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28 55 1 PB
28 55 1 PB
28 55 1 PB
Angelos Dalachanis
European University Institute, Florence, Italy
The subject of this article is the Suez Canal Company workers’ strike, which
took place in May 1919, and an investigation of the question of plural identities
through an account of the actions of the parties involved.
The plural identities referred to are the following: the supranational/politi-
cal class identity; the social-colonial identity, which segregated European from
Egyptian workers; the different national identities that were reinforced during
the First World War and the 1919 Egyptian Revolution; the identity related to the
local origin of workers which sometimes proved stronger than the national one;
and, finally, the sense of identity that came from the labour division within the
company and the sense of belonging to, firstly, the cities of the Suez Canal, which
had characteristics that differentiated them from the other urban centres of Egypt,
and, secondly, the dynamics of a company which managed a sea route that had
radically transformed maritime traffic and trade at a global level.44
I will firstly refer here to the special characteristics of the case under consid-
eration, the stages that led to the strike declaration, the individual and collective
initiatives taken both during and after the strike’s end, so as to examine whether
the action undertaken was based on supranational/class, national or other factors.
44 For a broader discussion on the issue of the political and national identities of the
Greeks in Egypt, see K. Trimi-Kyrou, ‘Être internationaliste dans une société coloniale:
le cas des Grecs de gauche en Égypte (1914–1960)’, Cahiers d’Histoire: Les Gauches
en Egypte, XIXe–XXe siècles, 105–106 (2008), 85–117.
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
45 I. Soultanakis, To lefkoma ton Paristhmion poleon: Port Said, Ismailia, Suez [Album of
the Suez Canal Cities: Port Said, Ismailia, Suez] (Leipzig, 1922), 229.
46 C. Piquet, La Compagnie du Canal de Suez: Une concession française en Egypte
(1888–1956) (Paris, 2008), 245.
47 Ibid., 225.
48 A. Politis, O ellinismos ke i neotera Egyptos [Hellenism and modern Egypt], vol. 2 (Al-
exandria/Athens, 1930), 77. According to the historian and diplomat Athanasios Politis,
of the 5,000 workers of Greek origin who worked on the building of the canal, 3,000
alone came from the island of Kasos.
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
the Italians. Within the company’s small society, the clerical hierarchy and labour
distribution depended, to a certain extent, on nationality. Western Europeans held
the highest clerk positions as well as the positions of engineers and pilots.1 On
the other hand, the workers were mainly Egyptians, Greeks and Italians.2 Dur-
ing the whole of its operation, the company witnessed worker mobilisations that
sometimes led to dynamic strikes, particularly in the 1890s: one mobilisation
that began in 1891 led to the failed strike of 1894, which ended in the firing and
deportation of 135 workers, of whom 115 were Greeks.3
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
During the First World War, the consumer price index in Egypt rose dramati-
cally and the soaring prices of basic foodstuffs hit workers hard throughout the
country. The company workers’ situation in the canal area had already been ex-
tremely strained even before the war, a situation highlighted by a Greek doctor
and local intellectual, Konstantinos Fragoulis, in a series of articles published in
Nea Echo during May 1913 under the heading ‘Africa’s Blacks’.7 In April 1918,
seven months before the armistice, the Phoenix Fraternity initiated a workers’
conference in order to evaluate the current situation. Representatives of other
national groups were also invited to attend. These were ex-members of European
unions – the Italian and the French, which had been disbanded due to the con-
scription of their members – as well as members of the local Egyptian Labour
Union, whose funds had been confiscated by the government under the pretext
that it was pursuing nationalist ends.8 Of the invited Greek unions and fraterni-
ties that were organised on the basis of the geographical origin on workers, the
Samian fraternity did not participate, probably because its president, Konstan-
tinos Rouvas, was a high-ranking employee of the Suez Canal Company.9 The
members of the fraternity of Kastelorizo, at the time under French occupation,
did not cooperate with the Phoenix Fraternity but, on the other hand, the Kasian
fraternity, composed of people from the Dodecanese island of Kasos, then an
Italian colony, participated actively at the conference and seem to have cooper-
ated with the Italian representatives.10 Nonetheless, the activities at Port Said that
centred on the Phoenix Fraternity were not isolated instances of the labour move-
ment’s actions in Egypt.
