Days 8 and 9

Days 8 and 9

Tuesday the 1^st of February is the Million Man March. The opposition planned for protestors to convene at Tahrir Square and then to march to the presidential residence in Heliopolis, but this did not happen. Reports were that 100 tanks were lining the main street leading to the residence and that it was heavily guarded. March organizers decided not to take the March through so many road blocks – a march that would be largely symbolic anyway since the president is likely not at his residence in Heliopolis.

By early afternoon hundreds of thousands – Al Jazeera English was reporting perhaps as many as two million – demonstrators show up in and around Tahrir Square. Protests surface against the US and West’s silence.

The state closes the train network in order to stop people from entering Cairo. And demonstrators in Tahrir protect their demonstration, in coordination with the army, by setting up cordons on all routes leading into the Square. They organize to stop pro-regime demonstrators and secret police from entering.

Millions protest in other cities throughout Egypt – in Alexandria, Mansoura, Damanhour, Suez, Tanta, Sinai. 250,000 are reported to join demonstrations in Al-Arish, the city in North Sinai. Hospitals in Alexandria are reported to be overwhelmed.

International ‘monitors’ come out with total numbers of those who have died in the uprising thus far: Human Rights Watch confirm that at least 129 have died, the UN High Commission apparently announces that more than 300 have died.

On Tuesday there are conflicting numbers circulating – of the actual numbers of protestors in Cairo and throughout Egypt, and of the total number who have died since the 25^th of January when the revolution began.

El Baradei makes a public threat: Mubarak must resign before Friday. And he reportedly meets with US Ambassador to Egypt Scobey and another US visiting diplomat (name?).

The IMF warns of devastating inflation, while the Finance Minister announces an economic assistance package for needy Egyptians and a temporary hold on taxes on food imports, among other interventionist measures.

Today fears seem to circulate around the potential transition and a new government run by the Muslim Brotherhood. An Israeli diplomat (former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt) is interviewed on an international news network and confirms that there is much worry in Israel concerning events in Egypt. He asserts that Egyptians are not ready to govern themselves democratically, and if Mubarak steps down ‘suddenly’ Egypt will be destabilized.

Sometime later in the day it is announced that Obama is urging Mubarak not to seek re-election in presidential elections, scheduled for December. And then it is announced that Mubarak will give a public speech, to be televised later at night.

At around 11 at night Mubarak’s second speech to the nation is broadcast, and he declares that more concessions will be made to address the protestors’ concerns. The parliament will review articles of the constitution, the regulatory committee will investigate ‘irregularities’ in the last parliamentary elections (in November), and he will in fact not seek re-election in this year’s presidential elections. He was not in fact planning to run for re-election anyway, but now he is promising to ensure a peaceful transition following the presidential elections.

He makes it clear to the Egyptian people: You have a choice between chaos and stability. He has reached out to the opposition but they are refusing to be in dialogue. The protestors are unfortunately being “manipulated by political forces.” And in the midst of all of the unrest he as their president has taken immediate steps to restore calm, stability and security. He repeated over and over that in his few remaining months in office he will work with all opposition parties to ensure a peaceful transition to a new government.

He ended by emphasizing his many years of service and the sacrifices he made in defense of its soil. And he asserted that he will die on its soil.

Protestors in Tahrir were generally unhappy stating that this is not enough. Predictions are quickly made that a split would form, between those who want to keep Mubarak to his word and those who want Mubarak and those who are a part of his regime to leave immediately. And in the early morning hours clashes between anti-regime and ‘pro-regime’ protestors began in Tahrir. Opposition protestors apparently beat the pro-regime protestors, one among them severely.

However, by 10 the next morning, on Wednesday the 2^nd, everything in and around Tahrir, in downtown Cairo, seemed fairly calm. We walked around, many people were talking. Many were occupying the square. Women and men, young and middle aged, were entering the Square, some with food for the protestors. We talked to a number of people on the street, all expressing a wish that Mubarak stay until his term is ended, under the assumption that he fulfill his promises.

