Common Skies Divided Horizons: Aviation, Class and Modernity in Early Twentieth Century Egypt

How is high-technology consumed by societies that cannot shape technology but could only be shaped by it? As the first study of Egyptian aviation, this article examines the unique process through which Egyptians embraced aviation as an exemplar of high-speed modernity and as an instrument of social transformation. It illustrates how, under colonial circumstances, Egypt’s upper-class shaped a vision of aviation as a tool that could bring an array of utopian benefits to all Egyptians, including prosperity, freedom of movement, social status, equality, and ultimately, a smooth transformation to the happiness of the modern world. In reality, this vision was a self-serving survival strategy whose aim was to contain the frustrated middle class, or effendiyya, which did not profit from the process of modernization. After World War II and the gradual collapse of the upper class, the effendiyya entrusted the state with the mission of adopting high-technology and modernizing society on an equal basis. Beginning in the early 1950s civil aviation was arranged accordingly.