Africa

PAGE CONTENTS:

Egypt

Ethiopia

Kenya

Somalia

EGYPT

In 1981, Islamic fundamentalists gunned down Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, quickly declared a state of emergency--and gained sweeping crack-down powers. The "emergency" has lasted 26 years.

Now, President Mubarak says he wants to put an end to "the exploitation of religion and illegal political behavior." So, the government put 34 constitutional changes to a popular vote--changes that it says will allow the state of emergency to end.

Among them: a ban on "any political activity or political party based on any religious background or foundation," an end to judicial supervision of elections, and the waiver of protections against government detention, searches, and spying when they "hamper" action against terrorists.

According to the government, 75.9 percent of voters said "yes," and the changes are law. According to independent monitoring groups, turnout was less than 5 percent and ballot-box stuffing was rampant. According to us, it's clearly time to see how modern Egypt came to be.

Egypt's civilization is more than 5,000 years old. But for many of those millennia, the country has been ruled by foreigners--including Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Turks. More than once, Egyptians have debated whether the latest wave of conquest was occupation or liberation. So it was when Arab armies arrived, bearing Islam, in 641. So it was when Ottoman armies arrived, bearing cannons, in 1516.

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte arrived, bearing ill will toward the British. As usual, France and Britain were at war, and Napoleon wanted to disrupt British commerce in the region. The French stayed in Egypt only briefly--by 1801, British and Ottoman troops had driven them out--but Napoleon's visit helped give birth to modern Egypt.

During the late 18th century, a series of Mamluk princes had attempted to seize Egypt from the Ottomans. Even before Napoleon arrived, they had significantly weakened Ottoman control there. When the French army left, an Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali stepped into the power vacuum and picked up where the Mamluk princes left off.

Over the next four decades, Muhammad Ali consolidated his control and freed Egypt from Ottoman rule in all but name. He eliminated local rivals and defeated an invading British force. He drafted Egyptian peasants and turned them into a large, European-style army. He conquered much of Sudan. He even secured hereditary rule for his family.

Under Muhammad Ali and his early heirs, Egypt modernized and westernized. For a while, the economy boomed, and European moneylenders took their cash to Cairo. The money helped pay for new irrigation systems, railroads, telegraph lines, and the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red seas. The Ottoman sultan even granted Muhammad Ali's grandson Ismail the hereditary title khedive ("lord").

Yet Khedive Ismail soon found himself up to his neck in debt. Desperate, the Egyptian government sold off its shares in the company that ran the Suez Canal, but Egypt went bankrupt. After that, European influence over Egyptian affairs increased dramatically. In 1876, British and French commissioners were appointed to monitor Egypt's finances. In 1879, Ismail was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Tawfiq.

More European influence led, in turn, to more Egyptian nationalism. In 1882, anti-European riots broke out in Alexandria. The British fleet responded by bombarding the city. More riots followed, prompting nationalist leaders to claim that Egypt was locked in "an irreconcilable war" with Britain. Soon British forces had invaded and occupied Egypt.

Officially, Khedive Tawfiq was still in charge, but after 1883, real power rested with the British consul general. Foreign investment and public works projects resumed, but top jobs in the Egyptian government and military increasingly went to British applicants. During World War I, the British imposed martial law, stationed some 100,000 troops in Egypt, and squashed dissent.

After the war, a nationalist delegation (wafd in Arabic) attended the Paris Peace Conference. The Allies ignored its calls for Egyptian independence, but "the Wafd" became the voice of Egyptian nationalism. A few years later, Britain consented to Egypt becoming an independent constitutional monarchy--though it reserved the right to intervene in Egyptian affairs. By 1924, Egypt had a king, and the Wafd had won big in the nation's first parliamentary elections.

Despite much talk of independence, British troops were still in Egypt when World War II began in 1939. Many in Egypt hoped their old imperial masters would lose, and the Wafd actually lost some credibility by supporting the Allied war effort. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group, began to gain prominence, especially after British troops remained in the Suez Canal zone after 1945.

In 1948, Egypt and other Arab nations went to war to stop the nation of Israel from forming, but it didn't work. By 1949, Israel was firmly established, and many Egyptians lost faith in their government. In 1950, Egyptian students and the Muslim Brotherhood launched a guerrilla war against troops in the canal zone. Then, in 1952, British troops killed 50 Egyptian police officers in a confrontation over a police barracks. Riots, looting, and arson rocked Cairo.

