Review: Will Changes Change Anything?

I thought that we would follow up the last post with an update on the proposed Cabinet and government reshuffle by President Morsi; however, those changes have yet to be made, or at least made officially (this latest report says the reshuffle won't happen until next week).  There are several leaked reports of various changes to be made, but some of the young revolutionaries and journalists we follow locally seem to think that President Morsi is using leaked reports to gauge public reaction before making something official.  This may be in keeping with his interview (see embedded video from previous post) in which he stated that the moves would be to garner "public interest".

And this brings us to the focus of this post, a "review" not of the proposed changes, but a review of what's happening in Egypt and even a bit of the possible reasons "why" Egypt is in its current condition.

The Mubarak Family: The Godfathers

The Mubarak family;
 from clubs.calvin.edu via Google images

Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt shrewdly and protected his interests along the way.  His family accumulated wealth along with their good faith from the West, which created an atmosphere of stability but stifled creativity and the possibilities of challenging the status quo.  Change in leadership in Mubarak's plans were not going to come from outside of his circle, but only in a generational passing of the baton to his sons.  Despite all the anger and accusations directed at the Mubarak family during the revolution, there is a growing sentimentality that those years of their leadership--even if it was as corrupt as alleged in various charges against he and his sons--those may have been "the good ole days".

The Muslim Brotherhood: The Political Machine

pic by Jonathan Rashad (c)2012, via Google images

President Morsi benefited from the political machine that is the Muslim Brotherhood.  Under Mubarak, the Brotherhood were viewed as threats and were given enough opportunity to gain experience in the political process, but no real experience with political power.  They learned how to create grass roots campaigns and established networks throughout the country in hopes of winning elections; but even in the elections that were won, the opportunity for leading was diminished under Mubarak.  After the revolution, the MB were easily the most prepared to take advantage of free elections; and the results proved it as they won nearly half of the seats in the now disbanded Parliament along with the Presidency, despite declining favor by the time of that election.  They are now leading as they learned under Mubarak: promote from within and deny the opposition.  Though the MB have tons of experience in campaigning, they have little experience in leading--and it has been showing--even in the proposed reshuffling, it's a matter of gauging "public interest" like it was an opinion poll leading up to an election.
    We hear all sorts of negative press--the name "Muslim Brotherhood" illicits such fear out of the west.  Yet, for all of their inexperience, the MB may still be the most stable option Egypt has in the short-term, which may be why the West have been so patient with Egypt--an upheaval in their leadership, a second revolution, could create an unpredictable political vacuum with an even more bleak or uncertain future. Some of the people we meet and interact with in Egypt wonder why we are not more negative and condemning of the Brotherhood or President Morsi--they think that we have some naive, misinformed understanding.  We think, "Who knows? The President may prove to make some good decisions and be able to lead the country in a positive direction.  But he's not being given much of a chance."  Constant demonstrations and protests are the path to revolution, not cooperation--and if Egypt is going to be able to move forward with the plurality of backgrounds and ideas, there has to be some move to stop chanting against each other and start talking together.  No one can lead when people are unwilling to follow.

The Revolutionaries: Social Networkers

In this amazing, in-depth article, author Maha Abdelrahman explains that all the revolutionaries that led to the ouster of President Mubarak were not only unprepared for the possibility of power, the idea of being in-power wasn't even on their list of goals.  Instead, they were so busy advocating for changes along lines of social networks, horizontal thinking in the short term.  The possibility that the changes could come so dramatically and require that they be involved with some sort of organizational plan and direction, vertical thinking, may have never occurred to them.  In post-revolution, current-MB-led Egypt, you now have all these groups trying to figure out if they want to be involved, how to be involved, and how to evolve their horizontal thinking into vertical thinking--how to go from leaderless networks into promoting leader(s) with vision and plans.  In the meanwhile, they're well behind the MB who have decades of experience on these matters, and the only mobilization they've been able to muster is in the near weekly protests.

The Economy: Tick, Tick, Tick...

from blouinnews.com via Google images

Abigail Hauslohner's Washington Post article details the increasing grim realities in Egypt:

• diesel shortage & wheat shortages
• declining value of the pound and presumed decrease of federal reserves
• all leading to increased "black market" activity, and decreasing consumer, business, and international confidence

   Diesel lines are staggering--traffic is usually blocked within a kilometer of each possible fuel station as cars and trucks line up, bumper to bumper, three lanes wide hoping to get a rationing of the fuel to transport their goods and services.  As stated in the article, the time of these individuals is just as valuable, and so they will seek the fuel elsewhere even if it means paying higher prices on the "black market".

   Wheat shortages are creating fear as the bulk of the population survives on the cheap bread they are able to buy from local bakers.  These bakers are able to make the cheap bread due to government subsidies.  But their fears grow as the wheat supply decreases.  Throw in the possibility of curbing subsidies (and raising taxes) to garner the loan from the International Monetary Fund, and you have a recipe for dread in the form of potential "bread riots".

   Hauslohner's article is largely about the increased "black markets" (note, there's a great set of pictures in this article)--but the "black markets" are not just for fuel and food, but for currency itself.  Consumer and business confidence is so poor that everyone is seeking to trade in Egyptian Pounds for the US dollar.  We ourselves have seen signs in local businesses willing to give a greater rate of exchange than the banks; we have also heard of increased difficulty due to changing bank policies about exchanging Pounds for Dollars or Euros--policies that include limits, a lot of paperwork, and delaying transactions over several days.

So, this is where we are in Egypt--there is a growing uncertainty in the minds of people that we talk to, yet there is also a "business as usual" approach to each day.  Some, as this hotel worker quoted in the Washington post article, are not very optimistic, “We have two to six months before the whole thing collapses. It’s going to happen. There is no way out of it.”

Yet we remain hopeful, even if it is a rough road ahead.

Pray for Egypt...