Customer Reviews

Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution

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I bought Inside Egypt because I greatly enjoyed John R. Bradley's previous book Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (2005), and also because I have been living in Cairo for the past 14 months learning Arabic and there's no other book on contemporary Egypt out there. Inside Egypt is creating quite a buzz here in Cairo: you can't pick up an Arabic-language newspaper (the independent ones not run by the government, anyway) without finding a profile of the author and/or a review of the book. It has the same qualities that I liked about Saudi Arabia Exposed: a clever combination of personal anecdote, original reportage, and brief historical backdrop, and the arguments are made in a very readable prose style (I finished this book in two stints over two evenings). Inside Egypt is aimed at the general reader, rather than scholars and experts, and it paints a very grim picture from the ground up of life here as lived by most Egyptians. Those non-Egyptian readers living here who know poor Egyptians will easily recognize the world Bradley depicts - families living on the bread line, young people desperate to travel abroad, Christians facing persecution, the rise of fundamentalist Islam. But the book also debunks myths by explaining, for example, why the Muslim Brotherhood are not very popular, and unearths some shocking facts about the country's seedy sex tourism underworld - two subjects I've not seen discussed elsewhere. There are chapters on Torture and Corruption, and well as the Sufi and Bedouin minorities, and some cracking interviews with well-known Egyptians like novelist Alaa Al-Aswany (The Yacoubian Building) and Gamal Al-Banna (brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood). Bradley concludes that recent Egyptian history shows there have been popular uprising every three decades or so: the 1919 nationalist revolution, the 1952 revolution led by the Free Officers, and the bread riots of 1977. We are now, he notes ominously, three decades after the last uprising, meaning Egypt is due another, although he has no doubt the regime will be able to crush it. It's a measure of his prescience that in the month the book is published there are were two general strikes and food/price riots...

Bradley writes like a novelist, from his own situation and point of view, and fortunately is an intelligent and perceptive observer who writes beautifully. We are with him as he travels up and down the Nile, interviews leading figures in the major political and cultural groupings, and shares the situation of the abandoned middle class in this police state on the verge of collapse. The reader gains the benefit of his long residence in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, his fluent Arabic, his talent for friendship and his evident love and sympathy for the people he meets. This is a fine example of a more realistic reporting than we have been used to in recent years, free from the point-counterpoint and shouting of the mass media.

Bradley lets us see Egypt in the light of its recent history. In the break-up of empires, Ottoman and British, a military clique seized the government and established party rule modeled on European dictatorships. The new home-grown dictators destroyed as much as they could of the structure of civil society and the deep religious and cultural diversity of Egypt, which they identified with opposition and a colonial past. They sought to erase history itself. Like the dictators of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, Egypt's rulers slipped steadily into corruption and terror, and are now challenged by a new, Islamist movement that threatens to repeat the cycle of violence and minority dictatorship. The liberal middle class is being steadily destroyed by pressure from both sides: anyone searching for the reason that educated, middle class youth are becoming suicide bombers and soldiers of intifada will find much of the reason in this book. A horrifying chapter on the multi-billion dollar sex tourism industry gives us a vivid sense of the degradation of Egyptian society and the looting of its cultural and natural resources.

This book is required reading. If Bradley has a fault, it is his optimism: he recommends that the United States use its considerable leverage to force a degree of liberalism upon the military rulers of this uniquely important nation, but given the corruption and incompetence that he demonstrates so graphically it is hard to imagine them climbing out of the hole they have been digging for fifty years. Egypt needs the kind of massive rebuilding of infrastructure that has been undertaken in Ireland and the former Soviet Republics. One would think that from his description, only a true peace in the Middle East, instead of the "cold peace" Bradley describes, that would allow the harnessing of oil wealth and the technical expertise of Egypt's neighbors, and a radically new Egyptian government capable of making use of such aid, would seem to meet the need.

Well, I found this book special as an Egyptian living abroad. The amount of true information of such a book is huge. Although I did not like the author's point of view about the Muslim Brotherhood. The chapter about the bedouins also lacks the depth of the rest of the book.
Other than this, the book is fine, and I totally recommend it for students who are interested in different cultures, and also to the professors of Egyptology, to see how the grandchildren of the builders of the pyramids are lacking even the basic requirements to live an adequate life.

