It seems there is no recourse these days from the remorseless tumble of events. One catastrophe follows another, all over the world. We feel it has never been as bad as now, but we are probably wrong.
Now in my eightieth decade, I have seen my share of world politics and have periodically felt that my world is, ‘going to hell in a hand basket”!
Watching the riots in Hong Kong I am reminded of a time when I first felt compelled to demonstrate .This was probably my second year of university and the Suez Crisis was already brewing. I was aware of something going on in the Middle East, but paid little attention.
When the bombing of the Canal by the French and British troops took place I was seeing a man called Hassan ,an Egyptian from Cairo. Now I really wonder what he saw in me. He was much older and I never did get a clear idea of what if, anything, he was studying.
He lived in one of these ubiquitous and old fashioned tenements inhabited by a bossy landlady who provided room ,meals and a cleaning service. The furniture was old fashioned and heavy. The place smelt of boiled cabbage and aggressively applied furniture polish. He had an enormous poster of Nasser on the bedroom wall and told me he slept with a pistol under his pillow. I never did verify if this was true!
Hassan spent a lot of time on the telephone. He would make me very gritty thick coffee and then disappear for long talks on the phone in Arabic.
I have never fathomed what he saw in me, an extremely naïf little Scottish lass! Maybe I was a cover of some sort. Now I am pretty convinced he was spying for the Nasser Government. When the Suez War actually broke out Hassan was the coordinator of a general exodus of Egyptians in Scotland to go home and fight for Nassar. The British Government did not seem to intervene, I am not even sure if Hassan went home with everyone else. I completely lost track of him. and I never saw him again.
Of course, in the autumn of 1956 the newspapers were full of news from the Middle East. In Britain, Anthony Eden appeared very much the upper class leader, telling us why Britain and France needed to control the Canal. I remember his remarking that there was no way the Egyptians would be able to run the canal! Then he proceeded to make really sure of that by sinking ships along its length. I found it particularly racist that he demeaned the Egyptian pilots the way he did. We did not describe things as racist in those days but the underlying word ,”Wog ”was implied, In most of his speeches.
There were all sorts of opinions within the student body as to the legality of the British and French intervention. As it became apparent that these two countries were counting on Israeli troops to invade Egypt and the Canal, the whole exercise was exposed as the very underhand and sneaky move it was.
Inevitably there was a student demonstration, to be held in the Old Quad. I duly joined a group of friends, picked up some signs, and proceeded to the university.
The so called demonstration was in full swing when we arrived. One young man, an Arab, recognizable by his checkered scarf, had climbed onto one of the decorative lamp standards, and was shouting something in Arabic. A large mob of furious young men were trying to pull him down. They were all red in the face, obviously angry and out of control. This could hardly be said to be a sober sharing of views on the rights and wrongs of Great Britain’s actions. It was impossible to tell what ideas were being shared as anger and overwhelming feeling had taken over.
In the middle of this hubbub two servitors came into the Quad wearing their full regalia. These men were usually former soldiers whose job it was to keep order on campus. The sum total of their observable business was to forbid the endless games of bridge which took place in the cafeteria. Most people were sensible enough to pay their debts off university property, having calculated what they owed by a tally in matchsticks!
Whatever misguided idea the servitors had about having an influence on the riot, I do not know. But the inevitable happened. One poor old man was bowled over and fell down the steps, his top hat rolling into the middle of the quad. Someone did help him up, but by this time I was both scared and very angry. This was not what I had come to do and I quit then and there. As I went to throw down my placard I realized the participants were using them as weapons so I took mine and retreated to the cafeteria, now being used as a first aid station.
As is usual in this kind of situation, people got tired. Some got hurt and landed up in hospital, some were charged with rioting and causing bodily harm, and absolutely nothing changed. We all went home without having any idea of the effects of this disturbance.
There may have been a photo of the fighting in the Scotsman, but it is not evident on Google. From the point of view of the University this was just one more student disturbance in the long history of the institution ,Also. this was just one more incident to add to the realization that Britain was no longer an international power. No more imperial dreams!
Anthony Eden resigned, and the United States made it very clear that they would not stand for this behavior, even in an ally. It was only much later that I became aware of Lester B Pearson’s actions at the United Nations, which managed to stop the situation from deteriorating.
Today we watch the enormous crowds in Hong Kong day after day. The riot police in all their gear, and the marchers wearing masks to hide their faces from the scanners, are more organized than we were ,but the concerns of ordinary people still resonate across the world. Unfortunately, often a genuine plan to show solidarity, or to protest a perceived wrong, is taken over by a small group who really only want to cause disruption. They are adept at sewing dissent and encouraging violence. Often the results of demonstrations are inconclusive, and people get hurt and even killed in the process.
None of us know how the Hong Kong situation will turn out. However, it is a little cheering to remember that the outcome of the parlous situation in 1956 was the formation of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, whose first job was to police the Suez Canal. Canadian Troops were one of the first group of soldiers to fulfill this role and we have been doing it ever since.
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