Νάσερ

by Jean Lacouture, Κώστας Θεοφάνους (Translator)

Πρόκειται για μια αυθεντικότατη βιογραφία του δημιουργού της σύγχρονης Αιγύπτου, ο οποίος κατόρθωσε να βγάλει τη χώρα του από την τροχιά της μόνιμης υπανάπτυξης και, παρά τις ποικίλες αντιδράσεις, να την απελευθερώσει από τις εξαρτήσεις στις οποίες την είχε υποβάλει η αποικιοκρατία του 19ου και του πρώτου μισού του 20ου αιώνα. Επίκαιρο είναι το βιβλίο και για έναν πρόσθετο λόγο: αποτελεί μία πλήρη αποτίμηση της δράσης ενός ηγέτη ο οποίος θέλησε να συσπειρώσει τον Αραβικό Κόσμο, πιστεύοντας πως μόνον έτσι θα μπορούσε να διασφαλιστεί η αξιοπρέπειά του.

Genres: Biography, Middle East, Politics, History

345 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 1968

About the author

Jean Lacouture is a journalist, historian and author. He is particularly famous for his biographies.y

Jean Lacouture began his career in journalism in 1950 in "Combat" as diplomatic redactor. He joined Le Monde in 1951. In 1953, he worked in Cairo for France Soir, before returning to Le Monde as director for the overseas services, and grand reporter (the highest title in French journalism) until 1975.

Politically engaged on the Left, Lacouture supported decolonisation, and Mitterrand from 1981. He worked for the Nouvel Observateur, and L'Histoire. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film about the Vietnam War entitled "In the Year of the Pig".

Lacouture was also director for publication at Seuil, one of the main French publishers, from 1961 to 1982, and professor at the IEP of Paris between 1969 and 1972.

He is mainly known to the public because of his biographies, including the lives of Ho Chi Minh, Nasser, Léon Blum, De Gaulle, François Mauriac, Pierre Mendès-France, Mitterrand, Montesquieu, Montaigne, Malraux, Germaine Tillion, Champollion, Rivière, Stendhal and Kennedy.

A dedicated music lover, Lacouture is also president of a society of devotees of Georges Bizet.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Egyptian revolution which threw out Farouk occurred at about the time I was born and Abdel Gamal Nasser was--like Khrushchev, De Gaulle, Adenauer, Tito, Nehru, Castro, Ben-Gurion and others--an apparent given during the period of the formation of my political consciousness. Although often, like Khrushchev and Castro, even De Gaulle, criticized in the domestic press, I tended to like him without clearly knowing why. Perhaps it was some sense that he, like most of my family, was a socialist, a progressive. Perhaps it was because he, like what I'd learned about America in school, was an anti-colonialist. In any case, I paid some attention to him and to Egypt while I was growing up, noting with satisfaction the founding of the U.A.R., the building of the Aswan High Dam, the saving of Abu Simbel, the beginning of an Egyptian space program and so forth. My knowledge of Egypt and Nasser was, however, shallow, mostly based on reports in the popular media. I knew more about dynastic Egypt than the modern U.A.R. (1958-71).

Now, with popular movements against post-colonial oligarchies arising all over Africa and the Middle East, I thought it would be good to redress my ignorance of the region by pulling out Lacouture's biography of Nasser, a book which had been gathering dust on the shelves since being purchased at a Park Ridge Public Library sale several years ago.

The author is a journalist who covered Egypt and had interviewed Nasser and many other Egyptians during the years (1952-70) when Nasser effectively ran the state. His personal observations run throughout the text's basic historical-biographical narrative. As he is French, the perspective is different than what I'm accustomed to. Many parallels are drawn to French history and to the person of De Gaulle in particular. The policies of the U.S.A. are treated at the same level as those of the U.K. and U.S.S.R. Personally, I find this non-Anglo-American perspective a refreshing corrective to the narrow-sightedness of so much written in English about other countries.

Having been engaged with the historical processes outlined, Lacouture does not stint on opinion and evaluation. He judges Nasser positively overall, while not minimzing the autocratic aspect of his rule. Unlike more recent presidents, Nasser was, to the chagrin of our C.I.A., personally impeccable, a man with no vices, no shameful scandals, no desire to set up a dynasty or amass wealth. He smoked, but not hashish and only a pack of cigarettes a day. He drank whiskey, but not often and only moderately. He was, by all accounts, happily married and in favor of the rights of women. He did, however, have a temper, enormous pride and a tendency to play to the masses by overstatement and exaggeration.

In the public realm in which he primarily dwelled, Nasser was, in the author's judgment, a relatively good autocrat. He was a secular modernist with a genuine concern for his nation. He not only participated in the peaceful overthrow of a corrupt monarchy, but, through land reform, abolished the remnants of feudalism in Egypt. Himself the son of a minor postal worker, he never identified with the elites or tried to ape them. Although trained in the military, he attempted (usually successfully) to keep the military establishment (and what became the P.L.O.) in check. He was not, despite some public pronouncements to the contrary, an inveterate enemy of the State of Israel. He was, through his friendship with Tito and involvement with the non-aligned movement, a moderating force in the Cold War.

All of these evaluatory remarks are, it is to be noted, those of the author, now my primary source for comment on the Nasser legacy. Clearly, I shall have to read more from other sources in order to get a realistic handle on Egypt, its history and prospects.

[yasser · Rating 3 out of 5]

الترجمة العربية من دار النهار طبعة ١٩٧١
سيرة حياة جمال عبد الناصر بقلم الصحفي الفرنسي جان لاكوتير

[Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read the book with only general overview knowledge of Middle East, therefore was disappointed that the book seemed to be written for someone that knew more about the subject. For example, I knew that Egypt became involved in the civil war in Yemen, but did not know how or why. The book did little to extend my knowledge of the events.