The Emergence of Egyptian Radio 12 3

Home , Abdel Hakim Amer, Abdel Halim Hafez, Radio Algeria, Saad Zaghloul, Salah Jahin, Sayed Darwish

2018

Issue

Edited by

Grammargal

The Voice of the Arabs

The Radio Station That Brought Down Colonialism

Abbas Metwalli

Contents

1. Introduction, by Ahmed Said 6 2. The Emergence of Egyptian Radio 12 3. The Founding of the Voice of the Arabs 18 4. Mohamed Fathi Al-Deeb 27 5. The Voice of the Arabs during Nasser’s Era 34 6. The Influence of the Arab parameter 37 7. The Call for Arab Nationalism 58 8. Arabic Broadcasts from Cairo 62 9. The June 1967 War 66 10. A Commentary by Ahmed Said 68 11. The Maligned Ahmed Said 73 12. Ahmed Said, by Sayed Al-Ghadhban 76 13. The 60th Anniversary, by Fahmy Omar 79 14. The Voice in the Eyes of Foreigners 81 15. Whose Voice 85 16. Nasser’s Rule & The role of Radio 91 17. Nasser’s Other Voice, by William S. Ellis 93 18. The Voice of the Arabs during Sadat’s Era 97 19. The Broadcasters’ Massacre of 1971 99 20. Mohamed Orouq 112 21. May 15,1971 in the Memory of Egyptians 117 22. The Voice of the Arabs, a school of Innovators 118 23. The Voice of the Arabs During Mubarak’s Era 140 24. The Voice During the Muslim Brotherhood Era 145 25. The Voice of the Arabs Female Stars 156 26. The Age of Radio Networks 161 27. The Voice of the Arabs Network 163 28. The Radio Syle of the Voice of the Arabs 166 29. Chiefs of the Voice of the Arabs 172 30. The Voice of the Arabs today 186 31. The Voice of the Arabs Media Battalion 190

Dedication

To Ahmed Said

my mentor, and godfather of successive generations of broadcasters

Cover Design

Ahmed Elsheikh

Introduction By Ahmed Said

(July, 2015)

On the Sixty-Second Anniversary of

The Voice of the Arabs

On Saturday, the fourth of July, 1953, at exactly 6:00 p.m., before sunset, a chorus went on the air from Cairo, singing:

“O Arab Glories,

Honorable masters in our country”

They promised a fresh beginning in the history of the Arab nations, calling for revolutions to liberate them from the 7

British and French colonization which looted their wealth and monopolized their bounties. Historians would later record—foes before friends—the enormity of the positive, enlightening, and revolutionary event that Cairo created in the 1950s and 1960s—that nascent radio station: the Voice of the Arabs.

Many Arab and non-Arab politicians and analysts have questioned the reasons for the rapid rise and fame of this nascent radio station, which made the command of the French-British aggression over Egypt in 1956 decide to bomb its relay stations in Abu Zaabal, northeast of Cairo. The aim of which, as pointed out in a joint British-French committee document, was to deprive Gamal Abdel Nasser of the support of the one hundred million Arabs who were mobilized by the Voice of the Arabs against Britain and France and against their common mission to strike and liquidate Nasser and eliminate his policies.

I believe that these Arab mobilizing days did not come out of mere statements sent across the air. The causes of media successes are many, including craftsmanship, dazzling performance, or exploitation of paradoxes, and the use of psychology, performing arts, and heeding to psychologists’ advice—from the methods of dealing negatively and positively with the knowledge and behavioral inventory of the recipients, to the latest legacies of preachers throughout the ages of mankind. But I—who had lived the Voice of the Arabs when it was just an idea suggested by Fathi Al-Deeb, the young captain who was charged with Arab affairs in the nascent Egyptian General Intelligence Agency in 1953— attribute the reasons for the rapid and distinctive success of the Voice of the Arabs, after God Almighty’s help, to three interconnected and almost overlapped reasons that seem one whole reason despite their multiplicity, as the cause for the success of any honest media outlet.

The first of these reasons is this: the specific national goals of the media—how noble, honorable, and popular—are based on the solid ground of any successful media building. There were three objectives of the Voice of the Arabs, according to the memorandum of Fathi al-Deeb. President Abdel Nasser added a fourth dimension on the day I met him.

The first is to raise the awareness of the Arab citizen of all conspiracies plotted against him. The second is a call for liberating the homeland from the colonizer and clarifying the objectives of the July 23 liberation revolution in this regard.

The third is to address the problems of the Arab world by analyzing and confronting all the wrong policies of the ruling Arab authorities, including the government of the revolution in Egypt, if it erred, and convincing the Arab citizen that this radio is a true embodiment and a sincere expression of his hopes, pains, and views. The fourth is a call for recovering the wealth of the Arab world—especially the oil—which should be, in Nasser’s conviction, a source of Arab strength rather than weakness, in the face of the ambitions and conspiracies of others.

The second reason for the excellence and success of the voice of the Arabs was the unlimited ceiling of freedom within the framework of the great national liberation goals politically, economically, and culturally, which were successively confirmed in various positions and crises with the Egyptian political leadership. The most prominent of which was the lack of participation of the Voice of the Arabs in supporting the decision of the Revolutionary Command Council, which triggered the crisis of what is known as the March 1954 crisis against Major General Mohammed Naguib.

The second was the establishment of Nasser’s rule that “the Voice of the Arabs should not be questioned about what it says, and only questioned about the results of what it says.” That was when he personally criticized the Voice of the Arabs campaign against annexing Jordan to the Baghdad Pact in 1955, in the presence of the British chief of staff General Timbler. This included the broadcasting of a statement about the Fatah commando operation in the spring of 1965, despite the existence at the time of strict presidential instructions barring all the Egyptian audio- visual and readable media from referring to Fatah, as a whole. This ban was due to the suspicion that most of its leaders—when it was established that year in Damascus— belonged to the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Perhaps the most assertive of the unlimited ceiling of freedom enjoyed by the Voice of the Arabs, was a speech delivered by Abdel Nasser himself in the National Assembly during a meeting held by the parliamentary committee on February 25, 1965. In his speech, he said, “Ahmed Said, for example, spoke during Ramadan about matters I didn’t approve of. I heard things I didn’t give my OK to. I wouldn’t tell him what to say and how. This would kill the Voice of the Arabs and deprive it of its value.”

The third reason for the success of the Voice of the Arabs in the 1950s and 1960s is attributed to its working young generation of men and women. The station began in 1953 with only two people, and then increased continuously, until they became sixty-five broadcasters and administrative employees when I left it in September 1967. They were charged with up to twenty-one hours of broadcast time a day, and were all competing faithfully and enthusiastically, believing in the principles of the revolutionary national liberation and the honor of belonging to the radio that called for them. They had in

their depths a noble and holy awareness that their words, or even the national songs they delivered over the air, may produce a martyr in the far reaches of the country. So they were careful to choose the right word and pick the right songs. As a result, their programs fulfilled what the country and the pace of its revolutions needed throughout the multiple battles of the struggle, over twenty years in the second half of the twentieth century.

These are the three overlapping reasons for the success of the Voice of the Arabs in the distant past. What about the reasons for a hoped-for success for the Voice of the Arabs as it reaches the age of sixty-two amid the hustle of images and colorful broadcasts to the Arab world transmitted today by hundreds of satellite TV channels.

The reasons are still the same: the goals, the ceiling of freedom, and the family of workers. I will start talking about the workers at the Voice of the Arabs today, as it is celebrating its sixty-second anniversary. They are, no doubt, more fortunate than we were in the ’50s of the last century—with their means of knowledge, which can deeply instill in them a strong faith in life with direct, common goals that connect them effortlessly to millions of audiences through the availability of today’s means of personal communication, relaying an awareness of the new patterns of colonialism.

As for the ceiling of freedom, the viewer of the events of the so-called Arab spring realizes the complete dissipation of this ceiling, especially after the modern means of communication offered each citizen his own radio, screen, and newspaper. Any attempt to block an opinion— however slanderous—or ban it—however false—would be a kind of naïveté and madness. This allows the Voice of the Arabs, and any honest media apparatus, to advance, excel, and overwhelm if called for liberal human thought and

decent collective interests. These objectives, as follows, remain the reasons for the desired success of the Voice of the Arabs:

 Making the recipients—in a manner similar to a constant media campaign—aware of the new methods of colonialism in depleting the Arab wealth and the creation of enmity among their peoples in order to rupture them and fragment their countries.  The sanctification and heeding of science, spreading the value of work and production and developing it as the basis of life, and ensuring the rapid access to the modern age, armed with the means of knowledge and economic and military strength.  The call for a stable activation of democratic practice under the slogan, “The rule of the people, by the people in the framework of one holy purpose”; i.e., the wealth of the people is for all the people.

On establishing the people’s rule, working on calling for these goals will immediately push the Arab masses to achieve unity of action and destiny, among all their countries, as an impenetrable barrier in the midst of global blocs that want us fragmented, meager, and living in conflicts and backwardness. I can almost hear from the revolutions of the Arab Spring—despite all its internal and external suffering—a herald promising an Arab future in which the rule is for the people, by the people, and for the welfare of the people.

The Emergence of Egyptian Radio

Egypt knew radio broadcasting in the second decade of the twentieth century, in the form of private or civil radio stations of a purely commercial nature. These stations bore the names of their owners, or the names of public figures. For example, there were Radio Sabo, Radio Farid, Radio Sayegh, Radio Princess Fawzia, and Radio Magazine. It is difficult to fully or exactly enumerate the numbers or names of these stations, because some of them would stop after a short period of time, while others would merge with other stations

However, the number of these stations, when the decision to cancel the private or civil stations was made, amounted to eleven stations, when the first state radio station came into being. Most of these stations were concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria and broadcast in Arabic, except for a few that broadcast in foreign languages. Most of the transmission was limited, covering only the parameter of the station, or only part of it. The owners of most of these stations were merchants who wished to advertise their goods, and their stations would go on the air for two to four hours a day, in one or two periods. The programs were mostly based on ads, songs, and entertainment. With the proliferation of these civil stations, the British authorities began to feel a little worried about them, especially that the nationalistic youth took advantage of some of these stations to attack existing governments. Thus, the possibility of the exploitation of these stations in political activities became real, in addition to the possibility of the infiltration of Nazi thought to some of them. At one point, wrangling and verbal confrontations between civil radios reached an intolerable extent.

On July 21, 1932, the Council of Ministers approved the establishment of the Egyptian government radio station. It authorized Marconi, the British wireless radio operator, to manage, operate, and maintain the radio station and prepare the programs and provide broadcasters. At 5:30 p.m. on May 31, 1934, Egypt’s first state radio station was launched, with the voice of Ahmed Salem, the first Egyptian announcer. His first words were as follows: “Alo . . . Alo . . . this is the radio of the Egyptian government.”

Cairo Radio

Ahmed Salem was one of seven who assumed the responsibility of the nascent radio station and established the foundations for its work: Mohammed Said Lotfy Pasha, Mohamed Fathy, Ali Khalil, Ahmed Kamal Sorour, Medhat Assem, and Afaf El Rashidi. Although Salem studied aeronautical engineering in England, he worked at the station for a short time. His distinctive voice and informative abilities allowed him to head the Arab section of the Egyptian radio station. Old recording machines at

the time did not preserve the heritage of Ahmed Salem, depriving contemporary generations any access to that heritage. He submitted his resignation after Talaat Harb offered him the opportunity to devote his time to establishing the Egypt Acting Company. He built a state-of- the-art studio in Egypt at the time, producing its first film, Wedad, starring Umm Kulthum.

The supervision of the radio contract between the Egyptian government and Marconi covered a period of ten years, that ended in 1944. The Council of Ministers approved the renewal of the contract for a further five-year term, ending in 1949. The administrative and technical aspects of the nascent radio station were assigned to the Ministry of Transportation, and then transferred to the Ministry of Social Affairs when it was established in 1939. On March 1947, the government decided to terminate the Marconi contract, thus opening the door to the stage of Egyptianizing the radio station and removing it from foreign supervision. The radio was already transferred from the British company by the end of May 1947.

In late July 1949, the first integrated broadcasting legislation was issued in Egypt, stating that: “The radio station is an independent body with a moral character, called the ‘Egyptian Radio.’ It belongs to the Council of Ministers and has a board of directors of thirteen members.” Thus, the process of Egyptianization began its rapid path, until the radio station became a purely Egyptian apparatus, away from any foreign domination. The Egyptianization period witnessed major events in the history of Egypt, foremost of which was the 1948 Palestine War and its profound impact on the radio in many aspects, the most important of which is as follows:

The radio has entered a new phase of its stages, serving the political objectives of the state completely, and

gradually moving away from the character it has maintained since its inception. The radio turned into a struggle stronghold, in order to achieve the steps of Egyptianization on the one hand, and the pursuit of political developments revolving on the national arena for the issues of independence and national liberation, on the other.

The Palestine War represented a new beginning for broadcasting in the world relations between Egypt and the outside world. The radio became the voice of Egypt directed to the outside world, rather its previous focus on serving foreign interests. There was an emergence of a generation of writers and thinkers dealing with the Palestinian issue on the radio in a new way. They focused their media discourse on “We do not face a state, but we face gangs, and that the guerrilla war between the Arabs and the Zionist entity is nothing but a killing between states and gangs.” When the Treaty of 1936 was abolished, on October 26, 1951, the Fedayeen struggle in the Canal area escalated. The radio worked to strengthen the national sentiment and set the bases of its policy in three goals:

 To be a true mirror of the national sentiment, which reflects the feelings of the nation.  To be a quixotic resource from which the citizen draws the direction that the nation must give its face to in its national jihad.  To offer the public a pure spiritual, artistic nourishment, supporting its strength, rather than diminishing it.

Soon after the Cairo fire broke out on January 26, 1952, the Egyptian government continued falling after short-lived periods until the July revolution. On Wednesday morning, July 23, 1952, the audience listened to the first statement

from Major General Mohammed Naguib Bey, commander- in-chief of the armed forces, carried by the voice of broadcaster Galal Muawad, announcing the army’s military movement aimed at restoring the constitutional life of the country and purging the army of corrupt elements. Major General Mohammed Naguib Bey went to the radio station on Thursday, July 24, 1952, accompanied by lieutenant colonel Anwar Sadat and others, and met with the radio representative Ali Khalil Bey before broadcasting his new statement.

Some change procedures took place in the Egyptian radio management. Abdel Hamid al-Hadidy was deputed as a general observer of the Arab programs. Al-Sayed Bedir returned to his radio job, after a three-month break, and the radio welcomed Mohamed Fathi after a long absence. He called for a general staff meeting and said: “Nothing, whether material or moral, should block our way to reform and upgrade programs, and make them worthy of the name of liberated Egypt.” On July 26, 1952, the radio broadcast the warning of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces directing King Farouk to abdicate and leave the country. When asked about the change, which would hit the radio after the events of July 23, 1952, the chairman of the radio station, Ibrahim Abdel Wahab Bey, said: “The radio will undertake its share of purging, reform, and stabilization.” He added about the radio projects under the new era: “There will be no verbal projects, and we must wait until we see actual practical projects.”

Thus, a page was turned in the history of radio under the national administration, which began in 1947 and continued until July 23, 1952. A whole new phase began, marked by expansion and program development on the one hand, and multiple administrative supervision on the other. Decree No. 270 of 1952, was issued on November 10, 1952, establishing a Ministry of National Guidance to

guide the nation’s members, directing them to raise their material and moral levels and strengthen their morale and sense of responsibility, and motivating them to cooperate and sacrifice and double their efforts to serve the nation. It also called for combating epidemics, agricultural pests, and harmful habits, and gave general guidelines about what make them good citizens. The law provided for the transfer of the Egyptian Broadcasting Authority from the Council of Ministers to the Ministry of National Guidance.

The Founding of

The Voice of The Arabs

After the revolution of 1952, there was a dire need to allocate a radio service that clearly reached the Arab countries. Indeed, on July 4, 1953, the Voice of the Arabs Radio began broadcasting for only half an hour. It reached an hour in October of the same year. It developed its transmission hours, and made great progress when this radio service took on a national character by focusing on the role that the Arab states should play in their emancipation effort. By focusing on large sections of Arab listeners, it was able to establish a radio station for the Algerian revolution, from its inception on November 1, 1954, until its independence in 1962.

Although the first chief of this young radio station was the great poet Saleh Gawdat, its real beginning was associated with the name of the great broadcaster Ahmed Said, who achieved an unprecedented success in the history of Arab radio stations and moved the Arab masses from the ocean to the Gulf with his self-coined enthusiastic media discourse at the time. That era has allowed this revolutionary enthusiastic tone, much like the classical acting school of exaggerated voice tonality and body movement performance, rather than the natural close-to- life acting school pervasive today.

The Voice of the Arabs adopted “Glories, O Arab Glories” as its slogan. It is a song written by Abdel Fattah Mustafa, composed by Ahmed Sedqy and sung by Karem Mahmoud:

Glories, O Arab Glories . . .

Dignified masters in our country. 19

Glories, O Arab Glories

The mountains carry the story of great heroes

Written by bloody swords in the sand

We’re proud of our ancestors

As well as proud of our children.

The following is the opening of the station’s transmission that was voiced by announcer Hosny Al Hadidi, who was a great broadcaster on Egyptian radio at the time of launching the Voice of the Arabs:

“This is the Voice of the Arabs . . . Your Arab spokesman . . . expressing your unity . . . coming to you from the pulsing heart of Arabism . . . from Cairo.’

Hosny Al Hadidi

Hosny Al Hadidi was one of the most famous newscasters on Egyptian radio in the late 1940s and 1950s. He was called the dynamo announcer with an ammunition voice. His voice on the radio was always coupled with important news. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts and was appointed to the radio in 1947. He became the Chief Broadcaster in 1949, only two years after his appointment. He was serious in his work, to the point of being severely rigorous with his disciple announcers, and even cruel to younger announcers if they committed any mistakes.

Hosny Al Hadidi was famous for seven traits that an announcer should have to be successful:

1. Sense of humor

2. Powerful personality

3. High degree of knowledge

4. Compliance with instructions

5. Strong nerves

6. Readiness to be deprived of special pleasures

7. Penchant for the microphone

He believed that reading the Holy Quran aloud was the easiest way to train the tongue with proper pronunciation. Besides reading the news, he was famous for his program “Around the Microphone.” In 1968, he prepared the play “The Death of Cleopatra” by Ahmed Shawki for the radio. He wrote the screenplay of “My Citizen Brother” film in 1970.

In support of its mission, the Voice of the Arabs has attracted competent personalities in all fields, including

Farouk Khorshid, Baha’a Taher, Haroun Hashim al-Rasheed, and Sayed Al-Ghadhban.

Farouq Khorshid Baha’a Taher

The most famous political programs in its history are “Lies Revealed by Truth” by Ahmed Said and Mohammed Arouq, “North Africa Our Country” by Mohamed Aboul Fattouh, “The Gulf and the Arab South” by Saad Ghazal, the famous “Eastern Nights” by Helmi al-Bolok, “Sunday Night” by Adel Galal, “The Open Encounter” and “Talk of Memories” by the Voice of the Arabs family, “Extremely Candid” by Wagdy al-Hakim, the first program to allow paradox opinions; “Evening Taxi” by Abdallah Qassem and Gamal al-Sanhoury, “Un-edited”, the first live call-in talk show I presented with radio colleague Amani Kamel; “Good Morning Arabs” and “Press Review” by Atef Kamel, “Songs I Like” by Kamel al-Bitar, “One plus One” by the Voice of the Arabs family, “Poems on Strings” and other programs which became landmarks linked to the creativity of the Voice of the Arabs’ male and female presenters.

The Voice of the Arabs was the first to send correspondents overseas to report back about the battles of the rebels in North Africa and the Gulf, most notably Amin Bassiouni and Salah Oweis. They played a strong role

in the national lyrical production which continues to this day, such as “Doaa Al Sharq,” “The Green Barrows,” “My Beloved Homeland,” and “The Algerian National Anthem.” One of the most popular soap operas presented by the Voice of the Arabs Radio is Naguib Mahfouz’s “A Man in Our House,” and Youssef Al-Sebae’s “Nadia” and “Life Is Just a Moment.”

Salah Oweiss

Announcer Rashad Adham was sent to Baghdad to cover the events on the Iraqi scene. On his return, he became one of the best variety program providers, especially with his program “Numbers,” which communicated by mail with listeners, who would choose a specific number to match it with the numbers of radio recorded tapes, whether they contained songs, drama, music, or religious material. Rashad Adham was also a full-fledge professional announcer whether behind the microphone on the air or as a presenter or news reader. Our generation learned a lot from him, especially his remarkable sense of timing on the air.

The Voice of the Arabs Radio achieved great success in Egypt and the Arab world and fought its first political battle only about a month and a half after going on the air. It 23

stood by the sultan of Morocco Mohammed V’s battle with the French government, which banished him from Morocco. The Voice of the Arabs launched a major media campaign and succeeded in lifting French protection of Morocco and the return of King Mohammed V, who in 1955 praised the role of the Voice of the Arabs and said to its mission members in Morocco: “The Voice of the Arabs from Cairo was a good omen for me in exile, promising that we will eventually win . . . The Voice of the Arabs, which stood by our people, called upon them to revolt until they rose up and gained freedom and independence.” King Hassan II of Morocco praised the Voice of the Arabs, saying: “No Arab would forget the great role played by the Voice of the Arabs Radio in the service of Arab issues. In Morocco, we owe it a great deal for standing with Morocco in the King Mohammed V ordeal.”

The Voice of the Arabs continued to keep pace with the march of the Arab nation and the ongoing media battles to achieve the goals of the Arab nation, and went from success to success. In fact, when buying a radio set, listeners in Morocco and the Arab Orient would ask sellers, particularly for the Voice of the Arabs Radio! In some countries, such as Algeria and Yemen, people were forbidden to listen to the Voice of the Arabs. Certain circles would listen in secret, and then listeners would circulate what they heard among their community. It became kind of normal to call these citizens in Algeria, Yemen, and the Gulf “the Voice of the Arabs.” Even well-known British writer Walton Wayne talked in his book about Abdel Nasser, “The Story of Dignity,” about the Bedouin in the desert who went to buy the “Ahmed Said Box,” meaning the Voice of the Arabs Radio, which he believed was the only radio that carried the truth.

The Voice of the Arabs had reached the peak of its success and its status had risen dramatically due to its media

handling of the triple aggression on Port Said and the Canal area. Although the aggression destroyed the relay stations of Abu Zaabal in Egypt in the autumn of 1956, the Voice of the Arabs was never interrupted. Everyone was stunned to hear its call carried by the voice of announcer Salah Aweys. On the same day the same call went on the air from Tunisia, Amman, Beirut, and Tripoli West, in a wonderful orchestra that reflected the unity of the real Arab nation. Thus, the Voice of the Arabs participated in all the battles of the Arab nation with a brilliant success, relying on a new style in radio discourse which was not known at the time. Most other radio stations, then relied on the classic solemn method of addressing the listener. As for the Voice of the Arabs, given its nationalistic nature, and the circumstances of the Arab nation at the time, it relied on the following:

 An exciting approach to raise awareness of the threats facing the public.  The production of new, quality national songs that address the topics of resistance and steadfastness and the importance of unity.  The production of cultural, artistic, and drama series that combine the Arab culture and the individuality of each region in a wonderful connection to the unified Arab culture. The Voice of the Arabs began to achieve unprecedented success through a communication that carried a timely message and a communicating content with the masses. It was supported by the fact that the entire region was in dire need for independence and freedom.  Finally, it relied on a distinguished group of broadcasters, who believed in the national goal of this radio and supported it with dedication and creativity.

Due to the great success of the Voice of the Arabs, its transmission jumped from half an hour in July 1953, to two hours a day in January 1954, until it reached seven hours in July of the same year, and twenty-one-and-a-half hours in 1990. After the ordeal of invading Kuwait in that year, the minister of information Safwat al-Sherif issued a decision to extend the Voice of the Arabs to twenty-four hours a day.

The Voice of the Arabs has recently developed considerably. It started with an enthusiastic media discourse that achieved success at that time. But media schools and theories have changed, and so societies and the media now rely on persuasion rather than excitement and enthusiasm. The Voice of the Arabs has accordingly based its media message on persuasion and objectivity. It followed the movement at home and presented the important Arab issues, embodying Arab hopes, analyzing, and keeping up with their sorrows and joys, explaining their different issues in the interest of the Arab nation and its reunification, especially the unity of word and political and theistic visions. These are the constant elements of the Voice of the Arabs, which were all indicated as valuable and important in its unique broadcast to the world. The Voice of the Arabs is the only radio station that addresses one whole nation, manifested in writings and many scientific theses about its role in Egypt and abroad.

No wonder visitors to Egypt frequently express their desire to visit the Voice of the Arabs, being one of the main media outlets. It was able to withstand and even compete with the other visual media due to the objectivity of its message and thanks to its reliance on a modern media discourse on the issues of life that are on the agenda of the Arab world. This has been manifested in the coverage of Arab events such as the Second Gulf War, the war on Iraq, and the Israeli aggression on the Lebanese town of Qana.

Technically speaking, the Voice of the Arabs enjoys a high- level media cadre who believe in its high-level national message and its national mission, and work hard to create many artistic forms. Let us not forget, for example, that the Voice of the Arabs was the first to present the extra-short One-Minute Program, and the first to introduce lyrical intros to radio dramas. It was also the first to engage listeners in a serious political dialogue in its various programs, such as “Dialogue with a Listener.” It was the first to arrange marriage ceremonies for Arab youth, and the first to provide a live broadcast that brings together people west and east of the Arab world. It was the first to present the heroes of Arab history and the heritage of the Arabs in its numerous series, and the first to discover Arab stars in different fields of art and literature.

The Voice of the Arabs, in its timely follow-up to the many Arab events, and because it believes in its national message and in rational media discourse, has won the praise of listeners for its excellent political service, objectivity as a great characteristic of its honesty, and keenness on national vision, making it the number one radio station in a referendum set up by the Media College in Egypt after the Iraqi War events. For the first time, an Arab radio station became a source of news quoted by various news agencies, through its coverage of Arab events and its correspondents around the Arab world.

The Voice of the Arabs is still unifying the Arab nation in a sophisticated media message that copes with the tremendous development in the field of media, and moved from the enthusiastic revolutionary discourse to the attractive rational and objective discourse.

