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Yacoub Sanua Nationalism
The paper was predominantly anti-British and slowly slipped into a campaign against the
spendthrift Khedive Ismaïl who surrendered to Britain, due to the huge financial loans he had
plentifully received from the British. Thus Egypt's debt to England grew so much that shortly
afterwards the Egyptian government was forced to sell its entire share in the Suez Canal to
Great Britain in return for the accumulated loans.
Sanua allowed himself such harsh criticism, because despite being Egyptian, he retained his
Italian citizenship inherited from his father and enjoyed privileges that were granted to
foreigners at the time. Khedive Ismaïl himself was not uninterested in a certain opposition by
Sanua and his disciples, which included among others Gamal e-Din el-Afghani, in the hope this
would weaken British control.
But the satirical newspaper's criticism intensified, and in 1878 an order was issued to close the
newspaper 'Abu Naddara' and Sanua was exiled from Egyptian soil. A year later, under pressure
from the British superpower, Khedive Ismaïl too was deported from his own country.
Yacoub Sanua’s exile in France
From his exile in Paris, Yacoub Sanua continued to publish his newspaper 'Abu Naddara' in
Arabic. The newspaper was smuggled into Egypt, and in order to mislead Egyptian censors, it
was packaged in a bundle of other newspapers and magazines, mostly illustrated, and
distributed to other Arab countries around the world. In all this, Sanua was most encouraged by
Gamal e-Din el-Afghani and by Muhamad 'Abdu, both of whom were exiled in France too. It
was here that Sanua coined his well-known slogan 'Egypt for the Egyptians' (نيرصمللرصم) in the
sense that 'Egypt belongs to the Egyptian people' which became a common idiom in Egypt,
until the total expulsion of British forces from the country.
In his paper, Yacoub Sanua also supports Colonel Ahmed ʻOrabi, an officer in the Egyptian
army who in 1878 rebelled against the government and initiated a coup against Tawfiq Pasha,
the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. But the 'Orabi revolt in 1882 led to the British army attack
against Orabi's troops and to the British conquest of the whole of Egypt. From that year on,
Abu Naddara's newspaper printed in Paris became a lashing whip to the British occupation, a
whip that had the blessing of the French - as Britain's eternal competitors - and the blessing of
the Ottoman Empire. From 1885 on, in order to spread his views among the French public,
Yacoub Sanua turned his newspaper into a bilingual one - as we shall see in the issues gathered
in this Book - and published it in Arabic and French. Each issue is reprinted in thousands of
copies, with plenty of cartoons drawn by Sanua himself, depicting the slender Egyptian peasant
wearing rags - in front of the fat-bellied rulers. The newspaper was smuggled to Egypt where it
was distributed and read eagerly by the Egyptian intelligentsia and by Egyptian politicians. It
was also read aloud in the popular cafes and in clubs in Egypt, reaching tens of thousands.
In France, Sanua published three more newspapers Al-Tawadod - Sympatisons (let's
)
(
sympathize) in 1888-1889 and again in 1898-1903, and Al-Monsef فصنملا 'fairness, equality'
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19 in 1899-1903, several issues of which appear in this book - and the newspaper L'Univers
Musulman published in Paris in 1907-1909 in French only, in which he tries to depict Islam and
Muslims in a positive and tolerant light.
In all his articles, Sanua fights for the independence of Egypt, and mocks the alleged leadership
of the Khedive, who is ruled by Britain, especially after the increased British control over what
was happening in Egypt following their victory over the Arab army in 1882. Under the
influence of Yacoub Sanua, and following the boycott of every newspaper that came out in
criticism against the regime in Egypt, an Egyptian press arose in exile, with editors from all
denominations. The French historian Pierre Vermeren positioned Sanua on the same line as
later Jewish nationalists in Egypt, such as the Karaite-Jew Mourad Farag, one of the most
important jurists and theologians in modern Egypt, who wrote a poem entitled 'Egypt, My
Homeland', or René Cattaui, head of the Sephardi Jewish Community in Cairo, who in 1935
founded the Jewish-Egyptian youth organization under the slogan 'Egypt is our homeland,
Arabic is our language'.
Almost until his last day, in 1912, Sanua continued to illustrate the newspaper himself - as can
be seen in the paper issues bound in this book - and continued to publish it until 1910.
Yacoub Sanua private life and Judaïsm
During his exile in Paris, Yacoub Sanua married at the age of 45 to a Catholic Frenchwoman,
Zélie Blumenthal, the daughter of a bookbinder from Alsace in France. They gave birth to their
only daughter, Sarah-Alexandrine-Louise Sanua, who eventually bore the name Louli, meaning
Pearl in Arabic, or Perla - a common name among Sephardic Jews in Egypt. Yacoub Sanua,
being a poet - who changed his name Yacoub to James - of high cultural level, a brilliant
conversationalist and a feminist gives his daughter a high level education. From 1893 to 1903,
she studies literature at Collège Sevigné in Paris. There she receives an avant-garde education,
connects with the youth of the upper bourgeoisie in Paris, and sometimes with the Jewish
intellectuals of Paris. She even enrols in a Latin language course and in 1904 studies history at
the Sorbonne. All the while, her father earns his living teaching languages, with his wife Zélie
helping on livelihood by providing piano lessons.
Louli Sanua becomes a respected educator and pedagogical-
feminist in France. In 1916, she founds the first and most
prestigious College of Business Women in Paris EHEC, serves
on the Higher Council for Public Education in France, and wins
gold medals and prestigious awards in her professional field.
Unlike her beloved father, Louli Sanua denies sometimes her
Jewishness, but she marries in 1929 Jean Milhaud, born in
Montpellier France and son of Gaston Milhaud - a Jewish
mathematician and philosopher from Provence. Jean Milhaud
becomes the founder of Cégos and other important Institutes in
France. Together with him, Louli gives birth to two sons,
James (named after Louli's father), and Serge. Jean loved her
Louli Sanua,
Yacoub Sanua daughter so much, he wrote after her death in 1967, a book about her.
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