Philipines Agriculture - Land Tenancy and Land Reform

An important legacy of the Spanish colonial period was the high concentration of land ownership, and the consequent widespread poverty and agrarian unrest. United States administrators and several Philippine presidential administrations launched land reform programs to maintain social stability in the countryside. Lack of sustained political will, however, as well as landlord resistance, severely limited the impact of the various initiatives.

Farm size is a significant indicator of concentration of ownership. Although nationwide approximately 50 percent of farms in 1980 were less than two hectares, these small farms made up only 16 percent of total farm area. On the other hand, only about 3 percent of farms were over ten hectares, yet they covered approximately 25 percent of farm area. Farms also varied in size based on crops cultivated. Rice farms tended to be smaller; only 9 percent of rice land was on farms as large as ten hectares. Coconut farms tended to be somewhat larger; approximately 28 percent of the land planted in coconuts was on farms larger than ten hectares. Sugarcane, however, generally was planted on large farms. Nearly 80 percent of land planted in sugarcane was on farms larger than ten hectares. Pineapple plantations were a special case. Because the two largest producers were subsidiaries of transnational firms--Del Monte and Castle and Cooke--they were not permitted to directly own land. The transnationals circumvented this restriction, however, by leasing land. In 1987 subsidiaries of these two companies leased 21,400 hectares, 40 percent of the total hectarage devoted to pineapple production.

In September 1972, the second presidential decree that Marcos issued under martial law declared the entire Philippines a land reform area. A month later, he issued Presidential Decree No. 27, which contained the specifics of his land reform program. On paper, the program was the most comprehensive ever attempted in the Philippines, notwithstanding the fact that only rice and corn land were included. Holdings of more than seven hectares were to be purchased and parceled out to individual tenants (up to three hectares of irrigated, or five hectares of unirrigated, land), who would then pay off the value of the land over a fifteen-year period. Sharecroppers on holdings of less than seven hectares were to be converted to leaseholders, paying fixed rents.

The Marcos land reform program succeeded in breaking down many of the large haciendas in Central Luzon, a traditional center of agrarian unrest where landed elite and Marcos allies were not as numerous as in other parts of the country. In the country as a whole, however, the program was generally considered a failure. Only 20 percent of rice and corn land, or 10 percent of total farm land, was covered by the program, and in 1985, thirteen years after Marcos's proclamation, 75 percent of the expected beneficiaries had not become owner-cultivators. By 1988 less than 6 percent of all agricultural households had received a certificate of land transfer, indicating that the land they were cultivating had been registered as a land transfer holding. About half of this group, 2.4 percent, had received titles, referred to as emancipation patents. Political commitment on the part of the government waned rather quickly, after Marcos succeeded in undermining the strength of land elites who had opposed him. Even where efforts were made, implementation was selective, mismanaged, and subject to considerable graft and corruption.

The failure of the Marcos land reform program was a major theme in Aquino's 1986 presidential campaign, and she gave land reform first priority: "Land-to-the-tiller must become a reality, instead of an empty slogan." The issue was of some significance inasmuch as one of the largest landholdings in the country was her family's 15,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita. But the candidate was quite clear; the land reform would apply to Hacienda Luisita as well as to any other landholding. She did not actually begin to address the land reform question, however, until the issue was brought to a head in January 1987, when the military attacked a group of peasants marching to Malacañang, the presidential residence, to demand action on the promised land reform killing 18 and wounding more than 100 of them. The event galvanized the government into action: a land reform commission was formed, and in July 1987, one week before the new Congress convened and her decree-making powers would be curtailed, Aquino proclaimed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. More than 80 percent of cultivated land and almost 65 percent of agricultural households were to be included in a phased process that would consider the type of land and size of holding. In conformity with the country's new Constitution, provisions for "voluntary land sharing" and just compensation were included. The important details of timing, priorities, and minimum legal holdings, however, were left to be determined by the new Congress, the majority of whose members were connected to landed interests.

Criticism of Aquino's plan came from both sides. Landowners thought that it went too far, and peasant organizations complained that the program did not go far enough and that by leaving the details to a landlord-dominated Congress, the program was doomed to failure. A World Bank mission was quite critical of a draft of the land reform program. In its report, the mission suggested that in order to limit efforts to subvert the process, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program needed to be carried out swiftly rather than in stages, and land prices should be determined using a mechanical formula rather than subjective valuation. The World Bank mission also was critical of a provision allowing incorporated farm entities to distribute stock to tenants and workers rather than the land itself. The scheme would be attractive, the mission argued, "to those landowners who believed that they would not have to live up to the agreement to transfer the land to the beneficiaries." The mission's recommendations were largely ignored in the final version of the government's program.

On June 10, 1988, a year after the proclamation, Congress passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. Landowners were allowed to retain up to five hectares plus three hectares for each heir at least fifteen years of age. The program was to be implemented in phases. The amount of land that could be retained was to be gradually decreased, and a non-land-transfer, profit-sharing program could be used as an alternative to actual land transfer.

Especially controversial was the provision that allowed large landowners to transfer a portion of the respective corporation's total assets equivalent in value to that of its land assets, in lieu of the land being subdivided and distributed to tenants and farm laborers. In May 1989, the 7,000 tenants of the Aquino family estate, Hacienda Luisita, agreed to take a 33 percent share of the hacienda's corporate stock rather than a portion of the land itself. Because the remaining two-thirds of the stock (the value of non-land corporate assets) remained with Aquino's family, effective control of the land did not pass to the tillers. Proponents of land reform considered the stock-ownership provision a loophole in the law, and one that many large landowners would probably use. Following the example of the Hacienda Luisita, thirty-four agrocorporations had requested approval for a stock transfer as of mid-1990. Although legal, the action of the president's family raised questions as to the president's commitment to land reform.

It is difficult to estimate the cost allowing for inflation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Early on, in 1988 estimates ranged between P170 billion and P220 billion; the following year they were as high as P332 billion, of which P83 billion was for land acquisition and P248 billion for support services and infrastructure. The lowest mentioned figure averages to P17 billion a year, 2.1 percent of 1988 GNP in the Philippines and 8.9 percent of government expenditure that year. The sum was well beyond the capacity of the country, unless tax revenues were increased substantially and expenditure priorities reordered. To circumvent this difficulty, the Aquino government planned to obtain 50 to 60 percent of the funding requirements from foreign aid. As of 1990, however, success had been minimal.

Government claims that in the first three years of implementation the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program met with considerable success were open to question. Between July 1987 and March 1990, 430,730 hectares were distributed. About 80 percent of this, however, was from the continuation of the Marcos land reform program. Distribution of privately owned lands other than land growing rice and corn, 3,470 hectares, was insignificant not only in absolute terms, but it was also only 2 percent of what had been targeted. The inability of the Department of Agrarian Reform to spend its budget also indicated implementation difficulties. As of June 1990, the department had utilized only 44 percent of the P14.2 billion allocated to it for the period January 1988-June 1990. In part because of Supreme Court rulings, the Department of Agrarian Reform cut its land acquisition target in late 1990 by almost half from 400,000 hectares to 250,000 hectares.

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Philipine - Rice and the Green Revolution

Rice is the most important food crop, a staple food in most of the country. It is produced extensively in Luzon, the Western Visayas, Southern Mindanao, and Central Mindanao. In 1989 nearly 9.5 billion tons of palay were produced. In 1990 palay accounted for 27 percent of value added in agriculture and 3.5 percent of GNP. Per hectare yields have generally been low in comparison with other Asian countries. Since the mid-1960s, however, yields have increased substantially as a result of the cultivation of high-yielding varieties developed in the mid-1960s at the International Rice Research Institute located in the Philippines. The proportion of "miracle" rice in total output rose from zero in 1965-66 to 81 percent in 1981-82. Average productivity increased to 2.3 tons per hectare (2.8 tons on irrigated farms) by 1983. By the late 1970s, the country had changed from a net importer to a net exporter of rice, albeit on a small scale.

This "green revolution" was accompanied by an expanded use of chemical inputs. Total fertilizer consumption rose from 668 tons in 1976 to 1,222 tons in 1988, an increase of more than 80 percent. To stimulate productivity, the government also undertook a major expansion of the nation's irrigation system. The area under irrigation grew from under 500,000 hectares in the mid-1960s to 1.5 million hectares in 1988, almost half of the potentially irrigable land.

In the 1980s, however, rice production encountered problems. Average annual growth for 1980-85 declined to a mere 0.9 percent, as contrasted with 4.6 percent for the preceding fifteen years. Growth of value added in the rice industry also fell in the 1980s. Tropical storms and droughts, the general economic downturn of the 1980s, and the 1983-85 economic crisis all contributed to this decline. Crop loans dried up, prices of agricultural inputs increased, and palay prices declined. Fertilizer and plant nutrient consumption dropped 15 percent. Farmers were squeezed by rising debts and declining income. Hectarage devoted to rice production, level during the latter half of the 1970s, fell an average of 2.4 percent per annum during the first half of the 1980s, with the decline primarily in marginal, nonirrigated farms. As a result, in 1985, the last full year of the Marcos regime, the country imported 538,000 tons of rice. The situation improved somewhat in the late 1980s, and smaller amounts of rice were imported. However, in 1990 the country experienced a severe drought. Output fell by 1.5 percent, forcing the importation of an estimated 400,000 tons of rice.