John R. Bradley's 'Inside Egypt' is a journalistic account of contemporary Egypt. It is interesting but hardly surprising. At great length, using multiple examples, it tells us what we already knew about Egypt. Egypt is a poor nation, becoming more radically Islamist each passing day, governed by a corrupt, incompetent and selfish regime which strangles reform and resists change.

For the most part, Bradley eschews analysis for reporting, but what he reports about is depressingly self evident given the general outline. Many of the chapters come with self explanatory titles - "Torture" and "Corruption", for example. Minorities, whether the Bedouin (in Sinai) or the Copts (in Egypt proper), are abysmally treated.

There is an interesting chapter, euphemistically titled "Lost Dignity", about the Egyptian sex industry in its various forms, particularly in that of the "marriage" of Old Western ladies to younger Egyptians, and of male prostitution. It is possibly the most penetrating part of Bradley's book, because it shows that even sex work is shaped by the cultural and religious beliefs of the Egyptians. Even as they make their livelihood from sex, Egyptians maintain a semblance, no matter how twisted, of traditional gender roles and sexual mores.

But for Westerners, most interesting is the political agenda. And Bradley is in a catch 22: his instinct, as summarized by a blurb contribution from the managing editor of Foreign Affair, is to "love [the] country but hate [the] regime". Bradley's sympathies are clearly with the Egyptian people, and against Hosni Mubarak and his government. But as Bradley acknowledges, the Egyptian people are considerably more anti-Western than the regime. The most popular Middle East leaders are Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the radical president of Iran (p. 89). As Bradley puts it, "The sickness... runs not just through the system but through the whole of society" (p.145).

The Egyptian people are against America, and who can blame them? Their dictatorial government is an American dependency. Being subordinate to the United State is an affront to the Egyptian's pride; Being repressed by America's agent is a legitimate grievance.

And of course, the Mubarak regime encourages the antagonism. It allows the fundamentalist Muslim Brothers opposition some freedom, while suppressing the secular democratic opposition. This has several advantages - it creates the illusion of openness, gives the Islamists a reason to cooperate with the state, and most importantly, offers leverage against the United States.

Because, as Bradley acknowledges, in the Middle East, the United States' foreign policy is aimed at attaining two mutually exclusive goals: democracy and stability. But these can not be achieved simultaneously. If America were to pressure Egypt to democratize, it would undermine Egypt, and thus the entire Middle East.

(The fact that Bradley identifies the trade off is significant in and of itself. Some Middle East expert think you can have you cake and eat it too. See for example Amitai Etzioni's Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy)

Between stability and democracy, Bradley is firmly on the side of the latter. "Washington must think long term" (p. 227).

But as John Maynard Keynes reminded us, in the long run, we're all dead. What Bradley does not stress is that Egypt is a spectacular case of successful American diplomacy. For a relatively cheap 2 billion U$ annually, America has got the traditional Arab powerhouse as a staunch allay. For over thirty years, Egypt has been in peace with Israel; It is a moderate force in Arab politics and an ally in the so-called "War on Terror".

This comes at the expense of the Egyptian people, who live under a brutal dictatorship. But America's foreign policy is aimed at promoting the welfare of Americans, not Egyptians. And even if America wanted to do something to democratize Egypt, it can't. Pressure on the regime would only make Egypt uncooperative; Egypt would give a freer hand to its local al-Qaeda supporters and diminish cooperation in the struggle against terrorism. Egypt's president would make anti American statements and increase his popularity. And if America were to gamble with its national security interests in pursuit of Egyptian democracy, it would risk an Iranian style Islamist revolution in Egypt, which would make Egypt's liberal forces nostalgic to Mubarak's autocracy.

The only reason America should change course in its Egyptian policy is if changed circumstances require rethinking that policy. Bradley's most bizarre notion is that Egypt is nearing the end of a 30 years cycle of relative unrest, and is facing a period of tribulations like the ones it faced in the 1920s, 1950s and 1970s. This is mistaking a coincidence for a pattern.

