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Title: Anarchists in Education
Author: Anthony Gorman
Date: 2005
Language: en
Topics: education, Egypt, university
Source: Retrieved on 12th September 2021 from https://libcom.org/history/anarchists-education-free-popular-university-egypt-1901
Notes: Published in Middle Eastern Studies, 41:3, pp. 303–320. ISSN 0026–3206 Print. ISSN 1743–7881 Online. DOI: 10.1080/00263200500105877.

Anthony Gorman

Anarchists in Education

On the evening of Sunday, 26 May 1901, the Free Popular University

(Università Popolare Libera) (henceforth UPL) was declared officially

open at the Theatre Zizinia in Alexandria. Responding to a public

invitation issued two weeks before, a large crowd from the Egyptian and

resident foreign communities and including many notables, attended the

inauguration in such numbers that the theatre was unable to contain

them. Raoul Canivet, editor of the French language daily La Réforme,

began proceedings by setting forth the principles of the UPL and the

details of its teaching programme. After his words were translated into

Arabic by Muhammad Kalza, correspondent for al-Liwa’, the nationalist

newspaper, Dr Polis Modinos spoke in Greek praising the establishment of

the university as evidence of ‘the rise of a new dawn of cultural life

in Alexandria’ and assuring the audience that the support of the local

Greek community would not be lacking since the reputation of the city

itself rested on Greek culture. Finally, Dr Onofrio Abbate Pasha, court

physician and prominent member of the modernizing intelligentsia, rose

to address the crowd. In the course of a florid speech, he described the

main aim of the UPL as being:

To improve the morals of individuals by strengthening active wills and

good inclinations, to develop the inhibited power of moral truth and of

conscience to be worthy of proclaiming true liberty, to cultivate

intelligence by the exercise of mental faculties and to lead the spirit

to the just so that it may be fairer and better in social and community

relations today.

This combination of individual improvement and social benefit meant,

Abbate declared, that the UPL would perform ‘a work that will not only

be useful [in itself] but will be dedicated with solemnity to a revival

of moral activity of the various foreign and Egyptian communities’. He

ended with a rallying call:

It concerns you now, good citizens, to come forward and continue along

the marked way, so that by improving your own physical and moral

conditions, you will know how to sow good seed among your families, you,

in whom the spark of life is exuberant, will understand how to clear the

minds of people of falsehood and error, of superstition, of fatal

prejudices of caste, race and nationality, as much as of base and

dishonest acts or criminal Utopias.[1]

The formalities over, the crowd dispersed and a small select group

adjourned for a meal at a local Italian restaurant, Santi, where more

speeches and champagne flowed to the success of the new enterprise.

The UPL was the most radical initiative in education in Egypt before the

First World War and part of a broader pattern of anarchist activity that

would play a significant role in the development of the labour movement,

grassroots political activism and progressive thought in the early years

of the twentieth century.[2] Founded on a platform of resolute

independence, it aimed to break free from national and religious frames

of reference by offering a programme of free, modern and accessible

education for all, and particularly ordinary people. Although it drew

intellectual and political inspiration from Europe, the UPL in Egypt had

its own special character, formed from revolutionary intent and adapted

to the reality of a diverse religious, ethnic and linguistic society.

Its significance lies in the radical nature of its educational programme

and in its challenge to mainstream historiography. Egyptian scholarship

of the period between 1882 and 1914 has been dominated by the struggle

between imperialist and nationalist forces that has focused on the

impact of British occupation and the revival of the Egyptian national

movement. In this interpretive framework, cross-cultural alliances and

subaltern strategies of resistance have been accorded little

recognition. The UPL, as a project dedicated to the improvement of the

education and conditions of the working classes in a multi-ethnic and

multi-confessional framework, therefore represents one of the ‘lost

voices’ that contested the dominant colonial–national discourse and

serves as an important example of social mobilization and the

transmission of ideas at a non-elite level.[3]

From the beginning of the nineteenth century Egypt was in the process of

significant economic, technological and social transformation. An

extensive series of reforms in military organization, education,

industry and the system of land tenure was implemented during the reign

of Muhammad ‘Ali to consolidate the institutions and economic

development of an emerging modern state. The policy was maintained under

his successors, particularly Ismail, who built up the infrastructure of

the country through the construction of railways, roads and the Suez

Canal. However, this ambitious programme of modernization incurred the

mounting indebtedness that facilitated economic control of the country

by a diverse array of French, Belgian, British and other foreign

commercial interests. With this came increasing European political

influence that culminated in the occupation of the country by the

British in 1882. In the following years the British hold on Egypt and

its incorporation into the international economy proceeded apace.

However, the foreign presence in Egypt was not confined to the occupying

authorities and the European haute bourgeoisie but included European

workers, especially those from Greece and Italy, who even before 1882

had come seeking work and settled there in considerable numbers. In the

period up to 1914 they would come to play a central role in the

development of working class political radicalism and a militant labour

movement.

The growing sophistication of this diverse local working class was

evident in the formation of workers’ associations. As early as 1862 a

group of Italian workers had set up the Italian Workers Society (Societa

Òperaia Italiana) in Alexandria. This was followed by similar

organizations in the same city: the Workers’ Brotherhood (I Adelphotis

ton Ergaton) formed in 1872 by workers from Corfu; the Greek Labour

Society (I Elliniki Ergatiki Etairia) in 1881 and the Italian Artisans

Brotherhood (Fratellanza Artigiana Italiana) two years later.[4] The

aims of these bodies were initially quite modest, being primarily

dedicated to the welfare of their members by providing mutual assistance

and acting as a forum for social activities, but their subsequent

development testified to a growing awareness of the utility of workers’

organization in a broader political sense.[5] In fact, radical political

currents had begun to emerge within the circles of workers, skilled

craftsmen and artisans as early as the late 1860s when

internationalists, strongly influenced by the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin,

became active in Alexandria. Inspired by the events of the Paris Commune

in 1871, the movement grew and joined the Internationale in 1876 with

sections organized in Alexandria, Cairo, Ismailia and Port Said by the

following year.[6] During the 1880s and 1890s anarchists maintained a

persistent if unspectacular presence in Egypt but their existence was

most fully brought before the public eye in October 1898 when a number

were arrested and tried on a series of sensational charges including

conspiracy to assassinate the German Emperor Wilhelm II during his tour

of the Near East.[7]

By the very end of the nineteenth century the advantages of workers’

organizations and the cause of political radicalism came together with

the emergence of a militant labour movement. The cigarette workers’

strike in Cairo at the end of 1899 is generally regarded as marking the

emergence of the first genuine labour unions and the beginning of a

period of sustained industrial action.[8] These unions would provide an

important vehicle for the improvement of working conditions and the

defence of the rights of both foreign and Egyptian workers.[9] A vibrant

labour press would act as an important forum for the discussion of

workers’ issues and a conduit for the propagation of ideas on labour

organization, strategy and politics.[10] With these developments came a

change in the character of the membership of the anarchist movement.

While in its first decades in Egypt it had attracted mostly Italians,

many of them political exiles, by 1900 increasing numbers of Greek,

Jewish and other workers were becoming active.