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Language Diversity and Uniformity of Philipine

Some eleven languages and eighty-seven dialects were spoken in the Philippines in the late 1980s. Eight of these--Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bicolano, Waray-Waray, Pampangan, and Pangasinan--were native tongues for about 90 percent of the population. All eight belong to the Malay-Polynesian language family and are related to Indonesian and Malay, but no two are mutually comprehensible. Each has a number of dialects and all have impressive literary traditions, especially Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilocano. Some of the languages have closer affinity than others. It is easier for Ilocanos and Pangasinans to learn each other's language than to learn any of the other six. Likewise, speakers of major Visayan Island languages--Cebuano, Ilongo, and Waray-Waray--find it easier to communicate with each other than with Tagalogs, Ilocanos, or others.

Language divisions were nowhere more apparent than in the continuing public debate over national language. The government in 1974 initiated a policy of gradually phasing out English in schools, business, and government, and replacing it with Pilipino, based on the Tagalog language of central and southern Luzon. Pilipino had spread throughout the nation, the mass media, and the school system. In 1990 President Corazon Aquino ordered that all government offices use Pilipino as a medium of communication, and 200 college executives asked that Pilipino be the main medium of college instruction rather than English. Government and educational leaders hoped that Pilipino would be in general use throughout the archipelago by the end of the century. By that time, it might have enough grass-roots support in non-Tagalog-speaking regions to become a national language. In the early l990s, however, Filipinos had not accepted a national language at the expense of their regional languages. Nor was there complete agreement that regional languages should be subordinated to a national language based on Tagalog.

The role of English was also debated. Some argued that English was essential to economic progress because it opened the Philippines to communication with the rest of the world, facilitated foreign commerce, and made Filipinos desirable employees for international firms both in the Philippines and abroad. Despite census reports that nearly 65 percent of the populace claimed some understanding of English, as of the early 1990s competence in English appeared to have deteriorated. Groups also debated whether "Filipinization" and the resulting shifting of the language toward "Taglish" (a mixture of Tagalog and English) had made the language less useful as a medium of international communication. Major newspapers in the early 1990s, however, were in English, English language movies were popular, and English was often used in advertisements.

Successful Filipinos were likely to continue to be competent in Pilipino and English. Speakers of another regional language would most likely continue to use that language at home, Pilipino in ordinary conversation in the cities, and English for commerce, government, and international relations. Both Pilipino, gaining use in the media, and English continued in the 1990s to be the languages of education.

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Historical Development of Ethnic Identities in Philipine

Philippine society was relatively homogeneous in 1990, especially considering its distribution over some 1,000 inhabited islands. Muslims and upland tribal peoples were obvious exceptions, but approximately 90 percent of the society remained united by a common cultural and religious background. Among the lowland Christian Filipinos, language was the main point of internal differentiation, but the majority interacted and intermarried regularly across linguistic lines. Because of political centralization, urbanization, and extensive internal migration, linguistic barriers were eroding, and government emphasis on Pilipino and English (at the expense of local dialects) also reduced these divisions. Nevertheless, national integration remained incomplete.

Through centuries of intermarriage, Filipinos had become a unique blend of Malay, Chinese, Spanish, Negrito, and American. Among the earliest inhabitants were Negritos, followed by Malays, who deserve most of the credit for developing lowland Philippine agricultural life as it is known in the modern period. As the Malays spread throughout the archipelago, two things happened. First, they absorbed, through intermarriage, most of the Negrito population, although a minority of Negritos remained distinct by retreating to the mountains. Second, they dispersed into separate groups, some of which became relatively isolated in pockets on Mindanao, northern Luzon, and some of the other large islands. Comparative linguistic analysis suggests that most groups may once have spoken a form of "proto-Manobo," but that each group developed a distinct vernacular that can be traced to its contact over the centuries with certain groups and its isolation from others.

With the advent of Islam in the southern Philippines during the fifteenth century, separate sultanates developed on Mindanao and in the Sulu Archipelago. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Islamic influence had spread as far north as Manila Bay.

Spain colonized the Philippines in the sixteenth century and succeeded in providing the necessary environment for the development of a Philippine national identity; however, Spain never completely vitiated Muslim autonomy on Mindanao and in the Sulu Archipelago, where the separate Muslim sultanates of Sulu, Maguindanao, and Maranao remained impervious to Christian conversion. Likewise, the Spanish never succeeded in converting upland tribal groups, particularly on Luzon and Mindanao. The Spanish influence was strongest among lowland groups and emanated from Manila. Even among these lowland peoples, however, linguistic differences continued to outweigh unifying factors until a nationalist movement emerged to question Spanish rule in the nineteenth century.

Philippine national identity emerged as a blend of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups, when lowland Christians, called indios by the Spaniards, began referring to themselves as "Filipinos," excluding Muslims, upland tribal groups, and ethnic Chinese who had not been assimilated by intermarriage and did not fit the category. In the very process of defining a national identity, the majority was also drawing attention to a basic societal cleavage among the groups. In revolting against Spanish rule and, later, fighting United States troops, the indigenous people became increasingly conscious of a national unity transcending local and regional identities. A public school system that brought at least elementary-level education to all but the most remote barrios and sitios (small clusters of homes) during the early twentieth century also served to dilute religious, ethnic, and linguistic or regional differences, as did improvements in transportation and communication systems and the spread of English as a lingua franca.

source : www.countrynation.com

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Philiphine - Climate

The Philippines has a tropical marine climate dominated by a rainy season and a dry season. The summer monsoon brings heavy rains to most of the archipelago from May to October, whereas the winter monsoon brings cooler and drier air from December to February. Manila and most of the lowland areas are hot and dusty from March to May. Even at this time, however, temperatures rarely rise above 37° C. Mean annual sea-level temperatures rarely fall below 27° C. Annual rainfall measures as much as 5,000 millimeters in the mountainous east coast section of the country, but less than 1,000 millimeters in some of the sheltered valleys.

Monsoon rains, although hard and drenching, are not normally associated with high winds and waves. But the Philippines does sit astride the typhoon belt, and it suffers an annual onslaught of dangerous storms from July through October. These are especially hazardous for northern and eastern Luzon and the Bicol and Eastern Visayas regions, but Manila gets devastated periodically as well.

In the last decade, the Philippines has suffered severely from natural disasters. In 1990 alone, Central Luzon was hit by both a drought, which sharply curtailed hydroelectric power, and by a typhoon that flooded practically all of Manila's streets. Still more damaging was an earthquake that devastated a wide area in Luzon, including Baguio and other northern areas. The city of Cebu and nearby areas were struck by a typhoon that killed more than a hundred people, sank vessels, destroyed part of the sugar crop, and cut off water and electricity for several days.

Building construction is undertaken with natural disasters in mind. Most rural housing has consisted of nipa huts that are easily damaged but are inexpensive and easy to replace. Most urban buildings are steel and concrete structures designed (not always successfully) to resist both typhoons and earthquakes. Damage is still significant, however, and many people are displaced each year by typhoons, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. In 1987 alone the Department of Social Welfare and Development helped 2.4 million victims of natural disasters.

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Early History of Philipines

Negrito, proto-Malay, and Malay peoples were the principal peoples of the Philippine archipelago. The Negritos are believed to have migrated by land bridges some 30,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. Later migrations were by water and took place over several thousand years in repeated movements before and after the start of the Christian era.

The social and political organization of the population in the widely scattered islands evolved into a generally common pattern. Only the permanent-field rice farmers of northern Luzon had any concept of territoriality. The basic unit of settlement was the barangay, originally a kinship group headed by a datu (chief). Within the barangay, the broad social divisions consisted of nobles, including the datu; freemen; and a group described before the Spanish period as dependents. Dependents included several categories with differing status: landless agricultural workers; those who had lost freeman status because of indebtedness or punishment for crime; and slaves, most of whom appear to have been war captives.

Islam was brought to the Philippines by traders and proselytizers from the Indonesian islands. By 1500 Islam was established in the Sulu Archipelago and spread from there to Mindanao; it had reached the Manila area by 1565. Muslim immigrants introduced a political concept of territorial states ruled by rajas or sultans who exercised suzerainty over the datu. Neither the political state concept of the Muslim rulers nor the limited territorial concept of the sedentary rice farmers of Luzon, however, spread beyond the areas where they originated. When the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, the majority of the estimated 500,000 people in the islands still lived in barangay settlements.

Source : www.countrystudie.com

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The Blackfoot Nation

by Richard C. Hanes and Matthew T. Pifer

The Blackfoot Nation is actually a confederation of several distinct tribes, including the South Piegan (or Pikuni), the Blood (or Kainai), the North Piegan, and the North Blackfoot (or Siksika). They traditionally called each other Nizitapi, or "Real People." The name Blackfoot reportedly derived from the black-dyed moccasins worn by some tribal members at the time of early contact with non-Indians. The Blackfoot are also known as the Blackfeet. The Blood, Siksika, and Piegan freely intermarried, spoke a common language, shared the same cultural traits, and fought the same enemies. This confederation traditionally occupied the northwest portion of the Great Plains from the northern reaches of the Saskatchewan River of western Saskatchewan and southern Alberta, Canada, to the Yellowstone River in central Montana including the headwaters of the Missouri River. The Northern Blackfoot live farthest north, the Blood and North Piegan in the middle just north of the Canadian border, and the South Piegan furthest south along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in northern Montana. The confederation had more than one tribal leader. Each tribe consisted of a number of hunting bands, which were the primary political units of the tribe. Each of these bands was headed by both a war leader and a civil leader, the former chosen because of his reputation as a warrior, and the later chosen because of his eloquent oratory.



