Wind of the East

Egyptian political thinker, Anwar `Abdul-Malak, died with barely a reference in the Western press (in Arabic, AsSafir and Al-Akhbar mentioned).  This is a deep and real thinker with important contributions.  The critique of Orientalism should always credit his pioneering essay, Anouar Abdel-Malek, Orientalism in Crisis, Diogenes December 1963 11: 103-140.  In 1962, he published Egypte: Soiete Militaire, which can be said to be the first leftist critique of the Nasserist regime.  I sat today reading some of his articles and interviews in Rih Ash-Sharq (Wind of the East).  He was a very interesting man with complicated views.  He was shaped by Nasser's repression of the left, and yet he later championed Nasser's foreign policies and offered to even support the Nasserist regime in Egypt after 1967 (he even refered to the "immortal personality" of Nasser (p. 89).  He called for an alliance between the Arabs and the Asian nations, especially China.  He is often remembered (and blamed in my opinion) for his enthusiastic embrace of the Iranian revolution and even for his praise of Khumayni (Adonis was another person who championed the Iranian revolution but he recently stumbled on a new technique to defend himself: he said that Michel Foucault also supported the revolution).  On Israel, he was categorical and argued against the treatment of Zionism as a unique and separate phenomenon but argued that Israel is but "the last and most dangerous ring in the connected chain of the Western aggression against the Arab East." (p. 80)  But Western media are busy eulogizing Prince Nayif. I understand.