Egyptians’ Fury Has Raged Beneath the Surface for Decades

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: January 28, 2011

Events in Tunisia may have inspired the largest street protests ever to challenge President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three decades in power. But the anger fueling those protests is not new. It has been seething beneath the surface for many years, exploding at times, but never before in such widespread, sustained fury.

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The grievances are economic, social, historic and deeply personal. Egyptians, like Tunisians, often speak of their dignity, which many said has been wounded by Mr. Mubarak’s monopoly on power, his iron-fisted approach to security, and corruption that has been allowed to fester.
Even government allies and insiders have been quick to acknowledge that the protesters have legitimate grievances that need to be addressed.
“A portion of their demands are recognized as valid,” said Abdel Moneim Said, a member of Mr. Mubarak’s party and chairman of the Al-Ahram publishing house. “There is a problem, we don’t know how to define it or deal with it, but that is something that should happen only through political means.”
The protesters have demanded that Mr. Mubarak step down, that he dissolve parliament and hold free and fair elections, and that there be an end to corruption, demands flowing from years of pent-up frustration, Egyptians said.
“Egyptians are sick and tired of being corrupted and when you live on 300 pounds a month, you have one of two options, you either become a beggar or a thief,” said Ghada Shabandar, a longtime human rights activist. (Three hundred Egyptian pounds is about $51.) “The people sent a message: ‘We are not beggars and we do not want to become thieves.’ ”
All that anger has been focused on Mr. Mubarak, who has been in power for nearly three decades, and had appeared to be positioning his son, Gamal, a businessman and political leader, to inherit power.
“They hate Mubarak,” said Steven Cook, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “It has become this clogged police state. I think what has happened is that Tunisia has created this hope and possibility in people’s minds, that with enough determination you can unseat an Arab dictator.”
Over the years, Egyptians have demonstrated or complained publicly over multiple issues. These include:
Emergency Law
The government has maintained what it calls an Emergency Law, passed first in 1981 to combat terrorism after former President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated. The law allows police to arrest people without charge, detain prisoners indefinitely, limit freedom of expression and assembly, and maintain a special security court. Last year the government promised that it would only use the law to combat terrorism and drug trafficking, but terrorism was defined so broadly as to render that promise largely meaningless, according to human rights activists and political prisoners.
Torture
The Egyptian police have a long and notorious track record of torture and cruelty to average citizens. One case that drew widespread international condemnation involved a cellphone video of the police sodomizing a driver with a broomstick. In June 2010, Alexandria erupted in protests over the fatal beating by police of beating Khaled Said, 28. The authorities said he died choking on a clump of marijuana, until a photograph emerged of his bloodied face. Just last month, a suspect being questioned in connection with a bombing was beaten to death while in police custody.
Wage
Nearly every day last year, workers of nearly every sector staged protests, chanting demands outside Parliament during daylight and laying out bedrolls along the pavement at night. The government and its allies have been unable to silence the workers, who are angry about a range of issues, including low salaries. From 2004 to 2008 alone, about 1.7 million workers have engaged in 1,900 strikes and other forms of protest, demanding everything from wage increases to job security in state-owned industries that were privatized.
Elections
President Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party has held a monopoly on power for decades, but allowed token opposition to exist in the form of small opposition parties and blocs in parliament. But the parliamentary elections staged last November were widely seen as fixed when Mr. Mubarak’s party claimed to win about 500 of the 518 seats. The president’s party allies insisted the election was free and fair, but the loss of nearly all opposition seats — including independents aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood — closed off the one institutional outlet for challenging the government.
In local council elections in 2008 there were 52,000 open seats. Government decisions to disqualify candidates meant that 43,600 seats were uncontested and awarded to the ruling party. Out of a total of 51,546 seats, the ruling party won 99.13 percent. In midterm elections for one-third of the Shura Council, the upper house of Parliament, held in 2007, the first elections to be held after the constitutional amendments removed judges from supervising the electoral process. A total of 88 seats were open. The results: 84 seats for the ruling N.D.P., 1 seat for Tagammu, a small opposition party, and 3 seats for N.D.P. members who ran as independent candidates.
Poverty
Egypt’s economic policies have won it plaudits in the last few years for expanding the economy and attracting foreign investment. Indeed, there is more money flowing into Cairo — which has exacerbated growing tensions between the majority, which is poor, and the minority, which has grown increasingly wealthy. Nearly half of all Egyptians live on $2 a day, or less. Last spring, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund reported that the number of children living in poor households was increasing. The report said that despite the economic growth, which took place before the global economic crisis, by 2009, “the number of poor households with children exceeded 1996 levels.” The report added that 23 percent of children under the age of 15 years in Egypt were living in poverty. In Upper Egypt, the report said that 45.3 percent of the children were living in poverty.
Natural Disasters
A series of disasters in recent years have left many people dead, often as a result of negligence, indifference or incompetence. Hundreds on a train to Luxor in 2002 died in a fire on a third-class car that was decoupled from the engine while it was burning, so that the lead cars could continue to their destination. After a fire in Beni Suef in 2005 left a whole class of college students dead, their grieving relatives were beaten by riot police as they families tried to retrieve bodies from a morgue. About 1,000 people were lost at sea in 2006 after a ferry sank; more than 100 died and a neighborhood was crushed when a ledge on the Moqqutam hills crashed down in 2008.
History
Egyptians accepted peace with Israel — while never losing the view that Israel remained the enemy — because they were promised a so-called peace dividend of economic growth. They were also told that Egypt’s peace treaty would give it a seat at the negotiating table to help promote the interest of Palestinians. In both cases, they largely feel betrayed.