Marilyn Katz : A Different Path for Syria, and Hopefully for Chicago

Child at funeral in Chicago. Image from The Old Black Church.

And for Chicago?
A different path for Syria

Will U.S. diplomacy in Syria carve a new path towards peace at home and abroad?

By Marilyn Katz / The Rag Blog / September 19, 2013

CHICAGO -- The example of our leaders cannot help but guide the thinking of our youth: Might makes right and those who are "wrong" -- who disagree with our worldview -- are The Other, ever-more-easily transformed into an enemy to be dealt with by whatever means necessary.

I am more than pleased today. For the first time that I can remember, well at least since the Cuban missile crisis, the United States has chosen diplomacy over force to resolve an international conflict. We have taken a breath, stopped the worst of the bellicose rhetoric, put the guns away, and found a peaceful solution to what only a week ago seemed an irreversible march to war.

On a personal level I am relieved because I head to the Middle East a few weeks from now and didn’t relish the idea of adding a gas mask to my luggage.

As one, like many, whose support of President Obama is partially premised on his ability to discern the difference between a necessary and unnecessary war, I am relieved to see that leadership in action -- however late it was in coming.

But I also have another reason -- one closer to home. I live in Chicago, a city sadly now synonymous with gun violence. Much of my work is in communities where virtually every family has a family member, friend, or acquaintance who has been a victim (either as the shooter or the shot) of gun violence.

A few weeks ago I spoke at Stateville Correctional Center, an Illinois Maximum Security Prison, to a group of 40 men, ranging from about 25 to 70 -- virtually all of whom had been convicted of murder. We talked and they explained why they had killed. While some were at the scene of a robbery most said they killed to “protect the threads, wheels, corner, or women” they saw as within their defensible space, their world.

These sentiments and reasons were echoed in a discussion I was in recently with women from the South Side, who talked about the challenge they faced in keeping their remaining children, brothers, husbands -- and now even their girls -- out of harm’s way.

Unwilling to wait for and dubious about the prospects or effectiveness of congressional action, they spoke about their attempts to shield their young from a culture of violence -- on television, in the movies and on video games -- and their efforts to define manhood as something other than having the biggest gun.

As I drove home (ironically having to stop for 20 police cars racing to the latest shooting around the corner from the church where we had been meeting), I thought about what they had said and also about Syria, about Iraq, about Iran, about Grenada, about Vietnam.

As parents we try to model good behavior; through our actions we try to provide examples of how to deal with the hand that life has dealt. Yet we are not the only -- let alone the strongest -- influences in our children’s lives.

Our children, be they 10, 20, 30, or 40, have grown up in a context of non-stop war. They have watched not only “the axis of evil” but also their ultimate role models -- their presidents, from Kennedy to Johnson to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Bush -- turn to weaponry to resolve disputes large (Iraq) or small (Grenada).

They have watched the creation of the “Other” whose instant demonization once they become the enemy somehow justifies and lessens the horror of the death and destruction they endure. They have watched government-sponsored assassinations, once considered shocking, become a topic for public conversation, with the details of who orders the “hit” and under what circumstances -- rather than the validity of the fundamental action -- the only question discussed.

And they’ve learned a new term, “collateral damage,” for the non-combatants -- the women and children killed. You know, those like the scores of Hadiyas hit by a misfired or stray bullet.

Youth might also notice how quickly our former allies (some would say puppets) -- from the Taliban to Saddam Hussein, from Noriega to Assad -- are transformed into dangerous monsters who threaten our very existence and must be eliminated (sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally).

And while the territories and resources that the United States fought over are larger than the corner or possessions for which the young kill, the example of our leaders cannot help but guide the thinking of our youth: Might makes right and those who are “wrong” -- who disagree with our world view -- are The Other, ever-more-easily transformed into an enemy to be dealt with by whatever means necessary.

Urban youth might well (and do) argue in their defense that the threat they face each day is far greater and more imminent than those faced by the nation during the recent wars we’ve chosen to fight.

I no more than anyone else know if the diplomatic solution which our president and the nation have "fallen into" will work. The seeds of the conflicts in the Middle East were planted long ago when, with American complicity, France, England, and Russia redrew the map of the region to meet their own imperial needs.

That said, those who are tired of war abroad and on the streets of our cities should hope diplomacy carries the day. We must be openly supportive of the process, both for what it could mean for a resolution of conflict in Syria, but more importantly, for the lesson it offers those who will guide the future.

This article was cross-posted by the author to In These Times.

[An anti-war and civil rights organizer during the Vietnam War, Marilyn Katz helped organize security during the August 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention. Katz has founded and led groups like the Chicago Women’s Union, Reproductive Rights National Network, and Chicago Women Organized for Reproductive Choice in the 1960s and 1970s, and Chicagoans Against War in Iraq in 2002. The founder and president of Chicago-based MK Communications, Katz can be contacted at mkatz@mkcpr.com. Read more articles by Marilyn Katz on The Rag Blog.]

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HISTORY / Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 8, 1922-1923

Sultan Ahmad Fuad became King Faud I in 1922. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

A people's history:
The movement to democratize Egypt

Part 8: 1922-1923 period -- Socialist and labor activism flourish despite foreign-dominated monarchy.

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2013

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "Hidden History of Texas" series on The Rag Blog.]

In 1922 “the British decided unilaterally...to allow Egypt formal independence...because of the realistic possibility that the 1919 Revolution could recur,” according to Selma Botman’s Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

Yet despite obtaining its formal independence from the UK on February 28, 1922, “Egypt of the pre-Nasser period was dominated by foreigners: the British controlled the upper levels of the military and the government, and people of various European nationalities owned and operated the banks, hotels, textile factories, and insurance companies,” according to the same book.

Although the UK-selected Sultan Ahmad Fuad was now officially the king of a formally independent Egyptian monarchical government in March 1922, the UK government still “retained the right to maintain the security of British imperial communications through Egypt (i.e., the Suez Canal),” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt; and during the next few decades “more than once Royal Navy warships appeared before the palace windows in Alexandria when the British wanted a controversial decision to go their way...”

A "strong British military presence remained in Egypt, not only in the canal zone but also in Alexandria and in Cairo, where the British army barracks stood in the middle of town on the site now occupied by the Nile Hilton Hotel,” and “a British high commissioner...was quite willing to intervene,” according to the same book.

Despite the monarchical government’s censorship policy, during the next few years “between 15,000 and 20,000 workers” in Egypt “were influenced by” the anti-imperialist Egyptian Socialist Party’s labor activism, according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

Party activists mobilized workers, organized meetings, and recruited new members in the Alexandria and al-Mahulah al industrial districts of Egypt; and one of the Egyptian Socialist Party’s founders, Joseph Rosenthal, organized 3,000 Egyptian workers to become members of the General Union of Workers (Itihad al-Naqabot al-‘Am) before being expelled from the Egyptian Socialist Party in December 1922 for opposing the party’s decision to accept the Comintern’s requirements for being affiliated to the Comintern.

Between August 1921 and April 1922, Egyptian workers in 50 different Egyptian workplaces were mobilized to fight for improved labor conditions in 91 separate strike actions. Tram workers in Alexandria went on strike for 42 days, Cairo’s tram workers went on strike for 102 days, and workers at the Shell Oil Refinery in Egypt went on strike for 113 days.

By late 1922, the Egyptian Socialist Party had recruited around 400 members in its Alexandria branch and about 1,100 members in its branches in other Egyptian cities; and the General Union of Workers -- that Egyptian Socialist Party members led -- now had about 20,000 members.

After affiliating with the Third International’s Comintern, the Egyptian Socialist Party then changed its name to the Egyptian Communist Party; and, led by a Central Committee which Hosni al-‘Arabi’ chaired, adopted the following program for the democratization of Egyptian society in its January 1923 meeting:

1. nationalization of the Suez Canal;
2. the liberation and unification of Egypt and the Sudan;
3. the repudiation of all Egyptian state debts and foreign capitulation agreements;
4. an 8-hour workday;
5. equal pay for Egyptian and foreign workers in Egypt;
6. abolition of land tenancy agreements in which Egyptian peasants had to pay 50 percent of the crop on rented land to large landowners;
7. the cancellation of the debts of all Egyptian peasants who owned less than 10 feddans of land; and
8. the restriction of landownership by individual landlords in Egypt to no more than 100 feddans.

