Cairo Politics and Egyptian Governance

View of Cairo from the top of Bab Zuweila in Islamic Cairo

This article is a great Al Jazeera op-ed piece about the political stagnation of Cairo's city governance.  It is a mirror for what is going on in the larger scheme of Egyptian politics.  Someday, when I'm a good blogger again, I will share my own thoughts on this, as well as my thoughts on Al Jazeera.

I've quoted the part of this article that I like below, but if you want to read the whole thing (which regrettably lapses into a rather out of the blue criticism of America's anti-democratic policies in the Middle East that I thought was sort of an unsubstantiated cheap shot), go to the link.

"Egypt's government: designed for dictatorship

Cairo is a city of 20 million without a mayor, without a municipality and without an effective city government that represents its inhabitants. At the final metro stop on the Giza line is an informal neighbourhood sandwiched between the metro tracks and a water canal. Mounib was once a village outside Giza on the road heading south towards Aswan.

Today, Mounib is part of the informal urban sprawl spawned by government negligence and lack of planning. In some respects, Mounib is a relatively successful informal area: The buildings are well built with a maximum of six levels allowing sun and air to penetrate most residences, and there is a tightly-knit community. Living here is not cheap; the average home costs its owners nearly 50,000 Egyptian pounds (about $8,370), yet residents lead a precarious life and their fate is uncertain. Inhabitants in informal areas live at the mercy of the construction mafia, who build illegally with the discreet approval of bribed local government officials.


Running through this dense urban area is the Zumor Canal, which once irrigated rich agricultural land. No longer used for irrigation, water has become stagnant, and with the government’s refusal to manage waste in areas such as Mounib, the canal has transformed into a trash dump and a source of disease and infestation. Further north, where the canal passes through middle-class neighbourhoods, it has been filled and transformed into a green spine. Here, like the majority of Cairo, residents police themselves. A total informal way of life pervades that includes schooling, healthcare, food supply and social services. People here are friendly and welcoming and they know what needs to be done to better their community, but there are no channels for them to officially take part in civil society and government. Although this area is part of the capital and is reached by metro, it is at the periphery of the regime’s concerns. In Mounib, nothing has improved since Hosni Mubarak passed his presidential powers to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF).


 The local government officials responsible for this area are the same as before the January 25 revolution that deposed Mubarak, despite a recent court ruling to dissolve local councils. Residents consider local government as window dressing rather than an effective mechanism to better their lives, and the government institution as a whole is viewed as better avoided. Those local government officials form the base of an administrative pyramid that leads to a presidentially appointed governor at the top. Administratively, Cairo is a divided city split into three governorates each with a governor and an army of bureaucracy below him. Governor posts are reserved to former army and police officers, typically at the age of retirement.


 'Designed for dictatorship' 


Egypt’s government is designed for a dictatorship: It is extremely centralised and tightly controlled by national policy, and local councils are void of power. Although Cairo’s three governorates have separate budgets and various departments, they largely depend on the country’s ministries, led by presidentially appointed ministers, to care for essential elements of the urban environment: housing, schooling, transport, parks, healthcare, etc. Governorate budgets largely go to paying salaries rather than public spending. There is no unified city government with elected local officials and a mandate to effectively manage the city. Instead, governors do the occasional ribbon-cutting, and make hollow announcements regarding randomly selected projects that suit their whimsy.


Cairo, with roughly 23 per cent of Egypt's population, is represented in the national parliament with only 10 per cent of the seats [Mohammed Elshahed] Local councils that should directly manage a neighbourhood such as Mounib are firmly in the hands of members and friends of the now disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP). Over the past 30 years, local politics were dominated by personal relationships with party officials. Council seats were purchased and influential families controlled entire districts. Local councils are supposed to represent citizens’ interests to the national government. Cairo, with roughly 23 per cent of Egypt’s population, is represented in the national parliament with only 10 per cent of the seats. This means that the residents of Cairo with some of the highest population density in the country are underrepresented in a parliament that is typically dominated by a single party.


Residents in Mounib, like the majority of Egyptians, have no effective means to a political voice, to participate in government or to demand from authority something as urgent as cleaning the cesspool that runs through their neighborhood. 


The ruling SCAF has been reluctant to make any fundamental changes to the system of governance. The court order to dissolve local councils has not been enforced. There have been no rules regarding former NDP members and their beneficiaries from dominating the political arena, and the fabric of the defunct system described above is fully intact. Governors have been appointed as was done before. The NDP’s controversial Cairo2050 plan, which calls for the dislocation of millions of inhabitants in the name of neoliberal development for the rich, has resurfaced after months of speculation over its fate. 


Since February, 50 political parties have been registered and numerous political figures have emerged. Dominating public discourse have been voices from the Islamist side of the spectrum, who have insisted on keeping the conversation on issues of identity. The everyday concerns of citizens and inhabitants of Cairo such as transport, housing and waste have been conspicuously absent. When I last visited Mounib, residents were not concerned with national identity, the dichotomy between liberals and Islamists, the threat of a military regime or American interests in the region. They were concerned with the polluted canal, the uncollected waste, the mosquitoes infesting the area and the lack of official response. There is a deliberate gap that has been created between the people and the powerful, and the current transitional government is maintaining that gap."


