Misri & the Movement

Among the Misri Effendis, the long-suffering John Does of Egypt, there were some who framed the likeness of President Naguib in their mud homes by the Nile, or sought to touch his clothes as he passed by. There were others more concerned with the fact that loaves were smaller, sugar more costly and wages no higher than they were when the President came to power a year ago. When Naguib gave 853 lucky fellahin the deeds to some of the rich man's land, the new landowners were gleeful and gay for the photographers (who are always on hand for such moments). But they also wondered when they could move to their own land, how much the plots would cost, how they would like the new cooperative that would tell them what to plant, how to take their goods to market. "Mohammed Naguib is a good man," it was said in the villages. "He will give us everything soon." Others were still skeptical in a land whose squalor is among the world's deepest.

The Week. Last week Egypt celebrated the first anniversary of Naguib's "Blessed Movement" in fine, military style. For two hours, crisp recruits tramped down Cairo's tapestried streets, while helicopters scattered Naguib posters from above. Next day 4,000 Liberation Rally guerrillas snapped past beneath their death's-head emblem, and later chanted Allah Akhbar, Allah Akhbar. Then paratroops, Egypt's first, jumped into Heliopolis race track. "We have the means," cried Naguib, "to throw the British out of the Canal Zone any time we want." At 11:05 on Liberation night, the time the army moved last year against King Farouk, 101 guns boomed across the brooding Nile. Four hours later, a great crowd gathered with Naguib to hear the muezzin chant familiar verses from the Koran. Then, as the sun came up, they knelt in humility with their faces towards Mecca.

The Year. For the dedicated Ruling Twelve of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), for Naguib, its elder counselor and front man, for 35-year-old Lieut. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, its spark and driving power, it had been a good year. King Farouk, the monarchy, the political parties and the corruption had gone. Land reform was coming, confused but coming. Crops were good, and cotton exports were up one-third over last year. But the green young army officers of the RCC had no easy solution for Egypt's basic problem: overpopulation. Egypt's people, by doubling their number in the past 50 years, have made the narrow green belt along the Nile one of the most densely populated areas on earth. On the inflammable subject of the Suez Canal, the young officers have frequently sunk to old-style rabble-rousing, only to show a welcome moderation at crucial moments. Naguib and his fellow officers have also shown themselves devout Moslems without creating a theocratic state: Naguib astonished his Arab neighbors by sending greetings to the Egyptian Jews at Passover.

To celebrate their first anniversary, the Ruling Twelve invited 81 newspapermen from 49 countries. The visitors could see for themselves that the Blessed Movement had come a long way from the unmourned era of Farouk, but still had a long way to go.

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