To prevent the development of an anti-imperialist leftist movement of workers and intellectuals in Egypt during the early 1920s, however, a "special bureau” had been established by the UK-backed Egyptian Ministry of the Interior in 1921 “to monitor the activities” of the Egyptian Socialist Party; and “in their opposition to socialist activists the British found allies within the Egyptian bourgeoisie and religious circles,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

In addition, a Constitution for Egypt, “written by Egyptian legal experts who were sympathetic to the king and the British,” was also decreed on April 19, 1923, which set up an Egyptian Senate and Chamber of Deputies -- with members elected only by Egyptian men, “except for the two-fifths of the Senate who were appointed by the king” of Egypt, according to Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

This same Egyptian Constitution of 1923 also “gave excessive power to the monarch, who was granted authority to dismiss cabinets, dissolve parliament and appoint and unseat prime ministers,” according to the same book.

And besides holding excessive political power under the April 1923 Egyptian Constitution, “the royal family of Egyptian King Fuad also “owned about one-tenth of the arable land in Egypt” in 1923, according to A History of Egypt. Yet, according to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Egyptian monarchical government’s minister of finance and communications in 1923, Joseph Cattaui, was of Jewish religious background.

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

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Tom Hayden : Egypt is the Liberals' Slaughterhouse

Egyptian military chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi speaks to the people after the coup. Photo from AP. Image from The Telegraph.

Post-coup Egypt:
The liberals’ slaughterhouse

The Egyptian coup, for now, marks a dead end for political Islam, and a vindication of those like Al Qaeda who reject the path of democratic elections as a deadly trap.

By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog / August 28, 2013

When Secretary of State John Kerry described Egypt’s military coup as restoring democracy, it was a classic example of the periodic bond that exists between liberals and military dictators against those they perceive to be the dangerous classes. Their reasoning is that their version of democracy can only be restored when their enemies are eliminated, even if the enemy has won an election.

Think of the CIA overthrows of Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh (1953) and Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz (1954), or the clandestine U.S. overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile (1973) and of Algeria’s slaughter of Islamists in the nineties when they were on the brink of electoral victory.

Think of the persistent discrediting and attempted coup against the elected Chavistas in Venezuela, the coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, and the U.S. ouster of Jean-Bertrande Aristide in Haiti.

These are not isolated instances, but a pattern that has lead to the bloodshed in Cairo today. Movements inimical to Western interests cannot be allowed to peacefully come to power through elections. If they do, they will be targeted for destabilization or worse.

The Egyptian coup, for now, marks a dead end for political Islam, and a vindication of those like Al Qaeda who reject the path of democratic elections as a deadly trap. It also pleases Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was strongly opposed by Morsi. Assad said that the Brotherhood is unfit to rule. (New York Times, July 5, 2013) The Israelis were "quietly pleased" with the coup too [New York Times, Aug. 17] The monarchs of Saudi Arabia and the Emirate are deeply satisfied.

In Egypt, thousands are being slaughtered by a military fully funded and trained by the United States government. The Egyptian generals’ coup -- which, shamefully, has not been named a coup by our government or mainstream media -- was welcomed with joy, even delirium, by many in Egypt who failed to win the elections, in particular by Egypt’s secular liberals and progressives. Did they think that tanks and bayonets could construct a liberal society?

The generals clearly used the liberals -- and a mass popular base of frustration -- while planning to proceed with the mass slaughter.

Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood are authoritarian in nature because of 80 years of brutal prosecution by Egyptians rulers with U.S. support. But they cannot be faulted for playing by the rules of Egypt’s electoral system, one in which Morsi won nearly 52 percent of the vote.

Morsi’s worst excess was his failed attempt to circumvent the Hosni Mubarak judiciary and place his constitutional reforms on the ballot. That was a power grab away from Mubarak’s judges in the direction of a democratic election. The history of Chicago politics is littered with far worse.

Morsi represented a shift toward the Palestinians diplomatically and politically, but not militarily, and a softer policy toward Sinai's tribal insurgents. He supported jihad against Syria's Assad, but avoided prosecuting the Egyptian generals, even protected the military's budget from parliamentary oversight.

In losing the election to Morsi, the secular liberals were to blame for their own divisions and marginal electoral status. The Facebook Generation wildly overestimated their support. They confused a media strategy with a political one, believing that the spectacle of bravely occupying Tahrir Square would not only appeal to CNN viewers but Egypt’s millions of voters who lived and worked far from the Square.

Their radical strategy of "occupying space," copied by many around the world, galvanized media attention to the spectacle, but led to a deeper polarization while draining resources and attention away from broad-based organizing to explain and protect the cause. Their implicit critique of Mubarak and the Brotherhood as being essentially the same has proven to be a disastrous mistake in judgment.

President Barack Obama could have sent a clear and immediate signal to the generals through Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel: we will not support you. This is a coup and, under American law, our $1.5 billion in military aid will be suspended. Period.

Had Obama done so, perhaps the generals would have blinked, or delayed their intended massacre. Or perhaps they would have gone ahead with their slaughter funded by the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who recently gave the military junta $8 billion in emergency aid.

U.S. officials argue that Egypt's military is a strategic ally for reasons that deserve congressional hearings and urgent reexamination. First, defenders of the coup say that the Egyptian military, from Mubarak to the present, has been a cornerstone of the War on Terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Egyptians permitted air space and the the expedited use of the Suez Canal as conduits for American troops and equipment.

Unmentioned is Egypt's willing collaboration in U.S. rendition and torture programs. Those are good reasons to re-examine the US-Egyptian partnership because torture turned into a global scandal and the wars themselves into trillion-dollar quagmires. Those in the American national security establishment who concocted these follies should take responsibility for their disastrous thinking but remain protected and immune from personal consequences -- which only guarantees that the folly will be perpetuated.

An Egyptian man walks between lines of bodies wrapped in shrouds at a mosque in Cairo. Photo by Khaled Desouki.

The other rationale for supporting Mubarak and the current coup is that a repressive crushing of the Brotherhood is good for Israel. Since the 1979 Camp David Treaty between Israel and Egypt, the Egyptian military has been paid $1.5 billion annually to abandon any military support for the Palestinians.

The Israelis lobbied Obama and Congress to keep propping up the Mubarak dictatorship, which Obama resisted. But the Israelis also are closely tied to Gen. Sisi from his previous role in charge of Egypt's intelligence services. In recent days, according to The New York Times [Aug. 18], Sisi "appeared to be in heavy communication with Israeli colleagues, and [U.S.] diplomats believed the Israelis were also undercutting the Western message by reassuring the Egyptians not to worry about American threats to cut off aid."

That's because Tel Aviv believes that AIPAC controls the UC Congress. [When Sen. Rand Paul offered an amendment on July 31 opposing U.S. aid to the coup generals, the Senate turned it down on an 86-13 vote, with leading senators echoing an AIPAC letter, the Times noted.

Israel may think its security interests are protected by the coup and the violent demise of the Brotherhood. But that is short-term thinking at best. If the Arabs are killing each others, goes the neocon refrain, it's good for Israel.

Now, however, Israel faces a civil war which might spill over the border, including an insurrection in Sinai. The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks seem only to be a public relations gesture designed to prevent the Palestinians from taking their quest for sovereignty to the United Nations in September. With wars flooding through the Middle East, and with the Palestinians themselves divided, progress towards a Palestinian state seems blocked.

The future is completely unpredictable for now. The generals will continue their war to exterminate the Brotherhood, unless checked by internal resistance and outside pressure. Instead of an avenue forward for political Islam, the future appears to be Algeria where only military massacres prevented Islamists from taking power through democratic elections.

Algeria today, like Egypt, is a mainstay of the most extreme repression, including torture, in the arsenal of the War on Terrorism.

How long can this go on? No one knows, but it can be a very long time, a surge of renewal for the sagging War on Terrorism. Much depends on liberalism rethinking itself. Mohammad el-Baradai, the liberal who became Sisi's vice president with American support, has resigned after the latest army massacre of Brotherhood members. Perhaps more defections will follow, though the damage has been done.

