Middle East: The Camel Driver

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Egyptian TV, the liveliest in the Middle East, manages to keep three channels busy 20 hours a day, while kinescopes subtly loaded with Nasser propaganda are shipped out to Algeria, Kuwait and Lebanon. Nasser has collected the best entertainers in the Arab world, and uses them superbly. When Um Kalsoum sings We Revolutionists, the Bedouins in the desert are deeply stirred. One of the most popular songs among Arab kids is How We Build the High Dam at Aswan. Every transistor radio in the Middle East is a Nasser agent. When Yemen revolted against the Imam, Nasser sent them arms and transistors. Arab Communists who broadcast long, windy speeches from Bulgaria have not a chance against Nasser's entertainers.

Fire Striker. But Nasser's triumphs are not solely the result of subversion and pop singers. His very example is an inspiration. He has been the uncontested ruler of Egypt for almost a decade, ever since February 1954, when he put down a revolt of cavalry officers and consolidated his regime. During that time, the old political remnants such as the Wafdists have disappeared and even been forgotten. It is Nasser whose personality stands above all others in Egypt and the Arab world, and no other name strikes fire like his.

He is hailed as the man who destroyed Egypt's corrupt past and gave Arabs a new dignity. His picture, with its Pepsodent smile, is found in every corner of the Middle East, from Iraqi bazaars to the huts of royalist Yemeni tribesmen who still cling to Nasser's picture even though they are fighting Nasser's troops.

What Nasser has working for him is the deep desire of all Arabs to be united in a single Arab nation, and their conviction—grudging or enthusiastic—that Nasser represents the best hope of achieving it. This dream of unity harks back to the golden age of the 7th century when, spurred by the messianic Moslem religion handed down by Mohammed the Prophet. Arab warriors burst from their desert peninsula and conquered everything in sight. In less than 150 years, the Arabs swept victoriously north to Asia Minor and the walls of Byzantine Constantinople, south over Persia and Afghanistan to the heart of India, east through Central Asia to the borders of China, west over Egypt and Africa to Spain and southern France. It was an incredible empire—larger than any carved out by Alexander the Great or Imperial Rome.