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Egypt MUBARAK AND THE MIDDLE WAY
Sadat's handpicked successor, Husni Mubarak, was
overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum on October 24,
1981. Sadat appointed Mubarak vice president of the state in 1975
and of the NDP in 1978. Mubarak, who was born in 1928 in Lower
Egypt and had spent his career in the armed forces, was not a
member of the Free Officers' movement. He had trained as a pilot
in the Soviet Union and became air force chief of staff in 1969
and deputy minister of war in 1972.
In a speech to the People's Assembly in November 1981,
Mubarak outlined the principles of his government's policy and
spoke about the future he wanted for Egypt. Infitah would
continue, and there would be no return to the restrictive days of
Nasser. Mubarak called for an infitah of production,
however, rather than of consumption, that would benefit all of
society and not just the wealthy few. Food subsidies would
remain, and imports of unnecessary luxury goods would be
curtailed. Opposition parties would be allowed. The peace treaty
with Israel would be observed. Thus, Mubarak sought to chart a
middle course between the conflicting legacies of Nasser and
Sadat.
Since 1981 Mubarak has allowed more overt political activity.
Slowly, parties and newspapers began to function again, and
political opponents jailed by Sadat were released. At the time of
the 1984 election, five parties were allowed to function in
addition to the ruling NDP. The left-wing opposition consisted of
the National Progressive Unionist Party, a grouping of socialists
led by Khalid Muhi ad Din, and the Socialist Labor Party. The
Wafd resurfaced and won a court case against its prohibition. One
religious party was licensed, the Umma. Not officially
represented were the communists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and
avowed Nasserites, although all three tendencies were represented
in other parties
(see
The "Dominant Party System", ch. 4).
In the 1984 election, a party had to win at least 8 percent
of the vote to be represented in the Assembly. The NDP received
more than 70 percent of the vote (391 seats). The Wafd, the only
other party to gain any seats, won fifty-seven. The NPUP received
only 7 percent of the votes and consequently lost them all to the
NDP. There were some complaints that the election was rigged, but
no serious challenge was mounted against the results.
In addition to domestic programs, Mubarak was concerned to
regain the Sinai Peninsula for Egypt and to return his country to
the Arab fold. One of Mubarak's first acts was to pledge to honor
the peace treaty with Israel. In April 1982, the Israeli
withdrawal from Sinai took place as scheduled. A multinational
force of observers took up positions in Sinai to monitor the
peace. Egypt was allowed to station only one army division in
Sinai.
In 1983 Egypt's isolation in the Arab world began to end. In
that year, Arafat met Mubarak in Cairo after the PLO leader had
been expelled from Lebanon under Syrian pressure. In January
1984, Egypt was readmitted unconditionally to the Islamic
Conference Organization. In November 1987, an Arab summit
resolution allowed the Arab countries to resume diplomatic
relations with Egypt. This action was taken largely as a result
of the Iran-Iraq War and Arab alarm over the Iranian offensive on
Iraqi territories at the end of 1986 and throughout January and
February 1987. On Egypt's side, its economic crisis worsened, and
it needed economic assistance from the Arab oil states. Thus, the
summit resolution amounted to an exchange of Egyptian security
assistance in the Persian Gulf crisis for Arab aid to Egypt's
economy. The summit indicated that Mubarak, in attempting to
steer a middle course between the imposing legacies of Nasser and
Sadat, had brought Egypt back into the Arab fold and into the
center of Middle East peace making.
* * *
The literature on Egypt from ancient to modern times is
extensive. Good basic works on ancient Egypt are Egypt before
the Pharaohs by Michael H. Hoffman and Ancient Egypt,
edited by B.G. Trigger, B.J. Kemp, D. O'Connor and A.B. Lloyd.
Also recommended are Cyril Aldred's The Egyptians and
Egypt to the End of the Old Kingdom. Two readable, popular
histories are Jill Kamil's The Ancient Egyptians and
Robert A. Armour's Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt.
Egyptian art is covered in W. Stevenson Smith's The Art and
Architecture of Ancient Egypt.
The Arab Conquest of Egypt by Alfred Butler and
Egypt During the Middle Ages by Stanley Lane-Poole are
classics that should be read for the periods they cover. For
Egypt during the medieval period, there are also Robert Irwin's
The Middle East in the Middle Ages and Bernard Lewis's
article, "Egypt and Syria," in The Cambridge History of
Islam. Egypt during the Ottoman period is covered in P.M.
Holt's Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516-1922.
For the late Ottoman period and the transition to modernity,
two important historical works are The Roots of Modern
Egypt by Daniel Crecelius and Islamic Roots of
Capitalism by Peter Gran. Valuable French works are André
Raymond's Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe
siècle and the collection of articles in L'Egypte au XIXe
siècle.
For the modern period, there are several good general
histories, including P.M. Holt's Egypt and the Fertile
Crescent, 1516-1922, which ends with World War I and Egyptian
independence, and P.J. Vatikiotis's The History of Egypt from
Muhammad Ali to Sadat. Roger Owen's The Middle East in the
World Economy has informative chapters on Egypt. Also
important for an understanding of the transformation that took
place in Egypt in the nineteenth century are Holt's Political
and Social Change in Modern Egypt and Gabriel Baer's
Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt.
Other important studies on particular aspects of this period
include Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot's Egypt in the Reign of
Muhmmad Ali; Robert Hunter's Egypt under the Khedives,
1805-1879; Albert Hourani's intellectual history, Arabic
Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939; Timothy Mitchell's
Colonizing Egypt; and Eric Davis's Challenging
Colonialism. The definitive study of the Urabi Revolt and the
British invasion of 1882 remains Alexander Scholch's Egypt for
the Egyptians. Also important are the first book-length
history of Egyptian women in English, Women in NineteenthCentury Egypt by Judith Tucker, and two studies of the
development of the working class, Workers on the Nile by
Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, and Tinker, Tailor, and
Textile Worker by Ellis Goldberg.
The period of parliamentary democracy is well covered in
Party Politics in Egypt by Marius Deeb and The Wafd
by Janice Terry. For the revolutionary and postrevolutionary
periods, there are Anthony McDermott's Egypt from Nasser to
Mubarak: A Flawed Revolution and Derek Hopwood's Egypt:
Politics and Society, 1945-1984. Also important are Anouar
Abdel-Malek's Egypt: Military Society, John Waterbury's
The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat, and Raymond A. Hinnebusch,
Jr.'s Egyptian Politics under Sadat. Egypt's most recent
history is covered in David Hirst's and Irene Beeson's biography
of Anwar Sadat entitled Sadat, Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal's
attempt to explain Sadat's assassination in Autumn of
Fury, and Robert Springborg's Mubarak's Egypt. (For
further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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