Marching in Circles: Egypt’s Dangerous Second Transition
OVERVIEW
Nearly two-and-half years after Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow, Egypt is embarking on a transition in many ways disturbingly like the one it just experienced – only with different actors at the helm and far more fraught and violent.
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NZZ E-Paper – Die digitalen Ausgaben der NZZ
[…] Inzwischen verdichten sich die Hinweise darauf, dass es nicht die NSA ist, die in Deutschland umfangreiche Abhöraktionen unterhält, sondern dass der BND selber die Amerikaner mit Daten versorgt. Laut einem Bericht der «Berliner Zeitung» stammen die rund 500 Millionen Datensätze, die die NSA laut dem Whistleblower Snowden monatlich anhäufte, vom BND. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst habe sie zum Teil von Bad Aibling aus legal in Krisengebieten wie Afghanistan oder Nordafrika gesammelt. Die Daten seien nachher der NSA «im Rahmen der üblichen Zusammenarbeit zwischen befreundeten Diensten» übermittelt worden, wobei strikt darauf geachtet worden sei, dass keine Grundrechte deutscher Bürger verletzt wurden. Ob diese und andere Darstellungen zutreffen, […]“
Labornet zur „neuen Streikwelle in der Textilindustrie, die einmal mehr von der Belegschaft der Mahalla-Werke ausging, die sich offensichtlich durch keine Organisation vertreten fühlt, wie es auch Beinin in dem oben verlinkten Interview hervorhebt.
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Egypt’s new interim government is not a leftist coalition
Joel Beinin and Giuseppe Acconcia 29 July 2013
A historian of the Middle East from Stanford University discusses Egypt’s new interim government and the labour movement.
Giuseppe Acconcia: Professor Beinin, we are told that the Muslim Brothers have been abandoned by the armed forces to foster a government more engaged in the defense of social justice, as requested by millions of protesters, is this true?
Joel Beinin: To be sure the army is aware that with this economic crisis, with rising prices and the fall in the import of wheat, the Egyptian people’s social rights have to be addressed. I would not say that the new government looks likely to follow this path. The prime minister Hazim Beblawi is a man of the centre and his government arises out of an agreement between the youth movements, the liberal party al-Dostour, led by Mohammed el-Baradei, and the Nasserists, supporting Hamdin Sabbahi: it is not a leftist coalition.
GA: In terms of political direction, what does the Minister of Manpower, Kamal Abu Eita, president of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, lend the government?
JB: Eita is a Nasserist, not a socialist. It is enough to read his first commentary after the offer: “Workers should become the heroes of production”. According to the Nasserists, strikes should never take place: the national economy must ameliorate to the point that all salaried workers can live properly. For this reason, Eita has been criticized by the left, for instance by Fatma Ramada, representative of the Independent Syndicates’ board, who harshly opposed his appointment.
GA: Have the Muslim Brothers lost their support among the Egyptian workers?
JB: They never had any such support. The workers in the industrial sectors showed their clear opposition towards the Brotherhood; for instance, by rejecting the Constitution in the Nile Delta region and Cairo, the biggest industrial areas of the country.
GA: During this year, did the many leftist parties that supported the rebel campaign swell their ranks before the 3 July military coup?
JB: The true leftist parties, such as the Revolutionary Socialist party, do not have a significant constituency. They are not able to mobilize the workers. They had some political space before and after Mubarak: but the economic crisis alienated their support in the workers movement. The Tamarrod (rebels) always described itself as a big coalition. Among the signatures collected, a fifth come from the left. But this component is rather lost in nationalist discourses. The campaign which led to Morsi’s fall speaks to and for the nation, without expressing the demands of any one class.
GA: This secular change has been helped by the Nasserist component within the army?
JB: The true Nasserists were eliminated within the top posts of command inside the military, years ago. In the political arena, the army has always fought against both Nasserists and Islamists, which explains why Marshal Hussein Tantawi needed a week to admit that Morsi won the elections against Ahmed Shafiq last year.
GA: Why has the law on independent syndicates, approved after the revolts, never been enforced?
JB: At the last syndicate elections in 2006, the Muslim Brothers and leftist movements did not participate, because the activists of those groups had already been identified, removed or rounded up and put under arrest by state security. The military junta did not permit the governments, after 2011, to apply a law that could revitalize the Egyptian trade union movements.
The parliament elected in 2012 had been discussing the new syndicate law, and three different versions were proposed. However, the process was abruptly terminated by the Parliament’s dissolution. Last August 2011, members of the Brotherhood, remnants of the old regime (feloul) and leftist independents entered the Central Committee of the Egyptian syndicate’s federation. At that stage, the Islamists began to work with the feloul. Last year, the syndicate elections were postponed and the same will happen again this year. In the meantime, the Muslim Brothers and the National Democratic Party’s former members still control the trade unions.
GA: Is it correct that the Mahalla al-Kubra’s workers were active in these latest revolts?
JB: At the moment, nobody knows who represents whom. The workers in Mahalla are a force that could lead the movement, but up till now none of the political parties have been able to organize it. The real socialist parties are very far from power; while social-democrats, already active in the previous regime, have been co-opted within the new government. This means they have become party to a nationalist ideology that for years has categorically rebuffed the workers’ requests.
via Egypt’s new interim government is not a leftist coalition | openDemocracy.