Mohamed Fathi Al-Deeb

The Man Who Came Up with the Idea of Establishing

The Voice of the Arabs

(1923-2005)

Fathi al-Deeb was one of Nasser’s most prominent assistants in Arab affairs. He was one of the founders of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service in 1953. He was one of the eight chosen by Abdel Nasser under the leadership of Revolutionary Command Council member Zakaria Mohieddin to establish the intelligence agency. Abdel Nasser appointed Fathi al-Deeb as head of the Arab Affairs Department of the agency. He was entrusted with preparing a plan to liberate the Arab countries from colonialism. Fathi Al-Deeb was associated with most Arab revolutions and liberation movements, where he was the 28

actual engineer to link the Algerian revolution with Egypt, and through him leader Ahmed Ben Bella was introduced to President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

He managed the most difficult tasks that aided in the success of the Algerian revolution, where he took responsibility for supplying it with money and weapons, and remained up to date with the details that helped the revolution succeed. Al-Deeb played the same role in the revolutions of Yemen and Libya, and extended his activities in this field to the Levant, Syria, and Lebanon. He also played a key role in the success of Iraq’s revolt against the monarchy and Nuri al-Said. This led to the downfall of the Baghdad Pact, which the CIA was trying to establish in an effort to stem the influence of the Nasserite tide in the Arab region.

By a mandate from President Abdel Nasser, Fathi Al-Deeb studied the situation in the Arabian Gulf region. Through him a close relationship was established with the struggle of the Omani people against British colonialism, which sought to separate the capital of Muscat from Oman. The British endeavor failed thanks to the strong support from the July revolution in Egypt. Al-Deeb’s role was not limited to these tasks, but his activity was extended to supporting liberation movements in the Third World as one of the objectives of the Egyptian revolution. He was the link between the Iranian opposition movements against the Shah’s rule and helped in building this relationship which linked that opposition with Abdel Nasser with the blessing of Imam Khomeini, who led the revolution against the Shah in 1979. Al-Deeb revealed this role only a few years before his death. The late “special tasks” man also played a role in connecting the diasporic Arabs to the July Revolution, and introduced to the national movement in Panama, through the diasporic Arabs in Latin America, Egypt’s experience

and expertise in nationalizing the Suez Canal to follow in the control of the Panama Canal.

Al-Deeb undertook many tasks during the most complex phases of the Egyptian and Arab struggle. He served as Egypt’s ambassador to Switzerland in 1961, and his assignment by Nasser was linked to making the Egyptian embassy an advanced center and a gathering hub of Arab and international liberation movements. In 1964, he was charged with managing the General Secretariat of the Joint Presidential Council between Egypt and Iraq. He was awarded the Order of Merit from Syria in 1955, and in 1965, Gamal Abdul Nasser awarded him the second-class Order of the Republic. Then, in 1969, awarded him the first-class Order of the Republic. In 1970, he was charged with heading the General Secretariat of the unified political leadership between Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. This was a union project whose steps had begun but never completed due to Abdel Nasser’s death the same year. Despite all this, his greatest achievement remains that he was the one who came up with the Voice of the Arabs idea as a media tool for the July 1952 revolution in its battles against colonialism. When asked what made him think about establishing a radio station such as the Voice of Arabs, Al-Deeb said:

“Any revolution needs a media apparatus, and the radio was the only and perfect means at the time capable of delivering what we wanted to the masses everywhere. As is well known, the radio played a major role in World War II. I had in mind radio experiences in conflicts and world wars, especially those that have been used as a mobilization tool, shaping public awareness. When I was asked by Zakaria Mohieddin to prepare a plan, 30

the first thing that came to my mind was how to find a way to link the revolution in Egypt with the Arab masses everywhere. The idea of the radio came to being, and I remember that when Gamal Abdel Nasser discussed the plan with me, he stopped with me for a long time on the issue of radio. He talked about how it would work and the main lines in which it should follow. He referred me to Salah Salem, minister of national guidance, who was responsible for the radio. There was a long discussion between us about the methods and objectives, and the discussions later included some radio technicians. Salah Salem gave me the authority to do whatever was needed to complete this project. I would say, for history’s sake, that he did not intervene in anything about my communications to complete the move, or in my choice of announcers and technicians, or in the radio material that would be broadcast.”

As for Ahmed Said's choice to lead the nascent radio station, al-Deeb said:

Many people may not know that poet Saleh Gawdat was its first director, but the main objective of the radio was to choose a broadcaster with certain specifications that would fit the target. After reviewing a number of names, I stopped a lot at Ahmad’s name. I did not know him before. He worked in the 31

newsroom, and presented a successful field program in which he accompanied the Fedayeen in the Suez Canal area . . . I asked him to meet me, and through several sessions during which we discussed everything, I found him convinced and enthusiastic, and ready to carry out his role . . . Ahmed Said is distinguished by a powerful voice, and has the ability to express, and perform the message with enthusiasm. He asked me to have his colleague, Nadia Tawfiq, join him, for her competence in entertainment and music material. Mind you, that the Voice of the Arabs did not start as an independent radio station, but rather a half-hour program. The program started specifically on July 4, 1953, and continued its success day after day. I was surprised by the radio director, Major General Rahmani, appointing the poet Saleh Gawdat as the director of the Voice of the Arabs program. I tried to have the radio director, who was my professor at the military academy, reverse his decision on this matter, but he was adamant on his position. I had to raise the matter with Salah Salem, who issued a decision to relieve Saleh Gawdat of this position. The director of the radio, Major General Rahmani, considered this an interference in his work and submitted his resignation.

Back to the main story, I say that the needed announcer whom I looked for according to certain specifications was Ahmed Said. He was able to address

the masses in a stormy, revolutionary voice that stirred up their national feelings and raised their enthusiasm and qualified them for their role in the struggle. This was done successfully by Ahmed Said through his daily political commentary in the program. This commentary had a magical effect on the Arab masses. I had a discussion with him on a daily basis, and he was up to date with the latest events on the Arab political scene.

The colonial countries resorted to an attempt to intervene through their ambassadors, demanding President Gamal Abdel Nasser to intervene to stop the radio, and offered to provide all the assistance. I remember that the president used to say to me jokingly when I met him: “The Voice of the Arabs is a big inconvenience to me. Everybody is complaining about it. I think I will stop it. What do you think?” When I replied: “Yes sir, we stop it today,” he would smile and say: “If you do this, it will mark your end!” France was the most protesting country, and the French ambassador protested after the bombings in Morocco following the launch of the first political commentary on the radio after King Mohammed V’s exile.

France even threatened Egypt more than once, and it was only natural for the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956 to put the destruction of the radio as a main target, which has

already happened. I remember that I was in my office in the General Intelligence Directorate, which was assigned to us in the Council of Ministers building, when I received the news of the attack by the triple aggression warplanes on the Egyptian radio relay stations in the area of Abu Zaabal. The news was stunning, and the attack included the Voice of the Arabs radio. The strike was a retaliation. The shutdown of the Voice of the Arabs came as a shock to me. However, I remembered that we had bought a powerful mobile radio transmitter made in Italy for the Algerian Liberation Army. I called Ahmed Said to come and bring with him the studio’s special instruments. The device was transferred from the store to my office. The engineer was assigned to install the device and set it up to transmit on a radio wave connecting it to the Voice of the Arabs. Ahmed Said and his crew arrived to start the transmission test. He announced with his voice: “Here is the Voice of the Arabs.” The transmission from my intelligence office continued for two days, until it was returned to Abu Zaabal after repairing the equipment there.”

The Voice of the Arabs

During Abdel Nasser’s Era

The theme of Arab voice broadcasting during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s reign was the concept of Arab unity, revolutionary ideas, and anti-colonialism. The new government in Egypt exploited the possibilities of the radio and called for supporting the Arab militants and advocates of Arab nationalism, and fighting reaction. The Voice of the Arabs was the voice of the Mujahideen of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and was broadcasting encrypted messages to the Liberation Front of Algeria and the Palestinian resistance as well as the liberation fronts in Africa. It was also the media force in the revolution of Yemen and its support for the liberation movement in southern Yemen.

France tried to put this voice out by distributing among the Algerians free radios that did not pick up the Voice of the Arabs signal, to obscure and nullify the influence of the radio. The Voice of the Arabs radio, participated in the liberation and independence of the Arab Gulf states. Over the course of more than half a century in the midst of Arab events, its supporters called it the voice of the Arab fighters and the stronghold of Arabism and the defender of

Arab causes. In this Arab and international political and media context, the political leadership in Egypt, in May 1953, decided to direct a program the Arab masses in all parts of the Arab world. The radio was quick to implement this desire, and began to study its various engineering and technical capabilities. The study made in June 1953 came to the following conclusions:

1. The possibility of allocating one hour per day of the required program, deducted from the time allocated for the Second Cultural Program, which was provided by the radio at the time, for one hour and a half every sunset. 2. The need to strengthen the relay stations, so that the program clearly reached the Arab listeners, from the Gulf to the ocean. 3. Assigning the program department to prepare and present this program, which was titled “The Voice of the Arabs from Cairo.”

The Voice of the Arabs Radio set the same three goals of the July 23, 1952, revolution, as reflected in president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s “Philosophy of the Revolution”:

 First: The sincere expression of the pains and hopes of the Arab masses in all parts of the Arab world.  Second: The call for the liberation of all Arab countries from colonialism and its agents, and the abolishment of capitalism and feudalism, which gripped the Arab masses.  Third: Working on unifying the word of the Arabs, mobilizing their forces against the enemies of Arabism, and striving with them to achieve the desired Arab unity.

After more than a month of study and preparation, it was decided to launch the new radio transmission at 6:00 p.m. 36

on Saturday, July 4, 1953. It continued for half an hour, including the following topics:

1. The radio comment.

2. Speech of president Mohammed Naguib.

3. Statement by the secretary-general of the League of Arab States.

4. A program on art in the service of Arabism.

Three months after its opening, the Voice of the Arabs transmission became an hour every day. In January 1954, the broadcast became two hours a day, after the Voice of the Arabs replaced the Second Program, which was canceled at that time. In July 1954, transmissions increased to seven hours per day, then went up to twenty-two and a half hours per day. The power of the transmitters, which connected the Arab world from the Gulf to the ocean, was also boosted. The first work of the Voice of the Arabs, more than a month and a half after its launch, was a fierce daily campaign against French colonialism following the overthrow of Morocco’s Sultan Mohamed V. The Arab people responded to the campaign, defending their dignity and demanding independence and freedom. Sultan Mohammed V returned home, and French protection of Morocco was lifted. Sultan Mohamed V said in an interview that the Voice of the Arabs from Cairo was a good omen for victory while in exile, and it stood by the people of Morocco, calling upon them to revolt, until they rose up and gained their freedom and independence. The Voice of the Arabs radio supported the liberation movements throughout the Arab world, but also extended its attention to the African continent

The Influence of the Voice of the Arabs

On its Arab parameter

Morocco

The launching of the Voice of the Arabs coincided with events that prompted its participation in the North African arena to express the necessity of the unity of the Arab struggle. On August 20, 1953, just a month and a half after the Voice of the Arabs began, the news reported that the French authorities had banished King Mohammed V (known then as the Sultan of Morocco) and his family to the island of Madagascar, and replaced him with its ally, Mohamed Ben Arfa.

The Moroccan people rebelled against this move, and the Voice of the Arabs Radio embarked on its first campaign to achieve its first goal: the liberation of Arab peoples. It devoted air time to support the demand of the Moroccan people, through news, programs, and commentaries. It hosted Moroccan personalities to explain what happened and clarify its dangers. The attack was direct on France, through daily political commentaries. Mr. Allal El-Fassi, head of Morocco’s Independence Party, has constantly given statements revealing the scandalous position of the French authorities in Morocco. It bore fruit at the grassroots level, where sabotage and bombing operations against French interests in Morocco have begun, forcing the French ambassador to Cairo to protest against the Voice of the Arabs. France began directing its press to attack the Radio and the revolutionary authority in Egypt, for intervening in France’s affairs and provoking the inhabitants of North Africa against the French authority and its rulers.

These campaigns came contrary to what they expected. The Voice of the Arabs became more familiar among the North Africans, who considered it the voice that defended their rights. People’s confidence in it increased, and there were those who provided the Radio with news and viewpoints on a daily basis, either by mail or by people, to be used as real material in the Voice of the Arabs broadcasts. The battle continued for nearly two years, until the occupation forces surrendered in Morocco, succumbed to the will of the people, and returned the Sultan to his throne. Several months later, the occupation forces departed from Morocco. Sultan Mohammed V praised the radio’s role in a number of recordings. On his return from exile in 1955, he said: “The Voice of the Arabs from Cairo was a good omen that we would prevail. It stood by our people, calling them to revolt, until they did and won their freedom and independence.”

“We cannot forget the great role played by the Voice of the Arabs Radio in the service of Arab causes,” said King Hassan II. “In Morocco, we have a deep gratitude for what the Voice of the Arabs did during King Mohammed V ordeal.”

Morocco’s crown prince, a Voice of the Arabs guest With broadcaster Nadia Tawfiq 39

Algeria

On November 1, 1954, around 10:00 p.m., Mr. Ahmed Said took one sheet of paper from one of his desk drawers in his office located on the fifth floor of the radio station in al- Sherifin Street in downtown Cairo. It was carefully hidden amid a package of sheets written in invisible ink. It was the text of the declaration of the liberation revolution of Algeria. The statement was written after an in-depth study involving several parties at the highest political and media levels with the Algerian freedom fighters. Mujahid Ahmed Ben Bella arrived in Egypt, carrying with him the ambition of the Algerian people to get rid of the French colonialism that has been perched for decades on the chest of Algeria. Planning began to link the Mujahideen at home with their peers abroad, and this connection was through the Voice of the Arabs. The plan was drawn up, and the implementation of the declaration of the revolution began on the midnight of November 1, 1954. It was not reasonable to broadcast this declaration without the existence of this link and the plan which was shared by several parties over the years of the national struggle until independence in 1962. The Voice of the Arabs went on communicating with the Algerian people and the fighters in the Auras Mountains for seven years, through the Algerian revolutionaries in Cairo who spoke through it.

The campaign by the Voice of the Arabs had the greatest impact in drawing attention to the Algerian cause and mobilizing the Algerian people behind this goal, which for them has become a matter of life and death. Inside Algeria, the morale of the people was revived and they became interested in buying radio receivers when they learned that their revolutionaries were using the Voice of the Arabs in broadcasting the truthful news about the events and fighting against the French forces. The Voice of the Arabs was also the link between the rebels themselves in 40

different parts of Algeria, through a code used to convey information and news, as well as instructions for deployment in the combat zones. This has prompted the French authorities in Algeria to arrest anyone caught while listening to the Voice of the Arabs, and confiscate the receivers through which the people listen to this radio station. Thus, listening to the Voice of the Arabs was considered a punishable crime by the French colonizer.

In another way of dealing with the Voice of the Arabs, the French occupation authorities in Algeria used the transmission silent periods of the Voice of the Arabs to broadcast instructions and signals to the Mujahideen on the same wave as booby traps, mimicking the voices of the radio’s announcers and their reading style. It would then ambush the Mujahideen in the areas identified to gather and carry out commando operations. However, the trick was revealed and announced through the real Voice of the Arabs to avoid it happening again. The Voice of the Arabs used to send his correspondents to Algeria to be among the rebels in combat sites on the battlefield, and send audio reports from there for broadcast. This was a great concern to the occupation forces, which used to chase these correspondents and monitor their movements at airports and hotels. They had to hide with the Mujahideen in the trenches and combat sites, away from the eyes of the French forces. They even used to infiltrate across the border into Algeria. The Egyptian role in the liberation war of Algeria led to a major deterioration in Egyptian-French relations. France threatened to sell Mirage warplanes to Israel due to Egypt’s relationship with the Algerians and the Algerians’ relationship with the Voice of the Arabs. Then, persuaded Egypt to provide it with aircraft and other weapons if the Voice of the Arabs stopped its campaign against the French policy in Algeria. However, this did not discourage the Voice of the Arabs from carrying out its mission, and continued to play its part in 41

supporting the Algerian people to gain their independence. This led to more and more hostility, until president Gamal Abdel Nasser became a symbol of resistance to French influence in Algeria. The French political circles were convinced that to eliminate the Algerian revolution, it had first to overthrow Nasser, and considered it the real key to keeping Algeria French. This motivation may have been the strongest motive for France’s participation in the tripartite aggression against Egypt alongside England and Israel in 1956.The Voice of the Arabs’ role in Algeria continued until the end of the independence negotiations and the referendum on self-determination. It is a beautiful, important, and significant coincidence that Algeria’s self- determination referendum was held on July 3, 1962. Singer Abdel Halim Hafez announced on the ninth anniversary of the Voice of the Arabs ceremony held that evening, that the Algerian people said yes to independence in the referendum. He sang “The Land of Algeria” as a tribute to the Algerian people. Algeria’s Independence Day came to coincide with the birthday of the Voice of the Arabs.

Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first president With Ahmed Said, 1963 42

The Baghdad Pact

In 1955, Turkey and Iraq agreed to sign an pact to form a joint defense alliance, and announced that they were looking for other countries to join the alliance, thereby confirming Iraq’s association with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) through Turkey, the first Middle East country to join NATO. The Voice of the Arabs worked in this battle to reach the Arab masses, pushing them to reject this trend of joining Western alliances, especially in Syria and Jordan. The prime minister of Iraq at the time, Nuri al-Said, announced that the two countries were the targeted members of the Baghdad Pact.

The Voice of the Arabs campaign was one of the main factors hindering Jordan from joining the Baghdad Pact after the Jordanian public, as a result of the Voice of the Arabs campaign, expelled General Glubb. The campaign was led by the Voice of the Arabs under the slogan “No alliances except with you Arabs. No alliances with the West under any circumstances.” The campaign continued until the revolution of July 14, 1958, in Iraq. The issue of Iraq’s entry into alliances with the West came to an end. The alliance was renamed the Central Alliance, which was aimed at creating an entity that included both Arab and non-Arab states as a step to let Israel join and be recognized by the Arab states.

King Faisal II, Abdel Elah and Nouri Al-Said Celebrating the Baghdad Pact agreement

Iraqi president Abdel Salam Aref, With Ahmed Said in Baghdad, 1964

1956 War

When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company following the refusal to finance the construction of the High Dam, Britain, France, and Israel colluded to launch an aggression against it. The main reason for France’s participation in this plot was the role of the Voice of the Arabs in the war to liberate Algeria. The attack on Egypt took place on October 29, 1956, and the Voice of the Arabs undertook its role by intensifying its programs to expose colonialism and its schemes and incite the Arab masses against the colonial presence in their territories. As a result, the Voice of the Arabs relay stations became targets of the raids.

Egyptian engineers immediately arranged an alternative transmission station so the broadcasting would not stop. More than one Arab radio station carried the Voice the Arabs transmission immediately, as there were some of the Voice of the Arabs announcers there at that time. So they became alternative broadcasts from Damascus, 45

Beirut, Oman, and others. The leader Gamal Abdel Nasser spoke of this aggression in his famous speech at Al-Azhar on November 9, 1956, mentioning the role of the Voice of the Arabs, which disturbed colonialism, and that attempts to silence it would only boost its strength and resistance.

Ahmed Said with crown prince Fahd Ben Abdel Azizi, In the mid 1950’s

Palestine

The Voice of the Arabs was one of the first platforms of the Arab media that talked about and adopted the Palestinian cause and devoted its own radio broadcast, namely the Palestine Radio from Cairo, which was launched on October 29, 1960, to be the first crossing point for the Palestinian people and their fateful cause. The Palestine Radio was launched as a clause called “Palestine Corner” within the Voice of the Arabs programs. Later on, Radio Palestine became an independent radio station, presenting 46

the news and political issues related to the Palestinian cause. The radio station dealt with the leaders of the Palestinian struggle for decades, until it became the first communication platform for them. Radio Palestine was separated from the Voice of the Arabs to become an independent radio service within the Voice of the Arabs network, broadcasting for eleven hours a day. It provided all forms of support to the Palestinian people, such as educational programs that provide classroom material for students in the occupied territories, due to the long periods of school closures there. It also included programs that warned of Judaization, which extended its methods to all aspects of life. In addition, the Voice of the Arabs radio extensively addressed the Palestinian political, social, economic, and cultural issues and hosted Palestinian personalities and experts in various fields to analyze and comment on them. It also gave live coverage of the most important events on the Palestinian arena, such as the entry of PLO leaders to the Palestinian territories following the Oslo Accords, the conferences related to the Palestinian Issue, the UN session announcing the admission of Palestine as an observer state to the international organization, and other important events related to the Palestinian cause.

On October 31, 1991, the regular role played by Palestine Radio was developed, after the Peace Conference in Madrid, Spain. The Palestinians sat for the first time with the Israelis on the negotiating table, and the tone of peace prevailed among all parties. During this period the radio highlighted the intransigence of Israel and its prevarication in these negotiations. Palestine Radio had an active role in the cultural, religious, and political departments, special programs, drama, music and songs, and newscasts prepared by the central newsroom, the Voice of the Arabs newsroom, and correspondents’ reports.

All forms of programs were prepared by editors and presenters in Radio Palestine. Some of them were prepared and voiced by Palestinians who did not belong to the radio. This confirms the credibility of what was presented to the target audience, such as “The Palestinian Girl” Program directed at Palestinian women, the “Popular Talk” program, and the”Story” program. In the early 1970s, Radio Palestine began an English-language program directed at Israel, prepared by the well-known Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath. I personally participated in reading the English language newscasts. Radio Palestine was consecutively headed by Mr. Adel al-Qadi, Mr. Ibrahim Mesbah, Mr. Attia al-Sayed, Mr. Gaber al-Shall, Mr. Hamdi Bakr, and Mr. Sayed Salem.

Yasser Arafat, Nasser and King Hussein

The Yemeni revolution

The Voice of the Arabs began to move toward Yemen beginning in 1955, when the coup movement led by Colonel Ahmed Al-Thalaya, also known for his strong hostility toward the liberation line represented by Cairo. The Voice of the Arabs allowed the Yemeni dissidents such as Mahmoud al-Zubayri and Ahmed Muhammad Numan to 48

speak to the Yemeni people and call for renaissance and liberation from colonialism, backwardness, and servitude. When Imam Ahmad assumed power, he declared his accession to the Union with Egypt and Syria, but that did not last long. The Yemeni rebels met in Cairo and signed a document that included their despair of the Imam regime and the need to establish a republican regime. The document was broadcast by the Voice of the Arabs, whose waves were made available to Dr. Abdel Rahman al- Baydani, one of the most prominent opponents. Dr. al- Baydani made several statements via the radio, the most important of which was the announcement of the revolution on the night of September 26, 1962.

The next morning, the revolution broke out and spread throughout Yemen. When the armed forces took part in supporting the Yemeni revolution against the regime of the Imam, they distributed about one hundred thousand radio transistors to the tribesmen, which had the greatest impact in preparing the minds for the revolution. The Voice of the Arabs sent its correspondents to Yemeni radio stations in Sana’a and Taiz to provide technical assistance to the Yemeni broadcasters at this stage. I was personally a member of the last delegation of the Voice of the Arabs to Yemen, which was presided by Mr. Salah Oweiss with Sohair al-Harthy, Mohammed Marai, Souad Khalil, Esmat Ibrahim, and Ali Moussa as members. While the head of the delegation and most of the members were responsible for overseeing Sana’a Radio, I was assigned the task of supervising the Taiz radio station south of the country. It was a rich experience by all standards. I lived in this beautiful city, which I called “the poor Switzerland” with its mountain-carved homes, steep streets, deadly serenity, and glittering lights at night. I lived there for a few months during the year of 1967, managing its modest local radio station as an envoy of the Voice of Arabs Radio.

On one of those moonless nights, I was at our government- rented house, which was carved in the belly of one of those mountains, with colleagues Esmat Ibrahim, Mohammed Marei, and Souad Khalil. Suddenly, a terrible explosion broke the silence of the night and sounded so close to us that we thought we were probably the intended target. It was followed by another blast that pushed all of us to take cover under beds. We stayed in this position for about half an hour, but it felt like eternity! We only came out of this horror when we heard violent knocks on the door and the voices of our radio-engineering colleagues, who told us that the explosion near us was intended to hit an Egyptian army napalm depot over the top of the mountain just above our house.

The next morning, the picture became evident when the Egyptian army called us to work as translators for two Americans picked up by sniffer dogs from the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) headquarters located at the foot of the mountain, which included housing, a club, a playground, and a swimming pool carved into a hill at the edge of the compound. The Americans, Stephen Liapis, age thirty-three, of Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Harold Hartman, age thirty-six, of Baltimore, Maryland, intended to blow up the depot in order to create tension between the natives and the Egyptian army when the city was destroyed and set on fire. With God’s will the soldiers in charge of the depot happened to neglect returning the napalm drums to their place after the daily cleaning routine, and the two bazookas fell away from them.

The capture of the Americans caused a diplomatic crisis between Yemen, Egypt, and America, which was only solved by the intervention of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ordered their release, at a time when he was trying to improve relations with the United States.

However, the incident did not end at that point. Early the next day, after the news was spread, the Yemeni people took to the streets in mass demonstrations, attacking the compound and assaulting any American suspect, to the point that I, being blonde with green eyes, had to resort to a nearby bakery and shout in a loud Egyptian voice dialect to avoid becoming a victim of the Intifada!

After the departure of the USAID employees, Egyptian troops entered the compound and confiscated its contents for the government of Yemen, which later became the cornerstone of Taiz University. Among the stuff found in the compound was a radio receiver, which the Egyptian army gave us. We later used it to receive the Egyptian radio transmission and link it to the Taiz local radio broadcast during the 5th of June 1967 War. On that unfortunate morning we woke up to the voice of our fellow announcer Farouq Shousha conveying the sad news that Gamal Abdel Nasser declared that he was stepping down. We only came out of our bewilderment when we heard a thunderous sound coming from the street. All inhabitants of Taiz left their homes, heading for the Egyptian army headquarters, joining hands, men and women, and marching in compact rows yelling one word: “Nasser . . . Nasser . . . Nasser,” and advocating one demand: “Volunteer in the war against Israel.” Unable to control our feelings, we rushed to broadcast this live picture to both the Yemeni and Egyptian peoples! For the record, this popular uprising had preceded the Egyptian people’s uprising on the June 9 and 10, which demanded the return of Abdel Nasser, and revoking his step-down declaration. The same scene was repeated in every Arab capital. I personally witnessed the event, and it is the best answer to those skeptics who promote the lie that the demonstrations of the Egyptian people during those two days were premeditated. What about the uprising of Arabs from the Pacific to the Gulf! 51

South Yemen

The Voice of the Arabs stood along with the South Yemen revolution, after its rejection of the South Yemeni Union announced by Britain. It contacted factions, liberation organizations, and liberation leaders such as Qahtan Al- Shaabi and Faisal Al-Shaabi, and sent broadcasters to Aden to achieve a number of goals, namely the following:

 - Spread awareness of freedom and independence among the masses.  - Support the ideas and objectives of the revolution.  - Form Yemeni radio cadres to carry out this task and later assume responsibility. 52

 - Establish Taiz Radio to address the rebels in South Yemen, where Taiz is the nearest northern Yemeni city to the south.

