EGYPT: Bread rage

The bread war has come again to Egypt.

Outrage over bread shortages has forced the government of President Hosni Mubarak to call up the army. Mubarak has ordered army bakeries to supply bread to the commercial market to stem shortages caused by corruption and rising international wheat prices.

Long lines and anger, sometimes bursting into demonstrations and violence, have become common at the nation’s bakeries. Nearly half of Egyptians are poor and rely on subsidized bread.

When that flow is interrupted, even good-natured Egyptians, who tolerate political oppression and high inflation, boil into fury. In 1977, then-President Anwar Sadat attempted to lift bread subsidies. Riots broke out as hundreds of thousands of protesters clashed with police across the country. At least 70 people were killed. Sadat retreated.

Mubarak knows Egyptians will endure much, but to deny them their daily bread is asking for trouble.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: Egyptian bread Credit: Lonely Planet

Comments

[Andre]

This is what you get when there is overpopulation and no planning on the part of society. Even though Egypt is a secular country religion does not alow planned parenthood. Couple that with the overtaxing of natural resourses aka. the Nile and what you get is stagnation. Egypt is now 80 million strong and it has to rely on land that is fit for feeding only 50 to 55 million. There has been no investments in Egypt and no preparation for the future. Education is not preparing the new generation for the future. The economy relies on tourism, agriculture, petrolium exports and remintaces ofrom immigrants. No Economy can go on this way. If it werent for the us footing the bill of arming and maintaing the Egytian army and shoring up of the government that county would not survive. With Egyptian population doubling in the next 20 years something has got to give. The chinese one child program would be the best thing for this country. Sure this country would become a "sausage" factory giving the low opinion Arabs and Islam have toward women but it would take care of the population problem. And yes abortions and family planning would have to be considered otherwise mother nature has ways of fixing the problem like war, pestilence, famine and draught. But what the hell am I saying "god" will fix everything as long as you pray hard enough. For everybody who is too thick to undersand what I wrote, its sarcasm. God will not do anything since he/she/it is a figment of human imagination.