Interesting how that last line could really be about quite a few governments in the world.... 

The Dangers, or Lack Thereof, in Egypt...

This is a nice little piece about why it is safe to travel in Egypt right now. I wouldn't have put it any differently. If you or anyone you know is wringing their hands about traveling here in these tumultuous times, here is a good perspective check.

 "In Egypt, getting beyond 'otherness'"


 **** By Greg Sullivan


As I write this, I'm in Cairo. Two nights ago, a group of protesters tore down a newly installed wall outside the Israeli Embassy. Some of the gang somehow gained access to the embassy on the 13th floor, where they ransacked the offices. This was a serious breach of international law. More than 100 protesters were injured, and three people died. Tragic.


I've been fielding emails from friends and family who are concerned about my safety. I appreciate their concern, but the incident gives me a chance to think about something more: where, when and why we travel. First let me declare my bias. My business partner Joe and I launched Afar travel magazine in 2009, so obviously I favor travel. What's more, our company is organizing a travel experience in Cairo in late October.


When Mubarak resigned and the country celebrated in February, I immediately bought a ticket to Cairo and was here a few days later. The enthusiasm, hope and pride of the people were contagious. I knew tourism would suffer for the near future, and I wanted to do something to support the people as they undertook building the new Egypt. I've been back to Cairo three more times since February. What I've experienced has been fantastic.


I have been fortunate to meet many locals from a variety of fields. They are so excited about their future. As my new friend Ghada said to me, "Before the revolution, my son wanted to move away from Egypt when he was done with school. Now, he is proud and excited about Egypt and wants to stay."


Building a new Egypt isn't easy. Another friend, Gamila, told me, "In the old regime, we had to hide our differences. Now we are free to express them, and that is both exciting and a new challenge. It may take some time to accept our differences, but in the end, Egypt will be a much better place to live."


News coverage focuses a spotlight on incidents such as the Israeli Embassy attack, as it rightly should. What doesn't make the news is everyday life, what the locals are doing or what you are likely to experience if you visit a place.


According to the Egyptian government, 2.2 million people visited Egypt in the second quarter, and none were attacked. That doesn't make headlines.


I feel safe in Cairo. By talking with the locals and asking them where to go and what to avoid, by reading a variety of news accounts, including the local ones, and by watching other people and using common sense, I move through the city comfortably. There are many other places I travel where I feel the need to be more vigilant than I do here.


Bad things happen everywhere, and there are no guarantees. According to the New York Times, 67 people were shot in various incidents in New York over Labor Day weekend; 13 died. When I traveled to New York, nobody emailed me to make sure I was OK. But when things happen in a foreign land -- and let's be honest, particularly in the Middle East -- people are more likely to assume an isolated incident is indicative of much more.


To me, that is partly why travel is so important: to get a window into places we don't know, to understand the people and culture better, to appreciate our differences and to get beyond the feeling of "otherness" that separates us.


The economy in Egypt has been hurt seriously, particularly tourism, as the world waits for "stability" to return to the Middle East. 


Another friend, Mohamed, told me he has done little business since the revolution. "This is OK," he said. "This moment is likely not to come again. We must make the most of it, for all our good." 


There may be headlines that might make some people nervous. But just as it is a rare opportunity for the people of Egypt, it is rare for travelers. I consider it a privilege to visit at this historic moment and to support the Egyptian people as they plot a new course. 


 *Greg Sullivan is co-founder and editorial director of Afar Media, publishers of Afar magazine and host of Afar Experiences, a three-day event in Cairo. Contact him at sullivan@afar.com

The Psychogeography of Cairo

Blech.  I realize my blogging frequency has reached new levels of dilapidation (sorry for that sentence, I've been reading Faulkner).  I have fleeting blog post ideas come and go, but then I feel like I ought to be spending what little free time I have on doing Arabic.  A new job and a new Arabic tutor, along with a string of close friends' imminent departures from Egypt have made it very easy for me to justify the past two mostly blogless months.  Well this is post is not really going to fix that, because I'm just going to repost something I read somewhere else.

I don't totally understand what it is as it seems to be talking about a possibly made-up one or two-man society call the "Cairo Psychogeographical Society."  They/he just walk around the city of Cairo trying to experience the city's planning "as 'non-scientific researcher' who encounters the urban landscape through aimless drifting, experiencing the effects of geographical settings ignored by city maps, and often documenting these processes using film, photography, script writing, or tape. In this way, the wanderer becomes alert to the metaphors, visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, and changing moods of the street."  I like to think I am one of those too.

The whole post is written in a very Borges-style, anyway, there are some wonderful pictures of the city if you don't feel like wading through the strange prose around them.  Here's the link to the post.