Egypt
The Egyptian Arms Industry
Egypt, with the earliest industrial economy in the Middle East, has engaged in some military production for many years, supplying its own armed forces with light arms and small naval ships. Such production remained minor until recently, both in terms of the Egyptian economy and in terms of the arms purchases of the Egyptian armed forces. Now, with encouragement from the United States and other Western governments and arms manufacturers, Egypt is planning a major arms industry. In the past, such investment plans have fallen short in actual implementation. If these plans do materialize, however, Egypt may soon fill much of its domestic arms orders and begin sizable arms exports to other countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Egypt’s Transition under Nasser
Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, The Political Economy of Nasserism: A Study in Employment and Income Distribution Policies in Urban Egypt, 1952-1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
Sadat’s Moment, Egypt’s History
David Hirst and Irene Beeson, Sadat (London: Faber and Faber, 1981).
Ghali Shoukri, Egypte, la contre-revolution (Paris: Editions Le Sycomore, 1979).
These two assessments of the past decade in Egypt pose the question of approach: Can we most conveniently comprehend the period by studying the role Anwar al-Sadat played in it? Do this one man’s thoughts and deeds provide the lens for viewing the post-Nasser era as a whole? The two books give vastly different answers, reflecting the varying backgrounds of the authors no less than their own senses of purpose.
Sadat’s Alter Ego
Osman Ahmed Osman, Egypt’s entrepreneurial tycoon, enjoyed a privileged status that cannot be attributed solely to his role as Sadat’s closest confidant, or even to his kinship by marriage with the president. Many Egyptians came to see him as Sadat’s alter ego, minus the latter’s presidential immunity.
Until shortly before his death, Sadat had denounced every attack on Osman as being directed at him personally, but the uproar occasioned by Osman’s recently published autobiography, My Experience, made this full endorsement no longer possible. Sadat had to accept Osman’s resignation as deputy prime minister.
Foreign Investment in Egypt
According to data gathered by the UN Center on Transnational Corporations, the overwhelming majority of foreign investment in Egypt has been from the United States, with the exception of the banking sector. There has been very little European investment, and virtually no Japanese presence. The UN data, covering the period from 1978 through early 1982, is incomplete, as it relies on public sources. It reflects mainly Western corporate investments and understates Arab investment concentrated in tourism and real estate. It does not provide the sums invested, but does break down the investments by parent company, country of origin, and line of business.
Egypt’s Military
Egypt’s armed forces number well over 300,000 men, the largest in the Arab world or in Africa. Some two thirds are in the army, and most of the rest in the air force. Since 1952, the top political leadership has been drawn from the armed forces. Since 1968, there has been a “demilitarization” of the top political structures. A recent study calculates that the proportion of cabinet posts held by military officers declined from 35 percent under Nasser to 15 percent under Sadat.
Egypt’s Debt Problem
Egypt’s external debt—the sums owed to other governments, private multinational banks and multilateral agencies like the World Bank—increased on an average of 28 percent per year under Anwar al-Sadat, compared to 13 percent over the previous ten years. Sadat’s decade also witnessed important shifts in the origin and structure of this debt, in a manner that paralleled—and to a large extent financed—Egypt’s political reorientation.
Sadat’s Egypt: A Balance Sheet
We now know that the execution-style death of Anwar al-Sadat on the anniversary of the October war crossing was the prelude to neither a coup d’etat nor a popular uprising. Government institutions continued to function within the established legal framework and internal stability reigned. The trial of Khalid al-Islambuli and his accomplices also made clear that the assassination was not the work of an isolated or demented individual. It was carried out by a group with clear religious motivation; they sought to eliminate the leader but not to overthrow the regime itself.
In the Footsteps of Sadat
Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6, 1982, the fifteenth anniversary of the June war of 1967. Then, Egypt was the main Arab combatant state in a war that redrew the geopolitical map of the Middle East. Today, Israel is again redrawing the map, with Palestinian and Lebanese blood. This time Egypt has filed a formal diplomatic protest through its ambassador in Tel Aviv—the first such protest since the peace treaty of March 1979.
“The Masses Speak the Language of Religion to Express Themselves Politically”
Mohamed Sid Ahmed is an Egyptian journalist and left opposition leader. He is a member of the secretariat of Tagammu‘, the National Progressive Unionist Party, and is a representative of the party’s Marxist component. He was an editorial writer with al-Akhbar from 1965 to 1968 and chief political analyst of al-Ahram through 1976. He is the author of When the Guns Fall Silent (1976J, and other books. He was imprisoned several times between 1959 and 1974, and narrowly escaped arrest in early September 1981. He spoke with MERIP editors Judith Tucker, Joe Stork and Penny Johnson, and with Selma Botman, a friend of MERIP, in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 19, 1981.
