Egypt: Brotherhood Bloodshed

Morsi supporters killed by the Egyptian military

by Stephen Morgan

I must admit that I didn't at all foresee the ferocity with which the Security Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) would attack the Muslim Brotherhood and it has now drastically changed perspectives. After the second revolution, I had even thought that the pressure of the masses could force some limited economic gains and that this, combined with illusions in the Army and a mood among the masses to give the new liberal government a chance, could have led to a temporary stabilization for a year or two before a new revolutionary wave broke out again.

But the prospect of a temporary stabilization now looks unlikely, because of the political factors which flow from the SCAF actions; Their repression has torn apart the fabric of Egyptian society to such an extent that civil war or some form of “Algerianization” of the country couldn't be ruled out. The military have done this on purpose, in order to crush an old foe and divide the masses, but they may have overstepped the mark now to the point that they will damage their own interests and those of the bourgeoisie.

That doesn't mean that strikes and social battles on things like wages, jobs and housing still won't take place, but there will now be a constant underlying backdrop of religious and sectarian violence, which can present a barrier to the working class. It also gives opportunities for extreme-right, religious groups like the Salafists and Al Qaeda to grow and pose a threat to the workers movement.

Furthermore, the SCAF tactics are clearly aimed to undermine and intimidate future struggles by the Egyptian working class who will also face the same brutality by the army in the future. Many left publications have made generally good analyses of the situation and I wont repeat or paraphrase that here. I only want to raise a few discussion points arising from the events last week and this weekend.

It is absolutely true that the MB is a thoroughly reactionary organization, but it would be wrong to stereotype it, so that it fits with notions of conservative parties or small right-wing extremist groups in the West. It isn't possible to pigeon-hole it like that. The MB has existed for 85 years and could previously boast a membership of some 600,000. While it is controlled by religious intellectuals it has had considerable support from the poor, the small peasants and even many workers. It is not simply a group of petty-bourgeois reactionaries, but it has enjoyed popularity because of its work among millions of impoverished Egyptians, running charities, providing cheap food, education and medical treatment, as well as creating workers' educational groups. It also earned considerable respect as the only major opposition forced constantly persecuted by Mubarak before the revolution and their cadres were respected for their courage.

However, its leaders initially opposed the revolution in 2011, but were forced to do a rapid U-turn under the pressure of the masses and the fact that nearly all its youth were in rebellion against the top and had joined the masses on the streets. The MB leaders were challenged by their youth members and the group began to split apart on a vague “right-left” basis and those who considered themselves the “truer revolutionaries” than the bureaucrats. In fact, the MB youth became respected revolutionary fighters, particularly because they didn't attempt to preach religion and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with secular groups.

The MB also has its different wings and shades of opinion despite its reactionary, religious policies and the way its leaders supported capitalism when in power. Among the large membership there are different questions of emphasis or interpretation, as well disputes on organizational issues. Some came to support the ideas of Islamized economic measures or even full Sharia Law as an alternative to the problems of Western-style capitalism, at a time when socialism seemed to no longer be an option. There are also the hundreds of thousands of grass roots workers and supporters involved in helping the poor and see themselves in a “left” or progressive role, despite their religious faith or inspiration.

Furthermore, the MB was the only well-organized, credible party, which could attract the confidence of the people. While not ignoring the low turnout in 2011, the absence of any other credible popular, and large parties, with historical roots, meant the MB was looked on as the natural party of the masses. However, mass moods can change with lightning speed in revolutions. Ironically, millions of MB supporters undoubtedly joined the second revolution again this time and were equally disappointed in Morsi and wanted him to step down. Given that some 20 million were involved in comparison to 2 million in 2012, far more MB supporters took to the streets this time. This goes to show that MB supporters aren't all reactionary enemies of the revolution.

I get the impression at the moment that the MB is only able to mobilize a hard core of cadres and has lost the majority of their active supporters. But that can change again to some degree and sympathies for those who are seen as martyrs can rise, especially as disillusionment reappears, when the new regime proves itself to be no more successful than Morsi in dealing with the country's economic problems.

The MB has shown in the last week that it can still muster strength and has hard core cadres ready to die for it. Regardless of the army's ruthlessness, the MB is far from finished and cannot be exterminated. Indeed, in the future it can regain popularity. In fact, the army's actions are solidifying a fighting cadre of embittered and enraged opponents. Persecute group members and people only identify more loyally with their organization and become more prepared to sacrifice or die for it. A group which was close to splitting during the first revolution can now become more compact and consolidated and, although it might be partly driven underground, it has sufficient popular support to be a constant thorn in the SCAF's side and a major destabilizing factor in Egypt's future.

The MB is a complex group which can't be simplified down into a some neat designation as a monolithic bourgeois party. Like with many other developments and groups in the underdeveloped world, Marxists have to recognize that hybrids or mutant groups exist, which don't fit easily into traditional notions or formulas. To do otherwise would be mechanistic and undialectical. Such a mistake can also be a basis for opportunism, in the sense of falsely analysing something like the MB and labeling it incorrectly, but in such a way as to avoid complex questions and risk losing popularity among some secular youth and workers. If we look more closely at the MB then we see that it has hundreds of thousands of supporters, who are the natural allies of the revolution, as long as they are approached in an empathetic way and only a small minority are determined reactionaries.

Therefore, although no socialist could support Morsi's Presidency, no socialist can support the army's attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood either, nor fail to stand up and say so. But, at the same time socialists unconditionally criticize the MB's policies and actions particular their sectarianism to Christians, other minorities and their attitudes to and attacks upon women.

However, dealing with MB is a political and not a military issue and it is the duty of the labour movement to intervene independently, without any support for army, police and security forces or for that matter the use of the state machinery to ban the MB as a party. The SCAF is using this situation to hone its abilities to deal with workers' unrest in equally bloody ways later and to ban strikes, protests and independent organizations as well.

Therefore, we should defend the MB's right to protest (as long as it's not in a violent or sectarian manner) and oppose any army or government bans on demonstration or rallies. Socialists should demand the army withdraws and discuss with the rank and file troops about not shooting. Labour Movement groups should organize marches to any similar flashpoints where massacres could take place and demand the right to appeal to and discuss with MB supporters. They would have to develop credentials as an independent arbiter and such an approach might well catch the ear of MB members more than the liberal groups who are in power colluding with the army.

The army and security forces are also conniving to simultaneously allow sectarian bloodshed to divide the masses. The army or police will never protect minorities or workers. Therefore, the labour movement must also intervene to stop MB and/or Nour Party thugs from attacking Christians and others. Secular and united, multi-faith self-defence teams must be organized and arms will be needed for personal protection, although all efforts should be made to avoid bloodshed. Women too should also have the means to bear arms.

