Summary
Connections, as Feldman’s Gazan interlocutors describe their operation in the Egyptian Administration: a force that interfered with civil servants’ capacity to do their jobs fairly and effectively and differentiated among them by family origins and personal connections (Governing Gaza, PDF p.94-96 / printed p.77-79).
Details
- Bahat Hassan, an Administration market inspector, said frankly that if a price violator was from a weaker family than his he would punish him, but if he was from the powerful Hillis or Shawwa families, “I couldn’t do anything to him, I could only notice. Because, my back wasn’t covered… . I wanted to eat, to continue to eat” (PDF p.95 / printed p.78).
- People in Gaza remembered that “The needs of the people were achieved by wasta”, and that bribes became a style they had not seen before, so someone who wanted to resolve a problem, even if he was not in the right, could get a good outcome (PDF p.95 / printed p.78).
- In this context wasta operated as the negative side of social authority: personnel authority did not always trump personal authority (PDF p.95 / printed p.78).