The Ministry of Defense tells people to go home. Their demands have been met and internet is restored (for the first day since last Thursday). Although phones have been back on for the last few days, instant messaging services have not resumed. That day, “EgyptLovers” sends an instant message calling on people to participate in a massive pro-Mubarak rally – obviously a group from the regime, using its control over the mobile companies to send instant messages to the companies’ customers.

We knew then that sentiments were splitting even among the demonstrators. And by early afternoon violence erupted in and out of the Square. Pro-regime ‘thugs’ got into the Square with camels and horses, posing as opposition demonstrators, only to unleash on the protestors inside with sticks, knives, pistols and Molotov cocktails. Clashes erupted in and out of the Square as ‘gangs of Mubarak’ harassed and beat up demonstrators and pedestrians, and used the cocktails.

The international community responds to the violence. Evidence emerges that the organized thugs who have unleashed violence in downtown Cairo are from or sponsored by the government. One report apparently from captured ‘thugs’ is that they were offered a 5,000 LE reward if they take over the Square. Another report is that they were from an Alexandria prison and the police offered them a release if they stormed the Square to break up the protest. Still other reports seem to be surfacing.

A White House spokesperson comes out and says that the White House was expecting the ‘transition’ to happen yesterday, not in September.

Violence continues throughout the night. The army does not intervene. By Thursday morning 7 people have died in Tahrir and 830 are reported injured.

The First Week of The Egyptian Revolution

These entries are day by day accounts of the uprising in Egypt that began on the 25^th of January. They are select and not comprehensive – and do not include much of an analysis, which will hopefully come later. Since I am based in Cairo and did not have access to Internet for the seven days recorded here (and the entry to be added above), the daily accounts are based on television reports and eyewitness accounts (either of my own, my friends or friends of friends). Therefore, not all of this information can be considered ‘confirmed’ as a report. Please feel free to add to and correct what I have written.

There seems to be a wave in the protest activity – intense demonstrations one day, continued but simmered down demonstrations the next, a resumption of major protest activities the day after, so on and so forth. And the same goes for the emotions – a wave of undulating emotions – fear, hope, anger, elation.

On Friday, the 28^th of January, protestors call for a million plus demonstration. And it is massive. The police respond with force and after the nightfall some protestors even died in Tahrir Square. There are clashes between protestors and the police throughout the day and night. Police installations – stations, posts, vehicles – seem to be the main targets of protestors. In our neighborhood major clashes break out between protestors and the police in front of the Dar El Salaam police station, down the street from our building. Protestors attack the police station, using what seems like petrol bombs to set the building on fire and smashing the windows of the station. Protestors charge the station with sticks, glass, stones – and then retreat when police respond. It sounds as if police are responding with tear gas and rubber bullets.

At some point in the night the police are disbanded and the army comes in to take their place. At around 3 in the morning Mubarak gives a public, televised speech stating that he will create a new government. He fires his Cabinet, including the prime minister, and tries to distance himself from the police, stating that he and his army will protect the people.

The next day, Saturday the 29^th, in the morning we go down to the streets to see the destruction. There is debris all over, some evidence of blood spilt, some vandalism (an ATM machine, for instance) and four or five tanks stood in front of the battered police station. The station had been burning on both sides of the building, the glass windows in front are all smashed. People stand in front of the soldiers and tanks and take pictures. There is a feeling of anxiety, anticipation, and hope in the air.

Reports throughout the country are that people are embracing the military – giving flowers to soldiers, kissing soldiers. Demonstrators begin to chant that the people and the military are hand-in-hand.

Mubarak signs in a vice president, Omar Suleiman, head of intelligence and key negotiator with Israel, and then appoints a new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, former air chief. Both are military men. On Saturday reports also surface that eighteen prominent businessmen fled Egypt on private jets. The rumor is that among them was a nineteenth businessman, Ahmed Ezz, the steel magnate and prominent member of the ruling National Democratic Party, who the day before quite the NDP and was not permitted to leave the country. These developments clearly signal a shift from the business elite to the military in decision making ranks – a shift from the (false and failed) promise of neoliberal economic dreams to the (again, false) promise of stability and security by the military.

