A Short History of Egypt

With everything going on in Egypt, I felt like digging into Egypt's past to better understand its current situation. I wanted to know how all this came to be, and if the past could say anything about the future. So I've decided to give a little history lesson on the country because I thought the information I found would be for understanding its predicament. Not a comprehensive history, just enough to understand it's current situation, an abrigded version if you will. It's a storied past, and a complex one, too. Here it goes.

Our story starts in 1952, a time that mirrors Egpyt's current revolt discontent with the a hated monarchy and riots were occurring in Cairo. The only major political group at that time was the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in 1928. A group of military officers called the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk and took over power. They represented all the political ideals of the Egyptian opposition, with connections to all political ideologies. One of the Free Officers, Gamal Abdul Nasser, took over power in 1954 and became president in 1956. He became a nationalist hero for Egyptians and Arabs after Egypt's Suez Canal War of 1956 for standing up against colonial control. He ruled as an autocrat, but was very popular among the people of Egypt and the Arab world. (Ironic to today's times, when he offered to resign after Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War in 1967, there were mass demonstrations to keep him in office.) Afterwards, he started to implement what came to be known as Arab Socialism, the details of which aren't necessary to know for our purposes. The main thing to take away is that the US perceived it as socialism, even though it wasn't really the same thing. This lead to the US and the CIA reaching out to Saudi Arabia and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood to take down Nasserism. After the Muslim Brotherhood's failed assassination attempt on Nasser in 1954, it was heavily repressed by Nasser, an oppression that lasted until Mubarak's reign. (There is an Egyptian law outlawing political groups based on religion.) The group has allegedly been invovled in terrorist acts, but the answer is not completely clear.

After Nasser's death in 1970, fellow Free Officer and vice president Anwar al-Sadat took over power. The Muslim Brotherhood was able to reemerge during his rule, but it still didn't have legal status. Sadat's rule was progressive but still experienced violence from discontent with his rule. By making peace with Israel through the Camp David Accords, he also received disapproval from other Arab countries.

Sadat's assassination by Islamist extremists in 1981 lead to vice president Hosni Mubarak taking over power, a reign many of us are now familiar with. His corrupt elections, his control of information, and his emergency law that allows him to arrest thousands with no cause make for an unsavory picture, to say the least. And that brings us to today and the current revolution. I think I understand now one of the reasons why the military is so respected in Egypt and exactly why the Muslim Brotherhood is so polarizing. Egypt went from having a hugely popular military officer autocrat to overthrowing the corrupt on it has now, and with the possibility of political groups being recognized and running freely for elections, who knows what will be the next event in Egypt's story.