The Voice of the Arabs correspondents in South Yemen became the target of the British raids. They considered themselves Fedayeen, as well as broadcasters. Britain was fighting bitterly against the idea of getting out of this important strategic location, which was the starting point to protect its colonies in the East. The Voice of the Arabs was broadcasting and reiterating the calls on the people of the Arab South to put pressure on colonialism to evacuate, until it surrendered and had no way but to take its stick and leave.

Ahmed Said with Yemeni leader Ali Nasser Mohamed

The Iran-Iraq War

When the eight-year Iran-Iraq war erupted between Iraq and Iran, and although diplomatic relations were cut off between Egypt and many Arab countries, including Iraq, the Voice of the Arabs did not abstain from its Arab national historical role that promoted the Arab interest above any other considerations. It stood by Iraq in this fateful war, for the sake of Iraq in particular, and for the Gulf region as a whole. It focused its daily political commentaries on this subject, explaining the colonial scheme that threatened the entire Gulf region, and considered Iraq a gateway to this danger. Throughout the eight years of the war, the Voice of the Arabs also aired interviews with Iraqi and Arab political and military analysts to explain the stages of this war and to warn against its extension and continuation. It sent correspondents to cover the events of the war, especially in the major battles, such as the battle of Fao. This role may have had an impact on the return of Egyptian-Arab relations to normal after years of estrangement. 54

The Second Gulf War

Arabs awoke on the morning of August 2, 1990, to a dangerous event, perhaps the most dangerous event in modern Arab history, namely the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, where the Iraqi armed forces invaded Kuwaiti territory, causing devastation and destruction and panic in the hearts of Kuwaitis and all Arabs. This event was a shock to the Arabs, who overnight began fighting each other, after their most cherished dream was a reunion and unity. Arab leaders split between supporters and opponents of the invasion, but the peoples were—as always— supporting the right of peoples in their land and capabilities. In this rupture context, the Voice of the Arabs called on the people to raise their voice above all injustice and above all narrow interests of the leaders. It addressed their human conscience away from temporal gains, reminding them of the incidents of ancient and modern history, and presenting examples of the Kuwaiti people suffering under this treachery, and how that model could be repeated with any other Arab people at the hands of brothers.

In the meantime, the Voice of the Arabs transmission was extended to twenty-four hours a day, and continued around the clock, allowing the Kuwaitis fleeing the fires of war to speak out. Kuwaiti families met each other in Egypt or other countries where they fled. The Kuwait Radio was launched from Cairo and was managed by a number of Egyptian broadcasters. There was cooperation with some of the Kuwaiti media and cultural personalities living in Cairo, such as the writer Abdul Aziz Al-Sarei. A connection between Kuwaitis all over the world was made possible through the radio. This radio continued until Kuwait was liberated on February 26, 1991. A delegation of the Voice of the Arabs entered Kuwait on the first day of liberation and recorded all manifestations of this historic day.

Occupation of Iraq

After the United States of America narrowed the screws on Iraq, with American threats of prosecution, the accusation of possessing weapons of mass destruction, inspection teams visiting it from time to time, and imposing no-fly zones on its north and south regions, it became clear that there was an impending war against Iraq. The Voice of the Arabs formed a crisis cell to follow up the events. It covered all developments, analyzing them through political and military experts, until the hour of the attack on Thursday, March 20, 2003. On that day the Voice of the Arabs stopped its regular programs and replaced them with a single twenty-four-hour program entitled In the Heart of the Events, which lasted for three full weeks, reporting all the events from their sites and receiving reactions from all over the world, drawing on the time difference between East and West. During the night hours in the Arab region, contact was made with the Far East, or the United States and Canada, where daylight hours were. It continued until Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, and it was a resounding moment for a major Arab capital to descend into this mysterious rapid fall, which brought with it fears of the beginning of an Arab collapse in the face of an encroachment targeting land and people.

Arab spring revolutions

The events of the Arab Spring revolutions began in Tunisia in late November 2010. The Voice of the Arabs followed up what was happening there until things got worse on Friday, January 14, 2011. There was a follow-up to all the moves that resulted in the departure of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to an unknown destination. The follow-up continued throughout the night until news of his arrival in Saudi Arabia was reported. The Voice of the Arabs covered all the events that took place in Tunisia, and relayed them from its sources, first through Tunisian correspondents in various Tunisian cities. Then came the events of the revolution in Egypt on January 25, 2011. The Voice of the Arabs was keen to scientifically analyze what was happening from various aspects through specialists. On Saturday, January 29, 2011, correspondents met with the demonstrators in the Tahrir Square to understand their demands, and how to achieve them, and reported dialogue initiatives among all parties that were raised from time to time, especially the initiative of Al-Azhar. The Voice of the Arabs was also discussing the possible scenarios in light of the rising popular demands, until they reached the point of no return. 58

The Role of the Voice of the Arabs

In the call for Arab nationalism

The role of the Voice of the Arabs in calling for Arab nationalism is focused on the following:

 Instigating the enthusiasm of the masses in Egypt and the Arab world to embark on political, social, and economic changes and disseminate political values linked to the idea of nationalism adopted by the Egyptian leadership at the time, such as freedom, socialism, and unity.  Instilling the desire among the people of the Arab region and Africa to abolish the borders between their countries, raise the level of thought, and link the liberation movements to the Egyptian capital.  Promoting Arab slogans among the Arab world masses, including: “Raise your head, brother, the era of slavery has gone.” These words were echoed from Morocco to Iraq, on the waves of the Voice of the Arabs.  Creating a public opinion, that was previously absent, especially among illiterates and semi- illiterates, throughout the Arab world. The idea of Arab nationalism was the focus of this public opinion.  Deepening the idea of Arab nationalism, since the Voice of the Arabs began, after its first year, to provide a series of radio talk about Arab nationalism, the origin of its components, and its development until crystallized in the modern liberal Arab movement.  Meeting the demands of the Arab peoples through broadcasting drama, songs, and music

which correspond to the media needs and aim to meet the political desires of the Egyptian government. The programs introduced a new kind of popular songs, political in nature.  Highlighting the issues of Arab countries and commenting on them, and reviewing the press coverage of these issues, as well as highlighting the glories of the Arab nation and its leaders who fought for these causes.  Underscoring Arab rights, focusing mainly on the right of independence, which was usurped by colonialism.  Bringing to light the relationship between Egypt and the Arab world, and how it is a relationship of blood, brotherhood, and religion, and review its nature in terms of strong emotional relationships, and that the Egyptians are an integral part of the Arab nation.  Highlighting the strong positive relationship between religion and nationalism, and how Islam is one of the basic pillars of Arab nationalism, through the presentation of drama that deals with the lives of pioneers of freedom and justice in the long Islamic history.  Focusing on the social and historical dimensions of Arab nationalism, such as unity of tendencies and habits, thinking style, and common-sense configuration, and trying to create unity in social thought.

The Voice of the Arabs programs also focused on the historical dimension, in terms of the unity of events and the historical atmosphere in which Arab citizens lived, such as the unity of shared sacrifices and national memories. In its first year, the Voice of the Arabs radio broadcast aired a series of public speeches under the title “Arab Festivals,” reviewing the civilized history of Arabs. 60

The above elements make clear the nature of the role played by the Voice of the Arabs in the call for Arab nationalism during the 1950s and 1960s. This issue has been of interest to many. American writer Alvin Toffler said in his book “The Shock of the Future:” “The rapid spread of radios and transistors played an important role in reviving Arab nationalism. The same opinion was adopted by French officials, who asserted that the media campaigns were behind the success of the idea of nationalism.”

According to a report by the director of the CIA on the role played by Radio Cairo in the war against imperialism, Radio Cairo was a dangerous competitor of American radio. At Princeton University in the United States of America, three studies on Cairo Radio were introduced at the Institute for Middle East Studies. They dealt with Cairo Radio’s deep impact in the Arab and African regions. In 1959 the United States Congress approved $40 million to strengthen the Voice of America in the Middle East and Africa. The United States even linked its exports to Egypt to a halt in the Voice of the Arabs radio campaigns against it.

In contrast to the viewpoint that confirms the success of the Voice of the Arabs Radio in crystallizing and embodying the idea of Arab nationalism, British political analyst Sir Hugh Greene said: “Many have exaggerated in their description of the power of the radio as a weapon in the hands of Nasser. However, all Radio Cairo could do was manipulate emotions and popular slogans, such as ‘Arabism,’ ‘anti-Britain, France, and colonialism in general,’ sentiments that are already latent in the Arab countries and were not created by the Voice of the Arabs.”

There was some criticism of the Voice of the Arabs in the 1950s, reflected in the fact that its programs relied on stirring feelings, without a clear idea of how to direct them. Some researchers think that the success of the Voice

of the Arabs Radio in calling for Arab nationalism is due to many reasons, some relating to Arab reality and some relating the Arab trend of the Egyptian revolution, while others relate it to the subjective determinants of the Voice of the Arabs Radio. Its programs have also played on the tendon of adhering to Arabism, against colonialism and Zionism, and other external threats, through drama, which deals with the history and glories of the Arabs and their struggle against colonialism.

The Voice of the Arabs radio station relied on the spoken word to connect with the Arab masses and worked to increase the influence of this word through the use of high- pitch voices that support the radio campaigns. This was accompanied by the emergence of the true Arab consciousness and the stabilizing of the Arabs’ confidence in themselves. The power of the Voice of the Arabs Radio was also apparent in a powerful national engineering tool capable of sending signals to all parts of the Arab world, making it one of the most clear and easy-to-receive radio stations in the region. It was combined with the human potential of artistic talents that reinforced the wealth of the media message and its diversity, and thus attracted the attention of the Arab masses everywhere, including Arabs living outside the borders of the Arab world.

Arabic Broadcasts from Cairo

The Voice of the Arabs was part of all the Arab nation liberation battles and established radio stations and introduced political issues programs with the news of the first liberation war operations in 1954. It stood up with Algeria against the French occupation a year earlier. Through it the first statement by the Algerian President and leader of the revolution Ahmed Ben Bella was broadcast. He said: “The Voice of the Arabs is the voice of the Algerian revolution.”

Many programs were devoted to the Algerian issue, and the voice of the Algerian revolutionaries was heard worldwide through the Voice of the Arabs, which began transmitting Radio Algeria from Cairo on May 13, 1967. The programs of this radio station were broadcast from 9:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Cairo time (from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Algeria time) on a 19.44-meter short wave. The program was opened with a four-minute talk by Youssef Ben Khadah, the interim head of the Algerian government, which was recorded in Tunisia. Radio Algeria from Cairo was jointly run by Algeria and Egypt.

As it did in Algeria, it stood up with Morocco in its struggle against colonialism in its “The Arab Maghreb” program. It also stood up with the Arab Peninsula and the Arabian Gulf region in their struggle for independence in its “The Arabian Peninsula” program.

In its aspiration to progress, we do not forget the radio’s famous battle against the Baghdad Pact and its support of the Yemeni revolution. There is no Arab political, social, economic, and development issue the Voice of the Arabs did not support, out of its strong belief in the interest of the entire Arab nation.

During the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Kuwait Radio was launched from Cairo under the supervision of the Voice of the Arabs. This radio played a major role during the brutal invasion. It became the voice of truth, exposing the occupation forces and their practices. It also contributed to supporting the steadfastness of the citizens for seven months until their country was liberated. As a reporter from Washington, I was reporting to this radio, until it was moved back to Kuwait after its liberation.

The Palestinian cause, the primary issue of the Arabs, was taken care of by Radio Palestine, which was launched on October 29, 1960, as part of the Voice of the Arabs. It devoted many programs to this cause on a daily and nightly basis, expressing the central importance of the Palestinian issue to the Arab national security.

Radio Palestine from Cairo aims at achieving the following set of objectives:

 Highlighting the Egyptian role in supporting the Palestinian cause and defending its justice in all international and regional forums.  Supporting the Palestinian entity, which was legally constituted by the Palestine Liberation Organization.  Addressing the Palestinian question in all its details and daily developments, with emphasis on the right of the Palestinian people to establish their own independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, while guaranteeing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.  Shedding light on the Palestinian character in all its components and original qualities that are capable of survival and growth.  Exposing Israeli policies and schemes to swallow the Palestinian territories and to follow the Zionist propaganda throughout the world, which depicts the rightful Palestinians as terrorists and the aggressors as innocents defending themselves.  Highlighting the Arab, Islamic, and international efforts in favor of the just Palestinian cause.  Providing educational services to the children of the occupied territories.

The Voice of the Arabs Network’s Radio Palestine is now transmitting nine hours a day.

In addition to Radio Palestine, the Voice of the Arabs network includes the Nile Valley Radio, which focuses on the people of north and south of the Nile valley, Egypt, and Sudan, with a five-hour transmission a day. The Voice of the Arabs helped to mobilize sentiments against the colonizing countries, which considered the radio a threat to them. This led the colonial newspapers to devote their radio stations to resist it. They called for a plan to jam its transmission, and fiercely attacked announcer Ahmed Said. Some North Africa published papers called for arresting whoever tried to listen to the Voice of the Arabs. In addition to news and political programs, the Voice of the Arabs radio broadcasts included educational, recreational, and other programs. The intensity of its influence may be the reason for the colonial powers’ attempts to erase this effect, using sirens and radio jammers to block the Voice of the Arabs waves.

One of the colonial stations used to transmit three songs and a continuous whistle on these waves, making listening to the Voice of the Arabs impossible. This colonial power station grew more intense in times of news and orientation programs aimed at mobilizing public opinion on important issues. As for the identity of the station that jammed the Voice of the Arabs, it was said to be French, transmitting from Algeria, or American transmitting from an American base. It was also said to be anonymous, transmitting from a ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Britain tried to establish a rival radio station to compete with the Voice of the Arabs, under the name “The Arab Corner”, but its attempts failed. The enemies of the Voice of the Arabs recognized its victory. The Times paper, for example, said that Britain should expect a number of troubles in the Middle East, due to the constant propaganda from Cairo Radio, Damascus, and the Voice of the Arabs, noting that the establishment of new British radio stations was not enough.

The Voice of the Arabs

And the June 1967 War

Despite the success of the Voice of the Arabs during the 1950s in achieving the goals set by the Egyptian leadership, the rhetorical and emotional discourse, and its focus on the emotions and sentiments of the Arab masses, which continued during the 1960s, reached its peak during the June 1967 War. A number of analysts consider it among the reasons of defeat.

In the early hours of the June 1967 War, the Egyptian media broadcast slogans with nationalistic songs, military music, and enthusiastic speeches about the news of a pending victory. It started announcing in official statements that Egypt had downed 250 Israeli planes. It talked about military defeats of the Israeli army, alleging that it withdrew in the face of the Egyptian military. After preaching the end and destruction of Israel, the media, strangely enough, announced the important news that Umm Kulthum had agreed to hold her next concert In Tel Aviv a week later.

As a result of this news, the entire Arab people lived in the early hours of the war, and for a few days, in a wave of unrealistic hopes. But suddenly, in contrast to this tone completely, the people heard the facts, and the Egyptian media announced official news, carrying the truth, pointing to the defeat, and stressing that everything broadcast was incorrect. The great hopes were lost, resulting in a great psychological earthquake for the Egyptian and Arab peoples, because of all the lies propagated throughout the days of the June 1967 war.

The Israeli propaganda apparatus exploited this situation and responded to the news and statements broadcast by 67

the Egyptian radio and media. It said that singer Umm Kulthum would be welcome at her upcoming concerts in Tel Aviv. The Israeli radio quoted the Egyptian radio and media as saying that Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan was lost in the war, and said that Dayan was with us now. Dayan spoke in arrogance, on Israeli radio, saying that Israel’s army could not be defeated or conquered and it won three wars with the Arabs: the 1948 War, the 1956 Suez War, and the Six-Day War in 1967.

After the June 1967 defeat, Ahmed Said was sacked from the Voice of the Arabs administration and replaced by Yahya Abu Bakr for a short time. In 1968, Mohamed Orouq, a close associate of interior minister Sharaoui Guma, took over the radio station. Then, after the events of May 15, 1971, Saad Zaghloul Nassar took over the management of the radio station, beginning a new phase with different directions.

In addition to the previous and specific objectives of the Voice of the Arabs, another set of goals was established after the defeat of June 1967, including the following:

 Preventing the Arab soul from drowning in the sea of despair and rupture, and protecting it against disintegration.  Emphasizing the nationalization of the battle and alerting the Arab masses to it, awakening Arab responsibility and the necessity of all Arabs to participate in the fateful battle.  Focusing on the need to put Arab differences aside.

A Commentary by Ahmed Said,

A week after the setback Tuesday, 13 June 1967

After this terrible military defeat of Egypt and the Arabs, especially for the regime that supported the Voice of the Arabs and its call for the principles of liberal Arab nationalism, and despite the confidence of the Arab people in Egypt and in the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser of the nation’s march in its battles to realize its ambitions, the Voice of the Arabs truthfully and fearlessly rushed to discuss the reasons that led to the terrible defeat. It called for the optimal solution to the nation’s problems, and for the establishment of a healthy democratic life through which the people monitor their leadership so that the nation would soon return to its triumphant national march again.

In his radio commentary on the evening of June 13, 1967, Mr. Ahmed Said launched an information campaign that revealed the reasons for the terrible military defeat. He related it to the lack of decision-making methods in the various Arab capitals, especially the Arab East, concerning the rules of due freedom in determining the fate of the people’s successive generations. It was an unprecedented and unknown situation for the Arab press, radio, and visual media. It is still sought for in the various Arab Spring revolutions, without pausing for a moment to shed light on the war media controls and facts. The Voice of the Arabs was fully aware of the external schemes besetting most Arab countries today, combined with internal bloody violence. Nothing would save the nation short of a national ideology that has achieved greatest victories in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ahmed Said said in his commentary: 69

"“The masses should learn from the setback. From its reasons life should return to the contemporary movement of Arab history. From its results all the forces of one hundred million must be launched: politically, economically, and militarily to impose the Arab dam on the rotten, destructive root. The setback occurred and imposed itself on the logic that prevailed in the Arab homelands for so long. An imperative duty is imposed today on all the one hundred million Arab minds to find the answers—only the correct answers—to a number of questions that impose themselves now and insist in an all-stubborn hatred and all-bloody obduracy.

 Question 1: What are the main causes of the setback? Political and military reasons, and there must be Arab reasons.  Question 2: What does colonialism, represented by America and Britain, want today? Whether in terms of their imperialist schemes or their base Israel?  Question 3: What is the world nations’ position toward us, whether the Eastern bloc, European, Asian, African, or Latin American countries?  Question 4: What kind of weapons can we use in a political or non-political battle, to remove the aftermath of aggression and embark on our national struggle march?

These are the four main questions imposed by the one hundred million Arab minds on the one hundred million Arabic tongues, and seeking specific, precise, and truthful answers through their awareness and experience, as well as the setback itself.

The Arab reality today should not be left for just guidance against despair, or just a belief in nationalism, or just for just collecting the scattered

contradictions of this nation. It should not also be left to that propaganda that wants to jump on us as the setback sacrifice and be contained by the Western bloc or even by the Eastern bloc, seeking in such containment by either bloc what is intended to portray it today as the lifeline of the Arabs or the straw that may save the drowning Arab. The reality of the setback, my brother, requires first and foremost an assessment based on a comprehensive investigation of all its causes, from the military causes to the Arab causes, to the administrative causes, to the political causes related to the capitals of the world’s great powers in the East before the West. Gamal Abdel Nasser referred to some of these causes, but the urgency of the setback and the speed of its reaction has not yet been available to every Arab official—and the Arab official today is every Arab citizen who must understand the full reasons and their dimensions in Egypt and in every Arab capital that participated in the fighting or sympathized with it or stood by watching.

The reasons for the setback should not be seen only as military aspects. We should not only look for them in the capitals of the West and ignore the East. We should not also search and explore them only in Egypt, Syria, or Jordan. We should definitely dig deeply in the methods of Arab work and also in the methods and plans of Arab governance over the past years and throughout the Arab arena. All the one hundred million must believe in their responsibility for the setback—if they want to get out of it into victory. There is no difference between a president here or a farmer there. There is no difference between a ruler here or a worker there.

Everyone is responsible. Everyone owns the homeland and must manage this property from today. The one hundred million must exercise their right to search for the causes of the setback, and then they

must exercise their right to strike and bury all its causes. There are political reasons . . . There are military reasons . . . There are global reasons . . . Then there are also popular reasons related to the responsibility of the masses for all the organizational and governmental wide gaps and also the democratic practice, through which all the reasons that imposed the setback have penetrated with amazing and severe speed.

All the people must think . . . must decide . . . must watch. All the people must govern and own. They must always move to fill the loopholes that may impose a more humiliating and dangerous setback on the Arab nation. Today, colonial powers, America and Britain, after directing the setback blow to Arab power, want to liquidate the national antagonism ignited by the masses in the July 23 revolution, so that the West can contain the Arab region once more. It wants to reposition in it in order to continue plundering its oil wealth, securing the safety of its strategic positions, and safeguarding Israel, its aggressive military base. The Arab masses from the Gulf to the ocean blocked colonization from striking its second blow to the symbol of its national social movement when they hysterically insisted that Nasser should be aware of the colonial strike dimensions. The colonization of course did not give up.

With the logic of force and in the center of victory, it will soon try to direct another strike, if not directed, next time, against the main base: Egypt. However, it will undoubtedly try to direct it at the Arab revolutionary base in Yemen, or at least in Syria, Iraq, or Algeria, as well as at the national independence achieved by Kuwait; for example, Morocco, Sudan and other Arab countries will undoubtedly be exposed. In light of the setback they will be liable to enormous pressure by colonialism aimed at imposing restrictions

and fears on them that may prevent them from starting to contribute to the liquidation of the setback and the confrontation of colonialism and achieve victory.

Many conspiracies, and successive plans, are undoubtedly being put into practice. The responsibility of the one hundred million, the responsibility of the masses before the rulers, is to keep their eyes wide open, organize their crowds, and deploy everywhere, guarding every oil well in every oil depot, inside every ruler’s palace, before and behind every official. Nothing should be left to trust. It is the fate of one hundred million from the Gulf to the ocean before it is the fate of a group of rulers and officials.

After all, my Arab brother and the one hundred million Arabs . . . Do you want answers to the questions imposed by the defeat? Causes of the political, military, Arab, global, Eastern . . . Western setback? Do you want to identify the weapons with which we can remove the setback and start again in our national social march? I do not have anything, while the scene breaks my bleeding heart except to reaffirm in the light of all the general reasons for the setback, that you should adhere to being Egyptians, decide your fate, have trust only in yourselves, in your Arabism. Do not rest assured of the promise of a foreigner, from the West or the East, looking to contain you. Do not give up on being a hundred million. Do not be torn apart, disbelieving in your Arabism only to be devoured by the gaping-mouthed whales now in the vicinity of the global conflict . . . I rest my case.”

The Maligned Ahmed Said ...!

Why did the Voice of the Arabs achieve such a sweeping success in the 1960s, edging all local and Arab radio stations? The answer is this: innovation, good choices, craftsmanship, and follow-up. That fledgling radio station, led by Ahmed Said, has always been seeking all that is new and different from other stations. Ahmed Said’s management used to enlist its gifted intellectuals to lead the scene regardless of seniority, and then follow up closely with whatever they put on the air. After all these years, I learned that the fourth element, the follow-up, is what makes a radio station continue to achieve one success after another. Ahmed Said never missed the Voice of the Arabs transmission for a moment. He had a speaker in his office through which he followed all of the output. He even was known to raise the volume of the speakers when he went to the toilet, so he wouldn’t lose a second of what was put on the air! That’s why we all bore in mind that a professional ear was watching what we said on the air or in recorded material.

I remember during one of Ahmed Said’s visits to Yemen with then information minister Mohammed Fayeq, that Yemenis in the airport lifted Said over their shoulders, without feeling the existence of the minister of information or identifying him.

Yes, the Voice of the Arabs was not Ahmed Said’s idea, but he was the right hand of intelligence officer Fathi al-Deeb, who set up a plan for establishing the radio station and presented it to Gamal Abdel Nasser on March 3, 1953. On October 29, 1956, following the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Egypt was subjected to the tripartite aggression, and the Voice of the Arabs relay station was also bombed.

Nasser gave a speech from the Al-Azhar mosque in which he said, “The Voice of the Arabs, which was transmitting the voice of Egypt to the Arab nation, was silenced by the aggressors’ planes, but it was soon back with a louder voice.”

“Abdel Nasser asked that the Voice of the Arabs be established as soon as possible,” said Ahmed Said, “and was urging us to continue broadcasting for half an hour a day. The program was part of the Broadcasting Authority, which was supervised by Salah Salem, minister of national guidance in charge of the radio. A meeting was held between Zakaria Mohiuddin and Salah Salem in which they agreed to assign Fathi al-Deeb as supervisor of the new program, with an authority on selecting the cadres. Al- Deeb started reviewing a list of names accompanied by a detailed security and political report on each candidate. Later on, I read the reports about me (in which contained every hidden detail about me). Amazingly, I was the last to be nominated, because Al-Deeb—with due respect to all my colleagues—did not find anyone as good to be his right hand for this task based on his study of the reports. I was enthusiastically nominated by Abdel Hamid Yunus, supervisor of programs, and poet Saleh Gawdat, supervisor the cultural programs, who was charged with administering the Voice of the Arabs.”

Despite the fame of Ahmed Said, whose fiery commentaries could put up and bring down Arab governments, he was modest in his professionalism and gave everyone, regardless of seniority, the opportunity for advancement and promotion. I remember when I had been an announcer for a short period, that the president of Iraq, Abdel Salam Arif, a friend of Abdel Nasser, was pronounced dead when his helicopter, with some of his ministers on board, crashed in mysterious circumstances in a place between the Quran and Basra, on the evening of

July 13, 1966, during an inspection visit to the Southern Governorates to assess the reconstruction plans and solve the problem of infiltrators. When Ahmed Said personally entered the air studio carrying a bunch of papers, I knew right away that he wanted to deliver a statement by himself. When I was about to stand up to give him room behind the microphone, he noted that I should stay in my place. Then he sat down next to me and started handwriting one statement after another about the death of the Iraqi leader and delivering them to me to read. He could have delivered the statement by himself, being the famous broadcaster whose spirited political programs were expected by the Arab world. But he preferred to leave that task to me, because it was my shift and no one should infringe on it, even if it were the chief of the Voice of the Arabs!

It is true that after the defeat of 1967 Ahmed Said left the picture, following recriminations that charged him of giving an untrue image about our false victories in the war, claiming that hundreds of Israeli warplanes were brought down like flies, and the arrival of Egyptian troops to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The man refused to defend himself, and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who aspired to restore the glory of Abdel Nasser after it had almost been wiped out by the Sadat regime, tried to recruit Ahmed Said, perhaps to crown himself successor to Abdel Nasser and move his media apparatus to Tripoli. Ahmed Said refused, and even declined to declare the truth which we all knew about Maspero, that all the information contained in his statements about the military clashes was not written by him, but was given to him by the Morale Affairs Department of the armed forces!

