Egypt

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{history} {morphology} {population} {economy} {bilateral}

{History of Egypt}

Prehistoric Egypt
There is evidence of rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in the desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of huntergatherers and fishers replaced a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.

By about 6000 BC the Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley.During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to Dynastic Egyptian civilization. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining somewhat culturally separate, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BC.

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{History of Egypt}

Ancient Egypt pt.1

A unified kingdom was founded circa 3150 BC by King Menes, giving rise to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia. Egyptians subsequently referred to their unified country as tawy, meaning "two lands", and later kemet (Coptic: kmi), the "black land", a reference to the fertile black soil deposited by the Nile river. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. The first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the stage for the Old Kingdom period, c.27002200 BC., famous for its many pyramids, most notably the Third Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the Fourth Dynasty Giza Pyramids. The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval for about 150 years. Stronger Nile floods and stabilization of government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country in the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BC, reaching a peak during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the arrival of the first foreign ruling dynasty in Egypt, that of the Semitic Hyksos. The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt around 1650 BC and founded a new capital at Avaris. They were driven out by an Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes.

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{History of Egypt}

Ancient Egypt pt.2

Djoser Pyramid

The Great Sphinx and Giza Pyramid

Giza Pyramid

The New Kingdom (c.15501070 BC) began with the Eighteenth Dynasty, marking the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded during its greatest extension to an empire as far south as Tombos in Nubia, and included parts of the Levant in the east. This period is noted for some of the most well-known Pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The first historically attested expression of monotheism came during this period in the form of Atenism. Frequent contacts with other nations brought new ideas to the New Kingdom. The country was later invaded and conquered by Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians, but native Egyptians eventually drove them out and regained control of their country.

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Persian, Greek and Roman Occupation

The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling dynasty during the Pharaonic epoch. It fell to the Persians in 343 BC after the last native Pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated in battle. Later, Egypt fell to the GrecoMacedonians and Romans, beginning over two thousand years of foreign rule. The last ruler from the Ptolemaic line was Cleopatra VII, who committed suicide with her lover Marc Antony, after Caesar Augustus had captured them.
The Hanging Church of Cairo, first built in the third or fourth century AD, is one of the most famous Coptic Churches in Egypt.

Before Egypt became part of the Byzantine realm, Christianity had been brought by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the AD first century. Diocletian's reign marked the transition from the Roman to the Byzantine era in Egypt, when a great number of Egyptian Christians were persecuted. The New Testament had by then been translated into Egyptian. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established.

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{History of Egypt}

Arab and Ottoman Era

The Byzantines were able to regain control of the country after a brief Persian invasion early in the seventh century, until in AD 639, Egypt was absorbed into the Islamic Empire by the Muslim Arabs. When they defeated the Byzantine Armies in Egypt, with the help of some revolutionary Egyptians, the Arabs brought Sunni Islam to the country. Early in this period, Egyptians began to blend their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices that had survived through Coptic Christianity that was expanded in Egypt by the Byzantines, giving rise to various Sufi orders that have flourished to this day. Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries, with Cairo as the seat of the Caliphate under the Fatimids. With the end of the Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about AD 1250. By late 13th century, Egypt linked the Red Sea, India, Malaya, and East Indies. The strategic positioning "assured importance in productive economy". They continued to govern the country until the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517, after which it became a province of the Ottoman Empire. The mid-14th-Century Black Death killed about 40% of the country's population. After the 15th century, the threat of military European Crusaders and Central Asian Mongols set the Egpytian system into decline. The defensive militarization challenged the civil society and economic institutions. The weakening of the economic system combined with the effects of Black Death left Egypt vulnerable to foreign invasion which can be seen with the Portuguese taking over their trade. The famine that afflicted Egypt in 1784 cost it roughly one-sixth of its population.

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{History of Egypt}

Modern History pt.1

The brief French invasion of Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte began in 1798. The expulsion of the French in 1801 by Ottoman, Mamluk, and British forces was followed by four years of anarchy in which Ottomans, Mamluks, and Albanians who were nominally in the service of the Ottomans, wrestled for power. Out of this chaos, the commander of the Albanian regiment, Muhammad Ali (Kavalali Mehmed Ali Pasha) emerged as a dominant Coat of arms figure and in 1805 was acknowledged by the Sultan in Istanbul as his of the House viceroy in Egypt; the title implied subordination to the Sultan but this was of Mohamed in fact a polite fiction: Ottoman power in Egypt was finished and Ali Muhammad Ali, an ambitious and able leader, established a dynasty that was to rule Egypt (at first really and later as British puppets) until the revolution of 1952. His primary focus was military: he annexed Northern Sudan (18201824), Syria (1833), and parts of Arabia and Anatolia; but in 1841 the European powers, fearful lest he topple the Ottoman Empire itself, checked him: he had to return most of his conquests to the Ottomans, but he kept the Sudan and his title to Egypt was made hereditary. A more lasting consequence of his military ambition is that it made him the moderniser of Egypt. Anxious to learn the military (and therefore industrial) techniques of the great powers he sent students to the West and invited training missions to Egypt. He built industries, a system of canals for irrigation and transport, and reformed the civil service.

