On January 25, 2011, Egypt dissolved into protests--a revolution thirty years in the making. The quasi-middle class (not comparable to the American standard of a middle class) of college educated youths and the working class united based on the culmination of years of corruption and abuse and the sparks that the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution and the 2011 Alexandria New Year’s Day bombings represented. The “Five Stages of Revolution” model can be applied to Egypt’s revolution, as well as some aspects of the J. Brown Paradigm of National Development, such as the Identifiable People Group, presented themselves throughout Egypt’s conflict.
J. Brown’s Paradigm for National Development define the Identifiable People Group of a Nationalistic movement
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Aspects of the long term causes for revolution acted as unifying forces between the classes. For example, a “strong sense of solidarity [occurred] among the Egyptian population after the bombing of the Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve” (Elghayesh). Also, once the nationalistic identity shaped by the revolution began to grow, the government served as an antagonist to unite the middle and working classes (Goodman). The IPG’s cultural nationalism came in the form of social media. It became the new cultural norm and helped them to celebrate, share, and understand their culture and also served as a platform to unify them. The use of social media proved unique to Egypt’s IPG as they were the first to utilize this innovation on a broad and generally successful scale to unify themselves and spread the revolution. Consequently, social media has been used to a greater degree as an agent of change throughout the world following Egypt's revolution. The Kony 2012 movement, for example, shows how putting an issue on social media can lead to an international response. Most IPG’s have specifics symbols and things unique to their revolution due to their identity and cultural nationalism. While many protesters held up their shoes, a sign of deception in Egyptian culture, with …show more content…
The most obvious long term cause of the Egyptian Revolution is the nation’s historical and ongoing rampant government corruption. Mubarak ruled after being elected in a series of rigged elections, like the rest of the government. Just as the corruption of the government pressed the Egyptian people towards revolution, corruption and torture policies of the police force bred discontent throughout Egypt. The beating of Khaled Saeed exemplifies this mismanagement: “ Saeed was a 28-year-old Egyptian from Alexandria who was beaten to death on 6 June 2010 for refusing to show his ID to two policeman. He was abducted in a police vehicle, taken to a police station, tortured to death and his corpse was later dumped in the street” (Elgahayesh). Another cause was uneven demographics. Although high population growth is characteristic of a country in stage three, “Take Off” of Rostow’s Stages of Growth, in Egypt this led to a“youth bulge.” Additionally, high unemployment rates, urbanization, and the rapid growth of the university system all skewed Egypt’s demographics. Technology played a large role in setting up Egypt for its revolution as the internet became a standard part of daily life in the twenty first century and encouraged global interconnectedness that allowed information to be freely, to a degree, shared and spread all around the world. The widespread
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/>
The Egyptian revolution was started like any other revolution; the people had a problem with the unfairness of the government. Hosni Mubarak had been in power for 30 years nearly half a lifetime of control. There were multiple attempts to remove him from power, but they were stopped with military force. Near the end of his rule he began to express excessive control of the politics of his people. Declaring that no religious associated groups would be able to hold any political power, with this law he eliminated his biggest rival, the Muslim Brotherhood. Up until 2005 Mubarak did not allow for anyone to run against him as president. He only had a vote for his approval to stay in office. With other opponents running he rigged the elections and
Ajami argues that universalism of Pan-Arabism derived from the universalism of the Ottoman Empire had disappeared after 6 decades. There is no longer a collective Arab crisis and nation states have alternate nationalistic goals. A case in point to support his argument would be the example of Egypt. The country has pertinent political and economic issues to concern itself with. Many face unemployment and the country is on the verge of bankruptcy....
In 2010 the Middle East experienced a disturbing series of protests and riots against the government. The term Arab Spring was coined as an allusion for the 1848 revolutions that rocked the Arab world. This devastating revolution saw its inception in a chain of small scale protests for the democratization of the Arabian governments. With its start in Egypt and Tunisia it has not failed in affecting every Arab country from Libya, Sudan and Morocco in the West to Yemen and Saudi Arabia in the East. A branch of the same revolution has successfully managed to become the cause for a civil war outbreak in Syria and even stretched its influence outside the Arab world to affect Iran and Mali.
