The Bloodless Coup

WE STEM FROM COLONIALISM – MASS FRUSTRATIONS AND POPULAR UPRISINGS

“We prefer to rule ourselves badly, nationalists argued, than let ourselves be governed well by others.”

To comprehend fully where the anger and frustration of the Egyptian mob stems from, we must travel back in time, 70 years from the coup, to the year 1882. A brief survey of Egypt’s colonial history is needed to explain the processes of later times. In said year, the British occupied the Ottoman province (more like an autonomous region) of Egypt. As it often was in British colonial and diplomatic past, this too was a masked occupation. Cowering behind ideals, the British have started a gradual, but wholesome change in Egyptian society that would later serve as a catalyst for the uprisings. Fuel for the fire of protest was added incessantly, but, somewhat, unconsciously. Many of the problems that Egypt faces even today arise from the processes that started that fateful year. The gradual change that took place since the occupation, manifested itself on an agricultural level, more than it did on an industrial one. Instead of foodstuffs, local and foreign landowners started growing cotton. Instead of exporting products, Egypt started exporting raw materials, which were then turned into products to be sold, quite ironically, back to the Egyptians. Normally, the prices skyrocketed. Thus began the process that deeply shape-shifted whole of Egypt’s society, in a time when first nationalist voices started to raise shyly. It is safe to say that this process of foreign control ultimately left a deep scar on the Egyptian people and was, quite understandably, in the limelight of nationalist struggle for independence.

The first, bigger strain that the colonialist regime ...

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