Monday Nostalgia: Iraq in the 1950s

Let's start the week with some nostalgia: a two-part Pathe travelogue about Iraq from the 1950s, likely under the monarchy: beware a fair dose of Orientalist stereotypes:

Beirut in the "Golden Age" Before the Civil War

A little Friday night nostalgia: I first saw Beirut in 1972, three years before the civil war began. For those who never saw the Lebanese capital in its glory days, or for those who want to recall it as it once was, here is a collection of photos from the 1960s.

Monday Morning Flashback: Salman and the Late Shah, 1970s

Remember the "twin pillars of stability?" Now King (then Prince) Salman of Saudi Arabia does a sword dance for the last Shah of Iran (1970s):

Video of Beirut in the 1920s

Via the blog Hummus for Thought, here's a video (silent, with French title cards), showing Beirut in the 1920, during the French Mandate:

Apparently Neo-Ottomanism Isn't Limited to Erdoğan, and Other Talk of Empires Past and Future

When the New Zealander/adoptive British Imperial apologist J.B. Kelly, author of Arabia, the Gulf and the West, and other works died in 2009,  I called him "the last Imperial Briton" and treated him as an anachronism. But even then, American neocons were exulting in an American neo-imperialism of sorts, and one was already hearing  revisionist historians like Niall Ferguson in his books Colossus and Empire seemingly yearning for the good old Empire days. Now, much of the world will be surprised to learn that most Americans don't see ourselves as an imperialist people. Perhaps back in the days of Teddy Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan, but not today. We rationalize our global ambitions as bringing stability, order, and democracy, as France once rationalized its Empire as la mission civilisatrice.

But nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire is still, for the most part, limited to right-wing Turkish nationalists and to "Neo-Ottomanist" President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

At least until now. 

Robert D. Kaplan's piece at Foreign Policy, "It's Time to Bring Imperialism Back to the Middle East," actually goes there. Kaplan has written a number of popular works. I never read his Balkan Ghosts so i won't comment on it here. I must confess that his Arabists: the Romance of an American Elite annoyed me, though giving the pleasure one gets from yelling at a book as one reads it, Since it dealt with many friends, teachers, mentors, colleagues, and former bosses (some of whom weren't even technically Arabists as they didn't know the language), I read it a least twice.. (The cover shows the late Talcott Seelye, Ambassador to Syria and Tunisia, whom I was lucky enough to know well and whose daughter Kate is now my colleague as Senior Vice President of MEI.)

So I admit to some bias in judging Kaplan's arguments because, to use the academic terms, I consider them dangerous imperialist bullshit. Read it for yourself. His conclusion:

Thus, the near-term and perhaps middle-term future of the Middle East will likely be grim. The Sunni Islamic State will now fight Iran’s Shiite militias, just as Saddam’s Sunni Iraq fought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Shiite Iran in the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War. That war, going on as long as it did, represented in part the deliberate decision of the Reagan administration not to intervene — another example of weak imperial authority, though a successful one, since it allowed Reagan to concentrate on Europe and help end the Cold War.

Back then it was states at war; now it is sub-states. Imperialism bestowed order, however retrograde it may have been. The challenge now is less to establish democracy than to reestablish order. For without order, there is no freedom for anyone.

Ah, yes, Ordnung supersedes democracy, human rights, and other frills. Notice how it's more sinister if I use the German word? I wonder why that is?

While Kaplan doesn't urge a reestablishment of the Ottoman Empire in its original form, I rather expect he's going to have some 'splainin' to do with his Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian friends, if he has some.

In another area, the current anti-Iran hysteria in the US, Israel, and the Gulf Arab states has led to much talk about Iran pursuing a "new Persian Empire," Professor Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University takes this apart very nicely at Al Jazeera in "Persian Empire, Anyone?"

I truly believe the age of empires is gone. We may have a (I believe false) nostalgia, for a (falsely?) remembered stability, and no one prefers the barbarity of ISIS, but Kaplan's solution is to treasure an anachronism.

Muzaffar al-Din Shah in Europe, 1900-1905: Earliest Film and Audio of a Middle Eastern Ruler?

Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar

Just under a year ago I wrote about the several visits of the late 19th century Iranian ruler Nasser al-Din Shah to Europe ("Friday Nostalgia for Rouhani's Visit: Nasser al-Din Shah's European Tours").

But Nasser al-Din Shah was not the last Qajar Shah of Iran to frequent European capitals. After he was assassinated in 1896, his son and successor Muzaffar al-Din Shah (1853-1907, Shah 1896-1907) also did so. Though today remembered mostly for his extravagant mustaches and for driving the country into debt that led to the Constitutional Revolution, he also was fascinated by technology.

More importantly, Thomas Edison had intervened. The Shah was fascinated with the cinematographe, and brought the technology back to Iran. More to the point, the first videos of the Shah on his European tour must be among the earliest videos of any Middle Eastern Ruler, unless there are earlier of the Ottoman Sultan. And the invention of early audio recording had also occurred, so there is even a recording of the Shah's own voice (in Persian, of course.)

