The+Middle+East

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Egypt and the Rise of Nationalism in the Middle East MI: War and Nationalist Movements in the Middle East MI: Pgs 798-801 Military Responses: Dictatorships and Revolutions MI:
 * Egypt remained the one country in the Afro-Asian world in which the emergence of nationalism preceded European conquest and domination.
 * The mutiny of Ahmad Orabi and other Egyptian officers, which led to the British occupation in 1882, were aimed at the liberation of the Egyptian people from their alien Turkish overlords as well as the meddline Europeans. The British occupation meant double occupation for the Egyptian people by Turkish khedives and their British advisors.
 * Lord Chromer: A high commisioner of Egypt who pushed for much-needed economic reforms that reduced the power and control of the khedival regime, but they did not eliminate their debts.He also oversaw sweeping reforms in the bureaucracy and the construction of irrigation systems and other public work projects.
 * The leading beneficionaries included foreign merchants, the Turco-Egyptian political elite. a small Egyptian bourgeoise in Cairo and other towns in the Nile delta and the ayan (great landlords in rural areas).
 * The British were forced to rely heavily on local estate-owning in extending their control into rural areas. A result of this, the ayan received most of the benefits from the new irrigation works, the building of railways, and the increasing orientation of Egyptian agriculture to the production of raw cotton for the export market, unlike the mass of rural cultivators and laborers.
 * Under legal restrictions the ayan greedily amassed even larger estates by turning smallholder owners into landless tenants and laborers. As their wealth grew the contrast between the landlords estate shouses and the thatch and mudwalled villages of the great mass of the peasantry became more and more pronounced. They became bored with life in the provinces as the well off classes spent most of their time in the fashionable districts of Cairo or in resort towns such as Alexandria. Their estates were run by hired-managers were were little more than rent collectors as far as the peasants were concerned.
 * The khedival regime and the great landlords were closely allied to the British overlords, so much of the resistence lay within the middle class.
 * During the beginning of the 19th century, a relatively new social class had began to grow in numbers and influence many in towns in the Nile delta.
 * The cause of Egyptian independence was taken up mainly by the sons of the effendi, or the prosperous business and professional families that made up much of the new middle class. Many nationalist leaders who came from rural ayan families built their following among the urban class. In india, lawyers predominated the nationalist leadership in Egypt journalists.
 * From the late 1890's to the 1900's numerous newspapers in Arabic vied to expose the mistakes of the British and corruption of the khedival regime. Egyptian writers attacked the British for their racist arrogance and their monopolization of well-playing positions in the European bureaucracy.
 * Egyptian critics argued that these could just as well have been filled by university-educated Egyptians.
 * In contrast to the congress of India dominated the nationalist movement from the outset a variety of varied parties in Egypt.
 * There were three main alternatives by 1907, but none could be said to speak for the great majority of the Egyptians who were illiterate, poorly paid, and largley ignored urban laborers and rural farmers.
 * Before 1914, the heavy-handed British repression on several occasions brought student riots or retaliation for assaination attemots against high British and Turco-Egyptian officials.
 * The nationalist parties failed to unify and build a mass base in the decades before the war so the extent of the hostility felt by the Egyptian masses that were demonstratted by the Dinshawai incident in 1906. There was a larger confrontation between British officials and their subjects after this time period. Though the incident at Dinshawai seemed to be a small clash resulting in few casualties the excessive Britsh response to it did much to undermine whatever support remained for their continued presence in Egypt.
 * Most villages raised large numbers of pigeons which served as an important supplement to the meager peasant diet. Some of the British had turned the hunting of the pigeons of selected villages into a holiday pastime. A party og British officiials on leave were hunting near Dinshawai in the Nile delta when they accidently shot the wife of the prayer leader of the local mosque. The angry villagers mobbed the outnumbered shooting party which in a major panic started shooting into the village. Both the villagers and the British suffered casualties in the clashes. In reprisal for the death of one of their officials they sought out for members of the villages. Even though the actual hanging was not photographed when they were building the scaffholding. They ordered other villages to connect to the incident by publicly flogged or sentenced to hard labor.
 * British reprisals aroused a strorm of protest in Egyptian press and amonf the nationalist parties. Some Egyptian leaders recounted the incidents and convinced them that cooperation with the British was completely unacceptable.
 * Ayans began to support the nationalist cause. The incident at Dinsawai had galvanized support for popular protest across the communal and social boundaries that had divided the people of Egypt for such a long time.
 * By 1913 the British began to feel a sense of intimidation by the Egyptian nationalism which lead to grant a constitution and representation in a parliamentary elected indirectly by men of wealth and influence.
 * Post World War I resistence to the European colonial domination had largely been confined largely to Egypt in the prewar years which spread to the rest of the Middle East.
 * Mustafe Kemal aka Ataturk was a skilled Turkish millitary commander in the corps during the years. He rallied the Turkish forces and gradually drove back the Greek armies inent on colonizing on the Turkish homeland.
 * By 1923 an independent Turkish republic was established. Astaturk launched sweeping program of reforms, Many of them were radical changes of the government introduced in the 1920's-1930's were modeled by Western prededents including a new Latin alphabet, women's suffrage, and criticism of the veil.
 * Betraying promises to Arab nationalists in Beirut, Danascus, and Baghdad which turned into a new threat presented by the Entente powers. They betrayed the promise to preserve Arab independence that the British forces occupied much of the Middle East in the years after the war. Hussein, the sherif of Mecca has used these promises to convince the Arabs to rise in support of Britains war against the Turks. The allies' postwar violation of these pledges humiliated and deeply angered Arabs throughout the Middle East.
 * Occupying European powers faced stiff resistence from the Arabs in each of the mandates they carved out in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon under the auspicies of the League of Nations. Nationalist movements in these countries gained ground during the 1920's and 1930's. Arab's sense of humiliation and anger was intensified by the disposition of Palestine where British occupation with promises of the Jewish homeland.
 * British had promised Palestine for they received a League of Nations mandate in 1922 to both the Jewish Zionists and the Arabs during the war and greatly complicated an already confused situation.
 * Difficulties that leaders such as Nkrumah faced after independence and military advantages in crisis situations the proliferation of coups in the rising of nations was not a surprise.
 * Armed forces had been divided by the religious and ethnic rivalries that had been disruptive in new nations.
 * The regimentation and emphasis on discipline and in group soliditary in military training often render soldiers more resistent to other social groups to these forces.
 * During hard political and social times, the military possesed the monopoly of force that is often essential to restoring order. Occupational conditionaing makes soldiers ready to be civilian leaders but they were also allowed to use force at their disposal but were still less concerned with their destructive consequences. Militaru personnel tended to have some form of technical training which usually lacked humanities-oriened education of civilian nationalist leaders.
 * Most military leaders had been anticommunist at the time which had attracted cover technical and financial assistance from western governments.
 * Military leaders had banned civilian political parties and imposed military regimes of varying degrees of repression and authoritarian control.
 * In rare cases, military leaders had been radical in their approches to economic and social reform. None was more than Gamal Abdul Nasser who took power in Egypt after the military coup of 1952.
 * Self centered politicians and the corrupt khedival regime had done very little to improve the standards of civilian life.
 * Radical movement which succeeded in gaining power, the Free Officers movement evolved from a secret organization established in the Egyptian army in the 1930's. It was founded by idealistic young officers of Egyptian rather that TurcopEgyptian descent, the secret revolutionary command council studied conditions in the country and prepared to seize power in the name of genuine revolution. Many decades this was allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, another revolutionary khedival regime.
 * Brotherhoodf was founded by Hasanal-Banna in 1928. He was a schoolteacher who studied with famous Muslim reformer Muhammad Abduh. al-Banna developed contempt for the wealthy minority of Egyptians and Europeans who flourished in the midst of appalling poverty of most of his people.
 * Members of the Muslim Brotherhood were committed to revivalist approach to Islam its main focus was on a program of social uplift and sweeping reforms. Their organization quicly became involved in a wide range of activities from promoting trade unions and building medical clinics to educating women and pushing for land reform.
 * His followers fomented strikes and urban rionts and established militant youth organizations and paramilitary assassination squads. al-Banna was murdered himself in 1949. However the brotherhood continued to expand their influence in the early 1950's among both the impoberisje masses and middle-class youths.
 * In July 1952, the almost blooodless military coup toppled the corrupt khedive Farouk from his throne. This signaled the beginning of the revolution. The monarchy was ended and for the first time since 6th century B.C. the Egyptians were allowed to Rule themselves.
 * By 1954 all political parties had been isbanded including the Muslim Brotherhood which had eventually clashed with its former allies in the millitary.
 * Nasser and his fellow followers used the dictorial powers they had won in the coup to force through programs that they believed would uplift the long struggling Egyptian masses. They were convinced that only the state had the power to carry out certain economic and social reforms. Land reform measures were enacted: limits were placed on how much land an indicidual coupld own, and excess lands were seized and redistributed to landless peasants. State financial education through college levels were now made available.
 * By 1980 more than 30% of Egypts workforce was on the states payroll. State subsidies were used to lower the price of basic food staples, such as wheat and cooking oil. Stae-controlled develpment schemes were introduced which emphasized industrial growth modeled after plans of the Soviet Union.
 * Restrictions were made on foreign investments.
 * Anwar Sadat- Nassers successor had little choice but to dismantle the massive state that had been created. He favored private rather than state initiatives.
 * Hosni Mubarak- Sadats successor. Failed to carry on their legacies.

