Your article is quite interesting, you did a great job of listing egypt's geographical limitations, which highlights how blessed britain was in contrast, with its coal seams, forests, rivers, etc. However, you gloss over the role of britain's economic imperialism, indeed you just barely mention it the middle, and at the beginning and end of your article you dont mention it at all. Now if the west had succeeded in intervening in Japan, and preventing the meiji restoration and other modernization reforms, almost certainly the Japanese would also be living in extreme poverty right now, (or maybe just climbing out of it) much as Egyptians are, that is, if Britain and the west had succeeded in imposing unequal treaties on it as they did in egypt, controlling its economic policies at the highest level and flooding its domestic markets with european manufactures as they did by force in virtually the entire world, preventing them from protecting and developing their infant industries. It is not a coincidence that every, or almost every, country that succeeded in developing, that wasnt oil rich at least, did so by active government intervention in the economy and protection of developing industries against cheaper imports from more technologically advanced countries. That wasn't possible in former european colonies which is why they are almost all poor now, again, unless they have oil. And yet, if Japan was indeed poor now, you and other western commentators would be saying that Japan had good intentions in its industrialization efforts but faced too many internal problems, such as relative lack of natural resources, lack of industrial expertise, that it relied enormously on manpower during its early industrialization efforts, that it had an anachronistic imperial system and lack of liberal institutions, that it wasted resources on military expansionism, and god knows what else. The idea that Japan would have become one of the strongest economic and military powers in the world would strike you as absurd. Now no one can prove that Egypt would be in the same position as Japan is today, but we know that it had the most developed industry of any country outside europe, and the only modern military, until Brtain intervened. Egypt had plenty of geographic problems, you did a good job of summarizing them, but like Japan it would have had plenty of time to fix them over the decades, as industrialization doesnt happen overnight anyway. The idea that they would have just given up on trying is far fetched. Much more likely is that the same economic, political and geopolitical conditions would not be present ever again, and Britain would continue for a long time to make sure of that. Of course, we will never actually know what Egypt and the middle east would be like today had they been allowed to pursue an independent course. But the reason we will never know is because of Britain and the west.
Your article is quite interesting, you did a great job of listing egypt's geographical limitations, which highlights how blessed britain was in contrast, with its coal seams, forests, rivers, etc. However, you gloss over the role of britain's economic imperialism, indeed you just barely mention it the middle, and at the beginning and end of your article you dont mention it at all. Now if the west had succeeded in intervening in Japan, and preventing the meiji restoration and other modernization reforms, almost certainly the Japanese would also be living in extreme poverty right now, (or maybe just climbing out of it) much as Egyptians are, that is, if Britain and the west had succeeded in imposing unequal treaties on it as they did in egypt, controlling its economic policies at the highest level and flooding its domestic markets with european manufactures as they did by force in virtually the entire world, preventing them from protecting and developing their infant industries. It is not a coincidence that every, or almost every, country that succeeded in developing, that wasnt oil rich at least, did so by active government intervention in the economy and protection of developing industries against cheaper imports from more technologically advanced countries. That wasn't possible in former european colonies which is why they are almost all poor now, again, unless they have oil. And yet, if Japan was indeed poor now, you and other western commentators would be saying that Japan had good intentions in its industrialization efforts but faced too many internal problems, such as relative lack of natural resources, lack of industrial expertise, that it relied enormously on manpower during its early industrialization efforts, that it had an anachronistic imperial system and lack of liberal institutions, that it wasted resources on military expansionism, and god knows what else. The idea that Japan would have become one of the strongest economic and military powers in the world would strike you as absurd. Now no one can prove that Egypt would be in the same position as Japan is today, but we know that it had the most developed industry of any country outside europe, and the only modern military, until Brtain intervened. Egypt had plenty of geographic problems, you did a good job of summarizing them, but like Japan it would have had plenty of time to fix them over the decades, as industrialization doesnt happen overnight anyway. The idea that they would have just given up on trying is far fetched. Much more likely is that the same economic, political and geopolitical conditions would not be present ever again, and Britain would continue for a long time to make sure of that. Of course, we will never actually know what Egypt and the middle east would be like today had they been allowed to pursue an independent course. But the reason we will never know is because of Britain and the west.