Ahmed Said

By Senior Broadcaster

Sayed Al- Ghadhban

The beginning of Ahmed Said, as a young man who graduated from the Faculty of Law and joined the Egyptian radio, was with the Egyptian guerrillas who formed groups to attack the camps of the English forces in the Canal region. Ahmed Said asked the officials of the Egyptian radio to allow him to record some of the guerrilla operations. He was accompanied by an audio technician, Mousa Al- Magdawi, a young Afghan refugee in Egypt. They both accompanied the Egyptian guerrillas and recorded a number of guerrilla operations while storming the English forces’ camps.

The political leadership in Egypt at that time decided to launch a new radio station to support the liberation movements throughout the Arab world. Cairo launched 77

the Voice of the Arabs radio station presided by poet Saleh Gawdat. Ahmed Said joined this nascent radio station, to continue pursuing the colonial powers everywhere in the Arab countries. A few months later, Ahmed Said was charged with supervising the Voice of the Arabs and immediately began to visualize his two-hour daily radio programs. The man did not get any capabilities to help him perform the serious task he was carrying out. The most he could get was the assignment of a small studio to broadcast live for an hour and a half. He was helped by his colleague broadcaster Nadia Tawfiq, and her mission was to bring some music and national songs from the Arab countries. That is how the Voice of the Arabs began.

Ahmed Said presented the news of the Arab countries, focusing on everything related to the resistance to colonialism. The news was followed by an inflammatory commentary against colonialism and colonial agents. This was the centerpiece of the program which he called “The Arab Struggle.”

Ahmed Said adopted the mobilizing and incitement rhetoric against the forces of colonialism, called for confronting the military occupation by all means possible, and focused on the demolition of the fear barrier that paralyzed the movement of the Arab liberation forces.

The Voice of the Arabs won its first major victory over French colonialism when Ahmed Said launched a very violent campaign against French colonialism in Morocco, when the French occupation forces overthrew King Mohamed V of Morocco and sent him to exile. The campaign by Ahmed Said ended up with the submission of the French colonial power, and the king returned to the throne of Morocco.

The battles of Voice of the Arabs with the colonial powers and their supporters continued in every occupied Arab 78

land. The culmination of the Voice of the Arabs victory was reached in the Algerian revolution epic. The radio led by Ahmed Said continued its numerous victories, as the colonial forces continued their departure from the Arab countries. When America began an active move to inherit the English colonization by establishing Pacts, Ahmed Said chased the new hegemony, and the Baghdad Pact was aborted. The battles of the Voice of the Arabs and Ahmed Said are continuing, and the Arab peoples are supporting this “voice” that expresses freedom.

Arab nationalism was an idea echoed in the forums of the Arab cultural elites. Ahmed Said has turned around this idea, which was confined to the elite seminars, to a practical reality enjoyed and espoused by all categories of the Arab masses. When the Arab peoples were shaken by Egypt’s crushing defeat in 1967, everyone turned arrows to Ahmed Said for deceiving and misleading the masses. In fact, Ahmed Said was one of the announcers who broadcast official military statements. No one could change a single character. The masses were continuously listening to the radio, and when they discovered the harsh defeat, they forwarded their anger and accusations to the radio. Ahmed Said received the brunt of those accusations, because many Arab regimes saw an opportunity to retaliate against Ahmed Said, who used to attack them violently for collaborating with the colonial powers.

The earthquake of defeat brought grievous injustice to Ahmed Said. The man endured these unjust accusations, and when asked to reduce the tone of mobilization to begin the stage of rebuilding the armed forces, he refused to change his style and address the Arab masses without the tone he had addressed them with for years, saying, “I will not betray the masses who trusted me,” and he submitted his resignation.

The Voice of the Arabs 60th anniversary

By Senior Broadcaster

Fahmy Omar

The Voice of the Arabs Radio was the first to raise the banner of independence and freedom for all peoples that were under the yoke of colonialism. It was the platform of fighters, and the voice of the combatants who defeated the occupier and forced him to put his stick on his shoulder and leave every inch of occupied land. The battle of the Voice of the Arabs is not far from mind, when this voice fought French colonialism in Algeria, which led to the brutal aggression on Egypt in 1956. The first thing the aggressors did was to launch raids on the relay towers in Abu Zaabal, on the voice that worried them. I wish that our commemoration of the Voice of the Arabs in its sixtieth anniversary to be a great celebration reminding the Arab nation of its unity and collaboration when the Voice of the Arabs expressed their hopes and reflected their aspirations for a bright future.

I return to my memories with the Voice of the Arabs radio since its inception, and how this voice was launched in July 80

1953 in a radio segment not more than thirty minutes a day, cut off from its mother radio here in Cairo. I also remember radio pioneer, writer, and poet Saleh Gawdat, who was the first to present these thirty minutes a day. He was the head of the radio literary affairs, and was entrusted to provide this program. He took charge with a spirit of strength and determination. Soon after, he was joined by the star of the Voice of the Arabs, radio pioneer Ahmed Said, on whose hands the Voice of the Arabs became a radio force with a media influence that inflamed emotions, boosted stamina, and called on the peoples of the Arab nation to wake up and chase the colonial intruder. I claim that Mr. Fathi al-Deeb, a free officer who had a long hand in the field of the Egyptian General Intelligence, was the one who came up with the idea of this voice. He facilitated the mission and provided the program with lots of secrets and news that exposed the colonizer and ignited the flames of anger and revolution. Year after year, the broadcasting service of the program, which started with a thirty-minute transmission, was expanded until it became a full-fledged radio station with its many programs.

The Voice of the Arabs

In the Eyes of Foreigners

“As for the star of the nascent Voice of the Arabs radio station, who became well-known over Arab and international airwaves, he was a young announcer, Ahmed Said. Unlike many other radio services—parallel and contemporary, rival and hostile—the Voice of the Arabs became a media embodiment—through follow-up and innovation—of the development of the Arab national march, especially during the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century.”

—English writer Wilton Wynn in his book Nasser of Egypt: The Search for Dignity

“People used to listen to the Voice of the Arabs Radio attentively as if their ears were glued to the radio, especially when it broadcast songs about Arab nationalism, calling the Arabs to raise their heads and defend their dignity and land, and liberate it from foreign occupation. One might say that Nasser took over the Arab world by means of the radio, and through the Voice of the Arabs Radio could exert pressure on other Arab rulers to follow his path. He even ignored or bypassed the heads of Arab governments, addressing their citizens directly.”

—Researcher Dr. Laura James in her book Stages of Transition in the Field of Media

“ This study concerns the Voice of the Arabs, probably the most well known of many radio services started after 1952. Begun to improve the Social and cultural relations between Egypt and other Arab peoples, the Voice quickly became a major medium through which Nasser disseminated his calls for Arab unity, often by promoting revolution in other Arab countries. An examination of Egypt’s use of the “Voice” may help provide an understanding of the effect this Arabic-language radio service had on the Middle East during the 1950s and 1960s.”

-Douglas A Boyd, in his book: The Voice of the Arabs Under Nasser

“It is true that the Voice of the Arabs was a combination of three things: news, politics and entertainment. That’s how the radio was able to connect Arabic speakers across the national borders through a common language and the ability to spread, reinforce and promote the joint Arab action ideas and Arab national belonging. Thus, listeners to this Radio seem as if touched by an electric shock impact throughout the entire Arab world.”

—Dr Eugene Rogge, a professor of political science and a Middle East expert at Oxford University

“One of the reasons for my service termination in the Kingdom of Jordan was the campaigns of the Voice of the Arabs against me and all the British, in an attempt by the king of Jordan to gain popularity, where the calls of the Voice of the Arabs were very influential.”

—General John Paget Glubb, the British commander of the Jordan Army

“British Broadcasting Corporation in London and Cyprus failed in the face of the Voice of the Arabs campaigns, prompting British prime minister Anthony Eden to issue strict instructions during the Suez War to bomb and destroy radio relay stations in northeastern Cairo, to deprive Nasser of this media weapon, which mobilized the Arabs around him against us. We were surprised then to see the Voice of the Arabs transmission coming out of Damascus, Amman, and Tripoli, before returning the same day to transmit from Cairo.”

—British writer Tony Shaw in the book Eden, the Suez, and the Mass Media

“The Voice of the Arabs, which has always incited the Arabs in Aden and other southern Arab protectorates, has been instrumental in stirring up the population of these areas, which are vital to Britain. On different occasions, the radio would broadcast audio recordings from Arab capitals of celebrations such as Ramadan and other religious and social events.”

—British newspaper Commentator of the People

“The Voice of the Arabs radio from Cairo has become stronger than ever before, with the United States as its main target. Programs directed by this radio to areas controlled by English and French colonialism in East and Central Africa are more than the propaganda programs directed by France and Britain combined to these areas.”

—Newsweek magazine

“I have never known a cafe in any part of the Arab world that did not offer its customers the radio programs broadcast from Egypt, with the highest possible audio level, while playing backgammon or smoking the hookah. The radio indicators in taxis, in Baghdad as well as in Damascus and other Arab cities, are fixed on the Voice of the Arabs from Cairo, run by Ahmed Said. The driver or passengers may be too excited in a way that may threaten the lives of pedestrians in the street, pointing to the impact of the Voice of the Arabs.”

—Correspondent of the French paper Le Monde

“The participation of Britain in the Suez War was a mistake. It was necessary to confront the campaigns of Nasser and the Voice of the Arabs and their influence on the masses, especially the oil-producing countries in the Arabian Gulf. It was necessary to establish an international council in which the Arab oil producing countries would contribute alongside the consuming countries.”

—British foreign minister Anthony Nutting, August 1957

Whose Voice? Nasser, The Arabs, and 'Sawt al-Arab' Radio

By Laura M. James

On July 4, 1953, Cairo Radio first broadcast a half-hour radio program called The Voice of the Arabs. It included a short statement by the ostensible leader of Egypt’s recent July Revolution, General Mohammed Naguib, garnished with a great deal of anti-colonialist rhetoric. The new program was perfectly timed to take advantage of a critical moment in the history of transnational broadcasting. Newly inexpensive transistor radios were being acquired by the illiterate poor in cities and villages across the Arabic speaking countries. The Voice of the Arabs was instantly popular, and expanded rapidly. It used highly emotive rhetoric, combined with music from such iconic singers as Umm Kalthoum, to draw in its listeners. “People used to have their ears glued to the radio,” remembered the Nasserist Abdallah Sennawi, “particularly when Arab nationalist songs were broadcast calling Arabs to raise their heads and defend their dignity and land from occupation.”

In very short order, The Voice of the Arabs became a major radio station in its own right, broadcasting the revolutionary opinions of the Cairo regime for 18 hours each day across the Arab world. Arabic, in the words of Douglas Boyd, came to stand “second only to English as an international broadcasting language.” The radio station reached across national borders, helping to break down the distinction between domestic and regional politics in many of the states that had been created from the shards of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the First World War. Above all, it deliberately created a sense of national identity that had previously existed in, at most, a latent form. It created

that identity, moreover, in a particular image, dissociating Arabism from Islam, even as it bounded the new ideology together with strands of socialism and anti-colonialism.

This particular slice of history is worth reviewing in an age when the idea of the Arab countries as a unified entity—in spirit, if not in political terms—appears to be undergoing a revival. There is a clear analogy between the far-flung effects of The Voice of the Arabs and the way in which the Arab world is once more being brought together by new transnational media based on new technology, ranging from satellite television to the internet. Phrases such as ‘the Arab street’ are again becoming commonplace, as changing structures of communication allow a shared language and a reawakened sense of common identity to translate into a collective stance on the issues of the day. Marwan Kraidy has argued that the stakes have been raised for Arab regimes in the wake of September 11 to the extent that the history of the Nasser era, when critical political issues were played out on the level of transnational media, “provides the willing contemporary observer with important insights on the current situation”.

It is necessary to delve more deeply into the original plans and purposes of The Voice of the Arabs. It was, according to Mohammed Fayek, who later became Minister of National Guidance, “a nationalist project aimed at helping Arabs turn the page of colonial occupation and division of their nation into small entities and build a better common future.” Ahmed Said, the radio station’s best–known presenter and general manager, remembers that their mandate of promoting Arab unity was laid out quite clearly in the original plans and studies made in early 1953. Addressing the Arab people in their own language for the first time, the station would explain to them the ideals of the July Revolution, making them aware of the many plots they faced.The main aims of The Voice of the Arabs, therefore, 87

were to liberate the Arab people; to unite the Arab countries; to liberate Arab resources from imperialism’s grasp; and to encourage the use of those resources for the development of Arab civilization, science and culture. It was an agenda perfectly aligned with the modernist, post- colonialist, nationalist ideologies flourishing throughout the Third World in the 1950s. But it called on the people of a state that did not exist–yet.

Throughout his life, the revolutionary Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, opposed a consistent triumvirate of enemies: namely, "imperialism," "Zionism," and Arab "reaction." When he approved the plans for The Voice of the Arabs in 1953, however, he still applied the third term principally to hostile groups within Egypt. The program concentrated initially on the fight against imperialism in the Arab world—most particularly, of course, supporting the struggle of the fida‘iyun against British troops in the Canal Zone and opposing British machinations in the Sudan, both of which were viewed as direct encroachments upon Egyptian sovereignty. The Voice of the Arabs first raised its voice against developments in the wider region on August 20, 1953, just a month and a half after its initial broadcast, protesting the French authorities’ deportation of the Moroccan sultan. On that very day, Nasser himself announced his manifesto in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square:

“We must follow the policy of a total war—the people’s war. The enemy is now fighting us with money, hostile propaganda and the agitation of minds. This is the cold war between us and imperialism.”

Anti-imperialism was to remain a major theme—perhaps the major theme—of the radio station over the years that followed. In the early to mid-1960s, it railed particularly against the ongoing British presence in the Gulf. No scandal was too small. When the British Governor of Aden passed 88

through Cairo Airport in November 1961 without making a statement, he was accused of being unable to face press questions on the iniquities of British imperialism. “What would he tell these journalists about the federal union, which Britain wants to establish there against the Arab people’s will?” The Voice of the Arabs demanded. “What would he tell them about the British plots in Aden and the Protectorates?” Minor revolutionaries from Aden were feted in Cairo; trivial victories such as the removal of the pro-British Principal of Aden Girls’ College provoked sustained gloating across the airwaves. In September 1962, when the British finally forced through an agreement for Aden’s accession to their new creation, the South Arabian Federation, furious protests on The Voice of the Arabs’ “Arab Gulf and South” program was blamed in London for provoking serious rioting in Aden. When the presenter, Ahmed Said, visited the UK, British newspapers dubbed him "Mr Hate."

By that point, a number of Arab leaders might have agreed with the sentiment. Ahmed Said acknowledges that another part of The Voice of the Arabs’ mandate was to inform Arabs of their own governments’ sins. This function first became apparent with a concerted attack on the effective ruler of Iraq, Nuri al-Said, in 1954-55, over his support for the pro-British Baghdad Pact. Nuri, with the subtlety for which he was known, initially responded only indirectly, intimating to the Egyptian Minister of Guidance, Salah Salem, that he found the whole program far too lowbrow. Salem, known as “the Dancing Major” and the butt of many a joke, hurried home to demand that the great Egyptian author Taha Hussein be put on the air immediately. It had to be gently explained to him that Nuri was in fact resentful of the massive popularity of The Voice of the Arabs, seeing it as a threat to his position. He was quite right. In late 1958, an Arab nationalist coup d’état in Baghdad would force Nuri to flee disguised as a woman. He was discovered 89

and killed, his body torn apart by the mob. Similarly, the Imam of Yemen was overthrown in late September 1962 following a sustained campaign on The Voice of the Arabs, most notably a series called “The Secrets of the Yemen” that had begun two months previously, presented by “the Yemeni revolutionary, Dr Abdel Rahman al-Baydani.” Baydani accused the Imam Ahmed of drug addiction, rapaciousness and allowing his harem to interfere in politics. The Imam’s son, Crown Prince Badr, was condemned as having “no principles,” and when he succeeded his father on September 19, the tone remained unyielding.

Moreover, in the wake of the Yemeni revolution, King Saud and Crown Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who had already suffered from round condemnation of their personal lives and policies on The Voice of the Arabs “Enemies of God” program throughout much of 1962, became the targets of even more insurrectionist propaganda. The “Committee of Free Princes,” led by the exiled Prince Talal, was permitted to call for reform on Voice of the Arabs; and King Saud was explicitly told that he was the next target after the Imam. Later, when Saud himself had been deposed by his brother, his own hostile broadcasts from Cairo were carried on the same radio station. The Voice of the Arabs had been very carefully designed to become a regional phenomenon. Following the establishment of the new Egyptian intelligence service in March 1953, the Interior Minister, Zakaria Mohieddin, and intelligence officer Fathi Al-Deeb had formulated an Arab nationalist action plan, which included the development of a radio show as well as funding for Arab nationalist writers and students to study in Egypt. Nasser heartily approved the project, and hurried it along. “Why are you only just starting?” he asked, when Ahmed Said recorded an interview with him at the end of June. Nasser allowed them just a week to complete their

audience assessment studies and broadcast the first program.

The Voice of the Arabs radio station began preparing for a war on May 20,1967, when the regime ordered staff to “heat it up.” Five days later, Nasser’s military chief, Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, allegedly told Ahmed Said that an Egyptian first strike was imminent, so they needed to be prepared to relocate if their transmitters were targeted. The radio station’s military liaison officer informed Said two hours before the planned strike on May 27 that it had been called off, on Soviet orders. Once the war actually began, following the Israeli attack at dawn on June 5, the military continued to keep The Voice of the Arabs updated on the number of Israeli planes shot down, and other useful—if fictitious—morsels of information. While the Egyptian air force lay in ruins on its runways, and Arab armies retreated on every front, The Voice of the Arabs clung to the fantasy world it had created so painstakingly over fourteen years. It continued to boast of great victories even after Western media had made the scale of the disaster—Israel rapidly took the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights—quite apparent. Its credibility would never recover.

Ahmed Said emphasizes that his exaggeration of the number of planes shot down was based on information provided by policy-makers whose numbers added up wrong. It was, he says, his duty to follow orders in time of war, and to assist the army by issuing propaganda to deceive the enemy. Not to do so would have been traitorous, an offense against the Egyptian criminal law, punishable by death. But by so doing, he put himself out of a job. The “setback” of 1967 fatally injured the legitimacy of secular Arabism, facilitating the rise of the Islamist alternative in the 1970s.

Nasser’s Rule and the Role of Radio

By Natalie Jia Ning Diong

To better understand the relationship between Gamal Abdel Nasser and the rise of PanArabism we have to look at the relationship between the state and society, the role of The Voice of the Arabs and the decline of Pan-Arabism by the late 1960s. First, this section is committed to explaining the reasons behind Nasser’s motivations behind the creation of The Voice of the Arabs. Why is radio so important during this era, especially within the Middle Eastern region?

Before we delve into the cultural roots of radio within Egypt and the Middle East, it is important first to understand the history of radio in the Arab world.

Zein Nassar’s A History of Music and Singing on Egyptian Radio and Television informs us of the prevalence of radio even before the time of Nasser in Egypt. More specifically, radio was such a widespread form of media that within Egypt “by the end of December 1933, at least eight private radio stations were operating in Cairo Fu’ad, Faruq, Fiyula, Sabu, Wadi al-Muluk, Ramsis, Misr al-Jadida, and Sayigh, while Alexandria boasted four (Majistik, Farid, Radiyu Fuwis, and Radiyu Bafir).”

1 Radio within Egypt was also mostly state-owned or heavily regulated by the state as it was believed that media like the radio “which have the potential of reaching every single person in the country, and many outside it, instantaneously, are regarded by Arab governments as too important to be left to private interests.”

2 Thus, right from the inception of radio, it was deemed to be an extremely effective state apparatus to disseminate forms of information. William Rugh supports this, arguing that the Egyptian state “devoted a great deal of attention to radio, programming its expansion, so that it could be used as a political tool to mobilize the masses and propagate the official line.”

3 Gamal Abdel Nasser was well aware of the presence of radio within both Egyptian and Middle Eastern societies and, therefore, continued to invest revenues to further develop the radio broadcasting system. The new Egyptian Leadership.

Nasser’s Other Voice By William S. Ellis

Though few Americans have ever heard of him, Ahmed Said may be the world’s most influential broadcaster…a dove-voiced demagogue, who can call fifty million Arabs to riot and murder.

Each day at sundown the muezzin sends forth his wailing, age-old summons, to the faithful by means of a loudspeaker hidden high in the minaret. At the same time, “The Voice of the Arabs” through the same medium of modern electronics-radio- daily arouses the passions of its millions of listeners. It is a strange duet, and yet there is harmony. The Voice, invoking the name of Arab Nationalism, and the muezzin, crediting his cries to Allah, find a common meeting ground within the harsh demands of Islam.

The Voice of the Arabs has touched off oil riots, encouraged the overthrow of Middle Eastern governments, inspired sabotage of refineries and pipelines during the 1956 Suez affair, driven Muslims to new heights of frenzied fighting against the French in Algeria, and convinced millions that Baghdad Pact is an intolerable instrument of Western imperialism. Ahmed Said, the man chiefly responsible for most of this, is little known outside the Arab world, perhaps deliberately so. But to the Isolated Druze in the mountains of Lebanon, in the Palestinian Arab refugee in Jordan, and even to the nomadic Bedouin tribesmen in the Yemen, he is a familiar and an inspiring voice. The educated Arab is reluctant to admit he listens to him, but to the illiterate and semi-literate millions, Ahmed Said, like the man for whom he speaks, Gamal Abdel Nasser, embodies the long nascent hope of most Arabs for a better way of life. Because they listen to the way once- contented Cypriots listened to the violent voice of Radio Athen, it is evident 94

that the electronic war of words in the Middle East will continue as long as the words “Western Imperialists” and “Zionism” hold any meaning.

Ahmed Said is the young general manager of the Voice of the Arabs, the powerful radio propaganda outlet of the United Arab Republic. His “Commentaries on the news, heard throughout the Middle East and now in much of Africa, have brought him popularity and influence in the Arab world second only to President Nasser’s. (Ineed, some people believe that Said commands more influence than Nasser himself.) I have heard an Arab tell a clerk in a radio shop in Kuwait, “ I’ll buy this radio if you promise I can get Ahmed Said on it.” In the Jordan Valley I have sat with an Arab family in their goatskin tent and been told by the oldest son that the greatest thrill of his life was seeing Ahmed Said in Damascus. Many newborn babies, from Muscat to Morocco, have been given his name. As the leading voice on radio in an area where radio is the leading influence on more that fifty million persons, Ahmed Said is in an incomparable position to mold thinking and actions favorable to the policies of Nasser. During a meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers in Lebanon late in the summer of 1960, an event always dressed in a shallow show of unity among Arab leaders, The Voice observed a truce of silence with its usual favorite target, Jordan’s young King Hussein and Radio Amman. Tensions in the Middle East relaxed and borders between countries were once again opened. The concept of Arab nationalism as a friendly rapprochement between leaders began to emerge as something more than a myth. But then on August 26, Ahmed Said suddenly switched from this unfamiliar poise of sweetness and light and, in a broadcast not soon to be forgotten in the middle East, urged the people of Jordan to “kill Majali and drag his body through the streets.” Hazzaa Majali, Hussein’s capable Prime Minister and staunch supporter of the Western Powers, 95

was killed three days later, a victim, along with eleven others, of an outrageous assassination by a bomb.

Another striking example of how Ahmed Said uses his power is the extensive damage to facilities of Western- owned oil companies during the Suez crisis. Shortly after the tripartite invasion of Egypt by Britain, Israel and France, Said went on the air and called on all Arabs laborers (“my brothers”) to “strike out against the aggressors.” His voice was the rallying cry for thousands of workers-turned- saboteurs. Dynamite was planted around installations and pipelines, resulting in damage amounting to millions of dollars. The three nations, stung into action, went after the transmitters of the Voice with bombs. Damage was slight, however, and after only one day of quiet, dials of many of the 2,250,000 radio sets scattered through the Arab world were once again turned to the polemical voice of Mr. Said. The aggressors, he was saying, had failed to silence “the call for unity.” He was indignant because they had even attempted such a thing, and, at the same time, he was thankful they had failed. In typical Arab fashion, he hissed and cried, shouted and whispered vilifications against “the enemy.” A British correspondent recalled that Said sounded like “a chorus of snakes and doves.”

No Longer Playthings

SAID is in his early thirties. He has lost most of his hair, and members of the Anglo-American community in Cairo like to contribute that to “blowing his top so much.” Recently married, he has adopted the Western custom of moving to the suburbs. His workday ranges from eight to eighteen hours. As he drives in his modest-priced automobile from his home near the Great Pyramids of Giza to his office in Cairo, Said, ruddy-faces, stocky, and always immaculately dressed, resembles the pre-revolution type of prosperous businessman in Egypt. And, like a businessman, he has a 96

product to market: a feeling of identity among the newly awakened millions in the strategic Middle East. Like so many of the other young men who surrounded Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Said started his career while a student in Cairo. He began writing for political newspapers and before long was completely caught up in the Nasser-propelled drive for “dignity” among Egyptians. Like Nasser, he was disgusted when Egyptians were forced to fight with inferior arms against the Israelis in 1948. Like Nasser, Said was offended by the unwritten rule that educated Arabs would speak French or English- never Arabic- on an official basis; and, like Nasser, he could not understand why Egyptians had to salute British soldiers.

It was this type of anger that caught fire when it was revealed that the tarbush (fez) worn by so many Egyptian men was being imported from Europe. “In the name of God.” Said and others of his generation protested, “cannot Egypt be self-sufficient in at least the tarbush?” Amr Ibn-al- As, the Muslim general who conquered the Nile Valley in 640 A.D., wrote in a report to Caliph Omar: “Its people are playthings, its soil is gold, and it belongs to those strong enough to take it.” Again, like Nasser, Ahmed Said felt that the Egyptians had been “playthings” for too long.

