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“The Dignity of Doctors”: Socio-professional Mobilization and Political Activism in Post-Mubarak Egypt
Abstract
On February 12, 2016, over 10,000 Egyptian doctors turned out at the extraordinary general meeting of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate (EMS). The doctors filled all the meeting halls and thousands overflowed into the street chanting against the “thuggery” of the Ministry of Interior and holding signs demanding dignity for Egyptian doctors and citizens. Hundreds of activists and representatives of political parties and NGOs turned out to show their support for the doctors. The general meeting, dubbed the “Day of Dignity,” was called by the EMS executive board to discuss the measures to be taken in response to the recurrent police assaults on medical personnel. The meeting-cum-protest was seen by many in Egypt, a country that has witnessed a consolidation of authoritarianism, as a symbol of the doctors’ years-long mobilization not only for their professional demands but also on behalf of Egyptian citizens. Despite, or perhaps because of the Syndicate’s insistence on the “professional” nature of their demands, the day symbolized how doctors appealed to a professional, medical ethos to rally around causes seen by many citizens as just. For the past few years, groups of doctors have mobilized on many platforms: against police impunity and attacks on hospitals, for the right of prisoners and detainees to healthcare, against corruption in the Ministry of Health, for improving the wages and working conditions of doctors, for increasing public spending on health, for universal healthcare coverage, for enshrining the right to health in the constitution and against the exploitation of the suffering of the sick and poor for the political gains of those in power. By focusing on the case of the doctors’ mobilization in the post-Mubarak era, this paper investigates how socio-professional mobilizations are carving out a novel space for action in a foreclosed and polarized political sphere. The paper also traces how the category of so-called factional demands (Maṭālib fiʾawiyyah) was stripped by the ruling elites of its positive connotations since the early days of the revolution and turned into a negative category that is portrayed as pushing selfish demands at the expense of national interests. The paper examines, however, how socio-professional mobilizations, especially in authoritarian settings with little to no room for overt political action, remain viable and potent options to not only represent the demands of their respective groups, but also to extend an ethos of justice to the entire society.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
None