Fears of looting gangs begin to surface. Reports surface of looters/vandalizers in different parts of Cairo. There is repeated television footage in both the state and international media of the Egyptian Museum after it had supposedly been ransacked, with soldiers ‘performing’ as guards inside the Museum. It was so obviously staged by the Ministry of Antiquities, with the Minister claiming that men came into the Museum through the roof looking for gold. Instead, they randomly destroyed artifacts. There was no evidence that the ‘looters’ had actually looted anything.

A Ministry of Defense spokesperson addresses the public in a televised address, telling them to stay inside and observe the second day of curfew. He assures the public that the military will protect the people from looters, but he urges young people to be vigilant in protecting their families and neighborhoods throughout the night. And that is exactly what neighbors did that night – they set up popular committees to ‘secure the peace’—setting up road blocks with anything they could find, taking shifts throughout the night to keep watch over the streets and securing themselves with sticks.

Apparently 6,000 prisoners ‘escaped’ from a prison just outside of Cairo, and reports later surfaced of prisoners from other jails throughout Egypt escaping or trying to escape. The authorities dismantled the police and then apparently left the prisons ‘unguarded’, although there are mixed reports of how ‘unguarded’ they actually were. Repeatedly television news networks report that prisoners are on the loose and heading into Cairo.

And that night on Al Jazeera English there are ‘confirmed reports’ that a group of neighborhood vigilantes captured ‘would-be looters’ in Heliopolis, an upscale neighborhood of Cairo, and found security service IDs on them. Public suspicion begins to surface that the security services are behind this, as ‘criminal gangs’ and their relations with the police throughout Egypt are not unknown; plus, demonstrators in Tunisia were similarly confronted with a government strategy to vandalize select places and cause panic and fear among the public.

On Sunday, the 30^th, the opposition creates a 10-person committee for a ‘transitional government’. The committee is composed of different opposition parties (including El Baradei’s National Coalition for Change, the leftist Nasser Party, the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the youth leading the protests online, among others). The Muslim Brotherhood comes out to publicly support El Baradei as ‘spokesperson’ for the opposition, and El Baradei comes out to join the protestors in Tahrir Square and speaks before them, rallying the cause of the opposition.

Protests continue not just in Cairo but throughout Egypt – in Port Said, Suez, Alexandria, among other smaller cities. The main demand of the protests on Sunday continued to be Mubarak out! إرحل مبارك, mimicking the protestors in Tunisia.

The curfew is extended by one hour, starting at 3pm not 4pm. Demonstrating its control even more, at the time of curfew the military flies fighter jets over downtown Cairo (including Tahrir Square), so low that the entire area shakes. Following the fighter jets is a presidential helicopter, flying even lower over the crowds, only to then fly away.

Mubaraks first directive to the new Prime Minister Shafiq is to cut inflation, cut prices and keep subsidies!

On Sunday the United States government is being more vocal about the need for a new government, and that it prefers any democratic government except one dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama and Clinton begin to defend the US’s position to Egypt vis-à-vis the regime’s human rights violations.

Fears of a financial crisis – a run on the banks – loom. The banks and stock exchange are closed and will continue to be.

Fears continue of nighttime raids by ‘looters’ and ‘escaped’ prisoners. Television reports show government offices, shops and offices being ransacked. One of the main offices of Ahmed Ezz, the steel magnate and NDP stalwart, is completely dismantled. The commercial heart of Mohandiseen – with its many regional and international food and clothes shops – is also heavily ransacked.

Gunshots are heard throughout the night, into the early morning. In our area, where we were staying, the shots likely came from the nearby, local prison. Accounts from one neighborhood vigilante are that the army and prisoners were clashing; as prisoners tried to escape the prison the army lambasted the prisoners within. Some prisoners who escaped are severely beaten (one to death) by the army, and then taken to the military prison. The vigilante believes that the rest of the prisoners stuck inside were likely killed.