The Blackfoot were one of many tribes to rely on buffalo for survival.

In 1809, fur trapper and explorer Alexander Henry estimated the North Blackfoot population at 5,200. In 1832, artist George Catlin estimated the population of the entire confederation at 16,500. By 1840, the population began decreasing significantly from epidemics of diphtheria in 1836 and smallpox in 1837, and from increasing warfare. One southern group of 2,000 in central Montana known to some as Small Robes reportedly disappeared altogether. Still, the Blackfoot reigned over the northern Plains region of southern Alberta and northern Montana into the mid-nineteenth century. By 1896, however, only 1,400 Blackfoot lived in Montana.

As a member of the Algonquian language family, the Blackfoot are related to other Algonquianspeaking tribes whom ethnologists believe migrated onto the plains from the eastern woodlands several centuries before contact with whites. Some Blackfoot do not readily accept that historic interpretation. In The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains, John C. Ewers stated that the Blackfoot were the "earliest Algonquian residents of the plains." Consequently, their culture is a Plains culture, revolving around warfare, buffalo, and the horse. During the nineteenth century, the Blackfoot confederation was the most powerful of the Northern Plains Native groups, actually impeding to some extent the westward U.S. expansion.







Title made by blog owner
article source : http://www.everyculture.com/multi/A-Br/Blackfoot.html

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LITERATURE, ACADEMIA, AND THE ARTS

Apaches are making important contributions to Native American literature and the arts. Lorenzo Baca, of Mescalero Apache and Isleta Pueblo heritage, is not only a writer, but also a performing and visual artist who does fine art, sculpture, video, storytelling and acting. His poetry has been anthologized in The Shadows of Light: Poetry and Photography of the Motherlode and Sierras (Jelm Mountain Publications), in Joint Effort II: Escape (Sierra Conservation Center), and in Neon Powwow: New Native American Voices of the Southwest (Northland Publishing).

His audio recording, Songs, Poems and Lies, was produced by Mr. Coyote Man Productions. An innovative writer, his circle stories entitled "Ten Rounds" in Neon Powwow illustrate his imagination and capacity to create new forms of poetic expression. Jicarilla Apache creative writers Stacey Velarde and Carlson Vicenti present portraits of Native people in the modern world in their stories in the Neon Powwow anthology. Velarde, who has been around horses all her life and has competed in professional rodeos since the age of 13, applies this background and knowledge in her story "Carnival Lights," while Vicenti, in "Hitching" and "Oh Saint Michael," shows how Native people incorporate traditional ways into modern life.

White Mountain Apache poet Roman C. Adrian has published poetry in Sun Tracks, The New Times, Do Not Go Gentle, and The Remembered Earth. The late Chiricahua Apache poet Blossom Haozous, of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was a leader in the bilingual presentation of Apache traditional stories, both orally and in publication. One of the stories, "Quarrel Between Thunder and Wind" was published bilingually in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, the quarterly scholarly journal of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Jose L. Garza, Coahuilateca and Apache, is not only a leading Native American poet but a leading Native American educator as well. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Akwe:kon Journal, of the American Indian Program at Cornell University, The Native Sun, New Rain Anthology, The Wayne Review, Triage, and The Wooster Review. Garza is a professor at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and is a regional coordinator of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Mentor and Apprentice Writers. In Wordcraft Circle, he organizes and helps conduct intensive writing workshops in which young Native writers from all tribes have an opportunity to hone their creative skills and learn how they can publish their work.

Other Apache writers include Lou Cuevas, author of Apache Legends: Songs of the Wild Dancer and In the Valley of the Ancients: A Book of Native American Legends (both Naturegraph); Jicarilla Apache scholar Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, the author of The Jicarilla Apache Tribe (University of Nebraska Press); and Michael Lacapa, of Apache, Hopi, and Pueblo heritage, the author of The Flute Player, Antelope Woman: An Apache Folktale, and The Mouse Couple (all Northland). Throughout the Apache tribes, the traditional literature and knowledge of the people is handed down from generation to generation by storytellers who transmit their knowledge orally.

VISUAL ARTS

Chiricahua Apache sculptor Allan Houser has been acclaimed throughout the world for his six decades of work in wood, marble, stone, and bronze. Houser was born June 30, 1914, near Apache, Oklahoma. He died on August 22, 1994, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His Apache surname was Haozous, which means "Pulling Roots."

In the 1960s, Houser was a charter faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where he began to cast statues in bronze. He taught until 1975. After retirement from teaching, he devoted himself full-time to his work, creating sculptures in bronze, wood, and stone. In April 1994, he presented an 11-foot bronze sculpture to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, D.C., as a gift from the American Indians to all people.

Houser was known primarily for his large sculptures. Many of these could be seen in a sculpture garden, arranged among pinon and juniper trees, near his studio. His work is included in the British Royal Collection, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, the Museum of Northern Arizona at Flagstaff, Arizona, the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, the Fine Arts Museum of the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Apache Tribal Cultural Center in Apache, Oklahoma, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the University Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Houser's work has won many awards, including the Prix de West Award in 1993 for a bronze sculpture titled "Smoke Signals" at the annual National Academy of Western Art show at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. "Smoke Signals" is now a part of the permanent collection of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

One of his best known works, a bronze statue of an Indian woman, titled "As Long as the Waters Flow," stands in front of the state capitol of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. At the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, two large Houser sculptures were on loan to the university and on display on the grounds of the campus at the time of his death. At the Fred Jones Jr. Museum on campus several Houser pieces from private Oklahoma collections were on view. Upon his death, the University of Oklahoma Student Association announced the creation of the Allan Houser Memorial Sculpture Fund. The fund will be used to purchase a major Houser sculpture for permanent display on the University of Oklahoma campus.

Jordan Torres (1964– ) is a Mescalero Apache sculptor from the tribe's reservation near Ruidoso, New Mexico. His work illustrates the Apache way of life. It includes "Forever," an alabaster sculpture of an Apache warrior carrying a shield and blanket; and a white buffalo entitled "On the Edge."

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THE FIRST APACHES IN AMERICA

Apaches are, relatively speaking, new arrivals in the Southwest. Their language family, Athapascan, is dispersed over a vast area of the upper Western hemisphere, from Alaska and Canada to Mexico. Apaches have moved farther south than any other members of the Athapascan language family, which includes the Navajo, who are close relatives of the Apaches. When Spaniards first encountered the Apaches and Navajos in the sixteenth century, they could not tell them apart and referred to the Navajo as Apaches de Navajo.

Athapascans are generally believed to have been among the last peoples to have crossed the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska during the last interglacial epoch. Most members of the language family still reside in the far north. Exactly when the Apaches and Navajos began their migration southward is not known, but it is clear that they had not arrived in the Southwest before the end of the fourteenth century. The Southwest was home to a number of flourishing civilizations—the ancient puebloans, the Mogollon, the Hohokum, and others—until near the end of the fourteenth century.

Those ancient peoples are now believed to have become the Papago, Pima, and Pueblo peoples of the contemporary Southwest. Scholars at one time assumed that the arrival of the Apaches and Navajos played a role in the abandonment of those ancient centers of civilization. It is now known that prolonged drought near the end of the fourteenth century was the decisive factor in disrupting what was already a delicate balance of life for those agricultural cultures in the arid Southwest. The Apaches and Navajos probably arrived to find that the ancient puebloans in the present-day Four Corners area had reestablished themselves near dependable sources of water in the Pueblo villages of the upper Rio Grande Valley in what is now New Mexico, and that the Mogollon in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona and the Hohokam in southern Arizona had likewise migrated from their ancient ruins. When Spaniards first entered the region, with the expedition of Francisco de Coronado in 1540, the Apaches and Navajos had already established themselves in their homeland.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

The Grand Apacheria, as it was known, the homeland of the Apaches, was a vast region stretching from what is now central Arizona in the west to present-day central and south Texas in the east, and from northern Mexico in the south to the high plains of what became eastern Colorado in the north. This region was divided between Eastern and Western Apaches. Eastern Apaches were Plains Apaches. In the days before the horse, and before the historic southward migration of the Comanche Nation, in the early 1700s, the Plains Apaches were the lords of the Southern Plains. Western Apaches lived primarily on the western side of the Continental Divide in the mountains of present-day Arizona and western New Mexico. When the Comanches adopted the use of the horse and migrated southward out of what is now Wyoming, they displaced the Eastern Apaches from the Southern Great Plains, who then took up residence in the mountainous country of what eventually became eastern New Mexico.

