Introduction

The recent fiftieth anniversary of the Six Day War of June 1967 has reopened academic and public debate on the causes and consequences of the Arab defeat (al-naksa). The defeat marks a profound break in the contemporary history of the Middle East and North Africa, with its political and social consequences still felt today. The most immediate consequence of the defeat, at the ideological level, was the beginning of the decline of ‘socialist‘ and ‘progressive’ Arab nationalism, and the unravelling of Egyptian president Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir (Nasser) as its undisputed leader and hero. Many consider the naksa as simply the beginning of a reactionary politics, embodied of the political and intellectual history of the Arab world in the twentieth century.While the naksa pushed by the rebirth of political Islam. This, however, obscures an important part many intellectuals and militants towards alternative Islamist politics, it also helped liberate others from the weight of the charisma of the defeated leader, driving them towards more radical theories and political action, and thus laying the foundations of and strengthening the Arab New Left (al-yasar al-jadid). While the historical imprint of New Left was fleeting, a study of its rise and fall provides a glimpse into an alternative political vision after the 1967 war, and undermines the narrative of the inevitability of the rise of political Islam.

While the history of the theory and political practice of the Arab Left has mostly been a niche topic in the academy, the analysis of the Arab New Left has seen increased attention in very recent times. Studies, however, have mainly focused on Lebanon and Syria, and have almost entirely ignored Egypt. This chapter therefore aims to describe and analyse the birth and development of the New Left in Egypt. It shows that the New Left formed both in reaction to the hegemony of the regime in political life and as a critique of the substantial and problematic support of the Old Left (or ‘official Left’, al-yasar al-rasmi) for the state under Nasser.