This post at iroon.com explains what you are about to see:

Massoume Price writes: I think you would like this short documentary on Mozzafar ed-Din Shah's travels to Europe. All photos, most never seen before are from the private collection of Joachim Waibel in Vancouver BC. They even include newspaper drawings on attempt to assassinate him in Europe. Needs to be published more widely.

Below is a commentary from a friend with relevant information Dr.Tissaphern Mirfakhraii:

Excellent rare photos and films from Mozaffareddin Shah's travels in Europe. He visited Karlsbad, Ostend, Contrexeville, London, Paris, and Berlin. His host in London was Prince Arthur, Duke of Kent. Among his entourage photographed were Ataabak Amin os-Soltaan, Sa'd od-Dole, Shams ol-Molk, Vakil od-Dole, Hakim ol-Molk, and Moxber os-Saltane. There was also an assassination attempt on the Shah's life, shown in some of the photos.

The still photos are interspersed with extremely early moving pictures, cartoons and headlines of the day, and in the last minute plus you will actually hear a voice recording of the Shah himself.

If you know of earlier video of a Middle Eastern leader (not camels in the desert) please post in the comments.

This is the first I've ever seen of most of this.

An Example of Ottoman Multiculturalism

From the @worldbulletin Twitter feed, a 1911 Ottoman calendar page from a multinational Empire:

For a Day With Bad News Everywhere, a Bit of Nostalgia

Gaza and Israel are escalating the violence; Syria and Iraq remain a mess. Time for some nostalgia. Cairo, Sh. Fuad (later 26th of July), 1930:

From the مصر الان وزمان site.

Mosul, 1950s from this site:

Gaza, 1930s, from palestineremembered.com:

Rare Photos of Late Ottoman Palestine

From The Times of Israel: "The Beauty of Ottoman Palestine, Lovingly Explored and Documented."

It's about a collection of early 20th century photographs held by the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology (DEIAHL) and taken by its first director, Gustaf Dalman. The article reproduces quite a few of them, some of which have been hand-colored. For the nostalgia and history buffs.

Vintage Photos of a Lost Egypt

The Egyptian Streets website,drawing on the Vintage Egypt site, has put together a collection of  "23 Vintage Photos of Egypt's Golden Years," mostly magazine covers and ads from the 1950s and 1960s, contrasting them with today. For the nostalgia buffs among you ...

Nostalgia to Start the Week: King Farouq Marries Queen Farida, 1938

I used to end the week with a nostalgia post; let's start this week with one: a newsreel of King Farouq's marriage to Safinaz Zulfiqar, renamed Queen Farida in 1938. (Farouq's father, King Fuad I, liked his own initial so much he gave all his children names beginning with "F"; Farouq not only did the same with his four children but even renamed his first wife. His second wife would keep her birth name of Nariman, however.) Farida bore Farouq three daughters; he divorced her in 1948 and married Nariman Sadek in 1951. She bore his son and heir, Ahmad Fuad, to whom Farouq abdicated at the time of the 1952 revolution. The infant Fuad II was technically the last King of Egypt until the monarchy was abolished in 1953.

The march music providing the soundtrack of this video is the Royalist National Anthem of the era, in use from 1936 until about 1960 (with changed words after 1952), and one of at least four, perhaps more, tunes that have served as Egypt's national anthem. This one has a bit of notoriety since the large number of British troops in Egypt during World War II heard it played at the end of cinema presentations and put their own words to it. words unflattering to Egyptians, to Farida and Farouq, and also grossly obscene, sexist, racist, imperialist, and offensive in other ways, not to mention carrying lèse-majesté to new heights. (Typical soldier stuff in other words.)  I won't mar the wedding festivities below by quoting them here (that's what Google is for: search for "The Ballad of King Farouk and Queen Farida," or similar titles). And don't say I didn't give you fair warning how many ways it's offensive. Perhaps a post for another time.

Embedded from the Misr al-An wa Zaman ("Egypt today and in the past") nostalgia Facebook site. Not sure if the link will work if you don't have a Facebook account, but let's give it a try.

Post by ‎مصر الان وزمان/ اهل مصر زمان اول صفحه للصور النادره ع الفيس بوك‎.

Al-Ahram Comments on 115 Years Since First Egyptian Pound, Still Doesn't Explain Bactrian Camel

Yesterday Ahram Online noted the 115th anniversary of the first Egyptian pound note. Though the Egyptian pound was first authorized in 1834, it circulated as specie until 1899, when the first Egyptian paper pound appeared (January 5 marked its anniversary).  I noted the same thing a year ago, 

People called it Abu al Gamalayn for its two camels, but Ahram still ignores my question from last year:  why is one of the camels a long-haired, two humped Bactrian from cold countries much further East? The only Bactrians in Egypt are in zoos.

The Barman of Cairo's Windsor Hotel Bar Remembers

Last week ended with Nelson Mandela's passing. Let me start this week with a more positive note, and with a video that will warm the hearts of old Cairo hands, and perhaps educate the young ones.

Let me begin by noting that the bar of the old Windsor Hotel in Cairo, often called "the barrel bar" because the chairs (some at least) are made from barrel staves, an old British-era bar that survives pretty much intact, is by far the greatest bar in Cairo or in all of Egypt.

