Views from the hemispheric South, on the struggle of workers and the poor, from around the world, with a very few pieces I wrote myself.
Egypt: Down with the reactionary coup of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces!
Posted 26th June 2012 at 03:58 by eyeheartlenin
[From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – Unofficial translation]
A coup against the revolutionary process
Egypt: Down with the reactionary coup of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces!
By Juan Andrés Gallardo
Thursday, June 21, 2012
New mobilizations amid the second round of the elections
At the same time that the second round of elections was closing and two days after the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved Parliament, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a communiqué with constitutional rank, that left the figure of the next President as little more than a puppet, without any real power. The decree of the Armed Forces leaves this institution with the sum of practically all the powers, giving it authority to edit the new Constitution – that it must then submit to a referendum – to manage the state budget and call for the formation of a new Parliament in six months, among others.
This dirty trick by the military, that most analysts described as a “soft coup,” is nothing less than a harsh setback to the struggle and the aspirations of the Egyptian people, who, more than a year ago, put an end to the government of the hated pro-imperialist dictator Hosni Mubarak, with the aim of crushing the revolutionary process underway and guaranteeing a “controlled transition” by imposing rules on the new government. However, this series of measures that have already caused widespread discontent, with new protests and mobilizations in the symbolic Tahrir Square, is making the situation extremely tense in the middle of a still uncertain election outcome, where both the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) candidate, Mohamed Morsi, and Mubarak’s former Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq, were declared winners, which could create a situation of extreme volatility in the coming days.
In view of the consequences that the SCAF’s reactionary coup could cause, “concern” reached Washington, and both Obama and the Secretary of State questioned the most recent measures of the Armed Forces and threatened to take away US military aid to Egypt, that exceeds $1.5 billion annually. What the US is afraid of is not the attack on “democratic institutions,” as it showed by backing Mubarak’s dictatorship for decades and the SCAF for the last year, but that the measures of the military junta, that went beyond the relation of forces that exists in reality, will take the situation to the extreme, making it uncontrollable.
The SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood
Since the uprisings at the beginning of last year, that ended with Mubarak’s fall and the SCAF’s assuming power, the military has tried to carry out a “controlled transition,” to divert the revolutionary process that has begun, by establishing the bases for a new regime with strong control by the Armed Forces. During the last year, the SCAF has not hesitated to apply the worst of the methods from the Mubarak era, by keeping the state of emergency, the prohibition of strikes, persecution of demonstrators and trials in military courts of more than 12,000 young people and workers.
Despite these conditions of brutal repression and persecution, the revolutionary process that has begun gave rise to several big strikes among textile workers, public-sector workers and workers in transportation and also to new mobilizations that confronted the military government and its measures. The mass mobilizations of last November ended in brutal repression and marked a turn, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s departure from Tahrir Square, which cost it a break in its own organization and repudiation from the demonstrators and secular organizations, that accused the Brotherhood of negotiating with the military. These accusations were based on the MB’s participation in the parliamentary elections, that took place at the end of November, and in which they came out as winners, next to the Salafists (orthodox Islamists, who came in second), obtaining the majority in the new Parliament, with 75% of the seats.
The negotiations between the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood are no secret to anyone, since, after Mubarak’s fall, the Muslim Brotherhood is the only political organization that has a structure with a national scope, founded more than 75 years ago, that, under the dictatorship maintained organizations that were operating under semi-legality, with links and networks of assistance among the most impoverished groups, in the countryside and in the cities and villages of the periphery, which is where it now has its main electoral strength.
It is for this reason that the Muslim Brotherhood, that now has a liberal and privatizing economic program, far from the demands expressed in the February 2011 uprising, has been careful not to confront the SCAF openly and has sought to collect political interest from the blows that the military government has dealt the demonstrators.
But, despite the position of the MB, they were never the “natural” candidates of the SCAF, but only as a last resort, which is why the military made sure of a series of measures during recent months, that ended in the current situation.
The first of these was the process of arbitrarily authorizing the candidates for the presidential elections that have just been held. In that process, they “eliminated,” among others, the candidate of the Salafists and authorized Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, which, only some months earlier, would have been inconceivable. In fact, in the November parliamentary elections, Mubarak’s supporters were practically nonexistent.
This allowed “polarizing” the presidential elections, the first round of which left as the main candidates Mohamed Morsi for the MB and Shafiq as the most upright representative of continuity with Mubarak’s rule that was supported in a campaign of restoration of order supported in the Armed Forces and in agitation about the Islamic “specter” against the MB.