Months later, the Free Officers, a secret army faction led by Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, seized power. The next year, they declared Egypt a republic and installed General Muhammad Naguib as president. In 1954, when the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate Nasser, Nasser deposed Naguib, assumed control, and suppressed the group.

Nasser officially became president in 1956 and held power until his death in 1970. He was succeeded by his vice president, Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by Islamists in 1981. Sadat was succeeded by his vice president, current president Hosni Mubarak. To this day, Egypt's president has near-total power--and still faces an Islamist threat.

--Steve Sampson

ETHIOPIA

Unlike many African nations, Ethiopia has been a sovereign state for ages. But sovereignty hasn't always meant stability. Here's your personal intelligence briefing on Ethiopian history, from Biblical queens to Christian emperors to now.

The Bible says that Israel's wise King Solomon once met with the Queen of Sheba, answered her hardest questions, and gave her "all she desired and asked for." Ancient Ethiopian legend says that the "Queen of Sheba" was actually Ethiopia's Queen Makeda, that King Solomon got her pregnant, and that Ethiopia's royals were their descendants.

The legend may or may not be true, but Ethiopia's civilization is truly ancient. By 2,700 years ago, ancient Ethiopians were trading across the Red Sea with ancient Arabians. By around 1,700 years ago, Christianity began winning converts in the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, the region's dominant power. Practically ever since, most Ethiopians have been Christians.

After Islam's rise in the 7th century, Ethiopia was largely isolated from the rest of the Christian world. Yet its unique culture survived--and at times thrived. Ethiopia even survived the "Scramble for Africa," when European powers rushed to colonize the oft-exploited continent in the late 19th century. Italian troops attacked Ethiopia in 1896, but Ethiopian fighters stunned the world by pushing them back.

During the early 20th century, coffee exports caffeinated the Ethiopian economy, and the nation began to modernize. Italian fascists under Benito Mussolini invaded in 1935, but a joint British-Ethiopian force returned the Ethiopian emperor to power in 1941. More modernization followed, as did a 1952 federation with Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor to the north.

That marriage went sour in 1961, and a 30-year Eritrean war of independence ensued. Just as that war was getting started, another broke out between Ethiopia and its eastern neighbor, Somalia, over a long-disputed border region. Meanwhile, Marxists made gains at home.

In 1974, military mutineers deposed the Ethiopian emperor and made the nation a socialist state. One of their leaders, Mengistu Haile Mariam, soon began consolidating power. But the war in Eritrea continued, and small-scale rebellions broke out within Ethiopia proper. Mengistu's government responded by ruthlessly persecuting presumed enemies.

Bogged down in war, the government failed to respond to a series of droughts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Famine followed, killing an estimated 1 million Ethiopians. By 1991, after the Soviet Union stopped sending arms to Mengistu's government, a new group, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), had assumed control. And Eritrea had gained its independence.

The EPRDF oversaw the drafting of a new democratic constitution and transferred power to a newly elected legislature. But many enduring ills are immune to republican reforms. From 1998 to 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea went back to war. In 2005, complaints about election irregularities led to violent clashes between protesters and police. And in 2006, Ethiopian forces deployed to Somalia to fight Islamic militias.

Today, Ethiopia's 75 million people enjoy a modicum of stability. But the standard of living remains among the world's worst, and there's still not enough food to go around. Many fear that another drought--or another change in the region's political weather--could set the nation spinning again.

--Steve Sampson

KENYA

Hundreds of people have died this month, January, 2008, in Kenya, in protests and ethnic violence stemming from the East African nation's recent presidential election. According to official counts, President Mwai Kibaki, an ethnic Kikuyu, won reelection by a narrow margin. But the opposition says the vote was rigged, and both U.S. and European observers have criticized the results.

Opposition protesters have taken to the streets to insist that their candidate, Raila Odinga, an ethnic Luo, is Kenya's rightful president. Meanwhile, long-simmering ethnic tensions between the Kikuyu, the Luo, and other Kenyan ethnic groups (there are dozens of them) have boiled over.

