EGYPT: Egyptian anarchists speak

The following statement was released by Comrades from Cairo Egyptian anarchists) on October 30, 2012.

EGYPT: Politicizing Egypt’s economic reform

Posted by Emily Regan Wills – November 29

While the gradual meltdown of the Egyptian constitution-drafting process has been at center stage in Cairo over the past few months, the negotiations between the Egyptian government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $4.8 billion loan have rapidly become central to political conversations in Egypt. Egypt has a checkered past with the IMF. While it views Egypt as a success story for structural adjustment and privatization during the infitah, Anwar Sadat’s economic liberalization, and the Hosni Mubarak-era transition away from state ownership, the Egyptian public associates the IMF with the human downside of structural adjustment policies: unemployment, rising prices, and increasing poverty. Even the IMF’s own policy papers on Egypt now admit that the “social outcomes were unsatisfactory” during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Jordan’s Protests: Political Economy, Protest, and Empire

Saleem Haddad  Posted  on Nov 22, 2012

“Erm, why do they have to, like, break stuff?,” a common complaint made against the protesters in Jordan. (Image by Nidal Elkhairy)