Other (word of mouth) non-television news is of prisoners escaping from prison after being stuck inside with no food for three days. People were helping the prisoners by feeding and clothing them.

We were expecting the police to come back to Cairo on Monday, the 31^st, as the Ministry of Interior called for the police to return to their posts the day before, but it appears that only the traffic police returned to key intersections in the downtown area, as they were not spotted in other areas of the city.

Protests in Cairo seem to remain calm throughout the day, but in Alexandria things heat up. Apparently, the army gets involved (‘firing into’ the crowds?), and Marshall Law is imposed in the city. A “million man” march is called for on Tuesday, headed by the youth April the 6^th movement. The opposition reject the new Cabinet that has been appointed and is seen on television meeting with President Mubarak.

Israel begins to speak out about events in Egypt, expressing concerns. Netanyahu gives a public address supporting Mubarak. The Israeli government gives the go-ahead for Egypt to move tanks into (North?) Sinai.

There appear to be rumors circulated by the Egyptian state that non-Egyptians are behind the vandalism and looting. US media as well as Egyptian state television are circulating these rumors. One in the US television media is that Iraqis are coming into Egypt to infiltrate the demonstrations. Another in the US internet media was of Bedouins taking over a police installation, stealing weapons, and charging onto Cairo to take over the government. Egyptian state media is pressing that those creating ‘havoc’ are non-Egyptian (possibly tied to Al Qaida, hence the Iraqi rumor?).

Fears of food shortages generate intense momentum on Monday. News reports of food shortages spark fears and fears spark long bread lines, shortages of tomatoes – and yet, prices appear to be relatively stable.

Days 2 and 3...Protests Continue!

Protests continue in Egypt, defying the authorities who vow to clamp down fiercely on any signs of protest. Protests continued yesterday, 26 January, despite the continued block on Twitter and what appears to be an intermittent block on Facebook and a steeped up presence of security forces throughout Cairo, Suez and other parts of the country. A third protestor reportedly died in Suez and angry protestors gathered at the morgue demanding his body, as they claimed that the protestor had been shot by police.

Clearer evidence of police abuses beginning on the 25th have surfaced. The Guardian reporter in Cairo was present in downtown Cairo in the late night of the 25th when protestors set fire to a police vehicle – or perhaps it is more accurate to state that the vehicle became inflamed, as the reporter has not stated that he saw protestors actually lighting it. Plain clothed security forces surrounded him and the others, beat them and hauled them into a police vehicle. They were detained for hours, and driven to a security forces headquarters in the desert. They were abused and cursed at, one protestor fell into a coma in the security van. For a live audio of the event, click here.

Apparently, this is a common response from the police in the face of protestors. They are beaten and then sent to the desert, sometimes robbed of all of their possessions and left there. There were unconfirmed reports of other similar incidents during the later part of the day, on the 25th.

The government itself is confirming that 860 people have been ‘rounded up’ by police, with at least a couple of hundred being released as of last night (on the 26th). So detentions have been much more widespread than what I reported in the entry yesterday.

Protestors are vowing not to stop, while the regime is vowing to clamp down on all dissent. They are now calling for an even larger day of demonstrations on Friday, following Friday’s prayer.

Now that it is clear that protests will not let up Western governments are beginning to change their tone. From the normal, “We hope that both parties will show restraint,” to “We urge the Egyptian government to allow the Egyptian people to express their will fully.” The US government, who confirmed its faith that the Egyptian government is stable on the afternoon of the 25th and that Mubarak remains a close ally in the region the following day, later that same day (on Wednesday) made an ‘about face’ and began calling on the Mubarak regime to quickly implement reforms.

We cheer on Egyptian protestors throughout the country and we hope that Friday brings a million to continue the momentum that Tunisians have generated!

Almasryeen! Almasryeen!

