Peasants and notables in Egyptian politics

Abstract

In recent years many writings on social change in modern Egypt have noted the important role of an agricultural middle class. Emerging from the monumental social transformations that Egypt has witnessed over the past century and a half, this class is seen as important not only in local society and politics but also at the national level.2 Given the unanimity on the importance of this class (if not on its exact role) it is surprising how little is known about it. One reason for this is the reliance by many (though not all) upon statistical data on landownership that reveal far less than may first appear. It is true that every agricultural census taken in this century lists a category of landowners of 5 to 50faddans (1 faddan = 1.038 acres) who among them hold title to about a third of the agricultural land in Egypt. At first glance this seems to tell us of the existence of a stable class of middle landowners untouched by war, revolution and land reform. There are a number of problems with such a conclusion. First, the census figures do not necessarily indicate actual continuity in the membership of the middle landowning group. Second, the figures say nothing about the place of this group in rural society. Even at a minimum they say nothing of what owners of five faddans share with owners of 50 faddans beyond an occasional common category in the census. Third, reliance on these figures implies that landownership was the primary ticket of entry into this class. As will become clear, this was not always the case. There is another problematic area of Egyptian rural society in which we seem to know more than we actually do. The impact of the transformation of rural Egypt on the bulk of its population is a matter of some obscurity because of the absence of direct testimony. There have been some very useful attempts to understand changes in the material condition of the peasantry.3 On many crucial matters, however, we are dependent on vague impressions. The picture that has emerged is one of a peasantry beset with a host of problems even during periods in which Egyptian agriculture experienced tremendous growth. Contemporary observations4 and modern scholarship5 both echo the same themes of a peasantry deep in debt, victimized by banks, foreign money lenders and landlords.