Cairo, the capital city of Egypt, who is under strong global impact has been examined in this volume. Egypt is a transcontinental country which is located at the intersection of the North Africa and the Southwest Asia. The country has a 80 million population in total and about 20 million of this population is living in Cairo city. The globalisation(better to say westernisation) process of Egypt started in 1979 (i.e. Camp David Accords). After this date, the country turned its face from the North(communist bloc) to the West (US and EU). In this westernisation process which has been going on for the last 30 years, Egypt became very close to the United States (US) and the European Union(EU) politically and financially, but it moved away from the countries of the North Africa and the Middle East, which are actually the places much more similar to the Egypt than US and EU in socio-cultural terms. US and EU financially and politically supported the Egypt government in a systematic and regular way during this 30-year period (e.g. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided $1.3 billion financial aid to the Egyptian government every year since 1980 to support economic growth and to establish security in the country. Again, EU provided €558 million to the government between 2007-2011 under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) to support political and economical reforms in the country. EU has just declared that they are going to provide an additional €449 million financial aid to Egypt for the same purposes under the same program between 2011 and 2013). The year 2007 became an important date for Egypt in terms of coming closer to the western world. Egypt became the first country in the Middle EastNorth Africa Region (MENA) which signed the government was overthrown in a social explosion in 2011.
Published in Political Reflection Magazine Vol. 2 No. 2
