One of the pioneers of Egypt’s leftist movement Khaled Mohieddin died on Sunday due to health complications in his final years. He was 96. The Egyptian military will hold a ceremonial funeral for the deceased officer.
Born in 1922, he was raised in the governorate of Qaliubiya. Born to a well-off family, he enrolled in the Egyptian Military Academy, like most of his contemporaries in the Free Officers Movement, which he joined after graduating in 1940.
The movement, which Mohieddin helped establish with 13 other members, ended up toppling the monarchy in 1952, and established the republic after deposing King Farouk. He was a Marxist who ended up, due to the rise of the anti-democratic tendencies in the Revolutionary Command Council, stepping aside and briefly practiced journalism at Al-Mesa newspaper.
In 1977, he was one of the founders of Tagammu Party. The party remained a vocal opposer to the regime of Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat and became the focal point for what historians called the “statist left wing”, which believed in change from within the state while placing heavy emphasis on anti-imperialism.
Under the Mubarak regime, Mohieddin was elected to parliament and heavily opposed Mubarak’s neoliberal polices and Egypt’s participation in the Gulf war against Iraq.
His most notable publication was his memoir, which was published under the title Now I Speak: Memoires of Khaled Mohieddin. The book is said to be an important source for understating the societal and political context of the formation of the army-led revolution, which radically shaped Egypt’s society and politics to this very day.
