Exactly. Though I am curious on what a peace would look like.
Twilight of the Red Tsar
- Thread starter Napoleon IV
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Exactly. Though I am curious on what a peace would look like.
Minor point, but if Israel keeps Sinai, they get to become an oil producing Middle Eastern nation. Plus, I imagine that Mount Sinai itself (even if it doesn't really match Biblical description) will be a national symbol once the Jewish settlers to the region start coming in. Better annexed territory than occupied territory to erect settlements; without the Palestinian millstone, Israel's going to be a lot more popular around the world, even discounting the obvious semitophillic waves.
Furthermore, I love the symbolism of Israel Vs Egypt, owing to the Exodus story, and I imagine owing to the now probably permanent loss of the Sinai that this will become the eternal feud in the vein of Israel vs Palestine. Many an argument will begin in Tel Aviv over who's worse: Egyptians or Russians (I honestly think Germans are going to get off well by comparison, as their persecution is summarised in twelve years, while the other two feuds cross centuries).
Furthermore, I love the symbolism of Israel Vs Egypt, owing to the Exodus story, and I imagine owing to the now probably permanent loss of the Sinai that this will become the eternal feud in the vein of Israel vs Palestine. Many an argument will begin in Tel Aviv over who's worse: Egyptians or Russians (I honestly think Germans are going to get off well by comparison, as their persecution is summarised in twelve years, while the other two feuds cross centuries).
I love the Bible symbolism. I would like to see more about the conflict between these two rivals.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Yep. The Sinai is less of a hot potato to the Israelis than the West Bank, and it gives Israel some of that delicious oil money.
Yeah, I also bet the symbolism is not lost on the Israelis as well. I bet Israeli settlers of the Sinai have the best Passover Seders, because they gained their land from another megalomaniacal Pharaoh.
I think Russia will be seen as the worst, considering the history of persecution that existed before.
Well, be careful what you wish for. If Israel does end up in another war with Egypt, based of earlier hints of common atomic warfare, the former could unleash their own version of the ten plagues on Egypt.
I didn't realize the oil thing. I did some research and it turns out that in 1967 80% of Egypt's proven oil reserves were in the Gulf of Suez, which creates a huge territorial dispute over who gets control of those oil fields.
Does anyone know what page @QueerSpear's map of the Soviet Civil War is (although I think it's under their old name tuxer)?
OK thanks. My bad @austrian martyr.
EDIT: It also turns out there was a map by @QueerSpear on page 124.
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I based my map on tuxer's map along with some updates to the Soviet's civil war front lines.
I've updated the map a bit and added in the Sinai and Albanian updates also.
I've updated the map a bit and added in the Sinai and Albanian updates also.
Last edited:
I remember reading that, but I wasn't sure how to represent them because they're landlocked inside Algeria.
Sidi Bel Abbes is not a costal city?How can coastal cities be landlocked?
Ryan
Donor
i recalled that France kept some Algerian cities and assumed that they would be coastal, my mistake.
Lost Freeway
Banned
Probably because the coastal cities contain the largest concentration of pied-noirs.
Pharaohs and Paupers
Hello again. It's been a while since I've posted an fan-update, but I wanted to do one about the condition of Egypt:
Pharaohs and Paupers
Excerpt from “The Lone Sands” by the New York Times (1971)
When Shelley wrote ‘Ozzymandias, he pictured a mighty statue of an even mightier Pharaoh, laid low by the relentless march of time, the artist’s hand more lasting than the ruler’s own, even if he once lead a mighty empire. It’s a poem that stirs the passion of men years later, and its distinctly Egyptian imagery is one of those reasons. For many of us, we think of Ancient Egypt first when we think of the country, full of royal splendour, spectacular pyramids and unbeatable armies dominating the land. Perhaps this idea of Egypt has grown more exotic still, owing to what the country has become.
I arrived in Cairo to get a sense of events in the region since the 1968 war with the Israeli government and the subsequent opening up of the country after its staggering military defeat. As soon as I arrived, I was bombarded on all sides with warnings of thieves and criminals; despite the notoriously cruel punishments of the state, economic hardship has lead to thousands turning to petty crime simply to stay alive. Soon after that, of course, you are bombarded with propaganda of an altogether different nature, with multiple banners displaying the Sinai Peninsula, declaring it would soon return to its ‘rightful owner’. I wished this would be the worst it would get, but I was quickly disappointed; not only did I see various caricatures of Israelis as small, hook-nosed, avaricious vermin, but the bookstore at the front of the airport not only had the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, but had it advertised on behalf of the Egyptian state, in multiple languages. I later learned that even the state newscaster regards the document, which every American schoolchild knows is a forgery [1], as a genuine documentation of some absurd conspiracy. It may seem astounding as a Westerner to see such Anti-Semitism after it has been so totally discredited and rejected by societies around the world but, in Egypt especially, the Arab world seems immune to this progression. Most forebodingly, a common graffiti seen around Cairo says, “Third time lucky”, just beside the Star of David.
