Egypt has endured as a unified state for more than 5,000 years, archeological evidence indicates that a developed Egyptian society has existed much longer. Modern leaders urge Egyptians to take pride in their "pharaonic heritage" and in their descent from mankind's earliest civilized society. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr, which originally connoted civilization or metropolis.
Archeological findings show that primitive man lived along the Nile long before the dynastic history of the pharaohs began. By 6000 B.C., organized agriculture had appeared.
In about 3100 B.C Egypt was united under a ruler known as Mena, or Menes, who inaugurated the 30 pharaonic dynasties into which Egypt's ancient history is divided--the Old and Middle Kingdoms and the New Empire. For the first time, the use and management of vital resources of the Nile River came under one authority.
The pyramids at Giza near (Cairo) were built in the 4th dynasty, showing the power of the pharaonic religion and state. The Great Pyramid, the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops), is the only surviving example of the Seven Wonders of the World. Ancient Egypt reached the peak of its power, wealth, and territorial extent in the period called the New Empire (1567-1085 B.C.). Authority was again centralized, and a number of military campaigns brought Palestine, Syria, and northern Iraq under Egyptian control.
Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab Conquerors
In 525 B.C., the Persian warrior Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great, led an invasion force that dethroned the last pharaoh of the 26th dynasty. The country remained a Persian province until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. This legendary figure founded and gave his name to Alexandria, the port city that became one of the great centers of the Mediterranean world. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., the Macedonian commander, Ptolemy, established personal control over Egypt, assuming the title of pharaoh in 304 B.C. The Ptolemaic line ended in 30 B.C. with the suicide of Queen Cleopatra. The Emperor Augustus then established direct Roman control over Egypt, initiating almost seven centuries of Roman and Byzantine rule. According to tradition, St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt in A.D. 37. The church in Alexandria was founded about A.D. 40, and the new religion spread quickly, reaching Upper Egypt by the second century.
Following a brief Persian reconquest, Egypt was invaded and conquered by Arab forces in 642. A process of Arabization and Islamization ensued. Although a Coptic Christian minority remained--and remains today, constituting about 10% of the population--the Arabic language inexorably supplanted the indigenous Coptic tongue. Ancient Egyptian ways--passed from pharaonic times through the Persian, Greek, and Roman periods and Egypt's Christian era--were gradually melded with or supplanted by Islamic customs. For the next 1,300 years, a succession of Turkish, Arabic, Mameluke, and Ottoman caliphs, beys, and sultans ruled the country.
European Influence
Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Egypt in 1798. The 3-year sojourn in Egypt (1798-1801) of Napoleon's army and a retinue of French scientists opened Egypt to the direct influence of the West. Napoleon's adventure awakened Great Britain to the importance of Egypt as a vital link with India and the Far East and launched a century-and-a-half of Anglo-French rivalry over the region.
An Anglo-Ottoman invasion force drove out the French in 1801, and following a period of chaos, the Albanian Mohammed Ali obtained control of the country. Ali ruled until 1849, and his successors retained at least nominal control of Egypt until 1952. He imported European culture and technology, introduced state organization of Egypt's economic life, improved education, and fostered training in engineering and medicine. His authoritarian rule was also marked by a series of foreign military adventures. Ali's successors granted to the French promoter, Ferdinand de Lesseps, a concession for construction of the Suez Canal-begun in 1859 and opened 10 years later. Their regimes were characterized by financial mismanagement and personal extravagance that reduced Egypt to bankruptcy. These developments led to rapid expansion of British and French financial oversight, producing in turn popular resentment, unrest, and, finally, revolt in 1879.
In 1882, the arrival of a British expeditionary force, which crushed this revolt, marked the beginning of British occupation and the virtual inclusion of Egypt within the British Empire. During the rule of three successive British High Commissioners between 1883 and 1914, it was the British Agency-not the khedive's palace-that was the real source of authority. Under the "capitulations" to which Egypt submitted, special courts were set up to enforce foreign laws for foreigners residing in the country. These capitulations and resultant privileges for foreigners generated increasing Egyptian resentment. To secure its interests during World War I, Britain declared a formal protectorate over Egypt on December 18, 1914. This lasted until February 28, 1922, when, in deference to growing nationalist current, Britain unilaterally declared Egyptian independence. British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypt's political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, and governmental reforms.
In the postindependence period, three political forces competed with one another: the Wafd, a broadly based, nationalist political organization strongly opposed to British influence that had led the effort for independence immediately after the war; King Fuad, whom the British had installed on the throne during the war; and the British themselves, who were determined to maintain control over the Suez Canal. Although both the Wafd and the king wanted to achieve independence from the British, they fought one another for control of Egypt. Other political forces emerging in this period included the Communist Party (1925) and the Muslim Brotherhood (1928), which eventually became a potent political and religious force.
During World War II, British troops used Egypt as a base for Allied operations throughout the region. British troops were withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947, but nationalist, anti-British feelings continued to grow after the war. Violence broke out in early 1952 between Egyptians and British in the canal area, and anti-Western rioting in Cairo followed.
On July 22-23, 1952, a group of disaffected army officers led by Lt. Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk, whom the military blamed for Egypt's poor performance in the 1948 war with Israel. Following a brief experiment with civilian rule, they abrogated the 1923 constitution and declared Egypt a republic on June 18, 1953. Nasser evolved into a charismatic leader, not only of Egypt but of the Arab world as a whole.
Nasser and his "Free Officer" movement enjoyed almost instant legitimacy as liberators who had ended 2,500 years of foreign rule. They were motivated by numerous grievances and goals but wanted especially to break the economic and political power of the landowning elite, to remove all vestiges of British control, and to improve the lot of the people, especially the fellahin.
