Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak (Routledge Library Editions: Egypt)


Product Description
Ever since Nasser overthrew Prince Farouk in 1952, Egypt has held a special, leading position within the Arab world. It is now facing major problems, the most serious of which are the growing strength of the Muslim fundamentalists, continuing population growth and external debt problems. Together, these are creating a volatile and potentially explosive climate.
In this book, the journalist Anthony McDermott examines the development of Egypt from Revolution to the present, describing various features of Egyptian society and the contributions of its leaders. He asks whether Egypt has fulfilled its expected role as the model for Arab and developing countries or whether the peace pact made by Sadat with Israel was a major error, causing Egypt ��s withdrawal under Mubarak from the centre of international politics.
The book is lively and readable and provides a challenging introduction to the development and problems of the largest country in the Middle East.
First published 1988.
</p>Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak (Routledge Library Editions: Egypt) Review
The purpose of McDermott's book is to show the vast difference between each one of the three presidents. He takes these differences and later shows how they give off a dissimilar reactions from the Egyptians. To prove the distinction between them, he explicitly shows the decisions, taken by each president, and how the implementation of these resolutions ends up affecting the country and nation.To clarify his objective McDermott clearly explains the differences between each president. He wants to explain how each president differed in his viewpoints, and how those views brought about problems to both the current president and the successor. The book does a great job in achieving McDermott's goal, because he clearly lays out the dilemmas each president entailed, then he describes how they solved this problem. Starting off with the charismatic chief, who launched the monarchy, Jamal Abd el Nasser. In October 1954 he called for the evacuation of British troops from Egypt. All of these events emphasized Nasser's position as the first native Egyptian ruler for some centuries to have asserted Egypt's rights and position, and to have won recognition for them. As a historical personality he was able, even without it being his intention, but through his direct contact with the people, to bypass all institutions and go direct to the people. That was his charm, his appeal and his charisma. Two of Nasser's decisions in particular sealed his fate; his demand that the UN should remove its force from the Sinai, and the announcement on 23 May that the Straits of Tiran were closed. UN moving out of Sinai opened the way to invasion; and by closing the Straits of Tiran Israel felt itself to be hemmed in so now Israel obtained three weeks of preparation. Nasser knew what he wanted and how to change his stance and seek reconciliation with opponents when he is over-extended. Those were the qualities of a master tactician unlike the other two presidents. He clearly dislikes making definitive long-range bargains, because the Egyptian revolution is still groping for a clear sense of its purposes. Nasser's decision left Egypt defeated, economically weak and unconvinced that it had been a revolution which had carried out in 1952.
Sadat taking over Nasser's death, as many found later, was a much-underrated man. Sadat finally brought about the expulsion of the Russians. This act jeopardized not only the prevention of Israel's deep penetration raids but also the supply of arms to forces, which at that stage had virtually no other sources. Kicking out the Russians was one more clear-cut step in an `Egypt-first' trend which ended in Sadat's journey to Jerusalem. This differed tremendously from Nasser's Pan-Arabism. It was in short, an appeal to Egypt to be itself, and with it came the implementation that Nasser had mismanaged the revolution and the man to bring about the necessary changes was Sadat. McDermott achieves his objective clearly by comparing the evaluations of Nasser and Sadat. Nasser was the great charismatic father figure, but he was also greatly feared. He was moved by high, but for Egyptians, exhausting ambitions. By contrast, Sadat seems natural, approachable, human. Sadat not only had to deal with the bad economy that Nasser had left behind, but with the coming of the `infitah' the open door policy ultimately had a counterproductive effect by encouraging a small section of the population selfishly to make money. Differing actions taken by Sadat than Nasser, abled the latter to take over a country, which was economically exhausted. From the military and political point of view, Soviet assistance had become an overbearing liability. With the 1973 war being won, albeit with Soviet arms, any progress towards a solution made American involvement rare. So it was a time when the choices were far more complicated than those of the preceding decade. Nasser left Sadat with a much more intricate task, but Sadat does the same to Mubarak.
Mubarak, stepping up after the assassination of Sadat, dealt with all the problems that had been passed down by Nasser and weren't taken care of by Sadat. He was concerned with Egypt's problems in a way that Sadat had not been. His approach was that `no one should rely on the efforts of the government alone, we are all citizens with equal rights and duties.' This definitely diverged from Sadat's claims ands pretensions. Mubarak had to fix relations with Moscow after Sadat had ordered the expulsion of the Soviet ambassador and six members of the embassy in September 1981. Mubaraks purpose was to restore calmness, and with security as his priority, to keep under control any potential challenges from within to his rule. Mubarak tried to keep the tension between Egypt and the other Arab states to a tolerable level by eliminating abusive rhetoric and by avoiding policies which Arab countries would find provocative. He restored relations with President Hafez Assad of Syria, who was deeply hostile to he peace treaty with Israel that was enacted by Sadat. Mubarak is a good example for McDermotts goal of elucidating how each president differed. Differentiation wasn't just his primary objective; he wanted the readers to view how this differentiation in action produced a different nation with each president. As a result we see that Mubarak varied his approach towards opposition groups, consequently he gained their respect unlike Sadat who just battled with them.
A strong point in this book is the efficiency that McDermott implements with every example. He achieves his objective by characterizing each president separately and proving that they each affected Egypt in a positive and negative manner. Then he goes on to elucidate how the succeeding preceding deal with these oncoming dilemmas that were past by from their predecessors.
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