A more likely source of instability in the regime is the possibility of a succession crisis when Hosni Mubarak (aged eighty), departs the scene, and his son Gamal takes over. But recent generational changes in Morocco and in Syria went smoothly enough, and the presidency moved between Egypt three post revolution presidents (Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak) without incident.

History tells us that dictatorships, no matter how strong they look, are brittle things. They may collapse without warning. Yet in a region full of extreme and dangerous enemies, Egypt's dictatorship, against the wishes of Egypt's people, remains an American ally. Supporting a pro-American autocracy in Egypt is a necessary evil.

Mr. Bradley writes a very telling portrait of modern Egypt, a country which has been ruled by a military oligarchy since 1953. The corruption, poverty and oppression which are hallmarks of the regime are discussed in detail and personal anecdotes are used whenever possible. The writing style makes the subject matter very easy to get through even if you are not an Islamophile or have never been to Egypt.

Many of the interviews and anecdotes took place in 2007, the same year I was assigned to duty in Egypt. Many of the experiences he had in Egypt are typical and I also had many similar experiences or knew people who did. Yes, Egyptians will not hesitate to tell you that they hate Mubarak and I also learned from Egyptians I met of the near-universal perception that Mubarak intends to have his son follow him into office. I wish the author had also mentioned the extensive cult of personality surrounding Mubarak and how his image seems to be everywhere... even if it gets vandalized in remoter parts of the country. And baksheesh is rampant in the country... I once had to pay a parking attendant a small wad of notes for helping me get out of my reserved parking space... he had allowed another vehicle to park too close to the front of my machine. Events that I could "verify" with my own experiences made the book real to me.

On the other hand, the author did not fully discuss the problems involved in removing food subsidies, political pluralism or the legitimate terror threat that hangs over Egypt. Also, the author feels it necessary to compare the routine torture that takes place in Egyptian police stations to Abu Ghraib... where no physical torture took place despite the images on the internet. He also feels it necessary to denigrate the Coalition effort to bring democracy in Iraq. The author bemoans the lack of democracy in Egypt but in none of the instances he mentions Iraq does he talk about the successful elections there.

Egypt's future is uncertain and this book definitely gives you a feeling for the disaster that looms on the horizon when Mubarak passes on.

I am a college student studying the Middle East and I was in Model UN group and was Saudi Arabia when I firs discovered Bradley. That book gave great insight that helped my debating at the conference. Now he has come back with an even better book about a more important country, I would argue at least, with "Inside Egypt." He discusses many topics that are prevalent in Egypt and are rarely discussed in Egypt on any public forum. This gives you great insight to a country that in due time will become one of many forms, depending on how much deeper the problems get, which from the likes of it is very far.

This is the perfect volume if you are looking for one book to read before visiting Egypt, or just to get a handle on the country. It is smoothly written, combining journalistic reporting with historical and political analysis. He is deeply critical of the state of Egyptian politics and society, and of official Western approaches to that country, but those criticisms ring true.

The book has some extremely interesting anecdotes that give you a good perspective on Egypt and it dwells on some really interesting topics. My only problem with the book is, that Bradley thinks that he knows the solution to all Egypt's problems, and that the only problem is that the American and the Egyptian governments are ignorant (unlike him), and therefor don't get it.

Bradley predicted the revolution in Egypt and his book is helpful background. He lived in Egypt for 10 years and is fluent in Egyptian Arabic. The book is written in a lively style that is easy to read but it is also serious and informed by Bradley's knowledge of history. But if you only read one book on modern Egypt,I recommend Tarek Osman's Egypt on the Brink which is also short, well-written and informativebut at the same time more historical and scholarly (without being boring). This book gives a deeper insight into modern Egypt than Bradley.

If you have time, I would read Bradley first (he covers
some angles that Osman doesnt) and then Osman. Mary Ann
Weaver's A portrait of Egypt is also good, although not as recent.

I recommend this book. Most of the subjects are very actual and Mr. Badley writes in a very please way making it a very please book. I like specially the interview with much important Egypt personality. He got even an interview with Muslim Brotherhood.

The only think I missed was more historic facts to support many of the actual problem, specially the American and Israeli relation that has lead the country to the now a days political situation.

Together with this book I recommend to readers interested in understand the Egypt society to read The Yacobian Building The Yacoubian Building: A Novel.