Yesterday, the 25th of January, stretching into the early morning was inspiring. Yes, Egyptians you have been inspired and you inspire. “The day of anger” became a day of love and hope and aspiration. A day of possibilities.

I followed the events all day, from the morning when the protests/marches began until the evening when demonstrations continued throughout Egypt, in Alexandria, Cairo, Mahalla, Mansoura. I followed on Facebook (“We are all Khaled Said”) and Twitter (3arabawy), as well as the Guardian and CNN for live updates.

In the morning marches the word was out that the Mubarak regime gave the unprecedented ‘go ahead’ to protestors, in the case of a restrain from vandalism. And marches spread and spread throughout Cairo – in Ramses, Nile Cornish, Bulaq, Mohandiseen, Dokki, Shobra, Dar El Salam. At one point thousands and thousands (an unconfirmed report of 20,000!) converged on Gamat Dowal Alarabiya Street in Mohandiseen. And more marchers converged, to convene at Tahrir, in front of the Parliament.

Outside of Cairo protests started early on in Assuit and Sinai. Then, later demonstrations exploded in Mahalla, Suez, Alexandria.

By mid-afternoon, when the police were “overwhelmed” by the numbers, minute by minute reports began to come out of ‘clashes’… The police began to use tear gas, rubber bullets. Protestors were trying to break down the police cordons and clashes ensued. Reports are that both police and protestors were throwing rocks. The police began to beat protestors, arrest them (it seems at least some of the arrests were selective, targeting public opposition figures and known activists).

And then the phone lines began to be cut. Twitter was down. Facebook stayed open all day and night, but I could no longer follow Twitter and I could not reach my friends by phone in Mounira/Dokki/AlMarg. The large group of protestors who convened at Tahrir by late afternoon confirmed that most phone lines were cut. TEData had cut Twitter – and until now there is no access.

Protestors began to tear down posters of Hosni Mubarak (in Mahalla and Alexandria) and advertisements for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)(in Cairo, near to the Parliament). Throughout the day people were sending in/posting videos caught by their mobiles of protestors chanting “Ra7l” like the protestors in Tunisia. “Out, Mubarak!” “Mesh 3ayzeen’ak (We don’t want you)!” As the international media began to get on the scene more of people’s voices were broadcast. The activist/blogger-reporters and the protestors alike were surprised by the showing. They were surprised that so many Egyptians came out to participate – young and middle aged and old, unemployed and employed, professional and working class.

A large group convened at Tahrir, vowing to take over the Parliament and then to stage a sit-in overnight. The reports that I read this morning (and video clips that I watched) were that in the early morning hours the police waged a massive clampdown with tear gas, in an effort to disperse the protestors. At this point it appears that Tahrir has been cleared, at least for the time being. And three people total are reported dead – two protestors and one police officer.

The day of demonstrations – the “day of the beginning of the revolution” – seems to be very well organized, largely through the social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook) a couple of weeks prior. It was non-violent on the part of protestors, and especially in the morning marches I saw families present – men and women with their children. And really throughout the day I read of people coming to the demonstrations with their parents, their children. It was not a day for and by “the young people” as Al Baradei claimed on CNN, but a day for and by THE PEOPLE. And there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this protest was orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, as the Mubarak Administration has claimed. The Brotherhood has even stated publicly that they would not actively participate.

And the organizers chose the 25th – Police Day – in a symbolic gesture: Will the police be on the side of Egyptians at this point in history as they were in 1951, when they defended Egyptians against the British?!

Like the protests in Tunisia, most pictures show middle age men – raising their voices, raising their fists, walking side by side, running through the streets. I felt such joy for these men, to be expressing their anger and frustrations in union, to take over public spaces that are so tightly controlled (even for just a bit), to run ‘freely’. It must have been an unforgettable day for them, a day of elation. Not just for these men, of course, but for all those who took part.

