By Hala Ghoname

On Thursday, August 6^th, 2015, CNN-Arabic published an article titled “al-Maḥrūsah Yacht: The “Black Box” Of the History of Egyptian Kings and Presidents at The Opening of The Suez Canal”. Offering a historical overview of the world’s oldest in-service regal yacht, the article was part of CNN’s coverage of Egypt’s inauguration of the canal’s new expansion, during which the vessel was to sail across the waterway again after epochs. Describing the lavish and luxurious nature of the “floating palace,” the yacht was also described as the “Black Box of the History of Egyptian Kings and Presidents” for having witnessed not only turning points in the country’s history but also the rise and fall of regimes. Aside from other publications on the event and the vessel, this particular article attracted my attention, having echoed an extended report that was published almost 63 years earlier in the Egyptian tabloid Akhir Saʿah, in September of 1952. Issued only two months after the 1952 coup d’état, the article carried the title “The First Journalistic Coverage Inside al-Maḥrūsah: A Piece of Richness Floating on The Waves of The Sea… The Yacht That Cost One Million Eight Hundred Thousand Pounds to Repair”. Conveying a less celebratory tune, the heavily illustrated Akhir Saʿah report had likewise described the vessel as the “witness of Egypt’s all secrets,” besides using the extravagant and deluxe nature of the “floating palace” as a pretext to condemn the deposed monarchy of the Muḥammad ʿAlī’s dynasty; hereafter, the article concluded with the statement “No matter how much people forget, Egyptians will never forget al-Maḥrūsah with its journey to Capri, which ended the era of injustice and tyranny in Egypt’s history and began the era of freedom, justice, and equality.”

After decades of having been anchored in Raʾs al-Tīn Naval Base, the 2015 event energized an influx of a digitized image legacy of the restored vessel. The visual history of al-Maḥrūsah nurtured a debate among the younger generations on social media concerning propaganda and the political appropriation of the yacht, with the question to whom belonged “al-Maḥrūsah” —the country or the cruiser?

Al-Maḥrūsah, meaning the well-protected, was named after one of Cairo’s Fatimid designations, later widely adopted for Egypt. The yacht was built by Khedive Ismāʿīl (1830-1895), the fifth ruler from the Muḥammad ʿAlī’s dynasty. Historically, modernization had been an essential aspect upon which the Ottoman, particularly the khedivial, propaganda and visual manifestations of state power were intensively contingent. These visual displays of the regime’s power under Khedive Ismāʿīl had been dominant and remarkedly pronounced through urban changes, the construction of memorials, and, substantially, the erection of monumental statues. Equally, as the Turkish Historian Selim Deringil confirms, royal yachts represented an essential element of that period’s visual propaganda; they were part of what Benedict Anderson has called ‘the semi-standardized style’ of ‘civilized’ monarchy in the late nineteenth century, and therefore, al-Maḥrūsah came to being.

In 1863, upon a khedivial decree from Ismāʿīl, the London-based British shipbuilding Samuda Brothers built al-Maḥrūsah. Having been meant to contribute to the Khedive’s international persona, the vessel was designed by Oliver Lang, the same engineer who had designed Queen Victoria’s first steam yacht. Al-Maḥrūsah’s construction was accomplished in August 1865. The original interior design was heavily impacted by ancient Egyptian art, in line with European Egyptomania; however, to convey royal prestige and modernization, the usage of Empire styles was also palpable. This merge of decorative styles was meant to resonate with both the khedive’s European education as well as his intention to project himself as the heir to Egypt’s great civilization.

Since its construction, al-Maḥrūsah’s history has been entangled with that of the Suez Canal. Several months prior to the inauguration ceremony in November 1869, Ismāʿīl took the yacht on a tour of Europe to invite its royal elites to attend the inauguration of the Suez Canal. On November 17^th, 1869, al-Maḥrūsah was the first to cross the inaugurated waterway, and aboard were Eugénie de Montijo, Empress of France, and her husband Napoleon III. In the course of time, the yacht underwent several changes and modifications, among which were interior design customizations to cope with the themes of state visual representation frameworks. For instance, as part of his propaganda efforts to consolidate his rule and maintain supremacy over the region, King Fārūq I (r.1936-1952), aiming to reflect an Arab and Islamic-oriented visual manifestation of omnipotence, added an Arabesque Hall to his yacht in the early 1940s. A few years later, Al-Maḥrūsah brought King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd in 1946, a year after Fārūq declared the establishment of the Arab League in March 1945.

