Cairo - What a difference a year makes in Egypt. Last April 6, teargas filled the streets of the Nile Delta industrial town of Mahalla al-Kobra as rioters firebombed buildings, hurled rocks at riot police, and toppled a freestanding poster of Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak. At least two people were killed in clashes with the police and dozens more were wounded.
The riots followed violence in bread queues at government-subsidized bakeries, as spiraling wheat prices drove more of the country's urban poor to rely on subsidized bread.
A small group of Internet-savvy activists, smelling revolution in the air, at the time used the social-networking websites Facebook and Twitter to call for a national strike in support of Mahalla's textile workers, who planned a strike for April 6, 2008. Egypt's opposition press endorsed their calls, and thousands joined the group organizers created on Facebook.
They became known as the "Facebook Youth," or the "April 6 movement," and they caught the imagination of the international news media to such an extent that James Glassman, former US under secretary of state for public diplomacy, last November identified them as "Egypt's largest opposition group."
But since March 2008, or around the time the "Facebook Youth" were born as a group, the price of wheat - of which Egypt imports 7.5 million tonnes a year, more than any other country in the world - has dropped more than 57 per cent. Last week, Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity said the country had 2 million ton of grain stored, enough to last the country four months.
Which may help explain why, despite calls for a general strike originally posted on the social networking website Facebook and amplified in Egypt's opposition newspapers, few heeded the calls this year.
"Do you see a strike? There is no strike," Mohammed Hassan, a lawyer, told the German Press Agency
