‘Bangladesh on the Mediterranean?’ : Egypt Gripped by Decay, Economic and Intellectual

Overlooking Cairo’s main downtown square is a 13-story government building known as Mogamaa (the Gathering). It is an arc-shaped, cheerless structure, full of dark corridors and filthy offices, and in wandering its upper floors, one feels he has entered a slum.

Rubbish tossed from the offices litters the hallways. Discarded furniture and garbage hurled into the courtyard stand nearly a story high. The windows’ glass panes are either broken or caked with grime. Dirt clings to the walls, turning the faded blue paint earth-brown, and cobwebs dangle from light sockets that have no bulbs.

The public relations officer of Mogamaa, Saleh Moshref, refuses to say how many people work in the building or even when it was constructed. “That’s a secret,” he declares.

But surely there are thousands tucked away in the dim crannies of six ministries, each drawing his $40 a month and enduring his daily drudgery with a stoicism that is inherent to all Egyptians.

In a sad way, Mogamaa symbolizes Egypt itself. Once it was an imposing structure and rather grand, standing taller than anything in sight. That was some time ago, though, and today the building is noteworthy primarily because of its deterioration.

As for Egypt, it, too, is gripped by decay, economic and intellectual, and is in danger of becoming, in the words of one Cabinet minister, “Bangladesh on the shores of the Mediterranean.”

“For 5,000 years, people have come to Egypt to learn,” said Salah Zoufoukai, a successful character actor. “We were so much once. Now we are not. What can we teach anyone any more?”

Zoufoukai’s comments seem to reflect the general mood of Egypt in the post-Sadat era. It is one of resignation and indifference, a sense that control and direction have been lost and that everything is in decline.

‘No Time for Creativity’

With too many people (46 million) and not enough money (per capita income $560), the land that gave birth to one of the world’s first great civilizations increasingly dwells on what it was rather than what it will be.

“Just surviving in Cairo is so exhausting, there’s no time for creativity,” said Amin Hosni, a university professor. “And as things get worse, people have become cynical. They’ve lost their friendliness, their cheerfulness. A lot of this, I think, goes back to ’67 (and the war against Israel). Egypt was like a balloon then, high on Arabism. Then, with the defeat, it collapsed.”

President Hosni Mubarak, 56, an air force general who succeeded the assassinated Anwar Sadat in October, 1981, has tried to restore the Egyptians’ sense of national esteem. He has offered steady leadership, overseen Egypt’s skillfully executed foreign policy and guided the country back into the Arab orbit.

On all fronts he has moved cautiously, giving top priority to security concerns born of Libyan meddling and Islamic fundamentalism.

A less exciting, more plodding performer than his predecessors, Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mubarak runs a nonideological, authoritarian regime that functions with some trappings of democracy. He deals with the opposition--particularly the Islamic fundamentalists--through a policy of appeasement, but seems to have run into difficulties on that score because the more he gives, the more they demand.

“Mubarak has lowered the temperature of the country, and he is doing all right in preventing day-to-day problems,” said Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, an Egyptian writer who was a critic of Sadat. “He’s not a great visionary, but then, things could have been worse. Sadat would have led us into civil war. Or suppose we had gotten a crazy dictator after Sadat?”

Statistics alone suggest that Mubarak is fighting a difficult battle.

With half the population under 21, nearly 400,000 Egyptians enter the job market annually to compete for positions that do not exist. The nation’s 13 universities are turning out 40,000 graduates a year, many of whom end up driving cabs or waiting on tables. In the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 2,000 Ph.D.s; most sit at empty desks without telephones or typewriters.

Food production is growing at the rate of 2% a year, but consumption is rising 5%, and Egypt’s daily bill for imported food has reached $10 million. Energy use is increasing 16% a year, and unless Egypt curbs consumption, its oil reserves--currently worth $3 billion a year--will run out before the end of the century, said Oil Minister Abdel-Hadi Kandil.

But $3 billion worth of annual government subsidies for fuel and essential food items keep prices artificially low and thwart any attempts to encourage public conservation.

Water 32 Cents a Quart

Egyptians, for example, pay only 28% of the average world market price for gasoline, and the pricing structure has gotten so out of control that a quart of gas costs 12 cents, a quart of milk 17 cents and a quart of drinking water from the Nile 32 cents. Teachers earn $40 a month, about half what an illiterate maid can make working part time.

“It’s pretty obvious something has gone wrong,” said Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali.

Despite the grim state of Egypt’s economic health, the High Dam at Aswan has spared the country the drought suffered by its neighbors, and Egypt’s extended-family system and bountiful vegetable crops ensure that no one starves here.

There is also a surprising amount of wealth in Egypt, much of it accumulated recently as a result of Sadat’s “open door” policy, which promoted free enterprise and foreign investment through reduced taxes and other financial incentives. Mubarak has continued the policy.

Most of the sudden wealth, however, is not linked to productive or industrial projects. Businessmen prosper by representing foreign companies as middlemen or by importing goods. This encourages consumerism but does little to stimulate the economy. It also has given rise to a Western-oriented nouveau riche class that has no distinguishing characteristic except its money.

“Suddenly my neighbors are driving Cadillacs, and if you’re still puttering along in your old car, they pretend not to know you any more,” said Youssef Shaheen, Egypt’s top film producer.

The United States, which regards Egypt as pivotal in the coalition of moderate Arab states, is pouring $2.4 billion a year--half in military assistance, half in development and food aid--into the country and hopes that Egypt can re-emerge as the regional leader it was under Nasser and, for a while, under Sadat.

As the only Arab country to make peace with Israel, Egypt has become a sort of test case for the Western-sponsored thesis that negotiations can solve what war will not.

Most political analysts believe, however, that no single country can again lead all the Arab world, least of all Egypt, whose wildly out-of-control birthrate--the population will double by the end of the century--almost guarantees that the nation will continue to grow poorer. For Washington, the danger is that if Egypt fails, the United States will be identified with and held responsible for that failure.

“Certainly the fundamental issue in the years ahead is going to be the population problem,” said Ashraf Ghorbal, the former Egyptian ambassador to the United States. “If we could only stop breeding for maybe two decades and catch our breath, then find a more sensible way to set our priorities . . . . Of course that’s easy to say. But how do you accomplish it?”