From: barnhart@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Mr. Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS:EGYPT: POVERTY GIVES RISE TO ISLAMIC MILITANCY
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 01:19:51 GMT
Organization: Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A.

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Area: Africa, southern
Title: EGYPT: POVERTY GIVES RISE TO ISLAMIC MILITANCY


an inter press service feature

by hani shukrallah

cairo, dec 14 (ips) -- while egyptian police continued their
massive operation against islamic fundamentalists in the
low-income suburb of imbaba here, the cairo international film
festival sunday awarded its second prize to a local film which
portrays lives of egyptian youths on the far fringe of society.

the three young ''heroes'' of radwan el-kashef's 'violets are
blue' are by no means islamist militants. they drink cheap local
brandy in abundance, smoke dope, steal when they can and have
illicit love affairs. but they are exactly the stuff that
today's islamists militants are made of.

two of them are unemployed and the third, an unskilled lab
worker, is dismissed from his job after stealing rabbits and
selling them at a local market to supplement his low wages.

the three heroes share a tiny one-roomed shanty dwelling in
one of cairo's sprawling, poverty-stricken districts, which have
the singular feature of looking neither urban nor rural, but a
nightmare combination of the two.

their commmon lot, shared with millions of other youths in
the country, is that they live in a society that has shut before
them all avenues to a better life.

official statements and commentaries in the press have lately
been focusing on the fact that the bulk of islamist militants of
al-gama'a al-islamiya movement, rounded up by the police in
their hundreds during the past few weeks, are young men aged
between 16 and 22 years.

if this has given interior minister abdel-halim moussa cause
to describe them as ''hoodlums with neither political nor
religious awareness'', it is deemed ''only natural'' by nabil
abdel-fattah.

an expert at the al-ahram centre for political and strategic
studies and the author of 'bombs and qurans', a well-known book
on the militant islamists movement in egypt, abdel-fattah says
the more militant wing of the islamist movement is supported by
the most disadvantaged section of society -- unemployed youths.

he notes that the moderate mainstream muslim brotherhood
enjoys fairly wide support among the middle classes and
professionals, including doctors, engineers, pharmacists,
lawyers, university staff clubs and student unions. (more/ips)


egypt: poverty (2)

''a geopolitical map of egypt provides a stark indication of
this (situation)'', he argues, noting strongholds of the al
gama'a al-islamiya movement in upper egypt where unemployment
and extreme poverty are rampant, and in such districts of cairo
as imbaba, bulak el-dakrour, and ain shams.

these latter districts are a special case in point, according
to abdel-fattah. they are neither working class districts, nor
are they among the megalopolis' traditional low-income areas,
mostly made up of trades people and low income professionals.

they are largely new developments which mushroomed during the
past two decads on the basis of unlicensed construction, called
''irregular housing'' which annexed several villages that used
to be cairo's green belt.

created to meet the demand of millions of rural migrants, the
new suburbs offer a bewildering architectural tangle where
rickety 10-storey buildings stand next to village mud houses.

so powerful has the militant islamist influence been in
imbaba that it is widely described as ''a state within a
state''. within its confines young men, as dispossessed and
without hope as the heroes of 'violets are blue', rule.

with the police -- up to last week's massive operation --
apparently adopting a policy ''live and let live'', the members
of the al-gama'a al-islamiya in imbaba patrolled the district
with faces covered, demanded and received a special tax or
''protection money'' from the residents.

they also organised armed demonstrations, at least once a
week, and banned all activities, such as singing and dancing at
weddings, which they considered unislamic.

the local emir (chief) of the gama'a in imbaba used to
receive foreign and egyptian journalists, to whom he would
openly claim the movement's responsibility for such acts as the
assasination of secularist writer dr farag foda, and the latest
wave of armed attacks on tourists in upper egypt.

he also vowed: ''we will speak to these groups of violence
and terrorism only with force and we will deal with them only
with weapons''.

the language of force, which human rights groups say entails
wide scale violations of human rights standards, can have no
effect on what is believed to be ''the seeds of rebellion''.

these lie in the increasing poverty and destitution that have
accompanied, during the last 18 months, the implementation of
the international monetary fund's prescription for economic
structural adjustment. (end/ips/hs/ar/92)