by Stephen Morgan
I would like to offer some remarks on the international repercussions of the 2nd phase of the Egyptian revolution, the effects on the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, plus some comments on the perspectives for the workers' movement in the Arab world.
I would like to offer some remarks on the international repercussions of the 2nd phase of the Egyptian revolution, the effects on the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, plus some comments on the perspectives for the workers' movement in the Arab world.
Another key factor which
needs to be considered is what the international repercussions will be for the
Muslim Brotherhood, Islamists and Al Qaeda, as well as for the growing global
anti-capitalist movements.
With regard to the MB and
Islamists, the effects will probably be very contradictory. In the first place,
the scale of the secular revolt against their government will have been a
startling blow to their leaders and core supporters, both in Egypt and around
the Muslim world. Similar revolts on a lesser scale have taken place in Tunisia
already and it will no doubt have further repercussions there. It will also
definitely affect the political process in Islamic countries across the North
African/Maghrebian region such as Libya, Morocco and Mauritania.
The MB's authority or
their equivalents across the Arab world will be undermined and their influence
and popularity diminished temporarily. It will most certainly strengthen the
secular movement in Turkey, Jordan, Yemen and even in Syria, it may well give a
fillip to the secular or moderate Sunni rebel groups. It will also have
repercussions in Muslim Asian countries such as Indonesia and Pakistan
strengthening secular opposition to the governments there. However, that
doesn't mean that the effects will be simply a copy of Egypt, but they will
take forms and nuances relevant to the historical background and concrete
situation in the different countries.
Like the MB, Al Qaeda and
its equivalents will have been caught off-guard and confused by events, just
like they were by the first Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions in 2011. In the
interim period since then they have regained something of their equilibrium and
broadened their influence to some degree. While having fiercely denounced the
MB in the past, Al Qaeda has nevertheless also been making overtures and toning
down their rhetoric against the MB governments recently, in order to reach out
to their wider supporters. So, in general terms, the shift towards the MB and
the election of MB governments helped them to recover from the disastrous blow
they suffered by the secular revolt in 2011. For their supporters, the new MB
regimes seemed to reaffirm the idea that the shift towards Islamism was still
continuing, that the secular nature of the first revolutions was merely a
passing aberration and that history was in fact on their side. However, the
scale and power of the new mass secular movement in Egypt and the passionate
rejection of even the MB's milder Islamist ideology will again flabbergast them
and disorientate them temporarily.
Having said all of that,
there are two sides to the coin of what is happening or developing. The crack
down on the MB by the Egyptian military can make martyrs of them among their
supporters, who will fight back. Moreover, they are used to this situation,
having learned how to sustain themselves during persecution by the military and
secular state under the Mubarak regime. The current attacks on them by the
military, compounded by the eventual disillusionment with new regime's failure
to meet the expectations of this second revolutionary wave, will lay the basis
for a recovery in their support, although I doubt it will be sufficient to
sweep them to power again in the future. A far "messier" period is opening up in my opinion.
The eventual failure of
the new regime to fulfill the expectations of the second revolution will instead
lead to a clearer left/right polarization in society, though this will be
complicated by the fact that the military could also retain the support of an
important section of the population, particularly among the middle classes, who
will want stability, particularly if the MB turns to violence and Al Qaeda
begins an urban guerrilla offensive and terrorist activities in the cities and
the Sinai.
The outlines of civil war
will emerge and the international effect of civil war in Egypt would likely
plunge the whole of the Arab world into an inferno of civil war with
confrontation with secular, religious and sectarian groups, thus significantly
complicating the tasks of the socialist revolution.
Therefore, so much
depends on how the Egyptian labour movement develops in the next period. It
alone could be the force which would cut across or diminish such developments
and send a different beacon of light to the workers of the region. Like the
rest of the underdeveloped or emergent countries, the Arab nations have seen a
huge growth in the size of the working class. 21% of the workforce in the Arab
world are now employed in industry, equivalent to Latin and Central America and
only 1% less than Western Europe!