A few days before the second round, that took place last weekend, the SCAF advanced one step further, by carrying out the current coup, that dissolved parliament and left the presidential figure practically without any authority, with the aim of limiting to its minimum expression, the weight of the MB. That is, in the case of Shafiq’s defeat, a hypothetical Morsi government will have to negotiate, from zero, its authority with the military junta. However, as we said earlier, this reactionary coup of the military is gambling on the limit of the tolerable, not only because of what the MB is losing, but primarily because the revolutionary situation that began in February 2011 has not yet closed, and, although this is the strongest attempt to deal it a mortal blow, the new mobilizations express that an attack outside of the relationship of forces could open up an unpredictable and even more acute scenario if, amid accusations of fraud, Shafiq ends up proclaiming himself the winner.
Down with the reactionary coup! For an independent policy!
The reaction in view of the SCAF’s coup was immediate, and Tahrir Plaza was again filled with demonstrators. According to different media, around 100,000 people are in the streets and, in view of the closing of Parliament, that is surrounded by the military, the MB called for establishing a parallel Parliament in Tahrir Square. At press time for this article, amidst crossed charges of fraud, although the majority of the surveys named Morsi as the winner, Shafiq also was proclaimed the winner, in expectation of the “official data,” which will be announced on Thursday, June 21. The April 6 Movement, which is one of the main secular organizations that led the February 2011 days, has submitted to the call of the Muslim Brotherhood to go out to the streets.
Defeating the SCAF’s reactionary coup is a task of the first order. However, it is impossible to have any confidence in the MB, that had been negotiating for months with the military and will now try to use the force of the street in favor of its candidacy. One must bear in mind that although Morsi was not the “natural candidate” of the military junta and of the US, the neoliberal and privatizing profile of the MB gave imperialism a certain tranquility, in view of the possibility of installing a “Turkish model” with moderate Islamism and a controlling role of the Armed Forces, at the same time that it was guaranteeing the relationship and the agreements with the State of Israel. The lack of enthusiasm that the elections showed, where only 40% of the electorate participated, is a sign of weariness, given two candidates that cannot resolve the profound demands begun with the fall of Mubarak.
It is necessary to maintain political independence from the different bourgeois variants (whether they are secular or Islamic) and defeat this new reactionary coup with mobilizations in the streets and with the force of the young people and the struggle of the working class, which is what dealt the final blow to Mubarak’s government last year.
None of the profound structural demands raised with the days of 2011 can be resolved in the frameworks of capitalism. The only way to defeat the army, the capitalists, and imperialism is to seal the alliance among the workers, the young people, the unemployed and the poor of the cities and the countryside, to prepare the insurrectional general strike, in order to overthrow the military government and its civilian puppets and establish a government of the workers and the people.
June 20, 2012
A coup against the revolutionary process
Egypt: Down with the reactionary coup of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces!
By Juan Andrés Gallardo
Thursday, June 21, 2012
New mobilizations amid the second round of the elections
At the same time that the second round of elections was closing and two days after the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved Parliament, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a communiqué with constitutional rank, that left the figure of the next President as little more than a puppet, without any real power. The decree of the Armed Forces leaves this institution with the sum of practically all the powers, giving it authority to edit the new Constitution – that it must then submit to a referendum – to manage the state budget and call for the formation of a new Parliament in six months, among others.
This dirty trick by the military, that most analysts described as a “soft coup,” is nothing less than a harsh setback to the struggle and the aspirations of the Egyptian people, who, more than a year ago, put an end to the government of the hated pro-imperialist dictator Hosni Mubarak, with the aim of crushing the revolutionary process underway and guaranteeing a “controlled transition” by imposing rules on the new government. However, this series of measures that have already caused widespread discontent, with new protests and mobilizations in the symbolic Tahrir Square, is making the situation extremely tense in the middle of a still uncertain election outcome, where both the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) candidate, Mohamed Morsi, and Mubarak’s former Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq, were declared winners, which could create a situation of extreme volatility in the coming days.
In view of the consequences that the SCAF’s reactionary coup could cause, “concern” reached Washington, and both Obama and the Secretary of State questioned the most recent measures of the Armed Forces and threatened to take away US military aid to Egypt, that exceeds $1.5 billion annually. What the US is afraid of is not the attack on “democratic institutions,” as it showed by backing Mubarak’s dictatorship for decades and the SCAF for the last year, but that the measures of the military junta, that went beyond the relation of forces that exists in reality, will take the situation to the extreme, making it uncontrollable.
The SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood
Since the uprisings at the beginning of last year, that ended with Mubarak’s fall and the SCAF’s assuming power, the military has tried to carry out a “controlled transition,” to divert the revolutionary process that has begun, by establishing the bases for a new regime with strong control by the Armed Forces. During the last year, the SCAF has not hesitated to apply the worst of the methods from the Mubarak era, by keeping the state of emergency, the prohibition of strikes, persecution of demonstrators and trials in military courts of more than 12,000 young people and workers.