End the massacres of MB members!
Freedom of assembly, the right to protests and strike!
Labour movement intervention and arbitration now!
Workers' self-defence groups to protect Christians and minorities!
Immediate elections to a Provisional Assembly!
Build independent unions and a workers' party to take power on a democratic socialist program.

Sana Saeed, Guardian: How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse

by Jack Gerson

We reprint a Guardian op ed by Sana Saeed that pulls no punches about how rape is used to terrorize women in Egypt, and how mob sexual violence in particular is an open tool used to discourage women from taking part in demonstrations and other political activity. But she also takes on the racist and chauvinist media propaganda prevalent in the West that sexual violence against women is mainly attributable to religious and cultural roots: Islam, Hinduism, Middle East, Indian subcontinent. But as she discusses, Egypt and India have no monopoly on sexual violence -- we need look no further than the U.S. (especially, but not only, the U.S. military).

How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse by Sana Saeed (Guardian, 7/7/13)

On 30 June, as “the Coup That Must Not Be Mentioned” was being celebrated in Tahrir Square, Cairo, news of over 80 reports of mob sexual violence and harassment emerged as a reminder of an ugly undercurrent behind the two-and-a-half-year-long anti-regime uprising. Sexual harassment and violence in Egypt is a daily occurrence – an epidemic, even – with 99.3% of women (pdf) claiming to have suffered some form of it.

Mob sexual violence, however, carries a certain brand of particularity as a near-explicit political tool used to discourage women, who make up nearly half of the total population, from attending demonstrations. Maria S Muñoz, co-founder and director of the anti-sexual assault initiative Tahrir Bodyguard, traces the advent and use of organized mob sexual assaults to the days of Mubarak, pointing to the 2005 assault of journalist Nawal Ali by hired “thugs” during a demonstration. Despite being aware of the risk of attending political demonstrations, women, Muñoz notes, “have continued to share the public space in protests, becoming an essential part of the opposition’s voice and presence.”

The culture of sexual violence and harrassment, in Egypt, has received considerable media attention, often highlighting the efforts of groups such as Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, HarassMap and Tahrir Bodyguard as people-powered initiatives tackling sexual violence and harassment head-on. Despite this, it is apparently still difficult to have an honest discussion over why it happens.

On 5 July, US author Joyce Carol Oates (whom I know primarily from her having never written this) decided to join in with the sea of insta-Egypt Twitter experts and opined:

If 99.3% of women reported being treated equitably, fairly, generously–it would be natural to ask: what’s the predominant religion?
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) July 5, 2013

Despite the brevity of “Oatesgate”, the rhetorical question of a well-respected literary figure highlights popular characterizations of sexual violence and harassment when it takes place elsewhere. Rarely does sexual violence and harassment in our own societies – as it is perpetrated, prosecuted and cultured – allow the sort of cultural reductionism that seems to come with ease when sexual violence is associated with “the other”.

When a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern is brutally gang-raped and beaten in Delhi, we speak of “India’s woman problem”; when an incapacitated 16-year-old student is raped, photographed and filmed for six hours by peers – who share the images on social media – the incident is treated as an isolated act of unfortunate deviance and not part and parcel of a larger endemic culture that normalizes rape and the appropriation of women’s bodies as public property.

Child groomers of Muslim and South Asian backgrounds become cultural ambassadors raised on a steady diet of “savage” notions of sex embedded in anti-white biases and misogyny. Revered coaches and university administrations hiding decades of child sex abuse, on the other hand, become their own victims.

Thus there are no protests, no calls of a “woman problem”, no “natural” inquiries into the predominant religion when a country has ranked 13th in the world for rape, 10th for rapes per capita (pdf) and where 26,000 military service members reported sexual assault in 2012 alone. There are no popular anthropological undertakings by stiff-haired anchors of the inner secrets and dark forces of American culture, religion and society. No white American woman asks why the white American male hates “us”.

None of this is to provide a level playing field for discussing sexual violence. It is to highlight how understanding of sexual violence is reliant on how it is reported and how this, in turn, is reliant on who is involved. In the case of Egypt, the extent to which there is sexual harassment and violence is abysmal and even unique in how it occurs. Yet, this violence did not emerge overnight, nor does it occur in a political and socio-economic vacuum. It is the result of decades of state, legal and political decay. It is the result of a state that itself has created a culture of acceptability of violence and torture, often sexual, inside its own walls.

In the explicit act of violating bodily sovereignty, there is an active search for the conquest of power and control in a space where these have become vulnerable. This requires no sermon, book or belief to legitimize it; it only needs submission.

To read this article on the Guardian website, please go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/sexual-assault-norms-abuse/print 

Egyptian revolution: Out of the mouths of babes

What an incredible young man. A 12 year old.  This is what revolutionary activity does to us, it politicizes us, makes us more human.

Egyptian Revolution: perspectives and international repercussions after Morsi

A woman protester celebrates near the presidential palace in Cairo as news spreads that Morsi has been taken out of power by the military. Source

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.

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.

Egypt: Some thoughts on the fall of Morsi

The following is from the International Socialist Network and we reprint it here for our readers' interest.

Hannah Elsisi: Interview on the fall of Morsi – live from Cairo

Published on Wednesday, 3 July 2013

Is today a victory for revolution or counterrevolution?

In a way, both. I’m currently sitting just off Tahrir Square with the woman who started ‘no to military trials’, a musician, one of Cairo’s most active street artists, and a novelist of the revolution. That is precisely the question we’re discussing now – and we are split down the middle. Half of us see this as a victory for the revolution and the other half as a victory for the counterrevolution – half as a step forward, half as a step backwards.

We’re in this café, not the square, for a reason. We all feel and know that this is not the square we owned – as if we have no tangible place in it, despite knowing that we hold a ‘place’ in the revolution.

Which half of the discussion are you in?

I’m in the optimistic half. Despite the fact that I’ve been most vocal about this unease for a few weeks now. Here’s why.

Two years ago there were untold millions who either knew nothing of the revolution or had no time for it because they couldn’t afford a minute off. Some resented it for stripping them of their privileges. Others even saw it as a return to the nice, ‘civilised’ Egypt that they knew under British occupation and the monarchy!

What we have today is a mixture of the following. Several million Egyptians who previous took to the streets and remember the Muslim Brotherhood’s lies, the blood they abandoned and the blood they themselves spilled. And many more, particularly outside the cities (where Morsi still managed to fare well in the presidential elections after a six month majority in parliament) have taken to the streets to protest their despair and disappointment in those they placed their faith in – not just now, but for a good 20 years.

However overarching this is a set of objections to the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule that transcend class, religion, social occupation or revolutionary reference-points.