His success on radio in the Arab world is tied in with all these disgusts, beliefs, and humiliations. Because millions of other Arabs have shared these same feelings for many years, Said is able to reach them. They understand him and respect him as an Arab speaking for Arabs. It is in this same vein that Nasser is respected as an Arab, by Arabs. Emotion, however, is the ruling factor in Said’s popularity. He must be listened to with the fact in mind that Atabic is more often used to express an emotion than to convey the idea. Therefore, if an official is assassinated shortly after Said has suggested that course of grisly action, the murder comes on a boiling wave of emotionalism. 97

The Voice of the Arabs

During During Sadat’s Era

On September 28, 1970, president Gamal Abdel Nasser passed away and his vice president, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, assumed the presidency. On September 11, 1971, the permanent Egyptian Constitution was promulgated. Article 47 states that freedom of opinion is guaranteed. Everyone has the right of expression within the limits of the law. Self-criticism and constructive criticism guarantee the integrity of national structure. Article 48 stipulates that freedom of the press, print, publication, and media is guaranteed. Censorship, warning, suspension, or administrative revocation of newspapers is prohibited. An exception may be allowed in case of emergency or wartime, where newspapers, publications, and the media may be subject to specific censorship in matters related to public safety or national security, all in accordance with the law. The media, including radio and television, was affected by the changes. A new information minister, Dr. Mohamed Abdelkader Hatem, was appointed to succeed Mohamed Fayeq. Radio chief Mohamed Amin Hammad was dismissed and temporarily replaced by Abdel Rahim Srour. The Voice of the Arabs chief Mohamed Orouq was

replaced by Saad Zaghloul Nassar, who continued in this post until 1977. Dr. Hatem, Egyptian deputy prime minister during the October 1973 War, asserted that the impact of the June 1967 defeat was profound on Egyptians and Arabs. One of the main reasons for this was the Egyptian media’s “irresponsible statements” before the June 1967 War that we had rockets that would destroy Israel in a few hours, and was the strongest military in the Middle East. The media went on exaggerating the strength of our forces and underestimating the capabilities of the Israeli forces.

American researcher Julian Hill, a specialist in political communication, said that in October 1973, the Voice of the Arabs was able to set aside the 1967 experience and avoid resorting to hysterical methods, replacing it with a more mature style. Thus, the voice of the Arabs during the October 1973 War contributed to the implementation of the Egyptian media plan, which was based on basic principles, most importantly the following:

 The citizen’s right to know, a right determined by the international declaration of human rights. According to this declaration, the citizen’s right to know should be respected. The media bodies are responsible for the citizen’s knowledge of news, data, and information before listening to them from other media.  Launching the freedom of the press and lifting censorship, in order to become an effective tool in serving the people.  The right of the citizen to know his enemy. Therefore, the most important thing stipulated by the media plan was the release of the books on Israel under the slogan “Know Your Enemy,” which were translated and published in popular editions.  Providing information and facts to the public in a timely fashion. This is the scientific way to eliminate the rumors that pose a threat to the home front. 99

The Broadcasters’ Massacre

On May 15, 1971

On May 15, 1971, Anwar Sadat moved to eliminate the influence of his opponents. He called them the “centers of power,” who enjoyed a great deal of power under Nasser.

May 11, 1971, was the beginning when a police officer working in the Ministry of Interior’s telephone control department went to the president’s residence. He presented Sadat with a set of tape recordings, including a call between two of the so-called power centers conspiring against Sadat and plotting to assassinate him.

Sadat dismissed interior minister Shaarawy Guma, and on May 14, 1971, he formed the first cabinet without those power centers, since the revolution of July 1952. On the evening of May 15, 1971, citizens were surprised to hear, in the Voice of the Arabs 8:00 p.m. newscast, the resignation of five of the most influential ministers, including the defense, interior, and information ministers.

I was supposed to read that particular newscast. As chief of announcers, I made an amendment assigning my colleague Ali Saafan to replace me in reading it, for I wanted to watch a new movie at Qasr El-Nil cinema that night from 6:00– 9:00 p.m. According to the announcers’ schedule, the 10:30 p.m. newscast was supposed to be read by junior announcer Hani Khallaf (now former ambassador Hani Khallaf).

When I came back from the movies I heard senior broadcaster Ahmed Hamza reading the news instead, although he was on leave from his assignment as a reporter for the Voice of Arabs in Khartoum, Sudan. When I called Hani, he told me that Hamza read the news as

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ordered by Mohamed Orouq, director of the Voice of the Arabs. I didn’t stop much at that, knowing that it was not an unusual mandate, and went to sleep, only to wake up in the morning with a phone call from broadcaster Saad Zaghloul Nassar asking me to report to the station immediately. When I met him, he informed me, while he occupied the Chief of the Voice of the Arabs seat, that he had assumed management, after the radio station and even the country were almost subjected to a plot to overthrow the government! In the previous evening, that newscast, which I was supposed to read, was packed with mass resignations of cabinet members in an attempt to embarrass Sadat and force him to step down. Sadat was ahead of the plotting “power centers” group, and exposed them in a radio and TV speech.

In a dramatic show, he later went to the Ministry of the Interior to burn piles of documents and tapes, which included recordings of wiretapping senior state officials.

Broadcasters associated with interior minister Shaarawi Guma and the Socialist Institute were all transferred to the postal service, leaving only me and Ali Saafan to cover twenty-one-and-a-half hours of air time. The new chief, 101

Saad Zaghloul Nassar, asked me to fill in the gap by any means. I offered him two suggestions he immediately approved them : (1) Removing the ban on female news readers on the Voice of the Arabs and adding three of the best female readers to our crew: Mervat Ragab, Amani Kamel, and Nadia Helmy. (2) Transferring some broadcasters with distinctive voices from the Overseas Radio Department to the Voice of the Arabs. I knew them by virtue of my “50 Radio Stations in an Hour” program. So I selected Mahmoud Sultan and Mohamed Al-Shinnawi, who proved to be among the most efficient and committed announcers of the station. Then they were joined by program presenter Wafiq Mazen, and Mostafa Labib from the People’s Radio. So the air studio regained balance, but outside of the studio, the situation wasn’t the same.

The next morning I was prevented from entering the Maspero building under the pretext that I was put on an open leave. I learned later that the amendment of reading the ill-fated 8:00 p.m. newscast between me and Ali Saafan had put me on the blacklist. However, I insisted on meeting the security manager of the building, Major Salah, who apologized for the mistake and informed me that my profile did not indicate any affiliation with the Socialist Institute group involved in the plot. He took me in his car to the general counsel and discussed the situation with him without my presence. Then he drove me back to Maspero. There I was asked by Saad Zaghloul Nassar to go back to my work immediately. Later on, I learned that all my colleagues in the Voice of the Arabs threatened to go on strike, saying that if Abbas Metwalli was “taken in,” this would mean that they were all vulnerable.

This was a noble attitude on the part of my colleagues, which prompted Mr. Nassar to brief the minister of information Abdel Qadir Hatem about the situation. The minister then ordered my return. Yes, I went back to my

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job in all dignity, but the wound remained deep and the feeling of being threatened in my livelihood never went away. For the first time, I thought seriously about leaving the country. The opportunity came, and I started the migrant bird journey in April 1975.

Less than forty-eight hours after the events of May 15, Sadat gave an important speech announcing the arrest of the so-called “centers of power.” He recounted the details of the plot and the resignation of the outgoing ministers, and their agents whom he said were spying on him to embarrass and harass him. Inside the radio and television building, Sadat resorted to his close associates, headed by the leader of the Republican Guard, Leithy Nasif. The arrest of the resigning ministers was not confined to the chief of the Voice of the Arabs Mohamed Orouq and his assistants Saad Ghazal and Mohamed Abul-Fotouh. It extended, however, to dismissing broadcasters linked to the Vanguard Organization, who were interrogated and then transferred to other government institutions, in what was known as the broadcasters’ massacre. They were led by a 103

selection of the best media professionals, such as Abdel Wahab Qattaya and Mohamed Al-Kholi. We, who were left behind in the Voice of the Arabs, wondered if we were excluded for lacking the professional status of the dismissed group!

May 15 was the first serious blow in the coup against the Nasserite project. The strikes continued during the periods of openness and the Arab boycott of Egypt, leading the way for all the forces hostile to the Nasserite experience, to take charge. On that day, the people knew through the media the names of the resigning ministers who were ousted by Sadat, headed by interior minister Shaarawi Guma, information minister Mohamed Fayeq, speaker of the parliament Mohamed Labib Shoukair, and presidential secretary Sami Sharaf, without knowing what happened in parallel with the overthrow of about eighty of the best cadres of the Egyptian media in radio and television, including the following:

Mohamed Orouq, Galal Moawad, Farouq Khorshid, Salah Zaki and his wife Aleya Ehsan, Saad Labib, Abbas Ahmed and his wife Soad Kamel, Ishaq Hanna, Omaima Abdel Aziz, Awatif Al-Badri, Saad Ghazal, Mohamed Abul Fotouh, Samira Al-Kilani, Salah Oweiss, Mohamed Al-Khouli, Fouad Fahmi, Sabri Yassin, Atef Abdel Hamid,Mohamed Abdel Wahed, Mounir Mustafa, Abdallah Omran, Mohamed Hashad, Mohamed Ghazal, Sayed Oweiss, Ahmed Heshmat Shalqami, Hussein Shash, Mohamed Attia, Jihan Al- Makkawi, Said Eyadah, Laila Al-Basiouni and Makram Maximus! Ironically, most of those who were expelled from the radio became media stars on Arab radio and television stations, which “kidnapped” them and took advantage of their exceptional expertise, including, but not limited to the following people:

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Abdel Wahab Qattaya

After his unjustified departure from the Voice of the Arabs, he became a television star in the UAE, where he presented many successful television shows and conducted many live interviews with hundreds of VIPs in the Arab world.

Qattaya, who was the Cairo radio Socialist Union secretary, was dismissed and referred to the socialist prosecutor. He was then transferred to Al-Azhar, where he remained without any specific job until he left for the UAE.

He was born in the city of Mahmoudiyah—the Behera governorate.

He carries a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at Alexandria University, which he earned in 1958. He also attended a number of media and intellectual courses in 1961, 1966, and 1971.

In 1954, he worked as a teacher. In 1958 he had the job of an administrative booking officer. In 1961 he became an announcer with the Voice of the Arabs. In 1975 he worked as supervisor of cultural programs in Abu Dhabi Television. 105

He also worked for seven years as a cultural editor for Al- Ittihad newspaper in Abu Dhabi.The following are just a few of his notable accomplishments:

 Abdel Wahab Qattaya published much of his poetry and many literary and cultural articles in poetry magazines and others, as well as in the Abu Dhabi Al-Ittihad newspaper.  He was granted the Best News Reader award during the Dubai TV Festival, and other awards from the Arab States Broadcasting Union and the Radio and Television Festival in Cairo.  He wrote many books and poems.  Many articles and comments were written about him in various newspapers in the UAE, and was interviewed many times in various newspapers.

Mohammed Al-Khouli

Mohammed Al-Khouli started work with the Voice of the Arabs in 1961 as a cultural and political programs presenter, which, at that time, played a major role in shaping the Egyptian and Arab conscience from the ocean to the Gulf.

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His radio work has opened for him broad prospects for the extraction of the writer within him. In 1964 he was assigned as head of the radio mission to Yemen to establish Taiz Radio. He presented many cultural programs and undertook international translations in a lot of Arab countries’ radio stations, combining media, radio, journalism, literature, and translation work.

He was also selected as an expert in political and Arab affairs in the Republic office of the late leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

When he was part of the Broadcasters’ Massacre on May 15, 1971, he devoted his time to writing, research, media and political studies, and translation. He then joined the United Nations as a translator, after Arabic was endorsed as an official language.

He is currently an expert in the United Nations Secretariat in the field of international writing and translation. He gained experience in the fields of international law and human rights, working with the specialized committees of the United Nations General Assembly.

He is also a member of several organizations, including the following:

 The Journalists Syndicate in Cairo  The International Union for Translation in Geneva  The American Academy of Political Science in New York  The Society of the World Future in Washington

His writings include:

“ Arab Satellite TV in the Face of Terrorism,” “Arab-West Image Conflict,” and The Greater Middle East;”. His

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translations include “Islam and Muslims in America,” and “The East and West;” and his awards include the King Abdullah Translation Award, March 2010.

Dr. Mustafa Al-Fiki said about him:

“Mohammed al-Khouli is a unique phenomenon that we hardly see it in our contemporary cultural history. He is a distinguished writer, a great speaker, a distinguished storyteller, fluent in both Arabic and English, as well as having the spirit of an artist. He is well versed in music and has a beautiful voice, especially in Mohamed Abdel Wahab’s songs.”

Dr. Gaber Asfour sees him as “the model of the encysted intellectual who was prevalent in our old culture.”

Shawqi Galal says of him: “He is an extension of the culture of Rafaa Tahtawi, who was impressed by the West, and preoccupied with the East.” Saad Ghazal

According to the Yemeni journalist, writer, and poet Fadl Al-Naqib:

“Saad Ghazal, the man who left our world, will never leave our memory. We knew the man with the rise of Arab unity’s dawn and its great civilization project, who was one of its distinctive voices, thundering from Algeria to Yemen. Saad Ghazal’s final years were here in the United Arab Emirates, and on the television screen from Abu Dhabi, we used to watch the mature, well-tested interviewer who never lost his faith in the word, and never lost his optimism about the ability of the Arab mind to overcome the current

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fragmentation in the land, inside the minds, and in the depths of the spirit. It was elevated by Islam and brought out to the world by the Arabs as one nation, with a civilized message, flourishing peace, justice that does not distinguish between black and white or between Arabs and non-Arabs, only with piety in its universal sense and the human dimension. There was Abdel Nasser and the revival of the of the soul, through which many dark forces were repelled, and souls and minds of millions liberated from the colonial grip, systematic looting, intellectual emptiness, and exploitation of culture and history. Nasser was not an individual, but a symbol of history. And the people of Egypt, was a glorious episode that made history. Within the armies of Arab Egypt were scientists, clerics, journalists, doctors, teachers, and workers. They are still performing their cultural message with broader knowledge, a stronger presence, and an influence that makes Egypt the balance thorn between the two wings of the great Arab nation. Saad Ghazal was one of the generation of the Voice of the Arabs, the media artillery that kept bombarding day and night. It was espoused by Arabs in every house and street. Our enemies and haters succeeded in portraying us, the first generation of media professionals, as being the cause of our setbacks. They simply deceived us, for the Arabs never knew in their contemporary history a stronger and more effective media than the Voice of the Arabs. We may disagree on the methods, the extent of emotional incitement and mental formulations. However, the Voice of the Arabs was the offspring of that period’s emotional flare, fervent enthusiasm, and inflamed feeling, addressing the heart. It undertook the message, but, as it is said, victories have a thousand fathers, whereas defeat has only one, because all people avoid it just like the healthy who avoids the scabby. Yes, Saad Ghazal has left us as the true cavalry would leave. He did not deny his message, or bargain for his word, did not 109

differentiate between the land of Egypt and the land of the Emirates or any Arab land. He was an example in his ethics and behavior, where his outward matched his inward. He believed that what you say and do are only two sides of one coin; otherwise thought would be hypocrisy, and behavior a living proof of that hypocrisy. My memory dates back to 1963, when Ahmed Said, the commander of the Voice of the Arabs at the time, came to the northern part of our homeland Yemen. When he was received at a public reception, he was known to the public more than the commanders of the armies. People went out of every hole to see Ahmed Said and slaughter the sacrifices in his honor, and to cheer him from the depths. Does not any historian find in this innate love a sign? It is a stage in the development of people’s awareness and experiences, as it is in the life of the individual when he moves from the naïveté of childhood to the enthusiasm of young people, to the glow of masculinity, wisdom and maturity. We must not deprive our history of the trial of reason, and of its extrapolation in its stage and standards. May Allah have mercy on him. Saad Ghazal has taken responsibility for balancing the mind and passion, and the enormity of the defeat and the popular desire to defeat the darkness that suddenly engulfed our entire world at one of the most accurate stages of the voice of the Arabs. The enthusiasm of the believers did not escape even the last breath.

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Mohamed Abou Al Fotouh

According to Egyptian journalist Mohamed Abdel Karim Diab: “Mohamed Abul Fotouh belonged to the generation of pioneers who carried the radio work torch during one of the most important and fruitful periods of Arab history, starting with the first steps of the Voice of the Arabs Radio in the 1950s. He was a member of its first battalion alongside Saad Ghazal, Sayed Al- Ghadhban, Mohamed Al-Khouli, and their mentor, Ahmed Said. The radio’s message was spurring liberation, calling for social justice and resisting injustice, and advocating Arab unity. The Voice of the Arabs was at the forefront in supporting the resistance and confronting the occupation and colonization and their cancerous excretions in the Arab world. Media of the time was a guerrilla act in every sense of the word. Abul Fotouh’s work, life, and activity embodied this meaning. As pious as he was, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth, and because of his great faith in Arabism, he worked under the banner of the July Revolution. After returning from exile, he joined the suspended Labor Party, where he found his lost path in combining Arabism with Islam.

His affable and rich personality made it possible for him to keep a line of communication with the Mujahideen in the Maghreb during the period of confrontation with French colonization. When he took over the region’s affairs in the Voice of the Arabs, he was not just a broadcaster or news and events commentator, but rather an aggressive interlocutor with the resistance fighters, providing them with energy and confidence in victory and the completion of the liberation and construction task. His relationship with the revolution and the revolutionaries in Algeria strengthened, and he was among those who preached 111

the dawn when the banner of independence would be raised throughout Algeria, regaining itself as an Arab, Muslim, and independent state.

“One day, at the height of the bloody conflict between the liberation forces and the occupation,” says translation expert Mohamed Al-Khouli, in an article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Araby, “we were surprised by the absence of Muhamed Abol Fotouh, who travelled to Algeria alone with only an old recording device, a few hard currencies, and a lot of faith in God’s power and the freedom of Algeria. It was one of the most dangerous tasks, from which he returned after recording, for history, impressive interviews with the leaders of the resistance who taught the French lessons in the foothills of Algeria’s mountains. Among them was the great Mujahid ‘Saleh’ who chose to carry an eloquent title still bright in the corridors of memory: Colonel Saleh.”

The Egyptian authorities had expelled Abul Fotouh from the Voice of the Arabs, along with other broadcasters and media pioneers, and threw him in the Ministry of Planning, without a specific job. He was among those who were arrested or expelled from their jobs and went to Libya.

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Mohamed Orouq

The Man Who Held Himself Solely Accountable

My seniority did not exceed three years when Mohamed Orouq assumed management of the Voice of the Arabs. After returning from the Yemen mission following the setback of 1967 and dismissal of senior media journalist Ahmed Said from his post due to the false news about the early hours of the war and the appointment of Yahya Abu Bakr for a short time, I met Mr. Orouq for the first time. His appointment was a qualitative leap for all members of the Voice of the Arabs family, myself included. He believed in the survival of the fittest, and not in seniority in the job. So he appointed me as chief of announcers at an early stage of my radio career. He even made a significant a qualitative shift in the radio’s literary, artistic, historical, and philosophical programs. I couldn’t imagine at the time that he would accept the “crazy” idea when I and my colleague Amani Kamel offered him the idea of “Unedited” as the first live call-in radio talk show.

We were more scared than him about the unprecedented move that would allow the listener to call in live and participate in the program. However, we derived our 113

courage from the fact that Mr. Orouq had the power at the time, being a consultant to the powerful interior minister Shaarawi Guma. He was a successful presenter of many programs himself, most notably the political program “Lies Revealed by Facts,” which he presented in partnership with the illustrious media professional Ahmed Said, and was widespread in the 1950s and 1960s. Orouq would present the lie with his quiet euphonic voice, while Ahmed Said would expose it with his boisterous, loud voice in a show that alternated between igniting and subsiding the storm.

Among the most famous programs presented by Mohamed Orouq during the period I witnessed myself from 1968 to 1971, was “The People in Sinai.” It aimed at extending bridges of communication between the occupied Sinai residents and the motherland. He also presented “A Forum of Love,” “sweet words” and “30 songs,” the first radio program for the Land Sons, a local music group led by Captain Ghazali. That program was part of Mohamed Orouq’s political endeavor at that time. No one can deny his role in the emergence of a number of great Egyptian poets of that period, such as Abdul Rahman Al-Abnoudi, Salah Jahin, and Ahmed Fouad Negm. He even introduced the program “with Sheikh Imam" prepared by the great journalist Raja Al-Naqash and directed by colleague Ahmed Al-Gebeily, and I voiced its introduction. Orouq realized that those artists represented a promising, healthy artistic phenomenon.

Mohamed Orouq joined the Faculty of Arts in the Department of Philosophy, at Alexandria University. He was first introduced to Gamal Abdel Nasser following the 1948 defeat. The story, as told by Orouq, is that he published the newspaper (intellect), with the Alleithi Abdel Nasser, brother of Gamal Abdel Nasser; and Ahmed Nafi, brother of journalist Ibrahim Nafie, and was writing bold articles with revolutionary features and conscious literary

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eloquence. Suddenly, they found behind them a tall young man with sharp features and light flashing eyes. He told them with a deep voice: “Do you think you’re going to kick the British out of Egypt with just wall magazines?” and then left. Al-Leithi apologized and said: “Don’t mind my brother Gamal, he is just returning from the battle of Fallujah and is affected by the defeat of the Egyptian army in Palestine.”

Orouq went home and did not sleep that night. Al-Leithi’s brother’s voice continued ringing in his ears. Days passed, and on July 23, 1952, the revolution erupted, and when Orouq reviewed the newspaper, he saw a photo of the Free Officers who led the revolution, including Gamal Abdel Nasser. Hence, he realized that Nasser was the mastermind of the revolution and would one day play a significant role.

In 1953 Orouq obtained a bachelor’s degree from Alexandria University and went on to work in the field of teaching at the Al-Wardian Secondary School. He then moved to Al-Qantara Sharq Girls Secondary School, and then moved to Suez Girls Secondary School. During his teaching career in late 1954, he was assigned to work as a programmer for the Voice of the Arabs, after its debut. Along with Ahmed Said, Saad Ghazal, Mohamed Abul Fotouh, Mohamed Elwan, and Al-Sayed Al-Ghadban, he attended a number of radio training courses in Germany. Since that time, his confident, euphonic, calm voice has continued to call upon the Arab nation. During the national struggle period led by the leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mohamed Orouq participated in sponsoring Arabian Gulf students before independence, including Sheikh Mohamed Sultan Al-Qasimi, who later became the ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah, the man known for his attachment to science, scientific research, and encouragement of scientists.

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On May 15, 1971, Mohamed Orouq was indicted in the famous power centers case, where he was imprisoned with minister of information Mohamed Fayeq, Sami Sharaf, and Shaarawi Guma, the former interior minister, for allegedly changing the evening radio programs on May 14 until they were put to trial. The four were put in one cell for seven full years. After his release from prison in 1978, Orouq returned to his hometown in Suez. On February 11, 1989, his old friend Sheikh Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah, asked him to help with his unique expertise and great radio experiences in establishing the first UAE-based television channel, Sharjah TV.

Mohamed Orouq lived a great bestowal process for more than half a century, during which he was a brilliant announcer with an eloquent literary tongue, and a sincere, loving person. However, he fell sick for a long time and died on May 25, 1995, in a British hospital in London. His funeral was held at Al-Gharib Mosque in a majestic procession. His body was buried in the family graveyard in Suez. He was born and raised in the arms of this city which he adored throughout his life. The Voice of the Arabs staff, myself included, has not forgotten Orouq’s noble position when he was investigated in the power centers case. When asked about his partners in the radio resignations of the government ministers in the 8:00 p.m. newscast on May 15, 1971, which I was supposed to read myself, but asked colleague Ali Saffan to read instead because I was going to the cinema, Orouq said with all courage: “They are just employees. And no one of them would have refused my orders.” Accordingly, Saad Ghazal and Mohamed Abul Fotouh were released. No charges were brought against me or my colleague Ali Saffan. In other words, the difficult- positions man, Mohamed Orouq, chose to “hold himself solely accountable”!

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After his release from prison and his travel to Sharjah where he took over the Sharjah Art Production Corporation, he recorded that era by documenting the testimonies of Nasser’s men involved in the centers of power “conspiracy” after their release from prison.

Shaarawi Guma said in his testimony: “The US charge d’affaires in Cairo, Donald Burgess, requested an interview between US assistant under secretary of state, Joseph Sisco, and President Sadat, who agreed immediately and asked that the interview be at his home in Giza, not at the presidential palace. Sadat asked that Burgess and Sisco meet him in the backyard, and justifyingly said, ‘Because Nasser’s men record all my interviews.’ The meeting extended for a long time, and was transcribed immediately on orders from the then general intelligence chief, Ahmed Kamel, who in turn called for an urgent meeting of the political leadership of the Vanguard organization. After a noisy discussion, the audience split into two groups: The first headed by Saad Zayed, who accused President Sadat of treason, and demanded his arrest. He said, ‘I need only twenty military men to go to arrest him, and I can bring him in no more than two hours from now, put him in the military prison, announce the recording publicly, and put him to trial for treason.’ I headed the second group and saw with a majority of the audience that Egypt was preparing for the liberation battle, and it would be dangerous to shock the military and the people. We needed to unite efforts to liberate Sinai, and thereafter, we devoted ourselves to holding Sadat accountable.”

However, Sadat was faster and got rid of them before they could think of overthrowing him. Since then, 99 percent of the cards had been put in the hands of America!

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May 15, 1971,

In the Memory of Egyptians

With the gravity of the events of May 15, 1971, Egyptians’ knowledge of its meaning remains dim and in the best circumstances ambiguous. The Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research conducted a survey to measure the Egyptians’ knowledge of what was known as Sadat’s corrective revolution that overthrew what he called the centers of power. Despite the fact that this event was taught in the basic education curricula, and some bridges in a number of governorates of Egypt bear the name of May 15, in addition to the existence of a city with the same name, the percentage of those who knew the events of that day did not exceed 5 percent. Of those surveyed, 3 percent misunderstood those events, while 92 percent said they know nothing about it.

The results indicate that with a higher educational level, the knowledge of the event increases. The percentage of those who knew the event correctly rises from 3 percent among those with less than average education to 14 percent among those with university education or higher. In contrast, the percentage of respondents who did not know goes down from 95 percent of those with less than average education to 83 percent of those with university education or higher.

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The Voice of the Arabs

A School of Innovators

I have never regretted for one day my appointment as an announcer at the Voice of the Arabs, even though I came out on top of all candidates in 1965. It was customary at that time to appoint the first group to the General Radio, which was the top echelon of the station, followed by the Voice of Arabs and Middle East Radio, then followed by the Overseas Broadcasting Station which was not received in Egypt. The reason was that, during the oral examination, I chose English as my main language. Examiners Mohamed Mahmoud Shaaban “Baba Sharo,” Abdel Hamid Al-Hadidi, and Dr. Mehdi Allam were about to assign me to the European department, but the Voice of the Arabs was in 119

dire need for news readers. Radio Al-Hadidi told Ahmed Hamza, who was the Voice of Arabs chief of announcers: “Take the top new announcer and translate him!” In fact, I didn’t need to be translated, so to speak. I holed myself up in the hotel room where I was staying, to exclusively revise the Arabic grammar to be worthy of my status as number one of my colleagues.