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{History of Egypt}

Modern History pt.2

For better or worse, the introduction in 1820 of long-staple cotton, the Egyptian variety of which became famous, transformed Egyptian agriculture into a cash-crop monoculture before the end of the century. The social effects of this were enormous: it led to the concentration of agriculture in the hands of large landowners, and, with the additional trigger of high cotton prices caused by the United States' civil war production drop, to a large influx of foreigners who began in earnest the exploitation of Egypt for international commodity production. Muhammad Ali was succeeded briefly by his son Ibrahim (in September 1848), then by a grandson Abbas I (in November 1848), then by Said (in 1854), and Isma'il (in 1863). Abbas I was cautious. Said and Ismail were ambitious developers; unfortunately they spent beyond their means. The Suez Canal, built in partnership with the French, was completed in 1869. The expense of this and other projects had two effects: it led to enormous debt to European banks, and caused popular discontent because of the onerous taxation it necessitated. In 1875 Ismail was forced to sell Egypt's share in the canal to the British Government. Within three years this led to the imposition of British and French controllers who sat in the Egyptian cabinet, and, "with the financial power of the bondholders behind them, were the real power in the Government."

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Modern History pt.3

Local dissatisfaction with Ismail and with European intrusion led to the formation of the first nationalist groupings in 1879, with Ahmad Urabi a prominent figure. In 1882 he became head of a nationalist-dominated ministry committed to democratic reforms including parliamentary control of the budget. Fearing a diminishment of their control, Britain and France intervened militarily, bombarding Alexandria and crushing the Egyptian army at the battle of Tel el-Kebir. They reinstalled Ismail's son Tewfik as figurehead of a de facto British protectorate. In 1914 the Protectorate was made official, and the title of the head of state, which had changed from pasha to khedive in 1867, was changed to sultan, to repudiate the vestigial suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan, who was backing the Central Powers in World War I. Abbas II was deposed as khedive and replaced by his uncle, Hussein Kamel, as sultan.

Female nationalists demonstrating in Cairo, 1919.

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{History of Egypt}

Modern History pt.4

In 1906, the Dinshaway Incident prompted many neutral Egyptians to join the nationalist movement. After the First World War, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement, gaining a majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on 8 March 1919, the country arose in its first modern revolution. Constant revolting by the Egyptian people throughout the country led Great Britain to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt's independence on 28 February 1922. The new Egyptian Government drafted and implemented a new constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghlul was popularly elected as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. In 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. Continued instability in the Government due to remaining British control and increasing political involvement by the king led to the ousting of the monarchy and the dissolution of the parliament in a military coup d'tat known as the 1952 Revolution. The officers, known as the Free Officers Movement, forced King Farouk to abdicate in support of his son Fuad. On 18 June 1953, the Egyptian Republic was declared, with General Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic. Naguib was forced to resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser the real architect of the 1952 movement and was later put under house arrest. Nasser assumed power as President in June 1956. British forces completed their withdrawal from the occupied Suez Canal Zone on 13 June 1956. His nationalization of the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956 prompted the 1956 Suez Crisis.

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{History of Egypt}

Modern History pt.5

Three years after the 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel had invaded and occupied Sinai, Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972. He launched the Infitah economic reform policy, while violently clamping down on religious and secular opposition alike.

View of Cairo, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East. The Cairo Opera House (bottomright) is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital.

In 1973, Egypt, along with Syria, launched the October War, a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. It was an attempt to liberate part of the Sinai territory Israel had captured 6 years earlier.

Sadat hoped to seize some territory via military force, and then regain the rest of the peninsula by diplomacy. The conflict sparked an international crisis between the two world superpowers: the US and the USSR, both of whom intervened. Two UNmandated ceasefires were needed to bring military operations to a halt. While the war ended in a military stalemate, it presented Sadat with a political victory that later allowed him to regain the Sinai in return for peace with Israel.

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Modern History pt.6

Sadat made an historic visit to Israel in 1977, which led to the 1979 peace treaty in exchange for the complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous controversy in the Arab world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League, but it was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.[19] A fundamentalist military soldier assassinated Sadat in Cairo in 1981. He was succeeded by the incumbent Hosni Mubarak. In 2003, the Egyptian Movement for Change, popularly known as Kefaya, was launched to seek a return to democracy and greater civil liberties.

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Morphology pt.1
At 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi), Egypt is the world's 38th-largest country. In land area, it is about the same size as all Central America, twice the size of Spain, four times the size of the United Kingdom,[49] and the combined size of the US states of Texas and California.