But while that may be something that Westerners often think of when they think of the Egypt-Israel feud, what about the daily life of Egypt? I took a taxi ride around Cairo to find out. Thankfully, Americans are seen quite positively in Egypt. Though the European powers are filtered through the legacy of colonialism and the Russians are seen through the filter of their allowing the Suez War to get underway, most Egyptians like Americans, especially owing to the illicit screenings of Hollywood movies.
As I drove through the city, I was already astonished. The living standard was not comparable to an Eastern European city, or even another Arab city such as Damascus. The level of poverty and disrepute seen as I looked out the window more closely matched my experiences in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa. People lay on the middle of the street, clearly in pain. Garbage was everywhere across the street beside full trashcans. And all the while, almost every corner had a new poster, praising Egypt, Islam, the Sinai, and condemning Europe, Secularism and Israel. There was a mood of resentment and impotent rage boiling on the men I saw as they crossed under these posters, as if they were reminded of the country’s devastating loss in the recent war.
“It wasn’t always like this,” rued the cab driver, whom I’ll call Omar, the cab sofa in the back torn to shreds by the time I was already sitting on it. “I remember way back during the Second World War. Back then, the streets were lit with lights every night, and the English soldiers were everywhere, so there was always money to go around. Even in the fifties it was good; we were hopeful. There were jobs, there was money to go around, we had what we needed. All we wanted was what was the Canal on our land.”
Of course, the rest is history. Former President Nasser’s attempts to seize the Suez Canal resulted in the successful invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel, resulting in the Canal staying in the control of the Suez Canal Company. This ultimately paved the way for the country’s descent into Islamist Theocracy and isolation, culminating in the loss of the Sinai.
As we keep driving, we see ruins by the side of the road. “That’s been there for three years?” I asked in astonishment, wondering how nothing could have been done since 1968 to clear it up.
He looked at me with astonished eyes. “Three years? It’s been fifteen.”
In all that time, due to the crippling reparation payments Egypt was forced to pay, coupled with the collapse of any money coming into the country following her international pariah status, there was no money left over to build the country back up.
“We felt so angry but we knew we couldn’t do anything about it; we couldn’t fight the Colonialists, and the Atheists had abandoned us, but we could always take it out on the traitors who signed our future away.”
Despite the obvious mistake Nasser made, he remains broadly popular among all levels of Egyptian society, religions, class, etc. It was ironic that a Nasser opponent should therefore have taken power, revisiting themes that Nasser had developed, while giving it a perverted, religious edge. It was hard to ignore the omnipresence of this Medieval attitude in Cairo, as I was pointed towards the flailing and lashing areas. Even worse was the sensation of seeing obviously starving women getting cooked to a crisp in their black burkas while being dragged along by their lightly dressed husband.
“It never used to be like that,” sighed Omar. “Back in the fifties, you’d have to check a few times to see the veil in an Egyptian street. We Egyptians prided ourselves in being very modern; so modern that all the other Arab countries looked to us for inspiration. Now? We look like barbarians. I heard a story once just after the revolution. There was a young girl; she was happy and carefree, studying at university. When the hijab was forced on all the girls, she didn’t want to wear it. She refused to wear it, or she’d wear it around her neck. Then, one day, when she was walking through the town, a local gang working for the Brotherhood threw battery acid at her face. I think she died in hospital a week later.”
Before I could even comprehend the cruelty, he told me another story of the chilling affect that had swept Egyptian women. “I heard someone who works in the police tell me this story. A young girl was assaulted and raped by a man much older than her, and she went to the religious police to report it, but only the assault part. They took her in and started to interrogate her, because they suspected she had been raped. Finally, after she was tortured, she confessed to being raped. But since she did not have four male witnesses, it was seen as a confession of adultery. A few days later, she was publicly executed.” [2]
It should not surprise us that this story should have been swept under the rug. In 1964, a public debate began among the Egyptian leadership as to whether slavery should be reintroduced, even as the Saudi Arabian leaders began to end their own slavery industry. That this should have even been debated is the real shock. Of course, one needn’t look far to see the insanity on offer from the Egyptian leadership. Here are a few choice stories from the state papers:
“Jews this, Jews that,” observes Omar, as we pass another poster. “People would kill for ten American dollars here; no joke. It’s even worse in the countryside, so they’re all coming into the city. Everybody’s hungry, nothing ever works, the hospitals have no medicine – but nothing’s going to happen, because we’re all thinking about the damn Sinai.”