The imposition of martial law after the outbreak of the war put an end to
labour mobilisation in Egypt. However, the August 1917 strike at the Coutarelli
tobacco factory in Alexandria presented the first signs that the movement was
becoming active again.11 The European workers at the Canal Company were
now not only aware of the labour movement in Alexandria, but also of the labour
movements throughout Europe and, naturally, of the October Revolution. They
now saw themselves, therefore, as members of the European working class. Since
they worked in a company of French–British interests, it was natural that they
compared their working conditions not so much with companies and factories in
Egypt as with European conditions.12 One of the aims of the conference organ-
ised by the Phoenix Fraternity was to achieve the greatest possible international
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
Port Said everyday conditions enforced a type of solidarity among the workers
which transcended ethnic boundaries. This is what allowed the Phoenix Frater-
nity to pursue its activities.
Having thus clarified the general background, we can now return to the con-
ference organised by the Phoenix Fraternity. As a first step, it was decided to
deliver a petition outlining the workers’ demands to Heddeya Bey, the Egyptian
governor of the canal governorate, so that he could act as mediator between the
workers and the Canal Company and deliver the former’s demands to the latter.
These demands can be summarised as follows: a pay rise, an eight-hour shift,
double pay for Sundays and holidays, paid leave every three years instead of five,
the publication of all the company’s rules and the regularisation of all seasonal
staff.18 Once prepared, the petition was handed out to the workers for signing.
A total of 1,800 people signed: 1,200 from Port Said and 600 from the other
two canal cities.19 But, even before the petition had been handed to the Egyp-
tian governor, the activities of the Phoenix Fraternity had become known to the
company’s management, which in mid-May reacted by trying to marginalise the
fraternity and curb its influence. Working towards this direction, it invited the
representatives of several of the company’s departments to announce a small pay
rise. The company’s tactics were supported by Heddeya Bey. Despite the fact
that he had received the workers’ petition, he not only insisted that the workers
accept the company’s terms, but he also forbid any kind of mobilisation in Port
Said and threatened to deport the fraternity president, Tsitsinias, and the radical
Kasian worker and union council member Ioannis Leropoulos, who had taken an
especially active role.20 The company’s attitude, as well as that of the Egyptian
authorities, towards the Phoenix Fraternity led to its breakup, illustrated by the
resignation of its president at the end of May 1918. However, the majority of the
Phoenix Fraternity’s members rejected the conditions imposed by the company
and the governor and it decided to escalate mobilisations.21
A development that is related to the series of events we have just described
was the setting up of the Kasian Canal Workers’ Union in June 1918.22 The un-
ion’s aim was to offer mutual aid among its members – workers that came from
the island of Kasos. One could explain this action on the Kasians’ part as a refusal
to continue cooperation with the Italians due to Italy’s ongoing occupation of the
Dodecanese. The Kasians, however, were not the only Dodecanesians in the ca-
nal area. I believe, therefore, that we must understand their action as indicative of
a strong sense of local identity, which differentiated those who came from Kasos
18 Leropoulos, I apergia, 127.
19 Ibid., 126.
20 Ibid., 128.
21 Ibid., 129.
22 Tachydromos [Courier] (Alexandria), 29/4 Jun 1918, 1.
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
from the rest of the Dodecanesians as well as other Greeks.23 In this sense, we
can conceive the sense of local identity as a point of reference for those workers
for whom class identity was not yet a defining force. At the same time one must
not forget that unions formerly founded by the Kasians ‘broke down at the first
signs of personal grudges or fights’, according to Soultanakis.24 Since the Kasian
Canal Workers’ Union does not come up again in the sources, one can assume that
it met with the same fate.
The Phoenix Fraternity’s next initiative consisted in handing a petition to the
British high consul, Sir Reginald Wingate. After the resignation of Tsitsinias,
Leropoulos, as the union’s representative, undertook the responsibility of submit-
ting it. The company workers put their movement under his protection, explained
their plight and at the same time articulated their demands. In mid-July 1918,
Leropoulos found himself in Cairo and requested the head of the Greek diplomat-
ic agency in Egypt, Antonis Sachtouris, to mediate.25 Sachtouris refused any kind
of involvement in a situation which would bring him against the French and the
British while the patriarch of Alexandria, Fotios, whom the fraternity requested to
become involved, refused to participate on the grounds that not all the petitioners
were Orthodox.26 In the end, the petition was handed to the consulate by Lero-
poulos himself later that month, on July 28.27 Upon the latter’s return to Port Said,
however, the town’s Greek consulate informed him that he was being transferred
to a worksite in Qantara and from there to Jerusalem, where he remained under
conditions of exile until May 1919.28 Only then was he able to return to Egypt and
become once more an active member of the Phoenix Fraternity, which by then
was able to reinforce the Canal Company workers’ claims far more effectively
now that the Egyptian nationalist movement had organised large-scale strikes and
demonstrations throughout the country.
