A People's History of Syria--Part 3: August 1914 to 1920 Period

After World War I broke out in August 1914, people in Syria then “suffered tremendously between 1914 and 1918,” “hundreds of thousands” of Greater Syrian men were drafted into the Turkish military and “hundreds of thousands” of Syrians “died in the famine that accompanied the war,” according to Michael Provence’s The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism. As the same book recalled:

“…A crushing famine gripped most of Greater Syria…The most devastating element was effective British blockade of all Arab Mediterranean ports…The British kept any grain from entering the country…British policy led indirectly to the deaths by starvation of hundreds of thousands in the cities of Greater Syria…”

And, according to the Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book Our Roots Are Still Alive, “in Greater Syria, one-eighth of the population died of starvation,” during World War I.

According to Philip Khoury’s Syria and the French Mandate, “France’s sphere of influence was recognized” during World War I “by the Anglo-French partition plan known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement” in which “Britain and France had agreed in 1916 to set up an Arab state in part of Syria,” but “British rather than French influence” had become “paramount” in Syria by 1918. So “when Arab nationalists called for an independent Syria” after Arab rebels entered Damascus with UK troops on Oct. 1, 1918 and the UK government initially supported the establishment of a nationalist regime in Syria headed by the Arab leader Emir Faisal, the French “accused Britain of trying to deprive them of Syria and their share of the Ottoman Empire,” according to the same book.

In response to the French imperialist government’s complaints and pressure, however, the UK imperialist government’s prime minister, Lloyd George, then “revealed a plan…whereby Britain would immediately hand over to France military command in Cilicia, followed by its garrison in western Syria,” according to Syria and the French Mandate. And although “the nationalist-dominated Syrian Congress in Damascus declared Syria an independent constitutional monarchy” and “Emir Faisal was crowned king of the state of Syria in March 1920,” the French imperialist government “was never really prepared to accept any nationalist government in Damascus” in 1920, according to the same book.

So, predictably, as Syria and the French Mandate noted:

“In the third week of July [1920], General Gouraud [of France] gave Faisal an `ultimatum’ that he must demobilize his army, recognize the French Mandate, and dismiss his `extremist’ supporters or else he would be removed from Damascus. Even though Faisal reluctantly accepted the ultimatum, the French Army was already advancing. By July [1920], Damascus had fallen into French hands and Faisal had to leave Syria for good…Although the vast majority of inhabitants of the region opposed the French coming, France had realized her claim to Syria…”

(end of part 3)

A People's History of Syria--Part 2: 1896 to August 1914 Period

By the late 1890s, foreign investors from France were also gaining wealth from people in Syria and special influence in the economy of Greater Syria. As Philip Khoury’s Syria and the French Mandate observed:

“By 1900, French financial investments in Syria were firmly established…The bulk of European investments in Syrian industries were…French. Financiers were primarily concerned with providing home industries with processed raw materials…”

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, “the end of the 19th century” also “saw a considerable decline in the economic conditions” of the Syrians of Jewish religious background “in Damascus” because “local industries were ruined due to the growing importation of European goods and the opening of the Suez Canal, in particular, which dealt a severe blow to the trade with Persia through the Syrian Desert;” and, as a result, many people of Jewish religious background from Damascus either immigrated to the United States or moved to Beirut, “which became a large town and a commercial center.”

So by the 1890s some Syrian people began to express politically their dissatisfaction with the political and economic set-up in Greater Syria prior to World War I. According to Michael Provence’s The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism, for example, “there were two major uprisings against the Turkish Ottoman State by Syrians of Druse background between 1896 and 1910; and to suppress the 1910 uprising in Syria, 30 battalions of Ottoman troops were required.”

Yet despite these two major pre-World War I uprisings in Syria against Ottoman Turkish political control of Syria, France-based banks and investors continued to invest their money heavily in the economy of Syria, in other parts of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire and in Turkey itself right up to the beginning of World War I in 1914. As Syria and the French Mandate observed:

“Between 1890 and 1914 France was by far the largest investor in the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, her investments were more than double that of her nearest rival, Germany…In 1913, French capitalists controlled 63 percent of the Ottoman Public Debt; they, along with their British counterparts, owned and directed the Imperial Ottoman Bank which controlled the tobacco monopoly, several utilities, railway and industrial issues, and other business ramifications…

“…The Imperial Ottoman Bank, which issued the Ottoman currency…had active branches in Damascus…By 1914, French companies…owned all but one of the railroads that crisscrossed Syria…On the eve of World War I, France was the largest single investor in Syria…It is estimated that by 1914 the French had invested some 200 million francs in the region, mainly in public utilities, railroads, and silk and tobacco production…”

But nationalist Syrian activists who opposed continued Turkish government political control of Greater Syria organized a large demonstration in Damascus in early 1913 and then held an Arab Congress in Paris in June 1913. And, in response, the French government’s consul in Damascus apparently promised the Syrian nationalist activists that a large French government loan to their Turkish rulers would only be given if the Turkish government agreed to implement the democratic reform program for Syria that the nationalist Syrians were demanding.

Yet when the Turkish government signed a formal agreement in April 1914 to give French investors exclusive railroad concessions in Syria, in exchange for the large French government loan, “there was no mention of a Syrian reform program,” according to Syria and The French Mandate. So, not surprisingly, as the same book recalled:

“…In the four months before the war broke out, the sentiments of the Syrian reformers became…blatantly anti-French…France was accused of abandoning the Syrian-Arab reform movement for an exclusive sphere of economic influence.