However, I had received the real indoctrination at the hands of some of the best media personalities in the Arab world at the time. I don’t forget the great idealist broadcaster Rashad Adham, who taught me how to adjust the studio air time by the minute and second, or radio veteran Mohammad Marei, to whose shifts I was assigned, to absorb the secrets and arts of the trade, while the chief of announcers Ahmed Hamza, with his solemn accent, linguistic accuracy, and professional skill provided the best support in tutoring me on how to achieve familiarity with the microphone. I am also indebted to the late Helmy Al- Bolok, with his soft and distinctive voice, for giving me my first chance to announce on the air when he let me present “ The Telephone,” a song by Tunisian vocalist Amina Idriss, in the Arab Maghreb broadcast, which, like the Palestine broadcast, was part of the Voice of the Arabs programming.

Away from the studio, the Voice of the Arabs realm was more spacious, especially in the Cultural and Variety Departments. There, I saw how great professional broadcasters like Abdel Wahab Qattaya, Mohamed Al- khouli, Salah Oweiss, Saad Zaghloul Nassar, and Fouad Fahmi work in writing and presenting cultural programs. I was a witness to Nassar winning a bet that he would write a review of a book he didn’t read before, for Ahmed Hamza’s program “A Book I Read for You.” He did it in only half an hour, quickly reviewing the pages of the book, to come out with a full-fledged Arabic summary in an

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unsurpassed language. At the Variety Department, with which I was affiliated later on, competition was fierce between Wagdy Al-Hakim, the celebrity artist talk-show host with programs like “Extremely Candid;” Adel Galal with his “Sunday Evening” show; Kamel Al-Bitar with his “Workers’ Requests;” Helmy Al-Bolok with his “Eastern Nights;” and Abdullah Qassem, who co-hosted “The Evening Taxi” with his colleague Gamal Al-Sanhoury. Kamel Gave me the opportunity to present his live “Workers’ Requests” show, and I had to read a long list of names from all over the country. As an indigenous Alexandrian being introduced to the Cairo community for the first time, I caused a wave of laughter when I read “Shobra” as “Shorba”, meaning soup, and “Meet Oqba” as “Meet Aqaba,” let alone unfamiliar erratic listeners’ names!

However, the one incident that Kamel Al-Bitar still remembers quite well is when I saw him once bewildered in naming a new music program. When I asked him about the contents, he said it would host a layman rather than a celebrity, to present his or her own choice of songs. I told him jokingly, let it be called “Aghani Wa Agbani” which literally means Songs I Like. On hearing the suggestion, Kamel jumped out of his desk chair like Newton when the apple fell from the tree, saying “I found it . . . I found it!” This show had since become one of the distinctive landmarks of the Voice of the Arabs.

In addition to hosting cultural shows like “One Plus One,” which was based on selecting a well-known artist meeting a historical figure in a drama format, I presented “50 Radio Stations in an Hour.” On this show I chose segments from all Egyptian local and overseas-directed radio broadcasts, which gave me the chance of building close relationships with other radio colleagues, like Mahmoud Sultan, Mohamed Al-Shinnawi, and Mohamed Sanaa. These relationships resulted in them later joining my team of

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announcers, along with Mostafa Labib from the Peoples Radio, when the Voice of the Arabs was on the verge of collapsing in the wake of the Sadat corrective revolution in 1971, as a result of transferring a large number of the Voice of the Arabs broadcasters to other government institutions on the pretext of participating in a plot to overthrow the government! I also co-hosted “Unedited” with colleague Amani Kamel, the first live call-in talk show, at least twenty years before the advent of the satellite talk shows.

The Voice of the Arabs was rightfully a media, cultural, artistic, and universal school, in which I had opportunities that wouldn’t have been available to me at any other station. Even when I moved to the Voice of America in Greece and then in Washington, DC, as an announcer, radio reporter, and translator, the outcome of what I had learned at this school was my support and backbone in media work. I don’t forget the first time I was allowed to announce my name on a prime-time newscast at the Voice of the Arabs. I had asked all my family members not to miss this opportunity. After reading it, I saw the veteran broadcaster Ibrahim Mesbah, with his tall figure, dashing into the room, asking with his familiar, sonorous voice: “Where is that announcer whose name matches a Qur’anic verse?” He was referring to “Abasa Wa Tawalla”! Sura 80,1.

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Saad Zaghloul Nassar

The Encyclopedic Broadcaster

On 15 May 1971, after the corrective revolution led by President Anwar Sadat, which relieved Mohamed Orouq, the then Voice of Arabs chief, of his duties, Saad Zaghloul Nassar was appointed to become the fourth chief of the Voice of the Arabs after Ahmad Said, Yehia Abu Bakr, and Mohamed Orouq. I became closer to the new chief by virtue of my position as chief of announcers. When announcers’ problems and air broadcast troubles accumulate, he would call me to discuss them. His only flaw was that he was so soft-hearted that he would not let down anyone and allow a person to leave his office broken-hearted. This was a serious problem for me, because any decision I would take against a fellow worker for some reason, Saad would approve of it immediately. Then when the intended person complained to him, he would cancel his previous decision! He was never ready to allow any issue or complaint to disturb him while concentrating on radio or creative work, such as co- participating in writing hundreds of episodes for “A Dialogue with a Listener,” or “A Book I Read for You” programs, drafting commentaries or preparing his weekly program “From Heart to Heart.”

When I personally met him once complaining, the complaint was not about a fellow worker, but rather about a dilemma created by a mysterious person who knocked 123

on my apartment’s door and said he was with State Security. After a long introduction, praising my integrity, competence, and nationalism, he asked me explicitly to write reports about my colleagues at work whom I saw as opponents to the regime or working against it. However, he wouldn’t utter who nominated me for this job. I used to hear rumors about some colleagues selling their conscience and performing this kind of job in exchange for a regular salary, especially after President Sadat lost confidence in Radio following a coup attempt by those he called power centers, led by the then minister of the interior Sharaawi Guma, for whom the former Voice of the Arabs chief Mohamed Orouq was working as an adviser.

Sadat has long echoed his condemning, deplorable, severe sentence: “The Radio is under siege!” I promised the man I would think about it, pledging secretly to myself not to become a tool of the regime against my co-workers. What bewildered me most was this: Who the hell had nominated me for this despicable job? For he would be the only one able to withdraw his nomination! I thought immediately that Nassar would probably be involved, considering that he was under pressure from the presidency to prevent the recurrence of the May 15th scenario. On that day I entered his office and recounted the whole episode and asked him for advice, telling him at the same time that if I accepted this kind of job, I would expose myself because I could not keep a secret by virtue of my non-secretive nature. He wasn’t surprised for what I said and asked me to ignore the matter completely, as long as it was against my will. After that encounter State Security seemed to ignore the idea of drafting me!

This incident was one of the factors that motivated me to think of immigrating for the first time. Saad Zaghloul Nassar, was, like most of us, a believer in Gamal Abdel Nasser and his nationalistic message, and helped support

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the message by writing reviews of four foreign books about the leader and the revolution: “The President” by American author Robert Saint John; “Egyptian Army in Politics” by American writer B. G. Vatikiotis; the English version of “Egypt in Transition”, a book by a French couple, Jean and Simon Lakoter; and “Agrarian Reform and Land Development,” by English writer Doreen Warriner. However, by virtue of his new position, he became one of the staunchest defenders of President Sadat on the grounds that he was an extension of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Then everyone gradually found out that Sadat walked on the path of Abdel Nasser using an eraser! However, I have never lost my respect or love for this great broadcaster and intellectual. Competent attorney, professor Ragai Attia, who is, by the way, the brother of Saad Zaghloul Nassar’s wife, said in an article titled “Radio Message and the National Project”:

“The encyclopedic Saad Zaghloul Nassar spent most of his radio career in the Voice of the Arabs, spreading his message, believing up to the marrow in the national project. He dealt with it as we have seen in TV dramas “An Egyptian Quad,” and “Egypt the Guarded,” in the radio series “Counter- Revolution,” and in playwriting The Sons of Egypt, also adopting it in direct articles, and in his study on the July revolution, published by the Evening Weekly (1963).”

Also, the most notable of Saad Zaghloul Nassar’s work was “The Kamel El-Shinnawi Biography,” which great poet and broadcaster Farouq Shousha referred to in a November 9, 2014 article:

“The story is written by radio encyclopedic writer Saad Zaghloul Nassar in thirty dramatic episodes about the great poet and journalist Kamel El- Shinnawi. It was allowed to appear in a published

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book introduced by the great writer and competent attorney Ragai Attiya, with an additional preface about the multi-talented senior broadcaster, who had pointed out areas of literature, art, drama, playwriting, criticism, and translation, in addition to his radio and television contribution throughout his rich career as a radio and television writer.”

Saad Zaghloul Nassar did not only get into tackling television drama, but he was also the first radio announcer assigned to read TV news, followed later by the Voice of the Arabs’ announcers Mahmoud Sultan and Mostafa Labib. When I was asked by some colleagues why I didn’t join in reading TV news, my pretext was that if I became a well-known face I wouldn’t be able to ride the bus, plus the salary wouldn’t allow me to take taxis! That was indeed a lame excuse. The fact was that I dreaded facing the camera, a condition that had disappeared totally in America, where I stood in front of the camera as a reporter and host of hundreds of episodes of talk shows. Saad left the Radio one year after my departure. In 1976, he was appointed director of information at the Presidency institution, and two years earlier he had won the first-class Medal of the Republic. In 1981, I met him in Washington, DC, in his new capacity when he accompanied Sadat at the signing ceremony of the Camp David Accords. After his death in 1992, he was granted the Pioneer Award by the Radio and Television Union. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with such a great radio broadcaster. He always encouraged young radio talents and gave them an opportunity to progress. However, he saw at the same time, true or just a compliment, that mine was the last of a respectable generation of announcers, and used to compare us with the comedy movie “Those Great Men and Their Flying Machines!”

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Wagdy al-Hakim

An Embodiment of Radio History

It is true to say that the Voice of the Arabs was a unique school, especially in the 1960s. This was not only because of its transmission that had covered all events of the Arab world, and the potent voice of the great broadcaster Ahmed Said that zapped from it with his enthusiastic programs, which used to raise and bring down governments, but also because it was a pioneer in other radio art areas. This leadership was attained by creative broadcasters, one of whom has just passed away, my longtime dear friend Wagdy Al-Hakim, who owns the largest inventory of artistic, lyrical, and dramatic heritage of Radio! He always used to call me “Abbas Abbas,” since he produced the comedy radio series “Abbas Abul Dahab,” starring Abbas Fares. The opening theme used to repeat the name twice, and I was fortunate to introduce it with my voice. In addition to Wagdy’s success in drama production, he had hosted a variety of talk shows with 127

senior artists of his generation, and realized unprecedented success when he persuaded the top Arab vocalist Umm Kulthum to document her biography on tape, despite her reluctance to be interviewed by the media. I haven’t forgotten Wagdy’s role in the October 1973 War, when he volunteered to stay in the Maspero building round the clock, where he accompanied musicians Baligh Hamdi, Mohamed El-Mogy and Kamal Al-Taweel while they recorded patriotic songs such as “In the Name of Allah” by the chorus, “I Am Singing on the Rababa,” by Warda, “Your Son Calls You a Hero,” by Abdel Halim Hafez, and the rest of this bouquet of unforgettable lyrics.

We at the Voice of the Arabs, used to work like bees in a beehive and compete with ambitious programs. Wagdy Al- Hakim introduced his famous “Utmost Candor,” which represented conflicting viewpoints, devoid of name-calling and vulgarities. Mohammad Marei introduced his variety show “Telestar,” and Adel Galal gave his “Sunday Evening” gala, while I and my colleague Amani Kamel hosted ”Unedited,” the first call-in talk show involving listeners on the air. On the humanitarian side, given that Wagdy Al- Hakim was well-off compared to the rest of the Voice of the Arabs employees, he was generous and gracious, never hesitating to give to charity. I do not remember him once rejecting a loan request, assistance, or help to mediate with some influential personality. He had a broad network of contacts with many influential people in all fields, political, social, and artistic, in addition to a close relationship with the military and police institutions. I still remember when he contacted Cairo’s governor to provide me with an apartment near Maspero. I lived in that apartment with longtime colleague Omar Battisha at a time when getting an apartment was almost a dream. When I decided to move to another rental apartment in Agouza, I was asked to pay a down payment of fifty pounds as a two-month rent deposit. I turned then to my Wagdy, 128

who immediately opened his desk drawer for me to take what I wanted.

Wagdy was also the first to provide fledgling radio stations in the Gulf region with programs, and I was, thanks to him, one of the contributors to those programs. Even after I had immigrated to the United States, he never missed a chance to welcome my arrival and hold a gathering with a group of radio colleagues such as Kamel Al-Bitar, Amina Sabri, Inas Gohar, and others, and I can’t imagine how I can visit Cairo now in the absence of Wagdy Al-Hakim! This is the will of God that he seemed to have expected. He used to tell me that “my friends Baligh Hamdi, Abdel Halim Hafez, and Mohamed El-Mogy all died of my same liver disease.”

Before he left for London to seek treatment, he promised that upon his return he would complete his documentary “Tell It All, Halim,” which featured rare conversations with the late famous singer, that he had so long talked to me enthusiastically about. However, death was faster, as he sadly passed away in London, the same city which witnessed the death of his long-time friend Abdel Halim Hafez. The irony was that he died on the eightieth anniversary celebration of Cairo Radio, which happened to be his eightieth birthday!

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Amin Bassiouny

The All Trades Broadcaster

I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Amin Bassiouni until after his return from Libya, where he spent three years working on loan for Radio Tripoli. At that time I was establishing my career in the Voice of the Arabs, becoming chief of announcers. During his absence I heard a lot about him as one of the first-generation founders of this inveterate radio station. When he resumed his work at the Voice of the Arabs, he was supervisor of the air studio output department, and being the chief of announcers in the same department, I became very close to him.

I learned that he started his career in the Ministry of Education after obtaining his BA degree from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. This was evident in his character, who loved dialogue, debate, and instruction. I was not there when he became the chief of the Voice of the Arabs

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in 1976. A year before, I started my immigration journey, which took me to Greece and then to Washington, DC.

In the Voice of the Arabs, Amin Bassiouni was the first to give me a chance to present a program on my own, when he gave up his program “Your Health Is All That Matters.” Throughout the period of our work together, he was courteous, always giving advice to male and female broadcasters around him. So much so that I never caught him listening, always the speaker to those profession lovers. His stories were endless and advice limitless. At one point I had an agreement with my colleague Mervat Ragab that whoever caught the other “cornered” while listening to the stories of Amin Bassiouni, try to save him (or her) by fabricating something important that called for his (or her) release!

His chats were voluble and elegant to the point you didn’t feel the passage of time. He was a lover of the spoken word as much as his love for the microphone, over which he presented many diverse programs, cultural and political. Although he was promoted to the position of chief of the Voice of the Arabs in 1976 and then head of Cairo Radio in 1988, I met Amin Bassiouni only in 1989, when he visited me in Washington with his wife Afaf Yehia. In 1991 he was selected president of the Radio and Television Union. After my resignation from the Voice of America in 1995, I visited him at his office in the union, where he offered me a job as a radio and television reporter from Washington.

I remember his attitude before Mahmoud Mustafa, then head of contracts, whom we used to call the head of the “Complexities Section,” because of his meticulous bureaucracy. Even though I live and do my job in Washington, he wanted to pay my salary in Egyptian pounds. Amin Bassiouni said his famous sentence: “The

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Egyptian pound is not spendable in Washington, Mr. Mustafa!” This was not his only noble position. He did not hesitate for a moment to help his colleagues, especially those belonging to his favorite radio station: the Voice of the Arabs.

Amin Bassiouni was an all-trade radio broadcaster, who worked and excelled in all branches of radio broadcasting. He was creative as an announcer, producer, anchor, editor, and author. His dramatic works, “The Crocodile,” “Biography of Love,” “Oh Islam!,” “Sayed Darwish,” “Shater Oqal,” “Prisoned Love,” “Abul-Qasim Al-Shabi,” “The Train,” and his “On the Corner of History series”, are bright and honorable signs in radio drama. He has also presented a variety of programs such as “Days We Lived,” “Pages from the Voice of the Arabs History,” and others, as well as his writings, such as “Egypt, the Role” articles on radio drama in the theatre magazine, and articles in the radio art magazine.

Besides his radio input, Amin Bassiouni also participated in the meetings of the Arab Broadcasting Union and the meetings of the Radio Organization of Islamic Countries, and represented Egypt in the conferences of ministers of Arab and Islamic countries. He was a member of the Writers Union and the cinema and drama Syndicate. However, his most important endeavor, was, in my opinion, that he laid the first nucleus for the launch of the Egyptian satellite as the first Arab satellite channel, which not only reached the atmosphere of the Arab world, but also reached the Egyptian and Arab communities in the United States due to his hard work. That was in 1995 when, after becoming a full-time reporter for the Radio and Television Union in Washington, he asked me to provide technical and program advice, such as compensation for time differences, broadcasting live news and events, and setting up a publicity plan to promote the

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Egyptian satellite channel for Dynamic, the company contracted to re-broadcast it in the United States and Canada.

I was witness to his efforts to achieve this goal, and accompanied him on a trip to California to meet with the executives of the company, which was then receiving the Egyptian satellite transmission and re-broadcasting it in the United States, so that immigrant Arabs and Egyptians could watch the first Arab satellite broadcast in the country despite attempts by competitors to block it from becoming the leading Arabic channel in the American market.

In California, Amin Bassiouni received an honorary doctorate in media from Pacific Western University as one of the leading media professionals in the Middle East. Additionally, he obtained the Certificate of Appreciation at the Media Festival in 1984-1985, and the Certificate of Merit from the Armed Forces in 1986 and from the College of Information in 1987. No one can underestimate his efforts in laying the foundation for the Media Production City and the Free Media Zone, which today have become the Hollywood studios of the Middle East!

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Abdallah Qassem

The Creative Producer!

If the Voice of the Arabs famous star Wagdy Al-Hakim represented the memory of Arab music, another shining star, producer, and presenter, Abdallah Qassem, was a repository of creative new ideas. I had developed a strong friendship with him since my first day on the radio. He was a modest, courteous, honest human being. His name was associated with the famous variety program “Evening Taxi.” His radio ideas, in my view, were ahead of their time. He was the first to use the cassette tape that prevailed at that period, to create a program with the same name “A Cassette Tape,” which provided an opportunity for new talents among the listeners to send a cassette tape to the program carrying recorded material,

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whether songs, poems, short stories, or comedy. “A Cassette Tape” became part of the Voice of the Arabs’ history as one of the most popular programs, as it unearthed many unknown talents.

However, Abdallah’s ambition did not stop there. He further went to caricature art converting press drawings to lively cartoon characters using dialogue, music, and vocals. Among the characters Abdallah wanted to capture was journalist Mofeed Fawzy, who was known at that time among other journalists as the fastest in preparing radio programs. He was always seen in the hallways of the radio building, to the point that some would say that he lived there. He was envied by other journalists for the huge number of programs he used to prepare, and therefore the amount of money he made. His character represented an ideal hero model for Abdallah Qassim’s next program. He started to write the dramatic dialogue, but stopped short of finding a suitable name for the character. He wanted listeners to guess the intended person, without being charged that he had gone too far in insulting a well-known journalist, who used to respond harshly to his critics in his “Good Morning” magazine.

Abdallah Qassim is credited with finding me an apartment next to his in Mansheyet Elbakry. We used to take the Metro together on our way to Maspero. In one of those trips he approached me about the next topic for his “Radio Caricature” program, and his fear of becoming an easy target to the criticism of the famous journalist, as well as his bewilderment about choosing an alias for the character. I was inspired by an idea to alter his name a little bit, and suggested as an example “Mostafeed Fawry,” which literally means “Immediate Beneficiary.” Upon hearing the suggested name, Abdallah jumped out of place until almost hitting the Metro coach ceiling. He was, may

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his soul rest in peace, tall, and like Newton’s apple, said, “I found it!”

I was in the air studio the night the program was aired. And behind the separating glass of the studio I saw Mr. Mofeed Fawzi, who was apparently informed about the plot, entering the studio cubic, sitting next to the sound engineer, and listening to his cartoon persona. The next day did not pass peacefully, as the influential journalist raised hell, particularly with the Voice of the Arabs chief Saad Zaghloul Nassar. The latter was understanding of Abdallah’s view that whereas journalists are entitled to criticize broadcasters and their programs in their newspapers or magazines, radio broadcasters should also exercise the same right. Since then, “Mostafeed Fawry” has become the favorite nickname among competing journalists who argued that he was blocking their chances to benefit financially from preparing radio programs, to the extent that some of them attributed to themselves the “honor” of creating that alias.

I was, by virtue of our friendship, the announcer of choice for Abdallah Qassim, where he had me comment on films and plays that were transmitted live by radio. Then he moved his “Evening Taxi” variety program to television, where he also developed the successful program “Film of the Week,” presented by Hind Abu Al-Saud and produced by Mustafa Soliman. After retirement, Abdallah was preparing a variety of new ideas for television and radio programs. However, he enjoyed only a few months in retirement, and passed away at the age of sixty in the apartment of Gamal Al-Sanhoury, his co-host of “The Evening Taxi!”

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Mahmoud Sultan

A Creative Journey from the Overseas Radio to TV, through the Voice of the Arabs

I knew his voice before I met him face-to-face. In my program “50 Radio Stations in One Hour,” I used to choose excerpts from various broadcast stations, including programs directed abroad that are not picked up in the country. I remembered his euphonic voice when the chief of the Voice of the Arabs at the time, Saad Zaghloul Nassar, asked me, as chief of announcers, to look for newscasters, following the events of May 15, 1971, in which most of the Voice of the Arabs radio broadcasters were sacked. Mahmoud Sultan was the first name to come to mind, along with his colleagues in the overseas radio department, Mohamed El-Shinnawi, Abdul Wahab Mahmoud, and Mohamed Sanaa. Abdul Wahab Mahmoud moved to the general program, and this was also the desire of Sultan. However, under my intense pressure, he agreed to join the Voice of the Arabs. He never regretted this move, and told me later on that what he had learned

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at this distinguished radio was the brick on which his reputation as a brilliant television broadcaster was built, much like the first generation of television announcers and broadcasters who originally came from behind the radio microphone.

I don’t remember one day that he disapproved an amendment to the schedule of announcers; he always volunteered to replace an absent or sick colleague. He spent most of the day in the Voice of the Arabs, and was always available to replace someone in an emergency. He was a strategic reserve on which I relied during non- official working hours. Just as Sultan was a good addition to the Voice of the Arabs, I imagine that the Voice of the Arabs, especially in its newscasts, has become more glamorous with the presence of this eloquent voice characterized by precision in performance and sober attendance.

Even when he had the chance to have a TV news reader job, he never was absent from the offices of the Voice of the Arabs, being in the same TV building. He was always proud of being a member of this radio station, and for a transition period he combined television and radio shifts. Sultan adored the microphone since childhood. Although he was an experienced, full-fledged radio announcer, he told me once that he could not face the camera his first time on TV. He was so scared that he did not see the camera in front of him. He said about this moment: “After reading the news summary, I asked those around me how I did. They confirmed that I was stable and confident of myself, but I was surprised and I asked them, ‘How?’ I felt otherwise, as fear was the first impression I got about my performance!”

Mahmoud Sultan was witness to many important events that gave him, as a news reader, a special stature, as his

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name was frequently heard by the man on the street, alongside great TV personalities such as Hemmat Mustafa, Zainab Al-Hakim, Ahmed Samir, Doriah Sharafuddin, and others. Besides reading the news, they all had their own talk shows, such as “A Topic for Discussion,” “Dialogue of the Week,” and “Good Morning, Egypt.”

Mahmoud Mohamed Atta Gad Sultan, known as Mahmoud Sultan, was born on November 15, 1940, in the city of Al- Qanater Al-Khaireya, where his father worked as an employee in the Irrigation Authority. It seems that growing up in the vicinity of nature and the magic of the immortal Nile instilled in him that romanticism cherished by all his male and female colleagues.

He joined Al-Qanatir Al-Khaireya Schools from elementary to high school. In Cairo, he joined the Faculty of Arts, History Department, Cairo University, where he graduated in 1965. In 1995, he ran for a seat in the People’s Assembly and was unanimously elected by his constituency in Al- Qanatir Al-Khaireya. He provided many services to his constituents and continued practicing politics for a full parliamentary term until 2000.

Sultan went up the career ladder in television and became chief of announcers, then deputy chief of the news sector of the Radio & Television Union, and finally a first-class consultant, until reaching the age of retirement in 2000. Throughout these years, he never lost his connection to the media as an expert, lecturer, or member of arbitration committees, conferences, or media forums in Egypt and abroad. He also taught at Egyptian universities, including Cairo Media College, the 6th of October Media College, and Ain Shams University, in addition to supervising the training of generations of broadcasters in many different television channels, whether state or private. His voice was also associated with commenting on his famous “Animal

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World” show on the Egyptian television since the mid- 1970s, until he passed away.

During his career, Mahmoud Sultan received many certificates of appreciation along with the Sinai Medal in recognition of his work on the 1973 war front, in addition to many shields, cups, and commemorative medals on various national, media, and cultural occasions. He was honored during the fifteenth session of the Arab Media Festival in December 2010. In 2012, he was elected chairman of the News and Political Programs Committee, emanating from the Board of Trustees of the Radio & TV Union. This committee had in its permanent membership broadcasters belonging to the Voice of the Arabs, namely Mohammad Marie and Mohamed Fahim.

May Allah have mercy on my colleague and friend Mahmoud Sultan. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to meet him again since he visited me in my Virginia home in 1984 with colleagues Mohamed El-Shinnawi and Badia Rifai.

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The Voice of the Arabs

During Hosni Mubarak’d Era

Soon after taking office, president Mubarak held a meeting at the Maspero building and gave instructions banning the broadcast of news or programs related to his wife, Susan Thabet. He was afraid that Susan might play the same open role played by Jihan Sadat. Suddenly, the situation turned upside down, and Susan became in control of the media, thanks to Safwat Al-Sharif, the former minister of information, who was more interested in quantity rather than quality. He launched many TV channels and appointed new announcers through favoritism, at the expense of the Egyptian radio. The radio’s infrastructure was neglected and became almost unusable. He also excluded the talented and powerful. His biggest concern was only to serve the former regime. Safwat Al-Sharif, who stayed twenty-two years (1982–2004) in office throughout much of Mubarak’s rule, never cared about the radio as a whole, including the Voice of the Arabs. His attention

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focused on TV satellite channels, talk shows, and grooming the regime.

Dr. Noha Atef says in her book “Popular Media: Between the State Media and the Media State:”

“During the three decades of Hosni Mubarak as president of Egypt (1982–2011), he established several government agencies to control the ownership of the media. He established the Ministry of Information one year after taking office, to oversee state-owned media. In 1996, he ordered the formation of the Supreme Council of the Press, which consisted of fifteen members selected by the president, and affiliated with the Consultative Council, which is an advisory body, its speaker and half of its members also appointed by the president. The Supreme Council of the Press was charged with many tasks, including overseeing media institutions in terms of deciding paper quotas, newspapers and magazines prices, providing newspapers supplies, and overcoming difficulties that may hinder the publishing process. The Mubarak regime continued establishing more entities to regulate the media, or more precisely to maintain the role of the central state in organizing and managing the media landscape.”