It was at this point that I suspected my driver had a story of his own. We went on a sightseeing tour of the major historical sites in Cairo, their ruins no more notable than a typical street in the city, before finally settling down for the night. Alcohol was illegal, but in the hotel I was in almost anything could be acquired with ease; alcohol, drugs, pornography. It was even suggested that a few of the regime’s top men would occasionally make quick visits to the site without saying anything. We both began to drink, which was my next clue, owing to the Muslim deference to the bottle. It was then that I asked the question:
“You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”
He froze, as if the word sent an instinctive shudder down his spine. He looked around a few times before finally nodding.
“It’s not wise to tell anyone around here. Many Christians have even taken to giving their boys Muslim names to escape getting targeted. It never was like this back in the fifties. Back then, everyone followed their own religion and that was that. Then the English and French came in; the Muslims started calling them ‘Crusaders’ and spread lies that the Christians were collaborating with them. After the war, a lot of people blamed us for losing the war. Two of my cousins were killed soon after the Brotherhood took power; they were bombed inside their church. Many Christians left Egypt; we stayed, because we’re Egyptians, and Christ endured far worse than we did. They started talking about bringing back the Dhimmitude status, and it never got as bad as it could have been, but it just made us feel apart from our Muslim Egyptian brothers. We were at our weakest after the Colonialists left! Why were we tearing each other apart?”
After a sigh, he pulled one final surprise on me. “I have a brother who lives in the Sinai, close to one of the oil fields in the south. His wife was sick, so he decided to stay with her in the region when the Jews came in. He was scared of what they would do to him and his wife. However, when the settlers started to come, they didn’t mind him; they just let him be. He even kept his job at the oil field. He was shocked that the Jews weren’t going to kill them or kick them out or whatever. A couple of months later, his wife died. He held a funeral where the local Christians came, and when he came back home, all he got were condolences from the Jews. He was told that many of them had come from Russia, and that they had come to know what loss was like. He went home and he was so angry but also sad. He had been denounced and spat by regime supporters for being a Christian for years; they all ran with their tail between their legs when the fighting started. Now, here were Jews treating him better than his kin in his own country had been doing. It was something that made him question everything. It made me question everything when I heard it too.”
Omar sighed. “To hell with who owns the Sinai, I just want the country I grew up in to come back, where Muslims and Christians worked together for Egypt, and we didn’t cut off people’s heads for saying the wrong thing. Is that so much to ask?”
[1] – Increased Holocaust education lead to more common knowledge of anti-Semitic tropes among the general population.
[2] - This more or less actually happened in Iran a little over ten years ago. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5217424.stm)
Pharaohs and Paupers
Excerpt from “The Lone Sands” by the New York Times (1971)
When Shelley wrote ‘Ozzymandias, he pictured a mighty statue of an even mightier Pharaoh, laid low by the relentless march of time, the artist’s hand more lasting than the ruler’s own, even if he once lead a mighty empire. It’s a poem that stirs the passion of men years later, and its distinctly Egyptian imagery is one of those reasons. For many of us, we think of Ancient Egypt first when we think of the country, full of royal splendour, spectacular pyramids and unbeatable armies dominating the land. Perhaps this idea of Egypt has grown more exotic still, owing to what the country has become.
I arrived in Cairo to get a sense of events in the region since the 1968 war with the Israeli government and the subsequent opening up of the country after its staggering military defeat. As soon as I arrived, I was bombarded on all sides with warnings of thieves and criminals; despite the notoriously cruel punishments of the state, economic hardship has lead to thousands turning to petty crime simply to stay alive. Soon after that, of course, you are bombarded with propaganda of an altogether different nature, with multiple banners displaying the Sinai Peninsula, declaring it would soon return to its ‘rightful owner’. I wished this would be the worst it would get, but I was quickly disappointed; not only did I see various caricatures of Israelis as small, hook-nosed, avaricious vermin, but the bookstore at the front of the airport not only had the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, but had it advertised on behalf of the Egyptian state, in multiple languages. I later learned that even the state newscaster regards the document, which every American schoolchild knows is a forgery [1], as a genuine documentation of some absurd conspiracy. It may seem astounding as a Westerner to see such Anti-Semitism after it has been so totally discredited and rejected by societies around the world but, in Egypt especially, the Arab world seems immune to this progression. Most forebodingly, a common graffiti seen around Cairo says, “Third time lucky”, just beside the Star of David.
