Agriculture and its workforce
by Emanuela CHIUMEO of Incontro Mediterraneo magazine
The agrarian reform, introduced in Nasser's era, in fact not been completed yet, many victims also recorded in recent years
Egypt with 40% of the workforce employed in agriculture can be defined as a country primarily agricultural. In 1952, there was Nasser's agricultural reform in order to limit the estates owned by individual families and to recognize more rights to the peasants, until then subjected to a system of feudal type. He started the requisition of land to redistribute them among the peasants. A reform is not simple and may have arrived late compared to what has already happened in Europe where those measures had been implemented for over a century. So on the one hand there were the landowners who until 1961 had tried every trick in order not to be seen steal the lands owned by them and their ancestors before the other peasants tired of a feudal system devoid of any social guarantees.
Faced with this situation, since the end of 1952, some young students and village farmers engaged themselves in the struggle launched by activist Salah Hussein Maklad, who was killed in 1964, compared with those landowners who claim not to exceed the limit set, while more than obvious that the members of the family had more than twice the odds perviste. Meeting interviewed Shahenda Maklad, the wife of Salah Hussein, one of the women more active in defending the human rights of "fellain", a founding member of '"Association for the sotegno peasant beneficiaries of agrarian reform" ....
At the forefront since the time of Nasser, Shainda even today, after more than 70 years, continues its struggle for agrarian reform "for so many never completed." The Agricultural Centre for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization in Cairo, recorded in just three years from 1998 to 2000, one hundred and nineteen dead, wounded eight hundred forty-six, millequattrocentonove arrests related to operations expulsion of peasants and access to agricultural land.
When was Shahenda Maklad? What do you remember of his childhood in Egypt? And of his adolescence?
I was born November 18, 1938 in Shebin el Kom, Menoufeya (Nile Delta north of Cairo). My father was a police officer, he used to move for work reasons. We lived in 17 governorates ... every year I was in a new school different. Most of my childhood was spent in Egypt. What do I remember of those years? What I remember from my childhood is that I was a happy little girl, and having had a father of a very open-minded and progressive. He often said that for him the girls were equal to boys. I am the biggest of my brothers, I remember I lived in a joyful atmosphere. Outside of that memories are not always serene: the 1948 war, the attack on the Israeli-Palestinian is something that I could never forget. And even though I was only 10 years old, I remember the many tears, the desire to go and fight to save Palestine. I also remember the fire in Cairo, it was January 26, 1952. The resignation of Nahas Pasha (leader of the Wafd Parito 1927-1952), the demonstrations in front of my school ...
What role did Nasser in his life and that of his fellow citizens Menufeya?
Abd El Nasser is a national leader for all of Egypt.
Personally, from the beginning I liked the big changes in my country under his leadership. My village until the advent of Nasser was organized in a feudal and as my many other ... Nasser as a first step eliminated the feudal system by introducing the first major reform of Egypt. Begins the splitting of large estates. It set an upper limit for the property of 80 hectares, reduced to 40 hectares in 1961 and 20 in 1969.
She and her husband Salah Hussein have strongly supported the agrarian reform of Nasser. Why?
The farmers before the advent of the reform had no social rights, the reform they were granted even if not all as many think. Nasser has established precise laws to regularize the relationships between landowners and the tenant creating greater stability. Prior to its approval peasants worked without pay (forced labor). There was, to be honest, for some conditions, but also excellent senzagaranzia the worker, farmer or peasant, could be kicked out at any time ...
In 1964 her husband was killed. What was your life as an activist after his death?
My husband and I have continued to struggle against the feudal system continuously for 10 years until his death. Salah was killed in the village of Kamshish Menufeya by the feudal lords. This happened because we fought against them that the reform were actually applied. It was 1966 ... he was only 46 years old. Until now, after almost cinqu'anni, the murderers of my husband have not yet been sentenced. During the funeral I felt a sense of discouragement, fear of the peasants, I perceived their thoughts. They no longer had their leader, how to continue a fight that was only the beginning? I turned to them with all the strength of the pain that I carry inside shouting: "We will continue." The funeral was transformed into an event, since then I never stopped ...
