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Kemet Republic
جمهورية كيميت
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

OTL equivalent: Aswan, Luxor, and part of Qena Governorates
Flag Coat of Arms
Flag Coat of Arms
Location of Upper Egypt
Location of Upper Egypt
Capital Aswan
Largest city Luxor
Language Arabic
Religion Christianity, Islam
Ethnic Group Copts, Arabs, Nubians
Demonym Upper Egyptian
Government authoritarian republic
President
Independence from Egypt
  declared 1995
  recognized 1998

Kemet, commonly called Upper Egypt, is an independent nation in northeast Africa. It represents the aspirations for self-rule of Egypt's Coptic population after the horrors of the 1980s.

History[]

Doomsday[]

Islamist rule and war with Israel[]

See main article: November War (1983: Doomsday)

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, taking advantage of the chaos, staged a coup in November 1983. The Brotherhood imposed a harsh regime based on Islamist precepts. Over the next few years, political freedoms became non-existent, women's rights were suppressed, and the native Coptic Church withered under religious persecution, many Copts fleeing to Libya, Crete, and Cyprus.

A group of laborers widened and lowered the Sadat Canal from Lake Nasser, enabling the creation of the Toshka Lakes (Arabic: توشكة‎) by the mid 1990's.

The Islamist yoke was finally broken in February 1987, when Egypt attempted to invade Israel. The Israelis, who were still dealing with the effects of Doomsday and were in no shape to fight, responded by attacking Cairo with ballistic missiles and detonating a nuclear weapon some 40 km in the air so that its EMP would damage Egypt's infrastructure. The attack on Cairo - which proved to be the last nuclear weapon detonated up the present day - destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood in their established stronghold of the Al-Azhar Mosque, in the heart of Cairo.

In the resulting power vacuum, the military tried to get control of the situation, but the state began to fail and finally fragment into local spheres of influence. It was nearly a year before the situation had stabilized.

Origins of the Coptic state[]

One community of survivors took shape in the south, near the Aswan High Dam. The Copts were concentrated in the uppermost Nile and around the new Toshka and Kharga Lakes. Separatism had never been a major force within the community, which had coexisted with the Arabs for a millennium. But now, after the years of persecution and the horrors of nuclear war and famine, many Copts were convinced that a separate state was needed.

By 1989, military detachments stationed around Aswan were cooperating with Coptic leaders. The area was a de facto independent state by the mid-90s. Copts from other parts of Egypt made their way into the zone near Aswan.

The newly fertile lands around the Toshka Lakes gave the south an advantage. The state organized corps of farmers to improve and farm the desert. Refugees from Lower Egypt increased both the workforce and the mouths to feed, and the military devoted most of their control to ensuring food for their citizens. The new government of Aswan established quotas on migration to the region, setting up checkpoints and turning back those it could not feed, condemning thousands to death.

Coexistence[]

In the mid-90s, local leaders throughout Egypt agreed to a structure for re-establishing the Arab Republic of Egypt. Coptic leaders in the far south by now had no wish to be part of any "Arab Republic", and their geographic position along Egypt's border meant that they had a chance to preserve their independence. They formally declared the creation of a new republic in 1995. While it was clear that the Copts were the dominant force, they took pains to avoid tying the republic to an ethnic identity, since many Arabs lived there as well. Therefore they looked back to ancient history to choose a name meant to be neutral: Kemet, a name from pharaonic times.

The Arab Republic was far too weak to take the far south by force, and Kemet's control of the Aswan High Dam gave them a great deal of leverage in the ensuing talks. Egypt's new regime had little choice but to agree to recognize the new nation's permanent independence - in exchange for joint control over the dam and the promise of cooperation on future hydrological projects in the Western Desert. The treaty was signed in 1998, marking Kemet's emergence as an independent nation on the world stage.

These projects followed quite fast. The Arab Republic was also negotiating with the Gulf States Union and even the old enemy, Israel. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia were still dealing with huge numbers of Egyptian refugees and wanted to resettle them in Egypt. Both offered aid to expand the canals in the desert. So now did Greece, eager to expand its influence in the eastern Mediterranean and block the growing power of Sicily. In the early 2000s work began on the Rameses and Seti Channels northward from the Toshka Lakes. In exchange, refugees from Saudi Arabia, Sinai, and the Negev came to live on the newly available land in both Kemet and the Arab Republic.

Return of prosperity[]

That phase of the hydrological work was complete by the mid-2000s. A string of new towns and villages were founded along its course. Besides Egyptians, a number of refugees from Sudan settled there.

In 2008 the Suez Canal was placed under a multinational League of Nations mandate. Kemet won a seat on the five-nation panel governing Suez, along with Egypt, Israel, Greece, and the Gulf States Union.

Economy[]

The economy of Kemet is based heavily on agriculture. While the diversion of the Nile has left a reduced flow, and the Aswan High Dam has blocked the fertile silt from being deposited, millennia of deposits have left the land fertile and with a lower river, the available land has increased.

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