But while that may be something that Westerners often think of when they think of the Egypt-Israel feud, what about the daily life of Egypt? I took a taxi ride around Cairo to find out. Thankfully, Americans are seen quite positively in Egypt. Though the European powers are filtered through the legacy of colonialism and the Russians are seen through the filter of their allowing the Suez War to get underway, most Egyptians like Americans, especially owing to the illicit screenings of Hollywood movies.
As I drove through the city, I was already astonished. The living standard was not comparable to an Eastern European city, or even another Arab city such as Damascus. The level of poverty and disrepute seen as I looked out the window more closely matched my experiences in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa. People lay on the middle of the street, clearly in pain. Garbage was everywhere across the street beside full trashcans. And all the while, almost every corner had a new poster, praising Egypt, Islam, the Sinai, and condemning Europe, Secularism and Israel. There was a mood of resentment and impotent rage boiling on the men I saw as they crossed under these posters, as if they were reminded of the country’s devastating loss in the recent war.
“It wasn’t always like this,” rued the cab driver, whom I’ll call Omar, the cab sofa in the back torn to shreds by the time I was already sitting on it. “I remember way back during the Second World War. Back then, the streets were lit with lights every night, and the English soldiers were everywhere, so there was always money to go around. Even in the fifties it was good; we were hopeful. There were jobs, there was money to go around, we had what we needed. All we wanted was what was the Canal on our land.”
Of course, the rest is history. Former President Nasser’s attempts to seize the Suez Canal resulted in the successful invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel, resulting in the Canal staying in the control of the Suez Canal Company. This ultimately paved the way for the country’s descent into Islamist Theocracy and isolation, culminating in the loss of the Sinai.
As we keep driving, we see ruins by the side of the road. “That’s been there for three years?” I asked in astonishment, wondering how nothing could have been done since 1968 to clear it up.
He looked at me with astonished eyes. “Three years? It’s been fifteen.”
In all that time, due to the crippling reparation payments Egypt was forced to pay, coupled with the collapse of any money coming into the country following her international pariah status, there was no money left over to build the country back up.
“We felt so angry but we knew we couldn’t do anything about it; we couldn’t fight the Colonialists, and the Atheists had abandoned us, but we could always take it out on the traitors who signed our future away.”
Despite the obvious mistake Nasser made, he remains broadly popular among all levels of Egyptian society, religions, class, etc. It was ironic that a Nasser opponent should therefore have taken power, revisiting themes that Nasser had developed, while giving it a perverted, religious edge. It was hard to ignore the omnipresence of this Medieval attitude in Cairo, as I was pointed towards the flailing and lashing areas. Even worse was the sensation of seeing obviously starving women getting cooked to a crisp in their black burkas while being dragged along by their lightly dressed husband.
“It never used to be like that,” sighed Omar. “Back in the fifties, you’d have to check a few times to see the veil in an Egyptian street. We Egyptians prided ourselves in being very modern; so modern that all the other Arab countries looked to us for inspiration. Now? We look like barbarians. I heard a story once just after the revolution. There was a young girl; she was happy and carefree, studying at university. When the hijab was forced on all the girls, she didn’t want to wear it. She refused to wear it, or she’d wear it around her neck. Then, one day, when she was walking through the town, a local gang working for the Brotherhood threw battery acid at her face. I think she died in hospital a week later.”
