Egypt

**History Of Modern Egypt**

“There is no longer a way out of our present situation except by forging a road toward our objective, violently and by force, over a sea of blood and under a horizon blazing with fire.” -Gamal Aber Nasser

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The quote you have chosen, needs to be put into context, with a date or small explanation. Why is there not a tag for "under Sadat" in your table of contents?

=** __Background__ **= Known as the Egypt Eyalet, Egypt was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1800s. In the late 1800s, as Egypt began to fall into financial ruin, resentment of European and Ottoman influence sparked the Urabi Revolt in 1879. By 1882, British won control over Egypt and reinstated the Khedive system. Britain occupied Egypt until 1922. During WWI Egyptians grew more discontent with the British occupation. In 1919 after the war, Egyptians revolted, and in 1922, Britain recognized Egypt as an independent nation. However, it wasn’t until 1936 that Britain withdrew their troops. The chronology of this background paragraph is not organized. Some more specificity and definition of your terms (Khedive, Urabi Revolution...) would make this background paragraph more inviting and informative.

The Kingdom of Egypt was the period of time under the **Mohammed Ali Dynasty**, during which Egypt was technically an independent state ruled by monarchy. When Egyptian revolts and uprisings terminated official British rule in 1922, the new kingdom was established under the rule of **King Fuad I**. However, though Egypt was technically independent, Britain continued to have significant power in the region, manipulating economic, governmental, and administrative reforms in the new Egyptian government. Furthermore, Britain did not remove military forces from the area, enforcing their control over both the Suez Canal and what is not modern day Sudan. This unyielding British influence in the region spurred the formation of many nationalistic groups, including the **Wafd Party**. The Wafd Party was a political group that fought to obtain sole control of the Suez Canal. King Fuad I struggled to keep both the British and the Wafd Party satisfied during his rule from 1922-1936, when he passed away and abdicated his rule to his son **Farouk I**. Farouk proved to be much less competent than his father, as throughout his rule, Egyptian citizens complained of royal corruption, British influence, and general incompetence. Although he managed to remove all British influence in Egypt by 1949, his defeat in the **Palestine War in 1949** led to **The Egyption Revolution of 1952**, lead by the **Free Officers Movement**. Resigned, Farouk abdicated his throne to his infant son, and the monarchy was formally abolished a year later in 1953. Again, some more specificity is in order here. Some mention of the mandate system and the nature of the privileges that GB retained as a condition of leaving Egypt would bring this section in to clearer focus. Also some attention to WWII years and Egypt's membership in the UN is warranted as well. If you are going to bold terms in order to hi-light them as important, then you need to define those terms. Otherwise, it appears that they text has just been cut and pasted from another site without the step of reformatting being taken.
 * __Kingdom of Egypt__ 1922-1953 **

=__** The Republic of Egypt **__=

__** Under Nasser **__
**Gamal Abder Nasser** (1918-1970) was a colonel in the Egyptian army at the end of the rule of King Farouk. After a disappointing war with Israel in 1948, Nasser and a group he created called the Free Officers decided to create revolution. They were fiery nationalists who wanted to kick out England from Egypt permanently and turn the autocratic monarchy into a republic. In July of 1952, the Free Officers successfully enacted a coup d'etat and declared themselves the **Republic of Egypt**, with a new constitution that, among other things, gave women the right to vote. Nasser himself became president in 1956. He was a charismatic leader, and was a promoter of what he referred to as “Arab Socialism”, in which the government took control of some properties and businesses and dictated inheritance. Under Nasser, Egyptian wealth and literacy rates went up considerably as Egypt began to modernize.

