Within the Palestinian movement the author peels back the different factions many who
espouse different views on how to gain Palestinian independence. The Syrian-backed Al-
Saiqa (Thunderbolt), the Iraqi-sponsored Arab Liberation Front (ALF) demonstrates how
regimes wish to manipulate the Palestinian cause to enhance their regional influence in the Arab
World. The book ends with counter-terrorism tips from a long and short-term perspective. Middle-
East FAOs will benefit from reading this slim volume.
Economic Crisis and the Politics of Reform in Egypt by Ray Bush. Westview Press.
Boulder, Colorado. 184 pages, 1999.
When many Americans serve in Egypt they typically are introduced to the upper to upper-
middle classes of society. They are many reasons for this isolation from the Egyptian majority
some deal with security measures, others a conscious desire for Egyptian hosts not wanting to
expose the gripping poverty of the region. For any FAO who seriously studies the Middle East
and in particular Egypt, it is vital to gage economic prosperity with a rise in Islamic militancy in the
country. Ray Bush, a professor and director for African studies at the University of Leeds in
England puts together the struggle that President Hosni Mubarak and his predecessors Sadat and
Nasser have had to contend with in dealing with an agricultural economy. Agricultural products
like cotton, citrus, maize, beans and many other products fed Egypt since ancient times and
formed a stable part of the economy. Today the rural areas of the nation is blighted and a
devastating increase in the population of Egypt over the last four decades has made it
increasingly difficult to feed the population of over 58 million Egyptians crammed along the Nile
and its Delta.
The author answers questions and analyzes the effect of central planning brought about by
Nasser and most recently expressed in Egypt's Economic Reform and Structural Program of
1991. But to understand this program and the Public Laws enacted by Cairo, the book first begins
with the origins of Egypt's economic crisis. Nasser inherited a stagnant and corrupt economy from
King Farouk in which the average citizen was about as well off in 1950 as they were in 1910.
Immediately after the July 1952 coup and agrarian reform and a nationalization of private
industries, land owned by the royal family was confiscated and redistributed and a limit of 300
feddans (a feddan is about an acre) was placed as a limit each Egyptian could own.
Amazingly this was reduced to 100 feddans and then limited to 50 feddans by 1969. The
redistribution of land was not the man issue but crushing rents that placed the farmer in virtual
bondage. This system though cannot wholly be blamed on King Farouk, but goes back 200 years
when the Albanian Muhammed Ali, founded his dynasty in Egypt and controlled the country
through Turkish, Mamluke and Ottoman Pashas who were given property in return for tribute, in
essence a primitive form of taxation.
There can be no doubt that the Arab-Israeli Wars crippled Egypt's economy further and
Nasser's programs industrialize the nation. Egypt was held hostage by an insatiable demand for
arms and a need for the late Egyptian President to dominate the agenda of Arab World and be a
voice in the non-aligned nations of the world. No wonder, that after the 1973 War, President
Anwar Sadat reversed Nasser's socialist policies and declared the policies of infitah (open-door
economic policies). By the mid-1970s accounted for $3 billion from Egyptians working abroad and
$2 billion in aid from the United States. The author also explores the politics of food aid that the
United States has manipulated since the Eisenhower administration. But Sadat could not control
the widening economic gap and charges of corruption among his government. Some Egyptian
intellectuals even charged that the pasha system of the monarchy was replaced by members of
Sadat's family and his party elite.
Under Mubarak, the nation has grows by about one million every eight to nine months and
here we see that open market policies have created inequities that have attracted some of Egypt's
poorest to Islamist parties and Islamic radicalism. He is currently spending millions of dollars on
the Tushka Project an attempt to irrigate the Western Desert by diverting the waters of the
Nile around Luxor. What complicates matters is the environmental concerns of sharing the Nile
with several African nations. Egyptians plan the Nile's usage on the 1959 water agreement it
made with Sudan and Ethiopia.
This is an excellent book and highly recommended for Mid East FAOs. Religious radicals
have been able to garner sympathy among the rural population of Egypt that have led to riots in
villages and clashes with security forces.
2002, Foreign Area Officer Association
Springfield, Virginia
Maintained by LTC Steve
Gotowicki.
http://www.faoa.org