In 1995, I was asked, in my capacity as the Egyptian television reporter in Washington, to provide technical and program consultation, such as time shifting, live newscasts, and important events; to prepare a promotional plan for the Egyptian Satellite Channel (ESC) for the Dynamic company contracted by the Radio and Television Union, under the presidency of Amin Bassiouni; and by order of information minister Safwat Al-Sherif, to rebroadcast the channel in the United States and Canada. In preparing to receive the first Arab TV the Egyptian and Arab community 142

in the Americas had long yearned for, I did oversee the promotional material for the new station, and accumulated thousands of Egyptian and Arab addresses to bring them the good news of the newcomer. People here were unusually eager to enjoy watching an Egyptian movie or TV series or follow the news and events back home.

After it was rejected by several carriers, Alfa Star satellite services accepted the offer, and viewers across America and Canada began for the first time receiving the ESC. However, soon after, the company declared bankruptcy and pulled out of the contract. The project partners, the Saudis Khaled and Osama Al-Madani and Egyptian Mohamed Al-Moqaddem, had to look for another carrier. They contracted EchoStar satellite services company, which owns the large distribution carrier DishNetwork. The company required the ESC to have at least forty thousand subscribers, something that was impossible to realize when the transmission was still in its infancy, particularly since its scope covered an entire continent. Unlike what was promoted by some that Sheikh Saleh Kamel was a partner in the project, he, on the contrary, was a competitor, and fought the ESC so strongly on more than one front, because he wanted his ART channels to become pioneers in the US market. When he offered his channels to the DishNetwork company, it requested the same condition. Money played its part, and he agreed to pay in advance an amount covering the required first-year subscriptions, provided that the DishNetwork accept new Arab satellite, meaning ESC, only through him. His promoters went on distributing the ART dishes as ESC dishes.

I wrote a letter to the then information minister Safwat Al- Sherif, explaining in detail the ART plot against ESC, but he neglected my warning completely. With that letter, which was deliberately meant to expose the tricks of ART, I wanted to test for myself if there was any suspected

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corruption. This was confirmed to me when jealous Egyptian intellectuals sued Safwat Al-Sherif for selling 4,200 heritage movies systematically and regularly from film libraries in Maspero to Sheikh Saleh Kamel and Alwaleed Bin Talal. Therefore, one third of the heritage became the sole property of ART movie channels, and two thirds were owned by Rotana. The Radio and Television Union contracted Dynamic company, after it became clear that Wahid Boqtor, owner of Arab-American TV, had failed to meet the terms of a similar contract signed in 1994 to redistribute ESC in America and Canada. The union sued him and requested compensation in the amount of $15,909,000 US. The union won the case, but was unable to implement the judgment and collect the money despite using specialized law firms through the union’s lawyer in the United States, as it turned out that the Arab-American TV station had no assets.

Unlike Wahid Boqtor’s claims, union president Amin Bassiouni did not violate his contract with him for the benefit of Dynamic, but the next union president Abdel Rahman Hafez was the one who violated a ten-year contract between the union and Dynamic, signed January 8, 1995, when he signed a contract with Kelly company on November 19, 1997, to end on October 15, 2004. This was done during the Dynamic contract period that gave the company the right to receive and retransmit ESC in North and South America for 8 percent of subscriptions, and to promote and distribute Nile international and Nile drama channels for 4 percent and 8 percent respectively. When Dynamic stalled in fulfilling its commitments, the union loaned it nearly $2.55 million, but failed to cover its costs and ceased broadcasting permanently on May 2, 2000, which led to an arbitration between the two sides. Dynamic requested a retribution of 50 million Egyptian pounds, but lost the case in a US Court. Now the Egyptian Satellite Channel is broadcast as one of the ART channels, 144

realizing Sheikh Saleh Kamel’s wish to deprive the Egyptian TV leadership, where ESC has become just a subsidiary of his channels!

Information minister Safwat Al-Sharif

In short, the media in Mubarak’s era, led by Safwat Al- Sherif, was more interested in television and satellite media, and left the radio with all its networks for its own destiny. At a time when telecommunications were becoming more advanced with new technology, the staff of the Radio Correspondents section was suffering from the use of the landline telephone through the central communications hub. They were not allowed direct contact with Washington and other world capitals to receive radio reports feeds. I think the situation is not much different now. Even after the introduction of the computer, I am still sending my reports over the phone, while other radio stations have long since gone to receive reporters’ feeds via email, which costs the state nothing. The Ministry of Information was pouring uncontrolled money on Egyptian television and satellite channels, and is burdened today with huge debts. I imagine that even the Voice of the Arabs, during the three decades of Mubarak’s rule, lost a large segment of its national identity, following the example of the private TV channels in focusing on local issues. It did not recover until after the revolution of January 25, 2011. 145

The Voice of the Arabs

During the Muslim Brotherhood’s Era

Since the era of the deposed Hosni Mubarak, followed by the Military Council, and then the deposed Mohamed Morsi, The Voice of the Arabs did not receive any instructions or directives from anyone. However, as Dr. Lamia Mahmoud, chief of the Voice of the Arabs said:

“At 7:00 a.m. January 29, 2011, former information minister Anas Al-Feqi issued a decision to include all of the radio stations in the General Program except the Voice of the Arabs. We blessed this decision, because of our neutrality in discussing the current events in the Arab world, such as in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain, on live radio. We hosted experts and clerics to analyze what was happening in the Arab world.”

She continued:

“The protesters in Al-Tahrir Square, during the revolution of January 25, allowed our reporters access to the field, and loudly commended the neutrality of the Voice of the Arabs, and all our recordings were broadcast directly on the air. At the end of the brotherhood era, the opposing opinions were banned. The events were covered by hosting political science professors. When General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi issued the first warning to the then president Mohamed Morsi on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, we, in the Voice of the

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Arabs, discussed whether it was a real warning. When we learned that Morsi would deliver a speech the same day, we discussed with a political analyst, in the live program “In Arabic,” what was required from the president, and his plan to disengage, and the answer was that he would do nothing!”

The Brotherhooding of Maspero

At that time “brotherhooding” of Maspero, so to speak, was in full swing, while there were indications of Egypt’s direction toward a new popular revolution that began in May from within the studios of Maspero, following attempts to control the state media and subject it to the orientations and the schemes of the Muslim Brotherhood. Shokry Abu Amira, charge d’affaire of the Radio & Television Union and chairman of Egyptian Television, tells the details of the clashes that took place in Maspero halls during this critical period in the history of the country:

“The clash reached its peak on June 28, after the brotherhood revealed its plot to hijack the nation’s mind and tongue. The Free Zone Council meeting decided to close private channels opposed to the brotherhood.”

Abu Amira explained that the Free Zone’s board of directors was controlled by the channels known as religious satellite channels or brotherhood channels, which unanimously agreed to eliminate all opposition voices. At a meeting chaired by the brotherhood’s investment minister, Yahya Hamid, the decision was made to stop the transmission of the Dream and CBS channels. 147

“I was then the influential voice, because I had the authority to instruct Nilesat to stop broadcasting those channels. They expected me to comply with the instructions, but I stood up and said that these channels would not close. I left the meeting at noon, and called broadcaster Ibrahim Al-Sayyad and told him what happened and asked him to get me on the air directly. I was allowed to intervene in the 2:00 p.m. newscast to announce that there would be no closure of any Egyptian channels.”

During that period, Maspero’s corridors witnessed an important event when the president’s adviser, Ahmed Abdel Aziz, showed up in the building, in an attempt to dominate the situation. However, all Maspero employees stood up against his practices and pressure to push the state media in a direction that served the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood group. The workers blocked him when he tried to get into the news studio. They also prevented him when he tried to circumvent and enter other studios without the knowledge of the leaders of the Radio & Television Union. He wanted to direct the coverage to show the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins as large crowds, and limit the TV images of the opponents to Tahrir Square only. The closure and blackout attempts of the rest of the country’s squares was meant to block the public from watching the citizens gathered to demand the overthrow of Morsi and his regime.

The old building witnessed many “brotherhooding” attempts, beginning with the appointment of the minister of information Salah Abdel-Maqsoud, who answered a

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question from a female reporter by saying, “You come to me and I will tell you the answer, privately,” and ending with the awakening of the sleeping Muslim brotherhood cells inside the building. Indeed, the famous television presenter Gamal Al Shaer was so bold to announce his resignation on the air, refusing the “brotherhooding” process that was circulating in full swing in Maspero.

My Washington Reports

On my part, my daily great challenge was to look for an article, a point of view, a study, or an advertisement that would expose the reality of the Muslim Brotherhood, at a time when the Obama administration welcomed what it assumed was a moderate Islamic rule in Egypt. By virtue of my position as a reporter in Washington, it was not easy for me to feed the Voice of the Arabs and the General Program with objective reports about the official and media reactions to the events that took place in Egypt under the presidency of Mohamed Morsi. At a time when he was popularly rejected at home, officials and some American media circles were fascinated by the idea of the first elected civilian president. Though it was my deep conviction that this regime was fleeting and that it was impossible for Egypt to turn into a religious state. I used to look for any studies or analyses that conformed to this viewpoint approach which corresponded to the prevailing trend among intellectuals and the public alike. The search was as intense as looking for a penny lost in the sand dunes.

On the other hand, the US Congress, which had warned before against the arrival of Islamists to power in Egypt, 149

issued a report entitled “On the Future of Egypt and the Prospects of the Arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood.” It stated the following:

“Before the protests of January 2011, many analysts viewed that the Muslim Brotherhood, organizationally, is the only movement capable of mobilizing opposition to the government, despite the questions or opinions raised about how much support the group’s orders and ideas may have in Egypt. As is the case with similar Islamist groups in the region, the Muslim Brotherhood is influential among the middle class, due to its control of many engineers, doctors, lawyers, and academic unions. Over the years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been criticized like other Islamist groups that it has not been able to draw clear policies and relies heavily on the delivery of its agenda through vague slogans such as “Islam is the solution.” When it circulated the party program in late 2007, it won the attention of the government and the condemnation of opponents.”

Many research institutions have also paved the way for the rise of political Islam with studies presented to the Obama administration. Such studies concluded that the protection of American interests against terrorist and extremist Islamic organizations lies in the arrival of a moderate Islam to power in the largest Arab country. The brotherhood was ready to present itself to the US administration as the only moderate Islamist organization that rejects violence as a means of assuming power, disregarding its long history of violence against all regimes that ruled Egypt since King 150

Farouq. However, American media coverage at the beginning of the January 25 revolution outbreak, and the departure of former President Hosni Mubarak, differed from the official position, especially in the early beginnings of the revolution, where the official position was hesitant, and indecisive about whether to support President Mubarak, or the demands of the demonstrators for his departure. When the protests broke out on January 25, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton called on all parties to exercise restraint. “We believe the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate concerns and needs of the Egyptian people,” she said. By the end of the week, after tens of thousands gathered in Tahrir Square, the White House’s attitude was changing. Clinton said the administration supported the “orderly transition of power.” This was despite the fact that many American media outlets expressed concern about the possibility of the rise of Islamists and their victory in the parliamentary elections. The Washington Post published in December 2011 before the announcement of the results of the parliamentary elections, an article titled, “O women of Egypt, prepare for the veil . . . Islamic extremism is preparing to remove the hopes of the Arab Spring.” It considered the electoral victory of Islamists a warning bell to the decline of women’s rights.

On January 3, 2012, David Kirkpatrick and Steven Lee Myers wrote an article in the The New York Times titled “Overtures to Egypt’s Islamists Reverse Longtime U.S. Policy.” It states: “The administration’s overtures — including high- level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by 151

successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants. The shift is, on one level, an acknowledgment of the new political reality here, and indeed around the region, as Islamist groups come to power.

The reversal also reflects the administration’s growing acceptance of the Brotherhood’s repeated assurances that its lawmakers want to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt’s treaty with Israel. And at the same time it underscores Washington’s increasing frustration with Egypt’s military rulers, who have sought to carve out permanent political powers for themselves and used deadly force against protesters seeking an end to their rule.”

In the search for the roots of the American bias to the brotherhood, some members of the group used to come to the White House and enter the front doors, and would even be welcomed on the red carpet after the US State Department granted them visas to enter the United States. “The relationship between President Barack Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood started before he assumed the presidency of the United States,” says Frank J. Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, in his analysis of Obama’s first speech at Cairo University. “Obama called himself Barak Hussein Obama, in contrast to his positions during his first campaign, in which he was careful to hide 152

the name of his father, ‘Hussein.’ During the speech, he was the first American president to call the Quran ‘the Quran Kareem,’ unlike others, who say ‘the holy book,’ and repeated the word four times. He also used the Islamic term ‘peace be upon them’ when he was talking about the prophets.”

According to the report, Barak Obama, since his arrival in the White House, chose brotherhood elements in his administration. He first picked up the Arab-American lawyer Mazen Al-Asbahi, to be a democratic awareness consultant and a link with Arabs and Muslims in the United States. But Al-Asbahi submitted his resignation in mysterious circumstances because of loose information about his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. Other brotherhood members selected by the Obama administration included Aref Ali Khan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security; Mohammed Al-Abayari, member of the National Security Consultative Council, who espoused militant Sayed Qutb’s ideas; Hussein Rashad, US special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; Salam Al-Zawbae Al-Marayati, associate founder of the Public Affairs Council; Imam Mohamed Majed, president of the Islamic Society of North America; Ibo Patil, member of the Obama Advisory Council; and Dalia Megahed, the first veiled woman working in the White House. She was appointed to the management of the Internal Security Advisory Council, and Rashad Hussain, Obama’s assistant adviser, whose focus was on national security and the new media. One of the most controversial elements of the Obama administration was Huma Mahmoud Abedin, assistant to former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton,

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who was accused in 2012 of ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. Even Fox News denounced the relationship between President Barack Obama and his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi, describing Morsi as “America’s new ally.” “The Egyptian president is making direct demands to Obama, even seemingly strange requests, such as the release of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, whom Washington accuses of masterminding the World Trade Center bombings in February 1993,” it said in a report.

Political writer and analyst Michelle McClellan pointed out that one of the most important items on Morsi’s agenda was visiting the United States and meeting with Obama. Because of doubts about his relationship with Obama, members of the Republican Party asked Obama to respond to this accusation, and stand strong in front of the requests of the radical leader.” McClellan pointed out that former US Attorney General Andrew McCarthy said the demands of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood could not be met, and that material aid of up to $1.5 billion would go to the brotherhood in Egypt. The report added that the American people were concerned about the group’s threat to the national security, and that while every American family had a soldier fighting terrorism, the president of the United States supported it.

The Wall Street Journal also confirmed that Obama’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood began before he took office. It pointed out that senior brotherhood leader Yusuf Nada donated to Obama’s electoral campaign, and that the Muslim Brotherhood sought to buy the US president through illegal internet donations to his 154

campaign, while the American site Policy Make said that Morsi traveled to America in 2011 and received $50 million from the Obama administration for the group. The report added that since the beginning of the Arab Spring the Obama administration helped, directly or indirectly, the forces that overthrew dictatorships in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya.

“The revolution that overthrew Mubarak has transformed the brotherhood from a banned group into a political despot that occupies about half of the Egyptian parliament seats,” The Washington Post said. The newspaper quoted former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Kamal Al-Helbawi as saying that America would kneel on its knees to the brotherhood; and its members, he said, were everywhere in the administration: in its institutions, in the Defense Department, in the White House, in the CIA, in National Security, in the FBI, and elsewhere. The Hudson Institute, a senior defense adviser to the Pentagon, said the administration had decided to work with Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria to form a post-Assad government. The US administration continues to arm both the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria with items including M1A1 125 tanks and F-16s, as well as other weapons, equipment, military spare parts, and logistical support.

“Hamas, which is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, played a major role in the January 25 Revolution, in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood,” said a report by Stratfor Global Intelligence, which includes a former CIA security expert. It went on to say that Hamas played important roles in the demonstrations that toppled 155

Mubarak, where the Egyptian police was no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing, and some armed elements of Hamas entered Egypt exploiting this security vacuum. It further reported the following:

“Hamas cooperated closely with the Muslim Brotherhood in the destruction of public property in order to give the impression to the Egyptian public and the world that the demonstrators represent a danger to the security of Egyptian society, and distort their image. At the same time, the popular committees of the Muslim Brotherhood started to protect these public properties, giving the opposite impression that the brotherhood protects the people from attacks by vandals.”

Such reports and studies that reveal the truth of the Muslim Brotherhood and their collusion with the Obama administration have been the focus of my news and analytical reports to the Voice of the Arabs and the General Program, away from the provocative American welcome of Mohamed Morsi as the first elected civilian president!

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The Voice of the Arabs

Female Stars

The first official female announcer in the Voice of the Arabs, Nadia Tawfiq, was not allowed to read the newscast because of a ban on women’s voices in the 1950s in conservative Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, which picked up the Voice of the Arabs transmission. This ban continued even after female announcers in the Gulf were allowed to read the news on Gulf TV and radio stations. As the Voice of the Arabs entered the middle of the 1960s, I wondered why this unjustified ban continued, especially since the General Program already had female news readers. We heard and enjoyed the voices of Omayma Abdel Aziz, Badi’a Rifai, GamalatAl-Ziyadi, and others. After I was sent to Yemen in 1967, I picked up Gulf radio stations that were dominated by female voices even in light programs. On May 15, 1971, when most of the Voice of the Arabs announcers was ousted because of their affiliation with the Vanguard Socialist Organization, I asked the chief of the Voice of the Arabs at the time, Saad Zaghloul Nassar, to lift the ban. Female announcers Mervat Ragab, Nadia Helmi, Amni Kamel, and Zinab Abdel Rahman were given the opportunity to read the news.

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Nadia Tawfiq

(1929- 2013)

Nadia Tawfiq had been Ahmed Said’s companion since the founding of the Voice of the Arabs. Born in Tanta, she held a Bachelor of Arts degree from the English Department, Cairo University, 1951. She joined the radio and was appointed supervisor of foreign language talk shows. She was among the first batch of students in the first session of the Radio Institute in 1955. She received the Merit Medal with a Certificate of Appreciation from president Gamal Abdel Nasser for her contribution to the establishment of the Voice of the Arabs Radio. She received several awards, including: President Mubarak’s Excellence Award in 1990, when she was advisor for the broadcasting sector; the Media Medal and the Golden Award for her “First Time” radio program; the Certificate of Artistic Creativity in the Special Festival for Radio and Television; and Certificates of Appreciation from the associations interested in creative radio in all areas of thought, literature, society, and art. One of her most important musical works was a series she prepared and produced about the artistic journey of the late musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab, who presented it himself in ninety-nine episodes in 1990. 158

Mervat Ragab

(1942)

Mervat Ragab started her career as an announcer in the Voice of the Arabs in 1964 and then moved to state TV as a news anchor. She then was charged with the news sector. Afterwards, she headed the training institute for broadcasters. Mervat Ragab was born in Cairo and received a diploma and a master’s degree in information. She has written many books, most recently “Travel within Travel” in four chapters: “Country Travel,” in which she provides a human account of the countries she loved, including Iran, Malaysia, Japan, and Angola. And “Men’s Travel,” in which she sheds light on a number of literary figures and media leaders in Egypt, which she did also in “Film Travel” and “Soul Travel.”

The great broadcaster and poet Farouq Shousha says of Mervat Ragab in his introduction of the book:

“The journey of Mervat Rajab in the Egyptian media is a journey of generosity and dedication, in building and construction, in opening up 159

horizons and areas at the radio and television performance levels. She maintained value and usefulness among senior officials who are tempted by the glamor and fascination, and sought to flatter the mind and the emptiness of conscience. She was keen to be an example in sacrificing effort, and time, health, wellness, and endless giving. She took advantage of her broad cultural background, delicate human sensitivity, bright intelligence, social, artistic, and civilized alertness. All of this has made her a difficult model, and also allowed her students, admirers, and trainees a large area of follow-up enjoyment and beneficial use, and the ability to discover the treasures.”

Several female announcers and presenters in the Voice of the Arabs have even become stars, such as Nagwa Abou Al-Naga, Amina Sabri,Esmat Fawzi, Taragi Abbas, Nadia Helmi, Amani Kamel, Nabila Makkawi, and Noha Alami.

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Nagwa Abou Al- Naga

(1944- 2017)

Born in Mansoura, the Voice of the Arabs was Nagwa Abou Al-Naga’s first stop in her radio career. There, she spent thirty years during which she presented the most important programs in her life, including “Ya Hala,” “Stars on the Air,” “One + One,” and “Lights on the Other Side.” The last program in particular debuted in 1977 and continued through 1993. Nagwa Abou Al-Naga was the first correspondent of the Voice of the Arabs Radio in the Gulf region. She founded the Youth and Sports Network, and placed it in the forefront. She appeared as a TV host only once with her show “Staying up the Night.” However, she realized at that time that her real place was behind the radio microphone. Among the positions she held are advisor to the Council of Ministers National Fund for Youth, drama assistant to the president of the Media Production City, member of the Drama and Texts Committee of the Broadcasting Sector, lecturer at the Radio and Television Institute, Member of the Announcers Selection Committees, and member of the media sector in the Specialized National Councils.

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The Age of Radio Networks

The Voice of the Arabs has embarked on a new phase since the early 1970s and expanded its capabilities. The data indicates that its hours of transmission in the early 1970s were more than its current broadcasts. It was twenty-two hours at the end of the 1960s, then reached more than twenty-five hours in 1971, then increased the following year until it reached in 1973, more than thirty-one hours a day. Afterward the transmission decreased significantly after the October War and years following. It’s noteworthy that the Voice of the Arabs Radio interacts with national events and occasions, increasing its transmission hours, if necessary. For example, it provided ongoing programs for twenty and a half hours, from 5:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on February 20, 1959, the Union Day. In April 1981, a new stage in Egyptian radio history began, with the introduction of a specialized technical system known as the Radio Network System. According to a statistical report issued by the Radio and Television Union, the number of hours of broadcasting of the seven radio networks which comprise Egyptian Radio reached 86,023 hours in 1985/86, an average of 235 hours and 41 minutes distributed over the main network (10.18 percent), regional network (23.89 percent), cultural network (14.40 percent), religious network (8.34 percent), commercial network (6.35 percent), Arab network (25.97 percent), and over overseas network (10.87 percent). The total number of broadcasting hours of the seven radio networks during the year 1985/86 was distributed to entertainment programs (35.62 percent), cultural programs (21.31 percent), religious

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programs (19.57 percent), information programs (15.86 percent), community programs (3.69 percent), targeted services (2.48 percent), commercials (1.22 percent), and educational programs (0.25 percent). In other words, the Voice of the Arabs at this stage became part of the Arab Network. During this period, the Arab Network was broadcasting its programs on eight medium and short waves. It included three radio stations: the Voice of the Arabs, Palestine, and the Nile Valley. The Arab Network transmission is distributed to the radio stations: the Voice of the Arabs (64.86 percent), Palestine (19.52 percent) and the Nile Valley (15.62 percent).

The Voice of the Arabs, within the Arab Network, aimed at deepening Arab national sentiment and highlighting the deep ties that make the Arab world a single family with one destiny, shedding light on the potential of the Arab nation and areas of joint Arab action, expressing Egypt’s views on Arab affairs, and highlighting its Arab role. It started on July 4, 1953 with half an hour, and in October of the same year, it reached 1 full hour of transmission. In January 1954, the Second Program was canceled and replaced by the Voice of the Arabs with 2 hours of transmission, reaching 7 hours in June 1954. In 1962, the transmission was 22 hours and 15 minutes, extended in 1970/71 to 24 hours a day, then fell in 1978 to 18 hours and 32 minutes. In 1979, it reached 18 hours and 36 minutes.

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The Voice of the Arabs Network

The Voice of the Arabs is the main component of the Arab Network, and is concerned with the following:

1. Preparation of programs to explain and introduce Egypt's views on Arab affairs.

2. Preparation of special programs to keep abreast of and introduce the development and the Arab Renaissance efforts.

3. Preparing programs to keep abreast of and introduce the modern civilization data, stressing the importance of

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preserving our original and ancient roots, and emphasizing the status of Egypt and the Arab nation in the international field, and highlighting their functions in human civilization.

4. Preparing and introducing programs that deepen the relationship between Egypt and Sudan, keep pace with the integration efforts between them, and contribute to the provision of information service to the Sudanese people and the Sudanese living in Egypt.

5. Preparing and introducing programs that shed light on the Palestinian issue, following up on its priorities, keeping up with the efforts being made to resolve it, and highlighting Egypt's struggle to support the Palestinian people and restore their legitimate right

6. Preparing and introducing programs, which help deepen the cultural, economic and social ties between the Arab peoples.

7. Preparing and introducing programs, which emphasize Egypt's leadership and civilization status and its special responsibility in the Arab region.

8. Preparing and introducing programs for national and emergency events in Egypt and the Arab world.

9. Preparing and introducing programs on Arab and Islamic heritage, spiritual values and ideals emanating from it, and emphasizing the intellectual and cultural unity of the Arab nation.

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10. Preparing and introducing various kinds of educational and entertainment programs, within the nature, the message and goals of the network.

11. Producing and broadcasting dramas, especially those related to Arab and Islamic heritage, and to great Arab men of letters.

12. Preparing and introducing religious programs, including Holy Quran recitations.

13. Preparing and introducing news bulletins, analyzes and political commentaries.

The average transmission daily hours of the Arab network in 1996-97, was 35 hours and one minute, distributed on the following 3 radio stations:

* The Voice of the Arabs Radio, 24 hours a day.

* Radio Palestine, 7 hours a day.

* Radio Nile Valley, 4 hours a day.

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The Radio Style of the Voice of the Arabs

The tone, played by the Voice of the Arabs, may have changed from one stage to the next. It may be a hot, passionate, quick-moving tone that conveys the objective directly through programs. There was no time to wrap the programs in the indirect, sometimes at the expense of the media profession, or the traditional known radio technique. We find that in the early stages of the Voice of the Arabs Radio, that it was the advance torch that illuminated the procession on the road ahead. It was not marching alongside the people, but rather ahead of them to open the doors of goodness and advocacy. During the following stages, it began to tend to rationality, calmness, objectivity, and attention to the media. The Voice of the Arabs Radio deals with all issues from an Egyptian point of view, based on the Egyptian media policy. The characteristics that characterized the radio craft of the Voice of the Arabs include the following:

1. The compatibility of the programs presented by the Voice of the Arabs with the interests of the citizens of the Arab nation. It focuses on the Arab nation issues, and addresses them besides current problems. The Voice of the Arabs programs in the 1960s focused on the enthusiastic political tone, in order to fuel the enthusiasm and ignite the emancipation fire. The Voice of the Arabs at that time wanted to open the eyes of these Arabs as being under the control of colonialism, meaning to wake them up, in a focused political and passionate tone.

