It wasn’t the Axis’s invasion of their ancestral homeland that concerned these Bedouins, however, but rather their mistreatment by their own government. With the outbreak of the war, they had been thrown into a prison reserved for foreign subjects, and their families were suffering gravely in their absence. Accordingly, they demanded an explanation for why they were being punished as if they were strangers in their own native land.

“We are your subjects,” the Bedouins contended, “and if the government does not want us to be its subjects, we implore you to let us know the name of a state we can join in order to request compensation for our families.” They concluded the petition on a similar note of sarcasm: “We truly believe that we do not belong to the Egyptian government; for, if we did belong to it, adhering to its laws [as we do], it would not subject us to [such] treatment as foreigners.”

Why did the Egyptian government view its own desert-dwelling Bedouin population with such suspicion and contempt? After all, shouldn’t the native inhabitants of Egypt’s desert domains, which comprise roughly 90 percent of the country’s land surface, have counted as being just as Egyptian as inhabitants of Cairo or the Nile Valley?

The answer to these questions lies in the complex history of Egypt’s formation as a modern territorial nation-state.

Nations must never be taken for granted. They do not exist from time immemorial as naturally bounded and cohesive social units, but rather are actively made (and often re-made) to serve particular political projects in particular places at particular times. Even Egypt—ostensibly one of the most ancient political civilizations on the planet—underwent dramatic transformations in the late 19th and 20th centuries before it emerged as a modern nation-state like the one we know today.

One such transformation involved the projection of a unified territorial identity from the center of power (Cairo) into the furthest reaches of the state’s sovereign domains, including the Western Desert. While other nation-states underwent similar transformations, the Egyptian case contained some particular elements that would turn out to be consequential for the country’s region and its history.

My own interest in the territorial dimension of Egyptian nationhood began nearly a decade ago, on a 10-hour bus journey across Egypt’s Western Desert to the remote oasis of Siwa. As I stared out my window at the endless barren expanses, I began to wonder how all of this beautiful wasteland became part of Egypt in the first place. My sense of bewilderment only grew when I arrived in Siwa, which lies only 30 miles from the Libyan border and has an ethnically distinct population that more resembles that of some Libyan regions. (Siwans are of Berber descent and did not speak Arabic for much of their history.) The Egyptian history I had studied as a graduate student, focused as it was on Cairo and the Nile, had little to say about the incorporation or political status of such far-flung places.

So I set out to craft a comprehensive modern history of the vast region I came to call “the Egyptian West.” My foray into the archival sources yielded many surprises. For starters, I learned that Egypt’s western border had gone undefined for most of the country’s history, and that the first modern political map attempting to delineate such a border—an Ottoman map from 1841—went missing for the better part of a century. Although various statesmen periodically noted its absence—Lord Cromer, the British consul-general of Egypt from 1882 to 1907, surmised that the map was “supposed to have been lost in a fire which destroyed a great part of the Egyptian archives”—no one seemed especially vexed by this. In fact, Egypt’s marginal borderlands were typically ignored in the cartography of the period. When they were represented at all, they were left intentionally fuzzy.

The powers in the region—Britain and the Ottoman Empire (still technically sovereign over Egypt)—actually conspired not to define the border, lest it provoke unnecessary legal or diplomatic controversy. This stance became particularly thorny during the first decade of the 20th century, when the Italian government—seeking to lay the groundwork for its colonial occupation of Libya, which would begin in 1911—repeatedly pressured the British to draw a western border.

But the Italians’ protests fell on deaf ears. Citing “the peculiar position in which Egypt stands with regards to Turkey [the Ottoman Empire],” the British agreed with the Ottomans that it was better policy to leave the border ambiguous. A bona fide border between Egypt and (Italian-controlled) Libya would not be defined until well after World War I, in 1925, following a diplomatic treaty that was signed shortly after the elusive 1841 map resurfaced at the eleventh hour. (It had been found deep inside the Ottoman archives, in Istanbul.)

Nations are not made merely by drawing borders around sovereign territory, however; they must also to some degree incorporate and assimilate their heterogeneous populations into a unified political community. In Egypt, this process began in the last quarter of the 19th century, but it had mixed results.

Law was one institution that the government attempted to use as an instrument of assimilation. Beginning in the 1870s, the government passed a series of reforms that aimed to streamline jurisdiction and legal practice across the country, including the deserts and western oases. But it was not long before the government reneged on this project and ceded judicial autonomy to the inhabitants of the country’s vast borderlands.

