Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?

Changes in Egyptian Society from 1850 to the Present

Galal Amin, Golo

• Editorial: The American University in Cairo Press
• Año: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781617970528
• Categoría: Histoire
• Categoría: Histoire du Moyen-Orient

Based on both academic research and the author's own personal experiences and impressions, this delightful and informative book examines the underlying causes of some of the more disturbing social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena that characterize Egyptian society in the 1990s.Egypt's crisis of culture and other woes are often attributed to the 'open door policy' (Infitah) initiated under President Sadat in the mid-1970s, and to the large-scale migration of Egyptian workers to the oil-rich states of the Gulf that began around the same time. Galal Amin contends, however, that these factors alone are insufficient to explain the fundamental changes in behavior and attitudes that characterize modern Egyptian life. The 'missing link, ' Amin argues, lies in the social mobility unleashed by the July Revolution of 1952, which was later accelerated by Infitah and workers' migration. The sudden upward mobility and attendant prestige, self-confidence, and purchasing power of a large segment of Egyptian society and the desire to display this new-found social position as conspicuously as possible have had an enormous effect on the attitudes and allegiances of these groups.Through a fascinating and often highly entertaining examination of issues ranging from the middle class, religious fanaticism, and attitudes to the West and Western culture, to the Egyptian institution of the summer holiday by the sea and the performing arts and entertainment, Amin posits that social mobility has changed the customs and habits, moral and material values, and patterns of consumption and investment of the aspiring classes, and has, furthermore, induced the Egyptian people to ignore national and ideological issues of grave importance.This insightful book will prove a thought-provoking read for those concerned with emerging economies, international development, and privatization, and will intrigue anyone with an interest in the social history of Egypt.The Arabic edition of this book was awarded the Cairo International Book Fair Prize for the best book in Social Studies in 1998.Comments on the Arabic edition: 'A rare example of combining social theory with concrete observation and intimate personal experience.... A very perceptive account of Egyptian social development with almost the impact of a dramatic creation." Abd al-Qader al-Qutt, al-Ahram, 2000."A very valuable and highly important contribution to social thought and to Egypt's social history.... A highly original and enjoyable book." Faruq Shusha, al-Ahram, 1999.

1
Social Mobility

For some years now, Egyptians have been expressing a feeling of discontent, whether on the subject of the performance of the Egyptian economy, the state of culture and intellectual life, social relationships, morality, or political developments—whether domestic or in relation to other Arab or foreign countries.

Egyptian economists have been complaining about imbalances and distortions: a severe deficit in the balance of payments and a growing external debt, an imbalance in the state budget, and an output and employment structure too heavily dominated by the service sectors. Saving and investment ratios may indeed have reached unusually high levels between 1975 and 1985 but both were caused by a big rise in unreliable and insecure sources of foreign exchange: oil exports, remittances of Egyptians working abroad, the Suez Canal and tourism, and in any case this rise came to an abrupt end in the late 1980s. Too much consumption, it is often said, is wasted on luxury imports and too much investment goes into ‘unproductive’ channels such as luxury housing and the import trade.

Egyptian sociologists have a similar list of complaints. Corruption and disrespect for the law are widespread and there is a conspicuous lack of work ethic. Violence is on the increase and previously unknown types of crime are spreading. Material values are establishing themselves, while productive and socially useful labor is losing social status and prestige. The quality of life in the city is rapidly deteriorating with increasing air pollution, overcrowding, congestion, noise and ugliness, while the village is rapidly changing from being a unit of production to one of consumption. In both the city and the village, there is an increasing westernization of social life accompanied by a growing respect for whatever is foreign and a disdain for everything local.

Political commentators, in their turn, complain that people’s sense of loyalty and of belonging to the homeland has weakened, and that a preoccupation with the problems of everyday life has replaced what is often called a ‘commitment to a project of national revival and progress,’ or an interest in Arab nationalism. They also condemn the growing political and economic dependence on the United States.

Finally, those concerned with intellectual life and national culture point to the spread of what is regarded as ‘low culture’: the growth of fanaticism in religious movements and their excessive concern for ritualistic behavior; the decline of the Arab language as a means of expression in the mass media and the deterioration of the quality of education at all levels.

