Remembering Nasser

By Mahmoud Murad

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Once again the anniversary of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's death -- this time the 35th -- passed almost unnoticed. Nasser was one of the towering figures of the 20th century and yet his memory appears to be drowning beneath the rhetoric and the vitriol of those who hate both Egypt and the pan-Arabism for which Nasser stood.

Nasser was a man of his times and by the standards of those times -- the 1950s and 1960s -- he was a visionary. Yet you can walk endlessly around many Arab and African capitals and you will not find a street named after this man whose life was spent fighting for the freedom of Arabs and Africans.

In the US, libraries are named after American presidents. There is an arts centre named after Georges Pompidou in Paris. Thousands of books have been written about Nasser, hundreds of audio and video tapes record his life and achievements and there are mountains of documents that exist from his presidency. Surely it makes sense for these to be gathered in a library.

There are many statues of public figures, including foreign ones, in our public squares but not one of Nasser, though there is no shortage of statues of him by local and foreign artists. Surely it is time to place one in a major location such as Tahrir Square?

Why not turn his house -- now neglected and abandoned -- into a museum? The house, surrounded by tall buildings and difficult to secure, cannot be used for government hospitality. I am told a museum commemorating the revolution is being planned. What better home could it have than the house in which Nasser lived and where he hosted world leaders and took decisions that changed the world?

This week's Soapbox speaker is Al-Ahram 's deputy editor-in-chief.