The Brotherhood, which survived underground for 80 years, is likely to regroup and resist. Widespread sabotage, assassination of police and army officers, and rural guerrilla warfare are probable scenarios, unless the U.S. acts quickly to suspend military aid, which is required under American law.

A suspension of aid -- coupled with warnings to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates -- seems the only way to stop the generals. Instead of the failed liberal strategy of "working from within" to reform the military dictatorship, only the opposite course offers possibilities: a suspension of U.S. aid coupled with the release of Brotherhood prisoners and a UN-sponsored conference aimed at reviving a constitutional process.

Obama is more likely to continue ignoring American law than pursue a showdown with the Egyptian military. His Cairo speech, call for Mubarak's resignation, and acceptance of Morsi's election indicates that the president believes in a political role for Islam, contrary to many of his close advisers and allies.

For now he is described by the establishment as being in a "no win" situation [New York Times, Aug. 18] . Events still might force his hand, but not if liberal voices continue believing that democracy still lies just ahead beyond the mountain of bodies.

[Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice, and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His latest book is The Long Sixties. Hayden is director of the Peace and Justice Resource center and editor of The Peace Exchange Bulletin. Read more of Tom Hayden's writing on The Rag Blog.]

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HISTORY / Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 7, 1917-1921

Scene from the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. Image from Egyptian History website.

A people's history:
The movement to democratize Egypt

Part 7: 1917-1921 period -- British oppression leads to nationalist revolution and beginnings of a labor movement.

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2013

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "Hidden History of Texas" series on The Rag Blog.]

Despite the 1882 to 1956 imperial occupation of Egypt by the United Kingdom, until 1914 Egypt was still considered to be a legal part of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire. But after Turkey’s Ottoman dynasty rulers -- on October 29, 1914 -- allied with Germany during World War I, “the British declared martial law in Egypt” on November 2, 1914, and “imposed censorship,” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt.

Then, on December 18, 1914, “the British government severed Egypt’s ceremonial connection with the Turks and declared the country a British protectorate, changing its territorial status and regularizing Anglo control,” according to Selma Botman’s Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952; and on December 19, 1914, the UK “deposed Abbas Hilmy II” as Egypt’s official ruler “for having `definitely thrown in his lot with his Majesty’s enemies’” and “replaced Abbas with his uncle Husein Kamil, an elderly man, easily managed,” who “was given the title of sultan,” according to A History of Egypt.

But Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952 noted how more direct and overt UK imperialist rule after 1914 brought increased national oppression to most people in Egypt:

As World War I progressed, the British became more aggressive in their efforts to control the entire country. In addition to British civil servants who were brought to Cairo to run the bureaucracy, British Empire troops swarmed the larger cities. With the war came high inflation and a degree of hardship that was painful to the majority of the population. In consequence, Anglo-Egyptian hostility deepened... Military authorities forced the peasants to exchange grain, cotton, and livestock for limited compensation.

As A History of Egypt also recalled:

Large numbers of men were conscripted into auxiliary forces such as the Camel Corps and the Labor Corps. Beginning in 1916, desperate for soldiers, the British began drafting Egyptians into the army. The British also conscripted people’s livestock, taking the donkeys and camels that were often necessary for subsistence... The tightness of the British grip on Egypt became glaringly apparent when Sultan Husein Kamil died in October 1917, and the British...altered the terms of succession so that he was succeeded not by his son, who was viewed as anti-British, but by his half-brother Ahmed Fuad...

So, not surprisingly, near the end of World War I an Egyptian “nationalist leader, Saad Zaghlul, with support from the entire country, openly demanded..... that Egypt be allowed to determine [its]own destiny;” and “in November 1918, an Egyptian delegation of nationalist politicians and well-paid notables was formed” -- that “became the nucleus” of the Egyptian landowning elite’s nationalist Wafd party -- “and prepared itself to represent Egypt at the postwar conference in Paris,” according to Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

On March 8, 1919, UK authorities in Egypt arrested Zaghlul and his political associates and deported them to Malta. In response to these arrests, according to the same book, the following happened:

Within days, the country erupted in revolt, protesting against the deportation of Zaghlul, the British occupation and Britain’s refusal to allow Egyptian nationalists to represent their country in negotiations to determine Egypt’s postwar status. Students, government employees, workers, lawyers, and professionals took to the streets...demonstrating, protesting... Throughout the country, British installations were attacked, railway lines damaged, and the nationalist movement gained credibility.

And, according to A History of Egypt, “by the time the British rushed in troops and restored order later in the month, more than 1,000 Egyptians were dead from the violence, as were 36 British military personnel and four British civilians.”

Zaghlul and his imprisoned Wafd colleagues were then released on April 7, 1919 -- following what became known as the “Egyptian Revolution of 1919” -- and were now allowed to attend the post-World War I peace conference in Paris to demand political independence from UK imperialism for Egypt. When the Egyptian nationalist leaders arrived, however, in Paris “the American envoy recognized Britain’s protectorate over Egypt;” and “Egypt’s right to self-rule was not established” in 1919, according to Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

Although Egyptian labor movement activists and workers joined with nationalist businesspeople in making a nationalist Egyptian revolution in 1919, “the revolution did not produce any movement toward labor reform” in Egypt; “and the alliance between labor and the bourgeoisie quickly dissipated," according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

Labor organizer “[Joseph] Rosenthal and Egyptian intellectuals committed to the labor movement -- among the most prominent were Hosni al-‘Arabi, Ali Al’-‘Anony, Salamah Musa, and Mohammed ‘Abdallah ‘Anan -- set out to establish an Egyptian Socialist Party (“al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Misr”) with Egyptian members who would represent the unionized workers,” according to the same book. And in August 1921, they founded the Egyptian Socialist Party.

The Egyptian Socialist Party then opened a party headquarters in Cairo and established branches in Alexandria, Tanta, Shibin al-Kawm, and Mansura. But when the party “applied for a license to publish a newspaper“ it was denied a license “because of its opposition to British and government policy” in Egypt, according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

In its August 28, 1921, program, the Egyptian Socialist Party demanded “the liberation of Egypt from the tyranny of imperialism and the expulsion of imperialism from the entire Nile Valley;” and in a December 22, 1921, manifesto, the party also declared that it would “maintain its socialist program" and would “not renounce the struggle against the Egyptian capitalist tyrants and oppressors, accomplices and associates of the tyrannical foreign domination.”

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

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HISTORY / Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 6, 1890-1917

Cairo street scene, early 1900's. Image from mfish.

A people's history:
The movement to democratize Egypt

Part 6: 1890-1917 period -- Early union-building and calls for economic reform.

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / August 13, 2013

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "hidden history" of Texas series on The Rag Blog.]

As long ago as 1890, some leftist activists and intellectuals who lived in UK- and Ottoman Empire-dominated Egypt were attempting to create a democratic political system that also distributed the national wealth of Egypt to its workers and peasants in a more equitable way.

In 1890, “the earliest formal presentation in Egypt of Marxist theory” was published in the influential Egyptian journal al-Mua’yyad,” according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s 1990 book The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988. And, according to the same book, “documents prove that communist cells existed in the Greek immigrant communities of Cairo and Alexandria as early as 1894.”

But as early as 1894, activists living in Egypt who wanted to see Egyptian society politically and economically democratized were being arrested by Egyptian government police. As The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988, also recalled, “an attempt by a Greek resident to distribute...leaflets was recorded in Egyptian newspapers on March 18, 1894” and “the police arrest record described the literature as `anarchist leaflet’ calling for the workers to celebrate the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871.”

Greek immigrant workers who lived in Egypt and worked for the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company went on strike for higher wages in 1895; and that same year a sponge merchant and labor organizer named Sakilarides Yanakakis (who also funded the communist movement in Egypt’s Greek immigrant community until the 1920s) was able to organize shoe workers (who were mostly workers of Armenian and Greek ethnic background) into Egypt’s first labor union.

After immigrating to Egypt around 1899 and becoming an Egyptian citizen (when around 25,000 people of Jewish religious background then lived in Egypt), another labor organizer, Joseph Rosenthal, also began organizing workers who lived in Egypt into labor unions during the first quarter of the 20th century. As Rosenthal recalled in an article he later wrote:

The first union in which I participated in its formation was the Union of the Cigarette Workers. After that I participated in the formation of several unions for the tailors, miners, and printers. These unions mostly belonged to foreign workers because the national workers at that time [in Egypt] were a minority in all crafts and fields relative to their foreign colleagues.