Leader Analysis Sheet


 * Name of Leader: Gamal Abdul Nasser ||
 * Lifespan: January 15, 1918 - September 28, 1970 || Title: Military Commander ||
 * Country/region: Egypt || Years in Power: 1956-1970 ||
 * Political, Social, & Economic Conditions Prior to Leaders Gaining Power


 * Ideology, Motivation, Goals: ||
 * Significant Actions & events During Term of Power ||
 * Short-Term effects: || Long-Term Effects: ||
 * Short-Term effects: || Long-Term Effects: ||

Leader Analysis Sheet


 * Name of Leader: Mohandas Gandhi ||
 * Lifespan: 2 October 1869 - 30 January 1948 || Title: Bapu ||
 * Country/region: India || Years in Power: 1921-1948 ||
 * Political, Social, & Economic Conditions Prior to Leaders Gaining Power


 * India was a small colony controlled by Great Britain. ||
 * Ideology, Motivation, Goals:


 * Civil disobedience.
 * He wanted to bring India to a state of power that was free from the British in a way that was civil rather than seeing any bloodshed.
 * Rowlatt Act
 * Indian National Congress (He later went on the become the leader of the congress in 1921) ||
 * Significant Actions & events During Term of Power


 * Quiet Indian Movement (1942)
 * Satyagraha- his advocacy of peaceful boycotts, strikes, noncooperation and mass demonstrations ||
 * Short-Term effects:

Peaceful riots rather than bloody wars surrounded India. || Long-Term Effects started the basis for Indian culture since being freed from the British ||

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