Steering Committee Director Prof. Ibrahim ElNur Prof. AbdelAziz EzzelArab Prof. Mahmoud Farag Founding Editor Prof. Walid Kazziha Dina Khalifa Prof. Hani Sayed Prof. Jayme Spencer Editor Lina Attalah Prof. Herbert Thompson Contributors Founding Scholars Mohamed Abdel Gawad Prof. Ellis Goldberg Amr Abdel Rahman Hoda Baraka Prof. Roger Owen Dina Bishara Prof. Robert Tignor Jano Charbel Prof. Robert Vitalis Ahmad Diaa Ahmad Eid Muhammad Eid Founding Crew Kismet el-Husseiny Omar Cheta Fouad Halbouni Karim el-Sayed Fady Ishak Mustafa Hefny Wael Ismail Mohamed Menza Dina Khalifa Ahmad Metwally Wael Ismail Alia Mossallam Dina Waked Amr Nasr el-Din Roberto Pitea SaifAllah Rabie Supporting Institutes Yara Sallam Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard Nader Shenouda University (In consortium with AUC) Andrew Wilcox Near East Studies Program, Layout and Design Princeton University Omar Mostafa Middle East Center, University of Pennsylvania Logo Design Middle East Center, Nadine Kenawy University of Washington EHBRC Crew Global Business Center, Eman Khairy, administrative manager University of Washington Naguib Megally, transcriber Princeton Institute for International and Tamr Rizkallah, associate director Regional Studies, Board Princeton University Dr. Adel Gazarin Office of Provost, AUC Mr. Samir Allam Office of Dean of the School of Business, Prof. AbdelAziz EzzelArab Prof. Roger Owen Economics and Communication, AUC Provost Tim Sullivan Economics Department, AUC FALL 2007 FALL 2 The Chronicles From the Editor 4 Networks of Support 5 Historical Perspectives Documenting Today: Da’m Initiative; the Business of Disseminating Knowledge 7 The Chronicles Sounding Board:Egypt’s Private Bankers in the 19th Century 10 From Our Archives From Steam to Diesel: The Revamping of Egypt’s Railways 14 Table of Content Table 100 Years of Cafe Riche: A Memory of the City 17 History in the Making In the Guise of Economic Reform: The Privatization of Banque du Caire 22 And Who Will Speak for the Youth: Emerging Youth Movements 27 Expanding to Suburbia: Cairo’s News Suburbs 32 Selling Healthcare: The Privatization of the Health Insurance Sector 36 On the Fringes of a City: A Visit to Ain al-Sira 40 Consumers’ Benevolence: Rise of Consumer Activism 42 Defying Government Intervention: Egypt’s Workers Rise to the Forefront of Dissent 44 Wadna Ne’ish: Experiencing the Bedouins’ Plea 48 Egypt’s Thirst Revolution: Water Shortage Raises Temper Across the Nation 51 For the Sake of a “Clean Development”: New Approach to Realize Sustainable Development 54 Across the Region Drugs for Development: the Qat Industry and Yemen’s Economic Development 58 More than Just Zeal: Hizbullah as a Resource Distributor in Shiite Areas of Lebanon 61 Business Not As Usual Glimpses of Life: Interview with Adel Gazarin on his Interest in Photography 64 Visual Alternatives: The Rise of Independent Cinema in Egypt 67 Spontaneous Art from the Deep South: Hassan al-Sharq’s Struggle to Let His Art Speak 71 In the Pipeline The Economic Participation of Women in Egypt: Evidence from a Segmented Labor Market 75 Slum Politics: Cairo’s New Modes of Informal Politics and the Lesser Notables 82 Speaking in the Language of Loss: Stories about the Everyday and its Burdens among Ce- ment Carriers in Saft al-Laban 86 Those are Liberated Territories: Ruminations on Everyday Forms of Resistance in Contem- porary Egypt 91 Reviews First Time on the Margins: A Commercial Film Sheds Lights on Life in the Slums 98 Egypt’s Amateur Historian: A Reading in Ahmad Sadiq Saad’s Work 100 Archives 103 FALL 2007 FALL The Chronicles 3 From the Editor When we gathered last summer to discuss the provisional substantial build-up for the fall issue of the Chronicles, we were sound surround by strikes. These strikes weren’t taken from their traditional Cairene hotspots, but from elsewhere, in the country side and in governorates other than Cairo. Next to Egypt’s eastern gate, Bedouin communities were protesting their marginalization. In different in- dustrial lots, the workers were protesting their dire living conditions. And in scattered quarters of the nation, regular citizens gathered to protest the shortage in running water, in what was later referred to in the media as “the revolution of the thirsty”. During an oral history session with Saad Zaghloul, a long time militant whose struggle dates back to fighting the British occupiers in the 1940s, he ended his nar- rative by a catching observation. “Today, Egypt is pregnant with a revolution,” he told us. While we are in no position to claim that we are witnessing the naissance of a fully-fledged revolution, those dispersed acts of rebellion provided us with a thrust to closely observe today’s trends of dissi- dence. Dissidence became the keyword of this issue of the Chronicles and an umbrella, under which we found ourselves