Introduction
Research famous people's life and legacy is a very important matter which is directly related with reputation. Reputation detecting is a matter that requires special skills such as finding evidences on what is known as a person's reputation. Politics is a very important field that includes many famous characters whose reputation and news are of great importance to the public locally and globally, the acts they do during their life and the period they engaged in politics affect their reputation as well as talks about them by public people or by critics or political historians. In this essay, the reputation of a famous Arab leader and a peacemaker Egyptian president Muhamed Anwar Al Sadat is going to be discussed so as to know things about his life, the period when he ruled Egypt, 73 war, peace with Israel, his relation with Islamists and his death killed.
Body
Muhammed Anwar Al Sadat was born in 1913 and died in 198. He was the president of Egypt since 1970-1981.His death added too much to his reputation as he was killed when he was attending a military review on the remembrance of the 73 victories. His early life was a simple life of a villager who was greatly affected by many political figures such as Kamal Ataturk and Adolf Hitler and others. He ruled Egypt in a difficult time after Nasser in 1970 but he had a different policy from that of Nasser. He was a good leader during the period who ruled Egypt and proved his abilities to lead a great war and to held peace agreements as Camp David peace agreement with Israel in 1978. He received the Nobel prize for peace as a reward for this act. All these acts affected his reputation in his country, in the Arab world and internationally with supporting voices and opponent ones which were both extreme. This peace strengthened his relationships with the west and he began to apply a policy of encouraging business, importing and exporting which helped the economical situation in Egypt but at the same time aroused the anger and opposition of other groups such as fundamentalist Muslim groups and other Nasser supporters to the extent that some people accused him of betraying the country by peace with Israel. Assassins belonging to Muslim groups ended his life in public in 1981 which was a dramatic end for a man who was considered by many people as a leader and a peacemaker or by others as a businessman. (Alagna, 2004)
Historical interpretations differed regarding Sadat as he was a character that caused many arguments in the politics field and among the public. His decision to begin a war against Israel was interpreted by many people and historians as some saw that he was just pretending to be strong and others saw that he was right. Benny Morris, for example who is an Israeli historian thinks Sadat was a gambler and the peace agreement caused the Arab world to be loose and to lose its unity. He thinks that 1973 was a victory for Israel. (Farouky, 2008) This view was adopted by some Arabs and Egyptians who saw the war and the agreement were as a trap for all Arabs. Yet this historical event can be interpreted as bravery, peace initiation and a good step towards Egypt prosperity. Many Arab historians see him as a man of war and peace and others see him as a man who wants to bring wealth easily and quickly and this made him to let down basics of policy with Israel and that Camp David was a great disaster on Egypt. His relations with the United States of America and the business deals he held with it aroused many arguments and different interpretations about him as some thought him a dare man with an ideology and others thought him a conceited and a fame lover and he will be the reason for naturalization relationships with Israel and America which will retard the Arab nation generally and Egypt specifically. (Alagna, 2004)
Such historical interpretations must not be launched without evidences and such evidences should be well understood and discussed. Sadat's policy is obviously against that of Nasser, the victory of 73 was a good work but why he stopped? This is a question raised by many historians and the Arab poets and writers to the extent that made a poet like Amal Donkol write a very famous poem asking him not to make the treaty with Israel. It is real that Arab OPEC countries got great benefits from the agreement and trade became better in the Arab world and economic aids for Egypt by USA was helpful at the time of the economic crisis in 1970s but today Egyptian sees American aids as obstacles in the way of their freedom and political stability. In 1981 Sadat began to arrest his opponents which was evidence on his failure with his people and this was accompanied with retarded economic state. Communists voices as well as Islamists voices caused people to make some kind of a revolution on the president. This situation proved the president failure and lead him to his dramatic end which was not very sympathized by Egyptians, the way he was killed in the parade caused many argued voices against him to assure that he was wrong in his encouraging for Islamists and his contradictory in making peace with Israel. ( World Africa, 2012)
Sadat was considered for many people and historians in East and West as a myth because he was presented the impossible dream of peace with Israel which itself was not true but a myth in their points of view. A great Egyptian poltical historian, Moussa Sabri commented in his book, "Sadat the Truth and the Myth" on how was this man presenting true victory for Arabs with myths of peace and prosperity. He sees Sadat as a man of war and peace who brought Sinai back at a very difficult time but the book at the same time refers to his perplexed soul affected by Hitler and this turned him to a myth which increased his dreams and that peace was not a try to humiliate Arabs but a real try to get a better world. Sadat's myth is considered to be his imaginatory sol that was may be over ambitious. His wife Jehan Alsadat stated that Nasser's myth affected him passively in his first years of ruling Egypt which perhaps lead him to try to achieve great things for Egypt, he really did and at the same time he could not achieve the Nasser's myth at his people but his efforts can never be denied. Perhaps his tendency to make relationships with the West and Israel were the main factors to make him seen as a man who wanted to be a myth as such relations were considered a kind of imagination but people who understood him learned exactly what he wanted. (Ezzat, 2011)
After Nasser, came Sadat to be the president that people waited many things to be done from him not only in Egypt but in the whole Arab world, calling him a myth requires to be evidenced whether this was in his favor or against him. His great power that cold be the reason to make him a myth was his insisting on altering Nasser's policy to a more open one. The criticism he faced was so much for an ordinary man to bear but he found a good place for himself in history as he got the Nobel Prize, was the man of peace and war at the same time, his outer looking gave him a more mythology appearance with his pipe, black color as Egyptian, Arabs and even the West saw him as the Pharaonic God or leader who will do great achievements and bring virtue and wealth to Egypt. Evidences show that he tried hard to do this and added too much to the Arab culture with a distinguished peaceful legacy that no one had. His myth character was affirmed after his death and the way he was killed with was not helpful in increasing the myth about him, the killer was known, arrested and the reason was also known.(Kessler and MingJi, 2009)
Conclusion
Mohamed Anwar A l Sadat reputation was discussed in this essay as he was known for being Egypt president in the most difficult period of 73 war and he was having a good reputation as a leader, a man of peace and war and a character that had a charisma that all people admired or argued. Reputation of Sadat was constructed according to his activities during the period of ruling Egypt, bringing victory and holding the Camp David agreement with Israel which reduced his Arabic popularity and added passive impressions on his reputation. Sadat reputation was also constructed according to his relationships with Islamists and Muslim fundamentalists who ended his life although he supported tem at many times of his life. In spite of all argued opinions with or against the Egyptian president Sadat, he left a rich legacy still argued till today.
References
- Alagna, 2004, Mgdalena, Anwar Sadat, The Rosen Publishing Group.
- Farouky, 2008, Saeed, Taji, Israeli historian on Sadat's gamble. http://www.aljazeera.com/
focus/arabunity/2008/03/ 20085251905215537.html - World Africa, 2012. Anwar Sadat, the foe of Arabs and the USSR
- Ezzat, 2011, Dina, Sadat Contested Legacy.
- Kessler, E. H, MingJi, Wong, 2009. Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership. Cultural Mythology and Global Leadership
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