From 30 years ago one kilo of meat was equal to 1 E.P

From 30 years ago as you read one kilo of meat was equal to 1 Egyptian pound ,in year 1977 in the same time as today the 18th of January

From 30 years ago that caused an anger in the Egyptian street especially in the poor working class and middle class because it wasn't meat only , it was mostly everything especially the food ,especially the essentials like bread , the bread price raised as I read couple of Pennies !!

It was the President Sadaat cabinet in late 1976 and early 1977 took that decision to raise prices and to cut back the governmental food subsidies and non food subsidies like gas and so despite people's anger

on the 17th it was already issued and implemented ,and on 18th and 19th Egypt for the first time saw the uprising,very Angry protests of a very anger people against the Prices , it was the first time to happen because of economic reasons , it happened before but because of political reasons.

Students,workers,citizens and people ,normal people all went in a very angry protests that turned in to really riots for the first time in the history of Egypt ,since the revolution of 1919 , down town was on fire , cars,buses and trucks were burned ,governmental building and police stations were thrown by stones , night clubs in the Ahram streets and governmental food markets were burned and stolen

From the times magazine published on January 31st of 1977 "The Sound and Fury of the poor" you can have a better view to what really happened , by the way I got a 1977 official October magazine editions in that period I will scan it insh Allah and publish it  ,and here you are the FrontPage of Al-Akhbar daily published on the 19th of January

Of course President Sadaat came immediately from his vacation in Aswan ,there was no Sharm then and ordered a curfew ,and before the curfew the anti-riots forces were in the streets having clashes , and to be honest from the footages that I saw on Mona Shazely's show last night I believe the anti-riots forces were still less violent like now

President Sadaat when he came back and began to speak on TV and he was known to speak a lot in a way that reminds me with Jacques Chirc style of Speech with way in Talking called this angry protest ,this mini-revolution the name that would be its distinguish character in official media "The uprising of Thieves"

I study economy mainly in my university year and I remember that I studied this particular incident about the subsidies and inflation despite it wasn't included in my American book , It was my professor then Dr.Ayman El-Mahgoub ,the famous Economic professor in Cairo University who explained it to us and to my surprise the man seemed against the decisions of President Sadaat ,I was surprised because he is the son of late Rafaat El-Mahgoub the famous head of Egyptian parliament who was assassinated later ,El-Mahgoub who was also Economic professor was working in both Sadaat and Mubarak  cabinets and he seemed to agree on the policies his son disagrees and shows its cons in his lectures

Anyway I learned something that President Sadaat made huge mistakes I will start first with the easiest one about the cut back of Subsidized food and material , you can't just cut back the governmental subsidiary of several essential food and material in one day ,not together , Sadaat cabinet foolishly cut back the subsidiary of bread,sugar,rice,gas ,it was a huge list no one can forget it on Al-Ahram FrontPage on the 17th of January

Ironically the successor cabinet learned the lesson and know that when they want to cut back the subsidiary ,they should do it gradually step by step , material by material

Now to the greater mistake from my point of view , Egypt in Nasser era was a centralized based economy country that had a great burden of military expenditure ,when President Sadaat came he began to change that communist alike system with the Open door policies in 1975 and Egyptians since then had great hopes that their economic situations would be improved to even better compared to the pre-revolution capitalistic era

But this didn't happen ,in fact things got worst ,the poor got poorer and the rich got richer ,and by the rich I mean here the ruling rich class with the nouveau riche that seized the opportunity of fast profit ,and thus the beginning of corruption of business men that we are suffering right now began ,beside of course the corruption of the ruling class and the ruling party men

To say the truth such a change from centralized to open market system must take some time to have a real tangible results the people can feel ,it was only two years,people thought their lives will change 180 degrees thanks to the media at that time promising them with welfare after years of wars and nationalization , they waited to see that welfare that didn't happen which created in them frustration

I don't know how they took this decision already ,the Deputy Premier for Economics Abdel Moneim Kaissouni was an excellent communist so how he can make such a terrible mistake in cutting back the subsidiaries suddenly !! I don't have his expertise or knowledge yet I know that was a mistake

I believe who thought about that decision would be another enigma from the enigmas of Sadaat era , you see yesterday they said that the security officials warned him from such move ,who was really behind it ??

Another thing President Shouldn't have called the uprising of the Thieves ,because there weren't thieves ,these were frustrated Egyptians who wanted better life and couldn't find it ,they were angry ,they were tired from hopes and dreams all the time and nothing fulfill

Anyhow what happened was a mistake , a terrible mistake made the coming regimes and current one to learn the mistake that they shouldn't cut back all the subsidiary suddenly

Now after 30 years ,the one kilo of meat is about 30 E.P and the bread ,the Baldi bread the worst type which the poor class has no other option to buy is about 17 piastres , and we are now nearly about 70 million Egyptians with less middle class than 10 years ago not from 30 years ago but there is still no uprising

Technorati tags: Economis, Egypt, Egyptian, Anwar El-Sadaat, Politics, History, Middle East, National

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