Democracy in Egypt

Furthermore, Egypt then gained its independence in 1922, it being granted by the British; but the much of the British remained in the northern region of Egypt and in the duration of World War II, Egypt and the Suez Canal were fundamental connections in the empire of Britain. A government was then under king Farouk in 1936 but the government was very inefficient and corrupt. Egypt was not very happy with Britain’s control of the Suez Canal. In the year of 1952, army officers commenced a revolution to overthrow King Farouk and in 1953 a republic was established in Egypt. The leader of this revolution was Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser and became the

This led to scarce food supplies, forced labor, and mistreatment of the peasantry, so Egypt was ready for a revolt at the end of the war. The Egyptian nationalist elites decided to form a Wafd (meaning ‘delegation’ in Arabic) party under the leader Sa’d Zaghlul that rid the British in 1936 from the Suez Canal. However, they did very little to alleviate the misery of the majority. Rather, Egyptian politicians held office just to increase their own family fortune and had no time for land reforms and public works projects that the peasantry desperately needed. Thus, the Egytian revolution led to backwardness.

Larry Diamond's presentation explores the question of why there are no Arab democracies in the Middle East and North Africa. He shows us the relatively stagnant levels of democratic freedoms that have been the norm in the region for the past several decades. Diamond gives us a multitude of potential explanations for the absence of a sustainable democracy.

The situation was already so poor that the citizens chose to bear with it instead of fixing it. For example, the country’s total imports was greater than the country’s total exports. This proved how weak and unstable the government system was. According to the Washington Post, “You had 10 percent unemployment and 25 percent youth unemployment. Already there was a sense of a lack of opportunity and declining social mobility. So Egypt went into its revolution when it was already in difficult economic

(1769-1849) Muhammad Ali was the founder of a dynasty that ruled Egypt in the beginning of 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. He encouraged the emergence of the modern Egyptian state. In 1798, Egypt was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, and occupied by French force under Napoleon Bonaparte. The three-year French occupation (1798–1801) had disrupted the country’s traditional political and economic structure. Ali arrived there in 1801 as a commander of a 300 men Albanian regiment sent b the Ottoman

In 1882, Great Britain took over Egypt through military invasions, making it a protectorate in order to have control over the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal connected the British Empire in the west to India in the east, making it significant trade route for Britain to control. During the Cold War, Egypt became an area of great tension, challenging British control over the canal. There was an increase of nationalism, along with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser to power. His rise to power lead to the Suez Canal Crisis and Egypt’s independence from Britain in 1956. The Arab Spring began in Tunisia in December, 2010, eventually spreading to Egypt in 2011. British control over parts of Africa during the nineteenth century lead to many crises in the 20th and 21st centuries, including the Suez Canal Crisis and the Arab Spring in Egypt.

Egypt, in contrast to Palestine, was the leader of the Arab world. In the 1800s, Egypt, under the leadership of Muhammad Ali, began a campaign of “defensive modernization”; that is, an importation of military and economic principles of the West in an effort to rejuvenate the Arab world and its culture. The khedives (rulers) who succeeded Ali continued his campaign of modernization by constructing new facilities; the Suez Canal, an important position in trade between Europe and the Far East, was constructed in 1869. However, this modernization invited the imperialism that Egypt sought to avoid ; in 1883, Egypt became a “veiled protectorate” (an unofficial colonial dependency), and on the eve of World War I, a formal British protectorate was established until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

In Cairo’s Revolution essay, we know that the Egyptians think that their president is terrible,and they want him to step down. They also don’t want his son to take his thrown because they don’t have good plans to take care of the government. This is related to their freedom to vote. People should have their freedom to vote because they live in the society that they have the right to choose what they want. If we have our freedom then it show our democratic politics.

entered a stage of stability and growth, with the government caring more for the people. Egypt

To gain power and to be the leader of Egypt, he committed massacres of Mamluks who ruled Egypt before French invaded. He killed them, and the event became known as the Massacre of Cidetal. The fact that he slaughtered innocent people seems cruel and brutal. However, it was necessary to overthrow the government ruled by Mamluks for the development of Egypt, considering the government’s weaknesses. The government at the time was ineffective and weak. Mamluks “were not united, and struggled for power among themselves”(“The Pasha’s Bedouin”). Egypt was invaded because the government was not functioning properly, and Mamluks were not able to do anything even after French started to rule the country. By taking power from Mamluks entirely, Muhammad Ali minimized the possibility of rebellions and established the strong military which prevented other countries from invading Egypt. Some other sacrifices were made during his modernization project. His modernization cost “the lives of some 100,000 of the Egyptian peasants who were ordered to do the digging” and caused great suffering as he increased the taxes. (“Muhammad Ali Pasha”). A tax inspector who served for Muhammad stated “a village which had formerly paid 1,000 riyals in taxes … was now assessed at between 10,000 and 100,000 riyals, more or less” because Muhammad increased taxes (“Muhammad `Ali's Tax Inspectors”). The increase in taxes would have caused great suffering to people. However, it cannot be denied that his modernization plans were needed to make Egypt strong. Although people suffered from high taxes, he brought positive influences on Egypt by using those taxes effectively. With his projects, Egypt was able to establish cotton agriculture which still supports Egypt’s economy still today, and brought economic growth which would make people’s lives better because the country can get more profits to organize and to create

Doctor Hosam says: “It was a cumulative series of injustice over 30 years and more ending by monopolizing the senate house elections. Egyptian people were treated badly and corruption was disseminating to

A period of civil unrest and revolt plagued the British mandate government in Iraq. Arab nationalist and other political activists led an uprising against the Regent monarch resulting in a coup d’etat in July 1958 by members of the newly formed Ba’ath Party. (4) A series of power struggles ended 10 years later placing Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr as President, with a young Saddam Hussein as his deputy.

With the development of human society, civilization is incessantly progressive. One aspect of human civilization’s progress is political civilization. Democratic politics can be considered to be the representatives of political civilization. When people refer to the history of human progress, they find that human beings struggle to achieve this great goal and no one can stop the human desire for political freedom. In 2011, one more country took a step towards democracy. Egypt is in the ancient, sacred and conservative Middle East. Egyptians are cheering for their own political aspirations as they overthrew Mubarak’s dictatorship, and are gradually making efforts to establish a democratic and peaceful country.

Over the last century, the Middle East has been the location of ethnic rivalry, political and economic instability, religious conflict, territorial dispute and war. Much of this tension in the Middle East comes from the various interpretations of Islam and how the religion should be applied to politics and society. Over the last ten years, the United States and their allies have pushed to promote democracy in the Middle East. However, they too have many obstacles they must overcome. They face problems such as the compatibility of Islamic law and democracy, the issue of women’s rights, and there is always the problem of how to go about implementing a democratic reform in these countries. Many initially would assume that it is only the

However, in practice, the president of Egypt wields much more power than the prime minister as he heads the executive branch to which the constitution grants wider powers. Mubarak is considered to be one of the most powerful leaders in the region. Mubarak is most likely to win another presidential term, elections to which will be held in 2011. Egypt is a state dominated by a single party; the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is currently holding all the power. Hosni Mubarak, the ruling president, has headed the NDP since 1981.Other political parties are allowed by the constitution, although their chances of winning the elections are very low.