Early 2011 uprisings swept across the Middle East and North Africa, and many rebellions are still going on today. The Arab region has seen revolts and conflict since the 1800‘s, but only recently have these revolts been redirected to the problems of Arab society (Ghannam, J. 2011 pg 4-5)The Arab Spring Uprising was first sparked in Tunisia and eventually struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and then spread to other countries. Citizens throughout these countries were dissatisfied with the rule of their local governments. Issues like human rights violations, political corruption, economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, dictators...
All DCM (Discovering a Christian Mind) classes at Calvin read Cornelius Plantinga Jr.’s Engaging God’s World, which discusses why it is valuable to aim to live Christ-like in today’s world. In his book Plantinga explains basic Christian beliefs and Reformed doctrines by highlighting God’s creation, the fall, and human redemption by Jesus’ death on a cross. The ideas of creation, fall, and redemption are displayed by the actions of male protagonists in three major plays: The Tempest by William Shakespeare, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
In Egypt, the political system was based on a one man dictator, Hosni Mubarak, who held his regime for 30 years. He governed the citizens of Egypt, a...
The Arab world consists of twenty-two countries encompassing all of North Africa and much of the Middle East. The Arab people number over 360 million and while they share a common language, there is a surprising degree of diversity among them, whether in terms of nationality, culture, religion, economics, or politics. (McCaffrey, 3) Most inhabitants of the Ar...
As the Arab Spring enters its second year, major uprisings and revolts have occurred all over the Middle East, pushing for an end to the corrupt autocratic rule and an expansion of civil liberties and political rights. Most recently, images from Syria have emerged, depicting the government’s use of force to suppress the voice of its people. One might ask, “Is this the beginning of a revolution? Is the country on the path to democracy?” To assess this question and examine the future trends in the region, one must look back on the country’s somewhat tumultuous history, the relationship between the citizens and the state, and the political economy.
Egypt developed a railway from Cairo to Alexandria as well as ports along the Mediterranean coast because of its dependence upon the European market. The structure of Egyptian politics and state administration was also redefined during Ali’s rule. As the government centralized, it required individuals specialized in Western forms of education to fill its roles of leadership.... ... middle of paper ... ...
This problem all started in 1882 when the British forced Napoleon Bonaparte, the leader of the French Army, out of Africa. Instead of leaving the land of Egypt to its rightful owners, the Egyptians, Britain decided to colonize Egypt and control them through a protectorate. The protectorate allowed the British government to control Egypt's economic and political decisions without intervention from the Egyptians. In other words, The Egyptians had completely lost control of their own country. Well, some of you might ask, "Why would Britain want to keep Egypt?" The response to this is more simple than you might think. Was it the fact that Egypt was such a weak country at the time? Or was it that Egypt was just waiting to be colonized? No, it was greed, pure British greed, that caused the corruption of Egypt's balanced culture.
Different from the prior movements and uprisings that were organised and directed by a chief leader, the insurrections in Arab Spring was structurally changed that started by a mass of the online connected young people. The Internet and social media first empowered the young people to stimulate the uprisings, whi...
An example of a modern nation-state is Egypt. Egypt’s identity is closely tied to its location and their long history. Egyptian’ are and Arabic speaking nation-state with a diverse culture and heritage as a modern nation-state. Their development, over the centuries, saw conflicting beliefs but, most Egyptians today see themselves, their history, culture, and language as specifically Egyptian. Mr. Kamel states that the, “Egypt’s leading roles in Middle Eastern in cultural and political affairs, generally dominates Egypt’s relations with other nations. In turn, this either broadens or limits the scope of choices and opportunities available domestically” (Kamel, 1999).