Not everyone will agree with this seemingly dogmatic, sweeping, but in fact quite factual, statement.

But they will quite simply be wrong.

Deceived perhaps by flashy modern bars, the slanders of Islamist critics, or simple ignorance, they should learn from this post.

(If you still disagree, start your own bloody blog and post your own misguided opinions.)

I will not exaggerate by saying, for example, that it is the greatest bar on the African continent, or the greatest bar since the unification of Egypt in 3100 BC, because I have no way of proving that, obviously.

But I'm pretty sure it's both, nonetheless.

Now, the video. Then a bit more. Via Zeinobia's indispensable blog, and produced by these folks, is this brief but wondrous profile of the man who has been barman at the barrel bar for more than three decades. In colloquial Egyptian Arabic, but with English subtitles:

The Windsor has been a favorite of mine for some 40 years. It stands on a side street not far from where the old Shepheard's stood until Black Saturday of 1952; I understand in British days, when the senior officers stayed at Shepheard's, the lesser officer ranks stayed here. I've stayed at the hotel, which can't threaten the five-stars, and eaten at the restaurant but forgotten it, but the bar is unforgettable.

More perhaps another time. Michael Palin of Monty Python fame did one of his world travelogues from the place, and it's one of the last surviving colonial-era bars in the capital. Do they still offer the day's newspapers in library sticks, like a British club? I hate colonialism, but damn, the Brits did good officers' bars wherever they went.

The Windsor hotel website is here. A few pictures:

While I'm Busy, Old Cairo Videos

I'll be out all day at the Middle East Institute's Annual Conference.  Those of you in the DC area should come on down. (Admission to the Conference is free; only lunch is a paid event and there are plenty of dining options nearby.) If you're not around these parts it will be online fairly soon, and to keep you engaged I thought I'd drop in some YouTube videos of Cairo from the 1920s to 1979 or so. Enjoy.

1920s (caption says 1930s but it looks  earlier to me):


1930:


1938:


1950s, probably early in the decade:


1956, with a view of the old Opera House before it burned:



1960s:
 

1979:
This video has dropped off twice so I'm excluding it for now.


And a documentary on early Helipolis which, amid the talking head memories and a slightly hokey time-travel-by-train framing story, has some old stills and videos interspersed.

An Illustration to Accompany Your Morning Coffee

This has been in my Downloads folder for ages and I have no idea where it came from, so apologies if someone claims rights to it, but I thought it might go well with your morning coffee.

Belated Weekend Nostalgia Photo

Boxer Muhammad Ali (ex-Cassius Clay) and Nasser, 1960s?. [Commenter below's link to similar picture says "circa 1964."]

To the best of my knowledge no one has yet claimed the boy is a young General Sisi. (Though I'm sure someone will.)

Hat tip to Paul Sedra on Facebook for this one.

Friday Nostalgia for Rouhani's Visit: Nasser al-Din Shah's European Tours

As a new Iranian President comes to the United Nations, it may be worth remembering the foreign travels of an earlier Iranian leader, the Qajar ruler Nasser al-Din Shah (1831-1896; Shah 1848-1896). Something of a Westernizer (but by no means a liberal), the Shah visited Europe in 1873, when Queen Victoria gave him the Order of the Garter,  and he presented her with the Order of Aftab. He visited Europe again in 1878, when he attended a Royal Navy Fleet Review, and again in 1889. (He was assassinated in 1896.)

His diary of his 1873 tour was even published, and you can find it online here.

Shahanshah Meets Queen-Empress

At Royal Albert Hall with Prince & Princess of Wales

Victoria wearing Order of Aftab, as Empress of India

A 20th Century Egyptian Trinity

I don't know when or where, but this photo is an amazing juxtaposition:

Umm Kulthum on the left, Naguib Mahfouz in the middle, and Tawfiq al-Hakim in his inevitable beret, gesturing at right.

Now that would have been a dinner conversation.

Solution to This Morning's Photo Quiz

It's five PM and time to post the answer to this morning's nostalgic photo quiz. As you'll recall, this was the photo:

Unfortunately, the contest provoked only one response, unlike the great responses I got to the General Sisi post. The one answer was from "Karl," who said "Dubai."

A very reasonable guess. The dhows on the beach guarantee it's somewhere in the Gulf, and as I said, it doesn't look like this anymore. A reasonable guess, but wrong. Here's the picture with the original caption, which is scanned from Lorimer's Gazeteer.

Yes, not Dubai, but Doha. Pre-Oil, pre-Natural Gas, pre-Al Jazeera, pre-Education City, pretty much pre-everything.

Prize quote from Lorimer, Vol. IIA (1908), p.489:

"The general appearance of Dohah is unattractive; the lanes are narrow and irregular, the houses dingy and small. There are no date palms or other trees, and the only garden is a small one near the fort, kept up by the Turkish garrison."

Enjoy your weekend. Doha today:

Some Ramadan Nostalgia: Coffee for King Farouq's Iftar

Some Ramadan nostalgia: the servants prepare the coffee for King Farouq's guests for Iftar at the palace in the 1940s, from this site.