Massive Arrests Precede Sadat’s Assassination
On September 3 and 4, 1981, just four weeks before he was assassinated, President Anwar al-Sadat launched a crackdown that overnight swept nearly 1,600 Egyptians into prisons. Hundreds more were detained under house arrest, or stripped of official positions in professional associations. Sadat attributed the crackdown to the “national emergency” created by sectarian tensions between Muslim and Coptic communities, but those arrested included persons such as Nawal El Saadawi, the prominent physician and feminist writer. MERIP editor Judith Tucker spoke in London with Lutfi el-Kholi, a left opposition leader, shortly after the arrests. “If Nawal El Saadawi has been arrested for stirring up tensions between men and women,” he said, “I might believe it.
Hill, Mahkama!
Enid Hill, Mahkama! Studies in the Egyptian Legal System (London: Ithaca Press, 1980).
Enid Hill has produced an unusual and important contribution to understanding the political economy of modern Egypt. Her book, clear and easy to follow, adopts an anthropological approach to the study of the Egyptian legal system. She shows how the poor, the lower middle class, and the rich get what they can out of this structure. Hill treats “the legal system of Egypt as a modern system in its own right,” what she calls the law of a periphery capitalist formation, following the earlier work of Hossam Issa and others dealing more generally with Egypt and the world market.
“I Have Not Seen a Good Day in My Life”
Interview with Hilmi Zaki:
Are you married?
Yes, and my wife is an orphan. I chose an orphan woman so that she struggles with me the way I struggled when I was young. Her father was a lawyer — he died when she was young.
Where do you live?
“I Am Definitely a Product of the Revolution”
Interview with Ibrahim Araq:
We would like to begin by asking you the usual questions about your marital status, your salary, your age and so forth.
I am 31, married, but with no children. I work as an accountant at the National Library in Cairo (Dar al-Kutub). My net monthly pay is 29.77 pounds. My wife is a nurse at the Diabetes Institute and makes 28 pounds. I live in Maadi. My rent is 16.55 pounds a month; I pay 6 pounds and my wife 4 pounds for transportation each month. (At the exchange rate of the time, one Egyptian pound was worth $1.78.)
Could you describe your job for us?
Formation of the Egyptian Working Class
The roots of the Egyptian working class reach back into nineteenth century when Muhammed ‘Ali (1805-1849), founder of the dynasty which ruled Egypt until 1952, initiated his abortive industrialization program. Beginning in 1819 his regime built European style factories in three major sectors: Military production, agricultural processing and textiles. The leading element was textiles. With the dramatic expansion of long-staple cotton cultivation after 1820, by the early 1830s 30 cotton mills were in operation with a labor force of 30,000. [1] But a decade later most of these new factories had failed because of inexperienced management, lack of adequate natural resources (especially fuel), peasant resistance to factory discipline and competition from Europe.
Chronology: US-Egyptian Military Relationship
1974
February 28 Kissinger and Sadat, in Cairo, announce US-Egyptian diplomatic relations to resume, following June 1967 rupture.
March 18 State Department announces US Navy will help clear mines from Suez Canal.
April 18 Sadat announces Egypt ending 18 years of reliance on Soviet arms.
April 19 US “senior official” says US has no “current plans” to sell Egypt arms.
May 24 Limited USSR arms shipments reported resumed to Egypt.
June 12-14 Nixon visits Cairo. Communiqué stresses economic aid, nuclear technology exchange.
Egypt’s Agriculture in Trouble
The horrendous state of the Egyptian economy is a principal factor underlying Sadat’s willingness to address the Knesset in Jerusalem and to make major concessions at Camp David and since. Multiplying shortages, deteriorating infrastructures, and spiraling foreign debts comprise the economic news on Egypt. A central component of this domestic impasse is an acute agricultural crisis; for if agriculture flags, Egypt falls. Agriculture accounts for some 45-47 percent of total employment, for some 30 percent of gross domestic product, and for more than 50 percent of exports. Further, more than 50 percent of Egypt’s industry consists of agriculturally based sectors such as textile and food processing.
Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism
Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760-1840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979).
Egyptian Communist Party Communique: “The Elimination of All Voices Opposing the Treaty”
An Egyptian Communist Party was first established in the 1918-1920 period, but was not active again until after 1939. In this period, through the late 1950s, there were several communist organizations, the principal one being the Democratic Union for National Liberation. Following the 1952 revolution, relations with the Nasser regime were often problematic. Two labor leaders including one Communist, were executed at Kafr al-Dawwar in 1952, and in 1954-1955 a number of cadre were jailed. In late 1958 there was a fusion of the various groupings under the name of the Egyptian Communist Party, prompted in large degree by their shared opposition to the formation of the United Arab Republic with Syria.
A Very Strange Peace
Rarely in history has a peace settlement seemed so dismal. The Treaty of Washington between Egypt and Israel was signed on March 26, 1979. Since then there has been little excitement in Egypt about this new era in the nation’s contemporary history. There were several more or less spontaneous gatherings organized when President Anwar al-Sadat returned to Cairo. Otherwise there has been almost no sign of enthusiasm from a population victimized by four wars and usually quite ready to express itself.
