By Lal Khan
In the last few weeks there have been renewed mass protests in several countries of the Middle East. Almost seven years since the Arab and North African mass revolt swept across the region, from the coast of the Atlantic to the shores of the Indian Ocean, there are new stirrings of a social ferment and mass protests. Although these protest demonstrations of workers and youth have been rather small as compared to 2011, they at least show a new awakening of these societies. They are the beginnings of a revival of the mass movements that had ebbed back in recent years. The onset of reaction brought terrorism, mayhem and socio-economic misery for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East.
Egypt is the most important country in the Middle East due to its history, large working-class base, its strategic location and its traditions of revolutionary change. In 2011, Egypt also became the epicentre of the Arab revolt that overthrew the despotic regimes of Hosni Mubarak and others. This movement was derailed onto the ‘democratic’ discourse by the capitalist corporate media and the Islamicists of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ikhwan ul Muslimeen. The socio-economic system remained untouched and any respite for ordinary Egyptians has remained elusive.
Morsi, from the Ikhwan became the president in an election that did not have a serious left contender. However, despite his ‘Islamicist welfare state’ rhetoric, he continued to follow the dictates of the IMF and other imperialist institutions that only worsened the plight of the masses. In a matter of months the masses stormed into an even larger revolt that over threw the Morsi regime. It was in the absence of an alternative leadership that the military took power under the dictator General Abdul Fatah Sisi.
Now, once again, there are signs of renewed political resistance arising against the Sisi regime. On Wednesday 31st January a coalition of eight Egyptian opposition parties was formed under the umbrella of Civilian Democratic Movement, including the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, the Democratic Front Party, the Egyptian Communist Party and the Socialist Popular Alliance Party. They have called for an election boycott, calling the forthcoming March eleciton “an absurdity bordering on madness.” All serious candidates in the forthcoming presidential elections have been side-lined, either by arrest or by being subjected to a campaign of intimidation. In a joint statement, the eight opposition parties urged Egyptians to boycott the March polls in protest, accusing the government of President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi of preventing “any fair competition”. This reflects the simmering discontent and revulsion against the regime in the womb of society.
Under the Sisi regime, which is in a coalition with the Saudi-backed Salafi Islamicist party, the people of Egypt have not only been subjected to sever political repression but have been economically devastated by the regime’s aggressive capitalist policies determined by the IMT. As part of a $12 billion loan agreement, the IMF’s has insisted on the floatation of the Egyptian Pound, which has nearly halved its exchange value, stoking up inflation to almost 35 percent. As part of its economic policy, the Government has also restricted the ability of workers to resist cuts to their wages and conditions. Workers’ strikes remain criminalized under Egyptian law. The authorities arrested or charged at least 180 workers for peaceful workplace strikes and protests in 2016 and 2017, mostly fighting over bonuses and delayed wages. Last September, for example, security forces arrested at least eight tax authority workers and independent union leaders prior to anticipated protests. Independent trade unions remain effectively banned.
Sisi’s puppet parliament approved in December a new trade unions law that will keep in place many restrictions and does not recognize independent unions. In 2018, the government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation, the only officially recognized union, began its 12th year without board elections, and the government continued to appoint its leaders in violation of International Labour Organization conventions that grant the right to organize and freedom of association. Sisi’s economic policies mark another neoliberal assault on the public sector. Yet beyond the febrile atmosphere of the ‘war on terror’ and the white heat of repression in aftermath of the 2013 coup, Sisi’s regime has failed to develop any social base. The old ruling party and the state-run union apparatus are exposed and eroded.
Repression of worker activists has significantly increased over the past year. This intense state brutality includes an unprecedented campaign of enforced disappearances, endemic torture and extrajudicial killings by the security services. Yet the workers’ movement remains the most effective form of popular resistance. The organised workers’ have the potential to paralyse crucial sectors of the economy and state apparatus itself. It has the legacy of over a decade of sustained experience in self-organisation. Despite the regime’s attempts to break this tradition, current levels of strike action suggest that it has failed to crush the workers’ movement. These can become a harbinger of a new upsurge in the workers’ movement that could inspire a new mass resistance.
However, it is not only Egypt, but also in countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Iran and elsewhere that there have been initial uprisings in the last weeks that could erupt into a wider revolt. There have been localized eruptions in small towns in Tunisia and in neighbouring countries. In Morocco, anger has been rising since last year with militant protests taking place. In Sudan, there has been a protest movement of unprecedented magnitude since the beginning of the year. The upsurge in Iran just weeks ago shook the mullahs’ capitalist repressive regime. The crude and hypocritical statements of Trump, Netanyahu and other western imperialist leaders isolated the revolt in several cities and proved efficacious for the west’s ‘adversary’ regime in Tehran. The common cause of these uprisings is the implementation of the IMF’s recipe of cuts in public expenditure, redundancy drives in the state and public sector employees, the abolition of subsidies on fuel and price hikes of basic commodities.
When a social movement takes on a certain magnitude, they inevitably become political. But they can take on a variety of forms. At the time of Mubarak and Ben Ali, the protest was aimed at the overthrow of the dictatorship. Today, the discontent is more socioeconomic. The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) failed to lead these protests, but has sought instead an accommodation with the government. Despite the trade union movement having deep historically traditions and roots in society, instead of pushing strongly towards a radically different social and economic policy, it has made the choice of compromise. As a result, the UGTT has now been overtaken by events.
Similarly, the grievances behind the protests of the Moroccan people that erupted in the last few months are the same: mass unemployment, inflation, economic inequality and police brutality.
Since 2011, the IMF has enforced more restrictive austerity directives, including drastic reduction of public expenditure and support for the private sector. Ordinary people of Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Morocco and other countries in the region have suffered from this neoliberal aggression. From these ‘shock therapies’, the populations have had only the shock and no therapy! Once the masses overcome and recover from the shocks of the socioeconomic repression of the post-2011 regimes they can erupt in a new social explosion.
What was called “Arab Spring” in 2011 was not a passing phase but part of a revolutionary process of long duration, with ebbs and flows, state repression and civil wars. There will be no stability in the region as long as fundamental socio-economic transformation is not accomplished. But above all, such a mass movement on a class basis with a revolutionary leadership is the only force that can eliminate the endemic terror and bloodshed in the region. A mass socialist movement can also lead to the overthrow of the reactionary regimes, from the Arab monarchies to the military and quasi-democratic dictatorships, as well as the brutal Zionist regime in Israel. Only such a social revolution can attain the liberation of the oppressed nationalities and salvation for the exploited classes. Moreover, as we saw in the case of the 2011 upsurge, such a revolutionary change can arouse workers’ movements far beyond the Middle East.
February 4, 2018
