****Gamal Abdel Nasser ( 15 January 1918
- 28 September 1970) was the second President of Egypt from 1954
until his death in 1970. He led the bloodless coup which toppled
the monarchy of King Farouk and heralded a new period of
modernization and socialist reform in Egypt together with a
profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism.
Nasser is seen as one of the
most important political figures in both modern Arab history and
Third World politics in the 20th century. Although he was
originally met with suspicion after putting the country´s new
president, Muhammad Naguib, under house arrest in 1954, he soon
gained immense popularity in Egypt and the Arab world when he
nationalized the Suez Canal from its British and French
stockholders two years later. The consequent British, French, and
Israeli invasion of and withdrawal from the canal zone installed
Nasser as the decisive victor in the eyes of his people. Meanwhile,
he had commenced work on the major projects of the Aswan High Dam
in Upper Egypt and the Helwan steelworks. Through his actions and
the charisma of his speeches, Nasser´s version of pan-Arabism, also
referred to as Nasserism, won a great following in the Arab world.
By 1958, he united his country with Syria, forming the short-lived
United Arab Republic (UAR). At the same time, he inspired
successful and unsuccessful revolutions in several Arab
countries.
This period of glory for
Nasser had eroded roughly as soon it came about and three years
after the founding of the union, Syria split from the UAR.
Afterward, he concentrated on pursuing increased socialist and
modernizing measures in Egypt which included the nationalization of
more companies, reforming the al-Azhar Mosque, providing housing
and universal health care, as well as other liberalization schemes.
His commanding position among the Arab leaders was also
re-established in the wake of Nasserist-led coups and revolutions
in Algeria, Iraq, Syria, and North Yemen. The latter dragged him
into war in North Yemen as he sent thousands of Egyptian troops to
defend the new anti-royalist government. Nasser´s status as "leader
of the Arabs" was severely tarnished as a result of the Israeli
victory over the Arab armies in the Six Day War of 1967, yet many
in the general Arab populace still viewed him as a symbol of their
dignity and freedom; when he declared his resignation soon after,
tens of thousands of Egyptians immediately protested, prompting him
to retract his decision. After 1967, Nasser commenced the War of
Attrition with Israel and his strategy of playing the world
superpowers — the US and the USSR — against each other
ceased as he developed closer relations with the latter.
On September 28, 1970,
Nasser died of a heart attack following the conclusion of an
emergency Arab League summit he organized to end the civil war
between Palestinian paramilitaries and the Jordanian Army. His
funeral procession in Cairo drew in five million mourners while
numerous others mourned throughout the Arab world. His mixed legacy
is debated until the present day. TIME magazine wrote that, despite
the mistakes and setbacks of his career, the elevation of dignity
and pride Nasser instilled in Egyptians and Arabs everywhere "may
have been enough to balance his flaws and
failures."