Rim Naguib, “The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and “Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction” in Interwar Egypt” (New Texts Out Now)

Rim Naguib, “The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and “Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction” in Interwar Egypt” (New Texts Out Now)

Rim Naguib, “The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and “Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction” in Interwar Egypt” (New Texts Out Now)

By : Rim Naguib

Rim Naguib, “The Ideological Deportation of Foreigners and “Local Subjects of Foreign Extraction” in Interwar Egypt,” Arab Studies Journal, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2 (Fall 2020).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this article? 

Rim Naguib (RN): At the outset, I was interested in the history of the short-lived Egyptian Communist Party of the early 1920s, which brought together Egyptian and foreign resident workers, artisans, and intellectuals. Looking through the British Foreign Office correspondences about the party and the associated Workers’ Federation, I noticed the frequent occurrence of deportations from interwar Egypt of socialists, communists, and syndicalists, and was surprised by the absence of studies surveying the history of the practice. 

Removals by the Egyptian state of “foreign” residents are typically associated with Nasser-era anti-imperialist nationalist policies. But an examination of earlier deportations reveals that the practice has roots in colonial policing, something that has been overlooked by historians. So, I was moved by the desire to tell this little-known history—to survey the role of British colonialism in setting important precedents and instituting deportation based on ideology and ethnic difference in Egyptian state practice.

I was also intrigued by the context in which these deportations occurred. On the one hand, no Egyptian nationality law had been in force until 1929, and the country was home to a substantial population of resident foreigners: subjects of the defunct Ottoman Empire and Russian refugees, alongside other European residents, many of whom had multiple national origins and complex migration trajectories. At the same time, the interwar years were marked by the gradual “Egyptianization” of the state and the economy, following important national milestones such as the writing of the first constitution in 1923, and the victory of the popular Wafd party in the first legislative elections in the country’s history in 1924. In this context, the presence of these foreigners or “local subjects of foreign extraction” (as the British Residency liked to call them) was becoming problematic. Those resident foreigners who espoused internationalist class-based ideologies and pushed the social question to the top of the political agenda were particularly undesirable. Their presence and activities threatened colonial interests as well as those of the local elite, and came to be depicted as inimical to national sovereignty and independence. Their deportation occurred at a defining moment of Egyptian nationalism and nation-state building. On a global level, it was the era of the end of empires and the consolidation of nation states. Many of these foreign residents in Egypt did not have identifiable or traceable national origins, not to mention nationality. Some were rendered stateless and some successfully resisted their deportation.  

This is why a study of these deportations, at such a transitional period, can be revealing of the history of the universalization of nation-states and especially of the history of Egyptian nationality and nationalism.

In a sense, the article looks at the colonial within the anti-colonial, by looking at the colonial legacy within certain manifestations of nationalism.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the article address?

RN: The article addresses the colonial practice of ideological-ethnic deportation as an example of the colonial rule of difference. It examines the various mechanisms of legitimation employed by British authorities in Egypt, and the role they played in instituting the practice in Egyptian state laws and policies. The deportations in question were decided and carried out by the British-controlled European Department and its intelligence unit, but in appearance, the Ministry of Interior, like other state institutions, was gradually being Egyptianized by virtue of the 1922 Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence. British officers within the Egyptian state were thus acting behind the guise of an increasingly sovereign Egyptian state.

I argue that this colonial practice contributed in reinforcing Egyptian ethno-nationalism. The article thus also addresses nationalist discourse in the press, its increasing depiction of socialism as a foreign epidemic threatening national sovereignty and security, and the association drawn between the presence and entry of foreigners in Egypt and this threat to the Egyptian social and political order. In a sense, the article looks at the colonial within the anti-colonial, by looking at the colonial legacy within certain manifestations of nationalism.

J: How does this article connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

RN: I have long been preoccupied with nationalism, and the evolution of its discourses and imageries. My previous article, for instance, looks at the roots and functions of today’s highly gendered Egyptian nationalism.

This article on interwar deportations also analyzes nationalist constructions and examines the colonial legacy within anti- and post-colonial nationalist discourse. It departs however from previous work in the way it looks at the specific legal and institutional manifestations of this legacy, by focusing not just on discourse, but on actual legislation that ensued from this colonial practice, such as the anti-socialist amendments of the criminal code in 1931, and the addendum to the Egyptian nationality law in the same year. The article suggests that the selective naturalization of Ottoman subjects, in law and in practice, was partly motivated by the interwar campaign against socialism and socialist foreigners. 

J: Who do you hope will read this article, and what sort of impact would you like it to have? 

RN: I hope this article will be useful to students of colonialism, nationalism, and the Egyptian state. I would like it to illuminate an overlooked aspect of colonial governmentality, and to help question dominant colonialist as well as nationalist narratives. On the one hand, highlighting the role of British colonialism in instituting the practice of ideological-ethnic deportations refutes colonialism's claimed role of protecting foreigners and minorities. On the other hand, the nationalist political elite, in its attempt to establish control over the Egyptian population and to replace the colonial authorities, borrowed the same mechanisms of colonial policing. As soon as the Wafd was democratically elected into government, it cracked down on independent labor organization and syndicalism, and repressed class-based solidarity in favor of conservative ethno-nationalism. Exploring the apparently paradoxical convergence of colonialist and nationalist interests is perhaps politically useful today, and may contribute to a critical approach to dominant nationalist narratives. 

