Royal Fascist?

A youth of handsome features and imperial mien is Egypt's pimply-complexioned, sport-loving King Farouk. Aged only 18, His Majesty, who came to the throne in July, last week took the risky course of executing what amounted to a bloodless royal coup d'etat. By all odds the largest political party in Egypt is the Wafd, and its leader Premier El Nahas Pasha has often dramatically declaimed: "Egypt is the guardian of Oriental Democracy!" Last week Nahas Pasha emerged from the Royal Palace wailing: "I have been cast aside as Premier like an old shoe by the King! Those statesmen who have served Egypt best have all been discharged like servants. I will continue to struggle for this unhappy land of Egypt until the will of Allah be done!"

Before breaking with Nahas Pasha the King had proposed that his differences with the Premier, chiefly about matters of political patronage and spending of the Egyptian treasury's secret political funds (TIME, Jan. 3), should be arbitrated by a high tribunal to be composed of all living former Premiers, former speakers of the Egyptian Parliament and high legal officers. This royal offer Premier El Nahas, who has a huge majority in the present Parliament, refused, declaring: "Only Parliament is able to adjudicate this matter!"

Called by Farouk last week to form a new Cabinet was Egypt's leading wealthy political intrigant, Mohammed Mahmoud Pasha. His private army & political storm troops are the famed "Greenshirts." veterans of scores of street scuffles with the "Blueshirts," who are the private army of the Wafd. Outgoing Premier El Nahas not long ago ordered the Greenshirts dissolved, blaming them for an attack on his life; incoming Premier Mahmoud last week dissolved not only the El Nahas Blueshirts but all Egyptian "shirts"'--apparently thinking he and King Farouk could rely on the Army.

Today in Cairo modern gadgets like the telephone are still so interesting to the natives that an Egyptian Cabinet Minister will usually answer in person anyone who dares to ring his number. Very soon last week new Premier Mahmoud was garrulously chatting with British journalists who had simply rung him up from London.

"I admit I have no majority," said the Premier. "In due time there will be a general election, but meanwhile I intend with the aid of the Cabinet to maintain law, order and a strong government. I intend to increase the ridiculously small Egyptian Army from 11,000 to 50,000 troops, with mechanized equipment and reserves to back them. Our foreign policy is 'Friendship for all, and especially for Britain.' "

London considered this just so much Egyptian eyewash, for the reason that several of the ministers chosen by Premier Mahmoud for his Cabinet are notoriously pro-Italian. It was clear that months of pan-Islamic and pro-Fascist propaganda and intrigue in the Near East by agents of Benito Mussolini had sown in Cairo much of what the King was trying to reap this week. The British were not in the least relieved when Ali Maher Pasha, Chief Political Chamberlain of His Majesty, also told London papers by telephone that "there is not a word of truth" in the rumors that Egypt's new Cabinet is pro-Mussolini.

Well might Britain be uneasy, knowing Mohammed Mahmoud Pasha's traits. He was appealed to some time ago by the Egyptian Tourist Development Association along these lines: "The tourists dislike riots. As you are an Egyptian patriot, will you not keep your Greenshirts from rioting during the tourist season?" Mahmoud agreed. Since then Cairo's tourist season has been almost completely free of riots, but the new Premier's henchmen have redoubled their efforts in other ways. This patriotic restraint has not affected the Fascistic zealotry of the new Premier and his followers, best exemplified by some of their propaganda slogans:

"Despise with all your soul everything foreign, and be fanatical to the length of madness in your nationalism as an Egyptian!"

"Speak in Arabic only; don't answer anyone who talks to you in any language other than Arabic; and don't buy anything from a shopkeeper whose sign is not in Arabic."

"Buy from Egyptians only, wear Egyptian clothes, and eat Egyptian food--boycotting alcoholic drinks, foreign moving pictures and low places of amusement."

"Egypt fought Europe in the times of the Crusades, defeated her and captured European kings. Egypt threw British troops into the sea. Egypt's southern boundary extends as far as the equator. Egypt is the centre of the world, the Mother of Civilization, and the Cradle of all religions. Your motto must be: 'Allah, the Fatherland and the King!'"

This week royal decrees proroguing Parliament for a month were sent to be read in each house. The Senate quietly voted nonconfidence in the new Cabinet 83-10-4 but accepted the decree. In the Chamber, just as His Majesty's decree was about to be read by the Speaker, Dr. Ahmad Maher, irate ex-Premier El Nahas leaped up and tried to make a speech which began "In the name of the Fatherland. . . ." Tumult erupted, the police were called and the lights of the Chamber were extinguished, but the deputies, milling about in semidarkness, managed to keep the prorogation order from being read, voted nonconfidence 180-to-17. The police, ordered to eject the deputies by force, mutinously refused. Finally the deputies dispersed, marching out through lanes of police and most of them going to a nearby Wafd Club, where they were told by Nahas Pasha: "The Chamber has not been prorogued. It can still legislate."

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