The diverse and conflicting forces promoting the modernization of the

state, particularly the increasing foreign influence and the rise of a

working class made for a dynamic confluence of political, social,

economic and cultural ideas in late nineteenth century Egypt. In this

contest education served as an important arena for the reproduction of

political, cultural and social values where religious tradition and

secularism, the requirements of the modern state, and a kaleidoscope of

cultural influences competed with one another. At this time the

education system in Egypt was a highly diverse assemblage of traditional

and modern, local and foreign, public and private schools. Muslim,

Coptic and Jewish religious schools coexisted side by side with a series

of specialized modern government schools founded to produce state

officials and professionals qualified to administer the state. These

establishments included the School of Medicine (est. 1827), a succession

of military schools, and the School of Administration and Languages

(est. 1868). There was also a wide range of elementary and secondary

schools set up by local foreign communities and missionary

organizations, as well as a miscellany of vocational and private

schools. Through these educational institutions groups such as the Greek

communities, the Jesuits, American missionaries, the Alliance Israeĺite

Universelle and many others dedicated themselves to propagating a

specific nationalist, religious or cultural programme usually under the

legal protection of a foreign state.[11]

Although a more specialized sector, higher education reflected many of

these elements. Al-Azhar stood as the long-established institution of

traditional Islamic learning. Modernizing institutions such as the Dar

al-Ulum (est. 1872) and the Khedival Teachers’ College (est. 1880) had

been set up with the aim of producing state teachers for a more modern

curriculum. While a modern (private) university would not be founded

until 1908, learned societies such as the Institut d’Egypte (est.1859)

and the Khedival (later Royal) Geographical Society (est.1875)) served

as centres of research and intellectual exchange. Infused with the new

scientific ideas and fuelled by the thirst for exploration they were

nevertheless characterized by a socially conservative milieu of

predominantly foreign scholars generously patronized by the palace and

broadly reflecting its political views.[12] However, the rise of labour

as an organized social and political force of considerable potential

prompted an increasing awareness on the part of the bourgeoisie of the

need to accommodate, co-opt and acculturate the working classes by

offering suitable educational opportunities. One response was the

establishment of technical schools such as the Leonardo da Vinci, an

evening school of applied industrial arts for boys set up in Cairo in

1891 which taught various types of draughtsmanship as well as

Italian.[13] The debate on how best to cater for the educational needs

of the less privileged continued into the next decade when proposals

were generally vocational in tone or had a distinct cultural

emphasis.[14]

It was in this context that the announcement to establish a UPL in

Alexandria appeared in the Egyptian press in May 1901. The UPL movement

was the product of a series of developments in the second half of the

nineteenth century in Europe, especially in Italy and France, that

sought to provide education for the popular classes in order to address

the widespread social and political crisis of the period, the so-called

‘social question’.[15] In Italy the first UPL opened in Turin in 1900,

offering courses and lectures on various technical, scientific and

literary subjects. It was followed early the next year by the

establishment of UPLs in Livorno, Venice, Bologna and Milan. In Egypt

the UPL owed some inspiration, and certainly its name, to the Italian

model, sharing some features such as the reliance on public subscription

for funding and the use of voluntary teachers. However, it reflected its

own specific environment in two important ways. First, it offered a

curriculum designed for an ethnic and religious pluralist society

presented in several languages. Second, the UPL in Egypt was conceived

as a more radical institution in political terms than its Italian or

French counterparts. The Italian UPL movement was led by progressive and

legalitarian socialist intellectuals with close ties to the Italian

Socialist Party and, in fact, was opposed by Italian anarchists who

charged such institutions with destroying the revolutionary spirit of

the workers.[16] The French universiteś populaires promoted the cause of

‘social education’, that is, the acculturation of the working class to

the values of capitalism.[17] By contrast, in Egypt the UPL was founded

by an anarchist nucleus that was more inspired by the ideas of the

celebrated geographer and anarchist, Eliseé Reclus (1830–1905). A

supporter of Bakunin, friend of Kropotkin and participant in the Paris

Commune, Reclus had gone to Brussels in 1894 to take up a position at

the recently established New University. From here in both his courses

and writings he promoted the message that knowledge was the path to

freedom for the people.[18]

Planning for the UPL in Alexandria was undertaken by local anarchists,

among them Pietro Vasai, Francesco Cini, Pietro Curti-Garzoni, Giovanni

Tesi, Roberto D’Angio and Joseph Rosenthal, but its chief planner and

public face was Luigi Galleani. Galleani was an anarchist of

considerable standing with a record of more than a decade of militancy

in Italy.[19] In March 1900 he had escaped from detention on the Italian

island of Pantelleria and made his way to Egypt only to be apprehended

on arrival in Alexandria by order of the Italian consul. The arrest

provoked widespread protest in the local press and Galleani was soon

released under the terms of a royal amnesty. Quick to plunge back into

political work, Galleani presided over a series of private meetings

early the following year at the Italian Masonic Lodge in Alexandria to

discuss plans for the establishment of a UPL. Concerned about a possible

negative reaction, he counselled early on that anarchist doctrines

should not be promoted openly in the UPL programme but suggested that

they would more effectively exercise their influence through the

institution over time.[20] On 31 March Galleani and others spoke in the

Eden Theatre at the first public meeting canvassing the establishment of

a ‘free popular university’. The occasion attracted a small audience of

about 50 people, including police agents, and a provisional committee

was elected with Galleani as president and a journalist, Roberto

D’Angio, as secretary.[21] Early in May the second General Assembly at

the Alcazar Theatre attracted a larger crowd of about 150 people and the

constitution was approved, the first regular committee of 20 members

elected and the publication of circulars authorized. A call for monthly

subscriptions resulted in 64 signatures.[22]

As the chief force behind the UPL, anarchists were well represented on

the committee. Pietro Vasai, Constantin Sajous and Giovanni Tesi had all

been defendants in the anarchist trial of 1899 and Roberto D’Angio had

strong anarchist credentials as a journalist and pamphleteer. Joseph

Rosenthal was at the beginning of a long and celebrated career as a

political radical and trade unionist.[23] Other committee members, L.

Biagini, Dr R. Camerini and Augusto Hasda, were confirmed anarchists or

maintained close relations with them.[24] However, the UPL project also

attracted support from those with liberal and progressive credentials:

Raoul Canivet was the editor of a progressive daily, La Réforme, and

Polis Modinos, a young Greek doctor at the European Hospital, would soon

earn himself notoriety as the hardline president of the cigarette

workers’ association during the strike in 1902.[25] The early UPL

committees would contain members from almost all the significant

communities in Alexandria. Italians were the most conspicuous group but

Greek, German, French, Armenian and Egyptian were represented. The

participa-tion of members of the Jewish community was particularly

noteworthy. This included not only Rosenthal and Camerini but members of

prominent commercial families such as Albert Tilche, Jacques and Claude

Rolo, Claude Aghion and Baron Felix de Menasce.[26] The Egyptian

representation, namely the presence of Osman Effendi and Muhammad Ayyub

Bey on the early committees is also significant since it indicates that

at the beginning at least, the UPL was not simply an enterprise limited

to resident foreigners. There was also considerable diversity in social

class. Workers (Sajous, Vasai, Cervetta), small businessmen (Salvino

Bellantuono, Hasda, Rosenthal) and various professionals – medical

doctors (Camerini, Modinos), engineers (Rolo, Biagini), and journalists

(Canivet, D’Angio) – all sat on the first UPL committees. Indeed, the

role of such an establishment figure as Abbate Pasha, at the time both

vice-president of the Institut d’Égypte and president of the Khedival

Geographic Society, at the UPL opening, and the large number of

respected professionals, particularly doctors, a distinguished lawyer,

Mario Colucci (ancien batonnier of the Mixed Courts 1895–97), and

prominent businessmen at the inaugural dinner was evidence of the

widespread public support for the project.[27]

The ideals of the UPL reflected the libertarian and internationalist

orientation of its anarchist founders. At the opening Canivet had spoken

of the first principle of the UPL as being respect for the individual

since ‘freedom of conscience is the true charter of the modern world’.

