When President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt said he intended to raise the price of flour, rice and other subsidized goods in 1977, he ignited days of riots that left more than 70 people dead and stood as a lasting warning to his successors about the perils of forcing impoverished Egyptians to make do with even less. So it was a surprise when, as one of his first major policy initiatives, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi sharply raised fuel prices two weeks ago, cutting deeply into energy subsidies, the most expensive single part of the government’s sprawling and expensive subsidy system. Even more surprising, perhaps, has been the absence of widespread civil unrest. The relative quiet appeared to signal an acknowledgment among many Egyptians that the fuel prices, which were among the lowest in the world, could not stay that way forever in an economy battered by years of […]