Teachers staged sit-ins and demonstrations on Sunday in Cairo, Alexandria, Daqahliya, Fayoum and Minya, chanting against the state-backed Teachers’ Syndicate and the Minister of Education. Slogans included: “We want a free syndicate! Life has become tough!”
[The govt’s “assessment exams” torn to pieces by angry teachers in front of Helwan University]
The pic below is taken by archeologist Nora Shalaby, in Sakkara’s Tomb of Mereruka. The latter was the Prime Minister and the son-in-law of Pharaoh Teti, from the 6th Dynasty. The full mural shows Egyptian tax collectors torturing tax evaders, dragging the village elders to give evidence on their faulty tax returns, to be paid in produce. One man has been stripped, and his arms and feet are bound round a post where he is being beaten
This was 5,000 years ago. Today, under King Mubarak I, the Egyptian property tax collectors are the ones leading the fight against the state.
Leftist activist and engineer Hamdi Qenawi attended the Mansoura Tax Collectors’ meeting:
There is a different, more radical, mood in the country today. Fear (from the regime) is much less than what it used to be. The movement for change has brought down barriers. We need to unite the movement, and do not fragment it along sector-related demands. We need to help one another, and exchange experiences. In their fight to build their free union, the Tax Collectors need to open channels with the workers in Mahalla and the Railways. And as our colleague said, we cannot stand in the middle. We either stand with the killer or the victim, with the robber or the robbed.