The UPL constitution stated that it was to be characterized by

‘fraternity and mutual tolerance’, and be open to all with no

restrictions on nationality, language, religion, gender, or political,

literary or scientific opinions.[28] While acknowledging the inspiration

of institutions in France and Italy Canivet emphasized the particular

character of the UPL in Egypt:

In a country such as this where all nations have colonies, where all

religions have believers, where all doctrines are able to assert

themselves, a University must be open wide to representatives of all

nationalities and of all ideas. Only one rule should prevail: it is

benevolence to all people [and] the widest tolerance for ideas. On this

point it is unnecessary to go on because tolerance has happily remained

one of the virtues of Egypt. It is only right to declare that the

followers of the Islam are not outdone by anyone on that score and it is

with profound joy that the Committee welcomes their presence among us.

To ensure this principle of openness it was necessary for the UPL to be

independent of any outside authority. This had been determinedly

stressed at the original public meeting of the UPL and was enshrined in

the constitution: ‘It [i.e. the university] is constituted beyond the

interference, competition or patronage of any authority; the unlimited

freedom of the professorial chair and the seriousness of the studies

finding in this form of independent concentration their best

guarantee.’[29] This staunchly secularist, internationalist and

anti-authoritarian (if Utopian) position stood in sharp contrast to the

orientation of other educational institutions in Egypt which were under

the formal control of the Egyptian or foreign governments, community

bodies or religious authorities. Consistent with this position the UPL

aimed to be financially autonomous and relied on the monthly

subscriptions of members according to their ability to pay.

The UPL in Alexandria may have been open to all, but its specific

educational mission was ‘to promote the diffusion of scientific culture

and literature among the popular classes’ (art.1). Unlike the schools

that taught manual and vocational skills to workers, the UPL sought

nothing less than the intellectual emancipation of man based on the idea

of the right of all to a modern education. In his inauguration speech,

Abbate had spoken of the need to create an ‘intelligent working class’

(intelligente classe operaia). The curriculum was designed therefore

with a strong emphasis on science and the latest advances in scientific

knowledge. A series of lectures on natural history dealt with the

classification of the animal kingdom and the theories of evolution.

Courses on human anatomy and physiology, chemistry and applied

electricity were offered. Nor were the humanities neglected. Classes on

Greek, Italian and French literature featured from the first week and

Italian, French, Arabic, German and English language courses as well as

a special course for deaf-mutes were later added.[30] Other lectures

dealt with a wide range of specialized subjects, among them criminal

anthropology, medical law and suicide. The UPL programme also recognized

the importance of issues that related directly to everyday life and

provided courses on hygiene and first aid. Other talks addressed

different legal and political issues concerning the worker such as

‘Workmen’s Organizations in Modern Law’, and ‘Strikes and the Labour

Movement’. Arabophones heard ‘Abduh Badran speaking on ‘The Worker’.

Although we have no details of how he tackled the subject, the subject

itself suggests an increasing awareness of, if not a working class, then

at least the particular conditions of a worker’s life.[31]

Classes were held each day in the evenings (except Sunday) so workers

could more easily attend, and the majority of them being conducted in

Italian or French. Even Modinos, despite his words at the UPL opening,

gave his first classes in Italian. Although we have no precise

information regarding numbers, it seems likely that the majority of

students were of European background. Nevertheless, the UPL did attract

Egyptian and other Arabophone students. In the first year at least,

regular classes were given in Arabic, dealing with the historical

development of the Arabic language, the importance of scientific

training and a series of French language classes designed specifically

for Egyptians. In addition to the formal course and lecture programme,

the UPL served as a cultural centre and a meeting place, providing a

reading room and library, open in the evenings from five until nine,

where visitors could read local and foreign newspapers and borrow books.

From 1902 the UPL published its own journal, Revue des Cours et

Conferences, which included material presented in the lectures.[32]

Musical and theatrical performances such as that given by the

Severi–Garzes troupe at the Theatre Alhambra were also sponsored.[33]

All UPL teachers were unpaid volunteers drawn in large part from the

fields of education, law and medicine. Some drew directly on their

professional expertise, such as Ernest Hobsbaum, the principal English

master at the Israeĺite Alliance schools, and Shaykh Muhammad Hilmi,

Arabic professor at the American Mission School in Alexandria.[34] A

lawyer, Michele Guarnotta, expounded on legal matters, Drs Latis and

Flack lectured on anatomy and hygiene respectively, and a worker, G.

Cervetta, spoke on electricity.[35] Others, such as Dr Giuseppe Botti on

Italian letters and Mario Colucci on Molière, were amateur scholars or

individuals savants who dealt with subjects in which they had a special

expertise. The contribution of journalists and editors was also notable:

Canivet of La Réforme, ‘Abduh Badran of the Alexandrian weekly,

al-Sabah, Tawfiq ‘Azuz of the Cairene bimonthly review al-Muftah, and

Muhammad Kalza of al-Liwa’, all taught at the UPL.[36]

From the very beginning the UPL made a special appeal to women to take

advantage of the educational opportunities it offered. Article 3 of the

UPL constitution explicitly declared that women would have free access

to courses, and regular press announcements expressly encouraged them to

attend classes.[37] Women were both members and teachers at the UPL.[38]

Although we do not know the number of women actually attending classes,

reports suggest the UPL had some success in attracting a female

audience. In the first weeks a number of lectures were given on issues

concerning the role of women in society: ‘Woman and the Family’ (Miss

Siesto), ‘Society and Women’ (Canivet) and ‘Woman’ (Miss Severi and Mr

Garzes). In April 1903, Miss N. Sierra gave a lecture on feminism

criticizing all religions and the law for their oppressive

character.[39] In appealing to women and promoting the discussion of

issues concerning them, the UPL was participating in a wider public

debate about the social role of women that had been going on in Egypt

since at least the 1890s with the appearance of the first women’s

magazines and the writings of Qasim Amin. Education was a particular

concern. The first state primary school for girls had opened in Egypt in

1873, but by the end of the century there was still only a very small

number of schools catering for girls’ education and even fewer

opportunities available for women.[40] Accordingly, the opportunity

afforded to women by the UPL was particularly significant not only

because it predated the women’s section of the Egyptian University

(1910–12) but because it gave women access to the resources of the UPL

reading room probably well before they were allowed admittance to the

Khedivial Library (later Dar al-Kutub), and the libraries of the Royal

Geographical Society and the Egyptian University.[41]

