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LovelyLadyLux
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Am now reading

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Am now reading "Egypt on the Brink". Am about half way through. Interesting observations about Nassar and his leadership of Egypt. Anybody else read this one?


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Morgita
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Post by Morgita »

Sorry LLL, haven't read that one. I have just finished reading The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. HL was a poor black woman who died from cervical cancer in the early 50's. Biopsied cells from her cancer were cultured in the labs of Johns Hopkins very successfully and used ever since in a mindboggling variety of ways, some beneficial to humanity, others not. This is the story of those cells and also of her family's struggle to understand the science and how her cells were involved in patents, cures and multi million industries without as much as a by your leave from them. I liked this so much I bought a paperback copy for my son as I couldn't share my kindle version.
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Post by jewel »

If you were a visitor to Cairo in the 30s or 40s you would have envisaged a different future from that which is today.............
Egypt on the brink is an excellent read which I'm sure you will enjoy :)

Andrew Marr travels back to Egypt in the 1950s to a time of religious pluralism and openness with the writer Tarek Osman. As Egypt votes in parliamentary elections, Tarek, asks what has happened in the intervening years. Francis Spufford imagines a very different world with his account of the Soviet Union under Krushchev, and what could have happened if the dream of plenty had come true. And Turkey's best-selling female novelist, Elif Shafak, argues against the constraints of identity politics and the pigeon-holing of multi-cultural writers.

Nasser was the great hope for egyptian and arab nations, it is true that
since Alexander the great ang king Farouk who abdicated in 1952 there was no-one for poor egyptians to look up to ...until the suez crisis he wanted a united arab world as a united arab supernation, but at that time things were very different, he went to Syria in 1958 when a third of syrian masses came out to greet him, then he turned to the Soviet union to modernise Egypt as seen in the aswan dam in late 60s built with soviet money.

What went wrong?
Today Egypt is a very different place with rising militancy decaying semi bureacracy, the liberal experiment failed,Nasser failed to build solid infrastructure and institutions, then came Sadat.
Then for years has been Mubarak - quite disappointing aged leader who under which everything "ticks along" - the military continues to dominate and with it the rise of capitalism - his son is more involved part of a web of financial and economic interests, the parallels with Turkey are interesting - the quite aggressive nationalism, although Turkey is unique, as Turkey ruled Egypt under the ottomans.
Admirable though Nasser was the last 30 or 40 years has seen the rise of Islamism gaps in social services have been filled by muslim brother hood
The private sector is now higher employer than the government or state.

Novelists have had an important role in the changes which have taken place in Egypt in recent times - and this book by Tarek Osman is a good read and was discussed on radio 4 a while back .....You may be able to hear it on the podcast if you missed it live (29th november)



http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/stw

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/rad ... -1200a.mp3
"If you understand, things are just as they are, if you do not understand things are just as they are"
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Post by Winged Isis »

jewel wrote:
What went wrong?
An interesting read on this very question...

Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? Changes in Egyptian Society from 1950 to the Present by Galal Amin. The American University in Cairo Press, 2000.

I bought this about 4 years ago, and am about to re-read it in light of recent and on-going events.
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