Pragmatism in, politics out for most Egyptians Linda S. Heard

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Pragmatism in, politics out for most Egyptians

Linda S. Heard

30-09-2003

While many of the world's capitals were flooded with anti-American foreign policy protesters last weekend, the legendary "Arab Street" stayed strangely silent, even in Egypt, once the epicentre of Arab unity.

What exactly were Egyptian housewives doing when their British counterparts held on to toddlers with one hand and a banner decrying America's occupation of Iraq in the other? What were the preoccupations of Egyptian students as their French ideological brothers and sisters shouted against the treatment meted out to the Palestinians by Sharon's government?

Indeed, Egypt has witnessed several controlled political demonstrations over the recent politically stormy years, held around such traditional centres of dissent as Cairo's Tahrir Square or within the gates of university campuses.

On those occasions the inevitable photographs of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser were brandished, passionate slogans shouted while a palpable collective anger was held in check by legions of baton-wielding riot police.

Resentment

There is resentment permeating the streets of Cairo and Alexandria today but this is little related to the current US administration or even concerning the worsening plight of the Palestinians, as might be anticipated. "Where are the Egyptians?" regularly ask callers to Palestine Television's English-language programme "Your Message to the World", yearning for a neighbourly nation of chivalrous Zorros eager to rush to their physical defence.

In reality, the concerns of the ordinary Egyptians are focused less on the problems of the world outside and more on the rising prices of such staples as cooking oil, rice, tea, sugar and flour, as I recently discovered during an extended stay in the country at the home of an Egyptian family.

Talk over breakfast revolves around the rapidly escalating cost of living prompted in part by the unhinging of the Egyptian currency from the US dollar earlier this year and its subsequent market flotation. Since, the Egyptian pound has lost almost half its value against the Sterling and the dollar, with further falls predicted by former bank manager and financial consultant Khelil Abu-Ras, while painting a gloomy picture of the current Egyptian economy.

Prices of food and consumer goods may be rising but property developers and owners bemoan a stagnant property market with brand new 400-square-metre apartments overlooking the Nile – once commanding more than one million Egyptian pounds – now on offer at a mere 450,000.

Rentals have suffered too, with landlords practically begging prospective tenants to lease their luxury furnished apartments in Zamalek and Mohandiseen for as little as $700 a month instead of the $1,500 they might have fetched just a year or so ago.

There is a bright spot though, as according to both Abu-Ras and the Editor of Egypt Today, Patrick Fitzpatrick, property values are likely to rocket once a recently passed law is effected empowering banks to offer mortgages.

But the ups and downs of the property market were far removed from the mind of Cairo taxi-driver Moussa, who told me how he dreaded the new school year. Moussa has two young children both of whom need new clothes, books and satchels at the same time, forcing him to work a 24-hour day, interspersed with catnaps.

Ahmed Ramadan, who is unemployed, explained that even though his eldest daughter had succeeded in gaining university entrance, he could not afford the Egyptian pounds 2500 ($420) annual fees, and was, therefore, forced to keep her at home.

Many of the graduates with whom I chatted complained that jobs were few and far between. Rasha Fathi, a 25-year-old multi-lingual graduate in psychology, told me the only opening she could find was operating a telephone switchboard. "Good jobs are only for children of the wealthy with the right connections," she said with a tinge of understandable bitterness.

Like most of her friends, Rasha sympathised with the Palestinians and criticised the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but her complaints had a fatalistic tone: "We know what's going on and we're angry," she said, "but we are powerless. We can do nothing. All our time and energy goes in trying to survive."

It is this feeling of disempowerment which is driving some Egyptians into the arms of religious extremists, a subject of grave concern to the Egyptian government, which has recently sought to dictate the content of sermons read out at Friday mosques.

No secret

It is no secret that more and more Egyptian women and girls are donning the hijab, including female pilots and television presenters, often to the consternation of their employers. Rasha believes that this is one way in which women can take charge of their own destiny although she herself does not feel ready to take this step.

Former Nasserite, President Hosni Mubarak, has over the years come to terms with the fact that his country is the second largest recipient of American aid and is largely dependent on imports of US wheat.

With this in mind he walks a moderate pro-Western path while at the same time striving to address the religious, nationalistic or even Pan-Arab concerns of his electorate. It's a balancing act supported by the country's omnipresent emergency laws, which brook little open dissent. This may go some way to explain why last Saturday only 300 Egyptian demonstrators were counted on the streets of Cairo, as opposed to some 15,000 in London and 3000 in Paris.

It's easy to wave banners and shout slogans on a full stomach. Those with children to feed, clothe and educate on a meagre $70 a month, like Moussa, who is also saving to pay for his elderly father's cataract operation and his mother's longed-for pilgrimage to Mecca, a homogeneous "Arab Street" unselfishly promoting Pan-Arab goals remains an abstract concept in a world where charity must inevitably begin at home.

The writer is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).