Nonetheless, al-Maḥrūsah, as much as it was destined to witness negotiations, state events, royal weddings, and official ceremonies, was also an onlooker to the rise and fall of khedives and kings. A decade after sailing with its patron across the Suez Canal, al-Maḥrūsah was the same vessel that carried the deposed Khedive Ismāʿīl to his exile in Italy in 1879 after having been ousted by his son Khedive Tawfik. Similarly, in 1914, the ship sailed once again, taking Khedive Abbās Ḥilmī II (r. 1892 – 1914) to his exile in Turkey. In 1946, it sailed with the expelled Italian King Victor Emmanuel III to Alexandria. Eventually, on July 26^th, 1952, al-Maḥrūsah carried the last king of the Muḥammad ʿAlī’s dynasty, Fārūq I, and his infant heir, Aḥmad Fuʾād II, to their exile in Capri, Italy. Accordingly, the yacht witnessed the concluding chapter of nearly a century and a half of a monarchy whose founder was known as “the Father of Modern Egypt.”

Upon attaining power, Jamāl ʿAbd al-Nāssir boarded al-Maḥrūsah on July 26^th, 1956, and crossed the Suez Canal in a visual declaration of the nationalization decree. Moreover, ʿAbd al-Nāssir changed the name of al-Maḥrūsah to al-Ḥurriyah or “liberty” to pronounce the establishment of a new regime and echo his pan-Arabist and anti-colonial political propaganda; hence, the vessel had also carried him to Syria in the 1960s and several other countries. Having been a highly-skilled photographer, while ʿAbd al-Nāssir’s politically oriented visual relics of al-Ḥurriyah were broadly circulated, his family photographs enjoying their time aboard the royal yachts were less so, not to contradict the modest image of the people’s leader.

The yacht continued to maintain its political publicity duties under President Muḥammad Anwar al-Sāddāt (r. 1970-1981). Fittingly, reducing the negative resonance of the 6-day war, al-Sāddāt boarded al-Ḥurriyah on June 5^th, 1975, to declare the Canal re-opening after the victory of Yom Kippur. Likewise, contributing to the image of the “Hero of War and Peace”, al-Sāddāt also sailed aboard the yacht for his peace negotiations in a less nationally acknowledged naval trip to Haifa on September 4^th, 1979. According to al-Ahrām National Newspaper, the yacht kept the name “al-Ḥurriyah” until September 10^th, 2000, when President Muḥammad Ḥusnī Mubārak (r.1981-2011) reinstated the original name to the vessel.

Back to Egypt’s inauguration of the Suez Canal’s new expansion, the current President, ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Sīsī, also boarded al-Maḥrūsah with world leaders on August 6^th, 2015. Marking the 150^th anniversary of the yacht, al-Sīsī sailed aboard al-Maḥrūsah in his military attire, echoing the normative and factual aspects related to the legacy of the yacht and the Canal.

On social media, Egyptian youth recycled the past images of al-Maḥrūsah in a manner via which history had been marked as a means for safer political debate. For instance, the pro-regime pages and users regarded the President’s usage of al-Maḥrūsah as a message to the international community that Egypt is capable of reviving her glorious past and “creating miracles.” Contrariwise, for the antiregime, memes and cartoons, on pages such as Raṣd and even al-Jazeera, of President al-Sīsī aboard the yacht were accompanied by the usage of al-Maḥrūsah patron’s history as metaphors for creating an opposing narrative projecting Ismāʿīl’s financial fiascos onto Egypt’s current economic situation.

I visited al-Maḥrūsah in 2023 as part of an official delegation; the yacht is still in service as a presidential vessel. Therefore, while al-Maḥrūsah officially belongs to the presidency, it seems that its visual legacy has equally been appropriated by the people and contributed to their political debate in the virtual space via means of image activism. Accordingly, joining MEDMACH as a visiting fellow in April and May 2024, I focus on the pictorial legacy of the yacht and the Canal as objects employed in political debates and exchanges. Using visual archives, I am focusing on the theme “In Search of Power and Legitimacy; The Iconography of the Canal and the Cruiser,” where I am scrutinizing the visual relics of the Suez Canal and al-Maḥrūsah and their deployment in the state’s representational frameworks amid the extremely dynamic sociopolitical contexts of modern and contemporary Egypt. Accordingly, I am aiming to add another layer of understanding to role of visuals in constructing not only a cultural history of machinery rooms in the Mediterranean, but also a political one.

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