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Egypt Minorities
Although the ancestors of the Egyptian people include many
races and ethnic groups, including Africans, Arabs, Berbers,
Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Turks, the population today is
relatively homogeneous linguistically and culturally.
Nevertheless, approximately 3 percent of Egyptians belong to
minority groups. Linguistic minorities include small communities
of Armenians and Greeks, principally in the cities of Cairo and
Alexandria; groups of Berber origin in the oases of the Western
Desert; and Nubians living in cities in Lower Egypt and in
villages clustered along the Nile in Upper Egypt. The Arabicspeaking beduins (nomads) in the Western and Eastern Deserts and
the Sinai Peninsula constitute the principal cultural minority.
Several hundred Europeans, mostly Italians and French, also lived
in Egypt.
In 1989 an estimated 350,000 Greeks constituted Egypt's
largest non-Arab minority. Greeks have lived in Egypt since
before the time of Alexander the Great. For centuries they have
remained culturally, linguistically, and religiously separate
from the Egyptians. In 1990 the majority of Greeks lived in
Alexandria, although many resided in Cairo.
Armenians have also lived in Egypt for several centuries,
although their numbers have declined as a result of heavy
emigration since the 1952 Revolution. In 1989 the Armenian
community in Egypt was estimated at 12,000. Cairo was
traditionally the center of Armenian culture in Egypt, but many
Armenians also lived in Alexandria.
An estimated 6,000 Egyptians of Berber origin lived in the
Western Desert near the border with Libya. They were ethnically
related to the Berber peoples of North Africa. The largest Berber
community lived in Siwah Oasis. The Berbers are Muslims, but they
have their own language, which is not related to Arabic, and
certain unique cultural practices.
About 160,000 Nubians, also Muslims, lived in Egypt in 1990.
Most Nubians lived in cities, especially Cairo, Alexandria, and
urban areas along the Suez Canal. In the past, Nubians had lived
in villages along the Nile from Aswan southward to about 500
kilometers inside Sudan. Before the construction of the Aswan
High Dam forced their resettlement, three linguistically separate
groups of Nubians lived in this region--the Kenuzi in northern
Nubia; the beduin-descended Arabs in central Nubia; and the
Fadija-speaking people in southern Nubia near Abu Simbel (Abu
Sunbul). Isolated geographically and politically for centuries,
the Nubian Valley was only rarely under the control of any
central government. Until Egypt's 1952 Revolution, Nubia lacked
strong political links with Lower Egypt. Nevertheless, Nubia had
persistent economic ties to the rest of Egypt. Since at least the
nineteenth century, Nubian men have migrated to the cities of
Lower Egypt, where they typically worked for several years at a
time as merchants and wage laborers. Nubian society adapted to
the migrants' prolonged absences. Complex kinship and property
relations enabled men to leave and still take care of their
families, guard their wives, and ensure protection of their herds
and crops.
After 1952 the central government increased its involvement
in Nubia, mostly by building schools and public health services.
With the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the government's
involvement in the area destroyed Nubia, as water inundated the
Nubian Valley. In 1963 and 1964 the government resettled
approximately 50,000 Nubians to thirty-three villages around Kawm
Umbu, about fifty kilometers north of the city of Aswan. As
compensation, the government gave the Nubians new land and homes
and provided them with some financial support until their new
holdings were productive.
Nubians were dissatisfied with their resettlement for several
reasons. They did not like their government-built, cement-block
houses, which were uncomfortable and vastly different in design
from their old homes. Further, their resettlement at Kawm Umbu
disrupted family ties and ignored historical rivalries among the
three Nubian ethnic groups. The government also required the
Nubian farmers to join agricultural cooperatives and pressured
them to cultivate sugarcane, a crop that had not been part of
their traditional culture. Dissatisfaction with the resettlement
program led many to migrate to cities. A large number of migrants
rented their land to sharecroppers and tenants from Upper Egypt.
After the Aswan High Dam was completed in 1971, a handful of
Nubians left the resettlement area and returned to Nubia, where
they established farming villages along the shores of Lake
Nasser. By the early 1980s, Nubians had constructed at least four
villages, complete with traditional homes.
Egypt's largest minority group consisted of several tribes of
beduins who traditionally lived in the Eastern and Western
Deserts and the Sinai Peninsula. Because the beduins spoke Arabic
dialects, the government did not consider them ethnic minorities.
Nevertheless, almost everyone in Egypt--including the beduins--
considered these people as culturally distinct. The beduins have
historically been nomads, but since the nineteenth century, most
tribes have adopted sedentary agricultural life-styles, in
response to various government incentives
(see Social Organization
, this ch.). Among the beduins, traditional tribal
social structure comprised lineage segments linked to specific
territories, water, and pasture. Descent was patrilineal, and
most beduins sought patterns of kinship and marriage that would
strengthen the bonds between patrilineally related males. A
patrilineage acted as a corporate group that shared the home
territory's resources and lived together for most of the year. In
the event of a feud, the group would collectively seek revenge,
either through the death of the other group's males or through
collective payment of compensation. A family's livelihood
depended on its sheep, goats, and camels. Inheritance customs
usually kept the family herds in the hands of fathers, sons,
brothers, and cousins related through the male line.
In 1990 the total number of beduins in Egypt ranged between
500,000 and 1 million--less than 1 percent of the country's
population. Over the centuries, their numbers fluctuated as
governments alternately ignored and persecuted them. In the
1890s, beduins comprised as much as 10 percent of the total
population. During the twentieth century, sedentarization and
urban migration have caused many beduins to become assimilated
into Egypt's dominant culture.
Since the 1952 Revolution, Egypt has intensified its efforts
to persuade beduins to abandon their nomadic life-style. The
beduins of the Western Desert generally resisted pressure to
become farmers. Some beduins engaged in the profitable trade of
smuggling goods across the Libyan border into Egypt while others
became involved in the hotel and restaurant business in the
summer tourist town of Marsa Matruh. The beduins in the Eastern
Desert continued to maintain close ties with nomads on the
Arabian Peninsula and profited from the high demand for meat and
livestock in Saudi Arabia. The Aswan High Dam submerged some
summer pasture and disrupted some migratory routes along the Red
Sea coast that beduins customarily used in bringing their herds
to Nubia during that season. Beduin settlements tended to be
overcrowded, a situation that exacerbated feuding among various
lineages. And, as beduin herds encroached on cropland, friction
between agriculturists and pastoralists intensified. An
increasing number of beduin families began to emulate tribal
leaders by sending sons to college to prepare them for civil
service careers in local government.
Data as of December 1990
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