User:Breadriots

Leiden University, History of the Modern Middle East, 2021-22

I am a student enrolled in the course above, whose assessment entails editing a Simple Wikipedia entry. I will be using the space below to draft this entry.

1977 bread riots

On 18 and 19 January 1977 Egypt witnessed uprisings against the government for cutting subsidies on essential goods. In different cities over the whole country; such as Cairo, Alexandria and Suez, people protested against the fact that the price of bread, sugar, oil and other essential goods rose by 25 to 50 per cent. In the Cairo protests, there were at least 80 deaths deaths.

On January 17th 1977 Egyptian prime minister of financial and economic affairs declared that a set of economic policies would be implemented. One of these policies was the decrease for certain government subsidies on essential products in Egypt. The policies dissolved in the rise of food prices such as bread, oil and sugar. The prices rose by 25 to 50 per cent. In return for implementing these policies, Egypt would get funded by The International Monetary Fund (IMF). The International Monetary Fund demanded library reforms in multiple countries in exchange the countries would get funded by the IMF.

Egypt before 1977

Egypt experienced big economic changes during the 1970s. In the late 1950s the country had a central planning approach which was comparable with that of the Soviet Union. However, huge changes were implemented in this decade. The Egyptian government implemented the Open Door Policy (Infitah) in 1974, which was supposed to make the economy an effective market and that way the economy of Egypt more international. From 1974 onwards, the Egyptian GDP grew rapidly, however the standard of living for the Egyptian citizens declined. the citizens of Egypt felt increasingly repressed by the government.

In the years before the bread riots, Nasser’s development model was characterized by both Egyptian tradition and by happenings in (recently) decolonized countries. The importance of social responsibilities of the people as one entity was emphasized, i.e. the middle class was engaged in what seemed to be some kind of civil service while the poor were released from said burden. This was largely maintained until the period after President Nasser’s death in 1970, wherein recurrent striking persisted.

President Nasser got succeeded by president Sadat. Following Egypt’s collapse in the October war (a militairy conflict between Israël and a pact of Syria and Egypt), Sadat’s new policies made sure that the Nasserite development model would start to crumble. Egypt's foreign policy began to reduce cooperation with the Soviet Union and expand relations with the United States. Sadat described his policies as realistic and pragmatic, taking into account Egypt’s national gain and their restricted sources.

The year of the Bread Riots

As civil servants and the low-wage workers considerably benefited from the newly changed policies, social relations were still upheld. However, after it was announced that contributions for nearly all goods, except for baladi bread, would be cut, and military spending, on top of the public sector salaries would be increased, chaos started to occur. When prices rose on basic goods; workers and students started to take over the streets and riot.

Transport kiosks were toppled and burned, street lights were destroyed, and traffic in Caïro was disrupted after the Kobri Ramon station was set on fire. Furthermore, the headquarters of the Arab Socialist Union was burnt down and rioters started to attack cars. Egypt’s Minister of the Interior accused the rioters of planning to burn down all of Cairo, nevertheless, there were hardly any occurrences of robbing and theft, only in poorer neighborhoods in the outskirts.

Symbols of bureaucratic monopoly (president Nasser) were largely spared, as were, indeed, grocery stores and bakeries. Most bakeries even stayed open during the riots. The government announced, the following day, that the “stabilization plan” would be cancelled and the subsidies on goods restored. Thus, the riots ended and in the following weeks more than 4000 people were arrested. After which, the detention and torture of political activists became a part of the system. After forced local reintegration, social forces were subjected to increasingly violent repression, forcing a “strong social peace” that continued up to the “Arab Spring” of 2011.

Remarkable Fact

While analyzing instances of “democratization”, Larbi Sadiki has found links between “bread revolts” and “democratic achievements”. Food scarcity and uncertainty about food together with the amplified symbol of bread, which also translates to “life” in Egyptian dialect, and caused by liberal means, serves as a rejection of democracy. Furthermore, as Mélanie Henry’s states in her publication relating to IMF Riots: “According to the moral contract of the “bread democracy” widely diffused in the Arab world in the period following independence, the people gave up political rights in favour of social rights: the vote versus bread. Bread protests, that “discontinuous practice of democracy”, herald a period of democratization: bread versus the vote. Circumvention of the regime’s rules for the political game resulting from independence thus appears as a desire for democracy that, for Sadiki,assumes the form of representative democracy. This analysis would refer to a reformist – as opposed to a revolutionary – dimension of the protests."