Between 1907 and 1917, the number of blue collar workers in Egyptian society then increased from 489,296 to 639,929. But “any efforts at organized labor” in Egypt “for improvement of its conditions were perceived by British intelligence and Egyptian security forces as...subversion and harshly put down by the government,” according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

Egyptian students returning from Europe and Egyptian intellectuals who attempted to popularize socialist or Marxist ideas among people who lived in Egypt were subject to police repression prior to 1917. After Egyptian intellectual Mustafa Hassanain al-Mansuri wrote and published his book, Tarikh al-Mathahib al-Istirakiyab (“The history of socialist ideologies”) in 1915, “al-Mansuri was treated as a conspirator,” his book was confiscated, his house was searched, and “he was temporarily arrested,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

In the final chapter (titled “Egypt and Socialism”) of his book, al-Mansuri had proposed the enactment of democratic reforms within Egyptian society such as the following:

1. The enactment of laws which guaranteed free elections;
2. the dissolving of the Egyptian legislature every three years;
3. a legislative representative for every 100,000 Egyptians;
4. a law which prohibited polygamy in Egypt;
5. the emancipation of Egyptian women after education was spread among them;
6. acceptance by the Egyptian government of Egyptian women as government clerical workers;
7. pensions for Egyptian senior citizens;
8. free education for people who lived in Egypt; and
9. social democratic economic reforms.

During the last three-quarters of the 19th century, much of the Egyptian state-owned land that Muhammad Ali had expropriated from the Mamluks and Waqf religious orders had eventually been granted by Muhammad Ali and his successors to “a new Turkish-speaking aristocracy that owned vast estates,” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt.

By the beginning of World War I around 44 percent of the land in Egypt was then owned by just 12,400 people whose average landholding was 50 feddans; and around 12 percent of these large Egyptian landowners were foreign.

In contrast, 11,190,000 people in rural Egypt -- representing 91 percent of the rural landowning population -- then owned less than five feddans of land. So a social democratic agrarian economic reform was especially needed in rural Egypt by 1915.

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

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Jack A. Smith : What's Up With the Egyptian Coup?

A man in Tahrir Square with his face painted in Egyptian colors. Image from CNN.

Egypt's coup:
Progressive or regressive?

It is ironic that the military -- formerly loathed for upholding the dictatorship for decades, then further reviled during its controversial 17-month governance until Morsi took office -- is now supported by nearly the entire opposition.

By Jack A. Smith / The Rag Blog / August 8, 2013

What is really happening in Egypt? Are the latest developments a progressive step forward or a regressive step backward for the millions of Egyptians seeking political change primarily through prolonged mass mobilizations in the streets?

It’s been over a month since a military coup d’état, with popular support, ousted the country’s first democratically elected government July 3 after only one year in office, following an earlier military coup with popular support that brought down dictator Hosni Mubarak.

There are diametrically opposed interpretations about what is taking place in Egypt. One fact remains certain, however. In 1952 during the overthrow of the monarchy, and in 2011 during the overthrow of the dictatorship, and in 2013 during the overthrow of the newly elected government, the military was the ultimate power. It has no intention to forego that power regardless of the outcome of the next election in 2014.

President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the candidate of the Freedom and Justice Party, remains in jail (or “incommunicado, as the media prefers), along with other imprisoned former government functionaries and MB followers. Most are awaiting trial on a variety of charges, as though it was the Brotherhood that launched the coup.

Some 250 people, almost all of them Morsi supporters, have been slain by military and security forces while demonstrating against the coup. The protests are continuing, and the military crackdown is becoming increasingly fierce.

The 450,000-strong armed forces, led by Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, dismissed the government just after popular anti-Morsi protests brought many millions of Egyptians into the streets June 30 to demand the president’s ouster. (In terms of the unusually huge crowds, this article just says “millions” because both sides tend to exaggerate their protest numbers.)

Sisi, who was named defense minister by Morsi, selected an interim government until new elections. Not one of the chosen 34 cabinet members belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, but 11 of them are veterans of the Mubarak regime. It seems doubtful that the MB and its political groups and associates that have produced majorities in five elections (presidential and parliamentary), will be allowed to contend for power.

The return of elements of the Mubarak regime is beginning to draw media attention. Writing in the Washington Post from Cairo July 19, Abigail Hauslohner stated: “Egypt’s new power dynamic following the coup is eerily familiar. Gone are the Islamist rulers from the Muslim Brotherhood. Back are the faces of the old guard, many closely linked to Mubarak’s reign or to the all-
powerful generals.”

Professor Joseph Massad, who teaches Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, was highly critical of the coup in a July 14 article in CounterPunch:

What is clear for now, with the massive increase of police and army repression with the participation of the public, is that what this coalition has done is strengthen the Mubarakists and the army and weakened calls for a future Egyptian democracy, real or just procedural. Egypt is now ruled by an army whose top leadership was appointed and served under Mubarak, and is presided over by a judge appointed by Mubarak (Interim President Adly Mansour) and is policed by the same police used by Mubarak. People are free to call it a coup or not, but what Egypt has now is Mubarakism without Mubarak.

There is no direct evidence that the U.S. was behind the coup. Of course Washington has long maintained intimate contact with the leaders of the armed forces and the Cairo government. It seems to have had as close a relationship with Morsi as it did with Mubarak and now with coup leader Gen. Sisi. There is an indirect connection, however, according to journalist Emad Mekay, writing in Al Jazeera, July 10:

A review of dozens of U.S. federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country's now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi. Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the U.S. channeled funding through a State Department program to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This program vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising.

The State Department's program, dubbed by U.S. officials as a "democracy assistance" initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose U.S. interests in the Middle East. Activists bankrolled by the program include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country's first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

President Obama has proclaimed neutrality in this matter and seems to have positioned himself above the conflict, but Washington’s every practical deed has been supportive of the military and the military-dominated interim civilian leadership.

President Obama refused to characterize the overthrow as a coup, which of course it was, because to do so would legally terminate the annual bribe of $1.3 billion to the Egyptian armed forces -- a token of America’s gratitude for maintaining good relations with Israel. On July 31 U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the Pentagon would participate in mid-September war games with the Egyptian army as its had done throughout the years of dictatorship.

The task of obliquely justifying the putsch fell to Secretary of State John Kerry. On July 17 he opined that before the coup there was “an extraordinary situation in Egypt of life and death, of the potential of civil war and enormous violence and you now have a constitutional process proceeding forward very rapidly. So we have to measure all of those facts against the law, and that's exactly what we will do."

On August 1, he went further, alleging that the Egyptian army was “restoring order.” The next day, Egypt Independent reported, that an MB spokesperson “called Kerry's comments ‘alarming,’ and accused the U.S. administration of being ‘complicit’ in the military coup."

The U.S. and several countries, mostly western, are leading a very public “reconciliation” campaign essentially aimed at convincing the leadership of the MB to capitulate, accept the overthrow, end the protests and “swallow the reality” of defeat. It is being portrayed as a peace effort, with no criticism directed toward the military that broke the law and evidently future jail terms for some MB leaders including Morsi who didn’t.

Clearly, it is just a matter of time -- an “I” to be dotted, a “T” to be crossed -- before Obama and Sisi will embrace in public.

A curious anti-Morsi coalition -- a seemingly unprincipled amalgam of left, center, and right, each with somewhat different agendas that they expect to advance by liquidating the Islamist government -- has galvanized behind the military junta and is following its “roadmap” to the next elections.

Included in the coup-supporting coalition are (1) a large portion of the youthful protestors who launched the January 2011 Tahrir Square freedom struggle against the single-party rule of Mubarak’s now disbanded National Democratic Party, including such organizations as the April 6 Youth Movement and Tamarod; (2) opposition liberal, left, and secularist groups who have combined in the National Salvation Front, plus worker groups who demonstrated in the name of their unions; and (3) the many supporters of the old Mubarak regime joyfully emerging from the shadows to support the military that in 2011 forced their leader’s resignation and imprisonment.

