It does not sound exactly logical that events in Egypt would affect a revolution in Hungary. What stretches the imagination all the further is that the same historical moment transformed life in Ma’adi.
The events of October 1956 show the historical precedent for the kind of interconnected change we watched unfold in the last two months. A dictator is overthrown in Tunisia, thus sparking the revolutionary zeal in Egypt, then the Gulf, Libya, and so on. Networks of information and ideas exchanged over the internet have undergirded much of that activity. So it appears that while the authoritarian regimes controlled so much of society, they could not stop the airwaves themselves, nor the movement of information through them.
Throughout the 1950s the Soviet Union was similarly unable to control information sent through the air. Where we have the internet today, Western powers used the radio to send pro-democracy messages into the Eastern Bloc.
For years Hungarians heard messages from Radio Free Europe, offering the hope of Western military support if they opposed the Soviet regime. The critical moment came on October 23 when students took to the streets of Budapest. Word of their protest quickly spread throughout the city, and soon more than 200,000 people had joined in.
They stormed parliament, demanding the end of the Soviet occupation, fair elections, and a free press. Two days later, Soviet tanks were upon them, opening fire and killing hundreds of demonstrators. The oppressive strong arm was not enough, though, as the revolution spread into the countryside. By October 28 the revolutionaries were swearing in a new government. In the span of a week the Hungarians had done the unthinkable -- toppled Soviet power, and established an independent government.
Then they waited, hopefully anticipating the Western military support that would confirm their revolution, and prevent the Soviets from returning for an evening bloodier offensive. However well-intentioned Western promises, neither they nor the Hungarian people anticipated Egypt would have its own revolutionary moment in the same week.
While Hungarians stormed parliament, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, taking a definitive stance against Western imperialism. Where the British and French might have otherwise aided Hungary, they set their focus on Egypt instead. On October 29, the day after Hungary established its new government, the British, French, and Israeli militaries invaded Egypt. One Hungarian leader later told Nasser, “You stole our revolution.”
Rather than successfully thwarting Soviet oppression, Hungary became a bloody example of what happened to states that balked at their control. By November 11, the Soviet Union once again controlled Hungary.
For Egypt, the moment was more transformational. When the British and French took action, they anticipated the United States’ support. After all, Nasser had shown his own Soviet-leaning sympathies, so it appeared that the Cold War balance would swing in their favor.
U.S. leadership saw it differently. Wanting to avoid Soviet involvement in the Middle East, they sided with Nasser, and demanded that the foreign armies withdraw. To Britain’s chagrin, the loss of the Suez Canal marked the their empire’s setting sun. After Egypt, British power continued to fall throughout Africa and Asia.
This post-colonial turn not only altered Egypt’s position on an international scale, but also deeply affected the personal lives of those living within Egypt at the time. Throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth century, Egypt and especially the cities of Cairo and Alexandria had been cosmopolitan hubs. Foreigners from throughout the Mediterranean, Near East, and Europe made homes for themselves there.
Ma’adi was a product of Cairo’s cosmopolitan past. In addition to the Egyptians and Britons living there, its residents hailed from Italy, Greece, Germany, France, Austria, and throughout the Levant. While these various nationalities appear to have coexisted fairly harmoniously in peacetime, their neighborly ties were quickly threatened during periods of global conflict. During the first and second World Wars, for instance, Ma’adi residents saw the homes of Italian and German neighbors quickly become “enemy property.”
So when Britain, France and Israel threatened Egypt, Nasser turned his eye on the British, French and Jewish populations within his borders. He ordered the repatriation of all British and French nationals -- some of whom had lived in Egypt for centuries. The Jewish population was not ordered to leave, but was increasingly targeted by oppressive moves, so that the majority elected to leave.
For a place like Ma’adi, which was home to so many foreigners, its demography was transformed. Stores were shuttered, never to open again. Homes were abandoned, and then sequestered by the government. The synagogue went from being a center of Jewish social life, to a relic of a largely forgotten past.
While Ma’adi remains a haven for expatriates today, 1956 marked the end of an era where Europeans made long-term homes for themselves in Cairo. The gap left by European repatriation was largely filled by Americans. These new residents came with a more itinerant agenda--coming to Cairo for several years, but then leaving again for a new post or to return to their country of origin.
We still see remnants of pre-1956 Ma’adi when walking through the neighborhood. The abandoned villa on the corner of Roads 83 and 14, for instance, was once a lovely home with a large garden. Now it stands as a kind of decaying monument to Ma’adi’s former existence. It is physical proof of a historical change that was at once intensely local, and wholly global.
An inestimable number of lives were changed by the nationalization of the Suez Canal. It marked a new era in national politics -- claiming a renewed role for Egypt as a regional leader. It dispersed European and Jewish populations throughout the world, and it simultaneously dealt a crushing blow to Hungarians’ dreams for democracy.
We have all just lived through a similar turning point in Egypt’s history. I am writing this article, however, not from Ma’adi, but from Oxford, England, where I evacuated to in early February -- creating yet another link between Egypt and the world. Like those Ma’adi residents of 1956, our individual movements into and out of Egypt, the mobilization of local and foreign military power, and the movements of democratic messages through the airwaves are all part of the story. Once again, a revolution in Egypt is a deeply personal, national, and global event.
