Anarchism in Egypt Part 2 Ft. Andrew

Of course, it started with the Italian community, known for their anarchism in that time, but they soon gained the support of other groups sharing a radical vision of social emancipation. I learned all this from the book Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Post Colonial World, particularly the section

written by Anthony Gorma on Egyptian history. In the years leading up to World War One, anarchos cynicalism, represented by the International Union, played a leading role in organizing and developing a militant labor movement, advocating for international solidarity among workers. They adapted well to Egypt's diverse society, embracing ethnic and

religious pluralism and internationalism while opposing capitalism. Anarchists, along with socialists and liberals, contributed to the advancement of secular thoughts and Egyptian intellectual life, the even significant impact on their society. However, the anarchist movement faced challenges due to the state's coercion through surveillance, prosecution, and deportation.

reading and distributing. The anarchists in Egypt didn't just read from newsletters all around the world, though that was a part of it, but they also contributed their own articles. But always happening in Egypt they're connected, informed and motivated by the international community they had built. There are a bunch of publications dedicated to work as issues, offering insights, debates, and discussions on common difficulties on matters of labor, organization,

and strategy. Facilitated by an increasingly developed international transport system, particularly steamership services, the International Anarchist press served as a vital channel the dissemination and diffusion.

and the British French colonization. It's really one of the major projects I suppose the European anarchists needed to communicate to the local population was that their ire did not lay with Europeans as a whole. It lay primarily with the European ruling class, and so when it came into critique and societal issues and has strongly attacked the evils of capitalism, and of course that had the best reception

among the Egyptian workers. Of course, this isn't to say that the European workers in Egypt were like completely in common with the Egyptian workers, despite the fact that the ire of the Egyptian workers should really lie primarily with the European ruling class that was responsible for the imperialization of their country and the expectation of their people. The presence of the European workers did also contribute to the exploitation because those European workers were paid so much better

than native worn workers were. It was experienced and privileges that the Native one workers did not have access to. Interestingly, although anarchists typically advocate for emancipation from all religious authorities, Islam wasn't specifically targeted in their literature, and there was probably a pragmatic consideration for whether anti religiou rhetoric would fly, considering they could just be reported because of course that

was a crime. They still took on a hostile attitude towards the Egyptian state, though, condemn its course of actions, surveillance culture, and abusive power, but they didn't confront it head on. The program of action was far more focused on the goal of social transformation through the use of propaganda, education,

and workers associations. Because of the mixed conditions in Europe and in Egypt, the ideal of people of different races, religions, and nationalities united in solidarity had some real potency to it. So the internationalist mission was a very central component in their messaging at public conferences and at labor meetings, But it really was more so about the speaking the propaganda of the word rather than the propaganda of the deed.

In fact, interestingly, for that time, the anarchists in Egypt didn't really engage in much propaganda of the deed at all, Propaganda the deed being you know, political violence and assassination attempts.

the ideas and sustaining their identity. They had local properly, they had local publications like that Tribuna Liberal, Lepero, Looks and others, which save to spread anarchist thought and discuss.

Greek language readership. Are see a lot of these seapers will tailor towards specific languages, so that Greek had Italian and you also had French like Legnon and l Idea. But despite its polygod character, the anarchist press in Egypt doesn't seem to have included an Arabic language newspaper, which

is kind of weird when you're surrounded by Arabic speaking people. However, anarchism had regularly featured in the mainstream Arabic newspapers since since the eighteen nineties, usually however in reports and the activities in the movement abroad, not locally in Egypt. At the same time, there were also journals like Al Muktataf and Al Hilal, which carried articles discussing the origins and

development of anarchist thought and practice. It seems as though in eighteen ninety seven there was also a figure who engaged with socialized ideas, but that particular publication seems to have been closed down quite quickly by the authorities, particularly for feature in the work of Salama Musa and Shibili Shumayu, who were two Egyptian writers who were clearly influenced by

anarchist ideas. Something that just occurred to me is that what it could be influencing this is that the Italians and the Greeks and the French and all these different people who are writing about these anarchist ideas in Egypt. It's possibly they had a bit more leeway when it came to the local authorities that locals themselves would not have. Their foreign status may have provided them with slight immunity

in comparison. And this is just me spitball in, but it's possible that Arabophone writers and speakers would be taken on significantly more risk if they were to agitate in the same ways that these you know, migrant workers were advocating.

