State and society

Philip Marfleet

The comedy classic film Al-Irhab wa'l Kebab (Terrorism and Kebab) tells the story of an Egyptian everyman lost in the corridors of the giant Mugamma building in Cairo, the headquarters for much of the country's administration. Bullied by government officials and sent helplessly from office to office to resolve a minor problem, he meets other wronged citizens and finally becomes leader of an imagined people's rebellion. The enduring popularity of the film is itself an insight into relations between the state and the people in contemporary Egypt. For the mass of Egyptians, al-nizam (the order/ the system) is a controlling influence in everyday life. Notwithstanding decades of rhetoric about democratic opening and liberalisation, Egyptians are ruled by an ultra-authoritarian regime which brooks no opposition. Fifteen years after the release of Sherif Arafa's film, people still laugh at its unlikely hero and the figures of authority he confounds. Their mirth is mixed with desperation, however. Egypt is an increasingly unequal society in which more people are poor and insecure, and in which problems of daily survival are more pressing. The people and 'the order' are joined by little except mutual fear and hostility.

At various points over the past hundred years the mass of Egyptians have played a key role in shaping relations with those in authority. After the First World War the level of protest against European rule was so intense that a British historian of the period describes a 'revolutionary' situation in which activists created local 'republican governments' and some villages set up 'soviets'; thirty years later sustained strikes and the demands of 'the street' facilitated a military coup which succeeded in removing occupation forces. But during fifty years of independence, successive regimes – using techniques of both coercion and co-optation – have excluded the people from national politics. Intermittent periods of intense industrial action have sometimes been combined with mass protests, extracting major concessions from those in power. At the same time these episodes have spurred Egypt's rulers to intensify repression, so that relations with the mass of society have become more tense and mistrustful – a development recently accentuated by the commitment of those in power to an aggressive policy of personal profit and material advance. The main characteristics of contemporary politics and socio-cultural life (at least in the 'public' sphere) are an acute sense of alienation and growing anger. This chapter considers relations between the state and the people, and how the current regime maintains its power vis-…-vis an angry and frustrated population.

Low-intensity democracy

The Mubarak regime has much in common with other ruling groups across the Global South which practise 'low-intensity democracy'. Most have close ties to the United States and follow policies integral to the Washington Consensus, favouring neoliberal economic reform and tight control over domestic politics. They include governments in Peru, Colombia, South Korea, Morocco, Kenya, Pakistan, Indonesia and the philippines, and in a series of Central American states. In each there have been periods of political 'opening'; in each, reform has been superficial. Elections take place, sometimes contested by a plurality of parties and with the involvement of media which are notionally free. But systemic fraud and ballot-rigging, combined with more or less open violence vis-…-vis opposition groups and the media, ensure that power remains within a network of privilege, often closely linked to the armed forces.

Egypt is among the more repressive of these regimes. Its 'democracy' is of such low intensity as to be barely detectable. Officially the government is committed to 'democratic development ... deepening of democratic practice, enhancing freedoms and laying down the state of law, institutions and respect of human rights' (State Information Service 2006). Much of its energy, however, is devoted to ballot-rigging, intimidation and electoral fraud. For many years opposition parties and human rights organisations have alleged blatant interference at the polls, recording numerous episodes in which voters have been prevented from polling by the ubiquitous Amn al-Markazi – Central Security, Egypt's riot police. Among incidents reported in 2000 was an attack on voters in the province of Minoufiya, where an opposition candidate had been expected to gather many votes: sixty people were admitted to hospital. A local doctor testified: 'The police opened fire in all directions. They had orders to do that. And they had high orders to prevent people from voting. All the time [there is government talk] about democracy. Where is it?'

During the 2005 parliamentary election people wielding swords and machetes stormed polling stations in Port Said, smuggling in boxes of pre-filled ballots; police meanwhile formed a cordon to prevent voters entering. In Damanhour, 'thugs' were said to have attacked voters, using bayonets, sticks, knives and bottles filled with acid and petrol; the police observed events impassively (Safieddine 2005; Sami 2005).

These practices have embarrassed even the regime's closest allies, who fear an explosion of popular anger which could wreak havoc with their interests in Egypt and the region. In 2008 then-President George W. Bush felt obliged to complain that Mubarak would not permit the most modest political reform, observing (without a hint of irony) that 'too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail' (BBC 2008c). Western media which cheer on the regime's economic strategy express dismay at the vulgarity of its repression. For the Washington Post Egyptian elections are 'a squalid process' orchestrated by a president of 'martial crudeness' (Diehl 2005). The Economist (2008) warns that deficits in political representation could prove disastrous for a regime which has supervised a general crisis of society:

The fact is that most of Egypt's 75 m[illion] 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. The visitor might well conclude that by damming up the normal flow of politics, Egypt's rulers risk bringing on a deluge.

The journal asks: 'will the dam burst?'...