ACCULTURATION AND ASSIMILATION

While adhering strongly to their culture in the face of overwhelming attempts to suppress it, Apaches have been adaptable at the same time. As an example, approximately 70 percent of the Jicarillas still practice the Apache religion. When the first Jicarilla tribal council was elected, following the reforms of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, ten of its 18 members were medicine men and five others were traditional leaders from chiefs' families. In 1978, a survey found that at least one-half of the residents of the reservation still spoke Jicarilla, and one-third of the households used it regularly. Jicarilla children in the 1990s, however, prefer English, and few of the younger children learn Jicarilla today. The director of the Jicarilla Education Department laments the direction such changes are taking, but no plans are underway to require the children to learn Jicarilla. At the same time, Jicarillas are demonstrating a new pride in traditional crafts. Basketry and pottery making, which had nearly died out during the 1950s, are now valued skills once again, taught and learned with renewed vigor. Many Apaches say they are trying to have the best of both worlds, attempting to survive in the dominant culture while still remaining Apache.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

The most enduring Apache custom is the puberty ceremony for girls, held each summer. Clan relatives still play important roles in these ceremonies, when girls become Changing Woman for the four days of their nai'es. These are spectacular public events, proudly and vigorously advertised by the tribe.

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Apaches - Modern Era

Apache populations today may be found in Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. The San Carlos Reservation in eastern Arizona occupies 1,900,000 acres and has a population of more than 6,000. The San Carlos Reservation and Fort Apache Reservation were administratively divided in 1897. In the 1920s the San Carlos Reservation established a business committee, which was dominated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The business committee evolved into a tribal council, which now runs the tribe as a corporation.

The reservation lost most of its best farmland when the Coolidge Dam was completed in 1930. Mount Graham, 10,720 feet in elevation, is sacred land to the Apaches. It stands at the southern end of the reservation. The Tonto Reservation in east-central Arizona is a small community, closely related to the Tontos at Camp Verde Reservation.

The Fort Apache Reservation occupies 1,665,000 acres in eastern Arizona and has a population of more than 12,000. It is home to the Coyotero Apaches which include the Cibecue and White Mountain Apaches. Approximately half of the land is timbered; there is diverse terrain with different ecosystems depending upon the elevation, from 2,700 feet to 11,500 feet.

Fort Apache was founded as a military post in 1863 and decommissioned in 1922. The Fort Apache Recreation Enterprise, begun in 1954, has created much economic activity, including Sunrise Ski Area, which generates more than $9 million in revenue annually. In 1993, the White Mountain Apaches opened the Hon Dah (Apache for "Welcome") Casino on the Fort Apache Reservation.

The Camp Verde Reservation occupies approximately 500 acres in central Arizona. The reservation, in several small fragments, is shared by about an equal number of Tonto Apaches and Yavapai living in three communities, at Camp Verde, Middle Verde, and Clarksdale. About half of the 1,200 tribal members live on the reservation. Middle Verde is the seat of government, a tribal council that is elected from the three communities. The original tract of 40 acres, acquired in 1910, is at Camp Verde.

By 1916, an additional 400 acres had been added at Middle Verde. In 1969, 60 acres were acquired at Clarksdale, a donation of the Phelps-Dodge Company when it closed its Clarksdale mining operation, to be used as a permanent land base for the Yavapai-Apache community that had worked in the Clarksdale copper mines. An additional 75 acres of tribal land surrounds the Montezuma Castle National Monument. Approximately 280 acres at Middle Verde is suitable for agriculture. The tribe has the highest percentage of its students enrolled in college of any tribe in Arizona.

The Jicarilla Reservation occupies 750,000 acres in north-central New Mexico. There are two divisions among the Jicarilla, the Olleros ("Potmakers") and the Llaneros ("Plains People"). Jicarilla is a Spanish word meaning "Little Basket." In 1907, the reservation was enlarged, with the addition of a large block of land to the south of the original section. In the 1920s, most Jicarilla were stockmen.

Many lived on isolated ranches, until drought began making sheep raising unprofitable. After World War II, oil and gas were discovered on the southern portion of the reservation, which by 1986 was producing annual income of $25 million (which dropped to $11 million during the recession in the early 1990s). By the end of the 1950s, 90 percent of the Jicarilla had moved to the vicinity of the agency town of Dulce.

The Mescalero Reservation occupies 460,000 acres in southeast New Mexico in the Sacramento Mountains northeast of Alamogordo. Located in the heart of a mountain recreational area, the Mescaleros have taken advantage of the scenic beauty, bringing tourist dollars into their economy with such enterprises as the Inn of the Mountain Gods, which offers several restaurants and an 18-hole golf course. Another tribal operation, a ski area named Ski Apache, brings in more revenue.

The nearby Ruidoso Downs horse racing track also attracts visitors to the area. From mid-May to mid-September, lake and stream fishing is accessible at Eagle Creek Lakes, Silver Springs, and Rio Ruidoso recreation areas. The Mescaleros, like the Jicarilla, are an Eastern Apache tribe, with many cultural influences from the Southern Great Plains.

Apaches in Oklahoma, except for Kiowa-Apaches, are descendants of the 340 members of Geronimo's band of Chiricahua Apaches. The Chiricahua were held as prisoners of war, first in 1886 at Fort Marion, Florida, then for seven years at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, and finally at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. By the time they arrived in Fort Sill on October 4, 1894, their numbers had been reduced by illness to 296 men, women and children. They remained prisoners of war on the Fort Sill Military Reservation until 1913. In that year, a total of 87 Chiricahua were allotted lands on the former Kiowa-Comanche Reservation, not far from Fort Sill.

The Kiowa-Apache are a part of the Kiowa Nation. The Kiowa-Apache are under the jurisdiction of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Agency of the Anadarko Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the 1950s, the Kiowa-Apache held two seats on the 12-member Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Business Committee. Elections for the Kiowa-Apache seats on the Business Committee were held every four years at Fort Cobb. The Kiowas and the Comanches now have separate business committees, which function as the equivalent of tribal governments, and the Kiowa-Apaches have remained allied with the Kiowas. The Kiowa-Apache are an Athapascan-speaking people.

They are thought to have diverged from other Athapascans in the northern Rocky Mountains while the Southern Athapascans were in the process of migrating to the Southwest. They became allied with the Kiowas, who at that time lived near the headwaters of the Missouri River in the high Rockies, and they migrated to the Southern Plains with the Kiowas, stopping en route for a time in the vicinity of the Black Hills. Since they first became known to Europeans, they have been closely associated with the Kiowas on the Great Plains.

The Lewis and Clark expedition met the Kiowa-Apaches in 1805 and recorded the first estimate of their population, giving them an approximate count of 300. The Kiowas and the Kiowa-Apaches eventually became close allies of the Comanches on the Southern Plains. By treaty in 1868 the Kiowa-Apaches joined the Kiowas and Comanches on the same reservation. A devastating measles epidemic killed hundreds of the three tribes in 1892. In 1901, the tribal estate was allotted to individual tribal members, and the remainder of their land was opened to settlement by American farmers. The Kiowa-Apache allotments are near the communities of Fort Cobb and Apache in Caddo County, Oklahoma. Official population reports for the Kiowa-Apaches put their numbers at 378 in 1871, 344 in 1875, 349 in 1889, 208 in 1896, and 194 in 1924. In 1951, historian Muriel Wright estimated their population in Oklahoma at approximately 400.

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Apaches - History

Apaches have endured severe economic and political disruptions, first by the Spanish, then by the Comanches, and later by the United States government.

Apaches became known to the Spanish during authorized and illegal Spanish exploratory expeditions into the Southwest during the sixteenth century, beginning with the Coronado expedition of 1540, but including a number of others, at intervals, throughout the century. It was not until 1598, however, that Apaches had to adjust to the presence of Europeans within their homeland, when the expedition of Juan de Oñate entered the Pueblo country of the upper Rio Grande River Valley in the present state of New Mexico. Oñate intended to establish a permanent Spanish colony. The expedition successfully colonized the area, and by 1610 the town of Santa Fe had been founded.

Until the arrival of the Spanish, the Apaches and the Pueblos had enjoyed a mercantile relationship: Pueblos traded their agricultural products and pottery to the Apaches in exchange for buffalo robes and dried meat. The annual visits of whole Apache tribes for trade fairs with the Pueblos, primarily at the pueblos of Taos and Picuris, were described with awe by the early Spaniards in the region.

The Spanish, however, began annually to confiscate the Pueblo trade surpluses, thereby disrupting the trade. Nonetheless some Apaches, notably the Jicarillas, became friends and allies of the Spanish. A small group broke away from the Eastern Apaches in the 1600s and migrated into Texas and northern Mexico. This band became known as the Lipan Apaches and was subsequently enslaved by Spanish explorers and settlers from Mexico in the 1700s. They were forced to work on ranches and in mines. The surviving Lipan Apaches were relocated to the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico in 1903.

The historic southward migration of the Comanche Nation, beginning around 1700, was devastating for the Eastern Apaches. By about 1725 the Comanches had established authority throughout the whole of the Southern Plains region, pushing the Eastern Apaches (the Jicarillas north of Santa Fe, and the Mescaleros south of Santa Fe) into the mountains of the front range of the Rockies in New Mexico. Denied access to the buffalo herds, the Apaches turned to Spanish cattle and horses.

When the Spanish were able to conclude a treaty of peace with the Comanches in 1786, they employed large bodies of Comanche and Navajo auxiliary troops with Spanish regulars, in implementing an Apache policy that pacified the entire Southwestern frontier by 1790. Each individual Apache group was hunted down and cornered, then offered a subsidy sufficient for their maintenance if they would settle near a Spanish mission, refrain from raiding Spanish livestock, and live peacefully. One by one, each Apache group accepted the terms. The peace, though little studied by modern scholars, is thought to have endured until near the end of the Spanish colonial era.

