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Early pan-Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy-making, 1946–54

Abou-El-Fadl, Reem

Authors



Abstract

Between 1952 and 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt's Free Officers Movement established the paradigmatic pan-Arabist revolution from above. Yet it has become something of a cliché to maintain that the Free Officers had no blueprint of action before seizing power and that they later instrumentalised pan-Arabism in their foreign policy, thinly veiling their actual commitments to Egyptian nationalism and imperialism. By contrast, this contribution underlines the impact of the British colonial context on the Free Officers' political formation and their early identification with pan-Arabism in turn. Drawing on pamphlets, speeches, media output and memoirs, it shows that the Free Officers developed a distinctive form of anticolonial nationalism that emphasised social justice and invoked overlapping Egyptian and Arab identities. Their aspirations for liberation thus entailed a connected foreign policy and nation building programme in which pan-Arabism was a prime – and early – component.

Citation

Abou-El-Fadl, R. (2015). Early pan-Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy-making, 1946–54. Nations and Nationalism, 21(2), 289-308. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12122

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Mar 24, 2015
Publication Date Apr 1, 2015
Deposit Date Jun 2, 2015
Journal Nations and Nationalism
Print ISSN 1354-5078
Electronic ISSN 1469-8129
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 21
Issue 2
Pages 289-308
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12122
Keywords Egypt, Nasser, pan-Arabism, foreign policy