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

was at one level, at the level of macroeconomic indicators, statistics, GDP
growth rates, foreign direct investment and so on—Egypt seemed to be a
miracle. And this, of course, was the case with the Tunisian model earlier.
You'll remember that Jacques Chirac called it the "economic miracle," and
it was the darling of the IMF and the World Bank, because it implemented
these types of reforms earlier. Well, of course, we saw what happened in
Tunisia. In Egypt also, from 2004 until the present, the government and its
reforms were applauded in Washington by World Bank, IMF and U.S.
officials. GDP growth rates were above six percent in consecutive years.
Egypt received the top reformer award from the IMF and the World Bank,
tremendous foreign direct investment.
But what all of that masked, what all of that masked, was what was going
on at the level of real people and ordinary lives. Real incomes were
declining as a result of incredibly high inflation, not as high as in
Zimbabwe or Venezuela, but inflation rates of 25, 30 percent, eating away
at people’s incomes. Basic commodities, foodstuffs, prices were increasing
tremendously. In 2008, about 13 or 14 people, Egyptians, died as a result
of conflicts resulting from them waiting in long bread queues, because
there wasn’t enough bread, and violence would erupt. People were
waiting in line for hours to obtain subsidized bread, which is also one of
the bases of this regime, you see. It has to do that in order to at least have
some kind of acquiescence from the public. So, what these macroeconomic
indicators masked was what people were experiencing at the level of
everyday life and real income. As I mentioned, poverty was increasing.
Income inequality was increasing. And even corruption was increasing,
according to Transparency International.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what happened this weekend, that
President Mubarak responded to the mass protests not by resigning
himself, but by saying he would dissolve the parliament? He then went on
to talk about one of the so-called new names, Omar Suleiman, who, as
Jane Mayer points out in a piece in The New Yorker over the weekend, is
actually not so new to anyone who has followed the American policy of
renditions for terror suspects. She writes, "Since 1993 Suleiman [has]
headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity,
he was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions—the covert program
in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and
returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under
brutal circumstances. [...] He has served for years as the main conduit
between the United States and Mubarak."
SAMER SHEHATA: Yes. Well, with regard to what happened over the
weekend and President Mubarak’s speech on Friday, and then the
subsequent events of appointing a vice president, these are attempts to
save Mr. Mubarak and to save his regime. These are steps that fall far short
of what millions of Egyptians are calling for and the only thing that’s going
to lead this revolution to end, which is the regime to end and for a new
government with people unaffiliated with the previous corrupt and
despotic regime to come to power. So Mubarak was trying to save himself
by offering some concessions. And those concessions were, of course, as
you mentioned, dismissing the parliament and then appointing a vice
president, something that Egyptians have been asking for for 30 years—this
is a country that has been without a vice president for that long; he’s
refused to appoint one—and then, of course, appointing a prime minister.
It’s also interesting to note that both of these individuals are military
figures, right? That’s also something that’s not very heartening.
And then, with regard to Mr. Suleiman, of course, it is not so much feared,
the, you know, Egyptian general intelligence, but certainly an integral part