The start of the Mexican War with the United States in 1846 disrupted the peace, and by the time the United States moved into the Southwest at the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848, the Apaches posed an almost unsolvable problem. The Americans, lacking both Spanish diplomatic skills and Spanish understanding of the Apaches, sought to subjugate the Apaches militarily, an undertaking that was not achieved until the final surrender of Geronimo's band in 1886. Some Apaches became prisoners of war, shipped first to Florida, then to Alabama, and finally to Oklahoma. Others entered a period of desultory reservation life in the Southwest.

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Apaches - Overview

By : D. L. Birchfield

The name "Apache" is a Spanish corruption of "Apachii," a Zuñi word meaning "enemy." Federally recognized contemporary Apache tribal governments are located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Apache reservations are also located in Arizona and New Mexico.

In Oklahoma, the Apache land was allotted in severalty under the General Allotment Act of 1887 (also known as the Dawes Act); Oklahoma Apaches became citizens of the new state of Oklahoma and of the United States in 1907. Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico were not granted U.S. citizenship until 1924.

Since attempting to terminate its governmental relationship with Indian tribes in the 1950s, the United States has since adopted a policy of assisting the tribes in achieving some measure of self-determination, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld some attributes of sovereignty for Indian nations.

In recent years Apache tribal enterprises such as ski areas, resorts, casinos, and lumber mills have helped alleviate chronically high rates of unemployment on the reservations, and bilingual and bicultural educational programs have resulted from direct Apache involvement in the educational process. As of 1990, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 53,330 people identified themselves as Apache, up from 35,861 in 1980.


Source : http://www.everyculture.com/ (the source of this article is aplied to other article about Apache)

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THE DOMINANT EXECUTIVE AND THE POWER ELITE IN EGYPT

Politics among Elites

Military Politics

A major issue of Egypt's elite politics was the role of the military in the state. Nasser's Free Officers founded republican government and led Egypt's 1952 Revolution from above. Presidents continued to be ex-military men. But as Egypt entered a postrevolutionary phase, Sadat successfully demilitarized the state and depoliticized the officer corps.

Without losing control of the military, Sadat was able to change it from the dominant leadership group in the state into a professional force subordinate to legal authority, radically curtailing its policy-making role, even in defense matters. This change was paralleled by a deradicalization that ended the army's role as "defender of the revolution" and as defender of the Arab nation against imperialism.

Long-term developments that were maturing before Sadat took power facilitated his effort. As many Free Officers acquired wealth and married into great families, they were deradicalized. If the Free Officers had originally been the vanguard of the rising middle class against the traditional upper class, by the late 1970s senior officers had become part of a new establishment.

Many officers blamed the 1967 defeat on Nasser, the Soviet Union, and socialist measures. They resented Nasser's scapegoating of the high command for the army's failures. In addition, because the defeat could plausibly be blamed on military involvement in politics, it discredited the military's claim to political leadership and enhanced the prestige of nonpolitical professional officers. Nasser stressed professional competence in the post-1967 reconstruction of the army, and many officers themselves became impatient with political involvement that could detract from the mission of defending the front and recovering the land and honor lost in 1967.

The fall of scores of politicized officers in the succession struggle with Sadat--in particular, the group around Marshal Abdul Hakim Amir after the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War) and the Ali Sabri group--removed the most powerful and politicized Free Officers and dissipated remaining radical sentiment in the ranks of the officer corps. In the succession struggle, Minister of War General Muhammad Fawzi stood with the leftist Sabri faction and tried to mobilize the military against Sadat by accusing him of selling out to the Americans, but Chief of Staff General Muhammad Sadiq and the rest of the top brass stood with Sadat and neutralized Fawzi.

No doubt the military's stand was affected by the unpopularity of Sabri's effort to build up the state party as a counterweight to the military, his identification with the unpopular Soviet advisory mission, and Sadat's promise to reinstate officers unfairly blamed for the 1967 defeat. But the long tradition of presidential authority established under Nasser seemed the decisive factor in rallying the professional military to Sadat's side. And this victory went far to reinforce the legal supremacy of presidential authority over all other state institutions.

Nevertheless, Sadat was thereafter embroiled in and won two other power struggles with top generals who contested his defense and foreign policies. In 1972 General Sadiq, then minister of war, seemed to challenge presidential prerogatives. Sadiq considered himself entitled, given his role in Sadat's victory and his Free Officer status, to a share in decision-making power.

He used rewards, promotions, and the mobilization of anti-Soviet sentiment in the army to build a personal power base. Sadat viewed Sadiq as a mere member of his staff and saw his anti-Soviet advocacy and his links with Libya's Colonel Muammar al Qadhafi, whom Sadat deeply distrusted, as encroachments on presidential authority.

Most serious, Sadiq objected to Sadat's plans for a limited war in Sinai to seize a strip of land across the Suez Canal as a prelude to negotiations with Israel. Believing Egypt unprepared for such an ambitious venture, he argued, in a tense meeting of the high command, against any military action, a course untenable for Sadat. Sadat's move against Sadiq was a classic example of his strategy of control over the military. He waited until he had first expelled the Soviet advisers, thus winning for himself the acclaim of antiSoviet elements and taking the wind out of Sadiq's sails.

He obtained the support of other top commanders, especially Chief of Staff Saad ad Din Shazli, who had quarreled with Sadiq over authority in the high command, rallied the field commanders by accusing Sadiq of ignoring orders to prepare for war, and quickly replaced Sadiq with General Ahmad Ismail Ali, a personal friend who lacked political ambition. With the help of these allies, Sadat foiled a pro-Sadiq coup attempt.

Not long after, Sadat faced another challenge, this time from General Shazli. The two men quarreled over the conduct of the October 1973 War, each holding the other responsible for the Israeli breakthrough onto the west bank of the Suez Canal. After the war, Shazli was a leading opponent of the decision to rely on the United States at the cost of weakening Egypt's military ability to take action. Sadat rallied the support of other top officers against Shazli, including then Minister of War Ismail, Air Force Commander Husni Mubarak, and Chief of Operations General Abdul Ghani Gamasi.

Shazli enjoyed considerable support in the military but either would not or could not mobilize it before the high command decimated his followers in a wave of purges from corps and division commanders on down. While some of his top generals were in the future to disagree with Sadat's policies, none would again overtly challenge them, and when he chose to dismiss them, they offered no resistance.

The army, however, was not free of disaffection. Some junior officers who risked their lives in the "crossing" of the Suez Canal believed Sadat sold out the gains won on the battlefield. There were recurring signs of Nasserite and Islamic tendencies in the ranks thereafter. But most officers remained loyal for several reasons: the legitimacy Sadat won in the October 1973 War, in which the army had redeemed its lost honor; the realization that the alternative to Sadat might be another war in which this gain might be sacrificed; and the privileges and new American weapons Sadat lavished on the officer corps.

The stake in infitah business some officers acquired, the acceptance of professionalism among most senior officers, and Sadat's practice of rotating senior commanders had, by the end of his presidency, seemingly reduced the military from leaders of the regime to one of its main pillars.

Under Mubarak the military remained a powerful corporate actor in the political system, and the case of Minister of Defense Abdul Halim Abu Ghazala manifested both the power and limits of the military establishment. Mubarak was initially less careful than Sadat to rotate military chieftains and to balance them with rival officers or with strong civilian politicians. As a result, Abu Ghazala, an ambitious politicized and conservative general, appeared to establish unprecedented power and acknowledged status as the number-two man in the regime.

He positioned himself as champion of arms spending, resisting all decreases in the defense budget and pushing for greater autonomy for the armed forces in the political system. He widened the role of the army in the economy, making it a font of patronage, subcontracting to the private sector, and establishing close relations between the Egyptian arms industry and United States arms suppliers. Abu Ghazala also presided over the growth of privileged facilities for the military, a development that made him something of a hero in the ranks. He appeared to stake out positions independent of the president, apparently objecting to Mubarak's soft-line handling of the Achille Lauro terrorist incident in October 1985. Whereas the president sought to step back from the close alliance with Washington, Abu Ghazala was known for his intimate connections to influential Americans.

In 1987 the army had to be called out when the riots of the security police left the government otherwise defenseless. Having saved the regime, Abu Ghazala seemed to have strengthened his position. He even carried influence in the appointment of cabinet ministers. But Abu Ghazala lacked the crucial control over military appointments to turn the army into a personal fiefdom; Mubarak, waking up to the danger, had by 1987 positioned his own men as chief of staff and as minister of war production. Perhaps aided by Abu Ghazala's loss of American support over an arms smuggling scandal, Mubarak had no difficulty removing him from his post in 1989.

Generally, Mubarak tried to curb military aggrandizement that diminished the civilian sector. The professionalization of the officer corps, its tradition of respect for legal legitimacy, and the reluctance of an army lacking in national vision or ambition to assume responsibility for Egypt's problems all made it unlikely that any top general could carry the officer corps in an overt challenge to Mubarak.


The Politics of Economic Strategy

The most important decision taken by the Egyptian government since Nasser was Sadat's infitah to foreign and domestic private capital. While the stagnation of the early 1970s raised the issue of economic reform, the decision to implement infitah did not take place in a political vacuum.

