This paper discusses an early generation of Arab Oil technocrats as the promoters of a radical Petroleum Arabism in the early 1960s. Their vision which embodied a militant age of decolonisation set a past of dependency on western oil men and corporations against imagined Arab industrial futures of economic and political emancipation centring on the petroleum industry. Using their technical expertise, and their skills as orators, diplomats and writers they popularised knowledge about the oil industry to a large audience as a powerful weapon against multinational corporations and Arab governments. Through the writings and actions of these individuals this paper traces the evolution of a new political and public culture of oil as the beginning of an era of petroleum ‘decolonisation’ under the aegis of regional and international organisations such as the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the Arab League, with which these Arab oil technocrats were closely associated. More specifically the paper will focus on: 1. A number of manifestoes on so-called 'Arab oil objectives' by Omar Haliq, ‘Abdullah al-Tariki and Ashraf Lutfi, and their emphasis on the desirability of the development of an Arab-owned petroleum infrastructure as the means to achieve the emancipation of the Arab peoples and to claim sovereign rights over a key national resource; 2. The Arab League-sponsored Arab Petroleum Congresses which started to be organised in 1959 as the key regional and international platforms for this militant Petroleum Arabism, and venues for the popularisation of knowledge about the oil industry through exhibitions, and Arab and international press coverage. It is argued that these congresses were central to the popularisation of a new oil thought (fikriyyah nafitiyyah) that peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s; 3. OPEC as the venue where knowledge about the Arab World’s petroleum industry started to be collected, systematised and used as a blunt instrument to dissect past patterns of exploitation, to fight western multi-nationals on their own turf, and to break past ‘conspiracies of technical silence’. This paper is based on the writings and documentation produced by Arab technocrats, the proceedings of the Arab Petroleum Congresses, documentation produced by OPEC and the archives of British-controlled oil companies that operated in the region.

How to understand the recent renewal of interest in Arab left-wing trends in the 1960s and 1970s? And how do we make sense of the concomitant development of archival practices, initiated by both scholars and former militants? Indeed, the 1960s and, more specifically, the history of the Arab Left at that time, have long been left untouched. Beginning with the end of the 1990s, the attempts to better understand the historical processes that made the Sixties a critical juncture, a “transnational moment of change,” gave birth to a new epistemological framework, which addressed from the periphery the issues of the Cold War, national emancipation struggles, and the transformation of political subjectivities. Until recently, however, the Arab Left was set apart from this scholarship. This is now changing. Today, we observe the flourishing of scholarship on the 1960s and 1970s Arab Left. Furthermore, former militants have not only written histories, they have also published an increasing number of novels, memoirs and more or less fictional biographies, or started digitizing militant documents of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, Dalal al-Bizri has published two books related to her involvement in the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon (1971), while Ahmad Beydoun has disseminated on his website articles originally published by the group Socialist Lebanon (1964-1971). Among other, Wael al-Sawwah and Sa’id al-Ulaymi have recently published a few pieces on the leftist groups to which they belonged in the 1970s –respectively the Syrian Labor League/Party (1972) and the Egyptian Communist Workers Party (1972). And the latter has made several militant documents available online. Drawing on these contemporary militant archival practices in Egypt, in Syria and in Lebanon, I would like to raise three intertwined issues. To what extend do these practices reveal the reframing of (former) militants’ stance toward their past and give birth to new narratives and interpretations of the history of 1960s and 1970s Left? And how does (former) militants’ re-engagement with this past relate to their vision of today’s political landscape and to new horizons of expectation? How, as scholars, do we engage with these new sources, as well as with the intertwining of militant past and present voices? Finally, how to enhance further cooperation between scholars, former militants, and institutions in order to make these sources and narratives more accessible to a wider audience? And what is at stake in this endeavor?

This paper explores a pre-memory of the 1960s and 70s socialist and communist trends in Egypt. Specifically, it places in conversation conceptions of the citizen and society in early socialist writings of the 1920s with liberal formulations of writers and surrealist painters in 1930s and 40s, pointing to the legacies of such notions during Nasserism and their return in Arab ‘spring’ slogans and aesthetic movements. First, I address the socialist writings of Salama Musa (1887 – 1958), focusing on his practical approach to a socialist society through his critiques of British literature. I then move to Taha Husayn’s (1889 – 1973) imagined nation detailed in his 1938 Mustaqbal al-Thaqafa fi Misr [The Future of Culture in Egypt], focusing on the responsibilities he allots to elites and citizens through his conversations with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and André Gide. Finally, I refer to the surrealist Art and Freedom Group, organized by the poet George Henein (1914 – 1973) and the painter Ramses Yunan (1913 – 1966). I analyze Henein’s exchanges with André Breton about the ideal community and the role of aesthetic education, and Yunan’s critique of Husayn’s definition of culture and citizen in Mustaqbal in the group’s review al-Tattawur (1940). The same movement returns later in the review al-Majalla al-jadida [The new Magazine], passed on by its founder Salama Musa to Yunan. The various constructions pivot around the roles of the intellectual elite and the regular citizen. Such critiques of representation, citizen responsibilities and society offer an alternative view of the state to the one that emerges with Nasserism and the later Marxists of 1970s. The paper compares the literary, philosophical adaptations of Musa and Husayn to the surrealists’ aesthetic to locate the role that culture or thaqafa played in mapping the citizen as consumer in/of aesthetic production. It asks: What is the connection between these earlier formulations and the widespread but as yet ill-defined Arab socialism of today? How do the Egyptian Marxists of the 60s relate to them, and what are the possible affinities between Nasser’s vision and that of the early socialists?

Prior to the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, antiquities rarely travelled. Most often, displays remained at the museum where the antiquities were held. Between 1961 and 1978, objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun toured in an unprecedented global exhibition. The aim was to raise funds for UNESCO’s International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. The sites were threatened by Nasser’s developmentalist project, the Aswan Dam. The campaign marked UNESCO largest project to safeguard human and world heritage. In this paper I argue that the early exhibitions of the 1960s provide a framework of international aid in exchange for Egyptian heritage. These exchanges were less overtly ‘diplomatic’ in character and yet perform an essential function in understanding how the newly decolonized UAR (Egypt) operated in the international sphere. I contend that Egypt laid claim over the antiquities as their “sovereign right”. This undermined UNESCO rhetoric that heritage and cultural sites were part of a “common trust”. Instead, Minister of Antiquities, Sarwat Okasha directly negotiated with international museum programmers and governments, thereby maintaining “national trust” over objects. This process was far more significant than simply allowing heritage to ‘visit’ the US in return for funds to the UNESCO campaign. The exhibit was the first step in the ‘gifting’ of large ancient heritage sites to the West. International archeological and scientific committees at work in Nubia would be granted significant finds after an assessment and approval by the UAR. In 1965, Egypt ‘gifted’ the Dendur Temple to the US in thanks for its financial, scientific and archeological support of the Nubia campaign. I argue that this process ensured Egypt’s claim to “sovereign rights” over antiquities whilst simultaneously establishing a framework for economic and political determination.