The June War of 1967, Sheikh Imam, and the Emergence of Modern Arab Political Song
Despite severe infighting between the various Arab states, Nasser held to his dreams of creating a pan- Arab nation under his leadership. However, with a depleted Egyptian economy and a costly military intervention in Yemen, Nasser was never able to effectively realize that dream. So when an intelligence report stated that Israel was planning a large- scale military operation against Syria in retaliation for several Palestinian attacks that had been launched from within Syrian borders, Nasser immediately took the opportunity to bolster his regional presence by deploying his troops in the Sinai in an act of solidarity with the Syrian regime. By all accounts this was pure posturing, as Nasser did not have the means to wage a protracted war with Israel at the time. Nevertheless it was a move that proved success-ful in reaffirming Arabism and Nasser’s role as the great Arab leader of the moment. Riding the waves of anti- Israel rallies and demonstrations, Nasser was emboldened further, requesting that all un forces be redeployed from the Sinai. He later took up military positions at Sharm al- Sheikh and im-posed a blockade of Israeli shipping lines into the port of Elat.
In retrospect historians now realize that Nasser was most likely bluff-ing in these actions, expectbluff-ing either the United States or the Soviet Union to intervene and deflate the situation. He was in no position to enter into a second war with Israel while major segments of the army were still bogged down in a prolonged civil war in Yemen.1 However no such intervention came, and soon Nasser found himself in a position from
which he could not back down. Jordan’s King Hussein, struggling him-self to maintain control of the waves of anti- Israel sentiment filling the streets, felt compelled to come to Nasser’s aid, signing a mutual defense pact on May 30, 1967.
Sensing the escalation in military activity and the build- up of Arab forces around Nasser’s leadership, the Israeli government took the posi-tion that the blockade of the Straits of Tiran could not be tolerated. Thus on June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force launched a preemptive attack on air bases throughout Egypt. Within a matter of hours Israeli bombers had destroyed most of the Egyptian air force before a single plane had left the ground. When Syria and Jordan entered the fight, they, too, were quickly dispatched by the Israeli air force. Without an Arab presence in the skies, Israel easily defeated the Egyptian forces, seizing the Sinai to the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. Jordanian forces were also driven out of East Jeru-salem and the West Bank, while Syria lost control of the Golan Heights.
Within a span of a mere six days, Israel had defeated three Arab armies, and gained control of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan, and the entire Sinai Peninsula. However the greatest Israeli advance was made not in territory, but in psychology. In defeating the combined Arab armies Israel had humiliated Nasser and put a final end to the dream of Arabism and the collective liberation of Palestine.
In fact, though the war lasted a mere six days, it had a profound impact on Palestinians throughout the region. With the retreat of the Jordanian army, close to one million West Bank Palestinians, many of whom were refugees from 1948, soon found themselves under Israeli military occu-pation. In addition, another 354,248 Palestinians fled the West Bank seek-ing refuge across the river in Jordan.2 Several new unrwa- administered camps were quickly constructed to house the newest wave of refugees and displaced persons. Al- naksa (the setback or the relapse), as the 1967 June War came to be known, identified a new wave of dispossessed and a new sphere of exile in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan.
The aftermath of al- naksa proved to be a period of great social and po-litical transformation in the Arab world. Nasser had managed to remain in power, but his regime was shaken to its core and purged of many high- ranking officials. Within a little more than three years, however, Nasser’s rule abruptly ended when he suffered a massive heart attack in September 1970. King Hussein also managed to preserve his throne, though the loss of Jerusalem and the West Bank would later pose a formidable challenge
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to his legitimacy among Palestinian nationalists. The Syrian regime sur-vived for two more years but was eventually overthrown by Hafez al- ʿAsad in November 1970. The political landscape was drastically reconfigured further with the ascendance of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (plo). As a direct result of the June War various developing Palestinian paramilitary and political organizations began assuming a leadership position in the nationalist movement, launching small- scale attacks on Israeli targets and openly recruiting and training new combatants.
