The structure of the regime was based on a very powerful presidency, a quiescent and essentially powerless parliament, and a mass state-controlled ruling party. The party had its branches throughout the country. And was a means of state control rather than a vehicle of popular representation. And the party through the years, went on to very different names, the Liberation Rally founded in 1953 was then changed to the National Union in 1956 and then changed again to the Arab Socialist Union in 1962. But it was essentially the same all along, a tool for very effective centralized government. So the new regime was a centralized government and a centralized economy. Not so much driven by ideology, but a politically pragmatic, more than an ideologically motivated political system. The impact of agrarian reform by destroying the old elite was much more political than it was economic. And population growth soon devoured any of the economic gains that had made, been made by the agricultural reforms. The Aswan Dam that was completed in 1970 did not meet expectations either. Initially the dam was presented as a panacea for all the ills of the Egyptian economy, the great symbol of Egypt's modernization. It would expand arable land. It would create hydroelectric power. It would catapult Egypt into the modern era. But in fact, the Aswan Dam changed very little in the end. And again because of the rapid growth of population, it could not really match the pace of the increasing mouths that Egypt had to feed. It even caused a variety of ecological problems that have been detrimental to Egypt's economy all along. The centralization of the economy from the mid 1950s onwards was part and parcel of Egypt's growing political independence, its ridding itself of foreign influences, and of creating a very domineering, centralizing, powerful government. As part of Egypt's confrontation with the Western powers, the Suez Canal was nationalized in 1956. British and France banks were also nationalized at the end of the same year, all part of centralization and nationalization that continued afterwards in order to speed up the industrialization process of Egypt. But first came the political motivation to create a centralized regime without any serious competition. The ideological explanation, which was very much about the thrust of Arab socialism, was an after thought and a legitimizer, but not the real cause for these political and economic changes. And the achievements as we have already noticed were limited in the face of growing population. If Egypt population in 1950 was about 20 million, in 1966 it was already 30 million, in 1976, 36 million, in 1986, 50 million, and today as we have already noted, 85 million and steadily increasing. Massive population growth also led naturally to massive urbanization. The rural Egypt could no longer sustain the huge population that was being born there and people migrated to the cities in their millions. Education was a very high priority for the new regime in Egypt, but the achievements were modest, if not poor. The illiteracy rate in Egypt dropped to 53% in 1982. From the very high percentage of 75 that it had been in 1950. Presently, the illiteracy rate in Egypt is approximately 28%, which is a great improvement in comparison to the past. But Egypt is still very low in the international rankings, 160th in the world at present on the rate of illiteracy. The revolutionary regime allowed for a huge expansion of the universities, but this came at the expense of standards in these Egyptian schools of higher learning. The universities became the base for the building of a massive bureaucracy as a means of maintaining power and as a source of employment. From 1962 onwards, every university graduate was promised a job in the government, but this was more about ensuring political stability than economic development or bureaucratic efficiency. The Islamist revival, however, of the 1930s and 1940s, was checked by the officer regime. And had it not been for the officer regime, the Muslim brethren may have risen to power in Egypt in the early 1950s. But that was not to be the case. And it was the officers who kept him out of power, and it was the officers who also implemented a more essentially secular policy. The Sharia courts, for example, were shut down all together, in Egypt, in 1956. The Sufi mystical orders were formally abolished in 1961, though they continued to flourish in practice. The renowned religious university of al-Azhar in Cairo was brought under strict government control. But then came the defeat in 1967. The defeat to Israel in the Six-Day War, and this was the beginning of a political, economic, and global reorientation for Egypt, and the gradual abandonment of all the key policies of the Nasserist era. The great hopes of the Nasserist era were shattered by the war in 1967, and after the war there was a steady shift away from the Soviet Union into the American camp, a somewhat more liberalized economy and in the end, even peace with Israel.