And all of us who support their demands we support that the protests continue. On and on and on until demands are met! We will do what we must do to support the aspirations and rights of Egyptians! Tell us how…

Tunisians – You are for the world and with the world

There is a Hebrew proverb: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” I would add that in this era – of neoliberalism – of spiraling inequality, deteriorating and denying democratic orders, a global elite class ‘gone mad’, corporate reign – we may say that “Whoever revolts saves the world entire.”

Tunisians, for those who have risked your security and lives, you are acting for the world and with the world. You are an inspiration not just to the Arab world but to all of us who seek popular and just control over our political and social world.

As you are continuing to do, push on to end the dictatorship, to heal from the long and deep wounds of the dictatorial regime. Push on and on, keep making your demands heard, don’t let the revolution end here. And we, those of us ‘onlookers’, we will press the international community to support the popularly-demanded changes that the revolution calls for – not superficial measures like changing heads of seats that those ‘who fear’ desire.

And I urge Tunisians, not to separate the ‘political’ from the ‘economic’. This is a revolution not just about the human rights abuses and corruption of the Ben Ali regime; this is a revolution against a neoliberal order that is propping up these vary abuses – and is siphoning workers to the informal, deadening labor rights in all economic spheres, collapsing the productive capacities of countries to mere ‘extractive’ and export driven industries. This is about standing up against economic policies that the regime has backed with pressure and ‘support’ from the West.

Don’t make the same mistakes as the South Africans, the new leaders of the post-apartheid era who had spent a life time fighting against apartheid let their economic agenda fall away as they focused on a political agenda of fair elections, equal suffrage, full human rights. With ‘guidance’ from the international community, the leaders of the early post-apartheid era left in place constitutional provisions that made a redistributive program nearly impossible legally. Quickly the new South African government got pushed into an agenda of structural adjustments, and the decades and decades of an anti-apartheid struggle for redistributive justice became a lost dream.

The fact that three commissions have been formed in the Tunisia revolutionary transition and that all three are devoted to political and constitutional reforms (human rights, corruption, etc.) – is disconcerting. If the Tunisian government and people ‘in the making’ do not draw the connections between political and constitutional reforms and economic reforms, then indeed Western backing and meddling will continue as will deep disillusion.

In his Counterpunch article, Esam El-Amin only got it partially right: “The West’s Little Dictator” fully supported their Tunisian ally Ben Ali because he abided by their War on Terror and pro-Israel agenda, and more importantly, the Ben Ali regime complied with a neoliberal agenda of free trade, privatization, and liberalization that has directly benefited the Mafia regime. And as long as the new governing powers do not threaten this agenda, then the West will continue to back it and manipulate national policy in favor of it. Our common struggles must lie here, recognizing the intimate dance between economic, political and constitutional orders.

A longer hiatus than expected...back to blogging!

As one of the largest of the world’s multinationals, Vodafone gets plenty of attention from cheerleaders and critics alike – but not in the way that it should.

If we are reading the Financial Times, we will perhaps get a sense of how big and powerful Vodafone is in the business world. Vodafone has been forming partner network agreements with and buying majority holdings in national-based telecommunications operators throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Vodafone is spreading its wings with the breathtaking span of the globe, becoming the world’s largest mobile phone group with sales of more than US $ 58 billion and a market value of more than US $ 112 billion.

And with the news comes plenty of criticism. Customers in the UK, for example, expressed their grievances over Vodafone’s mobile call cost increase without any prior notification. We know about shareholders’ disgust at a few dozen people becoming extraordinarily wealthy from Vodafone’s acquisition of Mannesmann. We even hear criticism from bankers and investors, who, in 2005, accused Vodafone of being overly aggressive in the bond markets by issuing a US $ 880 million bond.

The veneer of its imperturbability begins to peel away, revealing cracks at the seams.

However, little is made public of the internal workings of Vodafone, except perhaps for board-CEO clashes, and yet, much is revealed from the inside, not only of Vodafone but of our times.

In Egypt the word on the street – among mini-bus drivers, recent college graduates and middle class professionals alike – is that Vodafone is one of the best companies to work for. The salaries are among the highest, the benefits among the most comprehensive, promotions and perks common.