The social, cultural, and political reverberations of the June War were felt throughout Palestinian communities in exile. Heretofore Nasser had provided the dominant model for Palestinian liberation and a return to Arab hegemony in the region. Now, with the collective defeat of the Arab armies (and with them the ideals of Arabism itself), virtually the entire Arab world was sent looking for answers, reevaluating state interests, and reassessing national identities. Palestinians in exile had largely held fast to the idea of ṣumūd (steadfastness) and ṣabr (patience), waiting for their lands to be liberated by the combined Arab forces. Now, without such an option, a new generation of refugees took it on themselves to fight for their repatriation. The national construct of the fallāḥ al- ṣumūd (stead-fast peasant) was being replaced by the uniformed fidāʾī (freedom fighter).
From a political perspective the June War had several far- reaching consequences. Most noticeably the humiliation of the defeat forced a widespread reassessment of the conflict and the power relations among the various participating Arab states. With the dream of a collective Arab front dashed, each individual Arab state would later move to create bilat-eral relations with Israel independent of the other Arab states. The appar-ent ascendance of the Israeli army into a world power further destroyed the idea of ever returning to pre- 1948 borders. Instead each individual Arab nation- state would have to begin negotiating with Israel for the re-turn of Arab lands occupied and an end to the refugee crisis. What is more, the June War accelerated the development of an independent Pal-estinian nationalism focused on resolving the grievances of those directly under Israeli occupation and in exile. The establishment of a military oc-cupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip reactivated political discourse of state borders in Israel and the Arab world, an issue that had not been publicly debated since 1949.
Culturally al- naksa put a final and crushing end to the collective pride and blind Arab nationalist rhetoric emanating from the Egyptian
media-scape. Over time, as little progress was made in repatriating Palestinian refugees and solving the many socioeconomic issues facing the Egyptian underclassess, the once- supportive masses became dismayed by the long extended performances, expensive wardrobes, spectacle, and wealth of the Arab elite and instead began to see such gestures of status as a cover for avoiding real issues. The promises of reform that accompanied pan- Arabism failed to materialize.3 With this Cairo’s position of power and influence in cultural production waned considerably, allowing for the de-velopment of local music scenes across the region. The war had revealed far- reaching systemic flaws in Arab ideology, society, and culture that sev-eral new dissenting voices began to address. Perhaps the loudest and most prominent came from the legendary political singer Sheikh Imam ʿIssa.
sheikh imam ʿissa
Born Mohammad Ahmad ʿIssa on July 2, 1918, in the Egyptian village of Abu al- Nomros, Sheikh Imam grew up in a very religious home. As an infant he lost his sight to infection. His father, a devout Sufi, pressed him to study Qurʾanic recitation (tajwīd) formally by enrolling him in a special school for religious learning at age five. In 1929 the young boy was admitted into the Sunni Judicial Association at al- Azhar to further his religious studies. At the uncharacteristically young age of fifteen he earned the title of sheikh, and worked as a local religious figure chant-ing appropriate sections of the Qurʾan at public occasions or ceremonies.
After spending several years at al- Azhar he was forcibly dismissed for being caught listening to a radio broadcast of Qurʾanic verses delivered by the famously controversial singer Sheikh Mohammad Rafʿat. Sheikh Imam spent the next three years of his life living on the streets of Cairo as a Sufi dervish. He made a living reciting the Qurʾan at weddings, circum-cisions, birthdays, and holy festivals. During one such performance he made the acquaintance of famed Egyptian composer Sheikh Ahmad Za-chariya. Working as one of Zachariya’s entourage exposed Sheikh Imam to a new tradition of Arab classical music—its forms, melodies, and theo-retical structures. During these years he took up the ʿūd, stopped wearing the traditional clothing of a sheikh, and began performing only classical love songs. In an interview he stated, “The songs I used [to sing at the time] were light, sentimental, love songs. But I had been searching for poems to express the music I felt inside myself. Deep inside I felt I should do songs to benefit the people.”4
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In 1962 Sheikh Imam found the poems he had been searching for in the words of a young political dissident named Ahmad Fuad Nagam. After a brief introduction the two artists quickly developed a bond and began collaborating on new songs against the government. Nagam’s poetry was especially powerful in that it was written in the colloquial dialect of the streets and dealt with pressing social issues: food shortages, underem-ployment, and the suppression of free speech. After the defeat of 1967 the two began to write political songs harshly critical of the state and its corrupt leadership. His first few public concerts at the National Syndicate of Journalists were completely ignored by the government, but as Sheikh Imam’s notoriety increased, the Egyptian authorities began to collect a dossier of his songs and lyrics.
