RIGHT

Between 1882 and 1906, a local nationalist movement for independence was taking shape. The Dinshaway Incident prompted Egyptian opposition to take a stronger stand against British occupation and the first political parties were founded. After the first World War, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement after gaining a majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on March 8, 1919, Egypt witnessed its first modern revolution. Constant revolting by the Egyptian people throughout the country led Great Britain to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt's independence on February 22, 1922.[17]

The new Egyptian government drafted and implemented a new constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghlul was popularly-elected as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924, and in 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. Continued instability in the government due to remaining British control and increasing political involvement by the king led to the ouster of the monarchy and the dissolution of the parliament in a military coup d'état known as the 1952 Revolution. The officers, known as the Free Officers Movement, forced King Farouk to abdicate in support of his son Fuad.
Evening view of Cairo, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East. The Cairo Opera House (center) is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital.
Evening view of Cairo, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East. The Cairo Opera House (center) is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital.

The Egyptian Republic was declared on 18 June 1953 with General Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic. Naguib was forced to resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser – the real architect of the 1952 movement – and was later put under house arrest. Nasser assumed power as President and declared the full independence of Egypt from the United Kingdom on June 18, 1956. His nationalization of the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956 prompted the 1956 Suez Crisis. Three years after the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel had invaded an occupied Sinai, Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972, and launched the Infitah economic reform policy, while violently clamping down on religious and secular opposition alike.

In 1973, Egypt, along with Syria, launched the October War, a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate the territory Israel had captured 6 years earlier. Both the US and the USSR intervened and a cease-fire was reached between both sides. Despite not being a complete military success, most historians agree that the October War presented Sadat with a political victory that would later allow him to pursue peace with Israel. In 1977, Sadat made a historic visit to Israel which led to the 1979 peace treaty in exchange for the complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous controversy in the Arab world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League, but was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.[18] Sadat was assassinated in Cairo by a fundamentalist military soldier in 1981 and was succeeded by the incumbent Hosni Mubarak. In 2003, the Egyptian Movement for Change, popularly known as Kifaya, was launched to seek a return to democracy and greater civil liberties.

Identity
Mahmoud Mokhtar's Egypt's Renaissance 1919-1928, Cairo University.
Mahmoud Mokhtar's Egypt's Renaissance 1919-1928, Cairo University.

The Egyptian Nile Valley was home to one of the oldest cultures in the world, spanning three thousand years of continuous history. When Egypt fell under a series of foreign occupations after 343 BC, each left an indelible mark on the country's cultural landscape. Egyptian identity evolved in the span of this long period of occupation to accommodate in principal two new religions, Christianity and Islam, and a new language, Arabic, and its spoken descendant, Egyptian Arabic. The degree with which these factors are estimated today by different groups in Egypt in articulating a sense of collective identity can vary greatly, and therefore continue to be a source of frequent debate.

Questions of identity came to fore in the last century as Egypt sought to free itself from foreign occupation for the first time in two thousand years. Three chief ideologies came to head and would eventually compete with one another (and continue to do so to this day): ethno-territorial Egyptian nationalism (and by extension Pharaonism), secular Arab nationalism (and by extension pan-Arabism) and Islamism. Egyptian nationalism predates its Arab counterpart by many decades, having roots in the nineteenth century and eventually becoming the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian anti-colonial activists of the pre- and inter-war periods. It was nearly always articulated in exclusively Egyptian terms:
“ What is most significant [about Egypt in this period] is the absence of an Arab component in early Egyptian nationalism. The thrust of Egyptian political, economic, and cultural development throughout the nineteenth century worked against, rather than for, an "Arab" orientation... This situation—that of divergent political trajectories for Egyptians and Arabs—if anything increased after 1900.[19] ”

In 1931, Syrian Arab nationalist Sati' al-Husri remarked following a visit to Egypt that "[Egyptians] did not possess an Arab nationalist sentiment; did not accept that Egypt was a part of the Arab lands, and would not acknowledge that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab nation."[20] Incidentally, the later 1930s would become a formative period for Arab nationalism in Egypt, thanks in large part to efforts by Syrian/Palestinian/Lebanese intellectuals.[21] Yet a year after the establishment of the League of Arab States in 1945 to be headquartered in Cairo, Oxford University historian H. S. Deighton was still writing:
“ The Egyptians are not Arabs, and both they and the Arabs are aware of this fact. They are Arabic-speaking, and they are Muslim—indeed religion plays a greater part in their lives than it does in those either of the Syrians or the Iraqi. But the Egyptian, during the first thirty years of the [twentieth] century, was not aware of any particular bond with the Arab East... Egypt sees in the Arab cause a worthy object of real and active sympathy and, at the same time, a great and proper opportunity for the exercise of leadership, as well as for the enjoyment of its fruits. But she is still Egyptian first and Arab only in consequence, and her main interests are still domestic. [22] ”

It was not until the Nasser era more than a decade later that Arab nationalism became a state policy and a means with which to define Egypt's position in the Middle East and the world,[23] usually articulated vis-à-vis Zionism in the neighbouring Jewish state. For a while Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, and when the union was dissolved, it eventually gave rise to the current official name, Arab Republic of Egypt. Egypt's attachment to Arabism, however, was particularly questioned after its defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War, when thousands of Egyptians lost their lives and the country become disillusioned with Arab politics.[24] Nasser's successor Sadat, both by policy and through his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian particularist orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt was his responsibility, and the terms "Arab", "Arabism" and "Arab unity", save for the new official name, became conspicuously absent.[25] Indeed, as professor of Egyptian history P. J. Vatikiotis explains:
“ ...the impact of the October 1973 War (also known as the Ramadan or Yom Kippur War) found Egyptians reverting to an earlier sense of national identity, that of Egyptianism. Egypt became their foremost consideration and top priority in contrast to the earlier one, preferred by the Nasser régime, of Egypt's role and primacy in the Arab world. This kind of national 'restoration' was led by the Old Man of Egyptian Nationalism, Tawfiq el-Hakim, who in the 1920s and 1930s was associated with the Pharaonist movement.[26] ”