The initial public reception to the UPL was very favourable with 300

students reported to have enrolled in the first few days.[42] The local

press also warmly welcomed its appearance. The Italian language Corriere

Egiziano saw it as a triumph of the popular demand for an education ‘for

the new times, with the new awareness, with the new science’ as well as

a valuable means of promoting Italian language, history, literature and

classical culture.[43] L’Imparziale stressed the cultural diversity that

the UPL engendered: ‘All the languages that sound in the mouth of the

happy fellow drinkers of the waters of the Nile serve as a vehicle at

lectures of different university teachers.’[44] More significantly there

was considerable support for the UPL from important elements of the

Egyptian national movement. This was evident not only in the presence of

Muhammad Kalza at the inauguration but by the support given in the pages

of the nationalist daily al-Liwa’. The newspaper dedicated extensive

coverage to the UPL publishing a full translation of the constitution

and complete text of Canivet’s opening speech, noting that ‘Monsieur

Canivet welcomed the sons of this region generally and especially the

Muslims who responded to the invitation, and he gave regard to their

noble nature. We offer many thanks to him for this.’[45] It further

praised the founders of the UPL,

There is no doubt that this feat of distinguished people is worth every

person recognising... It is a new [source of] pride for the port of

Alexandria ...[and] it is an achievement for the founders [who]

encourage people to free themselves of ignorance and delusion. So may

God bless them for their humanity. We earnestly hope that our

Alexandrian brothers support this college and frequent its doors as

students for the acquisition of its benefits because the welfare of the

people is dependent on and is adorned by the triumph of education.[46]

Such statements of support from the Italian and nationalist, as well as

the anarchist press, expressed a broad consensus that access to

education was an important means of improving society.[47] Even the

hostile position taken by the Italian authorities could not privately

deny that the UPL had attracted considerable popular support from

‘Greeks, Arabs and French’. Indeed, it was because the UPL was ‘not of

exclusively Italian character’ that the consulate felt unable to move

against it.[48] This heterogeneous character was to prove a considerable

advantage in legitimating the standing of the UPL even if it diluted, if

not fatally hampered, its potential as a radical institution.

While the UPL in Alexandria was proving an initial success, a similar

venture in Cairo was faring less well.[49] Again, Luigi Galleani was the

principal public voice of the project. At the beginning of June 1901

soon after the opening of the UPL in Alexandria, he arrived in Cairo to

bring together those who might back the establishment of a similar

institution in the capital. He quickly succeeded in securing the support

of Ugo Parrini, the leading anarchist in Cairo, and more importantly,

because of its numbers, the backing of the cigarette workers’ union that

was still enjoying the triumph of its successful strike in February of

the previous year. Again there was a positive response from the local

press with al-Ahram calling upon Egyptian teachers and educated persons

to offer their services:

It is hoped that some of the nationalist scholars and eastern professors

will participate in this useful project and they will not let those from

outside overtake us in our own land. We have enough of those who mumble

words of nationalism and service to and fervour for the homeland [watan]

in cafeś, taverns [hanat] and the theatre... [but] nationalism is based

on action and not words and service to the watan is about the sacrifice

of the individual which is in itself in the interest of his watan ...

these Europeans [who] have resolved to establish the free college in

this capital will find ten or five or four or three or two or one of our

professors who [will] offer to teach free of charge in their own time

just as the European teachers do because the college of Alexandria was

almost overcrowded with teachers and students of Europeans and a few

local citizens.[50]

Appealing to the same values of openness advocated in Alexandria, a

public meeting was called for 9 June at the Teatro delle Varietà to

establish a UPL in Cairo because ‘too much of the scientific patrimony

has remained the exclusive privilege of the few and... high, true and

positive instruction has been forbidden to too many of the people’. The

invitation was to all ‘without distinction of religious creed, political

belief, social condition, race, nationality or language’.[51] While the

meeting drew only a modest audience and limited financial support,

planning continued and a provisional committee was constituted. Again it

was a coalition of radical and progressive elements that included

committed anarchists – Ugo Parrini, Luigi Losi, Luigi Brogi and Panos

Macheiras, as well as liberals such as Nikolaos Karavias, editor of the

leading Greek language daily, Kairon. As in Alexandria committee members

were drawn from a wide spectrum of society – the Italian, Greek,

Armenian, Egyptian, Jewish and other communities were represented and

drawn from different social classes, businessmen, professionals,

workers, and employees.[52] The Nile Masonic Lodge also pledged its

support.

In Alexandria, despite some progress it was clear that there was

considerable and organized opposition to the UPL. Il Corriere Egiziano

referred to a campaign of slander, suspicion, insinuation, ridicule and

‘false stories’ and accused one critic in Cairo of being ‘an agent

provocateur, one of those that earn their salary in the shadow of the

Ministry of the Interior’.[53] Certainly the Italian consular

authorities were hostile to the enterprise. In the lead up to the

official opening, they had sought to dissuade Abbate from giving the

inaugural address but without success.[54] The consulate was

particularly keen to strike a blow against the anarchists after their

failure to secure full convictions in the trial of 1899. An opportunity

soon came. On 5 June, Dr Curti-Garzoni read an anonymous letter in a

chemistry class that seemed to praise the action of Gaetano Bresci, the

assassin of the Italian king Umberto I, the previous year.[55] Within

days the Italian authorities set the legal process in motion to charge

Curti-Garzoni and Antonio Torchia-Cosentino, a member of the audience

who had applauded, with the defence of a criminal act (apologia di

reato).[56] In the bill of indictment, the consular court made clear

that its target was not just the two defendants but more broadly the

anarchist movement in Egypt. Branding the UPL in both Alexandria and

Cairo as part of a continuing pattern of dangerous agitation over recent

years, it pointed to the fact that several of its founders had been

charged with anarchist crimes before the same court two years before and

that the UPL library harboured anarchist publications. Some elements of

the press were less than convinced, and the conduct of the trial and

suspected motives of the Italian consul, Cesare Romano, provoked

criticism even from the semi-official organ, L’Imparziale.[57]

Nevertheless, despite the protests of UPL committee members Canivet,

Rolo, Aghion and others, the charge was upheld and both defendants were

fined and sentenced to prison terms.[58] For the Italian authorities,

the verdict had its intended consequences, intimidating the radical

promoters of the university and facilitating its takeover by a more

moderate group. Al-Ahram, which up to that time had been very supportive

of the UPL, was quick to follow the lead and now accused the UPL of

being an institution that propagated ‘poisoned ideology’.[59]

Meanwhile, in Cairo the financial difficulties of the UPL committee were

heightened by a concerted campaign of opposition that was earlier and

better prepared than it had been in Alexandria. Claims were later made

that a number of bank employees were threatened with dismissal if they

supported the university and a potential lecturer received an anonymous

letter warning him of its anarchist designs. It was also alleged that a

member of the Royal Family was using his influence against the cause of

the university. Charles Tapié, editor of the progressive Le Petit

Égyptien and himself a member of the committee, laid the blame for the

UPL failure in Cairo in large part on ‘the authorities and other

retrograde spirits’ for intimidating supporters of the university by

their prosecution of Curti-Garzoni.[60] By December the Cairo committee

decided to abandon the project, returning to donors the funds raised or

placing them into a trust.[61]

Despite the successful prosecution of Curti-Garzoni and Torchia, the UPL

in Alexandria seemed to be making reasonable progress on one level. In

November 1901 it moved from its original location in Mahmud Pasha

al-Falaki Street into the larger premises of the former Austrian

consulate in Sidi al-Mitwalli Street, which had a teaching room with

seating for 100 students as well as a chemistry and physics laboratory.

