A Special Edition Commemorating the 6 October War

I was born in 1984. I did not witness the Naksa of 1967, the victory of October 1973, or the difficult years between them. I know those years through stories, photographs, films and, perhaps most intimately, songs. I know them through culture more than anything else.

A familiar voice begins, and the distance feels smaller. History becomes something I can feel. I think of a young soldier missing home, a mother waiting for news, a family gathered around the radio, and an artist asking herself what she could offer.

This October, I find myself thinking about that question.

Perhaps it connects with what I have been exploring through my Cultural Programming with Impact series. Perhaps it belongs to the spring section of my book, where I reflect on our instinct to express ourselves and find our way back to ourselves. Perhaps it is my doctoral work on resilience that draws me towards these stories.

Whatever the reason, I want to understand how people found the strength to continue between 1967 and 1973, and how the arts became part of that strength. With so many people living through violence, loss and uncertainty today, these histories feel close.

On 6 October, we remember the crossing of the Suez Canal. I also want to remember the voices that accompanied the years before it. The voices that acknowledged sorrow, sustained hope and eventually gave expression to the relief and pride of October 1973. The voices that helped people sustain hope and become more resilient towards achieving a common goal.

After the Naksa, Abdel Halim Hafez sang Adda El Nahar (عدّى النهار), written by Abdel Rahman El Abnoudi and composed by Baligh Hamdi (Egyptian Ministry of Education, n.d.). The song gave sorrow a language. It allowed people to hear something they were carrying inside themselves, perhaps before they could find their own words for it. I hear in it an invitation to acknowledge pain and begin to understand it, a possible first step towards collective recovery.

In 1967, Abdel Halim also sang Ahlif Bisamaha Wabturabha (أحلف بسماها وبترابها), written by El Abnoudi and composed by Kamal El Tawil. He pledged to continue singing it until Sinai was liberated (Al Ittihad, 2017). Listening to these songs together, I hear the need to acknowledge a wound and the need to believe that there was still a future. They bring me back to recovery and sustainability, the first two resilience outcomes I explored in my doctoral research: beginning to recover from disruption, while finding the strength and support to keep going. For me, these songs give an emotional form to that relationship.

That matters to me as a researcher but more as a cultural programmer.

We often speak about lifting people’s spirits. But encouragement does not always begin with celebration. Sometimes it begins with acknowledgement. Someone who is grieving may need to feel understood before they can begin to feel hopeful.

A song can offer that recognition. It can bring relief through the feeling that others share what we are experiencing, that we are carrying something together.

The years that followed were filled with waiting, rebuilding and loss. I think about resilience during those years as the daily effort of continuing, caring for others and finding reasons to believe.

Artists contributed to that effort in different ways.

Umm Kulthum used her extraordinary public standing to raise funds through concerts supporting Egypt’s war effort. Her performances at the Olympia in Paris in November 1967 formed part of that commitment (Abdeen, 2023).

I imagine what it meant to gather around her voice at a time when the country’s confidence had been deeply shaken. Her concerts offered practical support and brought people together through a love of Egypt that her voice helped them express: «مصر التي في خاطري وفي دمي، أحبها بكل روحي ودمي». I think about how those words might have encouraged each person to keep going and contribute in their own way, whether on the battlefield or through their work in other areas of life.

Along the canal, cultural engagement had another intimacy.

Abdel Rahman El Abnoudi spent time along the canal after 1967. His Ya Buyut El Suez (يا بيوت السويس), composed by Ibrahim Ragab and sung by Mohamed Hamam, addressed the city’s homes themselves (Kamal, 2023). Hamam also sang on the front during the War of Attrition (ElCinema, n.d.).

The places in these songs belonged to the people listening. Their streets, homes and experiences could be heard.

Suez had its own voices, including Captain Ghazali and the Awlad El Ard ensemble. Through the simsimiyya and familiar local rhythms, people created a cultural response from within their community. Karawya (2017) describes how the songs of the canal cities preserved local places, experiences and solidarity through war and displacement.

I find this deeply moving.

People whose lives had been disrupted continued to make something together. They could recognise their own accents and hear their experiences reflected in a song. Through music, they maintained a relationship with home even when home was under threat.

This is what I keep returning to when I speak about self-expression: our ability to recognise ourselves, to give form to what we feel, and to remain connected to one another.

Then came the night of 6 October.

Accounts recalling broadcaster Wagdi El Hakim’s experiences describe Baligh Hamdi arriving at Egyptian Radio determined to record, despite restrictions on access and difficulties funding new work. Warda recorded Wa Ana Ala El Rababa Baghanni (وأنا على الربابة بغني), also known through its opening Helwa Biladi El Samra, written by Abdel Rahim Mansour and composed by Baligh, that same night (Al Ahram, 2014).

Decades later, I still associate this song with moments of national celebration. We hear it and play it when we win a match. I think about how a recording made in response to one moment can become part of the emotional life of generations who never witnessed it.

What stays with me is the desire to contribute.

Baligh had his music. Abdel Rahim Mansour had his words. Warda had her voice. Each brought what they could offer.

There is something very human in that gesture. When people around us are facing uncertainty, we often ask what we can do. These artists answered through their practice. They made something that could reach people wherever they were listening.

Baligh Hamdi and Abdel Rahim Mansour also created the choral Bismillah (بسم الله). Shadia sang Abarna El Hazima (عبرنا الهزيمة), written by Mansour and composed by Baligh, inspired by Tawfiq El Hakim’s words. Abdel Halim sang Liffi El Bilad Ya Sabiyya (لفّي البلاد يا صبية), written by Mohsen El Khayat and composed by Mohamed El Mogi (Hamed, 2013).

