‘You, the one who must uphold our principles, whether young or old…Our principles mean our revolution, they mean integrity and hard work…If you serve with socialism, with diligence and determination…Then, as our leader said, I will cherish you like the apple of my eye…But if you take power and status, and play the same old game…If your only concern is your own gain, and you oppress others…Then we will call you: socialism-less, the traitor to responsibility…And we will whistle at you like this… ha! And we will drum for you like this… ha!’
These are the lyrics of a song written by Morsi Gamil Aziz, composed by Kamal al-Tawil, and sung by Abdel Halim Hafez in 1964. A song that resonated with the leaders of the 1960s and was sung in the streets by children, much like the famous Operette al-Dandourma of that era—an operetta that still occasionally appears on state television, often midway through, filling one of those predictable gaps in broadcasting.
But The One Without Socialism is no longer aired. Its time has passed, and socialism itself has been tossed into the dustbin of history. Speaking of it now is considered backward, even shameful.
Pity the people who are intellectually forced to believe only in the ‘present moment’. The past is dismissed as a failure, the future is unknown and left to fate, and whatever is dictated to them today is deemed the best Egypt has ever known. Socialism? Outdated nonsense. Capitalism? The golden ticket.
It is true that socialism brought Egypt nothing but chronic problems—many of which still haunt us today. But what has capitalism achieved, other than more poverty, more corruption, and a steady march backwards? That ‘naïve’ old song denounced those who work without integrity or effort, those who gain power and play the same old tricks, those who serve only their own interests and trample over others. Isn’t that exactly the kind of society we live in today? The failure of both socialism and capitalism in Egypt seems less about ideology and more about a deeply embedded system of dysfunction—an illness that has now been diagnosed too late as terminal.
To those who dismiss socialism as primitive, are they unaware that Scandinavian countries have practised an advanced form of socialism for decades? A model that respects individual freedoms while maintaining the fundamental duty of the state to provide comprehensive care and protection for its people—free of charge—as a basic principle of citizenship. Or is the only socialism they remember the authoritarian kind, the Soviet model, the convenient scapegoat for every local failure?
And to those now attacking capitalism after the latest economic crisis—do they not see how countries like Malaysia and Singapore rose from underdevelopment to global prominence by embracing capitalism and free-market mechanisms? Or is capitalism, in their minds, synonymous only with the United States? As if, should America fall, the entire world must collapse with it.
The truth is simple: the success or failure of any system depends on the nature of the people, their internal conditions, and their national will to progress—regardless of ideology. It all boils down to integrity, at every level: personal, societal, and of course, governmental.
The downfall of socialism at the hands of American imperialism in the past, and the collapse of capitalism under the weight of that same imperialism in the present—despite the rebranded narratives—have nothing to do with what happened in Egypt back then, nor with what continues to happen today. It is the same clique of ‘irresponsible ones’ we should be singing and whistling for—loudly. May Morsi Gamil Aziz rest in peace.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.