Egypt has struggled with creating a united identity because of the diverse ethnicities and cultures that inhabited the land. The idea of an Egyptian state was fully developed after WWI, but even then the identity was contested. After the 2011 revolution there was a shift in mentality as the new government struggled to identify the commonalties and foundation of the citizens in the constitution. Tarek Masiud in “Liberty, Democracy, and Discord in Egypt”, Tahany El Gebaly in “Constitutional Principles,” and John Chalcraft in “Horizontalism in the Egyptian Revolutionary Press” all stress the significance of identity in their respective papers. Although all three sources highlight different topics within the creation of the Egyptian …show more content…
National identity as an Egyptian existed, but the government had not properly REPRESENTED them. Because of that, the citizens were aware of what they wanted, but they labeled themselves incorrectly. There were
“liberals… who fear democracy and democrats who fear liberty” (Masoud 118). During the revolution, the factions were filled with hope that the cause they had fought for could become reality. After the revolution though, the citizens soon were filled with fear because of their lack of understanding of their ideals and ways of implementation (Masoud 117). The levels of uncertainty were astronomical for the success of the ideas. Before the revolution, the governmental structure left little room for freedom to choose different ideas or political identities. Although there was diversity within the government in the sense of different political parties, they did not comprise a large enough majority to have a say. Granted, there were few groups that were well established, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, but the majority of political groups after the revolution were relatively unstable because of how inexperienced they were. These groups could create a foundation for a country when then did not have a platform to stand on for their organization. The largest fear overall though was that a pro-Mubarak government would resume power since the group that had the majority were more inclined to support the
The U.S. Constitution is the document of the principles and system of the United States government. It covers the goals of the new government, the system and purpose of each branch, how the states will work, how to amend the constitution, the supremacy of the national government, and the process of ratification. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of America, that must be followed by everyone. The Constitution of the United States was established at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and signed in 1787. The Constitution is the structure of America, it tells us how everything will work in this nation of ours. Without the Constitution, there would not be any specified rules of how this country is set up and how it works. The Constitution makes us who we are today, it establishes our system of government, our rules of what we can and can’t do, what the government can do for the people, and how everything in America is set up.
This showed that the Egyptian people were very patriotic but at the same time, very stubborn. They were satisfied and appreciated what they had in their lives. From the way they treated Akhenaten’s corpse and abandoned monotheism after Akhenaten’s death, we can deduce that the Egyptian people were conservative people who refused to accept changes applied on them, even
Amongst the turbid and dysfunction that is the Middle East lies the nation of Egypt. Egypt, a major country of the Middle East, is habitually considered stereotypical of Middle Eastern civilization, but further research guides one to the conclusion that Egypt is far from a generic Middle Eastern country. Egypt has a strong tradition of nationalism that has been formed during its history, giving it a national unity that is often non-existent in other Middle Eastern nations (1). This, as well as other advantages that Egypt has gained during its past, has allowed it to rise above the problems plaguing the rest of the Middle East and to form basically its
The U.S. Constitution, as adopted by the Philadelphia Convention on September 17, 1787, sets out three distinct branches of national government and provides powers to each that serve as a check on the others. The branches include the executive branch: the president, the legislative branch: congress and the judicial branch: the Supreme Court. The Constitution is referred to as a living document because it is open to constant change. Additionally, the Constitution is open to constant interpretation by the Supreme Court. When the document was written over 200 years ago, abortion and automatic weapons were not issues, but the Constitution can be interpreted to protect or restrict rights on an assortment of issues. Article 5 of the United
In this paper I will be discussing the various differences and similarities between the Canadian and Egyptian constitutions. There are many differences among both of these constitutions but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of similarities I found during my research. The Canadian and Egyptian constitutions are similar in terms of basic human rights and freedoms. They are different in terms of the actually content, as the Egyptian constitution contains more articles compared to the Canadian constitution.
