It has never been considered an exciting month. October was an ordinary, eventless even boring month, except for the Germans.
Since 1810 they have celebrated their famous Octoberfest, making it a most coveted, exciting, successful, entertaining event of each year.
Six million tourists descend on the city of Munich to join in the endless merrymaking which can only be compared to a Mardi-Gras carnival.
It originated on 12 October 1810 in celebration of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria, later king Louis I, to princess Therese Von Sachsen-Hildburghausen — and has been going strong ever since.
Good for the Germans.
The rest of the world settled for Halloween, arriving on the last day of the month, 31 October, as a consolation for the tedium and ennui of the preceding 30 days.
Not too many cultures believed in Halloween and October was still branded as flat and listless, until a miracle happened, lifting October to a month of great pride and joy to the people of Egypt.
It took place on 6 October 1973.
A surprise attack by the Egyptian Armed Forces against Israel marked the first defeat of the Israelis since the establishment of their state by the United Nations, on 14 May 1948.
An unspeakable tragedy for the land and the people of Palestine, who fell victims to the US, UN, and Britain, now homeless and desperate. It was nothing less than a conspiracy by these major powers, despite the fact that president Roosevelt and the US had assured the Arabs that they would not intervene without consulting both Jews and Arabs in the region.
Intervene they did. Not only did they bless the creation of an Israeli state, approved by the newly founded United Nations on 24 October 1945, a date best forgotten, but they went further. They considered Israel an ally, an offspring or even an American state. Every aid was given to the Israelis, eventually making theirs, the most powerful country in the region.
Conflicts continued between Arabs and Jews and the Israeli/US military always came out on top.
A humiliating defeat in 1967 kept the Egyptians reeling.
An ingenious plan started brewing. While US and Israeli intelligence were asleep on the job, the Egyptian Armed Forces, under the instruction of president Anwar Sadat, launched a surprise attack on Israel during Yom Kippur, pushed across the Suez Canal, destroyed a giant defensive sand barrier, known as the Bar Lev Line, using high- powered water hoses, installed pontoon bridges, to transport armoured vehicles, tanks and soldiers to the other side of the canal.
They were on Israeli soil, some miles away from Tel Aviv.
It was a bold and ingenious plan and it worked to the dismay of the US, Israel and Kissinger.
There was no stopping them, except for one Jewish/German/American diplomat, the secretary of state to president Nixon.
Henry Kissinger, an ardent supporter of Israel was alarmed.
The attack threatened to bring the US and Soviet Union into conflict for the first time since the Cuba crisis during the Kennedy years.
Kissinger worked furiously to support Israel, with massive military aid — airlifting US tanks, artillery, ammunition, and if he could, he would have even sent manpower to help Israel. He claimed that he feared victory on either side, but in essence he threatened the Egyptian forces who would have been unable to fight the US.
He worked what he called his “shuttle diplomacy”, flying from city to city, Cairo to Moscow to Washington to Moscow — because he knew the Soviets would stand with the Egyptians, since the US would not.
Finally, this most famous diplomat managed to convince the Russians that a truce would be best. The Egyptians accepted, but not before declaring their first victory over Israel.
This is a story well-known to Egyptians. It is repeated every October, igniting the pride in our Armed Forces, our victory and our country.
However, if you search the Internet, Wikipedia, social-media etc, you are likely to find a different story told from a totally biased angle, always in defence of Israel.
In case you seek more truths, several books have been written about the actual events, notably Al-Gamasi’s Kashkul written by Field Marshall Abdel-Ghani Al-Gamasi, the man who is known to have paved the way for choosing the appropriate time for the attack.
It is up to us to question the veracity of the information provided by biased sources.
This has been an unusually exciting October, for the birthday of the holy Prophet Mohamed also fell in October of 2022, a rare occurrence as Muslims follow a lunar calendar.
Now Egypt too has its glorious Octoberfest, a memorable, exciting, happy October, with more to come, since we have adopted the fun side of Halloween, of candies and costumes and things that go bump in the night.
If you crave more reasons to celebrate in October, Americans have found 36 reasons to celebrate. There isWorld Food Day, World Animal Day, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, Older People’s Day, World Teacher’s Day, World Migratory Bird Day, World Mental Health Day, World Arthritis Day, World Sight Day, need we go on?
The once dull and dreary month has been elevated to the ranks of pride and joy.
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp — or what’s a heaven for?”
Robert Browning (1812-1899)
*A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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