What are the politics of the protests, and which tendencies dominate?

There is still a very strong discourse that Mubarak, and Sadat’s regime before him, built over many years and for specific historical reasons. This discourse is built on both a rejection of ‘political Islam’ without a rejection of Islam itself – indeed they entrenched Islamic discourse. At the same time they built a fairytale scenario where the Muslim Brotherhood and its members contain some transgenerational, transpolitical trait that causes them to rule ruthlessly and dictatorially, in a manner that is somehow worse than Sadat or Mubarak’s dictatorships.

This is what motivates the majority of Egyptians on the streets today, though to varying levels. It is most extremely entrenched within the middle classes, and among Coptic Egyptians and older generations. Another motivating feature of the protests is a bourgeois notion of safety or “law and order” having disintegrated over the past few years, particularly under Morsi’s rule.

However, the revolution itself is yet to explicitly take up an ideology or “leadership”, and there are so many who have taken to the streets against Morsi simply to protest against their social and economic living conditions without any clear alternative in mind.

I feel the majority of those I encounter are there to remove the Muslim Brotherhood and their beards before they are out to remove the government. Here, I am in a minority. Beyond that though it seems as if most people are out to remove the government rather than wanting to install the military in power. Here, I am with the majority.

So the victory for the revolution today, in my opinion, shows the ruling class’s weakness. Our prime fear should not be the military, as there are many who do not find the answer to their prayers there. The victory for the counterrevolution is quite frankly the threat of popular sectarian violence against a particular group of citizens that also happens to be the military’s greatest political foe.

Can the rank and file of the army be split from the generals, or is this over-optimistic?

The rank and file of the army will only consider such a situation if the majority or a large number of lay soldiers are forced to rule and govern, and deal with civilians. However, if the army can achieve what it had managed to not only in the shape of Morsi but also Sadat, Mubarak and Nasser – that is, rule under the auspices of revolutionary or liberal parliamentary governance – then there is no need for such direct rule, and as a consequence the circumstances will not necessarily be ripe for the institution’s disintegration.

We've heard over the years about efforts to form a new, mass workers' party. How far have these efforts got?

Notions of class have nowhere in Egypt’s history (save for short spells in the 1890s and 1920s-30s) asserted themselves over political, cultural or socio-religious considerations. It is difficult to speak of a workers’ party when we cannot speak of any more than 700,000 to a million Egyptians who identify with this notion at the most basic level.

Working class self-organisation has not ebbed one bit over the past five years, and under current circumstances there is nowhere for working class consciousness to go but to develop further. However I say this to emphasise that while revolutionaries in Egypt use the slogan “general strike until the regime falls”, and many agree, on the ground for all of us the main contradiction that needs explaining – or the main discourse we feel we lack – is a revolutionary narrative against the current government that stands on clear principle with respect to the military’s role, while also rejecting the reactionary discourse against the Muslim Brotherhood specifically and supporters of political Islam more generally.

Right now I can hear the calls to prayer, and a march chanting ‘Egypt (clap clap clap) Egypt’. And this is what I was referring to earlier in terms of the reactionary discourse of the revolt, making nationalist, militaristic sentiment the focus.

What is the left doing, and what does it have the capacity to do?

The left has the capacity to nurture and give confidence to those sections of the square who have no vested interest in military rule. We are working hard to keep chants and art against "el 3askar" (military rule) on the walls and on our tongues. The left will no doubt work hard to defend human rights and reject any calls for indiscriminate violence against any group. It will continue to build campaigns against sexual assault, and against the electricity shortages across Egypt’s governorates. However uncomfortable we might sometimes feel, communists’ place is on the streets, where the masses are.

What do you think of ElBaradei’s manoeuvring?

This is also a topic we have been discussing for a few days. At one end there are those like myself who thought the army’s game was to keep supporting the revolutionary movement on the street – and popular violence against the Muslim Brotherhood – while leaving the Brotherhood in power until its organisation had disintegrated enough to no longer pose a threat to the military. This would also have meant waiting until at least a good chunk of the population were at the point where they were begging for the army to rule. The other half predicted that the street would outstrip the military’s expectations, and want the government out ASAP.

ElBaradei or any similar liberals might be an unnecessary phase for the military if popular demand for straight-up military rule is high enough, and the Brotherhood is weak enough. For those with the latter view, ElBaradei is part of a larger play than just encouraging popular revolt against the Brotherhood, and will quite frankly be the next suit the military will rule through.

It is important to remember that the US government plays a not insignificant role in these outcomes. If the US has given up on the project of a client political Islam state in Egypt, at least for the time being, them some setup with ElBaradei at the helm is not unlikely.

I can hear celebrations – gunshots in the air. I’m half deaf! Wish you were here.

Fighting sexual harassment in Egypt

From Al Jazeera

For years, Egyptian women have put up with sexual harassment, simply for walking down the street. Now they are coming out into the open to say 'enough is enough'. At a rally in Tahrir Square last month, female protesters came under attack. Water was thrown into the crowd in an attempt to repel the mob of men who were groping women and trying to remove their clothes. An anti-harassment demonstration became itself a target for harassment. What used to be a silent shame has now been thrust into the open, with exhibitions and events. The revolution in Egypt has raised the expectations of many women. Jacky Rowland reports from Cairo.

Egypt: workers strike for better conditions and against corruption

Egyptian workers and their struggles have not been covered much by western media but Egypt has a long history of Trade Union and workers' struggles. This is only a short clip but it is noticable that there is an absence of women workers while in the uprising that toppled Mubarak women were prominent. This would be discrimination against women in employment by the employers, the organized Labor sector, and the state under Mubarak.  Hopefully these workers' struggles can link more closely with the revolutionary youth who have been so prominent in the Arab Spring and demand more equal rights for women.

A Visit to Egypt

by John Reimann

I had been in Egypt last July at the time that Tahrir Square was under full occupation. At that time I walked around the Square from tent to tent looking for people who spoke English. I got into lots of conversations. People were extremely interested, willing to talk, and also a little suspicious. They wondered whether I was a spy, either for Israel or the US or both. But that didn’t stop them from talking with me and showing me around.

I went again early in February. Before going, I received the following note from a Westerner living there:

“I must warn you, it's very dangerous to come here and do what you’re doing now. Trying to build unions here now is almost a death sentence, or maybe just a good beating; these groups are all infiltrated by Egyptian informers and you will be reported very fast.  The military here hasn’t done too much to Americans here but scare them and arrest them for a while. But, they are pretty pissed off right now due to all the democracy groups coming to Egypt and trying to help change the country, not to mention the spies. (This refers to the NGO’s, some of which represent both the Republican and Democratic Parties.) Most every foreigner coming here is suspected as a spy first and foremost. DONT even come here if you are Jewish!!!!!!  You will be arrested and accused of being an Israeli spy.  Even if your intentions are good, you see what you are up against.  The problem is you can’t blend in, you stick out like a sore thumb, lol.....everyone knows you are a foreigner right away and wonder what you are doing here.” 

