[A] blinkered visitor might choose to see nothing of Egypt but posh beach resorts and gleaming factories, and hear of little but strong economic growth and a stable, secular government committed to reform. … But remove the blinkers, and the flood of impressions could be starkly different. …
The fact is that most of Egypt’s 75m people struggle to get by, their ambitions thwarted by rising prices, appalling state schools, capricious judges, a plodding and corrupt bureaucracy and a cronyist regime that pretends democracy but in fact crushes all challengers and excludes all participation. …
Spontaneous protests have erupted with alarming regularity, ranging from factory strikes to land disputes to urban riots over food prices that have risen even faster than the current, unnerving overall inflation rate of 23 percent. So far such outbursts have remained disjointed and localized, allowing the government to parry them with a mix of carrots and sticks. Brutal policing has silenced some activists. Wage increases—such as a 30 percent rise for government workers in May— and a promised widening of state subsidies for essential goods have soothed a few tempers. Yet the common refrain in Cairo salons is of how similar the mood is to the pre-revolutionary atmosphere of 1952. …
The country’s future administrators may be tempted to make populist gestures, and would likely reap a quick reward of loud public relief, after too long under familiar rule. They might even opt for a tactical alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. But the fact is that, whoever runs Egypt, the task of housing, feeding and schooling all those millions, let alone overhauling the country’s myriad crumbling institutions, will leave little energy for other adventures. No wonder that most Egyptians, when asked what is in store for their country, tend to use the open-handed shrug with which they meet life’s daily mysteries, and invoke the protection of God. Access the full article>>