These songs were sharp, critical satire of the regime and its hypoc-risy. In 1969, amidst massive student rioting, Sheikh Imam performed at a number of public events, leading to his first arrest on a charge of mari-juana possession.5 Eventually Egyptian authorities assembled enough damaging evidence to have Sheikh Imam and Ahmad Nagam sentenced to life in prison for treason. While in prison the two were exposed to a di-verse collection of dissidents, intellectuals, and other political prisoners.
They continued to compose music in the courtyards and common areas of the prison and over time grew more and more popular among the rising generation of young intellectuals and political reformists. After Nasser’s unexpected death both Sheikh Imam and Nagam were released from prison in conjunction with Anwar Sadat’s “Corrective Revolution” of May 1971. The two then resumed performing at student demonstrations and on university campuses, periodically imprisoned without trial for popular dissent. With each month spent in prison, Sheikh Imam’s fame and fol-lowing grew until he was widely recognized as one of Egypt’s national folk heroes despite the fact that his music was banned from Egyptian media.
Interestingly what proved to make Sheikh Imam’s music so dangerous to the state was not an overt call to arms. Rather his music resonated with the people in its capacity to give new subaltern meanings to state pro-paganda. He spoke to the marginalized, angry masses with a great sense of irony and satiric commentary about the misdeeds of the Arab leader-ship, in effect transforming state media into a tool of political protest. He wrote songs that used the state’s own empty rhetoric, revealing the harsh realities of everyday life and the paradoxes of state- sanctioned moder-nity.6 From a local perspective Sheikh Imam celebrated the contributions
of the Egyptian fallāḥīn (“Al- Fallahin,” “Al- Shaʿb al- Zayn” [The beauti-ful people], “Bahubbak Ya Misr” [I love you Egypt]); commemorated the great sacrifices of Egyptian soldiers (“Misr Ya Bahiya” [Beautiful Egypt],
“Dawla Min?” [The nation belongs to who?]); and glorified the rising gen-eration of university students and activists (“Rajaʿu al- Talamidha” [Re-turn of the students]). On a national stage Sheikh Imam denounced the government for its corruption and called for the nation to dispense with empty Arabist imagery and instead focus on real pressing issues such as economic instability, food shortages, and unemployment (“Kalb al- Sitt”
[The lady’s dog]).7 In speaking out to the Arab world at large the sheikh wrote songs in solidarity with the Palestinian people (“Mawwal Filastini Masri” [A Palestinian Egyptian folk song], “Shayid Qasrak” [Build your palaces], “Filastin” [Palestine]) and encouraged an indigenous Pales-tinian liberation movement (“Unadikum” [The nation calls out to you]).
In matters of international state politics Sheikh Imam glorified a trans-national guerrilla movement against Western imperialism, celebrated folk heroes of resistance to tyranny (“Givara” [Che Guevara]), and satirized the corruption of international leaders (“Marr al- Kalam” [Bitterness of words], “Sharaft ya Nixon Baba” [Welcome Daddy Nixon], “Valari Jiskard Dastayn” [Valerie Giscard D’Estaing], “Thātshr” [Thatcher]).
“sharaFt ya nixon baba” (welcome daddy nixon)
As an example of Sheikh Imam’s ability to satirize government officials and criticize state regimes, there are few songs more popular than his
“Sharaft ya Nixon Baba” (Welcome Daddy Nixon). At a time of Egyptian national instability, U.S. president Richard Nixon’s state visit was meant to give international support to President Anwar Sadat’s regime. However, under the cloud of Watergate, which would later lead to his resignation in 1974, Nixon’s highly publicized visit to the Arab world served as inspi-ration for perhaps Sheikh Imam’s most recognized song.
Welcome Daddy Nixon the Man of Watergate
They have honored your arrival, the Great Sultans of beans and oil.
They rolled out the red carpet from Ras al- Tin to Mecca And from there you could easily descend to ʿAkka And then they could call you, “Ḥajī,” Ha! Ha!
The whole thing is just a Moolid, Oh family of the prophet, grant us blessings.