In the case of the town of Siwa, one official tried to explain the government’s striking about-face by citing the remoteness of the oasis as well as the fundamental distinctiveness of its people. “The town is far from Egypt by a distance of approximately twenty days traveling by camel,” he argued. “It falls in the middle of the desert, and its people have different customs and (linguistic) conventions, and tastes that diverge completely from those of the Egyptians, by virtue of the fact that they are pure [Bedouin] Arabs.” Here is one clear case of the modernizing Egyptian state succumbing to the extreme challenges of standardizing its institutions across the full expanse of its sovereign territory; Siwa was simply too far and too different to be folded into the Egyptian national judiciary at this time.

There would be other such cases. In 1905 and again in 1908, the Egyptian government passed legislation that sought to place its administration of the country’s various Bedouin tribes on firmer footing. The new laws—undertaken in large part to counter the trend of many Egyptians falsely claiming Bedouin descent in order to demand the exemption from military service that the tribes had long enjoyed—strove to “organize [the Bedouin tribes] in an administrative fashion approaching the organization of towns and villages.”

When it came to actually enforcing the new laws, however, the government—again hard-pressed to exert its sovereign control in the sparsely inhabited deserts—was forced to cede considerable power to the local tribal leaders themselves. Despite the veneer of formality added by the legislation, Egypt’s Bedouins were still being treated as a people apart.

So it probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when the Western Desert Bedouins found themselves in jail at the start of World War II, and being treated by their government like a dangerous fifth column. The Egyptian government’s internment of its people is best interpreted as a reflection of its own lack of faith in the mechanisms through which its territorial sovereignty had been asserted in the country’s western borderland. Egypt might have clarified the limits of its territorial statehood with the 1925 border treaty with Libya, but it had by no means woven an enduring social fabric for the collective nation within those boundaries.

The Egyptian state’s antagonistic relationship with its own Bedouin population continues to this day. This is clear in the Western Desert, which has emerged as a haven for militant groups reportedly linked to the Islamic State. The Egyptian government’s heavy-handed response has led to some grave mistakes, none more egregious than the security forces’ aerial assault on what turned out to be a caravan of Mexican tourists on a Bedouin-led desert safari, killing 12 and wounding numerous others. The now years-long Egyptian military campaign in the Sinai Peninsula, nominally waged to root out the Islamic State as well as Al-Qaeda, is another sign of enduring conflict in the borderlands.

In these present-day events are echoes of the particular history of the country’s emergence as a modern territorial nation-state. Moments of significant political upheaval, from World War II to the complicated fallout of the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, have always seemed to foster contests over territorial sovereignty in the country’s borderlands. And what we see today is not so different from what the Egyptian government was struggling with over a century ago, when it first sought to consolidate the nation at the margins of its sovereignty. As a result, what it means to be Egyptian in the country’s desert borderlands remains an open question.

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Twenty-sixth of July Street—which commemorates the date in 1952 when the ousted King Fuad II departed from Egypt, and the Free Officers Movement (i.e., the military) took the reigns of power—is the primary thoroughfare in the island of Gezira, once colonized by the British and now gentrified by everyone else. As the parade marched toward Tahrir Square, taking up three lanes of traffic, everyone became a participant or spectator. We passed the military officers’ club and military-owned grocery, then the gas stations. Every single shopkeeper stood on the sidewalk outside his place of work: some laughing, some unfazed, and some joining the marches. A group of chefs from a chic Asian restaurant filmed the proceedings on their smartphones.

“Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice.” Some of these protesters must have chanted that verse thousands of times before. Indeed, the slogan has been immortalized as graffiti on the bridge under which they strode. I know that this isn’t my revolution and that I didn’t endure 18 days in Tahrir against Mubarak’s violent inertia in 2011, that I am just a young Detroiter with a one-way ticket to Cairo. But I find myself deeply invested in an Egypt that guarantees bread, freedom, and social justice for all. With my notebook in hand, I had to restrain myself—or else I would have been chanting along with the crowd.

A woman lounging five floors up on the balcony of an art deco apartment building overlooking the Nile yelled, “The People Want …” and everyone in the street below completed the phrase—and on and on it went.