In Tunisia, a colossal
32% of the workforce are industrial workers, Algeria 24%, Turkey 26%, Libya
23%, Palestine 22%, Saudi Arabia 21%, Jordan 20%, Morocco 20% and Egypt 17%
(although this is probably an underestimation, given that some 40% of peasant
small holders have a primary income from working in industry, while at the same
making a part of their income from small farms and are therefore classified as
part of the agricultural workforce) Even in Syria, 16% of the workforce are in
manufacturing.
Furthermore, statistics
show a drastic rise in days lost to strikes across the N. African countries in
the last decade often trebling in number. Unfortunately, I have been unable to
obtain detailed statistics for the numbers and ratios of women in the workforce
in the region, but one can suppose that it has risen dramatically as in other
underdeveloped and newly industrialized countries. Women have played a key role
in the strike waves in Egypt and Tunisia often leading the men into action, as
well as playing a prominent role in the protests in Tahrir Sq.
Moreover, despite the
fact that the Arab working class is largely a "virgin" proletariat whose class consciousness and
independent organization is weak, in the Maghrebian countries especially, there
are established trade union and leftist traditions. It is an ironic offshoot of
French imperialism that union federations based on the French models do play a
prominent national role in countries like Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The
fact that many of them have become stooge unions of the state in a way confirms
the potential for industrial action by the workers, in the sense that the
ruling classes have taken control of the hierarchy of the unions, precisely
because they recognize and fear the potential for independent working class
organization.
Regardless of this the
ruling class was unable to stop the massive strike waves which swept Tunisia
and Egypt in advance of the revolutions. Indeed, in Tunisia during the 2011
revolution, while independent, free unions were established, the workers in the
industrial heartlands, who started the revolution, took the local stooge unions
by the neck, invading their offices and removing regime puppets or forcing them
to call regional general strikes, which snowballed into national actions.
The workers in the
phosphate mines and industrial heartlands of Tunisia and the textile workers of
Mahalla in Egypt played a crucial role during 2006-2008 in paving the way for
the revolutions. They fought the forces of the state and broke the "fear barrier" surrounding the
dictatorships. The effect of their struggles was to leave the imprint of the
idea in the subconsciousness of the masses that it was possible to stand up to
the state and win. However, as we have said before, despite the mass strikes
which later complimented the revolutionary movements, the proletariat has yet
to assert its domination and leadership of the uprisings. Even so, there is
tremendous potential for an independent workers movement to grow in the coming
period and the possibility not only of general strikes in different countries,
but even regional transnational, general strikes similar and probably greater
than the one-day general strike against austerity, which took place across
Southern Europe in 2013.
At the moment, the masses
are going through a process of testing out alternatives; firstly the Muslim
Brotherhood, which they have rejected and now the army backed by the liberal
center. They are searching for a way out on the basis of trial and error and it
can be that a sense of desperation and impasse will overcome them. But if the working
class moves into the arena and fills the vacuum with its own independent unions
and a party with a radical, anti-capitalist programme, this new alternative to
secular liberalism, military Bonapartism and radical Islam can quickly grip the
imagination of the masses, who will flock to its banner, pulling behind them
the semi-lumpen and lumpen sections of society, the poor farmers, the street
vendors and craftspeople and sections of the middle classes, particularly small
shopkeepers and professionals like doctors and lawyers, engineers and those
working in the high-tech communication sector.
Even then, however, it
may take new upheavals, victories and defeats before it becomes crystal clear
to the masses that the workers' movements have to do away with capitalism all
together. That would be an earthquake with worldwide consequences. We have
already seen how the first stage of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions swept
North Africa and the Middle East from the shores of the Mediterranean to the
Persian Gulf and how it inspired movements like Occupy, the Indignados and the
strikes in Greece and across Europe and elsewhere as well.
Its effects have
continued to be felt in the massive movements recently in Turkey and Brazil.
This second phase in Egypt now will solidify the idea in the minds of the
masses around the world that 2011 wasn't a "one-off"
but that it is indeed really possible to remove dictators and unpopular
governments through mass action. The masses globally will become more confident
in their potential power as a result. In that sense it is also possible that
while Egypt has influenced the developing world revolution, events stemming
from it in other countries, especially through the intervention of the labour
movement in other nations, can in turn affect the future events in Egypt as
well.
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