America was founded by people who possessed a deeply held belief in the idea of a fundamental right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. These fundamental beliefs were traced back to the traditions of the English Common Law and the English Constitution. After the American Revolution the first amendment took the form of a collection of fundamental rights contained within State Constitutions. In response to a lack of national power and unity the form of U.S. Government was altered. The newly ratified U.S. Constitution created a form of government of with three branches with stronger enumerated powers. While the new structure a Supreme Court it but did not expressly protect personal liberties like freedom of religion or freedom of speech. In order to ease antifederalist fears of federal encroachments on person freedom, the first ten amendments were added to the Constitution know as the the Bill of Rights. This altered the new form of government by providing federal restrictions. However during Reconstruction the addition of the14th amendment altered the form of government by requiring due process and equal protection for all citizens. Consequently the Supreme Court in the 1920’s changed the form of U.S. government through Judicial activism by applying the protections of the Bill of Rights like the first amendment to include prohibition of infringements States laws. This opened the gateway for further Judicial activism to define the scope and limitations of these
Conflicts in these countries stem from a complex nature of historico-political legacies of past leaders. While some scholars blame conflicts in Africa to be the consequence of colonialism, I believe it is more complex than that. The continual preservation of the system that does not balance the power differences, however produced group formation along the lines of applicable social identities, as it relates to their experiences. (Volkan, 1997) Bloodline, a metaphor for the process of identity formation draws its strength from the author’s ability to draw a link between social identity formation and blood-related issues. Citing the Middle East, Isreal, and Palestine, his psychoanalytic methods helps in understanding dimensions of social identity formation as one beyond the Freudian understanding of the dynamics of group psychology. (Moghaddam, 2006) equally situates social identity formation as the best explanation for Islamic terrorism.
Many times when people revolt against the government, it leaves the country in a worse spot that it was before. Throughout history there have been many revolutions in many different places. Two of the most significant have been the American Revolution, from the 1700’s, and more recently the Egyptian revolution from 2011. Both of these revolutions have many similarities within each other, but they also have many actions to contrast. The topics being compared include; how the revolutions started. The demands of the revolting groups. Lastly, what the two groups did to protest against the government.
Let take a look at some of the compromises and challenges the Founding Fathers had to overcome when they set out to rewrite the American Constitution. The government built upon the Articles of Confederation was failing and change was needed.
Ancient Egyptian’s global citizenship is documented as one of the oldest, smartest, and strongest societies to ever live. This inspired me to not just look at the strengths in global citizenship, but also examine what happened to this strong society? Upon my research, I found that ancient Egypt’s hardship and success with a societal identity mirrored their hardship and success as a society. I also found that many of their hardships and successes aligned foreshadow where my own society is heading if we continue on the path of inequity, generalized reciprocity, and finity. Ancient Egypt maintained a balance reciprocity beyond their society and a strong identity within their society; in the same breath, the oppression of the poor within their society weakened them as a whole.
A classic example of the radical transformation of Egyptian state religion is found on the
“There was something about her, a certain strength of purpose and character, which confused him…”(Ayyoub 101). This excerpt from the short story “From Behind the Veil,” written by Dhu’l Nun Ayyoub, displays how differently people treat their beliefs. This story, along with an essay, “A Portrait of Egypt,” written by Mary Anne Weaver, discusses the topic of Egypt and how their past has developed today’s culture. Beliefs tend to portray people depending on how they go about it.
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.
Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s was the leader of the Arab world and under the control of Nasser they set out to solve many of the issues of colonialism. Another prominent issue at the time was there was very little infrastructure in Egypt and the infrastructure they had exists mostly to push agricultural commodities to market. Other forms of infrastructure were also lacking. For example, Egypt didn’t have a large school system until the 1950s. There was also economic imbalances, one of which has to do with a small upper-class of ruling elite, the other having to do with how foreign interests capture large sectors of the economy; not a lot of industrial development, and then state-led industrial development. Land is not equitably distributed; there was a lack of an independent army outside of British control; and the country was misrepresented within politics because of the British involvement. Among the newly forming nation states we see Arab countries like Egypt starting to confront these issues and impart emerge as an independent nation state. That is absolute autonomy and sovereignty over their territory. During this time there were two main
In this essay I am going to discuss how the experience of secularization in Egypt exemplifies the inadequacy of Peter Berger’s theory of the process of secularization. I will discuss the differences in Berger’s process and the process evident in Egypt, why Berger’s may have failed to address this. Lastly I will consider Daniel Crecelius’s approach to the question of the secularity of a country that has a secular state but a religious society.