Beyond this exclusive club of formal employment, however, lies a pool of subcontracted workers. Subcontractors with Vodafone hire workers with no contracts or benefits. In fact, being a non-Vodafone employee of Vodafone may be described as driving through a hurricane with a quick entrance and an exit that does not come quickly enough.

To illustrate, this year half of one cohort of Vodafone call center agents, hired by subcontracted employment agencies, left the job within the first three months – and about half of these employees left during or at the completion of the first month of training.

Non-married students and foreigners with varying levels of competent English language skills are attracted to Vodafone’s call center agent positions because the wage is nearly two times the competitive wage of entry-level professional positions in private firms in Cairo. It is slightly above the competitive rate of call center wages (excluding commissions).

Why then such high turnover? There are three ways to frame the answer: First, these unofficial employees are without a contract and ‘sign up’ for the job by signing away their rights and non-work life. Vodafone has expectations and requirements of its call center agents, and yet, does not make most of these known or clear. At the same time, Vodafone holds its agents responsible for what remains unspoken. For example, if an agent is absent from work two days in a row (without prior authorization), three days of pay is taken from the agent’s pay check. Without a contract, agents often only ‘discover’ this when they are confronted with the fact that they did not get paid for a day that they worked.

It is an infuriating double standard: The employer is not held accountable for anything, and at the same time, holds the employees responsible.

Second, the ‘your time is our time’ principle holds: The employee’s own time is at the whim of the employer. Call center agents are expected to stay until their supervisors tell them that they are finished for the day, even if that requires them to stay past their shift. The schedule regularly changes and the next week’s schedule remains unknown until the day/night of the next shift, making advanced non-work scheduling impossible. Agents are expected to arrive to the Vodafone premises 30 minutes before the ‘official’(i.e. paid) start of their shift, and they are expected to upload all applications within 15 minutes of the start. All of this is the employees’ time, taken for free by Vodafone.

Employees who rely on Vodafone transportation often arrive an hour before the start of the shift, spending three and a half to four hours total en route to and from Vodafone premises. Streamlining transportation costs, Vodafone pick-ups and drop-offs are at unreasonable times, such as a pick-up two hours before a shift at 4 in the morning! In the end employees spend nearly all of their waking hours during the work week either at work or going to and from work.

Third, the great contradiction of the post-Fordist era – the contradictory pull between ‘efficiency’ and ‘quality’ – is also borne squarely on the shoulders of the call center agents and their supervisors applying the pressure. This pressure to meet efficiency targets comes at the expense of quality customer service.

The streamlining of personnel costs, plus the general push to the bottom in terms of quality in the design to production to distribution stages, translates into a near constant furry of customer calls coupled with the constant pressure to get rid of the customers as quickly as possible.

In a degraded work environment, such as that in Egypt, this type of humiliating work becomes not only permissible but desirable. As Egypt’s General Authority for Investment proudly claims, Egypt’s wages are “among the most competitive in the region.” Or in other words, labour conditions are among the worst in the region.

But it is not as if workers in Egypt are just swallowing it. For the last five years there has been unprecedented protest among Egyptian workers – from factory workers to professionals – for public sector layoffs and low wages. And of course less dramatic than collective protest is saying high and dry ‘good bye’. The call center agent job may be attractive but for many its attraction wears quickly. The agents leave and Vodafone loses. There is no stability for workers but there is also no loyalty for employers, who then face hiring and training an incoming cohort.

Struggles are and should be waged for agreed-upon work conditions, with full employment rights and dignity of the person. However, we must not stop at the door of multinationals.

After all, Vodafone reflects and informs trends in the corporate world – of a two-tiered labor force (those with contracts and those without), of a revolving door (promises turned into grievances), of low costs and low quality. Low in-country investment and contributions to anything that may be called “development.”