Communist groups, underground for decades, materialized during the 2011 uprising. They all supported the second uprising too, but are not playing a significant role. The Egyptian Communist Party heartily backed Morsi’s overthrow and strongly argued it was a popular revolt, not a military coup. Other Marxist groups, viewing the MB as a reactionary right-wing formation, similarly backed the anti-MB rebellion.

Most anti-Morsi organizations, including groups affiliated with the National Salvation Front, joined pro-military demonstrations July 26 called by Gen. Sisi himself to provide an additional popular mandate for increasing the suppression of “violence and terrorism,” primarily to crush continuing Brotherhood demonstrations.

The interim cabinet declared: “Based on the mandate given by the people to the state... the cabinet has delegated the interior ministry to proceed with all legal measures to confront acts of terrorism and road-blocking.” The MB has not perpetrated any acts of “terrorism,” so the reference must have been to the Salafi struggle for power in Sinai. Road-blocking refers to two large long-lasting sit-down protests in Cairo by anti-coup forces.

On July 27, police slaughtered 82 Morsi supporters to break up one protest. They used live ammunition and shot to kill nonviolent demonstrators. In response, the Obama Administration muttered a few words lacking any significance. Imagine the outcry from Washington and the mass media had the slaughter taken place in Beijing, Moscow, or Caracas.

The conservative Economist magazine noted August 3, “the new government is resurrecting the hated arms of Hosni Mubarak’s security state... The liberal Egyptians who teamed up with the army to oust Mr. Morsi will come to regret their enthusiasm.”

Among such liberals, reported Los Angeles Times correspondent Jeffrey Fleishman July 3, was

Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who once vilified army control, [but was] now asking the generals to reenter the scene in a moment of opportunity for both. "Every minute that passes without the armed forces intervention to perform its duties and protect the lives of Egyptians will waste more blood, especially since the person in the presidential position has lost his legitimacy and eligibility, and maybe even his mind," ElBaradei said.

For his selfless efforts ElBaradei has been promoted to be the junta’s “Vice President for Foreign Affairs,” and from this exalted position he is now a big voice in the “reconciliation” campaign. Once the MB and its many millions of supporters “understand that Morsi failed” -- that is, accept defeat -- "they should continue to be part of the political process” and participate in the nation’s political affairs.

Some opposition groups stayed away from Sisi’s provocative military rally, such as the April 6 youth group. The Revolutionary Socialists, a Trotskyist formation, backed the anti-Morsi coup but declared: “Giving the army a popular mandate to finish off the Muslim Brotherhood will inevitably lead to the consolidation of the regime which the revolution arose to overthrow. We must use the downfall of the Brotherhood to deepen the revolution, not to support the regime.”

The New York Times noted in an editorial July 31:

Whatever Egypt’s new military strongman...thought he was doing by summoning people to Tahrir Square [July 26] to demand a ‘mandate’ to fight terrorism, the result was to undermine Egypt’s prospects for stability even further. Whatever self-described pro-democracy groups thought they were doing by endorsing his call, the result was to strengthen the military and inflame raw divisions between civilian parties.

The pro-military Tamarod -- a youthful key group in building for the overthrow --  encouraged all the opposition to attend Sisi’s rally. Tamarod (the name translates into “mutiny” or “rebellion,” depending on usage) justly rose to fame after collecting multi-millions of signatures demanding the ouster of Morsi, then by calling for the huge June 30 rally that drew many millions across the country. This protest provided an immediate excuse for Sisi to publicly give Morsi 48 hours to meet opposition demands or be removed.

Writing in the July 22 New Yorker, author Peter Hessler suggested the Tamarod was convinced beforehand the armed forces would intervene after the protest. During interviews in the Tamarod office just before the coup, he asked how they knew this would happen, and was told: “We know our army.” One source of this knowledge, undoubtedly shared with a number of groups, were the hints of a takeover emanating from some army officers for a few months and days before the coup, including from Sisi.

Tamarod maintains it has no outside funding for the extensive petition campaign but a millionaire businessman subsequently took credit for the funding, saying the youthful organizers may not have known where it came from. The group says 22 million people signed petitions but there has not been an independent count.

It is ironic that the military -- formerly loathed for upholding the dictatorship for decades, then further reviled during its controversial 17-month governance until Morsi took office -- is now supported by nearly the entire opposition. The officer corps only changed sides in 2011 to preserve and increase its power and privileges, rising to the occasion again in 2013 to enhance its position.

General Sisi, who is described as a dedicated Islamist, is now adored by multitudes in the increasingly national chauvinist atmosphere engulfing the opposition, most members of which have averted their eyes to the murderous violence by military and police units against Morsi demonstrators. Rumors abound that Sisi himself is considering a run for president.

New York Times Cairo correspondent David Kirkpatrick reported July 16 that in

the square where liberals and Islamists once chanted together for democracy, demonstrators now carry posters hailing as a national hero the general who ousted the country’s first elected president... The voices on the left who might be expected to raise alarms about the military’s ouster of a freely elected government are instead reveling in what they see as the country’s escape from the threat that an Islamist majority would steadily push Egypt to the right.

Both those who applaud or resist the coup claim to support electoral democracy and the creation of a better society for Egypt’s 83 million people. From a left perspective, the various points of view about Morsi’s ejection revolve around one main question: Is a military-led coup against an elected government, backed by millions of demonstrators who prefer to elect another government (and could have done so in three years) -- a progressive or regressive change within the capitalist context? (The issue of anti-capitalism is not on the agenda so far.)

The opposition forces claim theirs is a progressive step forward, and that the military “joined with the masses” to oust a “failed” regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, by far the country’s largest political organization, maintains that a regressive military coup illegally destroyed a democratically elected government and jailed its leaders.

In order to provide context for determining whether this is a progressive or regressive coup, it is important to understand whether there have been changes in the “deep state” power relations since the days of the dictatorship in four key areas -- the military, the ruling class, the bureaucracy and the security forces. This will be followed by a discussion of the MB government’s year in office, the possible reasons for the coup, the politics and actions of the military and civil opposition, the needs of the Egyptian people, and the role of various countries in and around the Middle East.

1. The military has not changed. It has enjoyed near autonomy and virtual control of the government, openly or behind the scenes, for some 60 years, beginning as a left exponent of pan-Arab socialism and developing close relations with the Soviet Union. During the 1970s, President Anwar Sadat broke with Moscow in order to develop closer relations with the United States and capitalism. Since that time Cairo has become increasingly subject to American influence, receiving cash subsidies, training, equipment, international backing, and guidance from Washington.
   
   The armed forces were the power behind the dictatorial throne of President Mubarak, a former air force general, from 1981 to 2011 when he was ousted by the military in league with mass popular demonstrations seeking Western-type democratic elections. As soon as it was understood American interests would not be subverted, President Obama dropped Mubarak. The military continued as the ultimate power behind the democratic presidency of Morsi until he, too, was overthrown. The military always claims it does not want to be involved in the politics of running the country, but it has every intention of continuing its traditional role in the next government.
   
   Gen. Sisi, who has just named himself first deputy prime minister as well as retaining his position of defense minister and head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), received his master’s degree at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania in 2006. Last year the pro-opposition newspaper al-Tahrir reported that Sisi had "strong ties with U.S. officials on both diplomatic and military levels." Doubtless, both the Pentagon and SCAF communicate daily these days.


2. The ruling class has not changed. Perhaps a few Islamist millionaires who honestly supported the Morsi government will no longer be welcome, but the moneyed interests, the bankers, the big investors, the corporate heads, the owners of the mass media, the military leaders, and the security chiefs will remain in place. Virtually all supported Mubarak during his long years in power. They easily survived the transition to Morsi as they will the next regime, probably expanding their powers in the process.


3. The government bureaucracy has not changed. While heads of various government departments were mostly replaced when Morsi took power last year, and will be so again under the new regime, the basic organization and politics of the bureaucracy remains very similar to the Mubarak years. Morsi had to make do with a long-established officialdom that knew the ropes (as he didn’t), and which largely opposed him. The New York Times July 17 pointed out there is a “widespread perception that Egypt’s sprawling state bureaucracy had stopped cooperating with Mr. Morsi” before the latest coup.


