WE ARE BORN FROM COLONIALISM – MASS FRUSTRATIONS AND POPULAR REVOLTS“We prefer to govern ourselves badly, the nationalists argued, rather than let ourselves be governed well by others.”To fully understand where the anger and frustration of The Egyptian mafia originates, we need to travel back in time, 70 years from the coup, to the year 1882. A brief overview of Egypt's colonial history is needed to explain the processes of subsequent times. In the same year, the British occupied the Ottoman province (more like an autonomous region) of Egypt. As so often in Britain's colonial and diplomatic past, this too was a disguised occupation. Hidden behind ideals, the British initiated a gradual but healthy change in Egyptian society that would later serve as a catalyst for the uprisings. Fuel for the fire of protest was added ceaselessly, but, in a sense, unconsciously. Many of the problems that Egypt still faces today derive from the processes initiated in that fateful year. The gradual change that occurred after the occupation manifested itself on the agricultural level rather than on the industrial one. Instead of food products, local and foreign landowners began growing cotton. Instead of exporting products, Egypt began exporting raw materials, which were then transformed into products to be resold, ironically, to Egyptians. Normally prices would skyrocket. Thus began the process that profoundly changed the entire Egyptian society, in a period in which the first nationalist voices were timidly beginning to rise. It is safe to say that this process of foreign control ultimately left a deep scar on the Egyptian people and was, understandably, in the spotlight of the nationalist struggle for independence. The first, greatest tension that the colonialist regime... middle of paper ......SA, 2010.5. GOLDSCHMIDT, Arthur Jr., A Brief History of Egypt, USA, 2008.6. GORDON, Joel, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution, USA, 7.1992. HOPWOOD, Derek, Egypt: Politics and Society 1945 – 90, United Kingdom, 1993.8. MARSOT, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid, A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present, United Kingdom, 2007.9. MCGREGOR, Andrew, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, USA, 2006.10. MONDAL, Anshuman A., Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt, United States and Canada, 2003.11. PARETO, Vilfredo, Uspon i pad elita – Primjena teoretske sociologije, Croatia, 2011.12. PODEH, Elie; WINCKLER, Onn, “Introduction: Nasserism as a form of populism” in PODEH, Elie; WINCKLER, Onn (ed.), Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt, USA, 2004.