A story of love, war & peace Gihan Sadat shares the past

Although it is now nearly 20 years since the assassination of Egypt’s former President Anwar Sadat, during the 6th of October Military Show in Cairo in 1981, his widow, Mrs Gihan Sadat, can recall the painful events of that fateful day with detailed clarity.
"It was a bad day from the outset," she said. "I told the bodyguard that I would not be going to the military show and he had been disappointed. ‘You are like a mother to those heroes of the 6th of October War,’ he said.
I decided to go. Normally on those occasions I would get ready before Anwar and then go to sit with the Vice President’s wife for a while, but this time I didn’t even bother to have my hair done. An officer told me that the President had already left for the show without seeing me, the first time that he had ever done so. I only saw him once that day – in the morning, when he got up."
An air of strangeness was pervading the entire day. There was even something amiss with the discipline of the military display and she had the feeling that there was some sort of rift between the various groups of soldiers.
She was enjoying the spectacle and colours of the aerial display from a window when, suddenly, something horrible happened.
"There were shots everywhere. The bodyguard pulled me away from the window for safety. The next few moments were a total nightmare. I went to the hall where there was a woman screaming and then I went back to the window to look for the President – but I could not see him. I began to hurry down the stairs where I met an officer with blood on his uniform coming up. He told me that the President was fine but that he had been taken to hospital."
Accompanied by the officer and Dr Zaynab El-Sobki, Mrs Sadat was driven to Kobri El Kobba, where she left her small grandchild with a babysitter and took a helicopter to the Military Hospital in Maadi. Her children were already there. They had not attended the show either, but when they heard the shots and saw the TV coverage interrupted, after having called the President’s office and been left on hold, they hurried to the hospital.
Rothenburg hotel rooms "I had the strongest feeling that something was going on. I mean, if the President was OK, why was nobody telling me so? After a while Dr Mohamed Lotfi, the chief surgeon, came to see me. I noticed that he was formaly dressed, in a suit. How could he have been operating in a suit!
He told me that I couldn’t see the President right away. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.
"When I was eventually allowed into the operating room … it was very difficult. His body was lying on the bed and all the doctors and nurses were crying. I threw myself upon his body; I found myself kissing him but at the same time I could not feel anything. I brought the children in to say goodbye to their father."
“When I left the hospital, I was wearing dark glasses because tears were flowing constantly and I did not want anyone to see me cry. Driving home through Maadi; I saw people weeping terribly. The streets that I knew so well seemed to have become much longer. Inside the car, I wanted to shout, to cry, to scream … the driver was crying and so were the children. None of us could believe what had happened. It was beyond our comprehension. It was like a nightmare … but it was our destiny."
Ikskile reservas de hoteles One of the stories that arose about the events surrounding President Sadat’s assassination was that his son, Gamal, wanted to remove one of the bullets himself. However, the truth is that Gamal had been abroad at the time, but had returned that day, and been told by Dr Fouad Mohiddin that there was a bullet still lodged in Sadat’s shoulder and the doctors wanted his permission to take it out. Mrs Sadat had suggested that she and Gamal go to the hospital and oversee the operation, so they might know if the President had been shot from behind.
"All the way there, I couldn’t help but think of how my husband’s body would look. Imagining him preserved in the hospital’s refrigerator made me feel sad and sorry. I knew that Gamal must have been feeling the same, so I kept telling him not to worry about his father’s body and that the body was not important … but he was devastated.
"When we arrived at the hospital, the doctors asked if I could bear to watch because they did not want to operate without me present. I told myself that I would have to find the strength to deal with it because, had he been alive, he would’ve expected me by his side."
There were two bullet wounds in the late President’s chest but only one bullet had remained lodged in his body.
"I swear that I have never seen him looking so pure and radiant," she said. "He had a smile on his face."
Mrs Sadat says that it is due to God’s wisdom that not one photograph of the assassination exists. Despite the presence of television cameras, not a single picture was recorded of the actual shooting or the events afterwards. This is probably due to the swift reactions of the emergency services. As a matter of course, the presidential retinue always included an ambulance on standby and, on that occasion, there was a medically equipped helicopter, which had whisked the President off to hospital before even Mrs Sadat could get to it.
In the light of this it is perhaps a little ironic that what has been concerning her lately is the long awaited release of the feature film ‘Ayam El-Sadat’ (Sadat’s Days).
"I want this movie to show how Sadat fought for his country, and for the dignity and honour of Egypt," she said. "After the ‘October Victory’ he was accused of treason for wanting peace. I wish we could have the same chance of peace now that we had in his day."
Mrs Sadat says that the majority of people support her husband for the incredible things that he did for peace in the Middle East and that he created real opportunities in the favour of Arabs and Palestinians. "It was the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem to which Begin agreed to return principally. If the Palestinians had also agreed they could have taken them back 22 years ago. Sadat should be credited for his true historical status. He went and faced them in their own arena."
In keeping with the thinking of Sadat, the former First Lady of Egypt also believes that, in the case of Israel, negotiations between the occupiers and the occupied should continue. "Sadat negotiated peace and got land back," she says. "He was completely aware that what is happening nowadays could happen. He told them [the Palestinians] that if they had any plans or ideas better than negotiating peace then they should tell him about them and he would carry them out. For the last 22 years, the Palestinian people could have been living happily in their homeland, instead of living as refugees and haggling over a small percentage of it."
