply stores and set them ablaze to cut supplies to the occupying forces in the canal zone. The incident marked the beginning of a new phase of national resistance against the occupying troops in which the people of the canal cities took up arms to become fida'iyin or commandos. Men, women and even teenagers took part in night raids against the British military.
"We, the residents of Ismailia, had borne the brunt of oppression meted out by the British troops, whose command was based in our city," recalled Hagg Abduh Mubada, aged 62.
"City residents could not enter or leave the area without permission from the British army. The British even closed some parts of the city and prohibited Egyptians from going near those areas and from entering social clubs."
Mubada was a secondary school student when he joined his colleagues in a demonstration to celebrate the ratification of the government's decision to abrogate the accord.
"British soldiers stormed our houses at all hours of the day and night, claiming to be searching for commandos. Men were unable to protect their families while they were at work," he said describing the insecurity and humiliation felt by the people of the city.
On 16 October 1951 -- the day the people of Ismailia razed British stores -- workers of the railways and Coca Cola company, making their way to the city centre, joined the demonstrations to celebrate the event. "When we spotted the British flag hanging from the NAAFI's stores, some students rushed to tear it down and the crowds followed. The stores were set on fire and the Egyptian flag raised in place of the British."
In response, British troops sealed off the city's main districts -- known as the foreign district, the Arab district and Arayshiat-Masr district -- making movement among them virtually impossible.
"The British closed all schools in Ismailia, forcing the majority of students to move to other cities to obtain an education. I was one of those students," Mubada added.
But it was not only the residents of Ismailia who distinguished themselves in the acts of resistance that took place in the city. Dozens of university students, lawyers, doctors, engineers and journalists from across Egypt descended on the city to join the commandos.
Hagg Saber, 72, still enjoys a clear mind and a strong memory. When he was 14, he started work at the British base as a mechanic.
"In 1945, the British brought a number of German PoWs to work in the eastern desert. I have never forgotten the inhuman way they treated the prisoners. Then I began to notice that they were doing the same with our people. It made me hate everything British, even though I was paid very well to work for them."
In 1950, Saber began to work with the commandos, providing them with information about guarding systems and daily patrols that he obtained while working at the base.
"By day we entered the base as workers, by night we raided it, killing soldiers and disposing of their bodies in a nearby tunnel. In the morning, we would watch British soldiers search the tunnel for the bodies of their missing colleagues."
At first, all of the commandos were volunteers acting on their own and armed only with their courage. Later, army officers provided them with training and weapons.
"A group of army officers met with us each week to discuss plans and define targets. I still remember sergeant Abdel-Wahid who used to take new volunteers to the eastern bank of the canal for training," Saber said. He recalled the names of the Free Officers, who took part in the battles against British troops in Ismailia.
Saber has plenty of stories to tell about narrowly escaping death while running guns to supply his comrades-in-arms.
In 1951, Saber left the British base and obtained a job with the Egyptian government. More than 95,000 workers responded to calls to refuse to work for the British in the canal zone.
But Saber's days as a commando did not end there. As long as the commandos continued their raids, Saber was with them -- following the 1952 revolution and until British troops withdrew from the canal zone in 1956. When British, French and Israeli forces launched the 1956 Tripartite Aggression, Saber and his 12 brothers and sisters joined the armed resistance once more against the invaders.
"Commandos are steel!" Mohamed Mohamed Khalifa shouted, slapping his chest. Khalifa, 73, is well-known in Ismailia. On many evenings he takes a prominent seat at a small cafe, where he is shortly surrounded by dozens of young people who gather to hear his tales of bravery and honour.
"Under cover of the night, I was hiding among the trees near the main road waiting for the British commander's car," Khalifa recounted. "When the car drew close, I threw a bomb. The next morning, newspapers reported that the British commander for the Middle East, General Erskin, had been injured on his way to the British base in Ismailia," Khalifa told his attentive audience.
Following his father's death, Khalifa obtained a job at the British base in Ismailia to support his family. "It was in the late 1940s that I witnessed the murder of an Egyptian officer who used to help the commandos. A few days later, I tried to save a woman who was screaming for help as five English soldiers beat her husband and tried to abduct her."