Despite these conditions of brutal repression and persecution, the revolutionary process that has begun gave rise to several big strikes among textile workers, public-sector workers and workers in transportation and also to new mobilizations that confronted the military government and its measures. The mass mobilizations of last November ended in brutal repression and marked a turn, with the Muslim Brotherhood’s departure from Tahrir Square, which cost it a break in its own organization and repudiation from the demonstrators and secular organizations, that accused the Brotherhood of negotiating with the military. These accusations were based on the MB’s participation in the parliamentary elections, that took place at the end of November, and in which they came out as winners, next to the Salafists (orthodox Islamists, who came in second), obtaining the majority in the new Parliament, with 75% of the seats.
The negotiations between the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood are no secret to anyone, since, after Mubarak’s fall, the Muslim Brotherhood is the only political organization that has a structure with a national scope, founded more than 75 years ago, that, under the dictatorship maintained organizations that were operating under semi-legality, with links and networks of assistance among the most impoverished groups, in the countryside and in the cities and villages of the periphery, which is where it now has its main electoral strength.
It is for this reason that the Muslim Brotherhood, that now has a liberal and privatizing economic program, far from the demands expressed in the February 2011 uprising, has been careful not to confront the SCAF openly and has sought to collect political interest from the blows that the military government has dealt the demonstrators.
But, despite the position of the MB, they were never the “natural” candidates of the SCAF, but only as a last resort, which is why the military made sure of a series of measures during recent months, that ended in the current situation.
The first of these was the process of arbitrarily authorizing the candidates for the presidential elections that have just been held. In that process, they “eliminated,” among others, the candidate of the Salafists and authorized Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, which, only some months earlier, would have been inconceivable. In fact, in the November parliamentary elections, Mubarak’s supporters were practically nonexistent.
This allowed “polarizing” the presidential elections, the first round of which left as the main candidates Mohamed Morsi for the MB and Shafiq as the most upright representative of continuity with Mubarak’s rule that was supported in a campaign of restoration of order supported in the Armed Forces and in agitation about the Islamic “specter” against the MB.
A few days before the second round, that took place last weekend, the SCAF advanced one step further, by carrying out the current coup, that dissolved parliament and left the presidential figure practically without any authority, with the aim of limiting to its minimum expression, the weight of the MB. That is, in the case of Shafiq’s defeat, a hypothetical Morsi government will have to negotiate, from zero, its authority with the military junta. However, as we said earlier, this reactionary coup of the military is gambling on the limit of the tolerable, not only because of what the MB is losing, but primarily because the revolutionary situation that began in February 2011 has not yet closed, and, although this is the strongest attempt to deal it a mortal blow, the new mobilizations express that an attack outside of the relationship of forces could open up an unpredictable and even more acute scenario if, amid accusations of fraud, Shafiq ends up proclaiming himself the winner.
Down with the reactionary coup! For an independent policy!
The reaction in view of the SCAF’s coup was immediate, and Tahrir Plaza was again filled with demonstrators. According to different media, around 100,000 people are in the streets and, in view of the closing of Parliament, that is surrounded by the military, the MB called for establishing a parallel Parliament in Tahrir Square. At press time for this article, amidst crossed charges of fraud, although the majority of the surveys named Morsi as the winner, Shafiq also was proclaimed the winner, in expectation of the “official data,” which will be announced on Thursday, June 21. The April 6 Movement, which is one of the main secular organizations that led the February 2011 days, has submitted to the call of the Muslim Brotherhood to go out to the streets.
Defeating the SCAF’s reactionary coup is a task of the first order. However, it is impossible to have any confidence in the MB, that had been negotiating for months with the military and will now try to use the force of the street in favor of its candidacy. One must bear in mind that although Morsi was not the “natural candidate” of the military junta and of the US, the neoliberal and privatizing profile of the MB gave imperialism a certain tranquility, in view of the possibility of installing a “Turkish model” with moderate Islamism and a controlling role of the Armed Forces, at the same time that it was guaranteeing the relationship and the agreements with the State of Israel. The lack of enthusiasm that the elections showed, where only 40% of the electorate participated, is a sign of weariness, given two candidates that cannot resolve the profound demands begun with the fall of Mubarak.
It is necessary to maintain political independence from the different bourgeois variants (whether they are secular or Islamic) and defeat this new reactionary coup with mobilizations in the streets and with the force of the young people and the struggle of the working class, which is what dealt the final blow to Mubarak’s government last year.
None of the profound structural demands raised with the days of 2011 can be resolved in the frameworks of capitalism. The only way to defeat the army, the capitalists, and imperialism is to seal the alliance among the workers, the young people, the unemployed and the poor of the cities and the countryside, to prepare the insurrectional general strike, in order to overthrow the military government and its civilian puppets and establish a government of the workers and the people.
June 20, 2012
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