Peasants, dispossession and resistance in Egypt: an analysis of protest movements and organisations before and after the 2011 uprising

ABSTRACT

The livelihoods of Egypt’s agrarian working classes have been under attack for at least 30 years by policies dispossessing them of natural and economic resources. This process accelerated in the mid 1990s when a domestic land grab took place, eradicating tenure rights for poor tenants. Rural Egypt was part of the 2011 revolutionary process, although heavily marginalised in narratives about the ‘Spring’. Land occupations, farmers’ protests and unionisation were part of the revolutionary landscape, in direct continuity with previous struggles, but also showing signs of rupture and innovation. Reactions from below against dispossession have been variegated and developing, but their determinants remain largely unaddressed. The article retraces the trajectories of these struggles, pointing at the crucial role that the peasants’ allies (leftist civic activism, NGOs and political parties) have played in enhancing and/or undermining agrarian movements at particular historical conjunctures.

RÉSUMÉ

Les moyens de subsistance de la classe ouvrière agraire en Egypte sont menacés depuis au moins 30 ans par des politiques les dépossédant de leurs ressources naturelles et économiques. Ce processus s’est accéléré au milieu des années 1990, lorsqu’un accaparement des terres nationales a eu lieu, supprimant les droits fonciers des métayers les plus pauvres. L’Égypte rurale avait pris part au processus révolutionnaire de 2011, même si elle avait été fortement marginalisée dans les récits sur le « printemps ». Les occupations de la terre, les manifestations d’agriculteurs et la syndicalisation ont tous fait partie du paysage révolutionnaire, en continuité directe avec les luttes précédentes, mais en montrant également des signes de rupture et d’innovation. Les réactions des classes inférieures contre la dépossession ont été diverses et ont évolué, mais leurs déterminants restent largement ignorés. Cet article retrace les trajectoires de ces luttes, en soulignant le rôle crucial joué par les alliés des paysans (activisme civique de gauche, organisations non-gouvernmentales et partis politiques) afin de renforcer et /ou saper les mouvements agraires dans certaines conjonctures historiques.

KEYWORDS:

• Egypt
• land
• peasants
• protest
• revolution
• Left

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Égypte
• terres
• paysans
• protestation
• révolution
• gauche

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to all the activists who spent their time to tell the stories they have witnessed and in which they took part, and share their thoughts about the struggles of Egypt’s peasants, regardless of the risks they were taking at a time of unprecedented repression. This article is also a tribute to their tireless efforts for the emancipation of subaltern groups in Egypt. The paper was presented at the international workshop ‘The Land Question in North Africa in an Era of Global Resource Grabs and Ecological Crisis: Trajectories of Appropriation, Dynamics of Agrarian Change and Strategies of Rural Resistance’ held in Berlin 25–26 September 2018. Thanks to the Review of African Political Economy and the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) for funding my participation and to Giulio Iocco and Mathilde Fautras for their trust and continuous support in the process of drafting the final version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Francesco De Lellis holds a PhD in History of Islamic Countries from the University of Naples L’Orientale. His thesis investigated the history of the Egyptian Left’s engagement in relation to contemporary peasant struggles from Nasser’s agrarian reforms to the 2011 revolt. He currently works as a translator and freelance journalist.

Notes

1 ‘Revolution’ (thawra) is the term used by activists to refer to the 2011–2013 wave of popular mobilisation in Egypt. Here, it is understood as an ongoing long-term process that started at least a decade before January 2011 but the article employs the word alongside others like ‘uprising’ and ‘revolt’, which refer more specifically to the events of 2011 and their aftermath.

2 An Egyptian feddan equals 4200 square metres = 0.42 hectares.

3 For safety reasons, when interviews are quoted I have anonymised the names of the people interviewed and the organisations to which they belong, and I omit the exact details of our meetings.

4 For an overview of the debates on the unionisation of peasants see also De Lellis 2018.