In 1956, Egypt took control of the previously private **Suez Canal Company**. The canal gave political power to Egypt and was a significant boon financially. This move did, however, spark retaliation from Israel and instigate the war referred to as the **Suez Crisis**, in which Israel, France and Britain invaded Egypt, but were eventually forced to retreat by pressure from the United Nations. In 1967, some Nasser’s diplomatic movements (what does "diplomatic movements" mean? This is very vague and does not do enough to help your reader understand what actually caused the war. A sentence or two explaining the creation of the state of Israel and the tension it created in the Middle East would help to bring this into focus) provoked the **Six Day War** with Israel, in which Israel routed Egyptian troops and took control of the Sinai. Disgraced, Nasser decided to resign, but the Egyptian people rallied in the streets for him to continue. Nasser was seen as a hero for the way he stood up against Western culture and supported Arab nationalism and the Arab people: // "If the United States and Britain are partial to Israel, we must say that our enemy is not only Israel but -also the United States and Britain and treat them as such. If the Western Powers disavow our rights and ridicule and despise us, we Arabs must teach them to respect us and take us seriously. Otherwise all our talk about Palestine, the Palestine people and Palestinian rights will be null and void and of no consequence. We must treat enemies as enemies and friends as friends.” - you need to put this quote in context. On what occassion did Nasser make this statement? In what year? // How did the enactment of Emergency Law in 1967 impact the future of democracy in Egypt? After three years of more subdued ruling, Nasser died of a heart-attack in 1970. 

Overall, your information about Nasser is good. Additional information that would improve this section includes the 1953 banning of political parties active before 1952, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, as this sets the stage for Egypt's struggle with democracy. Also, Nasser stint as president of the United Arab Republic gives a window into his goal to unite Arabs under Egyptian leadership. Finally, some attention to the Aswan High Dam and Egypt's reliance on Soviet aid to build it shows the political and economic mindset of Egypt during this time period. The maps you have included of the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War need some context. A clearer caption explaining what that maps show and how it relates to Nasser's rule would make this visual easier to interact with on the wiki. Same issue with the items in bold..why are they bolded? If they are important, you need to define them for the reader. Otherwise it looks like a cut and paste job.

__ **Under Sadat** __ you need to explain how Sadat came to power.  When **Anwar Sadat** succeeded Nasser in 1970, the Sinai Peninsula was in the hands of Israel. After a failed peace negotiation attempt, Sadat ceased hostility and focused on rebuilding his army in preparation for a full scale attack. In 1973 Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel in order to reclaim land on the Sinai Peninsula, initiating the **Yom Kippur War**. Egypt’s performance during the war astonished Israel. By the end of the war, Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe. Egypt signed a treaty with Israel known as the **Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty**, watch your capitalization... winning them the Nobel Peace Prize. The treaty entailed: The full document can be found here: http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/docs/CampDavidAccords.html   This is a cool link, but the text is very dense. I wish you had done more to help the reader interact with the source. For example, the correspondence at the end of the document is quite interesting.   You need to more fully explain what the Camp David Accords were and the role that the United States played in this event.
 * 1) // the full exercise of Egyptian sovereignty up to the internationally recognized border between Egypt and mandated Palestine; //
 * 2) // the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the Sinai; //
 * 3) // the use of airfields left by the Israelis near al-Arish, Rafah, Ras en-Naqb, and Sharm el-Sheikh for civilian purposes only, including possible commercial use only by all nations; //
 * 4) // the right of free passage by ships of Israel through the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal on the basis of the Constantinople Convention of 1888 applying to all nations; the Strait of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba are international waterways to be open to all nations for unimpeded and nonsuspendable freedom of navigation and overflight; //
 * 5) // the construction of a highway between the Sinai and Jordan near Eilat with guaranteed free and peaceful passage by Egypt and Jordan; //

Egypt was the first nation in the Arab world to recognize Israel, contrasting with the Arab nationalistic ideologies previously established by Nasser. (also, under Sadat Egypt broke ties with the Soviet Union and sought to gain US support) The **Arab league** expelled Egypt in response to the Egyptian-Israeli treaty. Sadat’s rule faced turmoil in the last few years of his presidency in the late 1970s. A serious of “**bread riots**” plagued Egypt in 1977, attacking the termination of state subsidies on flour, rice, and cooking oil. These riots forced Sadat to cancel his new policies. Meanwhile, The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty enraged the radical Islamists, namely the Egyptian Islamist Jihad. This group began to accumulate arms and train a military force to orchestrate a complete overthrow of the existing order. Committing a highly unpopular move, (awkard phrase) Sadat rounded up over 1500 people, some of them Jihadists, but many others were intellectuals of many ideological stripes. This roundup missed Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would assassinate Sadat on October, 6 1981. Anwar Sadat was murdered during the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Ronald Reagan condemned Sadat’s death, and dubbed it as an act of infamy. In Libya, however, the radio claimed that this event was the death of a tyrant.He was succeeded by Mubarak. An article breifely describing Sadat's death can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/6/newsid_2515000/2515841.stm -Article on Sadat is good. Same issue with bolded terms. If they are important enough to be bolded, then you need to define them. Overall good information on Sadat. Clarification and specificity as noted in my comments would improve this section.

