Dam bad show
'A few weeks before ground was broken for the high dam in 1960, the distinguished Egyptian hydrologist, Dr Abdel Aziz Ahmed, warned the Institute of Civil Engineers in London that the dam's construction was "foreign to Egypt and a complete reversal of time-honoured Nile irriga- tion policy". To build it, he said, would be "unwise and indeed extremely hazardous". He was tired as soon as he got back to Cairo— which took care of Dr Ahmed but not, un- fortunately, of what he had written . . . If the Egyptian fellah has been freed of ancestral fears that the annual Nile flood would bring too much water, or too little, he knows with chilling certainty now that the miraculous muddy brown waters will never come again. One need only look down upon the limpid Nile and see through to its sandy bottom, as I did from a balcony of Cairo's Semiramis Hotel, to sense the enormity of this change. "Terrifying, isn't it?" an Egyptian friend murmured, clutch- ing my arm as he pointed. It is.'—Claire Ster- ling, in the Guardian, Saturday, 20 February, apparently taken from the Washington Post.
'On 15 November, 1960, the distinguished Egyptian hydrologist, Dr Abdel Aziz Ahmed, addressed the Institution of Civil Engineers in London. His subject, the Aswan High Dam, was charged with emotion not only for his own country but after the recent Suez debacle, for Britain as well. The concept of the dam, he said, was "a complete reversal of the time-honoured Nile irrigation policy." . . . To build it would be "unwise and extremely hazardous". .. .
'Now there will never be another flood in Egypt. As the swirling, muddy waters run into Lake Nasser, behind the darn, the priceless sedi- ment sinks. Downstream from Aswan to the Mediterranean, 600 miles away, the waters flow so clear that you can stand on a balcony of the Hotel Semiramis in Cairo and sec through to the river's sandy bottom. Any Egyptian clutching at your arm to show you this will unfailingly add: "Terrifying, isn't it?" '—Claire Sterling in the Sunday Times, 21 February, marked `C) Times Newspapers Ltd., 1971.'
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