Tahrir Square
Because of this, I was a lot more cautious this time, but I did go around to the tents that were in the middle of Tahrir Square.

The central traffic island had the tents, but the rest of this large square was open to traffic. The protesters had called for a general strike, but it seemed that there was not a great response to the call. After walking around some I stopped at one tent and talked with one guy a little. The first thing he raised was Israel. He said he was against Jewish men. I simply said that I was completely against what Israel is doing, and that what had been done to Jewish people for ages Israel is now doing to others. He agreed and made some comment about it not being Jews themselves who are the problem, but Israel.

After a little bit we took a walk around and he stopped to talk with some friends. He didn’t introduce me or try to include me in any way.  After a bit I walked off but he didn’t try to make eye contact or say good bye.

I found another tent with some slogans in both Arabic and English and stopped to talk.

While I was sitting there at night a guy came in. After a few minutes he took out a tear gas canister to which a key chain was attached. He started waving it a few inches in front of my face, pretending that he was going to set it off. I was pretty sure it was spent, but I still didn’t like it. I kept pushing it away and he kept trying to put it in front of my face. The other people were sitting there and telling me he was just playing around, but they didn’t stop him. All the while he was rolling eyes as if he were crazy or something. This went on for a minute or so, and then he stopped, gave me a big smile and shook my hand. I have no idea what it meant, but nothing like that ever happened to me the last time I was here.

Changes in Sentiment
I get the impression that there was a general feeling after Mubarak fell that they had made a huge step in solving their problems, and that the number one problem was the need for “freedom”. I also have some impression that there were illusions in the military before. Both of these feelings - really the illusions in bourgeois democracy that are inevitable under a dictatorship - have weakened. One issue that was raised was a difference of opinion that seems to have developed within the movement in Egypt. Some in the movement are saying that things have gone quite far and it is now necessary to step back and wait for change while others are saying that it’s necessary to keep on pushing.

The week before I arrived there was a riot at a soccer game in Port Said which resulted in the deaths of some 70 people. This seems to have made a deep impression. Some seem to believe that this event was stirred up by the police. In addition, several people told me that there is an increase in crime in Cairo. I also got reports of wide spread crime in cities outside Cairo. A couple of people told me that the SCAF has released criminals from prison in order to stir up confusion. Also that the police are intentionally allowing criminal activity (muggings, etc.) One guy I asked about that said that he thought it was largely a matter of the police not having the authority and confidence they used to have. Before, they could abuse somebody out in the open and nothing happened. Now, a crowd will gather and people might directly intervene. I was also told that there is some crime in Tahrir Square itself.

In any case, it’s usually true that in times of great social unrest, as old social orders come undone, that crime increases.

Also, the campaign against foreign “spies” seems to have had some effect. Some people are reluctant to meet with foreigners because they fear they will be accused of meeting with “spies”.

Several people expressed frustration with the state of the movement. One guy told me that its previous decentralized state was seen in two different ways. Some people felt that with the lack of a central leadership that there is nobody to sell the movement out. They viewed this as a source of strength. On the other hand, several people commented to me on the huge number of political parties and how dispersed the movement is. They saw the need for a strong, centralizing force.

 However, the level of interest in politics still seems to be very high. Even at birthday parties, young people are giving political speeches!

New Unions
On my second day in Cairo I met up with a guy in his 50s who had moved out of the country some 20 years ago and returned when the revolution started. This comrade expressed the feeling that the ordinary “man in the street” was losing a bit of support for the revolutionaries/activists because they didn’t see how it had improved their lives very much. This is similar to the Occupy Oakland movement. A difference in the two situations is that in Egypt there is a real rise in new, more radical unions. However, these unions are not very present in Tahrir Square. This comrade also agreed that it would help the revolution to advance if it linked the more long term goals with very immediate, concrete demands and took this to the Egyptian working class.

Street Battles in December
This comrade took me on a walk around Tahrir Square. In December, there were major protests and riots. What happened was that there were marches on the Ministry of the Interior and the army started shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at the protesters. Ultimately, the erected walls of huge concrete blocks across all the streets leading to that building. The main street along the side streets which are blocked off is empty of traffic. Back in July all these streets were full of cars as are almost all the streets in downtown Cairo. Now it’s empty, with people strolling along the middle of the street.

A few blocks from the Square is the former office where federal tax records were kept. I put it in the past tense because it’s completely burned out. A half block down, there is another one of these walls. I sat and talked with this older comrade. He told me that the night he came back to Cairo was the first night of these street battles. He described them to me. The protesters gathered planning on marching on the Ministry of the Interior. Suddenly the military launched a barrage of tear gas. The youth in the front picked up the burning hot canisters and threw them back. More tear gas and rubber bullets. The crowd retreated some, regrouped and advanced again. Some youth on motor cycles picked up the wounded and took them off.

Back and forth these battles raged for four nights. This guy said that at one point some young guy told him, “Old man, you stay back and leave these fights to us,” but he felt that if these young people could fight like this then he could too. Every night he left exhausted, having decided not to return but the next night he was back again.

“Wall Without Jews”
As we sat there talking a few young people gathered. And when I say “young” I mean young—as in about ten or 12 years old. These were kids who probably live on the streets. The bond between them was so clear. They walked down towards the wall. As they walked, one of them picked up a small stone and casually threw it at one of the windows of the burned out building. They climbed up to the top of the wall. Apparently there were soldiers on the other side. We didn’t get too close because you never know how they might have reacted to hearing us speak English, but you could see they were taunting the soldiers. One had a laser light he was shining at them. All appeared calm, but you never know when the soldiers might start shooting tear gas or rubber bullets and another riot would ensue.

As we sat there, another man passed by. He commented on the wall and the fact that the Israelis were building a wall to keep out the Palestinians but here “we have a wall without the Jews.”

Rural Village
I also visited a small peasant village a hundred or so miles south of Cairo. Being there was like being in a time warp. Horse drawn carriages were the taxis used and donkey carts abounded. Almost everybody wore traditional garb. In the evenings, the streets were clogged with cattle as the farmers brought their cows in from pasture.

I was told that during the height of the uprising that people in this village hardly reacted at all. They felt it didn’t affect them.