Before I could even comprehend the cruelty, he told me another story of the chilling affect that had swept Egyptian women. “I heard someone who works in the police tell me this story. A young girl was assaulted and raped by a man much older than her, and she went to the religious police to report it, but only the assault part. They took her in and started to interrogate her, because they suspected she had been raped. Finally, after she was tortured, she confessed to being raped. But since she did not have four male witnesses, it was seen as a confession of adultery. A few days later, she was publicly executed.” [2]
It should not surprise us that this story should have been swept under the rug. In 1964, a public debate began among the Egyptian leadership as to whether slavery should be reintroduced, even as the Saudi Arabian leaders began to end their own slavery industry. That this should have even been debated is the real shock. Of course, one needn’t look far to see the insanity on offer from the Egyptian leadership. Here are a few choice stories from the state papers:
JEWESS SLUT AYN RAND BEGINS TOUR OF ZIONIST OCCUPIED TERRITORY
EVIDENCE PROVES NO JEWS WERE GASSED BY NAZIS
THE SATANIC AGENDA OF DISNEY
One may think these would be somewhat amusing, but the desperation of the propaganda is almost as obvious as its vulgarity. This government may not last forever, not after such a national humiliation like the previous war. As a result, the state has doubled-down on hatred for Israel, and Jews in particular, even to the extent of such ludicrous hyperbole.EVIDENCE PROVES NO JEWS WERE GASSED BY NAZIS
THE SATANIC AGENDA OF DISNEY
“Jews this, Jews that,” observes Omar, as we pass another poster. “People would kill for ten American dollars here; no joke. It’s even worse in the countryside, so they’re all coming into the city. Everybody’s hungry, nothing ever works, the hospitals have no medicine – but nothing’s going to happen, because we’re all thinking about the damn Sinai.”
It was at this point that I suspected my driver had a story of his own. We went on a sightseeing tour of the major historical sites in Cairo, their ruins no more notable than a typical street in the city, before finally settling down for the night. Alcohol was illegal, but in the hotel I was in almost anything could be acquired with ease; alcohol, drugs, pornography. It was even suggested that a few of the regime’s top men would occasionally make quick visits to the site without saying anything. We both began to drink, which was my next clue, owing to the Muslim deference to the bottle. It was then that I asked the question:
“You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”
He froze, as if the word sent an instinctive shudder down his spine. He looked around a few times before finally nodding.
“It’s not wise to tell anyone around here. Many Christians have even taken to giving their boys Muslim names to escape getting targeted. It never was like this back in the fifties. Back then, everyone followed their own religion and that was that. Then the English and French came in; the Muslims started calling them ‘Crusaders’ and spread lies that the Christians were collaborating with them. After the war, a lot of people blamed us for losing the war. Two of my cousins were killed soon after the Brotherhood took power; they were bombed inside their church. Many Christians left Egypt; we stayed, because we’re Egyptians, and Christ endured far worse than we did. They started talking about bringing back the Dhimmitude status, and it never got as bad as it could have been, but it just made us feel apart from our Muslim Egyptian brothers. We were at our weakest after the Colonialists left! Why were we tearing each other apart?”
After a sigh, he pulled one final surprise on me. “I have a brother who lives in the Sinai, close to one of the oil fields in the south. His wife was sick, so he decided to stay with her in the region when the Jews came in. He was scared of what they would do to him and his wife. However, when the settlers started to come, they didn’t mind him; they just let him be. He even kept his job at the oil field. He was shocked that the Jews weren’t going to kill them or kick them out or whatever. A couple of months later, his wife died. He held a funeral where the local Christians came, and when he came back home, all he got were condolences from the Jews. He was told that many of them had come from Russia, and that they had come to know what loss was like. He went home and he was so angry but also sad. He had been denounced and spat by regime supporters for being a Christian for years; they all ran with their tail between their legs when the fighting started. Now, here were Jews treating him better than his kin in his own country had been doing. It was something that made him question everything. It made me question everything when I heard it too.”
Omar sighed. “To hell with who owns the Sinai, I just want the country I grew up in to come back, where Muslims and Christians worked together for Egypt, and we didn’t cut off people’s heads for saying the wrong thing. Is that so much to ask?”
[1] – Increased Holocaust education lead to more common knowledge of anti-Semitic tropes among the general population.
[2] - This more or less actually happened in Iran a little over ten years ago. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5217424.stm)
Last edited:
Bookmark1995
Banned
This is a really good contribution, @Sorairo
The state of Egypt ITTL is horrifically tragic: losing two wars within ten years, economic ruin, poverty, the loss of a major territory, religious persecution, a government full of religious fanatics with a medieval mindset, and a European power still controls the richest asset in their nation. This current climate does not bode well for the stability of the region, and it might take another disaster to break the hold the Islamists have on Egypt.
I found this part moving: when your enemy treats you better than your own nation, that's when you've realized how insane the world has become.
The state of Egypt ITTL is horrifically tragic: losing two wars within ten years, economic ruin, poverty, the loss of a major territory, religious persecution, a government full of religious fanatics with a medieval mindset, and a European power still controls the richest asset in their nation. This current climate does not bode well for the stability of the region, and it might take another disaster to break the hold the Islamists have on Egypt.
I found this part moving: when your enemy treats you better than your own nation, that's when you've realized how insane the world has become.
- Status