Kemet (1983: Doomsday)

Kemet
Χημία
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

State of Greece Flag Coat of Arms Location of Kemet
Capital (and largest city)	Alexandria
Language	Greek, Coptic, Arab
Ethnic Group	58% Copt, 28% Arab, 12% Greek, 2% Other
Government	Republic
Population	6,321,432
Established	2010

Kemet, also known as Greek Egypt, is the most populated state within the Greek Federation.

History

Post 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 nonexistent, women's rights were suppressed, and the native Coptic Church withered under religious persecution, many Copts fleeing to Libya, Crete, and Cyprus.

The Islamist yoke was finally broken in February 1987, when Egypt attempted to invade Israel. The Israelis, which were still dealing with the effects of Doomsday and were in no shape to fight, responded by nuking Cairo. The attack on Cairo-which proved to be the last nuclear attack launched to present destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood in their established stronghold of the Grand Mosque, in the heart of Cairo. The resulting power vacuum saw many local warlords rising, and just as quickly, falling. It was nearly a year before the situation had stabilized.

Survivors of the attack congregated in the south, near the Aswan High Dam. The military took control of the situation, organizing the citizens into corps of farmers, fishers, and laborers, to help build a new capital with the decimation of Cairo in the nuclear bombing by Israel. 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 military decided to reduce the flow of water from Lake Nasser, instead diverting it to the west, where farmer corps worked 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.

As the water continued to flow toward the desert, it created the new Eonile, moving north, toward the Mediterranean Sea.

Great Migration

With radiation from the nuclear strike on Cairo flooding the Nile delta, and reduced water levels of the Nile due to the diversion into the Eonile, radiation sickness and disease became rampant. With word of workers needed to farm and develop the newly fertile Eonile valley, millions began migrating south and west. Many Copts remained, seeing the opportunity to escape the opression of the Arab rulers.

Arrival of the Hellenes

In 2003 groups of Greeks approached the leadership in the Kharga Oasis about developing the coast in return for assistance in developing the Egyptian infrastructure. In no position militarily to contest the overt colonization of the northern coast, and believing it a radiated wasteland from the stories of the refugees, the Kharga Oasis government accepted the proposal of the Greeks tentatively. Greek humanitarian groups, colonists, and engineers began landing in the Nile Delta, mostly in massively depopulated Alexandria, but also elsewhere along the coast. Recruiting local arab and copt workers they began efforts to decontaminate the Nile north of Cairo as well as recovering many old Egyptian artifacts. Seeing the potential of the land and with the Egyptian government still believing the area to be a wasteland, the Greeks requested annexation of the Nile Delta in exchange for further aid. The Egyptian government agreed due to the difficulties it was having with the influx of migrants from the delta and the delta was ceded to the Greek Confederation as a protectorate in late 2003.

Fear among the general public caused by the seizure of relics and the annexation of the delta brought a freeze to relations between the Greeks and Egyptians from 2003 to 2005, until negotiations and a show of good faith on the part of Greeks began to win back the good will of the Egyptian survivors. As part of the ground-laying of the new Egyptian Capital on the shores of the new Qattara Lake (بحيره القطاره), the Greeks constructed a number of Old-Egypt styled monuments as a symbol of their friendship as well as aiding in the construction of a new museum to house many of the recovered Egyptian artifacts. With the cleanup effort in the Delta going well, and the Greek administration friendly to the Copts, many of the Coptic refugees that had fled to the Eonile began to return to the delta. This period also saw a massive increase in the Greek population of the delta. With plenty of living space in the millions of abandoned homes, ample fertile farmland, and subsidies for business startups, the delta became a prime place for greek refugees to go, find work, and start or continue a family.

A joint Greek-Egyptian expedition was sent to Cairo in 2008 where they discovered that the bomb exploded in East Cairo, and that the Egyptian museum survived the blast, but was flooded and collapsed. The damage was extensive, but many artifacts survived and were taken to the new Grand New Cairo Egyptian Museum as well as being stored in Alexandria for future display in the under construction new Library of Alexandria. Also in 2008 the League of Nations seeing the work Greece was doing in the area, as well as them already controlling most of the nearby area granted Greece the mandate of the Suez Canal Zone. Through negotiations with the League of Nations, the territory of the Suez Canal zone and the Nile Delta Territory were merged into the Greek Mandate for North Africa, this move was highly irregular as legally ceded Greek territory was turned over to League of Nations control, though administered by the Confederation.

Statehood

After several years of constant migration the population of both Egypt and the Greek mandate stabilized, with most of the Egyptian Copts settling in the Greek mandate where they established themselves as the elite majority. Greek rule was good for the Copts as they enjoyed religious and economic freedom that they hadn't experienced since before the 1952 coup in Egypt. Seeing the Copts as major allies the Greek leadership began giving administrative positions to Copts and established Coptic as an official language of the territory. Despite the lack of actual Coptic speakers, this move proved extremely popular amongst the population, and it triggered a revival of the language to the point that experts believe the language will be the mother tongue of over 30% of the population by 2030. In 2009 the Patriarch of Mount Athos arrived in Alexandria for an audience with the newly selected pope of Alexandria, bringing the Greek and Coptic orthodox churches closer and further strengthening the Greek and Coptic friendship. This friendship proved beneficial when the time came to vote for statehood in the Greek Federation. Merging the Suez zone with the Nile Delta territory proved a genius move due to a provision in the madate charter that allowed for permanent nationalization of the mandate in the event of a positive result to a referendum. At this time the Copts and Greeks together outnumbered the Arab population handily, the Arab population located mostly in the territory that made up the Suez mandate.

The referendum on statehood passed with 54% in favor, and immediately afterwards the Greek administration began reaching out to the arab community. Representatives of the Copt, Greek, and Arab communities were sent to the constitutional convention in New Athens. During the constitutional convention, the representatives also began drafting a constitution for their new state. They adopted the name Kemet, the ancient name for the land, and ensured the legal equality of Greek and Arabic, as well as maintaining the equal status of the Coptic language as well.

Granting autonomy to the local population had the added benefit of improved relations with Egypt as well.

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, millenia of deposits have left the land fertile and with a lower river, the available land has increased. The high yield of product produced in Kemet has earned it the nickname of the Breadbasket of Greece, following the nickname the territory had during the Roman Empire.