A number of different elite factions prescribed different solutions to the economic problems. A handful of Marxists favored a "deepening" of the socialist experiment. Another small group called for a rapid move to free-market capitalism. The third, statist trend, led by Prime Minister Aziz Sidqi, stood for a controlled role for private and foreign capital compatible with the dominance of the public sector. In May 1973, Sadat dismissed Sidqi, who was an influential possible rival associated with the Nasser era, and before long outstanding leftists, such as Minister of Planning Ismail Sabri Abdullah, were also forced out. The dominant thinking that emerged advocated creation of a new foreign sector, restriction of the public sector to large industry and infrastructure, and the opening of all other sectors to private capital. Some of Sadat's closest confidants, major figures of the Egyptian bourgeoisie such as Osman Ahmad Osman and Sayyid Marii, played major roles in swinging him toward this option. The legitimacy won in the October 1973 War gave him the strength to make this break with Nasserism.

Egypt's state-dominated economy, Sadat declared, was too burdened by military spending and bureaucratic inertia to mobilize the resources for an economic recovery. But postwar conditions, namely the diplomatic opening to the United States and the new petrodollars in Arab hands, presented a unique opportunity to spark a new economic take-off combining Western technology, Arab capital, and Egyptian labor.

An infitah would also consolidate Sadat's support among the Egyptian landed and business classes and among the state elite who had enriched themselves in office and were seeking security and investment outlets for their new wealth. In addition, Sadat viewed infitah as essential to winning American commitment to Egypt's recovery of the Sinai Peninsula from Israel.

Abdul Aziz Hijazi, a long-time minister of finance and liberal economist with links to Western and Arab capital, was appointed prime minister in 1974, charged with implementing the infitah. To neutralize resistance inside the state, Sadat encouraged a "de-Nasserization" campaign in which all those who had grievances against socialism publicly attacked it for having ruined the economy. As the emerging ills of infitah--inflation and corruption--generated discontent over the new course, Hijazi was sacked, and Mamduh Salim, Sadat's police "strong man," took over as prime minister with a mission to push ahead with infitah, overruling those who were obstructing it and those who were abusing it.

Once infitah was established as Egypt's economic strategy, intraelite conflicts centered on its proper scope and management. These conflicts typically pitted liberalizing economists, who were convinced that a fully capitalist economy would be more efficient than an economy incorporating a public sector, against more statist-minded bureaucrats and state managers, who wanted to reform, rather than to dismantle, the public sector. The latter were often allied with politicians fearful of public reaction to the rollback of populist measures such as subsidies and public- sector employment.

One major episode in this conflict came in 1976 over pressures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign banks to cut subsidies and devalue the Egyptian pound (for value of the Egyptian pound) as necessary steps in the liberalization of the economy. Sadat's minister of economy, Zaki Shafii, and his minister of finance, Ahmad Abu Ismail, fearful of the consequences on the mass standard of living, urged him to resist pressures for rapid reform.

But other economists, chief among them Abdul Munim Qaysuni, argued that Egypt could not afford costly welfare programs if it were to revitalize its productive bases. Top Western bankers, such as David Rockefeller and William Simon, urged Sadat to go beyond half measures if he wanted to make the infitah a success. Sadat overruled his own ministers and replaced them with a new team headed by Qaysuni, who began to cut the subsidies. But decision makers had misjudged their political environment. The subsidy cuts triggered the 1977 food riots, which shattered much of the support Sadat had carefully built up. The government backed down and did not again attempt such a radical cut in the social safety net for the poor.

Managing infitah remained the major problem of public policy under Mubarak. Rather than producing a dynamic capitalist alternative to Nasserite statism, infitah had stimulated a consumption boom that put Egypt in debt and made it heavily dependent on external revenues, which declined in the mid-1980s, plunging the country into economic crisis. Mubarak insisted that infitah would be reformed, not reversed, but the government's freedom of action was limited by conflicting domestic constraints. The interests created under Nasser remained obstacles to capitalist rationalization and belt-tightening.

The public sector was still the main engine of investment, and public sector managers and unionized labor tenaciously defended it. The bureaucracy, employing a large portion of the middle class, was a formidable constituency. Meanwhile, Egypt's huge army had not been demobilized, and, indeed, Sadat had bought its acquiescence to his policy by replacing weapons from the Soviet Union with more expensive arms from the United States, for which the military showed a voracious appetite.

Marshal Abu Ghazala rejected demands by Prime Minister Ali Lutfi that he pay off Egypt's military debts from revenues of arms sales overseas; instead he plowed funds into subsidized apartments, shops, and sports clubs for the officer corps. Populist "rights" acquired under Nasser had grown into a tacit social contract by which the government provided subsidized food to the masses in return for their tolerance of growing inequality. The contrast between the conspicuous new wealth and the mass poverty generated a moral malaise, making Egypt's debt a political issue. "We're asked to pay the debt," chanted demonstrators in 1986, "while they live in palaces and villas." Thus, attacking populist policies seemed likely to fuel Islamist political activism.

Infitah had itself, however, created interests resistant to reform. A larger and richer bourgeoisie was unprepared to give up opportunities for enrichment or to trim its level of consumption. Any reversal of the course that so favored this class would have cost the regime its strongest social support. Indeed, the increasing power of the bourgeoisie was manifest in its successful veto of several government reform initiatives. Prime Minister Ali Lutfi was expected to produce difficult reforms but was stymied by powerful business interests. The ability of the regime to raise domestic revenues to cope with the financial imbalance was limited because those who could pay represented the government's own support base. Thus, when importers staged demonstrations against increased customs duties, the government rescinded the duties, and the ruling party parliamentary caucus turned back its own government's proposal to tax lucrative urban real estate interests.

Caught between rich and poor, the regime opted for incrementalism. It gradually shaved subsidies, replacing the one piaster loaf of bread with a supposedly better quality, higher priced loaf; raising electricity prices; and eliminating subsidies on feed corn. The regime also partially reformed the exchange rate and raised taxes on imported luxuries. But, unable to undertake radical reform, it chiefly concentrated on negotiations with creditors for a rescheduling of debts, lower interest rates, and new loans to support the balance of payments, merely postponing the day of reckoning.

The growing power of the bourgeoisie and the determination of Mubarak's state to maintain its independence from this class was reflected in another case of economic policy making, a battle over control of foreign currency. The government wanted this control in order to protect the value of the Egyptian pound. In 1985 Minister of Economy Mustafa Said tried to close down black-market money changers who absorbed most workers' remittances but was dismissed when foreign currency dried up and business demanded his head. In 1986 the Lutfi government fell because of a bid by the governor of the Central Bank, Ali Nijm, to rein in the Islamic investment companies that also dealt in foreign currency.

The new power of this rising independent bourgeoisie resulted from its ability to disrupt the economy, its payoffs to the press, and its connections to the political opposition and inside the elite itself. In 1988 Prime Minister Atif Sidqi personally led the government's efforts while the companies mobilized the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al Muslimun; also known as the Brotherhood) and the New Wafd Party in defense of the private sector. Aided by financial scandals that damaged depositor confidence, the government brought the companies under its regulative sway, but they retained considerable autonomy. Whereas Mubarak's state was no longer a mere champion of bourgeois interests as was the state under Sadat, neither had it regained the power over society of Nasser's days.

Despite the power of elites, they did not operate in a vacuum. Many of their decisions were reached in response to economic pressures that sharply limited their options. They also had to consider the political consequences of their decisions. The major change from Nasser's era was that the bourgeoisie acquired the capacity to advance and defend its interests in the system; the 1977 riots made clear, however, that mass reaction must also be included in regime calculations. Thus, while the Egyptian state remained essentially authoritarian, decision makers could not ignore societal wishes, nor could they escape environmental constraints.

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Source : http://countrystudies.us/

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THE DOMINANT EXECUTIVE AND THE POWER ELITE IN EGYPT

The Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers

The prime minister is the president's primary lieutenant, charged with implementing his policies through the bureaucracy. Although the prime minister and his cabinet are formally accountable to parliament and are expected to submit to legislative questioning, they were, in practice, appointed and removed by the president, not by parliament.

Under Nasser, when key Free Officers headed strategic ministries, the cabinet was a center of some power, but subsequently it became merely the staff of the president. Although the president might preside over cabinet meetings, the cabinet was not a collegial decision-making body; instead, the president tended to make key decisions in ad hoc consultations with ministers and advisers in a given issue area.

Egypt's policy-making process was very much dominated by the executive branch, and the heart of the process was the interaction between the presidency and the Council of Ministers. This top executive level decided on all policy proposals, whether they originated in the bureaucracy, with influential personalities, or with interest groups.

It was also the arena in which all major political decisions were made, relatively free from institutionalized constraints or pressure from other parts of the political system or the public. Major policy innovations were typically launched by the president, perhaps under the influence of close personal advisers or the pressure of a major problem or crisis and most likely after consultation with ministerial experts. Particularly when a major policy decision was in the making, the president might encourage opinion groups to develop in the cabinet. These groups would advocate different policy options, but although the policies might seriously affect different segments of society, the opinion groups were not really representatives of those segments. Moreover, the president had the first and the last word in deciding among the groups.

The cabinet itself was, nevertheless, an arena of intraelite politics because presidents, engrossed in major political decisions, often left the day-to-day business of government to their ministers, intervening only to give general instructions or when something went wrong. Such mid-level policy making might be set in motion by the proposals of individual ministries, often generated by high civil servants or even by the interests of persons associated with a particular ministry, such as public sector managers or the various professional syndicates.