It was those experiences that led Khalifa to join the commandos. "First, I worked with a Muslim Brotherhood group, but later I worked with other commandos."
In the raids on British patrols, the agile Khalifa used to climb the tall palm trees lining the road from which he would swoop down onto the approaching patrol car as his colleagues charged the vehicle from both sides of the road.
Khalifa says he devoted the best years of his life to fighting for his country, participating in the 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars.
Accompanying Khalifa wherever he goes are his black and white photos showing him as a commando, letters from army commanders affirming his heroism and clippings from the local and foreign press bearing his photo.
Khalifa, who married in his late fifties and has a son and a daughter, now takes pleasure in spending time with his family and instilling in them the values of national pride and dignity. "When there is no one ready to listen to my stories, I take my children out to the canal banks where I can freely
The players
After years of fruitless negotiations to end the British occupation of Egypt, the national movement turned to armed resistance as the only remaining alternative to achieve independence.Political historian Tareq El-Bishri wrote that the movement was disappointed over the failure of the Saadi Party leaders' negotiations of 1946 to fulfill their goals.
The 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in which the Egyptian troops dispatched to Palestine to attack the nascent Israeli state were defeated, also added to the discontent within Egypt, pushing the movement to militancy.
Two main groups were qualified to carry out the movement's plans at the time: the Muslim Brotherhood, which had participated with volunteer armed battalions in the 1948 war, and the army, despite its poor performance in that war.
In late 1948, when Prime Minister Mahmoud El-Nuqrashi was assassinated by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the opposition group was dissolved and its members arrested.
Meanwhile, a group of young army officers -- the Free Officers -- had been drawn together in the 1940s to form their own underground movement with a view to taking over the country.
In 1950, the Wafd was elected to power and the party's leader, Mustafa El-Nahhas, assumed the post of prime minister. He pursued a strong anti-British line, abrogating the 19336 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and giving limited backing to the Muslim Brotherhood and leftist guerrilla activity against British forces in the Canal Zone.
By 1951, all political parties and movements had rushed to form their own battalions of fida'iyin (commandos) to fight against the British troops. Military training centres were set up in the capital, as well as the cities and villages of the Suez Canal.
Al-Wafd Party formed two battalions, naming them after the two Wafdist leaders, El-Nahhas and journalist Saad Zaghloul Fouad. The Social Party formed its own troops of university students and called on non-party members to join the training camps established in desert areas. Training camps were set up at both the Fouad I University (Cairo University) and Al-Azhar University, supervised by Brotherhood members.
When the Egyptian government cancelled the 1936 Treaty, civilians in Ismailia began attacking British soldiers. Fouad, who took part in the armed fight, wrote in his book, "The Canal Battle," that the plan was to form an army of commandos to raid British military points, cut off their supplies and organise a boycott of their goods.
A Battalions Command Council was under Aziz El-Masri, a former army chief of staff, comprising army officers, lawyers, teachers, musicians and journalists. The council was financed through donations.
The commandos started by collecting information, attacking military camps and sabotaging military sites. Within a few months, however, the confrontation at the canal turned bloodier, and between 16 October and 3 December, 1951, close to 120 civilians had been killed and almost 440 others injured.
On 8 December, British forces raided the town of Kafr Abduh near the city of Suez, which they claimed sheltered commandos. More than 6,000 British soldiers assailed the town at night, using tanks and armoured vehicles. Egyptian police forces failed to defend the city, whose houses were bombed and destroyed. Responding to the people's anger, the Egyptian government issued a law to prevent Egyptians from cooperating with the British.
Soon after, the armed resistance at the canal received a serious blow. On 25 January, 1952, a fierce battle took place in Ismailia between around 6,000 British soldiers, armed with tanks and cannon, and nearly 800 Egyptian policemen, armed with rifles. More than 60 Egyptian policemen were killed and 200 others injured during the British raid, which lasted for 12 hours.
The next day, Cairo's buildings and main commercial establishments were set on fire, marking a new phase of the national struggle to obtain freedom.
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