Egypt: Change, Change, Change!

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When Gamal Abdel Nasser rose last week to give his first major speech of the year before 20,000 aircraft workers in the Cairo suburb of Helwan, he was greeted by the usual cheers. The volume increased when he made his ac customed vow to force the Israeli army to retreat from Arab land "inch by inch, regardless of the cost or sacrifice." But at Helwan, which he has turned into a showcase of Arab social ist industrial achievement, Nasser also heard an unaccustomed chant that could only have chilled him. "Nasser, Nasser, Nasser!" the workers cried, "Change, change, change!" For the first time in his dozen years as President, Nasser is in trouble with his people.

Bricks & Stink Bombs. Nasser had heard the theme of change all too clearly only the week before, when Egypt was rocked by anti-government demonstrations. The trouble had started right in Helwan, where 3,000 workers took to the street to protest the leniency shown by a military court to four top officers accused of criminal responsibility for the defeat by Israel in June. Egged on by leftist agents of Nasser's own Arab Socialist Union Party, the workers attacked a local police post, were driven off only with riot guns. Their cause was quickly picked up by students of Egypt's three major universities, who turned downtown Cairo into a battleground.

Screaming "Blood for blood!" and "Clean up your house, O President!", 15,000 students battled police for two days with bricks, tree limbs, firecrackers and stink bombs manufactured in chemistry labs. They marched on the National Assembly, on government newspapers and on Nasser's own Kubbeh

Palace. Not even massed charges by Cairo's formidable mounted police could deter them. In the end, they agreed to call off the riots only when the government promised to retry the negligent officers and pay more heed to such student demands as greater freedom for Egypt's heavily censored press.

Serious Trouble. At Helwan, hard by the Nile, Nasser now tried to turn the riots to his advantage. "I followed these demonstrations like a father," he told his audience, "for I consider each of these students my own child." There was no hiding the seriousness of his troubles. His people, long ridden by inflation and shortages, no longer convinced of inevitable victory in the jihad (holy war) against Israel and disillusioned by evidence of corruption in the government, have begun to question him and even turn against him. The left wing of his party is trying to turn the demonstrations into "the starting point for organized political action by the masses." No less restive is the political right, which Nasser accused of taking part in the riots by manipulating the long-banned Moslem brotherhoods.