Across the Nile stood the towering Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a slick skyscraper with Oriental flourishes. Next to it, Maspero, the government press center, where 28 Coptic Christians were killed and hundreds more were injured a year ago by government vehicles. Justice has yet to be delivered to those who committed the heinous act. But this march wasn’t protesting these vestiges of the old regime; rather, it protested the concentration of power sought by the new would-be pharaoh—President Muhammed Morsi. (Last week, nearly every independent Egyptian newspaper published caricatures of Morsi wearing the gilded facemasks of Tutankhamen or Ramses).

Last June, Morsi came to Tahrir Square and said in his inaugural address: “Let us remain steadfast, men of the revolution, boys and girls, men and women. I am one of you—that is how I was; I still am; and will always be … I came to talk to you today because I believe that you are the source of power and legitimacy. There is no person, party, institution, or authority that is above the will of the people.”

That was then. Now, Cairo’s city center and public squares across the country of some 90 million are erupting in protest against the democratically elected president. That’s because on Thanksgiving day, Morsi granted himself extensive, unchecked new powers. This act has set him squarely against the revolution. By way of follow-up, Morsi employed his executive clout to ram through a draft constitution. All of which calls into question Egypt’s transition from autocracy to democracy.

For months, the country has been in limbo—without a parliament, without a constitution. The constituent assembly tasked with writing the nation’s new set of laws had been on tenterhooks, stalling and deliberating, until Morsi hurriedly advanced a draft constitution (a typo in the first line betrays the haste). To seal the deal, he has called for a national referendum in two weeks. It’s not the worst social contract ever produced, even though it contains provisions that institutionalize military trials and inadequately protect freedom of religion and expression. That the headline on Human Rights Watch’s press release critiquing the draft language’s read “Mixed on Support of Rights” suggests there may still be reason for cautious hope, that Morsi and his party can still be coaxed to do the right thing.

The crowd had overtaken the corniche along the Nile and its usually steady traffic flow. The whine of a siren—an orange ambulance—was scarcely heard over the people’s intonations. This is one of Egypt’s remaining injustices—the fact that emergency vehicles have to fight through traffic just like the rest of us. It made me think of last week’s train crash in Assuit province, which killed at least 50 children. Who was in this ambulance, going against the grain of human traffic?

The protest chants echoed on the hushed banks of the Nile as the nearly full moon dipped behind a cloud. The crowd by then had doubled, perhaps tripled, as it approached the bridge that crosses the river into downtown Cairo, into the sacred space of Tahrir. The clapping, banging, and honking intensified as converging parades united.

It’s a friendly affair on the bridge—some of these camera-wielding folks must be tourists, if not from Europe than from just down the street, holding their children’s hands and patiently explaining to them what the revolution is, why it continues. Too many citizen journalists were videotaping everything. All of the bridge’s eastbound lanes filled with walkers and their flags, while westbound lanes featured men and women gripping flipcams and smartphones, with the occasional car or motorcycle barreling through.

Despite all the yelling, noise, and excitement, only one car alarm went off, across the street, and it almost instantly ceased. Standing in front of the distinguished gates of the League of Arab States, a whiff of tear gas comingled with the smoke of sweet potatoes and grilled maize from pushcarts on Tahrir Square’s periphery. Spontaneously, a joyous mob entering the Square applauded. It was peaceful and calm, a stark contrast to the front-page photos of street battles. Sure, those were occurring on side streets, but they represent a sliver of the protest movement. Hell, there was a cotton candy man selling his treats as he wandered through the crowd.

Three months ago, the more violent demonstrations that rocked the U.S. embassy here in Cairo were a defining moment for President Morsi. Critics in the West called him out for being too slow in condemning the protests and the breach of the U.S. embassy. Morsi moved to clear the Square, lining its margins with military conscripts and imposing black trucks. Newly budded grass patches were planted in Tahir Square’s inner circle, alongside tree saplings. The martyrs’ families, some of whom has been camped out for over 18 months, were displaced by the greenery, which was organic but felt like Astroturf. Now, that grass was under the shoes of thousands upon thousands of protesters.

How many of the people in the packed Square had voted for Morsi in the June presidential run-off? How many had viewed the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate as preferable to a face of the old regime? How many had lodged a protest vote in order to counter the counter-revolution?

