Here We Go Again
By admin • Jul 8th, 2008
Enter Ahmed Zaki Abdeen, governor of the northern Kafr el-Sheikh province, which encompasses Burullus. Hoping to combat the thriving black market, where subsidized bags of flour fetch many times their government-set price, Abdeen ordered the freeze on flour sales to individuals. The policy backfired, and the riot ensued.
When he appeared on television, Abdeen was defiant. But two days after the incident, the government quietly backed down. Kafr el-Sheikh province killed the flour distribution scheme and cut a deal with residents to sell one-kilogram bags of flour for two Egyptian pounds each, an 80-piaster (or 29 percent) markdown from their earlier price.
Ghosts of 1977. Mubarak’s decision to call on the army to bake bread is significant. For him, and generations of Egyptian leaders before him, bread is a national security issue. Keeping enough discs of spongy baladi bread in the hands of citizens is a critical part of Egypt’s social contract.
“No one wants to go against a market-based liberal system,” Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali told the Wall Street Journal. “But there are situations where national security and national interests take precedence over any of these principles.”
Anwar Sadat discovered this the hard way in January 1977. With a budget groaning under foreign debt, and eager to break with Nasser’s heavy-handed socialist policies, Sadat’s administration announced an immediate end to food subsidies. The ensuing riots shook Egypt to the core. Around 70 people were killed as crowds torched property linked to foreign interests and shouted anti-Sadat slogans. To restore order the army had to open fire on the crowds.
