You normally can't put the words 'Army', 'Bread', and 'Crisis' in the same sentence and hope for anything good to come of it.
And while shit will surely hit the fan soon, with an army intervention taming a bread uprising, well, luckily it's not today.
The production of bread in so disconnected from the demand that they had to start selling the army bread production to the public. I already mentioned people dying in queues to get subsidised bread (according to the BBC News, it's 10 to 12 times cheaper than the market price (10 to 12 times!!!!!) and if the government is backtracking on its plan to end subsidies, then it must be going REALLY bad on the ground.
Two - or three things I come up with from this story:
- That is only a temporary and unsustainable fix, that will only delay the inevitable. Kaboum.
- If that was an option - why was it not done before? Oh, wait, don't answer that. My bad.
- This example actually highlights a different issues - for some other day, perhaps: the advantages given to the army and police corps.
Of course the government must feed the soldiers, but what I'm talking about is the extra capacity - what will be sold to the public will surely not be taken from the mouths of the army...
Why does the army have enough capacity to feed itself AND the people? This is only a small example.
Overall, the army and the police have mad advantages in our country, from exclusive access to fancy clubs to pensions more than ten multiples the average wage in the country, to State cars, to placements everywhere with ridiculous salaries after they leave the military (despite their incongruous lack of skills in anything useful in the world..)
I know. It's a basic trait of a dictatorship to feed its hyenas. But I still abhor that.
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Despite being married to an Egyptian I have a pretty pathetic grip on the political ins and outs of Egypt.
Mubarak= dictator. I've got that one down.
My wonder is how likely the current underground rumblings of instability- now fed and fanned by the raise in prices and food shortages -are to actually exact some sort of change in Egyptian politics?
Whats your take?
I don't know - but I'm scared.
I think we're a breath away from bread riots and I foresee things will be really, really ugly.. I hope I'm wrong.
In a regular country - one with an opposition - you'd have a parliamentary verbal massacre after such events, perhaps even a political change.
Not in Egypt. And anger will be expressed one way or the other.
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell with that said. I'm actually planning to move to Egypt in about three months inshAllah. Its not a good situation and it has my husband sweating bullets, but I think I'd prefer to live through a revolution rather than emotionally die of inability siting here in America while my hubby rides it out in Cairo.
How likely do you think it is to descend into anarchy?
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