CAIRO -
Egyptian broadcaster Amr Adib sparked widespread controversy after his statements in which he blamed the wrong purchasing behavior of the Egyptians, which he considered as a reason for the aggravation of the crisis of high food prices that the country is currently witnessing.
Adeeb - who is close to the Egyptian authorities - heralded the Egyptians with a new wave of high prices to come, and demanded that they be austere and not eat "organic" eggs and be satisfied with regular eggs with pastrami.
Adeeb's talk about high prices and austerity sparked a wave of controversy and widespread ridicule on social networking sites in Egypt, which suffers from a severe price hike that includes most basic commodities, especially bread and oil.
This comes at a time when tweets and activists circulated tips to confront the rise in prices during the past two days, through the hashtag (#They fought the high prices by dispensing), in which many accounts and names known to support the Egyptian authorities participated.
Organic eggs
Commenting on the rise in prices that lasted more than 20 minutes, Adeeb said that the price hike in the country began before the Russian-Ukrainian war, and that there is another wave of rising prices due to the war in Ukraine.
During an episode - yesterday evening, Monday - which witnessed interventions from experts, officials and businessmen, Amr Adib said that the whole world is suffering from an unprecedented wave of high prices, including Western countries, and that the difference between Egypt and these countries is that the Western citizen does not depend on the government to control markets. , According to him.
Adeeb gave a number of tips to the Egyptians to face the wave of high prices, including the economy in buying and not buying from stores that exaggerate prices, and buying the lowest-priced products, and he gave an example with eggs, saying, “This is not the time for organic eggs, its money is regular eggs, all with pastrami, it remains sweet, you do not have to buy An expensive product as long as the cheapest is of the same quality.
He also demanded a return to making bread at home, "As for the crisis of living, why don't we bake at home as we used to do 100 years ago? There are people in America who started working and living at home."
And at the end of last February, Cabinet spokesman Nader Saad said that his country was working on a plan to import wheat from other regions instead of Russia and Ukraine, explaining that Cairo has 14 countries approved for the supply of wheat, some of which are outside the European continent.
Egypt is the largest importer of wheat in the world, and Russia and Ukraine are usually the largest exporters of wheat to Egypt.
The Cabinet spokesman explained - in televised statements - that Egypt has a strategic stockpile that is sufficient for about 5 months, in addition to the start of the local wheat harvest season in mid-March, which is sufficient for an additional 4 months.
In televised statements yesterday, Monday, Head of the Supply and Internal Trade Committee of the Egyptian Importers Division, Matta Bishai, said that the Russian-Ukrainian war caused a significant increase in the prices of commodities due to the increase in the price of raw materials, as it is a major reason for the rise in wheat prices and many production requirements. He referred to Cairo's import from Russia and Ukraine wheat, grains, edible oils, some products and plastic derivatives.
In the same episode and the same topic, I talked about how people buy the cheapest and choose the shops that sell the fixed basics without anything else, and I talked about the state’s role in hitting monopolies, and the issue of organic eggs was nothing but criticism of the people who knit them together and complain about trivial things.
Seconds and Al Jazeera Egypt sat an hour talk
— Amr Adib (@Amradib) March 8, 2022
Anger, ridicule, and a writer responds
A number of social media pioneers in Egypt expressed their anger at Adeeb's advice about organic eggs and pastrami, which they considered directed to a class that does not represent the majority of the Egyptian people who cannot buy enough of ordinary eggs - not organic - as well as pastrami.
The statements of the Egyptian media reaped a wide wave of ridicule, and some compared him to the French Queen Marie Antoinette, because of the famous sentence attributed to her “Let them eat cakes”, when she was told that the people do not find bread, and some pointed out that Adeeb, who demands the people for austerity, lives a luxurious life, given the His clothes, his watch, and his house.
The widespread irony prompted Amr Adib to respond to his critics, through a series of tweets on his Twitter account, accusing them of stalking and fragmentation, and he called on the masses to stay away from the culture of "trends", and stressed his message that the coming days are difficult for everyone.
When you are in front of a journalist like Amr Adib, who receives an annual salary of 48 million pounds, meaning 4 million pounds per month, and a citizen demands his monthly salary of 1,200 pounds to understand the weakness of his salary in the face of high prices and sacrifice for the sake of the country and support the state whose leaders thrive in luxury and extravagance, you are in front of a cheap type of Subtlety and modesty
— Jamal Sultan (@GamalSultan1) March 8, 2022
Amr Adib’s words are not comfortable, frankly, he is looking to blame the problem on people’s consumer behavior and wear a circus, and this means that there are no solutions and there will be no solution to alleviate the issue, may God protect
— Ali (@MHMDALIMOUSSA) March 7, 2022
The white days benefited her with sleep.. Egypt from the egg of Farida Al-Shobashi to the egg of Amr Adib.. O my heart, do not be sad!
— Selim Azzouz (@selimazouz1) March 8, 2022
📌#Amr_Adeeb why do I buy organic eggs?
This is not the time for eggs, so what you eat with pastrami will taste the same (like pastrami for 250 pounds)
Why do I buy a bottle of oil, a can of tuna and a bag of potatoes for the kids,
why do I buy a pack of yogurt for an extra price?
Why do you say, O Tablaji,
an Arab Range Rover ,
why do you have a villa in Manhattan,
why do you teach your children in London?
pic.twitter.com/OcWJq28fJv
— Haytham Abokhalil Haitham Abu Khalil (@haythamabokhal1) March 7, 2022
#Amr_Adeeb wore an audemars piguet watch that she wished for a million pounds.. and the brag convinced people to be austere 😂
— Du3aa (@dodoa1do) March 7, 2022
Amr Adib advises people on the occasion of the economic crisis to eat regular eggs, not organic, because everything with pastrami will taste like a bite!!, He forgets that there are people who have the right to buy a quarter of (afhah) and a quarter of manly chicken that they boil in water and tell their families soup, forgetting that he and the rest of the drummer band contributed to the impoverishment This people is drunk.
pic.twitter.com/RDH0aYfKpd
- Madiha Al-Malawani (@fayroooz1982) March 8, 2022
The Egyptian propagandist, Amr Adib, is calling on the poor people of #Egypt to buy bread at home, and to dispense with the purchase of “livelihood, due to the 50% increase in the prices of all types of bread in the country!
The important thing: the gazelle is good, and the sweet people are driving.. pic.twitter.com/K4B7PJIFDS
— Ahmed bin Rashid bin Saeed (@LoveLiberty_2) March 8, 2022
All we see are bloated countries and enjoying everything in the country. If something happens in Egypt, you will find them in queues at the airports, who have an apartment in Dubai, America, London, etc.
Amr Adib, who is looking at the people all the time, you will find him and his wife, all the artists and singers wow
— Khaled Farid Salam (@KhalidFsallam) March 7, 2022
What is an organic egg?
According to a livestock expert, what is meant by "organic" eggs is that which is produced from poultry fed on 100% natural feed (does not contain any animal additives, "blood powder and bone powder").
And the Masrawy website quoted the head of the poultry department at the Animal Production Research Institute, Dr. Magdi Hassan, that these poultry do not get any antibiotics, but get natural foods, regardless of the breed of poultry, whether it is white or my country.
Hassan pointed out that there are many farms that produce organic eggs in Egypt, adding that their price is 50% higher than the price of regular eggs.