Egypt
“Food Security”
As Egypt’s dependence on food imports has increased, so has the cry for food security. The phrase “food security” (al-amn al-geza’i) can have several meanings in Egyptian policy debates. It is usually taken to mean either “hedging against fluctuations in world food prices” or “increasing domestic production of food crops.” The Ministry of Agriculture has recently been renamed Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
The Language of Food
“I went down to Cairo with a little wheat in my pocket and they had the red carpet out for me there…. I was speaking the language of food and they understand.” — US Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, 1974
For more than a decade now, the political embrace of Washington and Cairo has directly affected what Egypt’s 45 million people eat and how much they pay for it. Once a leading granary for the entire Mediterranean, Egypt today is one of the largest food importers in the world, and one of the largest markets for US agricultural exports. Each year more than $4 billion worth of imported food comes through its ports. About one quarter of this comes from the United States.
New Lands Irrigation
Once irrigated and lush but now barren, the Mesopotamian plain circling the ruins of Gilgamesh’s Uruk makes present day calls for food security via vast new irrigation projects appear shortsighted. Irrigation today suffers the same problems as in ancient times — salt buildup in the soil, collapsing dams, irrigation channels narrowed and blocked by silt buildup — plus some new ones, such as pesticide runoff. But irrigation planners figure they have learned a few things since Gilgamesh’s time. We can expect Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and others to go on building new, expensive irrigation projects until they finally reach the limits of their water supplies. Reaching these limits should take only two or three more decades.
Cairo’s Long Summer
The current situation in Egypt has great potential for disaster. On the economic front, the government threatens to eliminate subsidies on food and other basic consumer commodities in order to reduce its current budget deficit of about $4 billion. The subsidies are currently costing $3.8 billion — $1.5 billion for food and $2.3 billion for fuels — and represent the largest single item in the $11.3 billion government budget.
Egypt’s Infitah Bourgeoisie
A recent story illustrates the political power of the bourgeoisie in contemporary Egypt: At the beginning of 1985, the Egyptian minister of economy, Mustafa al-Sa‘id, unveiled a set of new trade and banking laws. They aimed, among other things, at imposing a greater degree of Central Bank control over the foreign exchange operations of private banks. Such controls were urgently needed by the state, which is facing acute shortages of foreign exchange and mounting financial pressures.
Mutiny in Cairo
Wednesday, February 26. The story was on BBC at eight this morning. Central Security Forces (al-amn al-markazi) mutinied last night at the big camp at Dahshour and at two camps in Giza, on the road to Alexandria. Thousands of conscripts burst out of the camps and burned nearby luxury hotels. The government says that the mutiny was sparked by a false rumor that the conscripts’ tours of duty would be extended from three to four years. Many people believe the rumor was accurate.
Insurrectionary Women
The study of women and politics has usually focused on the participation of women in the formal political arena — that is, in politics as practiced by political parties, by people holding political office or, at most, by political opposition movements. In the Middle East context in particular, the modern history of women in politics has been limited, by and large, to study of the role women played in the various nationalist movements in the region.
Egypt’s Left Opposition Party Holds Second Congress
Cairo, July 2. The National Progressive Unionist Party (Tagammu‘) held its second national congress in Cairo on June 27-28, 1985. The Tagammu‘, Egypt’s principal left opposition party, is a united front formation including members of illegal communist organizations, independent Marxists, Nasserists, enlightened religious elements and a number of newer, less politicized members who have joined the party since the parliamentary elections of May 1984. The Tagammu‘ did not win any seats then in the People’s Assembly, due to an undemocratic election law and some falsification of the election results.
Kramer, Minderheit, Millet, Nation?
Gudrun Kramer, Minderheit, Millet, Nation? Die Juden in Agypten, 1914-1952 (Minority, Millet, Nation? The Jews in Egypt, 1914-1952) (Wiesbaden, 1982).
Up to now, the history of the Jewish community in Egypt has been known only to a few specialists. Some periods have been analyzed quite well — for instance, the tenth to thirteenth century (S. Goitein) and the nineteenth century (R. Fargeon, J. Landau). Gudrun Kramer has now provided a marvelous study covering the 1914-1952 period. She made extensive use of archival material and numerous interviews from the oral history section of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University, and ones she herself conducted. The selection of secondary sources is quite representative.
Davis, Challenging Colonialism
Eric Davis, Challenging Colonialism: Bank Misr and Egyptian Industrialization, 1920-1941 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1983).
