Part 1 of our double episode on the 1977 Bread Intifada in Egypt, in which hundreds of thousands of working-class Egyptians rose up against the government’s termination of food subsidies. We speak to Egyptian journalist and revolutionary socialist, Hossam el-Hamalawy, about the uprising, the decade of worker-student militancy leading up to it, and its relevance today.
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Music used in this episode under fair use was “Build Your Palaces” by Sheikh Imam. Available to stream here. We attempted to find copyright holders but were unsuccessful; if anyone has any information about this, please email info@workingclasshistory.com.
For more information on the Bread Intifada, reading Hossam’s 2001 Master’s thesis on the subject: https://arabawy.org/111742/1977/
See also Lafif Lakhdar’s ‘The development of class struggle in Egypt’ in Khamsin: Journal of revolutionary socialists of the Middle-East, issue #5: https://libcom.org/library/development-class-struggle-egypt
Full acknowledgements, show notes, photos, sources and more information on the webpage for this episode here: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e59-60-the-bread-intifada/