Umm Bîjû was among the few people who decided not to leave Suez after the 1967 war when almost 70% of the inhabitants had to leave the city because of the war. During my fieldwork in November 2018, she decided to walk me around her neighborhood in Suez, al-Kassâra. This article follows three decisions of Umm Bîjû. First, the decision of taking me on a tour comes as part of her interest in maintaining a personal archive of the period of the war and displacement in Suez and points to the centrality of space in the process of remembering. The second decision concerns how and why she chose the streets we walked. The tour reveals an intimate history of al-Kassâra interlaced with her personal life history and her present interaction with the neighborhood and its inhabitants. Suez opened after the end of 101-days siege in February 1974, and many of the original inhabitants managed to return. However, Suez never returned to how it was before the war. In light of the narrative of Umm Bîjû during this tour, her third decision, this article argues that the war years represent a ghost that still haunts the geography, memory, and everyday experience of the inhabitants of Suez.
Umm Bîjû faisait partie des très rares personnes qui avaient décidé de ne pas quitter la ville de Suez après la guerre de 1967, alors que près de 70 % de sa population fut obligée de la quitter à cause de la guerre. Durant mon terrain de recherche en novembre 2018, elle a décidé de me faire visiter son quartier d’al-Kassâra à Suez. Cet article retrace trois décisions d’Umm Bîjû. D’abord, la décision de m’accompagner faire un tour provient de son intérêt pour la conservation d’archives personnelles de la période de la guerre et de l’exode de Suez, et montre la centralité des lieux dans le processus du souvenir. La deuxième décision décrit comment et pourquoi elle a choisi les rues dans lesquelles nous avons déambulé. Le tour révèle une histoire intime d’al-Kassâra, entrelacée avec sa propre histoire personnelle, mais aussi ses interactions actuelles avec le quartier et ses habitants. Suez a rouvert ses portes à la fin des 101 jours de siège en février 1974, et un bon nombre de ses habitants ont pu y retourner. Cependant, Suez n’a jamais retrouvé son état d’avant la guerre. A la lumière du récit d’Umm Bîjû durant ce parcours dans le quartier – sa troisième décision – cet article affirme que les années de guerre représentent un fantôme qui continue de hanter la géographie, les mémoires et le vécu quotidien des habitants de Suez.
تعتبر ام بيجو واحدة من القلائل الذين آثروا البقاء في السويس بعد اندلاع حرب ١٩٦٧ بينما اضطر قرابة ٧٠٪ من السكان من ترك المدينة بسبب الحرب. خلال بحثي الميداني في نوفمبر ٢٠١٨، قررت ام بيجو ان تأخذني في جولة في حيٌها السكني في السويس، الكسارة. سيتتبع هذا المقال ثلاث قرارات لأم بيجو. يأتي قرارها الأول بان تأخذني في جولة كجزء من اهتمامها بالاحتفاظ بأرشيف شخصي عن مرحلة الحرب والتهجير في السويس ويؤكد علي أهمية المكان في الذاكرة. بينما يهتم القرار الثاني بكيفية وأسباب اختياراتها الشوارع التي تجولنا بها. فتكشف الجولة عن التاريخ الحميم للكسارة حيث يتداخل تاريخ حياة ام بيجو الشخصي في تفاعلها الحالي مع الحي وسكانه. افتُتحت مدينة السويس بعد انتهاء حصار ال١٠١ يوم في فبراير ١٩٧٤، واستطاع الكثير من سكان السويس ان يعودوا الي مدينتهم لكن السويس لم تعد علي ما كانت عليه قبل الحرب. يأتي القرار الثالث في شكل روايتها للأحداث خلال الجولة. في ضوء ما روته لي، يوضح هذا المقال ان سنوات الحرب تمثل شبح مازال يطارد الجغرافيا والذاكرة والتجربة اليومية لسكان مدينة السويس.
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Plan
Introduction
Decision One – the Tour: Creating a personal archive of the war in Suez
Decision Two—the Route: An intimate historical tour in al-Kassâra
Decision Three—the Narrative: 1967 haunting Suez
Concluding notes on the walk
Aperçu du début du texte
Introduction
The first time I met Umm Bîjû was in March 2018 at her home near al-Gharîb Mosque in Suez. I introduced myself and my research interest in the forced migration following the 1967 war. Umm Bîjû was among the few people who decided not to leave Suez. These are the first words I recorded when I met her:
“I was married but still young in ’67 [she was born in Suez in 1944, so she was 23 years old back then]. I didn’t accept leaving [Suez]. My husband, may he rest in peace, was working in a store. He told me we should go. But where? So I told him, then we’ll stay. I volunteered in civil defense and he took an assignment to keep working in Suez to feed people who stayed: those who worked in companies, those in civil defense, the security troops. We stayed then, me as a volunteer. I used to go to the hospital to work as a nurse. There weren’t any assistants to my husband, so I worked with him. They told us if we stay, my children should not. So I took them to my mom. She had migr...
Nayera Abdelrahman Soliman, « The Three Decisions of Umm Bîjû: Walking in Suez and Seeing the Ghosts of 1967 War », Égypte/Monde arabe, 23 | 2021, 81-103.
Référence électronique
Nayera Abdelrahman Soliman, « The Three Decisions of Umm Bîjû: Walking in Suez and Seeing the Ghosts of 1967 War », Égypte/Monde arabe [En ligne], 23 | 2021, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2024, consulté le 02 avril 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ema/14754 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ema.14754
Nayera is currently a PhD fellow at Freie Universität Berlin and Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies. Her research project is questioning the concept of home through studying the 1967 forced migration from the city of Suez in Egypt. Graduated from the Political Science Department, Cairo University in 2012, she had her Master’s degree in Political Sociology from Sorbonne University in 2013.