This village is probably not all that very much different from small peasant villages in Russia in 1917. It took a mighty crisis of world capitalism (World War I) to drive the villagers towards revolution as that crisis reached down and plucked up the young men of the villages and sent them to war. The crisis in the village must have been felt by those who came from the village – the rank and file soldiers – and drove them to revolution also. In that situation, the capitalist state had few if any troops it could use to kill off the revolution.

A similar deep social crisis will be required in countries like Egypt. Such a crisis is coming, possibly through an Israeli or joint Israeli/US attack on Iran. Such an attack would throw the entire region into crisis. Initially it would strengthen the fundamentalists including in Egypt, but it would also tend to put the present regime into crisis. Already there are signs of the military going the way of the Pakistani military, as one person pointed out to me in Egypt. While the Egyptian military – which has been the backbone of the state apparatus both under Mubarak and since – receives massive US aid, it is also moving against the US. This is probably partly to shore up a base of support within Egypt.

This would take place during a general crisis of world capitalism, which is not lost on Egyptian workers and youth. While I was in Egypt this time I had a long discussion with a couple of young science workers. They felt that socialism had failed due to the experience under Nasser. (Other workers – older ones – expressed to me a longing for a return to the days of Nasser.) They also initially expressed some support for the “free” market; they wanted “a free market with a heart”. (To which I replied that I wanted a pet lion who was a vegetarian.) However, it did not take much to convince them of the disaster of capitalism in this era.

Just as the revolution in Egypt has inspired a movement throughout the world, the continuing global revolutionary process will ultimately effect developments in Egypt and help carry that revolution forward.

While I was fairly cautious there, in general I found people to be extremely helpful and friendly. One guy, for instance, gave me a ride in his car when I stopped him to ask for directions to a particular address. Another more or less acted as my guide in getting a train ticket and getting seated in the second class railroad car. Once the train started, a worker across the aisle from me turned to me with the one English word that it seems every Egyptian knows, “welcome”. Then he shared his falafel sandwich with me (while I shared my water with him). I also had a humorous encounter with a couple of teenagers who were smoking something (and it wasn’t tobacco) as I passed them by on the street. “Hey,” one guy shouted from 20 feet away, “Bush good!” “No,” I replied, “Bush bad.” They then came running up to me, shook my hand, wanted to know my name and we talked as much as we could. “You, me good,” I said. “Bush, Obama bad.” They liked that a lot and even offered me some of what they were smoking. (I politely declined.)

Women lead in the struggle against the military in Egypt

Readers of this blog must surely remember that not so long ago in the early days of the Egyptian uprising when the masses were fighting against the US armed Mubarak regime, a regime that was supported by Obama and Hilary Clinton until it was no longer feasible to do so, the Egyptian people amassed in Tahir Square claimed the military were on their side.  How quickly things change when the masses turn to the streets.

It is the military that is now the enemy of the Egyptian revolution, the military that was armed and funded by the US taxpayers. But when the class struggle breaks out in to the open, great lessons that take decades to learn in periods of relative class peace are learned in a matter of weeks. The video above shows just how quickly the Egyptian masses have drawn conclusions about the role of the military in capitalist society. Another thing that stands out here is the role that women will and are playing in the revolutionary struggle to change society.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy

We are publishing these excerpts as the readers of this blog might find the views expressed interesting. The author is Israeli, Yacov Ben Efrat who is Secretary-General of Da'am – the Workers Party. This blog is not affiliated with the Da'am. You can read more about this author and events in Israel/Palestine at Challenge Magazine here.

*******************

Two movements impelled the revolution onwards: the one dubbed the “Facebook youth,” and the other consisting of the workers who had waged union struggles for three years prior to the uprising. These workers opposed the official state union and insisted on setting up alternative, democratic unions. The regime was afraid of independent organizing and suppressed the strikes with great force, using the secret police and the official union. Nonetheless, the workers’ movement gained strength until, on April 6, 2008, a workers’ intifada broke out in one of the state-owned textile factories in the Nile Delta, in the city of al-Mahala al-Kubra.

When we saw the workers tearing up posters of Mubarak, we understood that something serious was taking place, that the barrier of fear had been breached. We sent two of our members to Egypt to understand what was happening from close up. We said to ourselves, this is the moment we have been waiting for, something new is taking shape here. Until that moment, the political game in Egypt had been played on a narrow stage, sandwiched between pro-American Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Arab Left was captive to the view that any opposition to Mubarak would strengthen the Muslim movement. This false equation led the Egyptian Left to support Mubarak, the Palestinian Left to support Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and the Syrian Left to support Assad. A third option was nowhere to be seen. Yet suddenly, in Egypt, the workers rose up and came out against Mubarak and against the Muslim Brotherhood, demanding tangible solutions. The intellectuals called their movement “April 6,” after the workers’ intifada in al-Mahala al-Kubra, and thus the two movements flowed together.

However, after so many years of dictatorship, and after the disappointment in the Left, in Egypt as in Israel, the youth preferred to define themselves as “apolitical.” They thought the state could be managed from Tahrir Square through demonstrations. But they soon learned this wouldn’t work: we can’t declare ourselves to be the people, and we can’t force ourselves upon the people; the people must choose us. Then, when the Tahrir youth understood their electoral weakness, they did all they could to prevent elections. They knew that since they had no party, they couldn’t succeed in elections and they would lose to the old regime or the Muslim Brotherhood, who were both well organized and prepared.

The attempts to prevent elections and continue the demonstrations without proposing an alternative created a vacuum. This vacuum was filled by the army, whose status in the eyes of the public grew stronger. We did not agree with the Tahrir youth. We called on them to run in the elections. The elections, which were born out of the strength of the uprising, offered them – for the first time – the opportunity to organize and present themselves freely before the people. We also claimed that free elections – regardless of who won – are the revolution’s greatest achievement.

The disagreements over the elections divided the revolutionary factions in Egypt. The communist party and the Trotskyist organizations boycotted the elections. A new leftist bloc, “the 'Revolution Continues' Coalition”, with whom we share a common language, decided to field candidates. Then something amazing happened: the turnout, which had been less than 20% in Mubarak's days reached 62%. Thousands stood in line before the voting places. This fact cannot be erased. These people felt that the revolution had brought them tangible results and were not willing to give them up.

The problem is not the vote for the Muslim Brotherhood. For most of the electorate, there wasn’t an alternative. The Muslim Brotherhood is present in every tiny village and every dark alley, via the mosques. Even before the revolution the movement provided essential services and worked among the people. Without a functioning education system, and with illiteracy affecting almost half the population, it is not surprising that religion became a decisive factor in the lives of Egyptians. Thus, when the Muslim Brotherhood presented itself in the elections, the people decided to reward it and give it a chance. This is how the Egyptian elections must be understood.

