A Memory Debate: The Controversial Case of the Lesseps Statue in Port Said

Abstract

This article presents the life trajectory of the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps in Port Said, as well as the controversies surrounding its possible return to the city. It attempts to shed light on how collective memory shapes the course of present events. The article does not elaborate on the life of Lesseps himself (and whether or not he deserved to have a statue erected in his honor at the entrance of the Canal), but shows, through the debates and controversies over the statue, the discrepancies between Port Said inhabitants’ perspectives on their colonial past. Some of them, bearing in mind the memory of colonization and especially of the tripartite aggression (1956 war), see it as a bygone era whose symbols should not be restored. For others, the photographs of the bygone city with its European features evoke a feeling of nostalgia for a time when Port-Said was the link between East and West, and where people from various nationalities lived. For those, reinstating the statue represents the hope of the return of tourism and the restoration of an era and its imaginary symbols. In this context, the statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps appears as a case of general commemoration, the reading and interpretation of which evolves continuously. It is also an example of how local collective memory is constructed, how it sometimes overlaps with national memory, but nevertheless has its own features. Manifestations of the past may still be very present in Port Said today, and this makes an even stronger case for a critical study of the colonial era and of the notion of local heritage, in Port Said in particular, and the cities around the Canal in general.