Apartheid

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cultural genocide. For instance, just as urban Egyptians and urban South African Blacks
would be the first to forget their languages, the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship today are
threatened with losing theirs. And that is not the whole story, either. Sometimes the full force
of apartheid violence only comes down on those of the indigenous who are nearest the
perpetrators in a physical sense.
3.1. ‘Greek Ancestry on both Maternal and Paternal Sides’
As in South Africa and Israel, much of the oppressive segregation was expedited
through citizenship, which was reserved for Greeks and a few others, and only in the last
resort for Egyptians:
[A]lmost all Egyptians would be excluded in the early period, though
it later became increasingly possible for individuals to attain entry and
subsequently, in some cases, Roman citizenship. The Jews were also
systematically excluded, although they possessed their own particular
(though lesser) privileges... 355
In order for a non-Greek to gain citizenship, the person appears to have had to more or
less repudiate his own culture so as to prove loyalty to the Greek, and later the Roman,
Crown. A formal education in liberal arts and athletics, called the ‘ephebate’, was offically
necessary in order for a person to gain citizenship. Yet, some ethnic Greek citizens apparently
lacked the ephebate degree. Moreover, although this education – the language of instruction of
which was invariably Greek – was a pre-condition for citizenship, not even all of the
Egyptians and other ‘Orientals’ who had absolved the ephebate were granted citizenship.
Mostly, however, one only could become a citizen if one was born of citizens. 356
Citizenship of the Greek cities [in Egypt] was carefully controlled and
limited. The citizen body was divided along traditional Greek lines
into tribes and local units (demes), with distinctively Greek names.
[The demes were named after Greek gods, and Greek mythic and
semi-mythic figures] They had citizen assemblies, councils,
magistrates and other civic institutions such as gymnasia, although
these did not betoken any real degree of democratic government. The
general ambience in such places is well illustrated by a decree from
[the city of] Ptolemais in which the presidents of the council admit
someone to citizenship, enroll him in a tribe and deme and grant him a
crown and maintenance at the public expense, a fine example of the
invariable practice of providing public welfare only for those who did
not need it. 357
The institution of citizenship was thus, among other things, one of the many
machinations that make the rich people richer, and the poor poorer. The list of the privileges
of citizens, well into the Roman period as well, goes on and on: ‘Not merely the right to
participate in Greek games, but official recognition of superior status to Egyptians and others,
certain reductions in tax liability, guarantees of better treatment under a judicial structure
which systematically linked social status and legal privilege, the possibility of a share in the
largesse which might be offered to citizens by a monarch or an emperor.’ 358 The racism
355
Bowman 1996 (1986): 209; Shipley: The Greek World after Alexander 323-30 BC, 2000: 215
356
Fraser 1972: 77. Lewis, N. 1983: 40 describes how citizens of the thirty-odd regional capitals were
exclusively of Greek stock. Any Egyptian ancestry disqualified applicants automatically. This was still the case
after 600 years of apartheid.
357
Bowman 1996 (1986): 125. See Fraser 1972: 44ff on the names and compositions of the demes.
358
Bowman 1996 (1986): 210