ABSTRACT
A conversation years ago with Desmond Stewart, a British writer known for his love and appreciation of Egypt and the Egyptian people, serves as the inspiration for this chapter. The author of such works as Cairo and The Friday Men (Heinemann, 1961), Stewart had very definite views on the distinctive traits of the contemporary Egyptian personality. I recall that one of his most perceptive observations was that an enormous discrepancy has grown in the two decades of autocratic rule since 1952 between Egyptians’ sense of rights, on the one hand, and their sense of duties, on the other.
