Nasser-era Arabism suppressed even the name of Egypt itself

Evidence

During the last fifteen years or more, the Arab rather than the Egyptian line has been dominant. It found its highest expression in the creation (in 1958) of the United Arab Republic after the union with Syria, and in the retention of that title by Egypt alone even after the Syrian secession. During this period even the very name of “Egypt” was wiped off the map. I was told that in elementary schools the history primers dealing with the ancient period spoke not of ancient Egypt but of “the ancient history of the southern region of the United Arab Republic”. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1254

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth verifying whether school primers literally taught ‘southern region of the United Arab Republic’ instead of Egypt — the author himself flags uncertainty.
• XREF: Connects to the recurring theme of invented and imposed national narratives, similar to renamed places in A Very Minor Prophet or colonial renaming dynamics in The Namesake.