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The use of bābā (colloquially, father or daddy) here is especially im-portant in that it suggests a paternal relationship of corruption and po-litical malfeasance between the U.S. president and the Egyptian regime then celebrating his arrival. He is the father of all corrupt leaders and role model for Sadat’s Egyptian regime. The irony is extended further with the description of how Arab state politicians have welcomed the American leader with a red carpet stretched from his hotel in Ras al- Tin all the way to Islam’s holiest city, Mecca. Over the course of his presidency, Nixon held fast to a foreign policy that reinforced the subordinate position of the Arab states in relation to Israel and the international economy. Sheikh Imam reveals the hypocrisy inherent in welcoming such a notorious leader to the Arab world. In the following line the president is taken on a pilgrimage to the Israeli city of ʿAkka on his way to the holy city of Mecca.
Given that Nixon did not visit ʿAkka during this trip, it would seem that it was employed as a joke of metaphorical contradictions. Despite visiting Mecca, it is only after descending into the Israeli city of ʿAkka, on his true pilgrimage, that the American president is called Ḥajī. These lines estab-lish a recurring irony and juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, reinforcing the absurdity of a criminally embattled American president making a holy pilgrimage to Israel and Mecca.
The rub of religious piety and political and moral corruption is pursued further in the following verse. Here Sheikh Imam likens the pomp and circumstance of the president’s visit to a moolid, a religious high holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet or other religious figure. Al-though the moolid is not celebrated among many conservative sects, the vast majority of Muslims celebrate the holiday by fasting, decorating their houses, and telling stories of the Prophet’s life. State officials are exposed as idolatrous worshippers of political power and prestige in their effusive hospitality of the disgraced American president. Feigning deference to the politicians worshipping Nixon’s power, Sheikh Imam asks, “the family of the Prophet grant us blessings.” The sarcastic sheikh toys with the idea that those of great wealth and privilege believe themselves to be close inti-mates to the Prophet, if not prophets themselves. In comparing those of privilege and those of holy relation to the Prophet, the sheikh chastises those who feel that their financial status is divinely granted. These lyrics, sung by a lowly sheikh, no less, carry a profound irony among the poor and disenfranchised Egyptian masses. The second verse continues:
The day you arrived, your spies made a great ceremony Where the whores could shake their bodies seductively And Sheikh Shamhawrash is riding on the backs of the world Followed by an entourage of spiders, crawling from under the walls In this verse the lyrics turn to deep colloquial Egyptian slang. Here Nixon’s spies are Sadat’s secret police in charge of the American presi-dent’s arrangements. The ceremony they prepared for his arrival was one for the politically and morally corrupt, “where the whores [al- mūmas]
shake their bodies.” Sheikh Shamhawrash is an ironic twist of the pious and the profane, characterizing Sadat as both sheikh (holy man) and Sham hawrash (Satan). As a corrupt leader who presents himself as pious, Sadat rides on the backs of the masses followed by an entourage of spiders (his state minions). Sadat is both sheikh and Satan, holy and corrupt.
They invited you and said, “come, eat Bon Bons and harīsa”
[Egyptian sweets]
And because you are naive, you believed that we were easy prey They follow you in a zaffa [wedding procession], oh groom of
ignorance and shiftiness
Turn your face and we will dishonor you, shūbash, while the owners of the house will praise you
Here Nixon is likened to a spoiled child eating only bon bons and Egyp-tian sweets. In his visit to the country he is sheltered from the realities of Egyptian society. In being celebrated by the state regime Nixon is paraded through the streets as if he were a “groom of ignorance.” He is oblivious to the true feelings and turmoil of the people. “While the owners of the house [elite] praise you,” “we [the lower classes] will dishonor you.” The word “shūbash” here is a powerfully gendered insult levied at Nixon. In Egyptian slang, “shūbash” is a disgusting epithet one woman might use to describe another woman before a larger, more physical altercation ensues.
To call a former American president “shūbash” is an extreme form of dis-honor in vulgarity and also in gender.
As a testament to the influence of Sheikh Imam among Palestinian mu-sicians and activists, in the summer of 2002, “Sharaft ya Nixon Baba” was
As a testament to the influence of Sheikh Imam among Palestinian mu-sicians and activists, in the summer of 2002, “Sharaft ya Nixon Baba” was