THE SHAMROCK AND THE WATER LILY: Investigating the cooperative ideology of Ibrahim Rashad

At the beginning of the 20th century, many subject peoples across the globe began to win the right to national self-determination. This victory was often short-lived, as with newly found independence came new challenges, such as that of maintaining independence in the face of a world economic order hostile to it. While these questions were being asked by nations, similar ones were being asked by households: in a world of rapid industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation, how would the household maintain its autonomy? From the Rochdale pioneers came an answer to the latter, in the form of cooperation, or the establishment of firms founded on the democratic principle of allowing every member an equal share of its profits and governance. This movement, and its novel economic form, quickly spread across northwestern Europe, and specifically found some of its most fervent adopters in Ireland. Irish thinkers such as Sir Horace Plunkett, A.E. and Susan L. Mitchell became enamoured with cooperation, as they saw in it the answer to the former question, as a new solid economic foundation upon which the whole of national life could then be placed. Into this sphere of cooperative thinkers would then arrive a young Egyptian named Ibrahim Rashad. Sent to England to become a doctor, but with a head full of Romantic dreams for Egypt’s future, Rashad quickly abandoned his medical studies to become an evangelist for the new cooperative movement, as he saw in it the potential to turn his dreams into reality. In his travelog An Egyptian in Ireland, Rashad sketched a stunning portrait of the trials and tribulations of rural Irish life, and of how cooperation was being used to overcome them. Invigorated by this experience, he returned to Egypt and accepted a job as head of Cooperative Development for the Egyptian Department of Agriculture, a post he would then use to push cooperatives as the new foundation for Egyptian independence. This thesis will seek to investigate the work of Ibrahim Rashad, how the movement he encountered in Ireland impacted his ideological thought, and what that can tell us about the international character of the Cooperative Movement.