Eric Davis intends his study to answer a wide range of questions concerning capitalism and industrialization in the Middle East. Two issues in particular are central to his analysis: “what were the social forces behind the formation of the Bank Misr” and “why did the bank experience a period of rapid economic growth only to later face financial collapse?” (p. 5)
Egypt’s Elections, Mubarak’s Bind
In the May 1984 general elections in Egypt, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won almost 73 percent of the vote. The new Wafd got just above 15 percent. The other three contenders failed to get the eight percent minimum needed for a seat: the Socialist Labor Party (‘Amal) got just over seven percent; the National Progressive Unionist Party (Tagammu‘) got just over four percent; the Socialist Liberal Party (Ahrar) did not exceed one percent. These “lost” votes accrued to the biggest party, the NDP, which thus took 390 seats to the Wafd’s 58 seats. [1]
The Cold Peace
March 26, 1985, will mark the sixth anniversary of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, brokered and signed in Washington, the culmination of the “Camp David process.” What have been the consequences of this pact, and where is the peace it was supposed to usher into the region?
From the Editors (September/October 1984)
This issue examines the political impact of the economic crisis that has wracked Tunisia and Morocco over the first half of this decade. Even as we prepared this issue, the combustible recipe of austerity decrees and popular desperation exploded into violence in neighboring Egypt, in the industrial town of Kafr el-Dawar, near Alexandria. The decision in mid-September to double the government-controlled price of bread touched off the seething resentment of poor and working class Egyptians at the galloping price increases of uncontrolled market items over the last year. The final blow was a three percent increase in payroll deductions for all state workers.
Women and Labor Migration
Women are now the heads of between 25 and 35 percent of all households in developing countries. [1] In the Middle East and North Africa, women head about 16 percent of all households. [2] One main reason for the increasing number of households headed by women is male migration to seek work outside their own countries, unaccompanied by their wives and children. When male villagers from Egypt emigrate, they do so without their families. [3] For one thing, a large number emigrate illegally, with neither official work contracts nor legal residence in countries of employment. It is much easier for them to move alone and leave their families behind.
Egyptian Migration and Peasant Wives
In the 1960s, Egypt supplied the labor markets of the Middle East with professionals and administrators seconded by the government. Carefully regulated and controlled, the export of labor was consistent both with Egypt’s policies in the area and with its own manpower needs. In the 1970s, government-seconded labor was overtaken in volume by a huge and largely unregulated flow of labor at all skill levels. By 1975, Egypt had overtaken Yemen as the major exporter of labor in the area, and its share of the total Arab migrant labor market had reached one third. By 1980, Egypt had at least doubled its migrant stock, an estimated 10 percent of which are women.
Egyptian Labor Abroad
Hardly more than a decade has passed since Egypt’s pioneering emigrants first offered their skills to the nascent development of neighboring Arab countries. Measured against the volume and impact of its labor contributions, this seems a short time indeed. In that time, the limited opportunities once available only to Egypt’s most educated elite have mushroomed to require the talents and energies of tens of thousands of urban craftsmen, public employees and rural unskilled laborers. From these masses of temporary sojourners have come massive transfers of wages and remittances to Egypt’s thirsty economy.
Sadat’s Legacy, Mubarak’s Dilemma
For most countries in the Arab oil economy, the years 1982 and 1983 have marked an important moment of truth. The most obvious reason for this has been the decline in oil revenues as a result of falling world demand, cuts in production and the failure to hold the OPEC base price at $34 a barrel. As far as the Arab states of the Gulf are concerned, this has meant a reduction in oil revenues from $164.3 billion in 1981 to $111 billion in 1982, while most forecasts for 1983 indicate a further fall to well under $100 billion. [1] One major consequence has been the cancellation or postponement of a number of major projects; in the case of Saudi Arabia, government expenditure has been cut from $91 billion in the 1982/3 budget to $75 billion for 1983-1984.
Egypt Gropes for Political Direction
No one in Cairo seems at all clear about the present direction of Egyptian politics. The signs are contradictory and difficult to read. On the one hand, the press is freer than at any time since 1952 (and perhaps before), there is a wide-ranging public discussion about major issues, and all recognized political groups display considerable energy in the jockeying for position involved in the runup to the 1984 election for the People’s Assembly. On the other hand, President Husni Mubarak’s brief dialogue with what he identified as the country’s “official opposition” is long since over. Major problems, like the attempt to provide a constructive role for the more moderate elements inside the Muslim Brothers, remain.
Looking for Sadat Square
Visiting Egypt this spring — my first since the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat — I was immediately struck by the extent to which symbols of the Sadat era had already faded or been pushed into oblivion. Only one small, inconspicuous plaque informs the passerby that Cairo’s main square is “Anwar al-Sadat Square.” The shopkeepers, taxi drivers and pedestrians still know it by its old name of “Liberation Square.” Many individuals, though, especially those in opposition groups, are quick to point out that most changes under Husni Mubarak are skin-deep. The basic orientation as well as the problems of the regime remain the same.