Map of Egypt.

Nevertheless, due to the aridity of Egypt's climate, population centres are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, meaning that about 99% of the population uses only about 5.5% of the total land area. Egypt is bordered by Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. Egypt's important role in geopolitics stems from its strategic position: a transcontinental nation, it possesses a land bridge (the Isthmus of Suez) between Africa and Asia, which in turn is traversed by a navigable waterway (the Suez Canal) that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean by way of the Red Sea.

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Morphology pt.2
Apart from the Nile Valley, the majority of Egypt's landscape is a desert. The winds blowing can create sand dunes more than 100 feet (30 m) high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara Desert and of the Libyan Desert. These deserts were referred to as the "red land" in ancient Egypt, and they protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from western threats.
The Nile River near Aswan.

Towns and cities include Alexandria, one of the greatest ancient cities, Aswan, Asyut, Cairo, the modern Egyptian capital, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Giza, the site of the Pyramid of Khufu, Hurghada, Luxor, Kom Ombo, Port Safaga, Port Said, Sharm el Sheikh, Suez, where the Suez Canal is located, Zagazig, and Al-Minya. Oases include Bahariya, el Dakhla, Farafra, el Kharga and Siwa. Protectorates include Ras Mohamed National Park, Zaranik Protectorate and Siwa.

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Economy pt.1
Egypt's economy depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum exports, and tourism; there are also more than three million Egyptians working abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf and Europe. The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970 and the resultant Lake Nasser have altered the time-honored place of the Nile River in the agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly growing population, limited arable land, and dependence on the Nile all continue to overtax resources and stress the economy. The government has struggled to prepare the economy for the new millennium through economic reform and massive investments in communications and physical infrastructure. Egypt has received U.S. foreign aid (since 1979, an average of $2.2 billion per year) and is the third-largest recipient of such funds from the United States after the Iraq war. Its main revenues however come from tourism as well as traffic that goes through the Suez Canal. Egypt has a developed energy market based on coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro power. Substantial coal deposits are in the north-east Sinai, and are mined at the rate of about 600,000 metric tons (590,000 LT; 660,000 ST) per year. Oil and gas are produced in the western desert regions, the Gulf of Suez, and the Nile Delta. Egypt has huge reserves of gas, estimated at 1,940 cubic kilometres, and LNG is exported to many countries.

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Economy pt.2
Economic conditions have started to improve considerably after a period of stagnation from the adoption of more liberal economic policies by the Government, as well as increased revenues from tourism and a booming stock market. In its annual report, the IMF has rated Egypt as one of the top countries in the world undertaking economic reforms.[citation needed] Some major economic reforms taken by the new Government since 2003 include a dramatic slashing of customs and tariffs. A new taxation law implemented in 2005 decreased corporate taxes from 40% to the current 20%, resulting in a stated 100% increase in tax revenue by the year 2006. FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) into Egypt has increased considerably in the past few years due to the recent economic liberalization measures taken by minister of investment Mahmoud Mohieddin, exceeding $6 billion in 2006. Although one of the main obstacles still facing the Egyptian economy is the trickle down of the wealth to the average population, many Egyptians criticize their Government for higher prices of basic goods while their standards of living or purchasing power remains relatively stagnant. Often corruption is blamed by Egyptians as the main impediment to feeling the benefits of the newly attained wealth. The Government promises major reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, with a large part of the sum paid for the newly acquired third mobile license ($3 billion) by Etisalat.

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Economy pt.3
The best known examples of Egyptian companies that have expanded regionally and globally are the Orascom Group and Raya. The IT sector has expanded rapidly in the past few years, with many new start-ups conducting outsourcing business to North America and Europe, operating with companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and other major corporations, as well as many SME's. Some of these companies are the Xceed Contact Center, Raya Contact Center, E Group Connections and C3 along with other start ups in that country. The sector has been stimulated by new Egyptian entrepreneurs trying to capitalize on their country's huge potential in the sector, as well as constant Government encouragement. An estimated 2.7 million Egyptians abroad contribte actively to the development of their country through remittances (US$ 7.8 in 2009), as well as circulation of human and social capital and investment.

Tourists ride in a traditional Nile boat.

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Population
Population of Egypt, according to a survey conducted in July 2007, is estimated to be around 80,335,036. The estimated rate of growth of population in Egypt is 1.721%. Egypt is considered to be one of the populous countries in Africa. The sex ratio of Egypt population is 1.017 males per female. The total area occupied by Africa is 1,001,450 sq km. The Egypt population is mainly dense in and around the Nile basin. The fertile river plains have always attracted people to settle down in this region. Thus the population of Egypt comprises immigrants as well as the local inhabitants. People of Egypt comprise different ethnic groups. The nationality of the people of the country is Egyptian. They comprise of 98% of the total population. Bedouin, Nubian and Beja cover only 1% among the population. Rest of the 1% of population is comprised of the Europeans mainly of French and Italian origin. Armenians and Greeks also form part of the population. The religion of population of Egypt is mainly Islam. Muslims dominate 90% of the total population, most of which are Sunni Muslims. Christianity is also practiced by some people. 9% of them are Coptic and only 1% is consists of other Christian communities.