From Shubra, one of Cairo’s largest and most populous districts, about 20,000 more marched through the downtown shopping districts from the other direction, also toward the Square. Revolutionary socialists, lawyer syndicates, young and old, just about every face you could imagine, waving flags enthusiastically. Talaat Harb Street—home of the storied cafes in which author Naguib Mafouz used to drink coffee between the beautiful French windows of hundred-year-old edifices—was packed to the gills with people and chants. (“Get out, Get out!”). I walked two blocks west in hope of 3G service to post a tweet, and the streets were virtually silent.

It was there that I saw an elderly man with thick silver whiskers and in a traditional brown thobe sauntering toward the Square, encircled by an entourage. It was Ahmed Fouad Negm, the 83-year old poet whose verses had sparred with President Hosni Mubarak and mocked Anwar Sadat.

His poem “The Strike” served as a caption for the evening:

… Where are we today?

And how many are we?

How many will we be tomorrow?

And where will we be at?

Each day we visit a place

Our numbers grow

 

Each day

We open doors

And each day

We destroy obstacles

Each day

We set up buildings

Each day

We remove rubble

Each day

We’re impregnated with chants

Each day …

 

Whether or not Tahrir Square is overflowing tomorrow, or the next day, the people can be sure that Morsi had heard their message loud and clear.

The post In Cairo, Where Are We Today appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

I was not, however, worried about the general strike that would transform the country right before my eyes.

That, I thought, was sure to go according to plan.

The date was April 6, 2008 and Egypt was two and a half years away from unseating the oppressive Mubarak regime. Still, there was a sense that the people had had enough. The laborers in the Nile Delta were set to strike. Egyptian youth took to Facebook and other social media sites to support what was being called the Youth Movement. This time the voices of the people were going to be heard. That’s what we thought, at least.

The best thing I could do as a foreigner was observe. When I arrived in Egypt a few months before the April 6 strike, every foreign student in my program was given the same simple set of instructions: “Stay out of it!” We were told that the policies of the Mubarak regime were not our issue, and that change must come directly from the Egyptian people. It was constantly stressed that I was simply passing through this society, and I was not to participate in any political activities. We were told to treat the politics much like the museum exhibits just off Tahrir Square: look, but do not touch.

When I arrived at AUC that morning of I saw something that was far more foreign to me than the language or the food. Tanks were rolling in the streets. The roads leading to Tahrir Square were filled with armored cars. We could only guess what the square itself looked like. Banners? Megaphones? Endless lines of protestors taking up the cause?

I eagerly went to the roof of the science building on the AUC campus to get a better view of the activity below. What I saw was far from a popular uprising.

Hundreds of security forces stood in perfect formation. Their helmets were polished, their riot shields raised, and batons at the ready. After so much build-up there was not a single protestor in sight. The people had taken to the street in factory towns to the north, but the heart of Cairo was completely silent. There would be no revolution today.

Foreign students were instructed to remain inside our homes, but I wandered down into the square looking for some explanation or reason for this lackluster performance. After a few minutes I came across a Spanish language reporter desperately looking for a story. It took us only a few moments to conclude I was not his lead. This happened a few more times with reporters from around the world. There was a story to be told, but it wasn’t in Cairo. It was in the northern factory towns where workers were standing up against low wages and skyrocketing bread prices. We had come to see a revolt. Instead oppression marked the day.

Yes, the general strike had not had a special goal of revolution, but my expectations had been higher. It was obvious to me that the Egyptian people should revolt and fill the streets. This country desperately needed democracy, transparency, and above all else freedom of expression. These were both universally desired and universally deserved liberties, right? I realize now I was just impatient.

The day was not a complete loss by any measure. Conversations that started in the weeks leading up to April 6 continue today. In the weeks following the general strike I found that the tone on campus had changed as well. Topics that were once discussed with a wink and a nod were now being talked about in the open. We had the luxury of the academic bubble, but that could not completely account for the change in the discussion.

Egypt was not at the end, but rather the beginning of a wave of unrest that would transform society. As the bread shortage and labor disputes deepened in the world’s most populous Arab country, the youth were speaking out–and they were starting to be heard. On Facebook, the April 6 Youth Movement picked up 64,000 supporters. The general strike, underwhelming as it was in Cairo in the face of the government’s display of force, helped set that stage for the revolution that would follow. In hindsight I find myself lucky to have witnessed those events. I eagerly await the next chapter in Egypt’s history.

Iain Padley is a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs at the Coro Center for Civic Leadership in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Richmond, The American International University in London, and an avid traveler with a strong interest in North African cultures.

*Photo courtesy of Pixel whippersnapper.

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