The late president has received much negative criticism in the past. ‘Ayam El-Sadat’, with Ahmed Zaki in the title role, may go some way towards redressing the perceptual balance. Mrs Sadat, however, says that she would have agreed to the making of the film on the grounds of the creative talents involved alone.
"Ahmed Zaki is a very creative actor, you could say that he is number one in his field. I admire his style of acting, regardless of the type of character he is playing – I liked him very much in his television role as Taha Hussein. With Mervat Amin, Mona Zaki and Mohamed Khan as director, the film has a great working crew." She added that, speaking as Sadat’s widow, she would be very happy to see not just one but hundreds of films about her late husband’s life, to let everyone know everything about him.
Mrs Sadat said that she had only one precondition for the screenwriter, Ahmed Bahgat, whom she describes as "a very honest man": that he should highlight the two major issues in Sadat’s life, the 1973 war and the Camp David Peace Accords. "I don’t care about the love interest," she explained.
When Ahmed Zaki approached her with the idea of making the film, she offered to let him shoot scenes in her house to lend it a certain authenticity. She also saw no problem with Zaki playing her husband, even though he had already portrayed Nasser with great success.
"I love Nasser," she said, "and I get very upset when people keep on attacking him. Both Nasser and Sadat made mistakes, they both did some bad things as well as all the good ones. For Ahmed Zaki to play Nasser so successfully makes me trust him to play Sadat too, maybe more than I would trust anyone else."
This is in spite of the fact that in the movie ‘Nasser 56’, Sadat was portrayed as a weak character. Mrs Sadat says that the actors cannot be blamed for that as it is down to the director and, she alleges, the interference of certain left-wingers who appear to have some sort of influence in dramatic productions. She cites the ‘Om Kalthoum’ series as another example of this.
"The series was nearly perfect, yet it neglected a whole period of Egypt’s history, a period expressing meanings of victory, dignity, honour and stability. Om Kalthoum lived through that era, she respected it and was proud of it. Some people calling themselves Nasserites seem to have a powerful control over the works of historical drama. They call themselves Nasserites but I call them leftists."
Rumours have circulated that relations between Mrs Sadat and the late Om Kalthoum were strained. One such story claims that Om Kalthoum used to joke with Sadat by calling him Aboul Anwar, which upset the first lady. Mrs Sadat is quick to quell such gossip.
"This is an insult directed at Om Kalthoum, not me. She was a smart lady and she would never say such things. She knew the president well and respected him. She was a friend of the family since the beginning of the revolution and we visited each other regularly. Om Kalthoum never spoke to Anwar without addressing him formally – either as ‘sir’, or ‘your excellency’."
Another rumour concerns the death of Om Kalthoum. Mrs Sadat is said to have undermined her social activities and charitable works, which led to her death.
Mrs Sadat says this never happened. “We were both involved in social activities, I led El Wafaa Wal Amal (Faith & Hope Charity) in 1972, whereas Om Kalthoum started her project in 1973. My project was for the sake of the disabled and wounded victims of the sixth of October war, while hers was aimed at educating and training young girls. Unfortunately, because we were in a state of war, she was unable to collect a suitable sum of money to maintain her project. She eventually died of kidney disease. I visited her several times during her illness.”
Asking Mrs Sadat what she thought of the previous portrayal of her husband in the American movie on his assassination, she said: “The movie was banned from being shown in Egypt, because it deformed the image of Abdel Nasser. The Americans made the movie in haste, right after the assassination. To me, this is just as bad as portraying Sadat badly in a movie on Nasser.”
Although Mrs Sadat says that she did not change or interfere with anything in the film ‘Ayam El-Sadat’ she did have a hand in the casting of her role. "It was Ahmed Zaki who asked me to suggest the actress to play my character. At first I refused but he insisted. Mervat Amin was the one I thought of, for many reasons. She is undoubtedly a very good actress – plus, she looks like me, also, like me, she has an English mother. She is highly educated and very delicate."
Mrs Sadat also met with Mona Zaki, who plays her in her youth. "The first question she asked me was whether I had been a good or a naughty girl. I replied that I have never been naughty. I married Sadat when I was 15 years old, so I was very mature for my age. At the time Sadat was a poor man. I had to take on all the responsibilities that a poor, newly-wed couple has to face. I married Anwar for love. He was just out of jail, poor, he had no job...nothing. I was young and good looking, and had many suitors. I chose Anwar for his personality and devotion to his country."
Far from interfering with the performances of the actors, Mrs Sadat endeavoured to help them by supplying photos of their family life, such as their children’s birthday parties, audio tapes of Sadat’s conversations with Hemmat Mostafa, and information about how he related to his children, what he used to wear at home, et cetera. She was even prepared to let them use personal items, such as Sadat’s famous tobacco pipe, as props in the movie.
"I made a promise to give him [Ahmed Zaki] anything he asked for and to do anything to help make the movie as authentic as possible," she said. "They have seen all of our house, even the bedroom, but I asked them to limit the two-week shoot to the ground floor and to just two to three hours a-day. They asked me about the first time that we met, how and when we fell in love – but I told them that all the information they needed about that is in my book ‘Lady from Egypt’."
All in all ‘Ayam El-Sadat’ promises to give a fascinating insight into the major political events of the time, set against the crucial backdrop of flashes from the personal life of the late President and the former First Lady. Far from being a subtext, these scenes should play a crucial and integral part in the audience’s understanding of the man and his life.