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Bilateral pt.1
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Menteri Koperasi dan Usaha Kecil dan Menengah (KUKM), Dr Syarifudin Hasan dan Menteri Kerjasama Internasional Mesir, Dr Faiza Abu Naja menandatangani MoU kerjasama pemamfaatan eceng gondok yang ada di sepanjang sungai Nil, di Cairo, pekan lalu. Keterangan tertulis KBRI Cairo yang diterima ANTARa, Kamis, menyebutkan acara MoU tersebut disaksikan oleh Menteri Irigasi dan Sumber Daya Air Mesir, Dr Mohammed Naseruddin Allam dan pelaksanaan acara itu bertepatan peringatan 63 tahun hubungan diplomatik Indonesia-Mesir. Dalam sambutannya, Menteri Faiza mengungkapkan latarbelakang diadakannya MoU tersebut diawali ketika dirinya berkunjung ke kantor Kementerian KUKM yang dipimpin Suryadharma Ali tahun 2007 yang lalu, ketika itu Menteri KUKM memperlihatkan hasil kerajinan pengusaha Indonesia yang terbuat dari bambu dan eceng gondok. Menurut Menteri Faiza, dirinya sangat kagum dengan keberhasilan Indonesia yang mampu memanfaatkan eceng gondok yang justru menjadi masalah serius di sungai Nil dan menjadi limbah di negeri piramida itu, bahkan pemerintah mengalokasikan dana untuk pembasmian rerumput liar yang pertumbuhan dan perkembangannya sangat pesat.

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Bilateral pt.2
Selain itu, eceng gondok tersebut terdapat di sepanjang sungai Nil, maka dari Mesir akan mengupayakan ekspor hasil industri tersebut ke Afrika yang diawali dengan Sudan dan ke pasar Eropa. Mesir akan menimba pengalaman Indonesia dalam pengelolaan rerumput tersebut. Di lain pihak Menteri KUKM Indonesia, Syarifudin Hasan menyampaikan optimisnya dalam meningkatkan hubungan Indonesia - Mesir dalam bidang ekonomi, terlebih saat ini hubungan politik antara kedua negara semakin erat terjalin. Menurutnya Indonesia memiliki kesamaan dalam berbagai hal, terutama dalam hal kesamaan sebagai negara berpenduduk mayoritas Muslim dan kesamaan budaya lainnya. Dirinya yakin kerjasama yang dijalin melalui MoU tersebut dapat memberikan stimulus untuk meningkatkan kerjasama di bidang lain. Di Indonesia, Pemerintah sangat mendukung eksistensi KUKM dan upaya-upaya yang dilakukannya, karena dengan keberadaannya pulalah Indonesia berhasil survive dalam menghadapi krismon dunia akhir-akhir ini, tidak seperti banyak negara di dunia. Menteri KUKM dalam penutupnya mengundang mitra kerjanya untuk berkunjung ke Indonesia guna membicarakan peluang kerja sama lainnya.

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Bilateral pt.3
Sejalan dengan Menteri KUKM, Menteri Perairan dan Irigasi Mesir menyampaikan terima kasihnya kepada Indonesia atas penandatanganan MoU tersebut, hal ini akan membantu Mesir dalam memaksimalkan usaha mengurangi efek negatif eceng gondok di sungai Nil dan justru memberikan manfaat bagi pengusaha kecil yang ada saat ini. Selain MoU di tingkat Pemerintah, dalam acara tersebut ditandatangani juga MoU antara Ketua Asosiasi Industri Permebelan dan Kerajinan Indonesia, Ambar Tjahyono dengan Ketua Egyptian-Indonesian Business Council, Ir Muhammad Barakah. Kerjasama yang dibangun antarpengusaha ini bertujuan untuk membangun kemitraan dalam tataran teknis berupa transfer informasi dan keahlian mengenai pemanfaatan eceng gondok dalam hal industri kecil dan menengah. Penandatanganan MoU mendapat liputan luas dari media cetak dan elektronik Mesir. Tampak meliput acara ini beberapa harian terkemuka Mesir seperti al-Ahram, Gomhouria, Al-Akhbar dan Kantor Berita Mesir (MENA/Middle East News Agency) serta media elektronik diantaranya yaitu Nile TV International, Nile News Channel, Channel 1 Egypt dan Egyptian Satellite Channel.(*) (Ant/R009)

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