Italians in Egypt
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Italians have lived in Egypt for centuries. This relationship can in part be attributed to historical ties. Relations between the two countries date even further back than ancient Rome's hegemony over the country. Long before that, he claims, Egypt's gods and goddesses were held sacred in Rome. The size of the community had reached around 55,000 just before World War II, forming the second largest expatriate community in Egypt. However like many other foreign-speaking egyptian communities, migration back to Italy and the west reduced the size of the community greatly due to wartime internment and the rise of Nasser. Most migrated to Italy during the 1950s and 1960s, although a few Italians continue to live in Alexandria and Cairo.
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[edit] Egyptian-Italian Relations
Italy's preeminence in its economic relations with Egypt was reflected in the size of its expatriate community.
The first educational missions that Egypt had sent to Europe under Mohamed Ali were sent to Italy, in this case to learn the art of printing. Mohamed Ali had also engaged a number of Italian experts to assist in the various tasks of building the modern state: in the exploration of antiquities, the exploration of minerals, in the conquest of Sudan, designing the city of Khartoum and drawing the first survey map of the Delta.
In addition, Italians featured prominently in the royal court under Ismail, which is perhaps why Italian architects were chosen to design most of Ismail's palaces, new suburbs of the capital and the royal opera house, which was to be inaugurated with Aida by the Italian composer Verdi.
The fondness of Egyptian monarch towards Italy, appeared in the size of italians in their courts, their choice of exile for the ousted monarchs such as the last King Farouk.
[edit] Italian Community in Egypt
At one point, the Italians formed the second largest expatriate community in Egypt, coming only after the Greeks. Writing in Al-Ahram of 19 February 1933, under the headline, "The Italians in Egypt", the Italian historian Angelo San Marco declares, "The Venetians and the people from Trieste, Dalmatia, Genoa, Pisa, Livorno, Naples and Sicily continued to reside in Egypt long after their native cities fell into decay and lost their status as maritime centres with the decline of the Mediterranean as a major thoroughfare for world trade."
Elsewhere in the article, San Marco writes that the Italian community in Egypt held monopolies on the goods that were still popular in the East, which included many imports.
The majority of the Italian community lived in either Cairo or Alexandria, with 18,575 in the former and 24,280 in the latter, according to the 1928 census.
Italians tended to live in exclusively Italian neighbourhoods or in neighbourhoods with other foreigners. Perhaps the most famous of these districts in Cairo was known as the "Venetian Quarter". Nevertheless, San Marco notes that, in order to avoid harassment, the Italians tended to wear Egyptian dress and follow, as much as possible, Egyptian customs.
The Italian community in Egypt consisted primarily of a large array of merchants, artisans, professionals and an increasing number of workers, this was because Italy had remained for a long period of time politically and economically weak, which rendered it incapable of competing with the major industries and capitalist investment coming to Egypt from France.
The Italians there had eight public and six parochial schools. The government schools were supervised by an official committee chaired by the Italian consul and they had a total student enrollment of approximately 1,500. Other schools had student bodies numbering in the hundreds.
The Italians in Alexandria also had 22 philanthropic societies, among which were the National Opera Society, the Society for Disabled War Veterans, the Society of Collectors of Military Insignia, the Italian Club, the Italian Federation for Labour Cooperation, the War Orphans Relief Society, the Mussolini Italian Hospital and the Dante Alighieri Italian Language Association. This was not to mention the many Italian- language newspapers published in Alexandria, the most famous of which were L'Oriente and Il Messaggero Egiziano.
Indeed, the hundreds of Italian words that have been incorporated into the Egyptian colloquial dialect is perhaps the best testimony to the fact that of all the foreign communities, the Italians were the most closely connected to Egyptian society. San Marco ventures that the reason for this was that "our people are noted for their spirit of tolerance, their lack of religious or nationalist chauvinism and, unlike other peoples, their aversion to appearing superior.", says the historian San Marco.