J: What other projects are you working on now? 

RN: I am now beginning to look at the other side of deportation: at the objects of state removals, and their resistance to displacement. I am interested to know who those were who attempted to prove their Egyptian nationality in the years preceding the inception of the first Egyptian nationality law and following it, and how they went about resisting their exclusion. I am extending this research to the political deportations of 1949 to 1951. By doing so I wish to examine how the state's preoccupation with the policing of revolutionary activities and internationalist solidarity played a key role in selective naturalization, denaturalization, and thus in the definition of national belonging. 

On the other hand, I am working on turning the stories of the deportees, especially those who resisted their deportation, into graphic accounts of my own illustration. In this way, I am hoping to contribute in popularizing this little-known history, and thus in challenging dominant narratives outside academic circles. Below is a page from my graphic interpretation of the deportation of Youssef Rosenthal, a key founder of the Egyptian Communist Party and the confédération générale des travailleurs.

 

A scene from the author’s graphic interpretation of Youssef Rosenthal’s deportation in 1924.

 

Excerpt from the article (from pp. 23-25) 

On 20 March 1924, al-Ahram reported that preparations were underway “to deport those communists whose involvement in the crimes committed by the accused was not proven. These are known Russians and Syrians.” In their case, deportation was not a verdict based on a specific crime, but a preventive measure, based on their ideology and ethnicity, against the perceived threat they posed. From that point onward, the government arrested and deported many Russians, Palestinian Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Italians whom it suspected of communist activities or beliefs, notwithstanding their status as local or former Ottoman subjects, and despite their possessing no other nationality documentation. 

Although Rosenthal was one of the ESP’s main founders, he had been dismissed from the ECP at the end of 1922 due to internal personal rivalries, and was therefore not among the accused when its leadership was prosecuted. Instead, the parquet summoned Rosenthal as a witness. At court, he answered the parquet’s questions without overtly identifying himself as a communist. Al-Ahram published the full transcript of the interrogation. But two days later, Rosenthal felt compelled to send a personal statement to the newspaper. In the statement, he proclaimed: “I have been and I still am and I will always be, until the last breath, a communist wholly loyal to the cause of the proletariat” and asked for his “share of responsibility,” that is, to be detained and tried along his Egyptian comrades.

A few days later, the parquet summoned Rosenthal again and questioned him over the published statement. Rosenthal confirmed the views he expressed in the letter and was consequently arrested. The Ministry of Interior ordered his deportation from Egypt “because of his communist inclination.” Accompanying Rosenthal on the same cargo ship were two Russian Jews and members of the ECP: Samuel Zaslavsky and Grigorii Schoklender. However, the three of them were prohibited from disembarking at several ports, and al-Ahram continued to follow the whereabouts of Rosenthal under the heading “The Wandering Communist.”

With the Wafd in power and public opinion turned against foreign Bolshevik plots, British officials in Egypt felt no need to legitimate deportations through proof of origin or law infringement. Richard Graves, the acting director general of Public Security, confirmed that Rosenthal’s local subject status “would not legally stand in the way of his deportation.” The Egyptian parquet’s statements also made it clear that requiring proof of crimes for the deportation of foreigners with communist inclinations was redundant.

Back in Alexandria after a month on the ship, Rosenthal endeavored to prove his Egyptian nationality and to seek the protection of the 1923 constitution, arguing that he arrived in Egypt “when traveling from Palestine to Egypt was considered a domestic journey, in one Ottoman homeland.”

Because the government was unable to obtain permission from any country to receive Rosenthal, their plan to deport him failed. But they succeeded in deporting Zaslasky and Schoklender, despite family pleas published in al-Ahram. The parents of Grigorii Schoklender affirmed in their plea that they had moved to Alexandria fifteen years earlier, when their son was only three years old, and that he had become the breadwinner of the family. Neither Schoklender nor Zaslavsky had a Russian passport. British communists aided them in obtaining Russian visas from the Russian embassy in London. After several months in jail, Grigorii Schoklender, his family, and Samuel Zaslavsky were deported to Odessa. Other workers and party members described in al-Ahram as “Russian” or “of Russian origin” were tried in a local court and either jailed or deported. 

British officials in Egypt and al-Ahram reporters praised the Wafd government for undertaking the deportation of foreign communists and labor activists. Yet it was British authorities within the Egyptian Ministry of Interior who played a central role in deciding and implementing the deportations. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence reserved British control over four matters, including “the protection of foreign interests in Egypt and the protection of minorities.” To fulfill this task, and after the elimination of the British interior adviser position, the British director general of public security was granted broad authority over the police and even controlled a special intelligence section. Keown-Boyd, director general of the European Department, held this position throughout the fourteen years of its existence from 1923 to 1937. In this period, Keown-Boyd sought to strengthen the European Department in order to maintain a bastion of British control over Egyptian affairs. Thus, despite the creation of a new position for an Egyptian director general of public security during the Egyptianization of the state apparatus in 1922, the British administration retained control over the Egyptian police, and especially the political police. 

The European Department led the campaign to suppress socialism and communism in Egypt through heavy recourse to ideological deportation, while concealing British responsibility by working under the guise of Egyptian state sovereignty. A 1929 report on communism by Major Anson of the European Department stated that in the preceding six years, from 1923 to 1929, “eighty-six dangerous communists had been deported from Egypt.”

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.