El Hakim recalled artists and musicians working without payment and remaining at the radio studios throughout the opening week (Hamed, 2013). Behind the familiar voices were instrumentalists, chorus members, technicians and broadcasters. Their contributions made it possible for those songs to reach others.

I think of the work behind each recording. People arranging, rehearsing, recording and broadcasting, each taking responsibility for a part of something they wanted to share.

Abdel Halim’s Aash Elli Aal (عاش اللي قال), written by Mohamed Hamza and composed by Baligh Hamdi, became another expression of the October moment and its leadership (Hamed, 2013). Sabah El Kheir Ya Sina (صباح الخير يا سينا), written by El Abnoudi and composed by El Tawil, followed in 1974 (Al Masry Al Youm, 2015).

Across these recordings, there is an emotional journey. Sorrow, determination, anticipation, relief and pride all found a place.

And grief remained.

Sharifa Fadel’s Om El Batal (أم البطل), written by Nabila Qandil and composed by Ali Ismail after the loss of her son, brought a mother’s experience into that shared musical memory. In her account of the recording, Fadel described how difficult it was to sing and explained that she wanted the song to reach the mothers of all those who had participated, including those who returned and those who did not (Galal, 2016).

Her voice makes me pause.

A soldier is someone’s child. A public moment of pride holds private lives within it. Through her singing, a mother could express love, grief and pride together, without having to resolve those feelings into something simpler.

This is one of the deepest possibilities of self-expression. Something painfully personal can take a form that another person recognises. The loss remains, but someone else can hear it, understand something of it, and stay with us for a moment.

Artists also offered their presence.

In her oral-history interview with the Women and Memory Forum, Nadia Lutfi recalled visiting the front during the War of Attrition with writers, painters, singers and other artists. During the 1973 war, she stayed at Qasr El Aini Hospital for a month and helped organise a film collection for the wards, alongside others including Saad Wahba and Said El Sahhar (Women and Memory Forum, n.d.).

I keep thinking about those films.

Someone recognised the need for company, interest and contact with life beyond a hospital bed. Bringing a film into a ward required attention to the person who would watch it.

These gestures deepen what cultural programming with impact means to me.

It begins with attention to people. What are they experiencing? What do they need to express? What might help them feel connected, understood or able to continue?

Those questions shape what we offer.

A broadcast can reach thousands. A performance among soldiers can create a moment of closeness. A community can make its own music. A film can bring interest into a hospital ward. Each responds to a particular human need. Because culture is equally a human need!

I see in these histories many of the concerns that guide my work on creative resilience: expression, connection, continuity and the possibility of moving forward. These are my reflections on the accounts, rather than a claim that the songs produced a measurable change in resilience. What moves me is the attention artists gave to the emotional life around them.

That may help explain why these songs still matter to me. Why, when I listen to them now, I still feel something of the sorrow, hope and pride they were created to express.

They carry the feelings of the people who made them and the people who first listened. Each time the recordings return, we inherit something of that relationship. They bring us close to a period we never witnessed, allowing us to feel something of what we have only heard or read about.

On 6 October, I remember the soldiers with gratitude. I feel that same gratitude towards those who sang to them, visited them, listened to them and helped them stay connected to home.

And when Warda’s voice begins again, I think of that night in the studio. Of people arriving with words and music because they felt they had something to give.

Decades later, we are still receiving it.

And yet, some still think culture is a luxury.

Listen to the songs

References

Abdeen, H. (2023, March 13). أم كلثوم... قصة امتزاج الفن بالسياسة [Umm Kulthum: The intertwining of art and politics]. Asharq Al-Awsat. View source

Al Ahram. (2014). الحكيم .. وطنيات ومواقف [El Hakim: Patriotic works and recollections]. View source

Al Ittihad. (2017, October 12). «أحلف بسماها وبترابها».. من النكسة إلى الانتصار [“Ahlif Bisamaha Wabturabha”: From defeat to victory]. View source

Al Masry Al Youm. (2015). الأغاني الوطنية لعبد الحليم حافظ [Abdel Halim Hafez’s patriotic songs]. View source

Egyptian Ministry of Education. (n.d.). دليل معلم التربية الموسيقية [Music education teacher’s guide, first preparatory grade, second term]. View source

ElCinema. (n.d.). محمد حمام [Mohamed Hamam]. Biographical entry. View source

Galal, M. (2016, October 6). شريفة فاضل تروى القصة الكاملة لأغنية «أم البطل» [Sharifa Fadel recounts the story of “Om El Batal”]. Youm7. View source

Hamed, S. (2013, October 4). مانشيت الأهرام تحول لأغنية: عبرنا الهزيمة [An Al Ahram headline became a song: “Abarna El Hazima”]. Al Ahram. View source

Kamal, A. H. (2023, February 23). يا بيوت السويس .. والفنان محمد حمام [“Ya Buyut El Suez” and the artist Mohamed Hamam]. Dar Al Hilal. View source

Karawya, F. (2017, February 1). «يا بيوت السويس يا بيوت مدينتي»… مدن القناة المصرية وتجربة مقاومة الحرب بالغناء [Egypt’s canal cities and resisting war through song]. Al Insani, International Committee of the Red Cross. View source

Women and Memory Forum. (n.d.). نادية لطفي [Nadia Lutfi]. Oral-history archive. View source