The most common explanation for these various manifestations of economic, social, political, and intellectual malaise is to blame them on the economic and political reorientation of Egypt in the early 1970s toward what is known as Infitah, or ‘Open-Door’ policies. This term is usually understood to mean three things: the opening of virtually all doors to the importation of foreign goods and capital, the removal of restrictions on Egyptian local investment, and the gradual withdrawal of the state from an active role in the economy. Many observers of the Egyptian scene find it easy to trace most of the problems listed above to this reorientation toward Infitah. The deficit in the balance of payments is attributed to the excessive liberalization of imports, the deterioration in income distribution is explained by the decline in state protection of the poor as well as by the excessive leniency of the authorities toward taxpayers, while the distorted economic structure is traced to the abandonment by the state of its role as an active investor in agriculture and industry and as a regulator of private investors. So many of the social, political, and cultural problems are said to be connected with growing inequality in income distribution which in its turn is attributed to Infitah.

While this explanation may touch upon an important part of the truth, one is inclined to think that it does not go to the heart of the matter. For whatever meaning may be attached to Infitah, it amounts essentially to a negative policy of removing restrictions and eradicating barriers, rather than forcing certain actions or initiating certain types of behavior. Economic liberalization simply allows consumers, investors, importers, and exporters to behave in a certain way, but does not by itself create the motive or inclination for such behavior. What I have in mind is something like the saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” and it is this desire to drink, or the lack of it, which I regard as the missing link between economic liberalization and the various aspects of economic and social behavior set out above. To give one example of what I mean, economic liberalization may indeed make the consumption or importing of certain goods possible, but it does not so easily make them desirable. Their desirability is more directly influenced by the levels of income of potential consumers and these people’s position on the social ladder. The same policy of economic liberalization could not therefore be expected to produce the same results in two countries, say Egypt and China, with different social structures, levels of income, historical backgrounds, and psychological characteristics. My main argument in this chapter is that many of the manifestations of an economic and social ‘crisis’ in Egypt could be more convincingly attributed to the change in Egypt’s social structure and to a rapid rate of social mobility which has been proceeding at a very accelerated pace over the last thirty years, than to the mere change in economic policy in the 1970s toward Infitah.

Economic liberalization may have itself been one of the main factors accelerating the rate of social mobility, but it has by no means been the only one. Important factors were at work long before the 1970s, while other factors which may have first appeared in that decade, could easily have occurred under a very different economic system. If this argument is correct, it would be quite wrong to imagine that the mere reversal of the policy of economic liberalization could by itself bring this ‘crisis’ to an end. Similarly, it would also be wrong to imagine that the current crisis will necessarily persist so long as economic liberalization continues.

Before I embark on substantiating my argument, I would like to point out how little attention has been given by economists and sociologists alike to the economic and social impact of the rapid change in Egypt’s social structure. It is tempting to think of this as an example of an important area of investigation being neglected because it falls on the borderline between two disciplines—the economists leaving it to the sociologists and vice versa. The nearest that economists come to a discussion of this issue is when they tackle income distribution, but even if they were to have comparable data on personal or functional income distribution over a long period of time, which do not exist for Egypt, such data would reveal hardly anything of the changes that occurred in the social structure. The rise or fall in the share of say, the top 5 percent or the bottom 20 percent of the population, would tell us nothing about whether the members of any particular group have risen or fallen in relative income or social status or about the changes that might have occurred in their sources of income. Similarly, a rise or fall in the share of wages, in contrast to income from property, would tell us nothing about whether some wage earners may have now become property owners or vice versa. Such figures on the changes in personal or functional distribution of income are ‘dead’ figures, which may be appropriate in describing a change in chemical or physical phenomena but not that occurring in a living organism such as a society.

Likewise, sociological writings have unfortunately contributed very little to our understanding of the impact of social mobility on Egypt’s current economic or social problems. Much has been written on the changes in social values and in patterns of behavior associated with economic liberalization or labor migration, and frequent references are made to the deterioration in work ethics, the spread of materialistic values and the growth of political apathy mentioned above. But hardly any attempt is made to show exactly how migration or economic liberalization could be responsible for these changes. When social mobility is discussed, the concern is usually with providing some indicators of the degree of the change in social structure rather than with its possible relationship to other aspects of economic and social life. Thus, Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s pioneering essay “Social Mobility and Income Distribution in Egypt”¹ provides us with a wealth of statistics related to the rate of social mobility in Egypt between 1952 and 1979 and discusses some of its possible causes, but says virtually nothing about its impact. Moreover, considering the nature of available data and the lack of any standard for comparison, even the indicators provided in this essay leave us unable to judge whether the rate of social mobility has been ‘high’ or ‘low.’ To be told, for instance, that in 1979 the parents of 34 percent of Egypt’s professionals had worked in agriculture² is of very little informative value in the absence of any corresponding percentage for an earlier date or for another country.