Yet by early the next year support for the UPL was flagging. For the

anarchists, the election of the new committee in the previous October

had been a considerable setback. Rosenthal, Vasai and D’Angio had not

been re-elected although Terni, Sajous and Camerini retained their

positions. Disillusioned with the direction the UPL was taking under the

new committee, anarchists began to withdraw their support. Matters were

not helped by a disagreement over money between Vasai and Camerini and

there were some doubts about Canivet’s motives.[62] There were also

difficulties in attracting audiences. Despite the hopes expressed by

Modinos at the opening, the UPL secretary was bewailing the general

apathy of the Greek community towards the UPL, although few lectures had

in fact been given in Greek.[63] There was also criticism that the

courses offered were not on subjects of most benefit to the working

classes. There were complaints that the UPL should teach ‘practical

matters about health, proper upbringing of children of the popular

classes, the abstinence of workers from wine drinking and such things’

and not the philological subjects currently taught ‘which if the working

and popular class understands, then they have no need to go to the

Popular University’.[64] By April class and lecture attendances were

reported to be low and even committee members were failing to show up at

meetings. As one [Bellantuono] remarked, ‘the ship is sailing in

difficult waters’.[65]

With new committee elections scheduled for May 1902, the anarchists

wrestled with the problem of a UPL that had fallen into the hands of

‘the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats’ and been turned from ‘an

institution of education into a place for meetings and hobbies’.

Initially it was decided that Vasai should put forward a ‘labour list’

to stand against the incumbent ‘bourgeois’ committee but a couple of

days before the election, there was a change of tactics. Camerini and

Parrini, the latter visiting from Cairo, convinced their comrades to

boycott the elections, strengthen their hand by enrolling new members

and then call for an extraordinary general assembly to unseat the

committee. It was a strange tactic since the combined forces of

anarchists and workers were already in a clear majority but the plan,

nevertheless, went ahead. The new committee was elected on the basis of

only 31 votes out of a membership of about 500 while the anarchists

embarked on a subscription drive in order to launch a new challenge.

This brought in at least 60 new members but support for the UPL was

lukewarm among workers in Cairo since they were reluctant to enrol in an

institution that they would be unable to attend. Nevertheless, a general

assembly was convened on 28 June attended by about 120 people with a

hard core of about 30 anarchists who took the sitting committee to task.

In a stormy session Vasai spoke of the values of individual liberty and

his intention to fight for the maintenance of the spirit on which the

UPL had been founded. Typically the anarchists were divided among

themselves. In the course of the meeting Camerini became alienated from

his comrades while maintaining his position on the committee.

Ultimately, the radicals were unsuccessful in regaining control of the

UPL and were left to bewail the fact that ‘day by day it becomes a

bourgeois institution’.[66] By the autumn of 1902, grandees such as

Baron Felix de Menasce, Count Savorgnan, Marcel Poilay Bey, assistant to

the French consul in the affairs of the colony and board member of the

French Chamber of Commerce, and Eugenio Miele, chief accountant of the

National Bank of Egypt, sat on the committee and there was no longer any

Egyptian representation.

Subsequent developments showed how far the UPL had departed from the

aims of its founders. The emphasis on workers’ education gave way to a

more conventional, vocational curriculum designed for the employees of

banks, commercial houses and offices. In August 1902 a series of

commercial courses organized by the Association de Secours Mutuels des

Employeś of Alexandria (est. 1880) was launched offering courses in

stenography, accountancy, shorthand and economics. The arrangement

brought an annual subsidy of 1000 francs from the Association in

support. The Alliance Franc¸aise similarly provided 300 francs per year

to teach its French language course. In October, a number of UPL

committee members were received at an Italian consulate which had been

bitterly hostile to the UPL only twelve months before. Assuring the

authorities that the politically subversive character of the UPL was now

a thing of the past, they appealed for assistance from the Italian

government to sponsor an Italian language course.[67] This was a far cry

from the original idea of the UPL as a politically and financially

independent institution providing education in science and the

humanities for the working classes.

If the anarchists were now effectively excluded from the running of the

UPL, they did not shrink from commenting publicly on its affairs. In the

weekly L’Operaio, the editors, Pietro Vasai and Roberto D’Angio, took on

the role of its conscience and published astringent remarks on the new

direction it had taken: ‘the UPL is reduced to a school of teaching of

foreign languages and stenography, no more, no less’.[68] L’Operaio

explained the declining interest of workers on the fact that most UPL

professors ‘have not known how to absolutely identify themselves with

the popular spirit of the UPL’. The nature of the UPL required a

different approach, it contended, since ‘[it] is an institution of

higher education but it has nothing in common with official

universities, in which a higher method corresponds exactly to a higher

education. In UPLs there is an imbalance (sproporzione) between the

subjects of instruction and the method.’[69] When the UPL committee

proposed that a special committee made up of delegates nominated by

workers’ associations be set up to organize the education programme,

L’Operaio disagreed with the idea stating that such a committee should

be made up exclusively of professors and not workers since, ‘teaching is

a matter that concerns them and no other’. The paper then appealed to

‘all true scholars of the city...conscious of the absolutely popular

spirit of the institution’ to volunteer their services.[70] L’Operaio

also took it upon itself to comment on the performances of individual

lecturers. It praised the accountancy course of de Beaupuis and

complimented the ‘practical and instructive method’ of Guarnotta’s

sociology classes.[71] However, it forcefully criticized Giuseppe Rampin

for his lecture on the workers movement: ‘Rampin has not read and does

not read anything about what is written or said today on the strike and

the workers movement.’[72] Despite these fulminations, the newspaper

continued to urge workers to attend UPL classes since ‘workers are

convinced that whoever knows less becomes more easily the prey of

Capital’.[73]

In July 1903 the establishment of the Academy of Music as part of the

UPL was a further indication, if one was still needed, of the

incorporation of the UPL into the bosom of bourgeois education. Offering

free musical education for those that passed the necessary entrance

examination, the academy was run by a committee of men and women drawn

from Alexandrian high society, among them the vice president of the

Municipality, Ambroise Rallis, as its honorary president, and its

president, stockbroker, Victor Sinano. There was no Egyptian on the

committee. The programme of study was drawn up by Professor Colella and

the teaching carried out by a largely Italian staff armed with European

diplomas. In announcing the establishment of the new academy, the

Egyptian Gazette added, with ill-concealed satisfaction, that what once

was in danger of being the ‘Unpopular University’ was now rapidly

developing since ‘all distasteful elements’ had now been eliminated.[74]

By 1904 the UPL had made steady if not spectacular progress as an

educational institution but it had radically departed from the original

aims of its founders. The courses now offered were much more vocational

in nature, geared for the needs of the young white-collar employee

class. More than a hundred students were attending classes in English,

French, Italian, accountancy, commercial economy and shorthand. One of

the most popular classes was English language, offered at elementary and

superior levels, which attracted young Egyptian, Greek, Italian, French

and Syrian clerks from various government departments and particularly

the Railways.[75] However, science courses, especially applied

mathematics and physics, were having considerable difficulty in

attracting sufficient student interest. The main reasons for this,

according to the annual report, were the indifference of youth and the

effect of two powerful competitors, cafeś and ‘other public

establishments’.[76] The UPL continued to serve as a venue for

conferences. In 1903–4 alone it hosted 30 such events, organized by

bodies such as the League against Tuberculosis, the First Aid Society,

the Zeta Foundation, and the Society of Popular Balneotherapy, most of

them in Italian, with some in French and occasionally English. The UPL

operated until 1909 and probably beyond. While it could still be the

venue for political talks – leading Italian anarchist Pietro Gori spoke

there during his tour in March 1904 – it never regained its radical

character but in effect was competing for the same clientele as

institutions such as the Greek Commercial Academy.[77]