The violence caught most of the world off-guard. Despite problems with poverty, crime, and tribe-based political cronyism, Kenya has been a beacon of stability in one of the world's least stable regions. So, let's put Kenya within our ken. We'll survey the nation by the numbers. and we'll look up Kenya's history.

Let's turn a page on Kenya's political past, to see what set the stage for its present problems.

Kenya's roots run as deep as human history. Farmers began tilling the Kenyan highlands 4,000 years ago, and Arab traders first cruised the country's coast two millennia back. In fact, contact between East Africans and Arabs led to the development of the Swahili language and culture--and to Swahili city-states along Kenya's coast.

Still, modern Kenya's story begins in many ways with a British "invasion." During the 1880s, European powers like Britain and Germany divvied up East Africa into "spheres of influence," without bothering to ask the locals. Under their agreements, the land that's now Kenya fell to the British.

Only a few colonists came before the 20th century, and they stayed mainly on the coast. But eventually, new waves of Brits began to push inland. To escape the equatorial heat, many took up residence in the fertile highlands and displaced native Kenyans--notably the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest ethnic group. Some Kenyans were effectively compelled to work lands that had been stolen from them.

Meanwhile, the British played on ethnic rivalries to solidify their rule. In time, resistance to that rule grew, and in 1952, a group of Kenyan nationalists launched the Mau Mau Rebellion. The origins of the word "Mau Mau" are unclear, but the basic idea was simple: "kindly get off our land and leave your things." Many Mau Mau fighters were poor Kikuyu.

By the late 1950s, the British government had largely suppressed the Mau Mau. But by the early 1960s, they were ready to leave Kenya to the Kenyans. In 1963, Kenya became an independent state. The Kenyans then elected Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, president. Kenyatta would run Kenya for 15 years. His party, the Kenya Africa National Union (KANU), would run Kenya for four decades.

Under Kenyatta, Kenya's economy expanded. Unfortunately, so did crime, corruption, and tribe-based political cronyism. Kenyatta's fellow Kikuyu benefited from having one of their own in power. Other Kenyans--who comprise nearly 80 percent of the population--were often less lucky.

When Kenyatta died in 1978, his vice president, Daniel arap Moi, took the helm--and kept it for the next 24 years. At first, Moi won support from the West by positioning himself as an anti-communist. Later, he used his KANU political machine to defeat a divided opposition in repeated elections.

Finally, in 2002, constitutional limits blocked Moi from running again. That year, Kenyans picked Mwai Kibaki for president in a free and fair election. Kibaki's party, the National Rainbow Coalition, took control of the government after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform.

By some measures, the Kibaki years have been good ones. But progress on the perennial issues of poverty, crime, corruption, and ethnic favoritism has been limited. Now, the question is whether the Kibaki years will continue. By the official counts, Kibaki won another term in Kenya's election last month. But the opposition says those counts are bogus--and they've taken their dispute to the streets.

More about Kenya:

225,000 – Kenya's total area, in square miles (582,650 sq km). That's a little larger than Spain, a little smaller than Ukraine, and nearly the size of Texas without its panhandle.

22 – Percentage of Kenyans who are Kikuyu, the single largest ethnic group. Other large ethnic groups include the Luhya (14 percent), Luo (13 percent), Kalenjin (12 percent), and Kamba (11 percent)--and that's not to mention dozens of smaller groups. Tribal tensions have long been a problem in Kenyan politics, as corrupt officials have favored their kin.

78 – Percentage of Kenyans who are Christian. Estimates vary, but most of the rest are about equally divided between Islam and indigenous religious beliefs.

1 in 5 – Number of Kenyans who live in "severe poverty," according to the World Bank. What does that mean? Even if they were somehow "able to forgo all non-food consumption," they would still be unable "to meet basic food needs."

1 in 17 – Number of adults in Kenya who are infected with HIV. Thankfully, HIV prevalence in Kenya has gone down in recent years--and life expectancy has gone up.

17,057 – Height of Mt. Kenya, the nation's highest point, in feet (5,199 meters). An extinct volcano, Mt. Kenya is Africa's second highest mountain, behind Mt. Kilimanjaro, which stands in Tanzania, just south of the Kenyan border. Glaciers atop Mt. Kenya feed some of the country's largest rivers.

2 million – Number of wildebeest who traipse through Kenya's Masai Mara Game Park each year. The wildebeest follow rains that bring lush grasses. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs follow the wildebeest. The park is also home to elephants, hippos, giraffes, buffalos, and black rhinos.