A secular nationalist, Nasser developed a foreign policy characterized by advocacy of pan-Arab socialism, leadership of the "nonaligned" or "Third World," and close ties with the Soviet Union. He sharply opposed the Western-sponsored Baghdad Pact. When the United States held up military sales in reaction to Egyptian neutrality vis-a-vis Moscow, Nasser concluded an arms deal with Czechoslovakia in September 1955. When the United States and the World Bank withdrew their offer to help finance the Aswan High Dam in mid-1956, he nationalized the privately owned Suez Canal Company. The crisis that followed, exacerbated by growing tensions with Israel over guerrilla attacks from Gaza and Israeli reprisals, resulted in the invasion of Egypt that October by France, Britain, and Israel. While Egypt was defeated, the invasion forces were quickly withdrawn under heavy U.S. pressure. The Suez war (or, as the Egyptians call it, the tripartite aggression) instantly transformed Nasser into an Egyptian and Arab hero. Nasser soon after came to terms with Moscow for the financing of the Aswan High Dam--a step that enormously increased Soviet involvement in Egypt and set Nasser's government on a policy of close ties with the Soviet Union. In 1958, pursuant to his policy of pan-Arabism, Nasser succeeded in united Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic. Although this union had failed by 1961, it was not officially dissolved until 1984.
Nasser's domestic policies were arbitrary, frequently oppressive, yet generally popular. All opposition was stamped out, and opponents of the regime frequently were imprisoned without trial. Nasser's foreign policies, among other things, helped provoke the Israeli attack of June 1967 that virtually destroyed the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and led to Israel's occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Nasser, nonetheless, was revered by the masses in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world until his death in 1970.
One of the original Free Officers, Vice President Anwar el-Sadat, was elected president after Nasser's death. In 1971, Sadat concluded a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union but, a year later, ordered Soviet advisers to leave Egypt. In 1973, he launched the October war with Israel, in which the Egyptian Armed Forces performed effectively. With his country's credibility restored, Sadat felt able, in 1974 and 1975, with U.S. participation, to negotiate two Sinai disengagement agreements with Israel by which Egypt regained the Suez Canal and parts of the Sinai. In 1977, Sadat journeyed to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Menahem Begin and to address the Israeli Knesset. This breakthrough foreshadowed the Camp David accords of September 1978 and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979, both negotiated with intensive U.S. participation. Throughout this period, U.S.-Egyptian relations steadily improved, but Sadat's willingness to break ranks by making peace with Israel earned him the enmity of most Arab states.
In domestic policy, Sadat introduced greater political freedom and a new economic policy, the most important aspect of which was the infitah, or "open door." This policy relaxed government controls over the economy and encouraged private investment. Sadat dismantled much of Nasser's police apparatus and brought to trial a number of former government officials accused of criminal excesses during his predecessor's rule. This liberalization also included the reinstitution of due process and the banning of torture. Sadat tried to expand participation in the political process in the mid-1970s but later abandoned this effort. In the last years of his life, Egypt was racked by violence arising from discontent with Sadat's rule and sectarian tensions, and it experienced a renewed measure of repression.
On October 6, 1981, President Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists. Hosni Mubarak, vice president since 1975 and Air Force Commander during the October 1973 war, was elected president later that month. Mubarak has maintained Egypt's commitment to the Camp David process, while at the same time improving ties with the Arab world and resuming a more active role in such international forums as the United Nations and the Nonaligned Movement. Domestically, he has supported the public sector of the economy while also encouraging the private sector. His most notable achievements have been to strengthen democratic institutions, to increase greatly freedom of the press, and to put an end to sectarian strife. President Mubarak was re-elected to a second term in October 1987.
Current Political Conditions
The Egyptian constitution provides for a strong executive. Authority is vested in an elected president who can appoint one or more vice presidents, a prime minister, and a cabinet. The president's term runs for 6 years. Egypt's legislative body, the People's Assembly, has 458 members--448 popularly elected and 10 appointed by the president. The constitution reserves 50% of the Assembly seats for workers and peasants. The Assembly sits for a 5-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the president. There is also a 210-member National Shura (Consultative) Council, in which 70 members are appointed and 140 elected under a system in which the party receiving the majority of votes takes all the seats. The council's functions are more advisory than legislative. Below the national level, authority is exercised by and through governors, mayors appointed by the central government, and by popularly elected councils.
Although power is concentrated in the hands of the president and the National Democratic Party's majority in the People's Assembly, opposition parties organize, publish their views, and represent their followers at various levels in the political system. In addition to the National Democratic Party there are five legally constituted parties: the New Wafd Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Nationalist Progressive Unionist Grouping, the Socialist Liberal Party, and the Umma Party. The New Wafd Party and the Socialist Labor Party (in alliance with the Socialist Liberals and the Muslim Brotherhood) won seats in the People's Assembly in elections of April 1987. The law prohibits the formation of parties on religious or class lines, thereby making it illegal for Islamic or communist groups to organize formally as political parties. However members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization legally proscribed under the provisions of this law, are members of the Assembly as part of the Socialist Labor Party delegation.
Egypt's judicial system is based on European (primarily French) legal concepts and methods. Under the Mubarak government, the courts have demonstrated increasing independence, and the principles of due process and judicial review have gained greater respect. The legal code is derived from the Napoleonic code, and within the Muslim community, Islamic law plays a significant role.
The process of gradual political liberalization begun by Sadat has continued under Mubarak. Egypt now enjoys unprecedented freedom of the press, and opposition political activity is regarded by the government as both desirable and natural. The April 1987 parliamentary elections were marked by the greatest freedom of political expression seen in Egypt for more than three decades. Although some electoral irregularities were reported, there were no accusations of widespread involvement by the internal security forces in these activities-a charge frequently leveled in the past.
Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, December 1987.