4. The security forces have not changed. The national police and other security forces were only formally under Morsi government control. They remained largely the same repressive apparatus that Mubarak built to control the population. They fought actively during the first uprising in 2011 to oppose the demonstrations against dictatorial authority but often turned their backs when MB facilities were trashed by anti-Morsi protestors.
   
   Morsi’s interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim (a former general with close ties to the military), who did nothing to reform Mubarak’s brutal security and police apparatus, was reappointed to his position by the new government. In essence, according to The Economist July 6, “since the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s police force has abandoned many of its duties, helping generate a threefold surge in serious crime.” They appear to have returned with a vengeance.

So what has changed in Egypt since early 2011 when the Arab Spring began? Two main things.

1. The Egyptian masses in their many millions diverted the course of history when they bravely took to the streets to oust the dictatorship in quest of a form of democracy that would bring about improvements in the lives of the people. The causes were extremely high poverty (nearly 50%), devastating unemployment, weak and further reduced social services and subsidies due to the economic crisis, and the lack of political freedom.
   
   Young people inspired by the Tunisian revolution weeks earlier initiated the uprising, They called for a demonstration in Tahrir Square January 25, 2011. Unexpectedly, gigantic numbers of people joined the protest seeking a free and more open democratic society, jobs, and a much improved economy. Within weeks there were millions of protesters in Tahrir Square and throughout the country. The MB did not join the Tahrir uprising at first but eventually entered the struggle. They were very cautious, having recently emerged from decades of government repression.
   
   By mid-February Mubarak and vice president Omar Suleiman handed power to the armed forces, which facilitated their departures and ruled for the next year and a half. The U.S. effortlessly transferred its 30-year support for the old dictator to Gen. Sisi and the SCAF -- an institution with which Washington had long enjoyed deep and fruitful ties. Mubarak was tried and sentenced to life in prison for allowing the army to kill peaceful protestors. The military disbanded parliament, ended “emergency laws,” suspended the constitution, and appointed an interim leadership pending elections. Sharp protests continued from time to time because the ruling SCAF was both distrusted and not moving fast enough to bring about a democratic structure.


2. The political system was transformed from a capitalist dictatorship to a capitalist electoral democracy -- a step forward that allowed the Egyptian people to elect their leadership for the first time in thousands of years. One year later, of course, a second military coup removed the elected government, backed by the same popular forces that fought to establish elections.

Morsi won the June 2012 election honestly with 51.73% of the vote but there are reasons to believe that a proportion of his majority backed him grudgingly. Four candidates ran in phase one of the balloting. Morsi won with 24.78% of the vote, which mainly came from the MB and other Islamic parties. Second was Ahmed Shafiq with 23.66% of the vote -- presumably from supporters of the old regime, considering that he was a former air force commander who served a decade in Mubarak’s cabinet and was the dictator’s last prime minister, serving five weeks until early March 2011.

Political cartoon by Dave Grunlund / The Cagle Post.

In the runoff election -- given the choice of a candidate who had been a Mubarak man or one from a powerful religious organization that was harassed by the old regime, a majority voted for Morsi. Shafiq, however, won a startling 47.27% of the vote.

Virtually as soon as he became Egypt’s first democratically elected president Morsi was confronted by fairly strong opposition waiting for him to fail. The honeymoon period lasted less than two months before there were protests seeking to remove him from office. Much of the mass media, mostly owned by Mubarak supporters, began criticizing him almost immediately, some viciously.

The New York Times reported, only a few months after he took office, that “Morsi’s advisers and Brotherhood leaders acknowledged that outside his core base of Islamist supporters he feels increasingly isolated in the political arena and even within his own government.”

One of the more interesting facts about the removal of the Islamist president is that the popularity of the MB, the Freedom and Justice Party (the vehicle for Morsi’s election victory), and to an extent Morsi himself is not terribly low -- at least about three months before the coup. Here are the basic results from a public opinion poll conducted March 3-23, 2013, by the respected Pew Global Attitudes Project:

Only 30% of Egyptians think the country is headed in the right direction, down from 53% last year and 65% in 2011, in the days after the revolution... Despite the negative views about the country’s direction, most Egyptians still have a positive view of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that has been the dominant political force in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Still, the group’s ratings have declined somewhat over the past two years -- 63% give it a positive rating today, compared with 75% in 2011. About half (52%) express a favorable opinion of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party... The National Salvation Front (NSF), a relatively secular coalition of opposition forces, receives more negative reviews than the MB an NSF. In time this seeming contradiction may be clarified.

Clearly there were strong doubts about Morsi and the MB, not only from those who backed Shafiq but from many who supported the MB candidate to keep the former regime out of power. This was hardly an auspicious beginning for Morsi.

Another factor was distrust of a religious regime. Islam has been Egypt’s state religion for many years. But ever since the leftist Free Officers Movement led by Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in 1952 Egypt has kept religious parties off the ballot. Morsi was not only the first elected president, and the first non-military president, he was also the first Islamist president.

In seeking office the MB conveyed the impression it did not seek to impose an extreme Islamist government upon the country. Of the three main organized currents in Sunni Islam -- the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wahhabi movement (and associated Salafism), and al-Qaeda (plus allied jihadist groupings) -- the MB is the mildest and most open to modern governing structures. However, it is considered hyper-conservative on cultural issues, such as the rights of women, and it wasn’t trusted by large numbers of Egyptians.

The Morsi government committed a number of political miscalculations and blunders. Chief among them was its refusal in office to take meaningful steps to convince dubious constituencies that compose the opposition that he wanted to govern collegially by giving their concerns serious consideration. The MB and Morsi had no experience in governing or sophistication in relating to liberal and progressive Muslims and non-Muslims.

Morsi governed as a majoritarian -- a politician who thinks an electoral majority entitles a regime to do as it pleases without regard for the views of the opposition. A mature democracy may be able to survive this but it is unwise in a society’s first elected government when the opposition entertains deep worries.

During the campaign the MB, according to The Economist,

refrained from pushing an overtly Islamic agenda, for instance banning alcohol or enforcing corporal punishment, with the zeal which might have been feared. But in power the Brotherhood began to abandon its previous caution regarding its foes. Morsi appeared to dismiss secular opponents and minorities [Coptic Christians or Shia Muslims] as politically negligible. Instead of enacting the deeper reforms that had been a focus of popular revolutionary demands, such as choosing provincial governors by election rather than presidential appointment, or punishing corrupt Mubarak-era officials, the Brothers simply inserted themselves in key positions.

"The Brotherhood's single most divisive act,” writes socialist journalist Mazda Majidi of the Party for Socialism and Liberation,

was passing a constitution that was strongly opposed by all secular forces. The constitution trampled the rights of women and laid the basis for the oppression of religious minorities. Far from creating a consensus of the wide array of forces that overthrew the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship, the Brotherhood codified its own reactionary social policies into the constitution.

Morsi offered some concessions to quell the constitutional uproar, “but opposition leaders turned a deaf ear, reiterating their demands to begin an overhaul of the Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly itself,” reported The New York Times December 7. The assembly passed the constitution in a very low turnout election.

The MB made a big error in developing the constitution by seeking to please the ultra-conservative Islamist Salafi to strengthen Egypt’s Islamic bloc. In return the Salafi al-Nour Party eventually broke with the Brotherhood and joined the opposition when it saw a coup was on the agenda. The anti-Morsi side welcomed this important new addition. (The Salafi party withdrew from the opposition camp to save its reputation after the junta’s police massacred unarmed Islamist MB supporters.)

In its brief one year in office the Morsi government was never able to control the military or police so it ended up catering to these powerful institutions lest they make more trouble. Writing in CounterPunch July 7, Franklin Lamb explained:

Some Congressional analysts believe that one of Morsi's biggest mistakes 
resulted from a deliberate policy of accommodation and not, as is commonly believed, confrontation. He allowed the military to retain its corporate autonomy [it controls businesses] and remain beyond civilian control.

Furthermore, he included in 
his cabinet a large number of non-Muslim Brotherhood figures who 
abandoned him within months when the going got tough, thus presenting to the public an image that the government was on the verge of collapse. 

Some have suggested that Morsi should have brought the military to heel 
soon after he assumed power and was at the height of his popularity, just as the military was at its lowest point in public perception.

