North Africa

French occupation of Morocco was completed in March 1912. It represented one of the more crass acquisitions of the era and any justification was entirely simulated. Centuries of independent statehood ended as France sought compensation for Britain's 'accidental' invasion of Egypt. It is hard to imagine the sense of injustice felt by the Moroccan people as they suffered five years of unprovoked war. The subsequent French protectorate over Morocco lasted for another 40 years.

Libya was the last remaining Ottoman possession in North Africa. Not wishing to miss out on the territory it had long been 'promised' by Germany, Britain and France, Italy declared war on Libya on 29 September, 1911 on the risible pretext of alleged abuse of Italian subjects (just as the French had in Morocco). On meeting stiff restistance from the Ottomans, the Italians embarked upon a 'scorched-earth' campaign across the Easterm Mediterranean, attacking Beirut, islands including Rhodes and positions in the Dardenelles. European diplomats feared Italian aggression might ignite war in the volatile Balkans and negotiated peace on condition that the Ottomans concede Libya to Italy in March, 1912. The Libyans fought against Italian rule into the 1930s.

North Africa was now under European colonial domination. Egyptian intellectual Ahmad Amin

Ahmad Amin

the changes brought by European rule. Women entered public
life and newspapers with different political views were published. Beirut and Cairo emerged as the two main centres for journalism and they remain so today. Censorship from the Sultan in Beirut resulted in 160 Arabic-language newspapers and journals being established in more liberal Egypt including Al-Ahram. The British eased press restrictions, considering a free press to be a pressure valve allowing emerging nationalists to vent steam. The political unit known as 'the Nation' was a product of European Enlightenment adopted by the Middle East during the 19th C. Imperialism provided the two catalysts necessary for nationalism to emerge: territory to defend and a common enemy to unite the population. Questions of what it meant to be Egyptian or Libyan emerged for the first time. In Egypt, Islamic modernists and secular nationalists began to set out their agendas (I can't help seeing the irony that Islamic State is built upon ideas formed in 18th C France - although they skipped the chapters on individual liberty and religious tolerance!).

The Islamic Reform agenda was led by thinkers Al-Afghani and Shaykh Muhammad Abduh. Al Afghani travelled widely and was alarmed by the seriousness of the European threat to Islam. he advocated modern Muslims live to the principles of their religion to ward off European intrusion.

Abduh was a journalist in Egypt and was exiled to Beirut for supporting Urabi in 1882. Subesequently, he met al-Afghani while travelling in Europe and together they launched a reformist journal that rallied for an Islamic response to European imperialism. Abduh took the first community of Muslims - the Prophet Muhammad and his followers - known as the salaf - as his role models. Salafism is now assoicated with Osama bib Ladin and the most radical wing of Muslim anti-Western activism.

'Correct' salafism led to Muslim dominance for the first four centuries of Islam's existence through the Mediterranean. Adduh argued Islam ossified thereafter and fell into blind observance of the law. Removing the mysticism and returning rationalsim would, Adduh argued, invigorate Islam and recover the dynamism that had once made it the dominant world civilisation. For Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, Egyptian nationalism, social reform and national identity came from Islam.

The European led emancipation of women went against 'the natural order' for Egyptian rulers. In the 1890s the lawyer Qasim Amin argued for the improvement of women's place in society. He argued that failing to empower women disempowered the Arab world as a whole (less than 1% of women could read and write in Egypt in 1900). He connected the improvement of women to the improvement of the nation.

Ahmad Lufti al-Sayyid ad Mustafa Kamil were influential in shaping ealry Egyptian nationalism. Both were lawyers. al-Sayyid wanted to work with the British to bring Egypt up to a level where independence was possible. He was a founding member of the People's Party. Kamil was a founding member of the National Party and an agitator for the end of British occupation.

The British had brought order and low taxes making it hard for agitators to rise against them. Until the Dinshaway Incident. A British subject was killed after he shot pigeons raised by locals for food. British soldiers arrester 52 men. Four were sentenced to death, two to hard labour for life, one to 15 years in prison, six to 7 years and five to 50 lashes. Ahmad Amin read of this in the newspapers and henceforth only read Kamil's radical nationlist newspaper and the foundations of an Egyptian nationalist movement were all but laid.