It would be a mistake to conclude from the Brotherhood’s success that we are going back to the Sudanese or Afghan model. Radical Islam, which tried to enforce Sharia, has stopped being popular and its place is being taken by a more moderate model. The success of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as in Tunisia, is not due to a revival of Islamic fundamentalism, but the loathing felt towards the dictatorships. Even Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, who declared ten years ago that suicide bombing was a way to vanquish Zionism, acknowledges today that the democratic model must be adopted.

There are claims that the Muslim Brotherhood will suppress tourism, forbid the wearing of bikinis or the drinking of beer, and thus strangle the Egyptian economy. To these claims the Brotherhood replies: “All will be permitted! It won’t be the sheikh who decides what’s forbidden. We will act democratically.” Maybe the time has come for the Islamists to take over the regime and prove whether they are able to deliver the solutions for which the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples fought. Now, when they are no longer in opposition, the people won’t buy their ardent speeches on the Great Satan or the Zionist Entity as an alternative for a decent life. The people demands work, health, education, and housing – real answers to pressing issues. The Muslim Brotherhood does not have the answers, yet it doesn't want to remain exposed. That’s why it's busy establishing coalitions with bourgeois parties, such as the New Wafd, to share responsibility. Managing a state is not like managing a charitable organization, and funds from Qatar are not sufficient.

On the other hand, the Left will not be able to establish itself unless it begins working among the people. Disappointment with the Muslim Brotherhood will lead people to seek another option, and the Left’s task is to offer this. The Muslim Brotherhood needs to know that the revolutionaries will not disappear – and in fact it already understands as much. The leftist organizations have moral strength on their side because they led the revolution, and the Egyptian people gives them credit for this. They have the power to criticize any regime which tries to steal the revolution's achievements.
In short, the Egyptian revolution is not just dependent on what happens in Egypt or the Arab world.

The Arab states are poor; most of their financial resources are held by multinational companies and local tycoons. The Egyptian government must feed 80 million citizens, and it can’t rely on oil or coal – it has only the waters of the Nile, the Suez Canal and tourism. It can’t work miracles. In addition, what happens in Egypt depends on what happens in the western world and also on what happens here in Israel. The situation in Egypt is only a symptom of the collapsing global system. In Spain, for example, unemployment has reached the record figure of 21.3%. Young people who emigrated there from South America are going back home to seek work.

We too have responsibility – toward the Palestinians, toward those mired in poverty here, toward the Egyptians… Every change here has the potential to assist them, and vice versa. If we do nothing except moan about the Muslim Brotherhood, the Brotherhood will continue to rule. To get out of this crisis we must unite: either we all change the system, or we all drown. True, it’s not easy, and we have to contend with Bibi, who is no better than the Muslim Brotherhood, not to mention the Occupation. But last summer’s protests are a fact, and our presence here is a fact. We must act, and we can act. The fate of the Muslim Brotherhood is in the hands of the Egyptians and indirectly in our hands too. We all share the same fate.

Egypt: The women and children of Tahir square. An inspiration to us all

This is an inspiring look at the women and children of Egypt and how the process of overthrowing the US supported dictator Hosni Mubarik has affected the mood.  As the teacher explains, the children want to talk about politics.  The heroic women of Egypt deserve our support and admiration.  Throughout the history of working class struggles, women have played the most progressive and important roles.  The women of Tahir square continue this history and are an inspiration to us all.  This genie will not be put back in the bottle, too much blood has been shed and the determination can be seen on the faces and heard in the words of the children.

The Woman with the "Blue Bra": Egypt Women's movement inspires us all. Organize support.

This video and this commentary has been added since the first blog was written.  You Tube warns that of the graphic violence in this video.  The violence is committed by the dogs that the US government has armed and funded with US taxpayer's money.  The sickening hypocrisy of Hilary Clinton to giving speeches at the UN about gender rights and condemning the violence against women being committed by her former friends dogs in Tahir Square, pure political circus.  Millions of women have faced the most extreme violence throughout the world through policies Hilary Clinton supports.  Hundreds of thousands of women and children died during the US government driven sanctions against Iraq.  Where was Hilary Clinton all this time?  When the Egyptian people rose up against the US thug Mubarak, the US government never abandoned its ally until it became crystal clear he was on his way out.  The dogs attacking this woman have been trained and funded by the US taxpayer.  And back home the US government wages war on workers and the poor to pay for it.  Continue on for the original piece.

*********

It was the biggest movement of Egyptian women since a 1919 march of women against colonial rule. Egypt is the mot important of all the Arab countries. When thousands of women take to the streets and demand they be listened to then this is a historic event. The all male military dictatorship are trying to drive them off the streets with brute force, killings and beatings. But not only this brutal rape and humiliations. The military after they took over power in February performed invasive, pseudo-medical 'virginity tests' on several women arrested after a demonstration in March. This was rape intended to intimidate all women. So is the stripping of women and the beating of women in the recent march. The video of the young women where she was stripped and beaten by all male soldiers makes things clear. When her clothes were pulled off she was shown to be wearing a blue bra. She is now referred to as the "blue bra girl" and "blue bra" is being used on twitter to spread the word asking for support for the movement.

At a news conference a woman journalist asked a general to apologize to the women of Egypt. He refused. This same journalist said if he did not the "next revolution will be a women revolution for real." To over come the fact that few people outside the main cities have access to the Internet steps are being taken to set up screens where the lies of the generals can be exposed and the real events can be shown.

These military thugs have been the creatures of Washington for decades. Armed and financed by them. Do not be fooled by Clinton's criticisms. These thugs have also been the bed fellows of the Zionist region in Israel. Now they are viciously murdering their own people. We must give them our support.

This is especially important as this movement so far is a movement of women. In this Islamic country with so much male chauvinist ideology not only will this movement have to fight the military and its backers in the US and Israel but it will also have to fight the organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and also backward sexist ideas in the middle and working class especially the middle and working class men. This heroic inspiring women's movement get our support. Send messages and demonstrate at Egyptian consulates and embassies world wide.

Sean.

Egyptian workers, teachers, transit workers strike against military rule

Just as the international media did with regard the general strike that shook Cuba and helped bring down the dictatorship, the role of the working class in the struggles in the Middle east or anywhere will be somewhat obscured by the capitalist press, even the liberal wing of it.  There have been years of major strikes in Egypt and they are continuing on a daily basis in one form or another. It is important for us not to lose track of this as it is the working class that the military dictatorships, Mullahs, absolute monarchies and more liberal democratic regimes fear most and quite right they are.

