The truth about the matter is that the indigenous Fellahin in Upper Egypt has always fought against the Arab bedouins that continue to infest Upper Egypt. The Arabian Caliphtes who ruled Egypt during the Middle Ages with an iron fist brought various bedouin tribes dumping them into Saeed[Upper Egypt] in an attempt to Arabize the local inhabitants. The opposite happened with the Arabs forming a hierarchy or caste where the Fellahin was on the bottom and remains on the bottom to this day. Most of the elected officals that represented Saeed or the police foce are comprised mostly of these Bedouin thieves who came to Egypt long ago at various times. Even during the Nasser regine,despite his land reform,nothing was done to help the poor Fellahin fight the yoke of Arab dependence. How ignorant of a people to forget the past of Arab opression yet embrace Arab nationalism.
Here are some examples:
Alongside the even more ancient presence of Copts, tribal groupings dating from the Arab conquest combined to form a hierarchical order that placed two groups, the ashraf and the arab, in dominating positions. These were followed by lesser tribes, with the fellah at the bottom of the social scale.(n28) Southerners came to be stereotyped negatively in the rest of the country, widely held to be crude, prone to violence and lacking intelligence.
The authority of central governments in Upper Egypt was cemented through clientelist ties with leading families of the ashraf and arab groups. Even the Nasserist regime did not substantially undermine this political-administrative arrangement. Although land reform benefited peasant farmers to a degree, members of the landed classes used a variety of means to retain much of their holdings. Cairo continued to staff the higher ranks of the local police and security apparatus with personnel from the ashraf and arabs.(n29)
Religion was central to the development of Upper Egyptian society. The ashraf claimed direct descent from the Prophet, while the arabs traced their lineage to a group of tribes from Arabia. On the other hand, the status of the fellahin rested on the belief that they descended from Egypt's pre-Islamic community and had converted to Islam, a history that placed them inescapably beneath both the ashraf and arabs.(n30) Copts have occupied an ambivalent position in the social scale; as Christians they are considered inferior to Muslims but their individual status effectively depends on more material criteria.
In Muslim as well as Christian communities, and particularly at the lower socio-economic levels, religious practices are strongly imbued with non-orthodox folk elements, some of pharaonic origin. Although orthodox Islam is well grounded in urban areas, the countryside is the domain of a rich folk-religion, replete with beliefs in the magical, miraculous and occult.(n31) The influx of villagers into Egyptian cities and towns, which by the 1970s led increasingly to the "ruralization" of these centers, provided fertile fields for anti-modernist, fundamentalist movements. Urban mosques often became centers for the recruitment of rural migrants into militant organizations.(n32)
http://www.iupui.edu/~anthkb/a104/egypt/conflictegyptmex.htm
The presence of Arabs in Upper Egypt goes back to the Mamelukes:
Jirja Province (Muderia)in Upper Egypt, now called Sohag Governorate,
is an important Coptic centre. In the 14th century the Circassian
Mamluks banished the Arab Hawarra tribe there, and these raiders saw
to it that all fellaheen, particularly Copts, suffered. Most
fellaheen lost their lands to these Arabs. They were reduced to
slaves, as they were made to work for the Arabs on threat of being
killed. An important book on the history of the area is written by
Mohammad ibn Mohammad ibn Hamid al-Maraghi al-Jirjawi and
called "Nour al iyoon fi zikri Jirja min aahdi thalathati ghiroun."
As usual in books written by Arabs it is full of irrelevant things;
however, it contains some important information on the history of
Upper Egypt (Saeed) as a whole. Westners have ignored the study of
this important part as they focused on the study of Cairo and its
environment. If one has the time and energy to translate that book
with some annotation it will prove a very helpful contribution to the
study of the fellaheen and Copts in Upper Egypt.