The Suez Canal and historical metaphors

A Japanese-owned ship, operated from Taiwan, licensed in Panama, operated by a German company responsible for the machinery, transports cargo from mainland China to a port in the Netherlands. , then got trapped in a canal under Egyptian sovereignty. What do you see in the incident when the Ever Given super-ship stuck in the Suez Canal, the super-ship was in the top 1% of the world’s largest ships, 400 meters long, 59 meters wide, which if erect, taller than the Eiffel ?

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel relates it to an artery blockage that caused capitalism’s heart attack. An association could not be more relevant. Ever Given gets stuck, but that’s not just its own business. Nearly 400 other ships that wanted to cross Suez were also stuck, causing $ 9.6 billion in trade value to stall.

Obviously no ships were sunk and the cargo will arrive sooner or later but they are slow. Slowly, that’s how capitalism has changed man’s notion of time. If you asked someone who lived in the 17th century about a timetable, they would wonder what the hell you were asking about. Until the 18th century, people just invented a timetable to manage train times. But, it was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that industrialists had to optimize it and bring it into economics as an indicator of efficiency. That is, it was only when the capitalists appeared that the expression “time is money” was born.

The image of the pitiful little bulldozer is rescuing the Ever Given super ship into a photo-processing phenomenon on social networks for many days.

Not only that. The Ever Given ship stuck for 6 days in the Suez Canal, Egypt, causing the country to lose $ 12-14 million per day. 6 days seems to be a very special time for Egyptians. In 1967, the Israeli army also landed in Egypt to wage a six-day war over the Arab coalition and as a result Israel then took control of the Gaza Strip, east of Jerusale, the Sinai peninsula, the west bank and Golan Heights.

In retaliation, Egypt closed the Suez Canal and reopened it in 1975. That coincidence is a sign that, if we look closely, the story of the incident in Suez might suggest more.

And, that’s right. Since its inception, Suez has always been a mirror to the world, even if we want to, we can see very clearly the many stages of human history over the past 150 years, only through the lens of Suez: from the owner. colonialism in Africa, to the Cold War and then globalization.

In the mid-19th century, a French diplomat proposed to invest in Egypt building a canal connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, and the creation of that artery was also the beginning of a dark chapter of Africa, when the continent began to be torn apart by Europe. Just before Suez’s inauguration, Khedive (Viceroy) of Egypt defaulted and was forced to sell part of the ownership of the Suez Canal to England – so a colonial dispute broke out between England and France, culminating is the Fashoda event, where the British won Egypt and the French kept only Morocco. So, from the outset, that canal has been a metaphor for a change in power structure.

However, the troubled political situation in Egypt led the British press to coined the term “Egyptian question” as a way of expressing doubt and fear that the occupation of the Suez Canal would pose a threat. Castle. Little is said about, that the formation of the Suez Canal led to the creation of a gothic literary movement about the supernatural forces of the rising ancient Egyptian civilization to destroy the enemy. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the immortal series of Sherlock Holmes, could not stand out from the trend and he has a short story “Lot No.249” revolving around an Egyptologist who brings back so many antiques. You should get revenge by the zombies.

And, the story of these ancient curses “can be read as a symbol of both a desire for power to fully hold the Suez Canal and the fear of losing it,” as scholar Ailise Bulfin in Trinity College wrote in an essay.

It was the middle of the 19th century. Also until the middle of the 20th century, this time everything changed after 2 world wars. Colonialism is coming to the conclusion of many colonial countries’ struggle for national liberation and a newly formed context: the Cold War. The historic arena now belonged to the Soviet and American powers, a battle that Hopkins University’s foreign relations professor Michael Mandelbaum likened to a sumo fight, in which two fat brothers worshiped. and stomped his feet but barely actually touched each other. With unmatched value, the Suez Canal is of course indispensable for a role on this sumo ring.

The British Air Force prepared to attack Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

On October 29, 1956, the British – French – Israeli coalition attacked Egypt after its decision to nationalize the Suez Canal, opening the “Suez Crisis”. And, like all events in the world at the time, it was actually still a matter between the US and the Soviet Union, though they might not “show up” directly. Why does the Egyptian government want to nationalize Suez? It is in response to the US unwillingness to fund the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile. And who is willing to lend Egypt $ 1.12 billion to implement this project? Who else but the Soviet Union.

What was even more interesting, however, was that the United States did not want to attack Egypt. Therefore, President Eisenhower’s government has pressured allied countries to leave, with Britain alone, Eisenhower threatened to sell bonds in pounds, which would cause immeasurable damage. for UK finance. Frightened, Britain withdrew its troops and suffered a dull face. Historians today conclude that the Suez Crisis “marked the end of the UK’s role as one of the great powers in the world” and that the demise of old empires like Britain or France only caused The dichotomy between the US and the Soviet Union became more solid.

Then after a few decades, when the walls fell, the Cold War was finally in the past. What defeated it, replaced it, was globalization, according to author Thomas L. Friedman in “The Lexus and the Olive Fishing”. Friedman’s famous book was first published in 1999 but up to now, it is still accurate. We are still living in the era of globalization, globalization becomes more and more apparent in every corner of our lives.

And, just in time when the new power structure is going into smooth operation, the Ever Given ship’s trauma on the Suez Canal reveals to us the fragility of the global supply chain. In his book, Friedman makes a statement: “The greatest threats to globalization originate in itself. This system has the potential to destroy itself ”. Among the “self-destructive potentials” mentioned by Friedman, one comes from “too tight connection”.

Only one ship, but accounts for more than 13% of all cargo that goes through the sea. Just one ship, can cause total damage of about 400 million USD per hour and 10 billion USD per day. And, no country can say this incident has no effect on us, just that the effect will come soon or a little later. It was an incident no one ever thought could happen, but it still happens. And, the whole world could suffer just because of the negligence of a handful of people. The weakness of globalization lies in that. And this time, will the Suez Canal herald a structural change in the world? Some experts say that, most likely, the Suez incident will promote the transport of knowledge and technology, instead of the physical cargo. Let’s wait and see.

But, also does not rule out this possibility, a possibility that has been mixed with the Egyptians in recent days. The number is that before Ever Given was trapped, Egypt was moving 22 mummies to the new museum and because of the “cemetery of the tombs”, the mummies of the Pharaohs were cradling a curse that caused bad luck to the world. It sounds nonsense, but it shouldn’t be taken literally. In fact, the curse of the Pharaohs is the “olive tree” described by Friedman: it is a symbol of the past, of identity, of tradition, which is grappling with the “lexus” – that is development, integration, industrialization, which is represented by the modern Ever Given supership.

The only thing we can be sure of is that globalization has some small problems, but if not fixed in time, it can have a big impact. Anyway, in ancient times terrible changes in history began with the release of screws.