Despite the failure of the UPL, anarchists in Egypt continued to

propagate radical secularist and libertarian ideals in the years before

the First World War even if they were much more modest in scope. In June

1902 an International Reading Room (<em>Sala di Lettura

Internazionale<Em>) was set up in Cairo where collections of radical

literature, periodicals and newspapers were available to readers. This

was followed by a series of similar, often short-lived, ventures in

Alexandria and Cairo throughout the decade.[78] Specific organizations

were also formed to promote different elements of the anarchist platform

– atheism, the interests of the working class, and a range of other

progressive issues. Later there were calls for the establishment of a

secular school inspired by the work of Spanish anarchist Francisco

Ferrer.[79] Indeed, in the first half of 1911 an international

association of secular education was set up even if it did not meet with

unalloyed approval from the anarchist press.[80]

Scholarly discussion of the transmission of new political and social

ideas to Egypt has tended to focus on their promotion under the

sponsorship of naked colonial power or through the agency of Egyptian

intellectuals, often after studies or time abroad. The case of the UPL

in Egypt offers a different vector and dynamic. Inspired by a European

model but adapted to Egyptian circumstances, it serves as an important

example of the introduction of radical ideas opposed to both imperialist

and nationalist discourses through a subaltern channel. Sponsored by a

small, dedicated group of anarchists allied with progressives, the UPL

sought to promote revolutionary political aims through a radical

education programme. In its use of education as a political medium it

predated and very likely served as an important inspiration to the

nationalist circles that established the Higher Schools Club (Nadi

al-madaris al-‘ulya) in 1905 and its later night schools.[81] Further,

as an institution that styled itself as a modern ‘university’, the UPL

was in some sense a forerunner to the private Egyptian University set up

in 1908 even if its founding principles and political inspiration were

very different.

Initially the UPL was successful in attracting public support to the

cause of education for the popular and working classes from a broad

spectrum of society across different classes and communities. While its

chief constituency was the working class, its platform emphasized

openness to all and particularly sought to attract women and Egyptians.

Its assertion of independence from any national, cultural or state

interest spoke of a strong commitment to an internationalist discourse

that sought to cut across class, religious and ethnic lines. It

therefore stands as an important counter to the nationalist–imperialist

polarity. In some senses a precursor to the socialist and communist

movements of the 1920s and the revival in the 1940s, the UPL was a

broader attempt to articulate a pluralist social discourse.[82]

In political terms, the founders of the UPL fell far short of their

objectives. Despite allies among liberal, progressive, and even some

establishment intellectuals, the limited financial and political

resources of the anarchist movement were incapable of sustaining such an

ambitious enterprise and it soon bowed to the greater political and

economic muscle of the bourgeoisie. The campaign of opposition waged

against it in the courts by the Italian authorities and taken up in the

press by al-Ahram and others proved overwhelming and showed that the

claims of the UPL to institutional independence were illusory. Their

strong belief in the liberating powers of education notwithstanding,

anarchists were unable to provide or recruit sufficient expertise from

those who were skilled in teaching workers and sympathetic to their

broader goals. Finally, the failure of the radical vision of the UPL was

also due to some of the problems inherent in the anarchist movement

itself: its lack of a strong organizational structure, its conflicting

political strategies, and the contradictory elements within its

political agenda. By the end of 1902 the UPL was well on the way to

being transformed into a sober bourgeois institution that provided solid

vocational skills for respectable white collar workers.

---

I wish to thank Katerina Trimi and Donald Reid for their helpful

comments on earlier drafts of this article. The following abbreviations

have been used: ASMAE (Archivio Storico Ministero del Affari Esteri);

AIE (Ambasciata d’Italia in Egitto); PI (Polizia Internazionale). All

translations are mine.

[1] The full text of Abbate’s speech can be found in La Réforme, 28 May

1901, with an abbreviated report in Le Phare Alexandrine 28 May 1901.

The UPL opening also received widespread coverage in the Arabic language

press such as al-Liwa’, al-Ahram and al-Basir. Known in French as the

Université Populaire Libre, the UPL apparently had no official Arabic

name with al-madrasa al-’umumiyya al-hurra, al-jam‘iyya al-kulliyya

al-hurra, al-kulliyya al-jami‘a al-hurra and al-kulliyya al-hurra all

being used, the last being settled on by al-Ahram.

[2] Despite this, it has received only the briefest mention in the

literature, see Jacques Berque, Egypt, Imperialism & Revolution. trans.

Jean Stewart (New York & Washington: Praeger, 1972), p.241; and Rif ‘at

al-Sa‘id, Tarikh al-haraka al-shuyu’iyya al-misriyya 1900–1940 (Cairo:

Shirkat al-amal, 1987), p.204.

[3] The term ‘lost voices’ is taken from Zachary Lockman, ‘Exploring the

Field: Lost Voices and Emerging Practices in Egypt, 1882–1914’, in

Israel Gershoni et al. (eds.), Histories of the Modern Middle East

(Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp.137–53.

[4] Yianis Kordatos, Istoria tou Ellinikou Ergatikou Kinimatos (Athens:

Boukoumani, 1972), p.174; Evgenios Mikhailidhis, Panorama (Alexandria:

Centre of Greek Studies, 1972), p.178.

[5] It should be noted that the Italian Workers Society in Alexandria

did take a political position in 1882 with their support for the

‘Urabist cause, al-Sa‘id, Tarikh al-haraka al-shuyu‘iyya al-misriyya,

p.203.

[6] A history of the anarchist movement in Egypt has still to be written

but for a useful survey based on Italian sources, see Leonardo Bettini,

Bibliografia dell’anarchismo (Florence: Editrice, 1976), Vol.2,

pp.281–8.

[7] They were later found innocent of the main charge but some were

judged guilty of lesser charges. See ASMAE AIE no. 86 ‘1899 Processo in

Alessandria d’Egitto contro diverti anarchici’.

[8] For a good discussion of the labour movement in the period before

the First World War, see Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, Workers on the

Nile, Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class,

1882–1954 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998), pp.48–82.

There had been strikes before 1899, see, for example, John Chalcraft,

‘The Coal Heavers of Port Sa’id: State-Making and Worker Protest,

1869–1914’, International Labor and Working-Class History, Vol.60, Oct.

(2001), pp.110–24.

[9] There is no detailed study of the relationship between foreign and

Egyptian workers but for a preliminary treatment see the author’s ‘

Foreign Workers in Egypt 1882–1914: Subaltern or Labour Elite?’ Paper

presented at the Fifth Mediterranean Social and Political Research

Meeting, Florence & Montecatini Terme 24–28 March 2004, organized by the

Mediterranean Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced

Studies at the European University Institute.

[10] Although an Internationalist newspaper of anarchist bent had

appeared briefly in 1877, perhaps the first successful avowedly labour

newspaper in Egypt was the Italian language L’Operaio (‘The Worker’)

founded in 1889 (not to be confused with the anarchist paper of the same

name, published 1902–3). The first decade of the twentieth century would

see the appearance of a number of newspapers that sought to represent

the voice of workers, Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, pp.81–8.

[11] For a detailed development of nineteenth century education in Egypt

until 1883 see J. Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of

Education in Modern Egypt (London: Luzac, 1938). For a discussion of the

Greek and Italian schools in Egypt, see respectively, Katerina

Trimi-Kirou, ‘Se poio skholio pas?’ in Tasoula Mandala (ed.), Ellinika

Istorika Ekpedeftiria sto Mesogio (Chios: Ministry of National Education

and Religious Affairs, 2002); and Marta Petricioli, ‘Italian Schools in

Egypt’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.24, No.2 (1997),

pp.179–91.

[12] Anthony Gorman, Historians, State and Politics in Twentieth Century

Egypt (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp.45–50; Donald M.