These proposals might set off factional bargaining within the cabinet and high bureaucracy. Elite factions might take the form of shillas, small groups bound by friendship or family ties, heading client networks that stretched down through the bureaucracy and competed for control of offices and the personal and venal benefits that often went with them.

Typically, there was a split in the cabinet between presidential appointees and the clients the prime minister brought on board. In the late 1970s, the cabinet was reportedly split between followers of Vice President Mubarak and Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil.

Sometimes factionalism took the form of bureaucratic rivalries between ministries over programs, resources, and jurisdictions; such bureaucratic struggles decided a good part of "who got what" in a country where the state sector was still at the center of the economy. As societal interests became stronger at the expense of government, policy making came more often to take the form of "trial balloons" in which the government or a faction of ministers tested public reaction to an initiative and often backed down if opposition was too strong. If intraelite conflict could not be settled in the cabinet or if a ministerial initiative invited excessive public reaction, the president was likely to intervene, perhaps dismissing a particular minister or faction.

The cabinet was also empowered to plan, coordinate, and control the work of the ministries in implementing policy, and to follow up, evaluate, and inspect policy implementation. Toward these ends, it was divided into two layers, with an inner cabinet of deputy prime ministers responsible for coordinating several functionally related ministries in the full cabinet that composed the outer layer. The independent Central Auditing Agency was responsible for financial control.

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THE DOMINANT EXECUTIVE AND THE POWER ELITE IN EGYPT

The President and the Power Elite

The actual use of presidential power has evolved through the changing relationship between the chief executive and the rest of the power elite. The style of presidential leadership determined how the president controlled the elite. Nasser headed and ruled through a tightly knit team of officer-revolutionaries with a certain shared vision.

Moreover, as a charismatic leader with wide popular support, he stood above and balanced off the elites and frequently used his popular support to curb them. Thus, he was able to make the presidency a highly activist, interventionist office in the service of a revolution from above that ran roughshod over the interests of the dominant classes. He did have to contend with a certain intraelite rivalry. The other senior Free Officers who had helped him make the revolution were entitled to be consulted in decision making; many of them served as powerful vice presidents, overseeing ministers in various sectors of government activity. Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amir, Nasser's close colleague and the number-two man in the regime, came close to making the army his personal "fiefdom." But in the end, those who challenged Nasser were purged, and generally he enjoyed nearly unquestioned presidential authority.

Sadat transformed the charismatic, activist presidency into a sort of "presidential monarchy." His formation of a kind of "royal family" of influential relatives in his entourage; the traditional legitimacy he resurrected; the essentially conservative objectives of his policies; and the use of clientelism and corruption, traditional techniques of rule all amounted to a traditionalization of authority. The main issue of intraelite politics under Sadat was resistance inside the establishment to the president's drive to reverse many of Nasser's policies. The popular support won in the October 1973 War gave Sadat a free hand during the crucial period of redirection (1974-76). He also built a strong client network of politicians allowed to enrich themselves by often illicit manipulations of the economic opening his policies afforded and hence, they had a big stake in his course. His shrewd patrimonial manipulations--the constant rotation of elites in and out of office while playing them against each other--also helped him dominate the elite. The authoritarian political structure was crucial to Sadat's enterprise; the regime, lacking traditions of mass participation, largely kept the major decisions inside elite circles where the presidency was the dominant force. But Sadat's support also rested on a kind of tacit "social contract" with his elite and upper-class supporters under which he had to curb the arbitrary power of the state and the presidency. On one hand, Sadat retained freedom in foreign policy, where personal impulses often seemed to override professional advice, and the ultimate powers of the authoritarian presidency were never overtly challenged. On the other hand, Sadat relaxed the state's control over society and the political arena and curbed the interventionist role the presidency had played under Nasser. Although Sadat retained the last word, he refrained from intervening in many domestic policy matters, allowing the bourgeoisie growing scope to advance its interests. Thus, a hybrid of traditional and legalrational authority emerged: a presidential monarchy presiding over a power-sharing alliance between the state and its bourgeois constituency. Sadat's patrimonial excesses and his occasionally arbitrary imposition of major policies retarded the consolidation of this power-sharing experiment, but it was institutionalized under his successor.

Under Mubarak, the authoritarian presidency remained the centerpiece of the state, although he was a less dominant figure than his predecessors. He did not create an elite core comparable in power to the ones they created; he lacked the mission and revolutionary comrades of a Nasser and the patronage network of a Sadat. Indeed, he came to power amid at least two power centers, the military and the "Sadatists" in the elite. Although he lessened his dependence on them by bringing in conservative Nasserites, backing technocratic elements in the bureaucracy, and encouraging the political opposition, he carried out no massive purge of the elite.

Mubarak has used his power in the least activist way of Egypt's three presidents. In contrast to Nasser and Sadat who sought to reshape Egypt, Mubarak sought stability and incremental change and lacked the ideological vision and political will to tackle boldly the country's intractable problems.

Much more than his predecessors, Mubarak governed by intraelite consensus, a cautious balancing of contrary pressures and demands. He also delegated considerable authority to his ministers; indeed, he sometimes remained above the fray, refraining from personally identifying with or, in the face of opposition, strongly backing some of his own government's policies.

In the running of government, a pragmatic managerial style stressing legality and technocracy replaced the patrimonialism and personalism of Sadat's rule. Foreign policy, made in consultation with professional diplomats, was no longer the victim of presidential impulse. In some ways, Mubarak's caution made him a man appropriate to a time of rising constraints on state power. Having no "mission" comparable to that of Nasser or Sadat, Mubarak could afford to be more tolerant of opposition, and because his legitimacy rested squarely on legality, he had a greater interest in respecting the law.

The scope of presidential power clearly narrowed, but, being less threatening, this power was also less challenged than under Nasser and Sadat. Indeed, Mubarak's personal integrity and genuine commitment to limited democratization made him the most widely acceptable leader in a regime enjoying little popular trust.

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THE DOMINANT EXECUTIVE AND THE POWER ELITE IN EGYPT

Elite Ideology

A dominant ideology has generally bound the Egyptian political elite, but its content changed significantly over time. Under Nasser this ideology was revolutionary nationalism, but thereafter the ideology of the 1952 Revolution was gradually replaced by a new conservative consensus that reflected the interests of an establishment with no interest in further radical change.

Sadat pioneered this ideological transformation in the October Working Paper, which outlined his view of Egypt's new course after the October l973 War; through a "de-Nasserization" propaganda campaign launched in the mid-1970s; and by subsequent efforts to revive the legitimacy of capitalism and to justify his Western alignment. Under Mubarak, Nasser's heritage was symbolically revered, but Sadat's revision of that heritage had by no means been reversed.

Nasserism was built on Egypt's opposition to "imperialist influence" in the Arab world and on a belief in the benefits of pan-Arab unity. Nationalism required the creation of a strong state with a powerful military and a mission to defend the Arab world against imperialism and Zionism. Under Sadat Arab nationalist challenges to Western interests and to Israel were displaced by a stress on cooperation with the Western powers and on regional peace. For a period in the late Sadat era when Egypt's separate peace with Israel isolated the country from the other Arab states, a palpable anti-Arabism radiated from elite circles.

Sadat insisted the attempts of the Arab rulers to ostracize Egypt were doomed because the Arab leaders had no practical alternative to Egypt's course and Egypt remained the heart of the Arab world. Egypt's role was now to lead the Arabs to peace, and the treaty with Israel was a first step toward an overall just peace. Under Mubarak the Nasserist vision of Egyptian leadership of the Arabs was again vigorously promoted. But far from being a promoter of radical nationalism, Egypt weighed in on the side of moderation and stability in the Arab world.

The elite's conception of the proper nature of Egyptian society underwent a considerable change after the Nasser era. Under Nasser Egypt was seen as a revolutionary society in which the reduction of inherited inequalities was a major ideal. In the economic sphere, Nasser advocated Arab socialism. This policy laid heavy stress on state planning and the public sector as the engines of economic development and guarantors of national self-sufficiency and economic independence. The state also assumed responsibility for ensuring the basic needs of the people and for an equitable distribution of wealth. Several populist reforms redistributed national resources to the benefit of the middle and lower classes.

Under Sadat socialism was denounced as a vehicle of envy and extremism; instead, Sadat promoted a traditional concept in which society was seen as an extension of the patriarchal family and characterized by harmony among classes and belief in religion. In the economic sphere, the elite argued that the state had assumed too many responsibilities at the expense of private initiative. Capitalism had to be revived and the public sector, no longer seen as the cutting edge of development, had to be reduced to a mere support for private enterprise.

Egalitarianism and redistribution were thought to have gone too far, to the detriment of economic growth. Private initiative had to be liberated from stultifying state controls; those who distinguished themselves were to be allowed rewards and individuals with capital permitted to "earn freely without limits." The pursuit of self-interest, formerly castigated, was now relegitimized. Capitalist development, it was argued, would bring "trickle-down" benefits for the masses in place of their dependence on state-supported programs.

This ideological thrust, in part a reaction against Nasserism, was, however, tempered by a more moderate strain of thinking that became more influential under Mubarak. The moderate view was not convinced that laissez-faire was the cure to all of Egypt's ills; it insisted on a continuing role for state regulation and progressive taxation to curb the inegalitarian tendencies of the market and the social conflict and political instability that these tendencies generated. Indeed, under Mubarak a limited Nasserist restoration could be seen in the return to the concept of the state as autonomous guardian of the public interest, in the continuing defense of the public sector, and in a new stress on bringing the excesses of the infitah bourgeoisie under state control.