Morsi faced a plethora of serious problems from day one. The worst was the dilapidated condition of the free-falling economy, the root cause of Egypt’s most pressing problems. The culprit was grave economic mismanagement during the Mubarak years drastically compounded by the worldwide capitalist recession, its lingering effects and the last two years of political disruption.

The MB’s struggling government was helped by gifts of billions of dollars, mostly from oil-rich Qatar ($7 billion) and lesser amounts from friendly Turkey and some other sources. This helped, but not enough. The new military-guided regime was immediately gifted with $12 billion from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The Cairo government is dependent on tourism, which brought in 17% of the country’s GNP until it vanished abruptly with the first mass demonstrations in early 2011. Investment dropped for the same reason. The price of food imports, largely wheat, increased after Morsi won the election.

In January 2011, when the first uprising began, unemployment was 8.9%. When Morsi took office it in July 2012 it was 12.6%, and today it is 13.2%. About 80% of the jobless are workers under 30 years old. In urban areas, more than 50% of young men are unemployed -- a politically volatile statistic. This situation was worsened in recent months when public anger boiled over due to fuel and electricity shortages. (The shortages ended virtually the day after Morsi was ousted, a coincidence that led critics to suspect that anti-MB sabotage intentionally caused the problem as an incentive for the uprising.)

The Brotherhood’s rise to power exposed a sharp dispute between the key Sunni factions in the region -- the MB on one side and the more extreme Wahhabi, Salafi, and al-Qaeda orientations on the other.

Indian news analyst M. K. Bhadrakumar commented in Asia Times July 9:

The autocratic Persian Gulf oligarchies rushed to celebrate the overthrow of the elected government under Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian military. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah dispatched his congratulatory cable to Cairo within hours of the announcement of Morsi's ouster. The sense of jubilation is palpable that the Muslim Brotherhood, which spearheads popular stirrings against the Persian Gulf regimes, has lost power in Egypt.

(Saudi Arabia helps finance the Egyptian Salafi and cheered when the al-Nour Party joined the opposition.)

“In that respect,” William McCants wrote in Foreign Affairs July 7:

No Salafi is likely more pleased with the turn of events in Egypt than Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda. For decades, Zawahiri has argued that the Muslim Brotherhood's engagement in party politics does nothing more than strengthen the hands of its adversaries and ratify an un-Islamic system of rule. Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, he has continued to make his argument that the West and its local proxies will never allow an Islamist government to actually rule. He doubtless views the coup as a final vindication of his argument.

Syria was also elated by Egypt’s coup since Morsi called for the overthrow of the Assad government and even suggested that Egyptian Islamists consider joining the fight. However, Syria’s main ally, Iran, condemned the coup. Oil rich Qatar (which also opposes Assad in Syria) is the odd monarchy out among the Gulf states, having provided generous funding to Morsi’s government and deploring the coup.

Turkey, which had very close relations with the MB regime in Egypt, strongly opposed the coup. Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu said:

A leader who came [to power] with the support of the people can only be removed through elections. It is unacceptable for democratically elected leaders, for whatever reason, to be toppled through illegal means, even a coup... Turkey will take sides with the Egyptian people.

Interestingly, although they are on opposite sides of the volatile Syrian civil war, Turkey and Iran are strongly united against the coup, despite Tehran’s silent reservations about Morsi’s recent anti-Shi’a comments and his backing for rebel forces in Syria. The interim regime in Cairo has already made friendly overtures to Damascus.

Remarking on the unusual Ankara-Tehran coupling, Bhadrakumar wrote: “The two key regional powers in the Middle East have now openly challenged the military junta in Egypt. It will have a profound impact on the so-called Arab Street. A Turkish-Iranian platform will be hard to resist, in geopolitical terms, for the coup's Arab enthusiasts — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,"

Stratfor, the private geopolitical intelligence company, argues that the

coup does not bode well for international efforts to bring radical Islamists into the mainstream. However, it does serve the interests of Arab monarchies, particularly those of the energy-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states (and especially Saudi Arabia), most of which see the Brotherhood-style Islamist forces as a challenge to their legitimacy. The fall of the Morsi government has given them cause to celebrate because the Brotherhood’s political ideals run counter to their political interests.

The Egypt-centered Brotherhood has branches in Syria, Jordan, Gaza (Hamas), Tunisia, and Morocco. It governs in the latter two countries. “Each group will be affected according to its particular geopolitical circumstances,” says Stratfor.

What lessons are to be deduced from the extraordinary mass demonstrations of the Egyptian people from 2011 to 2013. There are two important lessons, among others.

First, what occurred was an incredible display of the political power that can be generated when unprecedented numbers of people respond to mass popular dissatisfaction -- in this case mammoth economic, political and social problems -- uniting in prolonged militant actions in the streets, where everyone can see them and hear them. They booted out a dictator and elected a president.

Such actions do not often achieve a change of government, of course. But they certainly are -- or should be -- an inspiration for those who wish to change especially onerous or harmful government policies, if not government itself.

Second, while the people in the streets of Egypt were inspiring and they certainly changed history, the absence of a strong political organization with clear detailed goals and respected leadership, greatly weakened their accomplishment.

The army, which served a dictatorship for 59 of its 61 years, still rules, stronger than ever, having made the transition from a decrepit, failed Mubarak regime to a weak and pliable democracy. A difficult but worthwhile first experiment in electoral democracy was crushed by the military acting in the name of the mass opposition.

Now, key figures from the old dictatorship have reappeared. There is no chance the next government will be politically left enough to resolve the grave problems plaguing the Egyptian people. The Muslim Brotherhood is about to be repressed again, and there is no telling how it will respond.

A number of the people who took an important part in the mass demonstrations seemed to believe that organization, goals, and leadership could be replaced by individual or small group initiatives, enthusiasm, and spontaneity. These qualities can go so far, but no further.

For the Egyptian people to build a viable capitalist electoral democracy with a program that puts the needs of the working masses first, they require an organization, leadership, allies, finances, strategy, and tactics sufficient to attain that goal. The same methods exist for building socialism, which will be considerably more difficult to attain but offers far more benefits for the working class, middle class, and the poor.

A number of left commentators have questioned the preference of some groups involved in the mass actions, such as Tamarod, a key player, to minimize the need for organization and leadership. In this regard here is a quote from an article in the July 7 CounterPunch titled, “The End of the ‘Leaderless’ Revolution,” by Cihan Tugal, who teaches Sociology at the University of California-Berkeley:

Multiple anti-representation theses from rival ideological corners (anarchist, liberal, autonomist, postmodernist, etc.) all boil down to the following assumption: when there is no meta-discourse and no leadership, plurality will win. This might be true in the short-run. Indeed, in the case of Egypt, the anonymity of Tamarod’s spokespersons initially helped: the spokespersons (who are not leaders, it is held) could not be demonized as partisan populists. Moreover, thanks to uniting people only through their negative identity (being anti-Brotherhood), as well as to its innovative tactics, Tamarod mobilized people of all kinds. Still, the mobilized people fell prey to the only existing option: the old regime!

When the revolutionaries do not produce ideology, demands and leaders, this does not mean that the revolt will have no ideology, demands and leaders. In fact, Tamarod’s spontaneous ideology turned out to be militarist nationalism, its demand a postmodern coup, its leader the feloul (remnants of the old regime). This is the danger that awaits any allegedly leaderless revolt: Appropriation by the main institutional alternatives of the institutions they are fighting against.

It is time to globalize the lessons from the [actions of] 2011-2013. Let’s start with the U.S. and Egypt. What we learn from this case is that when movements don’t have (or claim not to have) ideologies, agendas, demands and leaders, they can go in two directions: they can dissipate (as did Occupy), or serve the agendas of others... The end of the leaderless revolution does not mean the end of the Egyptian revolutionary process. But it spells the end of the fallacy that the people can take power without an agenda, an alternative platform, an ideology, and leaders.

The accomplishment of the Egyptian masses in ridding themselves of a dictatorship is immense. The move toward bourgeois democracy is progressive within the confines of capitalism. But a variety of factors noted above have stalled this hopefully continuing progress, not least because of the absence of a unifying political organization with a point of view based upon the needs of the working people and a course of action leading to victory.