--Steve Sampson and Brad Vick

SOMALIA

Somalia is the quintessential failed state. One in four Somali children dies before turning five, cyclical famines kill thousands (and threaten millions), and pirates patrol the nation's coast, stealing everything from black market goods to humanitarian food shipments. So, how did it come to this? Here's Somalia's sad story, in brief.

Somalia is located on the Horn of Africa, just across the Gulf of Aden from the Arabian Peninsula. People have occupied its beachfront property for ages. Ancient Egyptians traded along the Horn's shores. So did Greeks and medieval Arabs. In the 10th century, Chinese merchants arrived and reportedly took home exotic animals for the emperor's menagerie.

Today's Somalis claim descent from Arab immigrants who settled along the coast more than 1,000 years ago. Scholars debate when and how they actually arrived and moved inland, but there's no question that Somali clans were well established in much of modern Somalia by the 16th century.

The clans are still central to Somali society. Each traces its ancestry to a single father figure, and each is divided into sub-clans that don't always get along. Still, all the clans share a common language (Somali), religion (Islam), and culture. In fact, Somali culture extends beyond Somalia's borders, which were largely drawn by Europeans.

Europeans began arriving in force after the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869. Suddenly, the Somali coast lay along a strategically important shipping route, and the British, Italians, and French arrived to promote their interests.

The French set up shop around the Somali port of Djibouti, in an area that later became the independent nation of that name. The British established "British Somaliland" in the northwest, while the Italians moved into the south. Not to be outdone, Ethiopia--then a regional power--assumed control in the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region in the west. Disputes followed, and borders were drawn without asking the locals.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan--whom the British called the "Mad Mullah"--launched a rebellion against the colonizers. He and his followers, called "dervishes," survived attacks by the British, the Italians, and the Ethiopians before finally falling to the Brits in 1920. Even then, pockets of Somali resistance continued.

During World War II, the Italians briefly took British Somaliland, only to see the British return to retake "their" Somaliland, plus Italian Somaliland and Ogaden, too. In 1949, the Italians returned to administer Italian Somaliland as a UN trust territory, but not before many Somalis had begun longing for their own independent, pan-Somali state.

In 1960, the British and Italians left, and British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland joined to form the United Republic of Somalia. Almost immediately, the new nation became embroiled in border conflicts over Somali-inhabited lands in northern Kenya and eastern Ethiopia. A military buildup followed, even as internal tensions mounted between the former British and Italian regions.

In 1969, a bodyguard from a rival clan assassinated Somalia's president, and the military assumed power. The commander of the army, Mohamed Siad Barre, became president--and, before long, dictator. The coup was restyled a "revolution," as "Comrade Siad" announced his pursuit of an Islam-friendly version of "scientific socialism." Yet socialism never really took root in Somalia, and rival clans and Islamic leaders soon resented the Comrade's rule.

In 1974, Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie fell. Three years later, Siad Barre retook the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region. At first, the Soviets tried to mediate the dispute. Then they shifted their support to Ethiopia (which has 75 million people to Somalia's 9 million). Somalia's Soviet arms shipments stopped, while Ethiopia got military advisors and Cuban troops. The United States shifted its support from Ethiopia to Somalia, but not before Ogaden was back in Ethiopian hands.

After the defeat in Ogaden, officers from a rival clan tried to topple Siad Barre. They failed, but the threat they posed prompted the dictator to start making government appointments based on perceived clan loyalty. The government and military became less competent, clan rivalries increased, and guerrilla attacks began. As the 1980s wore on, opposition groups became more powerful, and Siad Barre responded with increasingly repressive measures.

By the end of the decade, clan militias had seized much of the country. Last-ditch efforts at political reform failed to appease them, and in January 1991, a united opposition front captured the capital, Mogadishu. Siad Barre fled, and the militias turned on each other. In the next two years, 50,000 people died in factional fighting, and some 300,000 Somalis starved. Meanwhile, the former British Somaliland effectively seceded, calling itself, simply, "Somaliland." Somalia hasn't had a functional central government since.

--Steve Sampson

Enter content here

To post your opinion regarding this page, please click on

A POINT OF VIEW, and post your opinion in my Forum.