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood looks like US capitalism's best bet

It won't be easy putting this genie back in the bottle

The coupon clippers have found their most likely ally in their efforts to shape Egypt's future.  The Muslim Brotherhood has been very busy meeting with international bankers and foreign investors reassuring them that their money and capitalism is safe in their hands.   The Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party will most likely be the "largest political force" in the country says one Egyptian political analyst although it has vowed not to run a candidate for president or seek more than half of the parliamentary seats.

The fears of western capital that the Brotherhood will build stronger links with Hamas and Hezbollah and restrict western imperialism's interests in the region are beginning to dissipate as the meetings between the Brotherhood and western bankers and investors produce favorable results.

One of Egypt's biggest investment banks brought fund managers to Egypt from the US, UK, Africa and the Middle East to meet the Brotherhood's second in  command Khairat El-shater who was in prison under the US capitalism's  puppet regime of Hosni Mubarak. "They all have many questions about one issue: What impact will the Muslim Brotherhood have on the investment climate" El-shater tells Business Week Magazine.*

The treatment of women, trade Unions, democracy, civil rights---not an issue as long as investments are secure and the plunder of the region goes on unabated.  After all, look at Saudi Arabia. The investors were very pleased with the meeting, it "dismissed some investors concern about an extreme economic policy", says an officer of the investment bank that invited them. Some of the investors "were positively surprised to find some of the ideas shared by the brotherhood to be mostly capitalist in nature" he adds.

El shater's remarks were music to the coupon clipper's ears, "We believe in a very, very big role for the private sector" he told them. The Brotherhood wants to, "attract as much investment as possible." after all, they are business owners.

Whew! That's good news as those folks in Tahrir are an unstable bunch who are demanding "extreme" economic policies like higher wages, trade Union rights, democracy, the firing of corrupt government and police officials. They're a bunch of communists.

The Brotherhood is promising to direct more investment to industry and to create jobs and promises to "trim the deficit" says BW.  But it doesn't take a Phd in economics to see the weakness in this argument.  The international coupon clippers don't shift capital from one country to another in order to raise wages. Their main concern is not the living standards of Egyptian workers or the social services that they receive.  And in a country like Egypt, the public/state sector is significant.

The situation in Egypt is far from decided as the recent mass protests in Tahrir show. It is hard to tell exactly what the future holds.  A stalemate cannot go on indefinitely either the workers and youth will
have to advance or the military will crush the movement or at least halt it and it will dissipate for now.  It's hard to predict these events when you're not there. Also, the Muslim Brotherhood, like any organization, has different currents within it. It is hard to say what changes objective reality will force on this organization.  Another former US ally, Osama bin laden, was a free market advocate and global capitalist.

Western capitalism will do its best to find a suitable ally strong enough to protect its interests in the region no matter which force plays that role and at the moment, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be the best bet for international capital.  The problem at the moment is the revolutionary process appears to still have some strength to it. 

The Brotherhood's agenda, "is a generally free market oriented program" says Shadi Hamid, one Middle east academic at the Brookings Center in Qatar, adding "I found it surprising because that is not the way the winds are blowing in Egypt."

Whether the winds will be contained remains to be seen.


* Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Embraces Business: Business Week 7-11-11

Egypt forms Palestine Administration

Report: Published today (updated) 28/06/2011 21:17

CAIRO, Egypt (Ma'an) --

Newly-appointed Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammad Al-Urabi announced Tuesday that his ministry would form a new department to handle Palestinian affairs, the Egyptian newspaper Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.

The Palestine Administration was created one day after the new foreign minister took office.

After he was sworn in Monday, Al-Urabi told reporters that "a new strategic situation emerged and it necessitates a united Arab stance towards the question of Palestine.

"Our goal for the coming period will be to formulate this stance in order to support the Palestinian position in the peace process."

The US Muslim Brotherhood link: is that the new partnership for Washington?

No one in the Middle East gives Obama or any US official's words about dialogue, non violence and democracy any credibility whatsoever.  Every worker in  the Middle East is fully aware that the Saudi troops that were sent in to Bahrain to protect a dictatorship in the form of an absolute monarchy against protesters seeking democratic reforms, went in with the knowledge and support of US capitalism. Had US troops been used, this would have intensified the anger and hatred of the occupation of much of this area by US capitalism and its support of ruthless regimes like the Saudi and Bahraini monarchs.

As Obama speaks, 47 Bahraini medical personnel are being held for treating protesters wounded by government forces. The brutality and violence by the US puppets in the region, Yemen, Bahrain, is handled with kid gloves while Assad gets the UN treatment and threats of sanctions.  There are protests in Iraq also against the US occupation and repression, this is kept out of the US mass media in the main as are protests in Saudi Arabia although the repression is so severe there and backed by US military weaponry that protesting is a very risky business.  The biggest obstacle to secular democracy in the Middle East has been US foreign policy, which is also the best recruitment tool for terrorist groups.  The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has worked very closely with British intelligence and the CIA, may well be the most reliable US ally in the region through all of this; it is a very pro capitalist organization and opposes secular regimes.  As we know, US imperialism and the CIA have no qualms working with religious fanatics as long as they are anti-worker and pro market.

Mubarak to stand trial. What about the US Congress?

One of US capitalism's most ruthless and reliable dictators could be facing the death penalty if Egyptians have their way. According to Egypt's attorney general, Mubarak and two of his sons are facing serious charges in the face of the revolutionary wave that toppled hin earlier this year. Charges include: "intentional murder, attempted murder of demonstrators, abuse of power to intentionally waste public funds and unlawfully profiting from public funds for them and for others," the Wall Street Journal reports.

This will send shock waves throughout the Middle East as one dictator after another is under siege.  Mubarak has been a favored son of successive US administrations for his support of US capitalism's interests in the region including giving Israel a secure border in the East, participating in the blockade of Gaza. Mubarak received some $2 million a year of US taxpayer funding for military and security purposes in order to suppress with considerable violence, the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people.

As we read these charges, just about every member of the US Congress would be guilty of these offenses as Congress is nothing but a huge public trough in which they dip their snouts. Mubarak is also charged with taking bribes and "favors".  Heck, that's the normal procedure int he US political system The Zionist thug Netenyahu was there yesterday ensuring his share is kept safe.

I remember the pleasure in Union meetings calling for a "show of hands" when a vote of some contention was taken, forcing those that like to hide out in to the open.  The revolution that deposed Mubarak was a great historical event only given sanction by the Obama administration when it became clear their man Mubarak was no longer a viable ally.  The hypocrisy of US imperialsim and the present administration has been laid bare for all to see. 

The US is a nation that has more people in prison than any other nation in the world.  It executes children and the mentally impaired. It applauded the assassination of Bin Laden and the violation of a county's sovereignty to do it, never mind the the US has given haven to terrorists from around the world, the Shah of Iran for example; the US is a very violent culture, just watch TV here for a bit.  But the Wall Street Journal, the dominant mouthpiece of US capitalism is concerned that their man Mubarak is being charged with anything, "It will feed concerns in Israel that trend lines in the post Mubarak Egypt are moving away from moderation toward extremism."

