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egypts social and economic state
economic problems in egypt
daily life in middle kingdom egypt
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The past half-century of Egyptian history, shows a slight change on the surface of Egyptian society but stagnation and rot at the core. Beginning with Nasser’s socialism and building through the Mubarak regime, Egypt experienced small victories and large losses. Despite finally having Egyptian leaders in comparison to foreign rule, Egypt’s problematic socioeconomic condition has changed minimally. With almost no real economic development outside of Cairo and a severe lack of a common identity, the Egyptian people have not progressed since the Young Officers revolution in 1952. Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs, Sonallah Ibrahim’s That Smell, and Marwan Hamed’s adaptation of The Yacoubian Building illustrate how modern Egypt’s economic inequality facilitates social divisiveness through hatred and moral decay; moreover, only when the Egyptian people transcend their domestic problems by conquering their interpersonal polarization will the nation reach its full potential.
Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs (1962) depicts the apparent hatred between members of different socioeconomic classes. Mahfouz develops Said Mahran to show periodic disgust toward those with greater wealth than himself. When speaking with Ilish Sidra, Mahran challenges, “[t]hen how have you been able to live in such comfort…and spend so generously on others?” (Mahfouz 157). In this specific case, Mahran implies Sidria lives off Mahran’s former wealth. Because he recently left prison, Mahran owns nothing. This situation exemplifies how the rich oppress the lower classes by whatever means necessary. Rauf Ilwan has the greatest wealth of any of the major characters in the narrative. Mahran visits Ilwan for help finding a job, but Ilwan turns him down and suggest...
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...and overthrew Mubarak. Although only an initial step in the path to change, it laid a foundation to build upon. Once they have changed the oppression of the government, perhaps they can turn their attention toward themselves and effect the positive, lasting change their authors and intellectuals have been hoping for since the 1960s.
Works Cited
Ibrahim, Sonallah. That Smell and Notes from Prison. 1966. Ed. and Trans. Robyn Creswell. New York: New Directions, 2013. Print.
Mahfouz, Naguib. The Thief and the Dogs. 1962. In The Beggar/The Thief and the Dogs/Autumn Quail. Trans. Trevor Le Gassick and M.M. Badawi. Rev. John Rodenbeck. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. Print.
The Yacoubian Building. Dir. Marwan Hamed. Perf. Adel Imam, Nour El-Sherif, Yousra, and Hend Sabri. 2006. Good News Group/Arab Corporation for Cinema Production and Distribution. 2008. DVD.
When the pharaoh took the throne nearly five thousand years ago, he inherited a kingdom that had only recently emerged from a long period of civil war. In the beginning the country had been divided into two regions, Lower Egypt (the Delta) and Upper Egypt (the Nile Valley). They two regions were very different. They had different economies, lifestyles, belief systems and artistic traditions. The struggle lasted for many years before the kingdom was forged together. This event took place an estimated 250 years before Djoser took the thrown. However, the union between the two was fragile at best, separatism was strongly present in the north. Before Djoser’s reign, the years were filled with turmoil and civil war. The royal cemeteries show signs of destruction. Exper...
First, political Islam has rogue Egypt and held it down, suffocating the country, not allowing it to stand a chance. President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and people thought that Egypt was getting better. It has not been the case. While Zaki lives in faded luxury and chases women, Bothayna endures sexual harassment while working as a shop assistant to provide for her poor family after the death of her father. Meanwhile her boyfriend, Taha, son of the building's janitor, is rejected by the police and decides to join a radical Islamic group. Egypt is heading towards a bottomless abyss. Everything is controlled by the elite. Jobs are no more; it is preserved for the top. This increases the plight of the people and leads them into committing some of the acts seen in Islam as bad or as a taboo. The political elite are crashing its opponents and ensuring that whoever com...
Ridel, B, 'The real losers in Egypt's uprising', The Daily Best Online, 13 February 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2011< http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-13/al-qaeda-absent-in-hosni-mubaraks-fall-and-egyptian-revolution/>
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1991. Print.
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
Trigger, Bruce G.. Ancient Egypt: a social history. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.
In addition, the author picture the ordinary life of an ordinary Egyptian showing the constant violence directed upon the soldiers in order to improve the discipline and create a perfect environment; the gap between various social layers in the form of doctors who would serve only the rich people and not even paying attention to the poor people in need. Apart from the natural threats in the form of various lethal diseases, they were also threatened by the local taxes and fees that were equal for poor and rich
Throughout the novels of Naguib Mahfouz' Cairo Trilogy, the most noticeable element is the progression of time. In tracing the lives of three generations of the Abd al-Jawad family, Mahfouz manages to structure a chronicle of Egypt during his lifetime that describes not only the lives of the family but the social, political and philosophical change of the entire nation. While it is dangerous to read only for social analysis in Mahfouz' essentially artistic work, the changes in Egypt during the novel make its characters' relationships to a shifting Egypt clear. The character of Kamal is a very intriguing part of this depiction because of his similarity to Mahfouz and the consequent illustration of the changes which seem to have impacted Mahfouz most personally. Kamal can be seen as an essentially autobiographical character as well as a type representing Egyptian philosophical involvement and change between the two World Wars.
Egypt has seen its fair share of foreign influence “from Ottoman in the sixteenth century up to French and British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”1. Time and again Egypt’s society has been subjected to foreign empires. Egypt was subjected to British occupation from the 19th century into the 20th century. In the early part of the 20th century, Egypt was able to gain its independence from Britain, but not after years of rebellion and protest from the Egyptians.
Pinault, David. "The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society." Journal of the American Oriental Society 119 (1999):536-537.
Culture can be defined as the set of a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that members of a society use to cope with their world and one another. Since all wars are fought in and amongst a population, the Army seeks to develop an ability to understand and work with a culture for its Soldiers and leaders (IAW FM-3-24). Culture is the compromise of a particular group of people which defines there language, religion, social structure, art and music people come from many type of backgrounds their heritages represent their values in which are used to make decisions thru out the person life these values were taught and develop from the family after birth and thru adolescent. In this paper I will discuss the Egyptian culture and how it outside factors have contribute to it modern day society.
Situated in the north east of Africa, the Nile is the blood, life and backbone of Egyptian existence and culture, for without it, Egypt would just be a wasteless continuation of the Sahara Desert. In this essay, I will explain the environmental and geographical factors as well as some of their influences upon the political and social structure of the Ancient Egyptians. My references come from a wide range of different books and internet websites.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
Egypt. (2012). In Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Retrieved from http://proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/login?url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/sagecsme/egypt/1
Haddawy, Husain, Muhsin Mahdi, and Daniel Heller-Roazen. The Arabian Nights. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.