Reid, ‘The Egyptian Geographical Society: from Foreign Laymen’s Society

to Indigenous Professional Association’, Poetics Today, Vol.14, No.3

(1993), pp.539–72.

[13] First established by Italian workers, the school was later put

under the direction of the Dante Alighieri Society, itself affiliated to

the Italian embassy, Marta Petricioli, ‘Italian Schools in Egypt’,

p.181.

[14] See, for example, ‘Technical Education in Egypt’, Egyptian Gazette,

8 July 1902; and ‘Wanted – An Institute’, Egyptian Gazette, 19 July

1902. The latter proposed an institute that ‘would naturally take the

character of an English one’ attracting English nationals and ‘the large

number of Egyptians and others who are anxious to avail themselves of

their knowledge of English as a means of self-advancement.’

[15] Maria Grazia Rosada, Le Università Popolari (Rome: Rinuti, 1975).

For the phenomenon in France, see Lucien Mercier, Les Universiteś

populaires: 1899–1914, Education populaire et mouvement ouvrier au début

du siècle (Paris: Edn. ouvrières, 1986). Among earlier mid-nineteenth

century attempts to provide education for workers were the Mechanics

Institutes and the University Extension in Britain.

[16] Rosada, Le Università Popolari, p.27.

[17] Sanford Elwitt, ‘Education and the Social Questions: The

Universiteś Populaires in Late Nineteenth Century France’, History of

Education Quarterly, Vol.22, No.1 (1982), pp.55–72.

[18] ‘Università Popolare Libera’, La Tribuna Libera, 20 Oct. 1901. The

anarchists in Alexandria were in contact with Reclus, at this time

living in Constantinople, who wished the UPL every success, ASMAE AIE

no. 87, ‘Università popolare in Cairo’, corresp. 8 June 1901. Reclus, in

fact, was familiar with the East having travelled to Constantinople and

Anatolia in the spring of 1883 and in the following year to Egypt,

Tunisia and Algeria, Henriette Chardak, Eĺiseé Reclus, une vie: l’homme

qui aimait la terre (Paris: Stock, 1997), pp.403–7.

[19] Nunzio Pernicone, Italian Anarchism 1864–1892 (Princeton NJ:

Princeton UP, 1993), pp.223–4, 238–9. Galleani would leave Egypt in

November 1901 to take up a position in the United States as editor of

the influential anarchist newspaper La Cronaca Sovversiva. From here he

would become a revered leader and prominent advocate of the anarchist

doctrine of ‘propaganda of the deed’. In 1918 he was deported from the

USA but he remained a powerful spokesman and a notable defender of Sacco

and Vanzetti. Ugo Fedeli, Luigi Galleani, Quarant’anni di lotte

rivoluzione (1891–1931) (Cesena: L’Antistato, 1956).

[20] ASMAE AIE no. 87 ‘Università popolare libera in Alessandria’,

corresp. 22 April 1901.

[21] ASMAE AIE no. 84 ‘Luigi Galleani’, corresp. 1 April 1901.

[22] ASMAE PI no. 28 ‘Università popolare, II Assemblea generale’, 12

May 1901. See also Le Phare Alexandrine, 13 May 1901. The members of the

committee were S. Bellantuono, Salvino Bensilum, LA. Biagini (alias of

G. Pozzesi), Dr R. Camerini, Raoul G. Canivet, G. Cervetta, Roberto

D’Angio, S. Fischer, Augusto Hasda, Dr Polis Modinos, Osman Effendi,

Cav. Paneghini, Jacques Rolo, Joseph Rosenthal, Papadakis, Constantin

Sajous, Stein, Enrico Terni, Giovanni Tesi, Tuni and Pietro Vasai.

[23] For D’Angio see Nunzio Dell’Erba, Giornali e gruppi anarchici in

Italia, 1892–1900 (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1983), pp.180–1. Rosenthal

(1867–1927?) would be one of the leading figures in the establishment of

the Egyptian Socialist Party in the 1920s though his activities prior to

this have been little discussed, see Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at

El-Sa‘id, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920—1988 (Syracuse NY:

Syracuse UP, 1990), pp.13–14; al-Sa’id, Tarikh al-haraka al-shuyu‘iyya

al-misriyya, pp.182–91.

[24] Camerini had apparently attempted to introduce anarchist ideas into

the Dante Alighieri Society in 1898, ASMAE PI. No. 28 ‘Egitto’,

corresp., 7 June 1901.

[25] Egyptian Gazette, 24 March 1902.

[26] On these families see Gudrun Kra¨mer, The Jews in Modern Egypt,

1914—1952 (London: I.B.Tauris, 1989), pp.76–9. Despite the considerable

scholarship on Jewish Egyptian life, the prominence of Jews in radical

circles before 1914 has been overlooked. Jacob Landau’s view that Jews

had little to do with anarchism is clearly inaccurate, Jews in

Nineteenth-Century Egypt (New York, NY: New York UP, 1969), p.115.

[27] Attending the dinner were Dr Abbate Pasha, Raoul G. Canivet, Dr H.

Legrand, Dr P. Trehaki, engineer Emilio Diamanti, Dr Burlazzi bey, Dr de

Semo, Dr Polis Modinos, Dr Carlo Flack, Dr Terni, Dr Camerini, Dr Latis,

Dr Lakha, Dr Augusto Hasda, Francois Bourgeois, Muhammad Kalza, Mario

Colucci, Mr Cattaoui, Mr Colorides, Edgard Souares, and Dr Bonan. Those

with strong anarchist credentials were conspicuously absent.

[28] The original text of the UPL constitution can be found in ASMAE PI

no. 28 ‘Egitto’.

[29] ‘...si costituisca all’infuori dell’ingerenza, del concorso, del

patronato di ogni e qualsiasi autorità la libertaìllimitata della

cattedra e la severità degli studi trovando in questa forma

d’indipendente raccoglimento la loro migliore garanzia’ [art. 6].

[30] The weekly UPL programme was regularly publicized in the local

Italian, French, English and probably Arabic language press.

[31] For a discussion on the process of working class formation as a

discursive process during this period, see Zachary Lockman, ‘Imagining

the Working Class: Culture, Nationalism, and Class Formation in Egypt,

1899–1914’, Poetics Today, Vol.15, No.2 (1994), pp.157–90.

[32] L’Operaio 22 Nov. 1902. Ibrahim ‘Abduh, Tatawwur al-sihafa

al-misriyya, 1898—1981, 4^(th) edn. (Cairo: Sijl al-arab, 1982), p.358

mistakenly gives its title as Université Populaire Libre d’Alexandrie.

[33] ‘Université populaire libre’, Le Réforme, 18 Nov. 1901.

[34] Egyptian Gazette, 31 May 1901(Hilmi); Hobsbaum was the uncle of the

historian, Eric Hobsbawm.

[35] Guarnotta would later gain some notoriety in 1919 for alleged

anti-British activities (FO 141/744).

[36] La Réforme, 20 Dec. 1901; Il Corriere Egiziano, c.20 Oct. 1901. In

the 1890s Badran had been associated with Lisan al-‘arab, a politically

moderate daily in Alexandria, Tawfiq ‘Azuz with al-Tiligrafa al-jadida,

a conservative Cairene daily, see Martin Hartmann, The Arabic Press of

Egypt (London: Luzac, 1899), pp.26, 56, 59.

[37] ‘Young ladies’ however were excluded on at least one occasion when

Modinos spoke on criminal anthropology, see Tachydromos, 9 Jan. 1902.

