Egyptian revolution at the crossroads

The Egyptian revolution has reached a critical point, with the weakness and lack of strategy of the opposition leadership allowing a once-discredited army elite to resume a key role just over a year after it was forced to yield power to civilian authority.

As a result, the growing authoritarianism of the Morsi/Muslim Brotherhood regime has, for the time being, been replaced by an authoritarian military-backed regime. The suspension of the constitution, the arrest of Morsi and the closing down of Muslim Brotherhood media outlets are dangerous signs.

So too is the reinstatement by the Supreme Judicial Council yesterday of Mubarak-era judge Abdel Meguid Mahmoud to the post of prosecutor general months after he was removed by Morsi.

With the liberals in Tamarod, who called for the street campaign to oust Morsi, joining the “interim” regime, the masses have been led up a cul de sac. The new regime has no intention of changing the real power relations in Egypt, whereby the army and the capitalist class between them direct and control the economy. Fresh elections for the presidency will not alter this position.

That explains the muted response to Morsi’s removal by the White House and the ConDem government. Their concern for the democratic process is, of course, hypocrisy writ large after decades of propping up Mubarak. Obama et al simply want the people off the streets as soon as possible in case other people cotton on to how revolutions work.

The Egyptian street was powerful enough to bring down the Morsi government that was increasingly ruling by decree and had failed to address soaring unemployment, rising prices and inequality. In fact, it was negotiating with the International Monetary Fund to end subsidies on key foodstuffs.

But as a situation of dual power developed in a revolution that is striving to go further than democratic reform, the movement was headed off at the pass. Tamarod (Rebel) has affirmed its support for the military’s intervention, as have a number of human rights groups.

Jonathan Steele, the Guardian commentator, is right when he says: “The fact that the army's move has been welcomed by many of the revolutionaries who first had the courage to go into the streets against Mubarak in 2011 is a desperate commentary on their political naivety and shortsightedness.”

No good can ever come of the army’s role. History has shown repeatedly from Chile to Greece that the army is part of the status quo of the capitalist state and will remain so until that state is deconstructed. Declaring that it is “on the side of the people” is what Allende told Chileans shortly before Pinochet seized power in 1973.

What the Egyptian masses have shown is their capacity to become the decisive force in society. That is a lesson that will not be lost on people struggling against austerity and inequality around the globe as the economic crisis deepens.

But what is equally true is that without a plan, without a strategy that is based on actually taking the power away from the ruling elites, the revolution cannot succeed. The reorganisation of the economy along democratically-owned and controlled lines and the guaranteeing of human rights cannot be achieved within the existing political-state framework.

In Egypt, power was up for grabs but the inadequacy of the movement’s leadership saw the ball grabbed by the army as a vacuum emerged. The illusion that power can slip into the hands of the masses by sheer energy and presence alone is just that – an illusion.

The situation remains fluid, with the army balancing between the contending classes. The aspirations of the masses remain unfulfilled while their determination to win is undiminished. To prevent a counter-revolution from taking hold, in Egypt they will need to build a leadership and develop a strategy that actually has power as its goal. In other words, the social and political revolution have to come together. This is actually the challenge in every capitalist country today.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor 

Arab Spring leads to winter revolution

The prospect of Egypt’s second uprising inside a year is more than a challenge to continuing military rule; it also poses the transformation of the democratic into the social revolution.

Many had hoped, wrongly, that the army which facilitated the removal of Hosni Mubarak by standing aside from the January revolution, would step aside once parliamentary elections had been held. "The army and the people are one hand," many chanted when Mubarak quit.

But there was too much at stake for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) to allow that to happen. They are part of the Egyptian ruling class in the most literal sense, owning large chunks of the economy.

As much as one-third of Egypt's economy is under military control through a host of government-owned service and manufacturing companies, at least 14 of them under the auspices of the Military Production Ministry. El Nasr Co. for Services and Maintenance, for instance, has 7,750 employees in such sectors as child care, car repair, and hotel administration.

In a secret cable dated September 2008 signed by U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey, the embassy in Cairo told Washington that the Egyptian military was "becoming a “quasi-commercial” enterprise itself.

Other military companies produce small arms, tank shells, and explosives — as well as exercise equipment and fire engines. These companies add up to "a very large, unaccountable, non-transparent Military Inc.," says Robert Springborg, author of Mubarak's Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order.

The generals "will try to massage the new order so that it does not seek to impose civilian control on the armed forces," he said in February. "It's not just a question of preserving the institution of the army. It's a question of preserving the financial base of its members."

And that is just what has happened. Next Sunday’s scheduled elections would result in a powerless parliament and a military that is exempt from political oversight and control, according to a protocol that the generals got the interim government to sign up to.

