“Violence hit the streets of Cairo today after a demonstration by 1,000 industrial workers against low pay and high living costs developed into a full-scale riot... Washington Post correspondent Michael Tingay reported from Cairo January 1.

“The central security forces arrived in truckloads to quell the rioters, who tore up paving stones and smashed windows, halting traffic and disrupting Cairo’s Liberation Square and the surrounding areas near Egypt’s Parliament building and ministries.”

The workers were mostly from the Helwan iron and steel complex about fifteen miles south of Cairo, and they were joined by several hundred students and a number of passersby. The demonstrators shouted slogans as they marched on Liberation Square: “Down with the high cost of living,” “Sadat, meat costs £2 a kilo [about US$5.50],” “Nasser, where are you?” “So where is socialism?”

Much of the anger was directed at Premier Abdel Aziz Hegazi for failing to provide long-demanded wage increases in the budget adopted December 31 by the People’s Council (parliament): “Hegazi out!” “Hegazi is incompetent,” “Hegazi, Hegazi, your era is like the Nazis.”

Armed with shields, helmets, and clubs, and firing tear-gas grenades, the police charged the demonstrators, breaking them up into small groups and forcing them down separate streets.

Newssheets published by students at Cairo University the following day said the workers began their demonstration intending to gather peaceably in front of the offices of a daily newspaper to demand publication of their grievances. A worker on the demonstration interviewed by the Washington Post described the worsening economic plight confronting him, and went on:

“We tried to go to the National Assembly meeting. We asked to speak to the speaker of the Assembly, Mr. Sayed Marei, but the area was cordoned off.

“The march moved on to the Interior Ministry, where the minister, Mamdouh Salem, addressed the crowds for 15 minutes with a megaphone. He told us, ‘Your problems will be solved and we take note of your demands.’ Then the minister of war production told us, ‘Go back to your factories.’“

According to the Post, it was after this address that the violent clashes with the security forces took place. The demonstrators stoned buses and private cars. They smashed the windows of a building of the American University; the Soviet bookshop; Air France, Tunis Air, and Libyan Airways; scores of small shops; the government Tahrir Club, where diplomatic receptions are held; and a district office of the Arab Socialist Union, the country’s only legal political party.

That night the government issued a decree banning all demonstrations and warning that it would “deal firmly with all forms of violence.” It said that forty-eight persons had been arrested and that two demonstrators and several policemen had been injured. The statement also claimed that a train on the Helwan line had been damaged, as well as fifteen private cars, twenty-six city buses, and nineteen stores.

Thousands of spectators watched the demonstration in Liberation Square from an overhead pedestrian bridge. The motives of the demonstrators would have been well understood, noted Le Monde of January 3, since “the majority of the townspeople, not to speak of those from the country, suffer more and more from the rising cost of living – which increased about 50 percent since October 1973 – from the black market, and from the scarcity of essential products such as tea, rice, sugar, soap, etc.” The high prices of shoes (about $17 a pair) and meat are particularly resented.

Le Monde also pointed out that the demonstration was even more significant since “the Helwan workers, the cherished children of Nasserism, have a privileged life with their pay of £20 a month (about $55), which is nearly double the minimum salary paid in industry.”

Recent government measures, such as massive imports of wheat or forced reduction of the price of certain items of clothing, have not made much difference. In fact, the liberalized economic policies the government introduced to attract investment have only served to further widen the gap between rich and poor. Stores are stocked with goods that the vast majority of Egyptians cannot possibly afford.

“The cleavage between those who benefit from the economic liberalization and those who have stayed poor was graphically demonstrated in Liberation Square this morning,” reported Henry Tanner in a January 1 dispatch from Cairo to the New York Times.

“A gleaming new American car, twice as big as most others in Cairo, drove unsuspectingly into the square while the crowd was still milling around. A rock thrown from the pedestrian overpass smashed onto its spotless hood. The driver panicked, tried a fast U-turn and skidded into a lamppost. He left his car and ran across the square without looking back.”

Discontent has been simmering among the Egyptian masses for several months. A prelude to the Cairo demonstration came on December 22, when seventeen persons were arrested in Port Said during celebrations commemorating the withdrawal of British and French invasion forces during the 1956 Suez war. On December 27 in downtown Cairo police also clashed with large crowds who wanted to join a funeral procession for War Minister Marshal Ahmed Ismail. On December 28 similar disturbances occurred during a mass funeral for Farid Atrash, a popular folk singer.

On January 1, it was reported that separate protests erupted in other parts of Cairo when news of the large demonstration arrived. Hundreds of students at Cairo University assembled the following day to demonstrate their solidarity with the Helwan workers. The students shouted slogans demanding that the workers be granted the right to strike. They were then dispersed by security forces sent rapidly to the spot.

Wall newspapers printed by the students reported that the workers also demanded the replacement of their union leaders, whom they accused of not defending their interests. The January 4 Le Monde reported that the agitation continued inside the university throughout the morning. Some classes were shut down, and continuous meetings were held in the main amphitheater. On January 4, similar demonstrations took place at Cairo and Ain Shems universities, the January 6 Christian Science Monitor reported.

The regime has responded with a harsh crackdown. More arrests were made, and a “plot” discovered. The official Middle East News Agency (MENA) announced January 5 that 120 persons had been questioned, fifty-six had been charged with “anti-state” activities, and seven were regarded as actual “ringleaders” in the demonstration. United Press International quoted sources who said more than 400 persons had been jailed, but an official in the Interior Ministry denied this as “exaggerated.”

The previous day MENA had announced the discovery of a “new Communist organization.” Pamphlets attacking President Sadat’s regime were seized, the agency added. There was no further amplification on the nature of the new organization. However, the New York Times reported that “government officials and members of the National Assembly are known to have used the term ‘Trotskyites’... in connection with the alleged ringleaders of the riot. This has been interpreted as an effort to make it clear that the Government is not blaming Communists who are under Soviet influence.”

The January 1 action was the most significant protest against the regime since the student demonstrations of 1971. The January 3 Le Monde described it as “a severe warning to the authorities.” One anti-Sadat slogan chanted by the demonstrators summed up the new angry mood of the masses – increasing disillusion with Cairo’s failure to regain the territory seized by the Zionists and mounting discontent with their economic hardships. “Hero of the crossing,” they shouted, “where is our breakfast?”

Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1975/IP1302.pdf#page=22&view=FitV,3