Astral Codex Ten

Nasser

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Nasser

Article

Nasser is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between September 17, 2021 and August 25, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “stable and long-lasting dynasty in the mode of Nasser and Mubarak”; “Nor is it simply Nasser and his henchmen, the brutes who ran torture chambers like Tora Prison”; “Tarring Nasser’s regime as another elite”. It most often appears alongside Egypt, Arab Spring, Canada.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: September 17, 2021
  • Last seen: August 25, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The Revolt Of The Public
September 17, 2021 · Original source
[Egyptian dictator Abdel] al-Sisi aspired to the presidency, and his fate will provide a powerful signal with regard to the claims I have made in this book. If he can repress his way into a stable and long-lasting dynasty in the mode of Nasser and Mubarak, my analysis will be falsified. This isn't an impossible outcome. The future...is unknown. But as I observe, from afar, recent events in Egypt - and in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Turkey - I confess to many misgivings about the future of democracy, [but] far fewer doubts about the restlessness of the public or the crisis of authority.
As I write this in 2021, al-Sisi remains dictator of Egypt. He's only been in power seven years, so he has a while to go until he matches Nasser's 16, but I get the impression Gurri didn't expect him to last this long.
Your Book Review: The Internationalists
July 01, 2022 · Original source
They argue that the conflict between the West and the Islamic world isn’t really about the specific disagreements, as much as it is that many in the Islamic world reject the intellectual underpinnings that Europe formulated - the New World Order. This goes back to Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and inspiration to Al-Qaeda and ISIS. According to H&S, Qutb’s experience in the West and then interacting with the Nasser government in Egypt led to him rejecting in its entirety the Western conception of states, national sovereignty, and the Peace Pact.
The Qutbian enemy, therefore, is breathtakingly encompassing. The realm of Jahiliyyah is not merely the West, with its secularism, racism, imperialism, inequality, and sexual promiscuity. Nor is it simply Nasser and his henchmen, the brutes who ran torture chambers like Tora Prison. It encompasses all secular Arab governments—including those in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria. It also includes the ulema, the clergy who claim to speak for Islam, but support the lordship of man. It includes anyone who stands in the way of the establishment of an Islamic State. The enemy is the rest of the world.
Qutb’s crusade is not a nationalist one. Seeing the history of the Middle East as a legacy of foreign control, he argued, misleads Arabs into thinking that the solution must be local control. Arab nationalists think that the antidote to imperialism is nationalism—Churchill must be replaced by Nasser. But that is a trap. Rule by man—any man—is the problem, not the solution. Victory over Jahiliyyah cannot be achieved by adopting an Arab form of Jahiliyyah. Eastern Jahiliyyah is no better than the Western version. In Qutb’s messianic view, triumph requires nothing less than a global Islamic state. (Chapter 17)
Your Book Review: Why Nations Fail
August 25, 2023 · Original source
The preface has Egypt passing seamlessly from the Ottomans to Napoleon to British colonialism, while chapter 2 describes Muhammed Ali's rule (1805-48) as "a path of rapid economic change". Tarring Nasser's regime as "another elite as disinterested in achieving prosperity for ordinary Egyptians as the Ottoman and British had been" also seems unfair – whatever his faults, he did redistribute land to peasants, build the Aswan dam, and push an extensive program of industrialisation.
Inline links: Nasser's, peasants