The question of identity continues to be debated today. Many Egyptians feel that Egyptian and Arab identities are linked and not necessarily incompatible, while many others continue to believe that Egypt and Egyptians are simply not Arab, emphasizing indigenous Egyptian heritage, culture and independent polity, pointing to the failures of Arab nationalist policies, and publicly voicing objection to the present official name of the country. This is frequently expressed by ordinary Egyptians themselves; for example, a foreign tourist gave this impression after visiting Egypt: "Although an avowedly Islamic country and now part and parcel of the Arab world, Egyptians are very proud of their distinctiveness and their glorious Pharaonic past dating back to 3500 BC... 'We are not Arabs, we are Egyptians,' said tour guide Shayma, who is a devout Muslim."[27]

In late 2007, el-Masri el-Yom daily newspaper conducted an interview at a bus stop in the working-class district of Imbaba about what Arab nationalism [el-qawmeyya el-'arabeyya] means to the people. An Egyptian Muslim youth responded: "Arab nationalism means that the Egyptian Foreign Minister in Jerusalem gets humiliated by the Palestinians, that Arab leaders dance on hearing of Sadat's death, that Egyptians get humiliated in the Arab Gulf States, and of course that Arab countries get to fight Israel until the last Egyptian soldier."[28] Another said that "Arab countries hate Egyptians" and that unity with Israel may even be more of a possibility than Arab nationalism, because he believes that Israelis at least respect Egyptians.[29]

Some contemporary prominent personalities who oppose Arab nationalism include Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass[30], popular writer Osama Anwar Okasha, Egyptian-born Harvard University Professor Leila Ahmed, Member of Parliament Suzie Greiss[31], in addition to different local groups and intellectuals.[32][33][34][35][36] This understanding is also expressed in other contexts,[37][38] such as Neil DeRosa's novel Joseph's Seed in his depiction of an Egyptian character "who declares that Egyptians are not Arabs and never will be."[39]

Egyptian critics of Arab nationalism contend that it has worked to erode and/or relegate native Egyptian identity by superimposing only one aspect of Egypt's culture. These views and sources for collective identification in the Egyptian state are captured in the words of a linguistic anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in Cairo:
“ Historically, Egyptians have considered themselves as distinct from 'Arabs' and even at present rarely do they make that identification in casual contexts; il-'arab [the Arabs] as used by Egyptians refers mainly to the inhabitants of the Gulf states... Egypt has been both a leader of pan-Arabism and a site of intense resentment towards that ideology. Egyptians had to be made, often forcefully, into "Arabs" [during the Nasser era] because they did not historically identify themselves as such. Egypt was self-consciously a nation not only before pan-Arabism but also before becoming a colony of the British Empire. Its territorial continuity since ancient times, its unique history as exemplified in its pharaonic past and later on its Coptic language and culture, had already made Egypt into a nation for centuries. Egyptians saw themselves, their history, culture and language as specifically Egyptian and not "Arab."[40] ”

Politics

Main article: Politics of Egypt

National

Egypt has been a republic since 18 June 1953. President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has been the President of the Republic since October 14, 1981, following the assassination of former-President Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat. Mubarak is currently serving his fifth term in office. He is the leader of the ruling National Democratic Party. Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif was sworn in as Prime Minister on 9 July 2004, following the resignation of Dr. Atef Ebeid from his office.

Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term, was held in September 2005.

In late February 2005, President Mubarak announced in a surprise television broadcast that he had ordered the reform of the country's presidential election law, paving the way for multi-candidate polls in the upcoming presidential election. For the first time since the 1952 movement, the Egyptian people had an apparent chance to elect a leader from a list of various candidates. The President said his initiative came "out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy."[41] However, the new law placed draconian restrictions on the filing for presidential candidacies, designed to prevent well-known candidates such as Ayman Nour from standing against Mubarak, and paved the road for his easy re-election victory.[42] Concerns were once again expressed after the 2005 presidential elections about government interference in the election process through fraud and vote-rigging, in addition to police brutality and violence by pro-Mubarak supporters against opposition demonstrators.[43] After the election, Egypt imprisoned Nour, and the U.S. Government stated the “conviction of Mr. Nour, the runner-up in Egypt's 2005 presidential elections, calls into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.”[44]

As a result, most Egyptians are skeptical about the process of democratization and the role of the elections. Less than 25 percent of the country's 32 million registered voters (out of a population of more than 78 million) turned out for the 2005 elections.[45] A proposed change to the constitution would limit the president to two seven-year terms in office.[46]

Thirty-four constitutional changes voted on by parliament on March 19, 2007 prohibit parties from using religion as a basis for political activity; allow the drafting of a new anti-terrorism law to replace the emergency legislation in place since 1981, giving police wide powers of arrest and surveillance; give the president power to dissolve parliament; and end judicial monitoring of election. [47] As opposition members of parliament withdrew from voting on the proposed changes, it was expected that the referendum will be boycotted by a great number of Egyptians in protest of what has been considered a breach of democratic practices. Eventually it was reported that only 27% of the registered voters went to the polling stations under heavy police presence and tight political control of the ruling National Democratic Party. It was officially announced on March 27,2007 that 75.9% of those who participated in the referendum approved of the constitutional amendments introduced by President Mubarak and was endorsed by opposition free parliament, thus allowing the introduction of laws that curbs the activity of certain opposition elements particularly Islamists.

Human rights