The MB won the election because it was an experienced large organization, toughened by government repression, that knew what it wanted. Had there been a similar secular organization with an enlightened progressive program representing the interests of the people, the MB may have lost. In general it seems the people prefer a secular progressive government that will do everything possible to serve their needs and interests.

Instead of building such an organization out of the willing masses that spontaneously answered the call for action against the dictatorship -- and organization that could enter the next election -- the army destroyed the first government and is guiding the masses toward a new conservative regime. The increasingly glorified and powerful military is not only welcoming back the reactionary Mubarakists, but is making certain that the honored members of the deep state will be happy in their new accommodations.

Morsi made many mistakes, but he was not a repressive force, and the mistakes could have been rectified through the democratic process without a military coup and the violence now directed at protesting supporters of the illegally deposed president.

There is still time to pursue the progressive course of revolution that began in January of 2011. The millions who took to the streets for democracy are still waiting for the political mechanism that will propel them to attaining their goals. As long as the masses remain active and prepared to take to the streets, and as long as there are forces that recognize the necessity for building an organization to take power, the revolution continues.

[Jack A. Smith was editor of the Guardian -- for decades the nation's preeminent leftist newsweekly -- that closed shop in 1992. Smith now edits the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter. Read more articles by Jack A. Smith on The Rag Blog.]

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Robert Jensen : Peace Talks Are New Chapter in an Old Book

Peace talks: the players. Image from AP Graphics Bank.

Peace talks:
A new chapter in an old book

Discussions about the issue, whether among citizens or by officials at the negotiating table, must begin with an acknowledgement of the power wielded by Israel, backed by the United States.

By Robert Jensen / The Rag Blog / August 1, 2013

New negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians may begin next week, with much talk of a “new chapter” in the seemingly intractable conflict. A new chapter, perhaps, but who is writing the book?

Any public discussion about the “peace process” is tense, in part because there is no widely shared understanding of the history and politics of -- even an appropriate terminology for -- the conflict. That’s as true in the United States as in Palestine and Israel.

I never gave much thought to the question until I was 30 years old, in the late 1980s. Before that, I had a typical view of the conflict for an apolitical American: It was confusing, and everyone involved seemed a bit crazy.

With no understanding of the history of the region and no framework for analyzing U.S. policy in the Middle East, it was all a muddle, and so I ignored it. That’s one of the privileges of being in the comfortable classes in the United States -- you can remain comfortably ignorant.

But as a frustrated journalist with a newfound freedom to examine the politics of news media in graduate school, I began studying law and human rights, in the domestic and international arenas. I also started digging into the issues I had been avoiding. In the case of Palestine/Israel, I began reading about the roots of the conflict, how the United States was involved, and how U.S. journalists were presenting the issues.

I came to this inquiry with no firm allegiance to either side. As a white U.S. citizen from a centrist Protestant background but with no religious commitments, I felt no cultural or spiritual connection to either national group. I don’t speak Hebrew or Arabic, and I had never traveled to the Middle East. I had no personal relationships that predisposed me to favor one group over the other.

Like any human, I was not free of bias, of course. As a relatively unreflective white man rooted in a predominantly Christian culture, I was raised with some level of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, for example, and no doubt that affected my perceptions. But based solely on my personal profile, I didn’t have a dog in that fight, or so I thought.

After a couple of years of studying the issues, I realized that the categories of “pro-Israeli” and “pro-Palestinian” didn’t fit me. When people asked me where I stood on the issue, I would say that I supported international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a U.S. citizen, I asserted that my primary obligation was to evaluate the legality and morality of my own country’s involvement in the conflict and the region.

The more I learned about all those things, the more I became opposed to my government’s policy on this issue, in the Middle East, and around the world. The more I learned, the more I realized I lived in the imperial power of the day, and it became clear to me that imperial policies are designed to enrich the few while ignoring the needs of the many, at home and abroad.

I became a critic of U.S. policy based on careful study that included, but was not limited to, mainstream sources. I could no longer accept the conventional story and the policies that flowed from that story.

Today, the situation in Palestine and Israel is as grim as ever. Decades of Israeli expansion and the Palestinian leadership’s failure to build a vibrant movement to challenge that expansion (or, perhaps, to let such a movement emerge on its own) have narrowed the prospects for a just peace. And in the background lurks the United States, still the major impediment to progress as long as it offers Israel nearly unconditional support for the occupation.

More than ever, the case for international law and human rights needs to be made clearly, but the conditions for that dialogue deteriorate. Despite recent efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, there seems little basis for optimism, short or long term. As U.S. officials scramble to save an empire in decline, with its whole Middle East policy in disarray, it’s difficult to imagine a breakthrough.

I have no great insights into how to solve the conflict or deepen the dialogue. But as I think about the conflict, I’m drawn back to my roots in feminist intellectual and political life for some basic observations.

My return to graduate school has led me to inquire about many aspects of the world over the past two decades, but the first of those inquiries was into gender, with a focus on men’s violence against women. That led me to radical feminist theory, which has helped me understand not only the question of gender but offered a framework for understanding hierarchy.

Feminism taught me how to think not only about gender but also about power, and a central lesson of feminism that applies here is the problem of assuming false equivalency in analyzing conflict.

Take a classic example of a husband who physically assaults his wife. The problem is rooted in patriarchy, a system that gives men control over women in a hierarchy that is naturalized and normalized: Men rule, women submit. The man’s violence in this case is used to ensure the submission, but the physical violence typically is only one method of control; such relationships often include emotional abuse and sexual violence.

Within that dynamic, the woman may engage in all kinds of dysfunctional behavior herself, and she may strike out violently against the man at times. But feminist analyses of male power and men’s violence have made two things clear.

First, any specific incident can’t be understood outside the larger context, not only of that relationship but of the power dynamics of the culture. So, if we were drawn into a chaotic incident in the couple’s home, we might be tempted to assess the situation on the basis of what had just happened, but focusing only on the immediate occurrence would leave us ill-equipped to understand it. We need to know the couple’s history and understand the patriarchal context in which that history plays out.

Second, if we wanted to help resolve the conflict, it would be folly to assume that the man and woman were equally responsible and that a productive dialogue could go forward on that basis. Any claim that the man and woman should sit down as equals and talk would favor the man; without an acknowledgement of his greater power and a history of using that power to dominate, any “dialogue” would be a farce.

While some men react to any call for such conversation with force, other men pursue a more sophisticated strategy that continues the dialogue so long as his fundamental power, in the relationship or in society, is not challenged. Some men pursue both strategies, depending on the moment. Real dialogue is possible only when the discrepancy in power is addressed.

If there is to be progress toward a just and peaceful solution in Palestine/Israel, those two lessons are crucial. We must recognize the larger political context in which the conflict is set and not assume there’s a level playing field for dialogue.

That means acknowledging that since the end of World War II, the United States has pursued a policy of domination -- through diplomacy and force -- in the Middle East, and that for more than four decades a central component of that policy has been U.S. support for Israel’s expansionist policies in exchange for Israeli support of the U.S. project in the region (though not without disagreements and tension between the two countries).

It also means that discussions about the issue, whether among citizens or by officials at the negotiating table, must begin with an acknowledgement of the power wielded by Israel, backed by the United States.

For more than 20 years I have tried to recognize the many ways in which I live with unearned privilege and tried to support the struggles of marginalized and oppressed people to justice. That has led me to support the basic aims of Palestinian nationalism, even if I do not always support specific strategies or tactics of various Palestinian groups.

I also have criticized Israeli policy in public, in writing, and on film. But as a citizen of the United States, I have tried always to bring discussions on my home turf back to the responsibility of citizens to hold their own government accountable.

That is my dog in the fight. I live in a nation in which there is a tremendous gap between leaders’ rhetoric of freedom and justice, and the reality of imperial policies that perpetuate injustice. To close that gap, our public discussions must take account of the context and be honest about power. Nowhere is that more crucial that the intellectual and political engagements on the Palestine/Israel conflict.

[Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. His latest books are Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue and We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out. His writing is published extensively in mainstream and alternative media. Robert Jensen can be reached at rjensen@austin.utexas.edu. Read more articles by Robert Jensen on The Rag Blog.]

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