From the Economist:
BY THIS time next year, Egyptians will no longer be living under an official state of emergency, the government has promised. The news can only be welcome. Except for a few brief interludes, “emergency” laws have been in force ever since the 1952 coup that replaced the constitutional monarchy of King Farouk with an authoritarian republic. Under Hosni Mubarak, who assumed Egypt’s presidency in 1981, activists have frequently charged police with abusing such laws to practise arbitrary arrest and torture.
But during this unusually hot summer, Egyptians may rightly wonder which emergency their government is talking about. For some, such as thousands of Bedouin in northern Sinai who have mounted sit-ins to protest against mass crackdowns on terrorist suspects, police brutality is indeed a priority. Yet a growing number of Egyptians seem unusually incensed about a range of other troubles.
Citizens in five of the country’s 26 governorates, for instance, have been suffering a dire shortage of drinking water. Some villagers have blocked roads and demonstrated outside government offices in what the opposition press has dubbed a “revolution of the thirsty”. Others are angry about the failure of wages to keep up with inflation. Labour activists have documented some 350 protests this year, including strikes by state-employed teachers, postmen and train drivers. This number is not large in a country of 75m, but as public-sector workers have traditionally been mobilized behind the ruling party independent labor action is a disturbing novelty.
With wages for unskilled workers barely averaging $75 a month, with many commodities that were once subsidised by the state now being sold at market prices and with state health and education now only nominally free, Egyptians feel squeezed. Inflation officially peaked at 12% last spring, and has now declined. But independent economists note that food prices have risen 25% since last August and that queues for bread, a commodity that remains subsidised, have lengthened ominously as pinched consumers revert to relying on the staple food.