A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Al-Haqq fawq al-Quwwa wa-al-Umma fawq al-Hukuma

The title of this post means, "The right is greater than might, and the Nation is greater than the government." It's a motto of Sa‘d Zaghloul, founder of the Wafd Party.

The Wafd, of course, is but a shadow of its former self. For too long it was the Mubarak "loyal opposition," with more emphasis on the "loyal" than on the opposition. More recently it has been torn by internal divisions. Now, we find a deputy chief of the party expressing holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the rest.  (Link was missing earlier; fixed now.)

All this from a once-great liberal party that always emphasized the role of Christians as well as Muslims in the Egyptian nation, but today is talking electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood.


On a related note, the old flag of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, which has been seen again in recent months and is itself associated with the Old Wafd, is now available on mugs and T-shirts at this site.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A question.

Didn't the Wafd degenerate during the British occupation into a convenient tool of the occupier?

Michael Collins Dunn said...

In the 1940s, yes.