What is perhaps particularly disappointing is the way Marxist writers in Egypt deal with the phenomenon of social mobility, since one would expect them to be more concerned than most with the impact of class structure on the various aspects of political and social ‘superstructure.’ Egyptian Marxists however, seem to be mainly concerned with the division of Egyptian society into the ‘exploited’ and ‘exploiting’ classes, or into the ‘productive’ classes and the ‘parasites.’ That important sections of the traditionally down-trodden classes may have improved in social status over the last few decades is quickly dismissed with the emphasis that much of the new income of these newly wealthy individuals originates abroad or in ‘unproductive’ activities, while the fact that some sections of the upper classes may have suffered a decline in their income and social status is glossed over with an emphasis on the fact that new ‘exploiters’ have taken their places. Both types of observation may be true, but may also be no more interesting than the improvement that seems to have occurred in the standard of living of many of the poor and the decline in the economic and social standing of many of the rich.

The reader may be familiar with the variety of factors that contributed to the rise in the rate of social mobility in Egypt during the Nasserist era of the 1950s and 1960s, including the successive land reform laws between 1952 and 1961, the nationalization and sequestration measures of the early 1960s, the raising of minimum wages and of the rates of income tax, as well as the very rapid expansion of free education and other social services. To this one must also add the rapid increase in the rate of investment in agriculture and industry from 1957 to 1965, which led to the absorption of large numbers of agricultural surplus labor in irrigation projects, particularly in building the High Dam, and in manufacturing and construction work in the cities. The sheer growth of the role of the army and government in the economic, social, and political life of the country was itself a factor contributing to greater social mobility. From 1952 onward, the military establishment became a new and important channel of social advancement, while the growth of bureaucracy and of government-created political organizations provided new career ladders for a great number of university graduates who could not be absorbed in agriculture or industry.

While several of these factors lost much of their strength in the 1970s with the gradual abandonment by the government of Nasser’s ‘socialist’ policies, it is striking, and to some degree ironic, that the era of laissez-faire of the 1970s seems to have witnessed a much higher rate of social mobility than that of the Nasserist era of ‘Arab Socialism.’ This is partly because, in spite of Sadat’s weak commitment to the welfare state, no government during his rule could stand against the pressure of demand for rapid expansion in school and university enrollment. In fact, the expansion of university education was faster in the 1970s than it had been in the 1950s and 1960s, and probably went much further toward reaching the lower income groups of the population through the rapid expansion of university education in the provinces. Similarly, in spite of all the 1970s rhetoric claiming a commitment to peace and declaring the war of October 1973 to be ‘the last war,’ the military establishment showed no sign of slowing down its growth, either in size or in acquiring privileges. Both the education and military establishments continued, therefore, to function as channels for social advancement, but to these old channels the decade of the 1970s added some new channels of its own. One of these, which gained much greater importance with the coming of the Infitah, was employment, directly or indirectly, in the service of foreigners. Such opportunities, which were extremely limited under Nasser’s more closed economy, came increasingly to be extended further down the social scale. Thus, as well as the professionals who worked in foreign companies, banks, and consultancy offices, there were larger numbers of people from more humble social origins who joined the service of foreigners in the flourishing tourist sector, import trade, real estate, or by providing a variety of personal services. Apart from realizing higher incomes than would have been possible from work in Egyptian institutions, work in the service of foreigners could bring with it new symbols of social advancement, such as acquiring some knowledge of a foreign language, the wearing of a uniform, or merely carrying the name of an illustrious foreign firm.

Two much more important factors, however, contributed to the acceleration of the rate of social mobility during the 1970s, namely external migration and the rise in the rate of inflation. Although the rate of external migration rose significantly toward the late 1960s, it did not start to contribute significantly to social mobility until the mid-1970s. Before this date, most Egyptian migrants belonged to relatively high income groups and were usually professionals, administrators, and high-level technicians. After 1974, the structure of Egyptian migration changed significantly, however, becoming increasingly dominated by unskilled and semi-skilled construction workers, craftsmen, and agricultural laborers migrating to the oil-rich countries of the Gulf. In contrast to other channels of social mobility, labor migration had a unique feature in that it required very little education and hardly any capital. It now offered opportunities for social advancement to the virtually illiterate, and demanded no more capital than the price of an air ticket which could be borrowed and repaid out of the earnings of the first few months in the new country.