Mubarak sought a balance between liberal and statist factions in the elite, rejected calls to dismantle the public sector, and called for an "equal partnership" between the public and private sectors. Generally, the elite agreed on the need to avoid both the "anarchic individualism" of unregulated capitalism and the class conflict promoted by Marxism.

Finally, in the political sphere, Nasser had created a powerful authoritarian state; this concentration of power was legitimized by the charisma of the leader and the revolutionary mission of the country. Under Sadat the legitimacy formula was changed.

On the one hand, it was retraditionalized as Sadat sought to infuse his office with patriarchal authority and the aura of religion. He promoted himself as the "believing president" and was constantly seen at prayer; more and more, the state sought to legitimize its authority in Islamic terms. But on the other hand, both Sadat and Mubarak also sought to root legitimacy in constitutionalism and democracy. Egypt had moved, Sadat declared, to a state of laws and institutions rather than to one of people.

Under Mubarak democratization became the main legitimacy formula. Nevertheless, it was limited. The masses were held not to be prepared for fullblown democracy; lacking sufficient responsibility and consciousness, they were susceptible to "alien" (leftist) or "fanatical" (fundamentalist) ideas. Strong presidential tutelage, the careful channeling of political discourse through regimemanaged institutions, and limits on overt attempts to "incite" the masses were needed for the sake of social peace. By the Mubarak era, this new conservative consensus seemed to bind the elite, effacing ideological divisions. But the consensus did not prevent elite rivalries over personal power or disagreements over specific issues.

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THE DOMINANT EXECUTIVE AND THE POWER ELITE IN EGYPT

The Presidency

The presidency is the command post of Egypt's dominant executive branch of government and the linchpin of the political elite. Nasser established and assumed the office, endowing it with broad legal powers and with his personal charisma. He made it the most institutionalized part of the political system, against which all other elite institutions--party, parliament, press, even the military--have proved impotent. The Constitution of 1971 gives legal expression to this reality, vesting vast executive authority in the president.

Succession procedures for the transfer of presidential power appeared relatively institutionalized since Nasser. The incumbent vice president has twice succeeded to the presidency. In each case the vice president was a military officer; thus, the line of succession stayed within the institution that founded the republic. Formally, a single presidential candidate was nominated by parliament and confirmed by (unopposed) national plebiscite. In practice, behind-the-scenes intraelite politics determined the outcome. Sadat was expected to be nominal head of a collective leadership and had to defeat a coalition of Nasser's left-wing Free Officer lieutenants to assume full control of the office.

The backing of most of the professional military and of senior bureaucrats recruited from upper-class families was important. But the legality with which Nasser had endowed the office itself was critical to Sadat's victory; it was Sadat's legal prerogative that allowed him to purge his opponents from their state offices and that rallied the army's support of him.

Sadat made Husni Mubarak, an air force officer who had distinguished himself in the October 1973 War, his vice president. Although politically inexperienced, Mubarak grew in the job. On Sadat's death, the political elite closed ranks behind him, and a smooth succession took place. Mubarak's 1987 reelection manifested the continued institutionalization of presidential authority. Mubarak did not appoint a vice president, perhaps reluctant to designate a successor and possible rival so early in his presidency. Had a succession crisis arisen, there would have been no obvious successor.

The president has broad constitutional powers. The president appoints vice presidents, prime ministers, and the Council of Ministers--the cabinet or "government." He enjoys a vast power of patronage that makes legions of officials beholden to him and ensures the loyalty and customary deference of the state apparatus. Presidential appointees include army commanders, the heads of the security apparatus, senior civil servants, heads of autonomous agencies, governors, newspaper editors, university presidents, judges, major religious officials, and public sector managers.

Through the Council of Ministers, over which he may directly preside, the president commands the sprawling state bureaucracy and can personally intervene at any level to achieve his objectives if the chain of command proves sluggish. Because the levers of macroeconomic policy--banks, the budget, and the large public sector-- are under government control, broad responsibility for running the economy is within the presidential domain. This responsibility carries with it heavy burdens, because as head of the state the president is expected to provide for the welfare of the vast numbers of people dependent on it.

A large presidential bureaucracy, managed by a ministerial level appointee, is a personal instrument of control over the wider bureaucracy. It is made up of personal advisers, troubleshooters, and lieutenants with specialized supervisory functions. Under Nasser it had bureaus for intelligence, economic planning, presidential security, administrative control, and foreign affairs. Under Sadat it swelled into a small bureaucracy in its own right made up of about 4,000 functionaries, many of them supporting the elaborate entourage and presidential household he created. Stretching out from this presidential bureaucracy are a multitude of presidentially appointed specialized national councils for production, social affairs, science, and the like, which bring the state and interest groups together under presidential patronage and expand presidential influence into every branch of society.

The president bears primary responsibility for defense of the country and is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Having, to date, always been an ex-officer, he typically enjoys personal influence in the military. He presides over the National Security Council, which coordinates defense policy and planning, and he may assume operational command in time of war. He may declare war with the approval (in practice automatically given) of the parliament, conclude treaties, and issue decrees on national security affairs. Foreign policy is a "reserved sphere" of the presidency. Presidents have typically been preoccupied with foreign policy and have personally shaped it.

Finally, the president is chief legislator, the dominant source of major policy innovation. The president can legislate by decree during "emergencies," a condition loosely defined, and when parliament is not in session. He can also put proposals to the people in plebiscites that always give such propositions overwhelming approval. Finally, the president normally controls a docile majority in parliament, which regularly translates his proposals into law. His control of parliament stems from his ability to dismiss it at will and from his leadership of the ruling party that dominates parliament. He also enjoys a legislative veto.

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Egypt Government and Politics - CONTROLLING THE MASS POLITICAL ARENA

Controlling the Mass Political Arena

A state may control the political arena through some combination of legitimacy, coercion, and the incorporation of participation through political institutions. Nasser used charisma and coercion to impose a nationalist-populist ideological consensus on Egypt's political arena and to incorporate a broad support coalition in a single--albeit weak--party, the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). His charismatic legitimacy allowed him to balance rival social forces.

For example, he used popular support to curb the bourgeoisie, rather than to accommodate their participatory propensities, and to repress those--the Wafd (Al Wafd al Misri), and the Muslim Brotherhood--that refused incorporation into his coalition. The post-Nasser regime had to reshape Egypt's political institutions in order to maintain control over the political arena without the legitimacy and coercive assets he had commanded.

Sadat resorted to a strategy mixing limited liberalization, retraditionalization, and repression. He pioneered an experiment in limited political pluralization designed to control the politically attentive public. Needing to solicit the support of the bourgeoisie in the absence of the broad mass legitimacy Nasser had enjoyed, Sadat had to address its desires for political liberalization. Moreover, as his "rightward" policy course shattered the consensus Nasser had built and precipitated the emergence of leftistNasserite opposition, Sadat sought to balance this opposition by allowing the mainstream Islamic movement and the liberal New Wafd Party to reenter the political arena. As Egypt's political arena was thus pluralized, Sadat attempted to incorporate it through a controlled multiparty system.

The ASU was dismantled and opposition parties allowed to coalesce around its fragments or the remnants of resurrected prerevolutionary parties. They were expected to be "loyal" opposition parties that would refrain from "destructive" criticism of regime policy but within this limit were allowed to compete with the government party in parliamentary elections. Even Nasserites and the Marxist left were more or less accommodated within these parties, although they were vulnerable to exclusion from the system when they pushed their cases too far; indeed, ultimately, when they refused to play by his rules, Sadat suspended the experiment.

Toward the more passive masses, Sadat's strategy was to replace charismatic with traditional personal legitimacy, projecting himself as a pious and patriarchal leader and, after 1973, as a successful war hero. But as corruption and inequality spread while he pursued Westernization and accommodation with Israel, this strategy gradually failed, leaving a legitimacy vacuum that paved the way for his assassination. The absence of public mourning on his death, in stark contrast to the mass hysteria on Nasser's passing, was a measure of the decline of regime legitimacy by the end of Sadat's presidency.

Mubarak inherited a regime lacking a credible legitimizing ideology or a leading personality capable of attracting mass loyalties to the state. Indicative of the regime's ideological bankruptcy following Sadat's death was Mubarak's attempt to portray his new regime as both Nasserite and Islamic, all the while continuing Sadatist policies. In the absence of ideological legitimacy, the Mubarak regime had to restore the faltering political liberalization pioneered by Sadat.

Mubarak revived opposition parties and widened freedom of political expression, particularly of the press, permitting much more unrestrained criticism of the government than was permitted under Sadat. Limited political pluralization was essential to accommodate the participatory demands of the educated upper and middle classes, and given the continuing passivity, poverty, and deference of a large part of the masses, such pluralization could be managed with less risk than the alternative of large-scale repression. Moreover, as under Sadat, liberalization was not uniformly applied to social groups. The regime sought to accommodate more conservative forces, such as the liberal bourgeoisie and conservative Islamists, while reserving selective repression for leftists, strikers, and Islamic radicals.

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Hosni Mubarak Regime

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.

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.


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