[38] No woman seems to have sat on the UPL committee in Alexandria, at

least not in the first two years, although Madame Moial was a member of

the provisional UPL committee in Cairo.

[39] This lecture was published by the UPL and later reviewed in Lux! 15

June 1903.

[40] Gorman, Historians, State and Politics, p.36, Margot Badran,

Feminists, Islam and Nation, Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt

(Cairo: AUC Press, 1996), pp.8–10, 52–6.

[41] See Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt (New Haven: Yale UP,

1994), p.85.

[42] ‘al-Kulliyya al-hurra’ al-Ahram, 4 June 1901.

[43] ‘L’Università popolare’, Il Corriere Egiziano, 19 Oct. 1901.

[44] ‘Università Popolare Libera’, L’Imparziale, 17–18 Nov. 1901.

[45] al-Liwa’, 27 May 1901.

[46] al-Liwa’, 29 May 1901. al-Basir in Alexandria also provided

positive coverage, 27 May 1901.

[47] The anarchist newspaper La Tribuna Libera, edited by Joseph

Rosenthal, did not appear until October 1901 but regularly promoted the

UPL during its short life.

[48] ASMAE PI no. 28 ‘Egitto’, corresp. 7 June 1901, AIE no. 87,

‘Università popolare libera in Alessandria’, 30 Oct. 1902.

[49] For the following see ASMAE AIE no. 87, ‘Università popolare in

Cairo’.

[50] ‘al-Kulliyya al-hurra’, al-Ahram 4 June 1901.

[51] Leaflet, ‘Università Popolare Libera’, Cairo, 6 June 1901.

[52] The most complete list of committee members is as follows: Musa

Roditi, Luigi Losi, Vittorio Brogi, Giovanni Brunello, Ugo Parrini,

Nikolas Karavias, G. Fasani, Paolo Pilogatti, Neumann, Salomone

Gonderberich [Goldenberg?], Moise Benrubi, Panos Machairas, Dr and

Madame Moial, Samuele Haudlich, Rodolfo Borgovic, Dr D’Andrea, Charles

Tapié, Paolo Karakache and Roberto D’Angio. [Sempad?] Papazian, Antio,

Elias Fayad, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ebiari and Cioni were proposed as

members but it is unknown if they accepted, ASMAE AIE no. 87,

‘Università popolare in Cairo’, corresp., 20 June 1901.

[53] ‘L’Università popolare’, Il Corriere Egiziano, 19 Oct. 1901; ‘Per

l’Università popolare’, Il Corriere Egiziano, 22 Oct. 1901.

[54] ASMAE PI no. 28 ‘Egitto’, corresp. 7 June 1901. Far from being

dissuaded Abbate also offered to give lectures, Egyptian Gazette, 5 June

1901.

[55] For documentation of the following, see ASMAE PI. no.28 ‘Egitto’.

[56] Garzoni already had a well-established record of anarchist activity

having been condemned in Italy for political activities in 1894 and

being one of the defendants in the anarchist trial of 1899.

[57] ‘Il processo di Alexandria’, L’Imparziale, 11 July 1901.

[58] Garzoni received 100 days’ imprisonment and a fine of 60 lira;

Torchia, 3 months and a fine of 50 lira. The sentences were subsequently

confirmed in the Court of Appeal in Ancona but Garzoni’s sentence

appears to have been set aside after his recantation, ASMAE AIE no. 84

‘Garzonio (Curti-Garzoni) Dr Pietro’, corresp., 12 May 1902.

[59] See al-Ahram 9–13 July 1901. I have been unable to establish the

reaction of al-Liwa’ to the prosecution but, at worst, it is unlikely to

have been as hostile to the defendants as that of al-Ahram.

[60] Le Petit Egyptien, 8 Dec. 1901

[61] They were later used in support of striking cigarette workers,

ASMAE AIE no. 88 ‘Scioperi’, corresp., 6 Jan. 1902.

[62] ASMAE AIE no. 87 ‘Università popolari libere in Egitto, corresp.14

April 1902. D’Angio, writing some years later, described the UPL

committee as ‘composed of men of much goodwill and very honest but weak’

and blamed Canivet for taking control of the organization and turning it

to his own purposes (see ‘4 anni in Egitto’, Il Libertario, 10 Aug.

1905, 18 Aug. 1905).

[63] Tachydromos, 18 Dec. 1901

[64] Tachydromos, 14 June 1902.

[65] ASMAE AIE no. 87, ‘Università popolare libera in Alessandria’,

corresp., 14 April 1902.

[66] ASMAE AIE no. 87, ‘Università popolare libera in Alessandria’,

corresp., 6 Feb., 14 April, 17 May, 19 May, 21 May, 5 June, 3 July 1902

(quote).

[67] The members were Mario Colucci, Raoul Canivet, and Drs Camerini and

Latis, ASMAE AIE no. 87, ‘Università popolare libera in Alessandria’, 30

Oct. 1902.

[68] L’Università Popolare Libera e gli operai’, L’Operaio, 19 July 1902

[69] ‘L’Universita Popolare Libera e gli operai’, L’Operaio, 26 July

1902. This difficulty of providing the type of instruction suitable for

workers was one shared by UPLs in Italy, Maria Grazia Rosada,

‘Università populari’, pp.614–17 in Aldo Agosti et al. (ed.)

Enciclopedia della sinistra europea nel XX secolo (Rome: Riuniti, 2000).

[70] L’Operaio, 26 July 1902.

[71] L’Operaio, 3 Jan. 1903; 1 Nov. 1902.

[72] L’Operaio, 22 Nov. 1902. The editors also took the current UPL

committee to task for failing to give due credit to the institution’s

founders. Rosenthal was still making this point ten years later, J.R.,

‘A propos des Secours d’Urgence’, La Bourse Egyptienne 12 Jan. 1912.

[73] L’Operaio, 3 Jan. 1903

[74] Egyptian Gazette, 24 July 1903.

[75] ‘Free Popular University’, Egyptian Gazette, 20 July 1904.

[76] ‘Université Populaire Libre d’Alexandrie’, Egyptian Gazette, 26

July 1904.

[77] Egyptian Gazette, 14 Oct. 1909; the Greek Academy was established

in 1907 (Phos 3 Oct. 1908).

[78] See, for example, ASMAE AIE no. 86, ‘Circolo libertario anarchico

in Cairo’, corresp., 15 June 1902. In October 1907 a socialist, Brando

Faccio, called for a Casa del Popolo to be established along the lines

of the original UPL of 1901, ASMAE AIE no. 111, corresp. 15 Oct. 1907.

[79] The proposal was made by Rosenthal at the pro-Ferrer meeting on 4

Oct. 1909, ASMAE AIE no. 120 ‘Pro-Ferrer’, corresp. 7 Oct. 1909.

[80] On the secular school, see Landau, Jews in Nineteenth-Century

Egypt, p.330, and Libera Tribuna, 18 March 1913 for criticism.

[81] Gorman, Historians, State and Politics, p.82.

[82] The UPL also recalls the People’s University (al-Jami‘a

al-sha‘biyya) set up in Cairo by the communist Iskra in the 1940s though

it is unlikely that it was a direct influence, see Ismael and El-Sa’id,

The Communist Movement in Egypt, p.46 and Anthony Gorman, ‘Egypt’s

Forgotten Communists: the Postwar Greek Left’, Journal of Modern Greek

Studies, Vol.20, No.1 (2002), p.9.