The army has been tightening its grip on power since Mubarak was overthrown. They have processed 12,000 civilians through military tribunals, more in 10 months than the former president managed in his 30 years of rule.

Outspoken critics are in jail while blogger Maikel Nabil has been on hunger strike for almost three months in protest against military trials. There are official bans on strikes and demonstrations and the army provoked sectarian violence against Coptic Christians as part of its divide and rule strategy.

Some activists now realise that the euphoria of January masked the tasks that still lay out ahead. “We handed power to the military on a silver platter," said Ahmed Imam, a 33-year-old activist, of the January uprising. "The revolutionaries went home too soon. We collected the spoils and left before the battle was over."

The removal of the army from power will require a strategy that goes beyond the creation of a parliamentary democracy. In itself, that would not be able to deliver on the needs of the Egyptian people in terms of jobs and a better standard of living.

A parliament that leaves economic relations unchanged would, be at the mercy of global banks and the International Monetary Fund, as is patently the case already in countries like Greece, Italy and Spain.

As the November revolution gets under way in Egypt, it can inspire the rest of the world by going beyond capitalist-army economic ownership and handinf over the productive resources to people in the cities, towns and countryside. That is something the Egyptian people could unite around and the people’s assemblies created in January can take on the job of achieving this transformation.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Egypt's military regime is challenged

The 25th of January revolution in Egypt that swept Mubarak from power after 30 years vented simmering social, political and economic pressures which had been building for a long while.

Revolutionaries are keen to shed the old “puppet state” stigma from the days of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime received more than $50bn from the US during his three decades in power.

Egyptian finance officials are scrambling to find internal fixes so that foreign aid isn’t necessary to cover a reported $28.5bn deficit. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of the population rejects foreign aid, especially from the US, even as the country struggles to recover.

A Gallup poll found that 75% of Egyptians oppose US aid to political groups, and 68% think the US will try to exert direct influence over Egypt’s political future. In the last week, the military council that runs the country rejected the caretaker government’s proposed budget largely because of its dependence on aid from the US and other foreign donors.

Egypt also retreated this month from seeking loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after activists complained that such arrangements compromise the country’s sovereignty. Instead, a new package of help for housing and small firms has been agreed with the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign aid typically comes with conditions about how such money is spent, which many Egyptians interpret as making the country beholden to Western interests. The IMF’s offer over the weekend of a $3bn loan to Egypt came with veiled conditions that suggest “it expects the country to alter its subsidies system and adhere closely to free-market principles despite previous claims that IMF assistance is unconditional,” according to a Cairo newspaper.

Pro-democracy activists say the long-time annual US aid package of up to $2bn – $1.3bn of it for the military – ensured that Mubarak’s authoritarian regime upheld the unpopular peace treaty with Israel and kept the Suez Canal open to facilitate American military operations in Iraq and the region. The joint US-Israel-Egypt enterprise that allowed tariff-free exports to the US must also be under threat.

The Muslim Brotherhoood's newly established Freedom and Justice Party is planning to focus on replacing Egypt's use of financial instruments such as derivatives and futures, with the three-decade old Islamic system operates by sharing profit or loss between the bank and its clients, instead of interest, which is forbidden.

John Sandwick, an Islamic finance adviser in Switzerland, believes that introducing more Islamic finance would not necessarily solve the country's economic problems. "Shari’ah is a method of doing business that doesn't stop speculative frenzies and impractical or unethical behaviour, as we've seen all too clearly," he said.

Nothing is settled, as blogger Jesse McLaren, who has followed the Egyptian revolution, notes: “Despite the removal of Mubarak, his regime is still intact: the emergency laws and military trials of civilians are still in effect; police cracked down on demonstrators on Nakba Day and beat a bus driver to death in June.”

Workers are demanding a minimum wage of 1,200 Egyptian pounds ($200) a month. Women demonstrated in Tahrir on International Women's Day for government-funded child care, an end to discrimination in hiring and promotions, and an end to sexual harassment and violence against women. Peasants have began reclaiming the land.

“But these demands challenge the military regime and the corporations that support them, which persists despite Mubarak's overthrow. As a striking doctor said, ‘Every percentage point for increasing health care will come from the budget of the Ministry of Interior and other parts of the oppressive machine.’ The same economic crisis that contributed to the revolution is driving a deeper wedge between political reforms gained and the social and economic demands that have yet to be met,” McLaren rightly points out

The outcome of the political struggle will determine whether the country continues as a subordinate part of the web of finance and trade relations that unite the global capitalist economy or whether the popular revolt finds a leadership that sets out on a new path to not-for-profit social ownership.

Gerry Gold

Economics editor