In Egypt, those who remember Mubarak have little patience for lockdowns
Britons required to travel for business have never been so fortunate, says Robert Jackman after a trip to Cairo
The sprawling metropolis is hard to contain
Credit: Getty
When it comes to lockdowns, Egypt has history. Over brunch at a flash hilltop resort in Giza, a work contact tells me how, following the ousting of then president Hosni Mubarak back in 2011, the military regime sought to impose such measures, confining citizens to their home, in a doomed attempt to quell the uprising.
As a result, for many Egyptians, the vocabulary of lockdowns conjures up a more visceral reaction than it might elsewhere. Could that explain why the country has, so far, shunned the kind of draconian measures ordered by the likes of Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf states, instead opting for much looser – and shorter – measures?