What moderation is the Wall Street Journal referring to?  Every worker in the Middle East not an uncritical supporter of the US/Zionist alliance is well aware of the brutality and horrors of the Mubarak regime.  US foreign policy in the Middle East is a disaster for US workers. 

The influence of the youth on events in Egypt is significant and prior to the revolution there were years of strikes and disputes over pay and working conditions.  There are further protests planned and more  demands on the table like the "imposition of a minimum wage, and end to military trials and greater freedom to criticize the military." Pretty "extremist" eh. 

Egypt's natural gas line to Israel hit by explosions

A group of armed men have blown up the natural has pipeline in Egypt that supplies natural gas to Israel and Jordan.  Reuters claims that this was an "armed gang" of unknown origin. Reuters said that the supply of gas to Israel had been affected.  The gas line was shut down as workers tried to repair the line. 

Israel gets 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt and there have been allegations of massive corruption and dirty deals being made out of the deal by the Mubarak family and his cronies.The pipeline is a major issue in the area as Jordan also depends on natural gas for 80% of its electricity. We have yet to see the results of that the uprising in Egypt will have on the Israel/Egypt peace accord.  Egypt has given Israel a relatively secure eastern flank blocking entrance to Gaza and supporting the siege. More here

Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen: US capitalism's stooges under fire, a threat to US foreign policy

US stooge #1

“Egyptians court foes of the US” reads a headline in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. There are multiple causes for this concern from capitalism’s premier cheering sheet. Iran has appointed an ambassador to Egypt for the first time in 30 years, which ruffles feathers in Washington. And it gets worse, Egypt’s new foreign minister, Nabil Elaraby, is “considering” a visit to the Gaza strip. How dare they.

The US has declared Hamas, the democratically elected group that governs Gaza, a terrorist organization. That is a death warrant in itself. Initially, US capitalism welcomed democratic elections in Gaza as it assumed its stooges in the region, the Palestinian Authority would be elected. But the Palestinian voters did not choose US capitalism’s candidates. The Palestinian Authority had a reputation for corruption and subservience to the US and therefore Israeli interests, a view that recently released papers have confirmed. The elections that resulted in a Hamas victory were praised by independent observers as democratic.

US stooge #2

The US is worried that “determination to re-establish relations with Iran” is a reflection of Egypt’s changing foreign policy in the region since the uprisings there forced the removal of the corrupt and oppressive regime of Hosni Mubarak, a trusted stooge of US capitalism. Perhaps Egyptians simply want to live in peace in the area without the constant threat of nuclear war that is being stoked by the US approach to Iran. Until recently, Tehran has been “shunned” by Cairo, the WSJ adds. But this shunning is the price the dictatorship of Mubarak paid for millions of dollars of US taxpayer's funds and the arming of its military in order to maintain this dictatorship. Shunning Tehran and supporting the US and Israel in the blockading and starving of over one million Arabs in Gaza has not likely been the chosen foreign policy of the Egyptian masses.

The US mass media, is the most censored and controlled in the advanced capitalist economies, so when we read about who is “concerned” about what in the world we have to consider the source. The Gulf Cooperation Council is “concerned” about “flagrant Iranian interference” in Bahrain, for example. The GCC is a club of undemocratic regimes propped up by the US taxpayer (this is why we can’t fund education) and includes Saudi Arabia that has just introduced some electoral reforms that allow people to vote in some cases; women need not apply. The Saudi’s sent troops in to smash the protests in Bahrain and as we pointed out in earlier blogs, US taxpayer money is supporting absolute monarchies against uprisings that are demanding democratic rights and in some cases the forming of a Republic.  Iran didn't have to interfere in Bahrain, Bahraini's want rights that we have here in America and that they are slowly taking away from us. You couldn’t get a better recruiting tool for al Qaeda or the Iranian Mullahs than US support for these thugs.

US stooge #3

The rest of the world sees the sheer hypocrisy in the US position, not just with regard to Bahrain and Yemen but also supporting the European and US settlers in Israel/Palestine in their theft of Palestinian land. Iran issued a statement saying that the US criticism is surprising “while the military forces of some members of the council have cracked down on defenseless men and women” in Bahrain. The Iranian regime itself is guilty of such crimes  which lessens the credibility of its criticism but most workers in the region will sympathize as Iran has not historically been a destabilizing force in the region as the US claims, nor the source of instability and slaughter, this has been the role of US and British imperialism.

The WSJ also writes of Hamas that “the group seized power from the more moderate Fatah in 2007”. "Moderate" means pro Pentagon. This is why we tend to emphasize, too strongly for some, the corrupt role of the US and its stooges in the region. The US mass media chooses its words and descriptions of events carefully. Hamas was elected, in a more democratic procedure than occurs in the US. Al Jazeera, a news organization that puts the US news outlets to shame in most categories is still blocked access to the American public compared to CNN, Fox or other agencies. The US mass media convinced most Americans that Al Jazeera is a “terrorist “ network much in the same way that it convinced most of us that Iraqi’s were responsible for the 911 events. The US mass media is a few notches above Pravda when it comes to reporting events.

So when we hear on TV or read in the papers about Egypt or any other country's foreign policy changing from being pro US to anti US we should consider that the media is referring to the former stooges of US capitalism losing their iron grip on their populations that forced the Pentagon and the US oil industry capitalists interests and foreign policy objectives on them. The elephant in the room is the Zionist regime it's Apartheid system and the horrific blockade of Gaza causing untold hardship to the millions of Palestinians that live in this, largest concentration camp in the area.

US stooge #4

The roots of anti Americanism and acts of terrorism against Americans and so-called allies lie deep in US foreign policy. We allow the unelected rulers of the world, the few thousand people that sit on the boards of the major corporations and finance houses and who meet in places like Davos and Jackson Hole Wyoming to figure out how best to govern the economies they plunder, we allow them to speak and act on our behalf. The state funeral the young Italian activist just received in Gaza shows how unity and solidarity can be built across nationalist, religious and gender lines. As in any situation, of we want people to respect us we have to respect them.

As American workers we have to separate ourselves from those who also call themselves “Americans” as they plunder the economies of the world, slaughtering the men, women and children who dare try to stop them so they can have some control over their own lives and resources.

We have to speak with an independent working class voice in action and also in politics, both Republicans and Democrats represent these thugs. It should be remembered that the Democratic Party is the only political party in history that dropped nuclear bombs on highly populated civilian targets. It's come a long way baby,  from the party of the slave owners to that.