And then there's also the component and that speculation, but there is a proven component of financial difficulties and limited literacy rates among the Egyptian population that made it difficult to distribute Arabic language material, religious and anarchism because a lot of the workers in Egypt who spoke Arabic were not literate. What did help, though, because you know, the anarchists were about that life. They would go to cafes and read the newspapers out loud to reach their target audience.

The first podcasters exactly exactly, the first podcasters for real, as the anarchist movement in Egypt was really commemorating important political events, celebrating new principles through posters, leaflets, and flyers celebrating the animal history of events like the Paris Commune in May day truly spread that message of international solidarity among the workers, and anarchists in Egypt are also very fond of showing solidarity to their international figures like Francisco Ferrer,

who was a very influential Spanish anarchist thinker who did a lot of work in the field of anarchist education. He created for their schools, which influenced figures like Goldman to create their own modern schools in the US and elsewhere. And he was arrested and then executed, which led to a lot of protests both locally and internationally, making him

something of a martyr for the anarchist cause. And so the outrage expressed at the execution of Ferver was not simply just a protest against the attorney, but also recognition of his status as an advocate for cycle education, which is an important vehicle for you know.

the arts, and pragmatic topics like worker negotiation strategies. However, the upl's radical nature also brought criticism, with the Italian authorities initiating legal proceedings against the UPL lecturer for some remarks he made about the assassination of the Italian king Umbelta. First, I of course leave you to speculate what those comments and remarks may have been. But despite some initial public support, its critics accused the UPL of being based on depraved principles.

Now I mentioned this school before, and the episode did on Islam and anarchism, and like I said in that episode, Ouric speakers would quickly marginalized from the education, and the UPL gradually became more aimed toward and controlled by upper class interests. In fact, within a year, reliably bourgeois elements had arrested control of the UPL from its anarchist founders and had wrested controlled the UPL from its anarchist founders and proceeded to transform it into a vocational college that,

among other things, taught shorthand, accountancy, and languages. So, despite its very brief existence as a revolutionary project, the UPL marked an important movement for anarchism in Egypt and inspired other movements seeking educational reform. The upl's impacts and vision influenced Egyptian nationalists, who established the Higher Schools Club in nineteen oh five, which also emphasized educational means.

the instrument of social revolution. Of course, each just's labor movement wasn't entirely new, as killed have been part of the traditional Ottoman order, regulating trade and provide mutual lead but the modernization efforts of Muhammad Ali no Relation and Egypt's integration into the international capitalist system changed that landscape, affecting the role of guilds and shape in the working class.

Foreign workers, like I mentioned before, came into Egypt alongside native Egyptian labor, but despite the differences between them, evidence does show a strong cooperation and collaboration between the groups. The native Egyptian working class was affected by a variety of factors, but there was a model of collaboration that

was emersion between European and Egyptian workers. The Cigarette Rollers Union, for example, was initially a Greek body in Cairo, but later became more inclusive as their successful strike in eighteen and nine to nineteen hundred marked a milestone in Egyptian industrial militancy. However, their subsequent strikes fixed However, subsequent strikes faced brutal confrontations with the police, leading to divisions.

led by anarchists and cynicalists. Anarchism first appeared in Egypt among Italian political refugees and workers during the eighteen sixties, nurtured by a development international network of labor transporting communications expanded beyond Italian circles, attract members from across Egypt's diverse communities the heterogynous through the discourse of radical social emancipation and propaganda and public action declaring the universality of humankind

and the crime the evils of capitalism state power on the dogma, the anarchist movement would come into force in Egypt's history in the years after nineteen hundred. Anarchist cyndicalism played a central role in development of the labor movement or circulating the rights of workers in struggle against capital,

against capital and promoting internationalists activism yet wildly rejected. Yet while they rejected nationalism as an organizing principle, anarchists did at times to make common cause of the nationalists against imperialism and arguably had a revie lub eats An influence on the strategy is antactics of the nationalist movement.

chance the thing you're actually talking about isism. And you know, there's been a sort of systemic attempt by both liberal and sort of later communists like historians to sort of like wipe the historical record clean and make it look like everything was always sort of like the sort of on rush of Marxism, but like that just wasn't true. And they were very powerful anarchist movements on every continent, and they did a lot, they did a lot of really interesting things, and yeah, yeah, that.

this episode of It Can Happen Here Again. You can follow me Andrew on the YouTube channel andrewism on support on petare dot com slash Sandrew take Ko.