looking for a wide array of articles, from the workers and the Bedouin strikes, to consumers’ activism and reaching out to young filmmakers on the margins of mainstream cinema. Ac- cordingly, the issue gave weight to the History in the Making section, which was created by the found- ers of the Chronicles to stop at current events and examine how they can be placed in a historic context and what connotations they might have for the future. In the meantime, we also kept on revisiting the past with the Historic Perspectives section, where we propose thorough studies on the careers of foreign resident private bankers who settled in Egypt in the 19th century. Through the section In the Pipeline, the Chronicles continue to offer a forum where young scholars share their MA and PhD work in progress. In this issue, we learn about women eco- nomic participation, informal polities, modes of resistance, and the every day life of cement workers. We took our observations beyond the Egyptian landscape through the new section, Across the Region, from which we brought two stories, one from Lebanon and the other from Yemen. This issue came to light following the full departure of its founding crew to the academic and corporate worlds. However, the essence of its continuation stems from the outlet that this crew has created to cater to the imagination of tens of fellow young and senior scholars. Call for Contributions The Chronicles welcomes contributing writers for its up-coming issue, to come out in March 2008. EBHRC adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to the studying and reading of history. We accept articles ranging from 1500 to 3000 words, dealing with a wide array of Middle East issues, from development, to socio-economic history, to political economy. We are particularly interested in enterprise history, institutional history, labor history, biographic pieces on policy makers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, family businesses and small businesses. We are also interested in articles touching on the dynamic rela- tionship between business and culture as well as sectoral topics such as the textile or the railroad indus- try. We equally care about any topics that use oral history as a tool for collection of primary historical records. FALL 2007 FALL 4 The Chronicles Networks of Support Harvard Signs Consortium Agreement in Support of EBHRC WAEL ISMA I L MA I N MI DDLE EAST STUD I ES , THE AMER I CAN UN I VERS I TY I N CA I RO Some of the attendees have been part of the cen- he Fourth annual AUC Fo- tre’s first set of interviews such as former Prime rum on the economic and Minister Dr. Aziz Sidqi and the current Chair- T man of the Egyptian Businessmen Association business history of Egypt held by Dr. Adel Gazarin. The ceremony was also wit- nessed by members of the Egyptian business the Economic and Business His- community and public officials, some of whom tory Research Centre (EBHRC) have already given their accounts to the centre, such as Mr. Fouad Sultan, Mr. Mansour Hasan, witnessed the signing of a consor- Mr. Samir Allam, Dr. Ibrahim Fawzy, Dr. Mostafa tium agreement between AUC Kamal Tolba, Mr. Ali Negm and Dr. Abdel Aziz Hegazy. Mr. Saad Hagras and Mr. Hazem Sherif and Harvard University on 8 May were also present, as well as a clique of academ- 2007 that governs the operations ics from both inside and outside the AUC com- munity. The presence of these figures and oth- of EBHRC. The agreement was ers shows interest by some of the country’s well signed by Provost Tim Sullivan respected names in the private sector as well as current and former public officials to lend their of AUC and Professor Roger narratives of the past to the centre. Owen on behalf of Harvard Uni- Article (1) of the agreement states that the versity’s Center for Middle East centre’s primary function, “is the creation of a repository of primary sources and rare publi- Studies. The signing ceremony cations related to the economic and business was attended by academic schol- history of Egypt and the Middle East, and the dissemination of such information, including ars from AUC and other univer- without limitation through various occasional sities as well as a number of busi- and periodic publications wherever appropri- ate. The centre shall strive to enhance research, nessmen and public officials who particularly among young scholars, in the social have been part of the centre’s oral and economic history of Egypt, with emphasis on the business history in Egypt.” history activities. FALL 2007 FALL The Chronicles 5 This broad mandate allows EBHRC to explore Furthermore, the agreement allows AUC and Har- various means of documenting and archiving vard to search for means of institutional collabora- Egypt and the Middle East’s economic and busi- tion to achieve such a target by reaching out to other ness history.