Another contributor to social mobility in the 1970s was the sudden acceleration of the rate of inflation, which ranged between 20 percent and 30 percent in the years following 1974, compared with no more than 5 to 6 percent during the previous two decades. Many of the beneficiaries of inflation were among the already better off: the owners of large amounts of agricultural land or urban property, who benefited from soaring land prices and the rents of furnished apartments; the owners of industrial and commercial enterprises; contractors; and well-established, self-employed professionals. But there were also significant sections of the population that traditionally belonged to the lower income groups who benefited from inflation, such as the large number of craftsmen, construction workers, and agricultural laborers who were not themselves among the migrants but realized a rise in their real income as a result of the labor shortages created by migration. On the other hand, while inflation certainly hit the small landholders, the people in retirement, the unemployed, and the large number of lower-level government employees and public sector workers, it also lowered the real income of a significant section of the middle class consisting of government officials and professionals working in the public sector, as well as many of the new university graduates who failed to migrate or to find work in the newly established companies associated with the Infitah.

The impact of inflation on social mobility was not confined, however, to its effect on the relative real income from the existing occupations of various social groups; it also created new sources of income. To appreciate the importance of this fact, one needs only think, for example, of the ex-army officer who left his job to work in an import–export office, the small government employee who started working as a taxi driver in his spare time, the absentee landowner who started to cultivate his land for his own benefit, the craftsman becoming a small contractor, or the owner of a modest urban property who discovered the possibility of renting his furnished flat to an Arab tourist, and so on.

All these factors have worked together during the last three decades to bring about a rate of social mobility probably greater than anything Egypt has experienced in its modern history. They pushed large numbers of the population up the social ladder, who traditionally had belonged to the lowest levels of society and allowed them to compete successfully with sections of the middle class who found their social status rapidly declining. It will now be argued that the resulting change in social structure explains much more of the current economic, social, and intellectual scene than is usually recognized.

Egyptian economists have long complained of the tendency toward lavish consumption associated with the open-door policies of the 1970s. They have pointed to a sudden wave of consumerism symbolized by the rapid increase in the importation of motor cars, color TV and video sets, washing machines, air conditioners, American refrigerators, and Japanese fans. The objection is that this type of consumption is ‘unnecessary,’ ‘wasteful,’ and ‘costly,’ in so far as it takes place at the expense of saving and investment, and creates too heavy a burden on the balance of payments. Economists also observe that too much public investment goes into infrastructure projects for the benefit of high-income urban dwellers. It should be noted, however, that what may be regarded as ‘wasteful’ when looked at from the point of view of society as a whole, could be regarded as perfectly acceptable from the point of view of certain sections of that society that have just experienced a big change in their social status. So many of the goods and services consumed or aspired to by the newly rising classes do not merely satisfy certain consumption needs but serve a much more important social function as symbols of social advancement. To these newly rising classes, the private motor car is not simply a means of transport but also a status symbol that declares their ascendance to a higher social level. Much of the increase in luxury imports and the resulting burden in the balance of payments can similarly be attributed not just to an increase in income but also to the increase in social mobility associated with it. Even the increase in the consumption of some basic foodstuffs can be explained in the same way, for a rise in the consumption of such necessities as rice, meat, and even wheat, could serve the same social function for lower-income rural households that consumer durables serve for the urban population.

Social mobility could also shed some light on the preference among the rising segments of the population for certain channels of investment. One obvious example is investment in residential buildings, where the replacement of mud-brick dwellings by red-brick housing is the main symbol of social advancement in the village, and goes hand in hand with the need for the new type of house to have access to electricity to accommodate the newly acquired consumer durables. Another is the investment of the returning rural migrant in a taxi, minibus, or truck, or any other small commercial enterprise that caters to the desires of the newly rising classes. More generally, for those social groups who have only recently had access to surplus income, investment in industry or agriculture may seem too risky, requiring more capital, a longer gestation period, and greater experience than is required by investment in residential buildings, transportation, tourism, or the import trade. Much of what is regarded by economists as ‘unproductive’ investment is in the channels preferred by these investors with less experience who are also more anxious to prove their social advancement and less confident in their ability to maintain their newly acquired social status.

I believe it is important to emphasize the relationship between the new patterns of consumption and investment and the rise in the rate of social mobility for at least two reasons. First, it should warn us against exaggerating the ease with which certain types of consumption and investment could be restricted. Critics of the open-door policies often suggest restricting the import and therefore the consumption of popular consumer durables as a way of dealing with some of Egypt’s social and economic problems. These restrictions could be more easily enforced had such consumption not been the result of powerful motives and aspirations associated with changes in the social structure. Thus, no degree of improvement in the public transportation system, for example, will be sufficient to dispense with the desire to acquire a private car when such an acquisition serves a purpose so much more powerful than mere transportation from one place to another. On the other hand, the same observation should make us somewhat less pessimistic about the possible continuation of the same patterns of consumption and investment into the distant future. If it is true that the emergence of these new patterns is largely the result of rapid social mobility, one may very well expect them to give way to other more socially desirable patterns as the social structure becomes more stable. In other word...