__**Under Mubarak**__
**Muhammad Hosni El-Sayed Mubarak** was vice president under Sadat since 1975.( awkard phrasing) In 1981, Mubarak took the presidency and was elected for four successive terms, although the validity of these elections is somewhat uncertain. how so..? Egypt’s economy continued to improve, as Mubarak gave more economic freedom to the private sector. However, Mubarak restricted political freedom, as he increased the size of the State Security Investigation Force, the secret police, and outlawed certain opposing political parties. such as? Be specific! Egypt was involved in the **Gulf War of 1991**, joining the allied coalition in the eviction of Iraqi forces Kuwait. This war resulted in great financial boons for Egypt, including debts to Western Powers forgiven. Mubarak also got Egypt to be readmitted into the Arab League after they were kicked out for making a peace treaty with Israel in 1989. Towards the end of his reign, however, it became apparent how corrupt Mubarak really was. Egypt, from 1967 until today, has been under **Emergency Law**, in which constitutional rights are suspended and such things as executions without trials, undocumented detainment facilities, and violation of citizen’s privacy without cause are commonplace. In 2005, Mubarak again won a landslide victory, but it soon came out that he had bought votes in rural areas, used illegal citizens to vote, and forced public workers to vote only for him. When an opposing candidate, Ayman Nour, protested the validity of these elections, he was arrested for forgery and sentenced to five years of detainment. This clear case political injustice, along with rising police brutality, lack of free speech, and several economic issues made Mubarak extremely unpopular towards the end of his reign and sparked revolution of 2011.

The information in this section lacks organization and a sound sense of chronology. The essential issue is that you have not analyzed the information that you have gathered. Again, you must define your bolded terms in order to help the reader intereact with your wiki?

__**The 2011 Revolution**__
What precipiatated the revolt? You need to put the event into some sort of context. I would like to see this section have a bit of a summarizing introduction so that it does not read only as a blow by blow account of the revolution. Again, analysis, not just facts. January, 25 2011 is known as the day of the revolt. Tens of thousands of civilians gathered around Cairo and other cities throughout Egypt for an organized protest. Protests targeted the government, and many were non violent; however, there were reports of police and civilian casualties. In retaliation Mubarak’s government shut down the Internet to stop communication the next day. On January 28 protesters again demonstrated in Cairo and forced the police out of the streets.

 Over the next few days, the Egyptian protests grew more violent, as the streets of Cairo were filled with mobs of pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak groups fighting. Military presence was increased and a curfew was established, but the military refused to follow Mubarak’s orders to fire live ammunition at protesters. On February 1st, President Mubarak promised future concessions to the Egyptian citizens, and announced that he would not run for president in the next elections. Over the next few days, Mubarak repeated his intentions to step down at the end of his term, but refused to resign from his office immediately. However, as protests grew in numbers and intensity, President Mubarak was forced to resign on February 11th. His resignation left Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces in charge of ruling the country.

media type="youtube" key="9MeeMfjZhTA" height="250" width="447" align="right"

An article from a first hand witness of the revolutions that lead to Mubarak losing his power can be found here: [|__http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16716089__]

Both the article and the youtube clip are great, You need to provide some context or explanation around the youtube clip to help the reader interact with it. Otherwise it is just a random clip sitting on the side of your wiki that the reader has no real motivation to watch, which is a shame because it is very powerful. **The Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces** immediately dissolved Egypt’s corrupt parliament and also suspended the ineffective Constitution to meet the demands by demonstrators. They were to hold power for 6 months, at which time elections were to be held. The Council made it a point to distance itself from the previous regime, detaining key members from the prior regime of Mubarak, such as former interior minister Habib el Adly, and former minister of housing Ahmed Maghrabi. The Council held and passed a Constitutional Referendum a month later in March of 2011 with 77% of the votes; this referendum included limitations on the length and number of a president’s terms, and also generally decreased the power of future presidents. A commission was also formed to draw up the new constitution once a parliament was formed.