By then, Tsitsinias was once again the president of the Phoenix Fraternity.
The union had handed the workers’ demands to the company’s board of directors
on April 7 but had not received a reply.29 To the previous demands, which had
23 This strong sense of local identity among the Kasians of Egypt was also been detected
by other foreigners. A French engineer of the Suez Canal Company wrote in 1937: ‘Une
part des Cassiotes, originaires de Cassos, ont des difficiles relations avec les autres
Grecs’, cited in C. Piquet, La Compagnie, 254.
24 Soultanakis, To lefkoma, 192.
25 The seat of the Greek diplomats in Egypt, until its independence in 1922, was the dip-
lomatic agency in Cairo. Thus Antonis Sachtouris, whose duties were practically those
of an ambassador, was officially the head of this agency at that time.
26 Leropoulos, I apergia, 137.
27 Ibid., 140.
28 Ibid., 140.
29 Ibid., 141.
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
been handed a year ago, was now added the need to improve the health system
as well as the improvement and construction of workers’ housing. In mid-April
1919, Egypt was immobilised by a general strike directed against the British.
Τhe Egyptian nationalist movement in Port Said was organised around a com-
mittee that included Aly Bey Leheita, a local nationalist notable. By supporting
its actions, the committee aimed at making the Phoenix the driving force of its
political aims.30 Aly Bey was in touch with the fraternity’s president and offered
the support of the Egyptian national movement to the renewed efforts of the canal
workers.31 Thus, while by the end of April the situation in the rest of the country
was beginning to relax, in Port Said tension was growing.
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
37 Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs (hereaf-
ter AYE), 1919/Α/5/ΙΙΙ, 269, Suez, 2 May 1919, Vice-consul of Suez to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Leropoulos, I apergia, 144–145.
41 The abstract mentioned comes from Nea Echo, 17/4 May 1919, 2, which reproduced in
its pages articles from La Vérite.
42 Beinin, Workers, 108.
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
tion of the Canal Company.43 On May 30, the company’s board of management
made a tactical move: in association with the Italian and the Greek consulates
of the town and the Suez Canal governor, it asked the workers to return to their
posts if they wished their demands to be satisfied. The Egyptians, who, despite
facing the most severe economic problems at the time were the group with almost
full participation in the strike, were by now seriously considering the possibility
of returning to their posts.44 The attempt on the part of the workers to agree to
the company’s requests gave rise to riots. Demonstrations broke out outside the
Greek, French, Italian and British consulates. While the demonstrations were on-
going, the number of foreign workers decreased, with a large portion submitting
applications for repatriation.45 This move is indicative of the close relationship
between the company and a great segment of the workforce, in correlation with,
among others, the level of their specialisation. Besides, resigning or getting fired
usually meant repatriation. Finally, on June 10, the company’s central board of
management in Paris accepted some of the workers’ demands: the eight-hour
shift and a satisfactory pay-rise, while, at the same time, it promised to give due
consideration to the other demands.46 After a 28-day strike, the strike committee
decided that the workers could return to their jobs.
However, on the same day the strike ended, Nicolas Centoes, an Austrian
citizen and a member of the strike committee, pointed out the necessity of the
creation of a strong trade union.47 This trade union should have an international
character, and develop strong ties with the trade unions of Europe so as to be able
to react dynamically in the event of the company failing to keep its promises. This
suggestion was realised in early August of the same year with the founding of the
International Worker’s Union of the Isthmus of Suez. As its name suggests, this
union was concerned with the whole of the canal area and not just with the Canal
Company. It was in reality the continuation of the previous pan-workers’ mobili-
sation in the canal area. It included in its ranks workers from all businesses of the
canal area but, as was natural, its main force came from among the workers of the
Suez Canal Company. At the very beginning, the trade union consisted of about
2,500 members, a number which doubled over the next two years.48 At a sitting
at the Casa del Soldato Italiano in Port Said, on 2 August 1919, the Greek radical
doctor Apostolis Skouphopoulos was elected as the union’s first president. The
43 Times (London), 19 May 1919, 12, wrote on this matter: ‘The strikers include all na-
tionalities, and . . . the movement appears to be purely economic and unconnected with
the political movement.’
