In February 1877 an Italian-language newspaper appeared on the streets of Alexandria announcing itself as an organ of the International, the organisation founded in London in 1864 to represent the interests of working men. Soon suppressed by the authorities, Il Lavoratore represented the first of a series of anarchist newspapers published in Egypt over a period of almost forty years but which was particularly active in the decade and a half before World War I. Produced by resident militants and comprising more than a dozen titles, this press testified to the local emergence of an internationalist movement that reflected a multiethnic membership which was predominantly Italian but which in time came to include other linguistic and national communities. Its distinctive mission was to promote a radical critique of the combined evils of nationalism, capitalism and religion through a programme of social emancipation inspired by the new ideas of science, secularism and social justice. At the same time the record of the anarchist press in Egypt demonstrates many of the political and financial difficulties faced by dissident newspapers that attracted the hostility of the authorities and relied on the modest resources of a relatively small group of activists.

Emergence of the Press in Egypt

Apart from a brief appearance during the French occupation, the first local newspaper in Egypt, al-Waqa’i’ al-Misriyya, an official government publication, was launched in 1828. A number of titles appeared over subsequent decades but it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that the Egyptian press took on a more dynamic, diverse and privately owned character. The press emerged not only as an important medium of news and communication for the public but also as a forum of expression for the ideas and interests of an increasingly vibrant heterogeneous society.

In this the foreign-language press led the way, a sign of the increasing presence of resident foreign communities in the country and growing international influence. The Italian-language Lo Spettatore Egiziano was at the forefront in 1846, and was followed by a series of Italian-and French-language papers in the 1850s and the first Greek-language title, I Aiguptos, in 1862.