Public sector strikes
The public sector strikes and protests that have been going on since last December are extremely revealing.
Any strike is illegal in Egypt and even the smallest public protest is immediately squelched with police truncheons, yet the government's response to the almost 50 strikes has ranged from pussy footing to meeting all the demands.
These workers are the only genuine and honest form of political activism in Egypt. Sorry to say this, but the majority of the rest (Islamists, leftists, opposition parties, bloggers) are bullshitters.
The government can have the Islamists for breakfast (with the cereal), but cannot dare to mess with the public sector workers.
Labor Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi recently said that Mubarak "cannot sleep at night knowing there is one unhappy worker." I believe her! They have got the government by the balls.
Labels: Life in Egypt
posted by zabinzo at
4/15/2007 07:44:00 PM
1 Comments:
very very very true
one observation that analyst and journalists tend to forget/ignore is we've been having monthly labor strikes since 2000, before the anti war protests, and years before kefaya. at a time when the brotherhood's best hope was to get a dozen MPs in parliament.
on a similar note and that's one of the main motivations for the privatization program, it has nothing to do with genuine interest in free market economies the gvt wants to get rid of the headache.
it's also the reason why all production industries are crumbling in Egypt, a stronger industry == stronger workers, instead of solving the political problem let's just ruin the factories and make sure no new large scale ones are ever built.
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Anonymous, At
2:45 AM, April 16, 2007
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