sadat archives — Page 4 of 7

[25-11-1976] Leftist students demonstrate outside the parliament building to protest the high cost of living and Sadat's economic policies. Two months later, the country was to witness a national uprising on 18 and 19 January 1977, that was crushed by Sadat's army [Photo by Popperfoto, Courtesy of the UK Socialist Worker Archives] — [25-11-1976] Leftist students demonstrate outside the parliament building to protest the high cost of living and Sadat’s economic policies. Two months later, the country was to witness a national uprising on 18 and 19 January 1977, that was crushed by Sadat’s army [Photo by Popperfoto, Courtesy of the UK Socialist Worker Archives]

Kamal Khalil, recalling the 25 November 1976 Cairo University march which he led as an Engineering graduate student and a communist organizer:

The Nasserists and the Communists were due to march on that day. But there were divisions in every faction.. both among the Nasserists themselves and the Communists. The Workers Communist party activists had announced they were not joining the march. My group’s cell leaders back then, the “Communist Party-8th of January,” voted 3 to 2 against joining the march. I decided to break the organizational orders, and agitate for the protest by noon. We had drafted together with the Nasserists, the “November Progressive Document”, where we stated the demands of the student movement against the reconciliation with Israel, the repression of the opposition and the “Open-Door” Policy [Sadat’s neoliberal reforms]. The original plan, before the student leaders started hesitating, was that we were to mobilize for a march on the parliament, and hand the “Document” to the parliamentarians. The march started by only 200 students, but soon swelled to more than 3000 and those who were hesitating, ended up joining when it became clear the Central Security Forces were not going to obstruct the march.
We camped outside the parliament, at el-Qasr el-Eini. Back then it was two-way street. One thing I’ll never forget was a bus driver who was on the opposite direction. We started chanting: “El-Ta’ayeed el-Tam el-Tam, li Edrab el-Na’l El-‘Am! [Our full solidarity for the transport workers’ strike]”. The bus drivers in Cairo had gone on strike earlier in the summer, bringing the capital to halt. The bus driver stopped his bus, and leaned out of the side window, to hug the demonstrators and kept on honking. A student delegation went up to deliver the “Document” to the parliamentarians. Of course their response was “sure we’ll look into that”.. but nothing happened. In less than two months, the intifada broke out.

The Bread Uprising that shook Egypt’s urban towns on the 18th and 19th of January, 1977, is always wrongly treated in the mainstream media as an “Uprising of thieves,” quoting President Sadat’s description of the events, with emphasis on the violence and the looting that accompanied the people’s uprising.

After Mahalla triggered the Winter of Labor Discontent, and once more pushed for a Hot Industrial Autumn, some on the Left today cannot help but drawing parallels between the current situation and the time leading to Jan ’77.

The preconditions that preceded Bread Intifada will be the subject of a future posting; the events were the climax of a rising social movement from February 1968, that culminated in the two-day uprising that was to be crushed by Sadat’s army in 1977.

In this posting, however, I’ll focus on 1976 onwards, and the organized working class movement vs. the rioting which was mainly conducted by the urban poor. The resources used are parts of the MA Thesis I wrote eight years ago.

January 1977 Bread Uprising (Photo from Al-Ahram Archives)

Tag: sadat

1976

18 & 19 January 1977: The Lost Revolution

خطاب السادات الأخير