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2. In addition to the Voice of the Arabs’ use of the available technical capabilities in program production and transmission systems, to play its role throughout its history, we find that it tends to exploit and utilize the capabilities of the Arabic language. During the period from 1953 to 1967, The Voice of the Arabs resorted to the limitless use of repetition and redundancy. The radio applied, to a great extent, the Arabic saying: “Repetition is always useful”, where it was seldom during that period to have a political commentary logically and rationally written. It contained a repetitive sequence of slogans, appeals and curses, taking advantage of the natural radio characteristics that distinguish the broadcasters and commentators’ voices. Mens’ voices are usually sharp, strong and rough. This is not suitable for news, interpretation, or clarification, but for roaring, screaming, and acquisition. According to the late journalist Fekri Abaza, the Egyptian journalists' representative during the 1950s, who said in an interview with the Voice of the Arabs on July 6, 1955: “Arabs are well known to hold the Arabic language accountable for expressing and urging what the society imposes on itself to determine its destiny and carry out this huge task, away from other forms of expression.”

3. After a short period of transmission, the emotional and rhetorical tone has subsided, and the political programs were broadcast alongside entertainment programs; to attract the listener, and thus the

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emerging programs conveyed this political content in an easy and attractive way.

4. The commitment of the Voice of the Arabs and its insistence on using the classical Arabic language, as simple and easy as possible, purifying it of the impurities of repetition, exaggeration, superficiality and improvisation. The Voice of the Arabs has also its own expressions. It addresses the listener as “brother in Arabism”, “Arab brother”, and so on.

5. The Voice of the Arabs is keen to inform the listener that it represents the mirror, through which he sees the affairs of his country on the one hand, and the affairs of the Arab world on the other. It addresses the listener in Kuwait, the same way as Kuwait Radio, and quickly moves to another part of the Arab world.

6. The Voice of the Arabs focuses on light and attractive programs, music and singing, dealing with the history of the Arab struggle, as well as religious and cultural programs that have weight and influence on the audience.

7. During the period from 1987 to 2000, it is noted that the Voice of the Arabs, giving priority to the Arab national political content within the framework of its Arab nationalist orientation, began to balance between all categories of broadcasting, scientific, cultural, artistic, religious and economic contents. It presented the programs in various artistic forms of

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news, documentary, talk shows, musical as well as drama series.

8. During the same period 1987-2000, it is also noted that the Voice of the Arabs’ programs have tended to employ the fastest pace, and address all target audiences in terms of age, gender and interests. It employed short and fast programs alongside the long evening programs with a cultural and civilized dimension, to satisfy all tastes, giving more space for drama, as an attractive radio format, and dramatizing the novels of the most prominent authors in the Arab world.

9. Provide open periods in the form of live talk shows and discussions, that address Arab issues in various fields, political, social, literary, artistic, scientific and sports, inside and outside the Arab world. This was facilitated after the Voice of the Arabs started broadcasting on one of the Egyptian NileSat channels.

The Voice of the Arabs is the main component of the Arab Network, and is concerned with the following:

 Preparation of programs to explain and introduce Egypt’s views on Arab affairs.  Preparation of special programs to keep abreast of and introduce the development and the Arab renaissance efforts.  Preparing programs to keep abreast of and introduce the modern civilization data, stressing the importance of preserving our original and ancient

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roots and emphasizing the status of Egypt and the Arab nation in the international field and highlighting their functions in human civilization.  Preparing and introducing programs that deepen the relationship between Egypt and Sudan, keep pace with the integration efforts between them, and contribute to the provision of information services to the Sudanese people and the Sudanese living in Egypt.  Preparing and introducing programs that shed light on the Palestinian issue, following up on its priorities, keeping up with the efforts being made to resolve it, and highlighting Egypt’s struggle to support the Palestinian people and restore their legitimate right.  Preparing and introducing programs which help deepen the cultural, economic, and social ties between the Arab peoples.  Preparing and introducing programs which emphasize Egypt’s leadership and civilization status and its special responsibility in the Arab region.  Preparing and introducing programs for national and emergency events in Egypt and the Arab world.  Preparing and introducing programs on Arab and Islamic heritage, spiritual values, and ideals emanating from it, and emphasizing the intellectual and cultural unity of the Arab nation.  Preparing and introducing various kinds of educational and entertainment programs, within the nature, message, and goals of the network.  Producing and broadcasting dramas, especially those related to Arab and Islamic heritage, and to great Arab men of letters. 171

 Preparing and introducing religious programs, including Holy Quran recitations.  Preparing and introducing news bulletins, analyses, and political commentaries.

The average transmission daily hours of the Arab network in 1996–97, was thirty-five hours and one minute, distributed on the following three radio stations:

 The Voice of the Arabs Radio, twenty-four hours a day.  Radio Palestine, seven hours a day.  Radio Nile Valley, four hours a day.

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Chiefs of the Voice of the Arabs Radio

(1) Mr. Ahmed Said )1953-1967(

(Born August 29, 1925)

Ahmed Said joined the radio as a technical secretary for its director after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in law. When the Voice of the Arabs Radio was established, he was appointed its director and remained in this position for thirteen years. However, he temporarily left the job during his term as a member of the National Assembly. His voice was the most famous in the first period of transmission. He was considered an example of the media broadcaster who directs the nation against colonialism. This was the Voice of the Arabs’ first message. He was the first to introduce the national political drama on the radio through the series 173

“A Man in Our House.” His name represented an important symbol for the Arab listener, to the extent that the Arab citizens would not buy a radio set unless it transmitted Ahmed Said’s voice. Radio companies printed “Radio Ahmed Said” on their devices. His famous programs include: “Lies Revealed by Facts,” and “This Is Your Enemy.”

(2) Mr. Yahya Abou Bakr

(1967)

Yahya Abou Bakr directed the Voice of the Arabs during the periods in which Mr. Ahmed Said was a member of the National Assembly, where members of the Legislative Council were prohibited from chairing the media bodies. He has worked as a media expert at UNESCO and as a professor of media at Cairo University.

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(3) Mr. Mohamed Orouq )1967-1971(

(1931-1995)

Mohamed Orouq joined the radio as a broadcaster, editor, and political commentator. After teaching for two years, he went up the career ladder, becoming supervisor of the national and special programs in the Voice of the Arabs. His term of office as director of the Voice of the Arabs lasted for four years, from 1967 to 1971. Among his famous programs are Pioneers of Socialism, Socialism Lexicon, The Origins of Socialism, and Dialogue with a Listener.

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(4) Mr. Saad Zaghloul Nassar )1971-1976(

(1930-1992)

Saad Zaghloul Nassar joined the radio work as a supervisor of military programs, although he graduated from the Department of Arabic Language in the Faculty of Arts and worked for some time as a teacher. He joined the Voice of the Arabs in 1958 and presented “A Book I Read for You,” “Open Dialogue,” “Seminars and Debates on the Constitution,” and “From the Heart.” After leaving the Voice of the Arabs, he was appointed as media advisor to President Sadat, and that was his last post before he passed away.

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(5) Mr. Amin Bassiouny )1976-1987(

(1933-2016)

Amin Bassiouny joined the Radio in 1957 after graduating from the English Department, the Faculty of Arts. He practiced radio work at various branches, preparing, directing, and writing political commentaries. He became director of the Voice of the Arabs in 1976 for twelve years. He served as president of the Egyptian Broadcasting Corporation, president of the Radio and Television Union, chairman of the board of directors of the Egyptian Satellite Company Nilesat, and chairman of the Arab Media Standing Committee of the Arab League. His programs include “The Month’s Wedding,” “Days We Lived,” “Nilesat,” “Scenario and Dialogue.” Dramas he directed include: “Biography of Love,” “Sayed Darwish,” “The Captive Love,” and “Shater Okal.”

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(6) Mr. Helmi El-Bolok )1988-1991(

(1934-2002)

Helmi El-Bolok joined the radio after working as a lawyer for a while. He worked as editor, announcer, and writer of political programs. He became chief of the Voice of the Arabs in 1988 for three years, then vice president and president of the Radio. One of his famous programs was “The People in Sinai,” through which he addressed coded letters to the freedom fighters. His other programs included “People who Never Die,” “The Arab Bedouin,” “O Arabs,” “The Arab Workers,” “The Prophet’s Household,” and “The Doors of Mercy.”

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(7) Mr. Mamoun Al-Naggar )1991-1992(

(1933)

Mamoun al-Naggar joined the Radio as an editor- announcer after receiving a Bachelor of Commerce. He joined the family of the Radio Sudan Corner, which later turned into Nile Valley Radio. He became director of the Voice of the Arabs, and then vice president of the Radio. His most important programs included: “Pages from the History of the Valley,” “The Umayyad Caliphate,” “The Age of Science,” “With Allah,” and “Companions of the Prophet.” His dramatic work included “The Two Sheikhs,” “The Umayyad Caliph Abd Al-Malek Bin Marwan,” and “Khalid Ibn Al-Walid.”

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(8) Mr. Hamdi El-Konayessi )1992-1994(

(1941)

Hamdy al-Konayesi joined the General Program of the Radio in 1963. He moved to the Voice of the Arabs in 1971 as supervisor of cultural programs. He became director of the Voice of the Arabs in 1992, and then vice president and president of the Radio. His famous programs included: “The Voice of the Battle,” “Chronicles of a War Reporter,” “Scrapbook,” “Inquiry,” and “Poetry Recitation.”

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(9) Mr. Mohammad Marei )1994-1998(

(1937)

Mohamed Marei joined the Radio as an announcer after receiving a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature in 1959. He worked as program presenter, drama director, and political writer. He became director of the Voice of the Arabs in 1994 for four years. He then combined his Voice of the Arabs post with the vice president of Radio post. He teaches at the Media Institutes in Egypt and the Arab world, and has a number of media publications including “Advanced International Broadcasting Formats” and “Foreign Language Arabic Broadcasts and Addressing International Public Opinion” He presented many programs, including “Telestar,” and “Arabs’ Mother Tongue.” He also directed a number of drama series for the Voice of the Arabs.

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(10) Mr. Mohamed Fahim )1998-1999(

(1939)

He joined the Voice of the Arabs Radio in 1961, and supervised the Political Affairs Department of the Palestine Radio from Cairo. He was appointed Director General for National Affairs, deputy director of the Voice of the Arabs Network, and then director of the Network in 1998 for one year. One of his most important programs was “Remote Dialogue,” “To the Point,” as well as writing political commentaries. He taught radio news at the Radio and Television Institute, and the Arab Training Center in Damascus.

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(11) Ms. Amina Sabry )1999-2005(

(1945)

Amina Sabry joined the Voice of the Arabs in 1968 after receiving her bachelor’s degree in English from the Faculty of Arts. She presented dozens of variety programs, such as “Memory Talk,” “Songs of Gold,” “Remind Me,” “Invitation to a Ramadan Night Meal,” “Joint Broadcasting with Arab Radios,” and a series of interviews with senior Arab political, literary, and artistic figures. The Arab Broadcasting Union published her book “The Status of Government Broadcasts in the Competition of Private Broadcasting.” She was elected as Chairperson of the Arab Broadcasting Union Standing Committee, and was the first woman to hold this position from 1999 to 2005. She received many appreciation awards and prizes from Arab radio stations and festivals.

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(12) Ms. Nabila Makawy )2005- 2010(

(1950)

Nabila Makawy joined the Voice of the Arabs in 1974 after receiving a bachelor’s degree in English from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University. She worked in all the radio departments and presented dozens of programs, including: “Her Majesty’s Court,” “Scrapbooks,” “The Open Encounter,” “Speaking to You From,” “Women Glorified by Islam,” “Humors and Wonders,” and “Dialogue without Walls.” She covered many Arab festivals, received a media scholarship in England, and was awarded many prizes and certificates of appreciation for her work.

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(13) Mr. Abdul Rahman Rashad )2010 – 2013(

(1954)

Abdel Rahman Rashad joined the Radio in 1980 after receiving his BA in Political Science from Cairo University in 1976. He worked as an announcer in the General Program, and went up the career ladder until appointed director of the General Program Network. He became director of the Voice of the Arabs in 2010. His programs included: “Homeland Diary,” “Meeting on Date,” and “The Best Provision.” He was elected twice as vice president of the Arab Radio Federation’s Permanent Committee for Broadcasting.

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(14) Dr. Lamia Mahmoud 2013 –

(1962)

Dr. Lamia Mahmoud joined the Radio in 1984 after receiving a BA in Media from Cairo University in 1983. She worked as an announcer and news reader. In 1991, she received her master’s degree on the topic of “The Impact of Arab Political Relations on the News Content of the Voice of the Arabs.” In 1999, she received here PhD degree in philosophy from Cairo University on “Youth Perception of Political Reality, an Applied Study in the Media.” In July 2013, she was appointed as the chief of the Voice of the Arabs Network. She represented the Egyptian Radio in many conferences inside and outside of Egypt. She has many publications in the media field. Her radio programs include “In Arabic,” “Good Morning, Arabs,”” A Snapshot,” “It Happened on This Day,” and “Story Lover.”

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The Voice of the Arabs Today

Dr. Lamia Mahmoud, chief of the Voice of the Arabs, says that the Voice of the Arabs is aimed at the Arab people, not only the local audience, and sometimes this goal is lost by those who are in charge of it. She added the following:

“Since I took over the post, I am keen to restore links and contacts with different organizations, institutions, radio stations, and different Arab personalities. So I decided that at least 65 percent of the programs deal with Arab topics from an Arab perspective away from the local nature. This was mandatory on the programs of the station, and indeed we have permanent contacts with all the Arab nationalities. We managed to have joint broadcasts, a joint production of drama, programs, and songs. We always covered Arab stars’ concerts in Egypt, fine arts and heritage festivals, and various Arabic crafts. Arab officials consider the Voice of the Arabs their media sponsor in Egypt.”

About her management style she says this:

“The best management is to know all about the roles of employees, the good and accurate follow-up of all phases of the work, and the planning of the 187

implementation stages. This enables the official to continuously evaluate, immediately correct the errors and avoid repetition. All workers should be part of developing the station’s vision, hence the decision would not be an individual decision. Attention should be given to the views and opinions of young people, because they always have different ideas and methods, and expand the circle of dialogue in the decision-making process.”

According to Dr. Lamia Mahmoud, the official media is the state media, which aims at developing and serving the society. It was and still is committed to professionalism and the rules of media work. The private media belongs to individuals, who aim at profit and other goals. Unfortunately, it presents anything that boosts the rating, with disregard for ethical standards and controls. It focuses on negatives and frustrations to achieve excitement, which leads to confusion and deficiency in the public’s perceptions about the form and role of the media, believing that the official television is detached and concealing the facts. This is due, in her opinion, to the absence of laws governing such media, or an entity to oversee it. She hopes that the Supreme Council for Media Regulation will have laws that define media policies and the percentages of media owners, to prevent monopoly, disclose funding sources, and identify specialization.

About the last attack on Maspero (official media) she says that before the “January Revolution,” Maspero was the

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star of the scene and number one to watch, while other media outlets were operating on a small scale. However, we were surprised with the number of new satellite channels and their exaggerated spending. Unfortunately, Maspero’s neglect of the revolution’s events led to a lack of confidence between it and the recipient. So the private channels rushed to exploit this vacuum, and due to their material capabilities and the freedom to discuss all censored or controlled topics, they succeeded in withdrawing the public to their screens. Private media, then, turned to attack Maspero in an attempt to eliminate competition. Maspero has the capabilities of the state, accumulated experience, and very distinguished cadres. Unfortunately, many of them turned to the private media and transferred their expertise to it, which led to a pressure on the official media, which lacked the ample funding to spend on excellent production and compete with the private media’s expanded and highly financed production. No TV host had a salary exceeding one hundred thousand pounds, while today we hear that this amount would exceed fifty million in the private channels. This surge in financial spending led to a standoff in Maspero. In order to develop it, Dr. Lamia Mahmoud believes that there must be state support. She says that this is not a place for employees to just receive their salaries, but a place of creativity, upscale art, education, development, political thought, and religious thought, without any other interactions. “The treatment of this crisis is not difficult, but requires the will and support of the state.”

AS for the Voice of the Arabs, Dr. Lamia Mahmoud says:

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“The Voice of the Arabs is carrying on the goal it set at its inception; i.e., achieving its message in supporting national unity through our constant and strong contacts with all parties in the Arab world. Our target is to reconnect the Arab audience to their favorite radio station, whether through hosting political figures to roundtable analytical discussions, or using our network of correspondents throughout Egypt and the Arab world. This is in addition to our drama cooperation with some Arab countries, as well as reviving this heritage and working to enrich it. The Voice of the Arabs has a library that can provide a wide range of programs with rare recordings of some well- known artists. The radio will also extend its transmission to cover all the Arab regions, as it has always been the voice of every Arab.”

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The Voice of the Arabs Media Battalion

Dr. Lamia Mahmoud leads a wonderful group of broadcasters in the Voice of the Arabs in its new format under different political variables from what our generation witnessed in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the goal remains unchanged, the national message the same, and the role stays a link between Egypt and its Arab parameter, and as spokesman for the Arab peoples. To realize these objectives, Dr. Lamia Mahmoud is helped by a high-level radio team, some of whom hold doctorate degrees, have numerous literary and artistic publications, and have won many awards. They include, to name a few:

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Dr. Gamal Hussein Hammad

Cultural programs supervisor

Dr. Hammad joined the Voice of the Arabs in the mid- 1980s, where he presented, directed, wrote, and participated in about two hundred radio programs. He is a writer and author of short stories, novels, and poetry. He published more than fourteen books on grammar, language, criticism, short stories, and novels. He participated in the publication of four Arabic lexicons and more than one Islamic and linguistic encyclopedia. He attended scientific conferences in Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Jordan. His scientific research is published by specialized universities, including the Japanese University of Dushi Shan. He is a lecturer at the media college, Cairo University, and the sciences college, Ain Shams University. He graduated from the sciences college and received a diploma from the media college. His PhD is on literature and criticism. His programs include, “A Meeting with Poetry,” “Arab Culture Magazine,” and “Abu Al-Farag.com.” He prepared and presented about six programs on the Prophet’s biography, such as “Poets Around the Prophet,” “Companions in the Holy Quran,” and “Cultural Cafe.” 192

Dr. Abdul Badea Fahmy

Director of Programs

He began his radio career in 1984 as a political newsreader and commentator. Over thirty years, he introduced a large number of cultural programs and was promoted to director general of Special Programs. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Antiquities Department, Sohag University in 1982, and received a master’s degree in research entitled “Relations in the Saber and Hamiri Ages.” He received his PhD degree on “Relations between Persia and Yemen in the Sixth Century” from the Higher Institute of Ancient Civilizations in Zagazig. He won the Arab Broadcasting Union Award for his series “In Arab Eyes,” a documentary about the city of Alexandria. For nearly eight years, he presented the program “A Date with Poetry” and recorded it with most poets of Egypt and the Arab world. He has also hosted a radio night program called “Intellectuals Meet” at cultural events and forums. Since 1995, he has presented the program, “Antiquities Speak,” which deals with Egyptian and Arab antiquities and reveals their human heritage associated with all cultural, political, and economic aspects. Dr. Fahmy received an award from the Arab Radio Federation Competition for his “In Arab Eyes” program. 193

Manal Hikal

Director of national and political Affairs Dept

Manal Hikal started her career in the field of television production, working with producer Mohamed Abdelnabi in many variety programs. She then auditioned for a job at the Voice of the Arabs, and was selected as news editor in 1988. From her long career in the newsroom, she gained experience in writing the news and preparing news programs. In 1992, she introduced news periods and talk shows, such as “The Arabian Journal,” “The Economic Forum,” and many other programs. She also participated in programs like “The Arabs’ House,” “A Remote Dialogue,” and others. She became the director of the News Department, and director general of Cultural Programs at Middle East Radio in 2009, and has been director general of national and political affairs at the Voice of the Arabs Network since 2011. Currently, she presents the “Saturday Meeting” program. She participates in the program “In Arabic” every Monday with her colleague Mohamed Hilmy.

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Mohamed Al-Nasser Abu-Zayd

Chief of Announcers

Mohamed Al-Nasser Abu-Zayd’s programs include “Arab Facebook,” and “A Book Every Day.” Besides his job as a broadcaster, he writes short stories, novels, and plays.

His published work includes, “The Mamluk,” “O Camel Man,” “The Barter,” “The Garment,” “Radio, the Art of Possible and Impossible,” and “Tales of the Temple.” He had won awards for most of his work.

Mr Abu-Zayd has membership with the Union of Egyptian writers, the board of directors of the Egyptian Story Club, and the board of directors of the Association of the Arabic Language Protectors. His awards include the following:

 Shield of the Fourth Sana’a Novel Festival in Yemen.  Shield of the Spring Festival of Arts in Kairouan, Tunisia, 2016 and 2017.  First Drama Award, from Youth and Sports Radio. 195

Amal Allam

Head of the Youth and Family Division

Amal Allam is a member of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and has many successful programs that resonate widely with the young audience. Her distinguished programs include: “Women and the United Nations,” and “The Songs Marathon.” Under the banner of the UNDP, she gave lectures in Arab countries on how to easily deal with people living with AIDS. Her strong personality and effective quietness enabled her to instruct young female and male broadcasters about how to deal with AIDS patients. She says that “80 percent of infected Arab women got the disease from their husbands coming from abroad.” She explains the reasons, saying that “raising the Arab woman to obedience prevents her from asking her husband to check his blood for AIDS and advise him to use condoms.” She calls for “raising women’s awareness and protecting their rights to protect themselves and their families from disease.”

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Zenhum Al- Badawy

Broadcaster

Zenhum Al-Badawy received a Bachelor of Media from Cairo University in 1980, and then auditioned for the announcer’s test in 1982, ranking first among all contestants. He joined the Voice of the Arabs air studio family in 1989. He is one of the first announcers to introduce live broadcasting periods, and one of the first to perform joint broadcast periods with Arab radio stations. In addition to his work as an announcer on the air, he prepares and presents many cultural and variety programs. He was sent to cover events in many Arab countries. He is charged with training new announcers. His literary published work includes the following:

 Poetry: “Fragrance from Paradise” and “Bitterness Inspiration.”  Prose: “Unique Experiences in the World of Poetry,” (a series of literary studies and poetry selections) and “The Art of Delivery Between the Broadcaster and the Actor,” (a study for the University of Yemen).

His awards include a Certificate of Appreciation at the Art and Culture Festival in 1979, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Babtain Foundation, for creative poetry, in 2004. 197

Sherif Abdel Wahab

Head of the Cultural Network

Sherif Abdel Wahab became a media announcer for the Voice of the Arabs in the 1980s and was promoted to the position of vice president of the network. He received many awards for his radio work and introduces many special programs, dramas, and documentaries. He is a dramatist who has more than twenty works in the radio library, and also a cartoonist. He has held several exhibitions and won prizes.

Other Contributors: In addition, the Voice of the Arabs comprises a distinguished team of male and female broadcasters, including Ahmed El Bouhy, Amani Shehata, Sayyed Sarsawi, Abdel Hadi Sayeh, Abdel Rahman Al Bassiouni, Wael Damanhoury, Laila Farag, Ali Mustafa, Wafa Sobhy, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, Omnia Fakih, Radwan Sawan, Abeer Zalam, Rehab Salem, Yehia Hassan Al- Srougji, Hisham Alwan, Ahmed Sherif, Manal Maged, Ghada Kamal, Amira El Meligy, Nevin Said, Ayman Hosny, Neven Labib, Neven Elshishiny, and Ehab Gamal El Din.

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Sources & References

1. “The Influence of Arab Political Relations on the News Content of the Voice of the Arabs Radio”, a comparative analytical study by Dr. Lamia Mahmoud. 2. Radio and Television Union Annual Books 1988-1989,1992- 1993, 1996-1997, 1989-1990, 1990-1991 and 1992. Al-Ahram, Cairo. 3. Radio and Television Magazine, "Pioneers of Radio and Television in Mind and Heart", July 10, 1996. 4. General Egyptian Book Organization, "Encyclopedia of Modern Egypt", Volume VII Media, Cairo, 1996. 5. Ibrahim Imam, "Radio and Television Media", Arab Thought House, Cairo, 1979. 6. Ibrahim Abdullah Al-Musallami, "Introduction to Radio and Television", Arab Publishing and Distribution, Cairo, 1999. 7. Ibrahim Wahby, ” The Radio Expert. “ Arab Thought House”, first edition, 1980. 8. Ensherah Al-Shall, "The Voice of the Arabs between Yesterday and Today", Arab Culture House, Cairo, 1989. 9. Barakat Abdulaziz Mohamed Abdullah, "Media Treatment of the Arab World Issues", Ph.D. Thesis 1988. 10. Gamal Abdel-Azim, "The Egyptian Press in two Centuries 1798-1998", Cairo, 1998. 11. Hilmy Ahmed Shalaby, "History of Egyptian Broadcasting: Historical Study, 1934-1952, 1995. 12. Khalil Sabat, " Telecommunications, Its Evolution and Development", The Anglo-Egyptian Library, Cairo, 1987. 13. Ramzi Michael Gayed, "History of Politics and the Egyptian Press", General Egyptian Book Organization 1995. 14. Popular Media: Between the State Media and the State of Media, Dr. Nuha Atef. 15. Atef Adly Al-Abd, "The Evolution and development of the Egyptian Radio 1985". 16. Atef Adly Al-Abd, "Radio and Television in Egypt", Ministry of Information, Cairo, 1988. 17. Fuad Ben Halah, "The Radio War", translated by Ensherah Al- Shal, Arab Thought House, Cairo, 1993. 18. Leila Abdel-Magid, A study in content analysis of Al-Ahram issues published in 1962 and 1976, a Master’s Thesis,

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Department of Journalism, Faculty of Information, Cairo University, 1979. 19. Maggi Halawani, "Arab Radio Stations", Arab Thought House, first Edition, Cairo, 1982. 20. Maggi Halawani and Atef Al-Abd, "Radio Regulations in the Arab States", Arab Thought House 1987. 21. Maggi Halawani, "Introduction to Directed Broadcasts", Arab Thought House, Cairo, first edition 1982. 22. Mohamed Abdelkader Hatem, "The Strategic Surprise in the October 1973 War", 1999. 23. Mohamed Ali Al Owaini, "International Media between Theory and Practice", The Anglo Egyptian Library, 1990. 24. Mohamed Farid Mahmoud Ezzat, "The Saudi and International Media: Evolution and Development, 1990. 25. The Voice of the Arabs website 26. Dr. Yahya Al-Sha'er, “The Voice of the Arabs, the three stages of development.”

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