This trend is not exclusive to the corporate world. Vodafone Egypt is part and parcel of the larger world of work, in Egypt and beyond. The work at Vodafone’s call centres is characteristic of work in the private and public sectors, in a neo-liberal era of stripped labour rights, steep hierarchy and weak stability.

Vodafone Egypt provides its call centre agents not a training befit of the latest approaches to work-based learning, but rather a run of the mill training en par with a 9th grade classroom in any private school in Egypt – a learning environment of control, that strips students of their sense of self and capabilities – an environment entirely befitting of work in Egypt.

It is exactly the privatization and liberalization policies that have propped up such an environment to which our attention and struggles must extend. More than two decades of such policies have created a regulatory framework that has only reinforced a culture of hierarchy and control, leaving workers of all stripes with few protections and rights. Deregulation of the private sector has ended up attracting multinationals like Vodafone to Egypt and at the same time propping up entirely undemocratic systems of governance and operation.

Plus, if we are only to point our fingers at Vodafone, the multinational may skip bail with the next forecast, just like Vodafone is currently considering. Good bye to Egypt, hello to India.

Bodies II

I felt that I did not do justice to Orbach’s book in the first entry, hence, this “Bodies” entry clarification.

Orbach is actually advancing two arguments in her 2009 book, the first of which is that “bodies are and always have been shaped according to the specific cultural moment,” and the second being what I summarized in the previous entry – how our body sense or our relationship to our bodies is being shaped at this cultural moment.

In other words, Orbach is addressing the question of “why bodies?!” If in this cultural moment, there is intense commercialization and commodification and distress over the body – why the body? What is it about this relationship that is important or vulnerable?

A first point: Everything from how we walk to the way we speak to what we eat to how we mark ourselves – all are indications of bodies belonging to a certain time and place.

A second point: There is a biological projection onto the body. For instance, scientific studies have shown that the human body is capable of feeling what is not there, such as feeling a limb that is no longer. Another example is how human infants learn to walk, develop their cultural specific gaits and so on. Humans may not have a mirror neuron system, but Orbach contends that there clearly appears to be a cellular function of how to move by observation before one has made the movement.

From this Orbach weaves together a delicate telling of how intricately our emotions and bodies are tied together. One way in which she illustrates the body-mind complex is by making a case for the importance of touch – touch being “the most basic and fundamental of human experiences.”

Rene Spitz, a Hungarian-born psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, reported from a wartime hospital in the 1940s that babies who received the same feeding and changing but were closer to the nurses’ station and received more touches had a higher rate of survival. Spitz also compared babies raised by mothers in a penal institution who were raised by their mothers the first year of their lives with babies who were raised in a hospital who had less than an eighth of an individual nurse’s attention. The babies raised in the hospital suffered from illness or skin diseases as well as development lags.

Another example: Scientists have discovered that the physical process of touching raises the level of a bonding hormone, oxytocin. Oxytocin helps us be receptive to soothing, calming and closeness. In contrast, those exposed to much stress or brutal touch have raised levels of the stress-related hormone called cortisol. The effects of high cortisol can be permanently damaging, because the person is readied to seek out stress. And the way stress is relieved is by increased stress, as the body’s opiates kick in with heightened stress.

A discomforting argument that she is making is that how we are touched and generally the physical sense of our caregivers as young people deeply affects our relationship to our bodies as adults. In other words, it is not just that we as young people are exposed to disquieting images on the television, but that we are disquieted in part because of the dis-ease carried from the generation of our parents.

This argument may seem to put extraordinary responsibility on the caregiver for an epidemic as large as body distress! However, the author’s point is more profound. Again, we must move away from “thinking of our bodies as just existing, propelled to grow by reasonable nutrition and genetic inheritance,” and rather think of them as part of a cultural moment with its emotions, neurosis, preoccupations. For Orbach we can not understand the disquietude of the ‘acceptable body’ today – and its particularly tight contours for girls and women – if we do not understand the historical trajectory of the unhappy physical sense of selves.

And this seems to be more profoundly revealing than any narrow interpretation of personality formation that derives from story telling of the modern self.