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But most of Cairo remains the same: close, crowded and cacophonous with hard-pressed auto horns. In Imbaba, on the west bank of the Nile, camels streaked with henna still plod unknowingly toward the slaughterhouse, and gully-gully men delight bright-eyed, brown-faced children with magic tricks as they did their grandfathers 50 years ago. Imbaba's junk market is still unchanged, and bent nails and half-shoelaces are traded with solemnity and diligence. The red flowerpot of the tarboosh has all but vanished from Cairenes' heads, and Nasser has even made considerable progress in his campaign to get his city folk to switch to European clothes from the nightshirt-like galabiya. Most astonishing is the fact that a visitor seldom sees a barefoot man, woman or child. Even urchins from the Cairo slums wear shoes—and socks. Today Cairo walks well-dressed, well-shod and bareheaded, with its shoulders back.
Swallowed Revenues. Of all Egyptians, the industrial worker has fared the best under Nasser. Next to him comes the fellah, the timeless peasant working the timeless land. It was the jest of 1952 that Nasser's foremost ambition was to raise the fellahin at least to the living standard of the gamoosa, the water buffalo of the Nile. He has more than succeeded. You can see it simply in the fellah's clothes. But also the fellah, who used to have meat only once or twice a year, now eats it at least once a week.
In pre-Nasser Egypt, the most common characteristic of the fellahin was summed up in the phrase anna mail, which roughly translates, "I couldn't care less." Today the word heard over and over is nahdha, a term meaning to sit up and take notice of the world around you. Egypt has been awake, taking notice and participating since the hot summer morning in July 1952, when Nasser and a group of young army officers put an end to the regime of King Farouk.
The resulting economic upsurge was hardly accomplished by Egypt alone. The intense development campaign swallowed up revenues from the Suez Canal, and from the biggest crop, cotton. In the process, the nation has spent its savings. Egypt's foreign-exchange reserves, which stood at a billion dollars after World War II, have dwindled to scarcely $10 million. The consequence is an increasing dependence on foreign aid. The Communist bloc has committed itself to $700 million in economic aid since 1955, and Russia is footing the bill for the famed High Dam at Aswan, which by 1972 will increase the arable land of Egypt from 6,000,000 acres to 8,000,000 acres and supply 10 billion kw-h in electric power. Since 1945, the U.S. has supplied Egypt with $628.6 million, mostly in the form of surplus food paid for in Egyptian pounds, 85% of which can be (and is) loaned back to Egypt. Today, Egypt is dependent on the U.S. for its food, and on Russia for its arms and the Aswan Dam.
The fact is that Nasser is not totally dependent on any one power or group of powers. He is still determinedly nonaligned. But things are better than the word implies. A few years ago, Nasser was nonaligned toward the East; today, he is more accurately regarded as non-aligned toward the West.