The reform was initiated in 1952, Nasser died in 1970, such as the real changes?
In 1952, many agricultural lands were distributed among the peasants, among them begins to create a middle class. Many young people, children of farmers, receive an education with the possibility to access to new forms of work.
Agricultural work ends up providing more guarantees, the farmer is finally autosufficiete (in terms of food). Agriculture supported the industry, and the peasants had their own union representation. Egypt was a country industry and agriculture. Egypt seemed to start striding toward progress.
Abd El Nasser was considered by many as a dictator, after all these years bring himself to give an opinion?
Abd El Nasser was a national leader who wanted a social and economic rebirth for Egypt with him and this really happened. However, democracy was its only flaw. He did not give people the ability to create organizations. He was the only one who could decide. The organization of the country, the whole, it was statist and therefore under its direct control.
Sadat succeeded him. What happens in the agricultural sector?
A year after the death of Nasser in 1970, begins denasserizzazione. This starts the return to the owners of a portion of the land (about 60 thousand hectares or compensation). Operation that could not trigger riots. Benefiting of leases permanent, fixed amount and reduced the peasants prevented the owners, in fact, to send them away. Thus began an uphill battle, still underway, which has its apex in the new reform of 1992. In fact Sadat placed himself in defense of the rights of feudal lords. The agricultural cooperation, an institution created to help young farmers to work the land and sell their products, was banned. By a decree was established bank Credit and Development and village banks, is treated of institutions that ended up applying usurious rates of 20%, 15 times higher than the rate (5%) charged by banks in the Nasser era.
How was your life in the years when the opposition was evidently?
Sadat gave me orders to leave Menufeya and I was forbidden to enter it for 5 years. So, I moved to Alexandria. I did not go away by itself, have left me with twenty other farmers. Then I moved to Cairo when my daughter came into college. I was in prison. In those days I used to fight the system especially my writings, I have participated in demonstrations, sit-ins and strikes. I was a member of the party Taggammu (sociality party), I worked in politics. I have always been ready to go to jail at any time.
After 30 years of rule, Mubarak capitulated. What has happened in such a long period of time in agricultural policies?
Mubarak has followed in the footsteps of Sadat continuing the privatization of the agricultural sector ... The condition is, over the years, deteriorated further. Youssef Wali (note Yousef Wali is a former Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in office from 1982 to 2004) has destroyed everything, and in particular the traditional agriculture ... although we strongly opposed. The granda breakthrough? In 1992, with the new agricultural reform. Under the new law the lease rents are no longer fixed cost but reach in a short time the market cost, contracts cease to be in permanent transmissible by inheritance. A law that affected at least one million to three million farmers then esitenti. Many farmers in times of crisis, in the grip of debts, have ceded much of their land because they are unable to pay the rent ...
What today the conditions of the farmers in agricultural villages as Shamma and others?
In 1983 I created with other fellow activists, "the Independent Union of the peasants." Then we began a large-scale awareness campaign to convince farmers and peasants to join this Union. It was not easy. But today things have changed after January 25th they too have taken cocienza of their rights. They are the ones who ask us to protect them in front of the government. Many people wonder if our organization is still in force, many people try to get their problems for ourselves. Sa Egypt is great and many villages are also difficult to achieve. But we are still here after so many years, ready to protect old rights but also to propose new projects, such as the National Agricultural in the Sinai under evaluation.
We are moving into a new democratic process which demands immediate to the new government?
It is essential that the farmers and the unions that represent them to participate, as happens in every country, the processes of transformation of economic policies in the industry. And in this time of general crisis I believe that the entire agricultural sector in need of financial support. The recovery of cooperative banks that grant subsidized loans in times of trouble I think is now a priority inescapable. Bancharie institutions, which in fact, existed at the time of Abd El Nasser and then have been abolished.
One question that I can not make them before leaving. Whoever she should be the next president of Egypt?
Baradei, or Khaled Ali ...
Translated from Italian by google
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