The Suez Crisis was one of the first real political crises that I understood. At my age, now over eighty, I have lived through many times of political instability. At the end of the war it seemed like the beginning of a new era to my parents. On the farm, we built a large pile of wood and debris to make a celebratory bonfire. Everyone came from around the neighborhood, and I am sure there was a lot of beer and whiskey consumed.
. We children were given into our Grandmother’s care, well away from the centre of the party. The things I most remember, were the insects swarming around the paraffin lamps. I had seldom been out in the dark for such an extended period of time and was fascinated by the insect’s suicidal behavior .Many died with a little hiss as they hit the hot glass. My main focus was my father’s promise to cook some potatoes in the bonfire’s ashes .I knew everyone was happy but had no real understanding of the reason for such euphoria.
I also remember my parents glued to the radio as the results of the first postwar elections came over the airwaves. I wanted to seem as delighted as they were that the Labour Party got in, but had no idea what that meant.
At Boarding School the only political event I remember was the coronation of Elizabeth 11 in 1953. The school bought a Television set for the occasion and we met in the large hall to watch. It was all rather boring. The headmistress allowed that we need not stand every time they played national anthem. The set was small and the ceremony seemed to go on for a very long time. The only things I remembered then about Elizabeth were the endless photos Nannie put in an album. These depicted Lisbeth with corgis! Lisbeth and Anne in endless Games. Also the little girls seen in newscasts giving a good copy of their parent’s gracious wave to cheering crowds. There was no way I envied their lives!
I went up to University, I think, in the fall of 1955.The Suez Crisis was already brewing, but for me it was completely under the radar. By the time
the crisis blew up 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 got a clear idea of what, if anything, he was studying .He lived in one of these ubiquitous old fashioned tenements inhabited by a bossy landlady who provided a room, meals and cleaning services. The furniture was old fashioned and heavy. The place smelled of boiled cabbage and aggressively applied furniture polish. He had an enormous poster of Nassar 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 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. I am pretty convinced now, he was a plant spying for the Nassar 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 because of all the disruption caused by the Suez debacle, I never saw him again.
Of course in the autumn of 1956 the newspapers were full of this news. Antony Eden appeared very much the upper class leader, telling us why Britain and France needed to retain control of the Suez Canal. I do 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 in the way he did. We did not describe things as racist in those days but the underlying word “Wog” was implied.
Of course, there were all sorts of opinions within the student body as to the legality of 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 a very underhand and sneaky move.
Inevitably there was a 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 shouting young men were trying to pull him down. They were all red in the face and obviously angry and out of control. This could hardly be said to be a sharing of sober views on the rights and wrongs of Great Britain’s actions .It was impossible to tell what ideas were being shared as anger and furious emotional feelings had taken over.
In the middle of the hubbub two servitors came into the Quad wearing their full regalia. These men were usually older men from the armed forces 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 in match sticks at the end of a game, and not on University property!
Whatever misguided idea they had about having any 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 very 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 wepons,so I took it with me and retreated to the cafeteria, now being used as a makeshift first aid station.
This was a minor disturbance in the history of Edinburgh and the University. There had been many more violent confrontations in the past between town and gown, and more were to come. The city fathers were rumored to have placed a couple of fire trucks in the street outside the Quad and as a further precaution, closed the heavy iron gates
. As is usual in this kind of situation, people got tired. Some got hurt and ended up in hospital, some were charged with rioting or causing bodily harm, and absolutely nothing changed! We all went home without having any idea of the effects of the disturbance.
There may have been a photo of people fighting and shouting in the Scotsman .Maybe this was 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 kind of behavior, even in an ally. It was only later on that I became aware of Lester B. Pearson’s actions at the United Nations which managed to stop the situation from escalating.
Prior to this I had been intermittently involved in the Ban the Bomb movement. I never really took part in a similar demonstration again. I did desperately want to go on the Aldermaston March in the fall of 1960. But as I had a very new baby we deemed too much of a risk. My husband went instead and duly “sat down” with Malcolm Muggeridge! How very long into the past these days seem now! The idea of non-violent protest has its roots in Ghandi’s use of the tactic against the British Government during the push for independence. Demonstrations have morphed into many different approaches since then.
However, demonstrations are now part of modern life all over the world. Unfortunately often a genuine plan to show solidarity or protest a perceived wrong, is taken over by small groups who really only want to cause disruption. They are adept at sewing dissent and encouraging violence. The outcome is usually inconclusive and many people get hurt or even killed in the process.
It is a little cheering to remember that the outcome of this parlous situation in 1956, was the formation of the first United Nations force to oversee peace in the Canal Zone. This was the first deployment of Canadian troops in this role, one our military has undertaken all over the world since then.
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