44 Leropoulos, I apergia, 144–145
45 Tachydromos, 13 Jun/31 May 1919, 2.
46 Piquet, La Compagnie, 330.
47 Leropoulos, I apergia, 146.
48 Soultanakis, To lefkoma, 229.
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
Conclusion
The workers’ mobilisations in the canal area from 1918 to 1919, in correlation
with the preceding activities, offer a good case for the study of the labour move-
ment in Egypt. The route to action was not static. On the contrary, it was dynamic,
transformational and often contradictory. A new collective sense of identity was
beginning to form in the multicultural environment of the canal area and in Egypt
in general, in line with the social processes and the economic development of the
time. This process would be completed with the transcendence of the boundaries
that segregated the ethnic communities of the canal area. However, the study of
the facts we have just examined also reveals the limitations of this process.
In assessing the development of the workers’ mobilisations and the consequent
creation of a working-class identity in the canal area, one is obliged to take into
consideration certain important parameters that affect the correlations between
the various forces within the context of class antagonisms and their practical con-
sequences. Firstly, the field of class antagonisms is strictly relational. The ability
of a class (either fully formed or under development) to realise its interests to
any extent is directly related to the extent of the realisation of its position within
the productive chain and the division of labour. In this sense, the development of
class identity within the field of class antagonisms defines the ideological con-
tinuity, the type of political organisation, the interclass contrasts and transclass
problems, while at the same time they define it. The outcome of this development
would either reinforce the progress of class demands and, in the final analysis,
would transform class identity into the defining factor in relation to other senses
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ANGELOS DALACHANIS
of identity from the ideological and political sphere, or, on the contrary, the class
identity would become subjugated by the latter.
Bearing this context in mind, we may attempt an evaluation of the facts that
have been so far presented. Both in Egypt and, more specifically, in the canal area,
labour class consciousness appeared somewhat belatedly and with certain ambi-
guities in comparison to the social formations in western and northern Europe.51
It also appears within the extremely diverse space of a colonial society. The mo-
bilisations of the 1890s can be understood as the first attempt on the part of the
Suez Canal Company workers to express organised class demands. They took the
form, however, of spontaneous outbursts without systematised and crystallised
tactics and political resolve. During the second phase of the workers’ protest,
which began in 1918, the terms of class identity formation and the effectiveness
of action appear to have been better, despite the fact that they were penetrated by
intense contrasts. The workers’ growing awareness during this period was often
undermined by the low level of syndicalist organisation, which was not always
free of unionist commitments. It was also undermined by the predominance of
paternalistic syndicalist representatives who came from the dynamic petit-bour-
geois class of the canal cities, the lack of experience in asserting demands as well
as the insufficient grouping of the participants in unions according to the division
of labour. Besides, the seasonal and temporary employment of a large segment
of workers and the personal ties between workers and executives reduced the ef-
fectiveness of the workers’ demands. This phase, like most labour mobilisations
in Egypt up until the end of the First World War, was initiated by Europeans,
some of whom had some experience of class struggle in their country of origin
and brought a radical spirit to their workplace. However, the creation and preser-
vation of ties based on a common place of origin was also prevalent, especially
in the case of the numerous Greeks. The Egyptian workers, on the other hand,
participated in the mobilisations through the medium of the growing Egyptian
nationalist movement. It would not be too farfetched to claim that the gains of
the class struggle in Europe formed more of an outside model than a reality in the
social processes and the economic sphere of the canal area, for all workers. On
the other hand, the company had a fully formed corporate culture, characterised
by long-term concentrated, strategic moves and carefully designed enforcement
techniques. Such a juxtaposition was extremely unbalanced and finally ended
in the class identity giving way to nationally or locally defined identities. The
transformations of the Phoenix Fraternity and the localist character of the Kasian
association are both instances that illustrate this.
51 According to Beinin, Workers, 23, the strike of the Egyptian coal heavers in Port Said
in April 1882 must have been the first large-scale manifestation of collective action by
indigenous workers in modern Egypt.
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THE SUEZ CANAL COMPANY STRIKE OF 1919
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