Embodiment of the Revolutionary Spirit: The Mustafa Kamil Mausoleum in Cairo

Abstract

In the aftermath of World War II Egyptian public life was tumultuous. Egypt’s liberal politics seemed to be going astray, causing concern to the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. The government’s failure to transform Egypt’s agrarian structure into a more egalitarian one weighed heavily on the shoulders of Egypt’s rural inhabitants. The workers and the urban middle class were faced with profound stasis in economic life. And above all, the failure to free Egypt from the yoke of British imperialism affected Egyptian society as a whole. Students, intellectuals, urban workers, peasants and the petit-bourgeoisie were all disillusioned by Egypt’s inability to secure its independence. Although these issues had been on the public agenda for more than half a century, the monarchic political order was incapable of solving them. These growing social, economic and political discontents culminated in the military coup of July 1952. Dubbed by its instigators as the July Revolution, it brought to a close a century and a half of dynastic rule by the family of Muhammad ‘Ali. The coup, which soon turned into a revolution orchestrated from above, was fueled by a powerful but vaguely defined Egyptian nationalism. Lacking any profound perception of their place in modern Egyptian history, the Free Officers, Egypt’s new rulers, invested much energy in compensating for that gap. Initially led by Muhammad Naguib (1952–1954) and later by Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser (1954–1970), the young and inexperienced officers attempted to place