The Alliance of Egyptian Americans
Egypt discontent
Citizens in five of the country’s 26 governorates, for instance, have
been suffering a dire shortage of drinking water
The Economist, From The Economist print edition
Egypt: A summer of discontent Economic woes are
added to political frustration, a dangerous combination
Aug 9th 2007 | CAIRO
BY THIS time next year, Egyptians will no longer be living under
an official state of emergency, the government has promised. The news
can only be welcome. Except for a few brief interludes, “emergency” laws
have been in force ever since the 1952 coup that replaced the
constitutional monarchy of King Farouk with an authoritarian republic.
Under Hosni Mubarak, who assumed Egypt’s presidency in 1981, activists
have frequently charged police with abusing such laws to practise
arbitrary arrest and torture.
But during this unusually hot summer, Egyptians may rightly wonder which
emergency their government is talking about. For some, such as
thousands of Bedouin in northern Sinai who have mounted sit-ins to
protest against mass crackdowns on terrorist suspects, police brutality
is indeed a priority. Yet a growing number of Egyptians seem unusually
incensed about a range of other troubles.
Citizens in five of the country’s 26 governorates, for instance, have
been suffering a dire shortage of drinking water. Some villagers have
blocked roads and demonstrated outside government offices in what the
opposition press has dubbed a “revolution of the thirsty”. Others are
angry about the failure of wages to keep up with inflation. Labour
activists have documented some 350 protests this year, including
strikes by state-employed teachers, postmen and train drivers. This
number is not large in a country of 75m, but as public-sector workers
have traditionally been mobilised behind the ruling party independent
labour action is a disturbing novelty.
With wages for unskilled workers barely averaging $75 a month, with many
commodities that were once subsidised by the state now being sold at
market prices and with state health and education now only nominally
free, Egyptians feel squeezed. Inflation officially peaked at 12% last
spring, and has now declined. But independent economists note that food
prices have risen 25% since last August and that queues for bread, a
commodity that remains subsidised, have lengthened ominously as pinched
consumers revert to relying on the staple food.
In contrast to the 1970s, when Egypt’s crumbling socialist economy had
been battered by recurrent wars with Israel, the country is now a
capitalist success story. The woes of its poor are, ironically, a
by-product of reforms in 2005, with exports growing at 20% a year. Last
year Cairo’s stock exchange was the world’s hottest. This year investors
have shifted to the property market, resulting in a real-estate boom
that has enriched speculators, but pushed housing even further out of
reach of the poor. Such stresses, including the widening wealth gap, are
inevitable in a period of transition, say government advisers. They may
be right, too, that sustained economic growth will pull ever more
Egyptians out of poverty.
But the course of Egypt’s political transition is less clear. The state
has proved adept at thwarting foes of Mr Mubarak, to the point where
none can challenge his party’s rule. The government allowed its main
surviving opponent, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates run as
independents, to gain a fifth of the parliamentary seats in the 2005
election. But the group remains officially banned and is now under heavy
pressure. Some 500 of its members are in prison, with six leaders on
trial, under emergency laws, in military courts. They will surely be
sentenced before the laws are abolished, and even then the government
has other legislation that gives it much the same powers under different
names. Should Egypt’s current bad temper persist, it will need them.
Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All
rights reserved.
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