Bread that Kills

In Egyptian Arabic, the word for bread is "`aish" (عيش) which is also the word for living. However, some of the bakeries in Egypt that sell subsidized bread (makhbuzat mud``amah) are becoming scenes of brutal fights, and sometimes even death as the demand skyrockets but the supply remains the same. One piece here costs 5 piastres (a "shilling" in slang) whereas the bread sellers on the street sell it for 25-50 piastres (a quarter-half an egyptian pound). The Infitah (economic liberalization) started by Sadat in the seventies to "open up" Egypt's economy pulverized the middle class. Skyrocketing inflation is affecting all basic commodities - lentils, oil, poultry, milk, rice, have all been "inflated" by more than 100% in the last 3 years. In a country where more than 45% of the population lives on less than $2/day (~11 EGP), one can imagine the cataclysmic affect this would have, where eating a basic meal becomes a luxury for many. More than 60% of the subsidy money for food products in Egypt goes to bread - about 9 billion EGP, and even this has become insufficiant. The result - what is presented in the beginning of the article - a rise in the numbers of fights and attacks at the subsidized bakeries, usually open only till noon normally, sometimes between whole families. People line up and fear that their turn might not come, in front of bakeries that have no display or entrance, only a tiny window that opens up for a fraction of a second, fast enough for 20 pieces to be exchanged for a pound, and then clang! - it's shut again, after which the rest of the line starts yelling "iftah (open up!) give us the bread..." The subsidized bread is almost the only commodity not to have been affected by the inflation, and the people who buy from it cannot afford anything else, so the article quotes working class people saying that the whole household budget is based on the bread and about how almost every time they line up there is a fight.

It makes one wonder where all those billions of USAID are going. Has the president forgotten his origins and those he grew up with? Or worse, he thinks he still cares about them.