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The Formation and Actions of the Free Officers movement Essay examples

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In the wake of the second World War a new military coup was being swiftly formed in Egypt by a group of junior officers. It was called the Free Officers movement. Soon after its formation Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser as a result of a populist movement became their leader. According to the group they launched this movement “to put an end to that corruption, ineptitude and treason” (The modern middle east p.238) that was very apparent in the wake of the war and colonialism. As the military offices began to take control they had the tough task of having to weaken the grasp of the social elite on the rest of the population. The effects of the elite were largely seen by their actions in parliament. This was easily seen as the large landowners who are …show more content…

Nasser’s influence wasn’t solely in Egypt, after the success with land reform other countries in the region begin to implement similar land reform laws allowing a middle class to emerge and greatly improving the lives of many working class wage laborers who were previously repressed.

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

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