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$Unique_ID{COW01216}
$Pretitle{243}
$Title{Egypt
Chapter 4D. Opposition Elements}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Richard Hrair Dekmejian}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{sadat
sadat's
egypt
islamic
opposition
political
united
states
groups
policies}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Country: Egypt
Book: Egypt, A Country Study
Author: Richard Hrair Dekmejian
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date: 1982
Chapter 4D. Opposition Elements
The last two years of Sadat's presidency were marked by an
intensification of opposition to his domestic and foreign policies. Aside from
the two small opposition parties in the People's Assembly, there were three
nebulous opposition groups that were seeking to overthrow the regime. There
were also several smaller opposition elements: the outlawed parties, certain
professional groups, and Coptic Christians.
The three most powerful sources of antiregime activity were the
Nasserites, the left, and the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots. The
Nasserites represented a coalition of idealistic students, intellectuals,
workers, former military officers, and mid-sized landholders who rejected
Sadat's rapprochement with Israel and the United States and his economic
liberalization policies. They advocated a return to Nasser's policies, which
were based on Arabism, state socialism, and nonalignment. The Nasserite
group also included many leaders of the previous regime, such as the
prominent journalist and commentator Muhammad Hasanain Haikal, who had lost
their positions under Sadat. To the left of the Nasserites were small
socialist and communist groupings, mostly consisting of intellectuals,
students, and some workers. These leftist groups advocated close ties with
the Soviet Union and a centrally planned and managed economy based on a
dominant public sector. Even more than the Nasserites, the left opposed
a special relationship with the United States.
The largest and most powerful opposition to Sadat came from the Muslim
Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al Muslimun). This association had lost its former
activism and conspiratorial will and many members to autonomous offshots.
Despite its wide following, the Brotherhood was weakened by repeated state
repression under King Faruk, Nasser, and Sadat. After the mid-1960s the
Brotherhood experienced splits and defections, during which many younger
and more militant members established their own factions. As a result of
the intensification of Islamic revivalism after the June 1967 defeat, there
was a proliferation of these puritanical and extremist societies. The aims
of these groups ranged from engaging in socioeconomic self-help activities
to organizing religious seminars and planning antiregime conspiracies. The
latter category included Al Jihad, some members of which assassinated
Sadat (see Islam, ch. 2).
There exists a generational gap between the leadership of the
Brotherhood and its proliferating young offshoots, although they share the
same ideology of Islamic puritanism and activism. The Islamic movement
has opposed the Camp David Agreements, Sadat's close ties with the West, and
the increasing Western (American) cultural and political influence in Egypt.
It advocates the establishment of an Islamic state under religious law, the
reintegration of Egypt into the Arab-Islamic orbit, and the rejection of
Western cultural and economic influences.
Islamic groups command the loyalties of millions of Egyptians;
they are found in every sector of Egyptian society, although they are
especially active among the middle and lower middle classes. Islamic
associations have large numbers of adherents or sympathizers among students,
the military, the bureaucracy, and the liberal professions. In the early
1980s they constituted the single most powerful nongovernment political
force in society and were expected to play a greater political role in the
future.
Two other groups were instrumental in generating opposition to the
Sadat regime: the Lawyer's Syndicate (or Association) and the Coptic
Christian community. The Lawyer's Syndicate, the association of the legal
profession, includes thousands of lawyers. As the representative of the
society's largest and best organized professional group, the Lawyer's
Syndicate symbolizes a long tradition of legalism and due process-an
attribute that is uncommon in most Third World polities. Consequently the
syndicate has been instrumental in opposing governmental attempts to
curtail basic freedoms and subvert the judicial system. It was in this
capacity that the syndicate opposed Sadat's arbitrary measures; the
opposition led to a long confrontation that ended with Sadat's order to
the police in July 1980 to occupy the syndicate's headquarters.
During the mid-1970s the Coptic community began to manifest
increasing displeasure with the Sadat government (see Minorities; Coptic
Church, ch. 2). The growth of Islamic militancy produced a symmetrical
reaction among the Copts, which led to Muslim-Coptic clashes and
destruction of property. The regime's difficulties in coping decisively
with these confessional clashes generated fear and alienation among the
Coptic minority, leading to anti-Sadat protests by Copts in Egypt and the
United States. In September 1981 Sadat responded by placing the Copt's
spiritual leader, Pope Shenuda III, in internal exile and imprisoning
over 100 other prominent Copts at the same time that he clamped down on
Muslim extremists.
Patterns of Conflict under Sadat
Sadat's assassination was the culmination of a period characterized
by growing social discord and political conflict. After Egypt's
adherence to the Camp David Agreements, internal and external opposition
to Sadat intensified as a direct consequence of his unpopular policies,
i.e., rapprochement with Israel, expansion of the United States presence
in Egypt, isolation from the Arabs, failure to induce Israeli concessions
on the status of Jerusalem and the Palestine question, pursuing economic
policies favoring the new classes, and denying political participation to
the opposition groups. On all of these critical issues, there was substantial
agreement among the main groups of the opposition.
Israeli intransigence constituted Sadat's most serious problem. Having
accepted the Camp David formula, Sadat was locked into a "peace process" that
left him vulnerable to charges of "selling out" the Arab cause. Moreover Sadat
could exercise no serious pressure on Israel, which still controlled most of
the Sinai. His only remaining stratagem was to strengthen the United
States-Egyptian political-military relationship to prove himself a reliable
ally, thereby hoping to induce American pressure on the Israeli government.
Despite his great popularity among Americans, Sadat could not invoke much
support from President Jimmy Carter in an election year. Carter's defeat and
President Ronald Reagan's reluctance to challenge Israeli policy left Sadat in
an untenable situation. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's
policies progressively destroyed Sadat's credibility and legitimacy by
expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, annexing East Jerusalem,
destroying Iraq's atomic reactor, and bombing Beirut. While Israel continued
its incremental withdrawal from the Sinai and Egypt kept its promises of
diplomatic recognition and normalization, the Palestinian autonomy talks
remained deadlocked.
During 1980 Sadat relentlessly pursued his pro-American policies by
extending aid to the Afghan rebels, expelling Soviet technical advisers,
agreeing to joint military exercises with the United States Rapid Deployment
Force, and according the deposed shah of Iran a safe haven in Egypt. To
protest Sadat's magnanimity toward the shah, in March 1980 an estimated 5,000
students took over Asyut University in the name of Islamic unity. Meanwhile
Muslim-Coptic clashes continued to occur throughout Egypt. Sadat's response to
the rising clamor was to jail both Islamic and leftis