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NZZ E-Paper – Die digitalen Ausgaben der NZZ
„Die Revolution dauert etwas länger
[…] Trotz Rückschlägen geht die Revolution weiter, meint Arnold Hottinger
[…] Vieles spricht jedoch dafür, dass der arabische Frühling den Beginn einer Revolution markierte. Revolutionen sind oft keine einmaligen Ereignisse, es sind keine jähen Machtumstürze. Vielmehr sind es komplexe Bewegungen, die am Anfang der Umschichtung einer Gesellschaft stehen. Revolutionen verlaufen meistens nicht gradlinig. […] Ihr Kern liegt darin, dass neue Schichten, die bisher zum Schweigen gezwungen waren, ein Mitspracherecht in der Landespolitik laut und energisch forderten und zunächst spektakulär durchsetzten, indem sie die bisherigen Machthaber zu Fall brachten. So geschah es in Tunesien und in Ägypten; teilweise in Jemen sowie in Libyen, wenn auch mit fremder Hilfe. In Syrien hat sich die Erhebung unterdrückter Schichten zum Bürgerkrieg entwickelt, der bis heute blutig verläuft. In Bahrain wurde der Aufstand durch die Soldaten der Herrscherfamilie sowie Truppen aus Saudiarabien zunächst abgewürgt. Doch er mottet weiter.
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Egypte: les partisans de Morsi prêts à affronter la police
Abdallah Sami est abrité derrière des barricades de sacs de sable et de pierres, sa seule défense contre la dispersion annoncée par la police égyptienne du sit-in auquel il participe avec des milliers d’autres pour réclamer le retour du président islamiste destitué Mohamed Morsi.
„Je suis ici pour défendre ma foi et Dieu est mon arme“, affirme Sami à l’AFP depuis la place Rabaa al-Adawiya, où se tient l’un des deux sit-in des partisans de M. Morsi dans la capitale égyptienne.
„Je n’ai pas de problèmes. Je suis prêt avec mon arme. Mon arme, c’est Dieu“, renchérit Abdallah, un ouvrier de la province de Sharqiya, dans le delta du Nil.
Strategiewechsel in der Arabien-Politik: Obama setzt wieder auf Despoten
Aus Kairo berichtet Raniah Salloum
„US-Präsident Obama macht eine radikale Kehrtwende: Zu Beginn des Arabischen Frühlings unterstützte er die Revolutionäre – jetzt setzt er wieder auf Autokraten. Gegenüber Ägypten verhält sich die US-Regierung besonders zynisch.
Pro-Morsi rallies across Cairo draw thousandsSupporters of ousted president are defiant in face of state’s recent announcements that the ongoing pro-Morsi sit-ins will be dispersed soonAhram Online , Friday 2 Aug 2013PrintSendShare/BookmarkViews: 649Muslim BrotherhoodMembers of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi shout slogans in Shubra, as they march towards Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque Photo: ReutersRelatedEgypt army seeking ‚peaceful‘ way to disperse sit-ins: SpokesmanUS Middle East envoy Burns heading to CairoMorsi’s supporters continue demos despite police warningEgypt interior ministry repeats call to end protestsSupporters of toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi took to the streets on Friday afternoon in their thousands despite warnings from the military-backed government to abandon their protest camps.Mass pro-Morsi marches have set off from some 33 mosques across Cairo and Giza under the slogan „Egypt against the coup.”The Egyptian cabinet on Wednesday announced that it had authorised the interior ministry to disperse ongoing pro-Morsi sit-ins in Giza and Cairo’s Nasr City.State news agency MENA said that large numbers of Morsi supporters had been bussed in from outside the capital to take part in the Friday marches.Television footage showed the pro-Morsi sit-in in eastern Cairo outside the Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque was already packed by early afternoon, despite the sweltering heat.Demonstrators held aloft posters of Morsi as well as banners condemning what they term a “coup d’état” in reference to his ouster by the military on 3 July. Some of the demonstrators used a hose to sprinkle water on the crowds.On the outskirts of the capital, thousands of Morsi supporters marched towards Media Production City, the media complex outside Cairo where most privately-owned channels are based. Security had been tightened up at the site, which has seen over the last year a number of protests by pro-Morsi groups complaining of anti-Islamist bias on the part of the Egyptian media.Mass pro-Morsi marches were also held in several other cities, including Alexandria.A thousands-strong march have converged outside the headquarters of the city’s security directorate to protests the interior ministry’s statement that it would disperse the pro-Morsi sit-ins. Several rallies are also planned to in the city’s eastern district of Smouha.International rights groups Human Rights Watch criticised the announcement on Wednesday by the cabinet authorising the dispersal of the protests.“Given the Egyptian security forces‘ record of policing demonstrations with the routine use of excessive and unwarranted lethal force, this latest announcement gives a seal of approval to further abuse,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International in a statement on Wednesday.Egypt’s interior ministry warned Morsi’s loyalists on Thursday to quit their protest camps, pledging a safe exit to them if they didn’t resort to violence.In an interview with the London-based newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, military spokesman Ahmed Ali said the army hopes for „peaceful dispersal“ of the sit-ins.The factional stalemate has set off fears of an imminent violent showdown, a week after at least 80 pro-Morsi protesters were gunned down in clashes with police a short distance away from the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in.US Middle East envoy William Burns will arrive in Cairo on Friday night as international efforts to broker a resolution to Egypt’s political crisis are ramped up.
via Pro-Morsi rallies across Cairo draw thousands – Politics – Egypt – Ahram Online.
30. Juni: Die größten Demonstrationen, die Ägypten je gesehen hat, finden statt – gegen den gewählten Präsidenten Mohammed Mursi, der aus der ägyptischen Muslimbruderschaft stammt, der Mutter des modernen Islamismus. Das ägyptische Militär stellt ein Ultimatum von zwei Tagen, danach räumt es Mursi aus dem Präsidentensessel.
