Anwar al-Sadat took over presidency from Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1970. Sadat had been Nasser’s vice president previously, and in many ways was a vastly different individual. He was the quieter of the two, with a political agenda aimed more towards capitalism than socialism. The man had a plan for his presidency: he aimed to industrialize Egypt and increase manufacturing and commercialization. Industry and agriculture increased with the completion of the Aswan High Dam. His goal was to create a market economy in Egypt, and he wanted to do so through his “open-door” policy, or Infitah, which allowed western foreign investors to enter the country and set up businesses. He was also a man who presented conflicting faces to the public. While wanting to emulate the financial success that was America’s market and industry, he maintained ties to extremist Islam groups and signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union. These actions put a lot of strain on Egypt’s relations with the United States. He was also very paranoid of those who opposed him, and had many intellectuals tried and arrested.
In an effort to raise the spirits of the Egyptian people, who were still hurting from the loss of the Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War, Sadat pushed Egyptian forces forward in what was called the Yom Kippur War, or October War in October 1973. Although Israeli forces eventually won out the battle, the Egyptians and Syrians managed to cross the Suez Canal and impose their presence in Israel. Negotiations allowed them to reclaim the peninsula, and in 1978, Sadat traveled to Jerusalem and to begin peace talks with Israel, and in the following year the treaty, called the Camp David Accords, was signed in Washington, D.C. Egypt would be the first Arab nation to fully recognize Israel as a nation, and Sadat would be condemned for his actions by other Arabic nations. Because of this, Egypt was ousted from the Arab League.
Because of his friendship with the Shah of Iran, Sadat became increasingly paranoid of dissenters after the Iran revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979. Many intellectuals, unrightfully accused of anti-government conspiracies, were arrested in the following years and held in prison. There was also a backpedaling in feminism during the Sadat era, in which the act of veiling for women (or hijab) became more common; however it was also used as a form of protest against Sadat’s love of western capital. His love of Western capital also got him in trouble with many of the Muslim extremists that he had tried so hard to please in his early years of office. He neglected his ties with some and arrested others in fear of a revolt. In October of 1981, his fears proved correct as he was assassinated during a military parade in Cairo by two jihad members. The arrested intellectuals were released on grounds of no evidence, and Sadat’s vice president Hosni Mubarak took office, where he ruled until the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011.
The love-hate attitude towards Westerners is evocative of Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk, where only a certain percentage of the population approved of their colonial past and others longed for revolution. Fahmy was a prime example of the type of person that Sadat feared most. The violent changes in power were something that Egypt is no stranger to, in the past and in the present day.
Works Cited
“20th Century Cairo.” University of Texas. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
< http://www.laits.utexas.edu/cairo/history/modern/modern.html>
BBC News UK. “Egypt Profile – Timeline.” BBC News. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13315719>
Braziel, Jana Evans. “Background in 20th Century Egyptian History Since 1952 Revolution.” University of Massachusetts. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
< http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/EGYPT.html>
No comments:
Post a Comment