However, the people of Egypt did not feel that the Council was moving swiftly enough to remove the lingering parts of the past administration. Increasing protests lead the Egyptian Cabinet to order a law, which made any form of protesting that hampers work illegal. From April to the middle of July, there were many huge protests of more than 100,000 people in Tahrir Square of Cairo. The protesters demanded that the slow handling of the trials of corrupt former officials of the prior regime be accelerated, and that all who killed people during the original revolution be put on fair trial. The people also demanded that a new constitution be formed prior to parliamentary elections. Furthermore,because of the fact that the Council had been ruling for more than 5 months with no real signs of upcoming elections, there was a growing fear that Egypt would be placed under indefinite military rule.

In August of 2011, Egyptian soldiers began responding to the peaceful protests with violence. On October 9th, protesters peacefully demanded the dissolution of the Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces and the resignation council chairman <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Field Marshal **Mohamed Tantawi**. These protesters were met attacked by military police, who killed 25 and wounded over 200. On November 19th and 20th, protesters once again returned to Tahrir Square, where they were brutally attacked by Egyptian Central Security Forces using tear gas and guns. Since November 21st, an additional 25 people have been killed and more than 1500 have been wounded according to the Health Ministry.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In response to these protests, the Supreme Council transferred its legislative authority to the democratically elected representatives of the People’s Assembly on January 23, 2012. Almost a full year after the Day of Revolution against President Mubarak, a democratically assembled government met to discuss the future of the country. Two days prior, on the 1 year anniversary of the Day of Revolutions, government leader Marshal Hussein Tantawi partially lifted Emergency Law that had been in place since 1967. The new government is working towards drafting a new constitution to govern the country.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As of now, the conditions of most in Egypt have not considerably changed for the better since the evacuation of President Mubarak’s office. However, the Islamists in particular, have had a huge net gain. The mainstream **Muslim Brotherhood**, which was previously outlawed under the Mubarak regime, now has its own political party, which holds 47% of the seats in the new Assembly.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An in depth article on on the Muslim Brotherhood and some problems Egypt will face after the revolution can be found here:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html

I really like this NYTimes link. It is a particularly good choice, because it is constantly updated to reflect the most recent developments in Egypt.

=__<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Key Facts __= <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1922: Egyptian Independence from Britain <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1936: British withdrawal of troops form Egypt <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1949: Egypt is defeated in the Palestine War <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1952: Egyptian Revolution of 1952 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1953: Republic of Egypt established <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1956: Nasser becomes president and Egypt takes control of the Suez Canal company <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1967: Six day war with Israel where Egypt suffered a humiliating loss <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1970: Nasser dies and Sadat takes office <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1973: Yom Kippur war with Israel where Egypt regains Israel’s respect and signs the Egyptian-Israeli treaty. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1977: Bread riots and unrest among radical jihadist groups <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1979: Egypt expelled from Arab League <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1981: Sadat is assassinated and Mubarak becomes president <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1989: Egypt is readmitted into the Arab league <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1991: Egypt aids Kuwait in the Gulf War <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2005: Rigged elections take place in Egypt; Mubarak wins a landslide victory <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2011: Revolutions
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mubarak resigns
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces rule Egypt

=__Summary__= Your summary is quite weak and does not provide enough analysis of the events in Egypt since WWI. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After Britain recognized Egypt as an independent nation in 1922, they continued to exert a significant amount of power in the area. This era of British influence in Egypt, known as the Kingdom of Egypt at the time, saw only two generations of kings, King Faud I and King Farouk. Before his death, King Farouk unsuccessfully attempted to pass his power down to his infant son in 1952. This monarchy was formally abolished in 1953. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Republic of Egypt followed the fall of the Kingdom of Egypt. There have been four rulers thus far, Gamal Abder Nasser who ruled from 1956 to 1970, Anwar Sadat, who ruled from 1970-1981, Muhammad Hosni El-Sayed Mubarak who ruled from 1981 to 2011, and lastly Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who began ruling in 2011.

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Wiki is weak on analysis. Needs to more specifically explain the significance of Egypt to the Middle East and the world at large as well as its significance to the United States. Additional attention to the internal and external factors contributing to the activities of the country are warranted as well. You need to do more to hi-light the components that were assigned: 20th and 21st century issues for example are lacking. Your wiki reads mostly as a summary of the political leaders of Egypt and less as a showcase of the nation and its place and struggles in the modern Middle East.