April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Egypt, Professor?
SAMER SHEHATA: Yes. Well, it’s something that is incredibly—it’s
remarkable. It’s something that none of us expected, if you would have
asked us a month ago. Certainly, the reasons are long in the coming. This
is a regime that has been authoritarian from the very beginning, even
before President Mubarak. It’s a regime that has tried to use the
institutions of democracy in a facade-like manner to sell itself as a
democracy to the West, but, of course, it’s nothing close to that.
There are also economic reasons that are underpinning these protests. As
you know, 20 percent of Egyptians live below poverty, and another 20
percent of Egyptians live close to the poverty line. Inflation has been very
high over the last number of years. Income inequality, according to the
World Bank and the IMF, has increased, as well.
And President Mubarak, I think it should not be mistaken, is a dictator. He
is a dictator. And what people are calling for is not just a change in the
ministers or a new minister of finance, but a different regime. They want
Mubarak to leave. And I think it would also not be acceptable, for all of
the people on the streets, if the newly appointed vice president were
simply to take over. He is also part of the regime. And what they’re calling
for is a fundamentally different type of politics. And I think that tomorrow,
with the calls that we’ve heard today for a national day of protest, a
million-person march tomorrow, hopefully, hopefully, this regime will
come to an end.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how economics—you’re a specialist in
labor in Egypt. The situation in Tunisia, which seems certainly to have lit
the spark in Egypt, and the situation in Egypt—what, 40 percent of people
are in poverty in Egypt—how did they feed into this popular uprising?
SAMER SHEHATA: Well, that’s certainly correct. I mean, with regard to
the events in Tunisia and the events in Egypt, I think that the economic
situation, of course, is far worse in Egypt. The levels of income in Tunisia
are twice those in Egypt. Mohamed Bouazizi, the gentleman who selfimmolated
himself on December the 17th, was quite symptomatic of
millions of people across the Arab world, even beyond Egypt, in Jordan and
Yemen and Algeria and so on, who are young, who have some level of
education—in his case, it was a high school education—but really who have
no realistic job opportunities or future in front of them. The figures
regarding unemployment in Tunisia and Egypt and other places are very
high. In Tunisia, it was officially 14.7 percent. This is according to the IMF.
And then, if we look at certain segments of the population, youth
elements in the population, those below 25 years of age—and, of course,
these are youthful countries, where half the population is below the age of
30—the percentage of unemployed among the youth is significantly higher,
three times what the official rate is. So, in Egypt, the economic situation
is even worse than Tunisia. Tunisia is rich in comparison to Egypt.
You mentioned the percentage of people under poverty. But also,
beginning in 2004, of course, Egypt began implementing economic reforms
called for by the IMF—or really forced on them by the IMF and the World
Bank—from the late 1980s and the early '90s, economic reform and
structural adjustment programs of privatization, subsidy cuts, opening up
markets, deregulation and so on. But the Egyptian government did it in a
very hesitant fashion, unwillingly at first. But in 2004, something radical
happened, and a new government was appointed, new ministers were
appointed, who believed wholeheartedly in the ideas of the IMF and the
World Bank. And they quite vigorously pursued these policies. And there