“The French decision to withdraw support from the reform program was in line with France’s imperialist logic…”

(end of part 2)

A People's History of Syria--Part 1: Pre-1895 Period

In late September 2014 the Democratic Obama Administration began ordering U.S. military air strikes on ISIS/ISIL fighters in Syrian territory—without first asking the permission of either the United Nations Security Council or the government in Damascus that Syria’s secular Baath Party still controls. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the history of people who live in Syria.

Between 1516 and 1918, for example, Syria—along with Jordan, Palestine/Israel and Lebanon—was officially part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire’s “Greater Syria” administrative area; and, from its “imperial center” in Istanbul, the ruling dynasty of a Turkish Sultan and/or his Turkish military officers mostly ruled people in Syria undemocratically through local Syrian elites, according to University of California-San Diego Professor of History Michael Provence’s The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism. As the same book also recalled:

“…The top political families of Damascus usually got their start in government service (either civil or, more likely, military) and later became tax brokers, government officials, and eventually landlords. These families provided generations of sons for high positions in local government…The political notables struck a bargain in which they enjoyed variable and qualified access to political power and tremendous economic power in return for minimizing the political aspirations of the great mass of the subject population.”

During this same historical period, most Syrians of Jewish religious background in Damascus “earned their livelihoods in various crafts,” except for “a small class of wealthy Jews engaged in the wholesale and international trade of Persian and local products,” according to the Encyclopedia Judaica.

By the late 19^th century, “wheat, cotton, silk and other agricultural products” had become “the major exports from Greater Syria,” according to The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism. Yet when Greater Syria was officially part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, only a few families in Syria apparently derived much economic prosperity from the Greater Syrian economy. As the same book also observed:

“Local power was based on control of land and agricultural surpluses…Families from Damascus and Hama owned entire villages in the surrounding regions. Single extended families controlled scores or even hundreds of villages comprising thousands of individuals. The share of agricultural produce retained by peasants often barely met the level of subsistence. Leading families usually lived in Damascus in grand houses that included multiple courtyards…The houses dominated the urban quarters in which they were situated…The leading families also owned large areas of urban real estate, which they leased for commercial and residential purposes…”

MIT Professor of History Philip Khoury’s Syria and the French Mandate book also noted that “by the end of the 19^th century there had emerged in Damascus and the other large cities, a more or less unified group of powerful families deriving wealth and social position from ownership of land, having access to the Ottoman government, and able to maintain a `delicate balance between central authority and provincial influence’;” and “the story of Arab nationalism in Syria…is also the story of conflict between bourgeois and radical nationalism.”

(end of part 1)

Obama Appoints Ex-Federal Reserve Bank of NY Director To Be U.S. Attorney General

A former member of Wall Street’s Federal Reserve Bank of New York and former Hogan & Hartson corporate law firm partner named Loretta Lynch was recently appointed to head the U.S. Justice Department as the Democratic Obama administration’s next Attorney General

.

Coincidentally, when Attorney General-Designate Lynch apparently worked in the “white collar criminal defense” practice division of Hogan & Hartson,  she apparently also sat on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York board of directors next to Citigroup Inc. Chairman Sanford Weill, The Depository Trust Company Chairman and CEO Jill Considine, The Adirondack Trust Company President, CEO and Chairman Charles Wait, Tishman Speyer Properties President and CEO Jerry Speyer, The Blackstone Group Chairman Peter Peterson and New York University President John Sexton.

So don't expect many Wall Street bankers or U.S. power elite members to be sent to jail for any of the white-collar crimes they may have committed prior to the 2008 financial collapse of the U.S. banking system--that helped trigger the global economic recession of the last 6 years-- by Attorney General-Designate Lynch.  

Black Youth `Seasonally Adjusted' Unemployment Rate Increases To 32.6 Percent In October 2014

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 30.5 to 32.6 percent between September and October 2014; while the total number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 18,000 (from 218,000 to 236,000) during the same period, according to the “seasonally adjusted” Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the “seasonally adjusted” number of Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 11,000 (from 498,000 to 487,000) between September and October 2014.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 20.2 percent in October 2014; while the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 16.3 percent during that same month. In addition, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 18.6 percent in October 2014.

In October 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers (youth, male and female) was still 10.9 percent, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data; while the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 10.7 percent during the same month. In addition, between September and October 2014, the “seasonally adjusted” number of Black male workers over 20 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 57,000 (from 7,810,000 to 7,753,000); while the “seasonally adjusted” number of Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force decreased by 97,000 (from 8,774,000 to 8,677,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.4 percent in October 2014; while the total “seasonally adjusted” number of Black workers (youth, male and female) who still had jobs decreased by 41,000 (from 16,981,000 to 16,940,000) between September and October 2014. In addition, the total “seasonally adjusted” number of Black workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 114,000 (from 11,850,000 to 11,964,000) between September and October 2014.

Between September and October 2014, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 55,000 (from 673,000 to 728,000); while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 4.8 to 5.1 percent during the same period. In addition, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Latino workers (male, female and youth) in the United States was still 6.8 percent in October 2014; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 7 percent during that same month.

The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Asian-American workers in the United States increased from 4.3 to 5 percent between September and October 2014; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed Asian-American workers increased by 54,000 (from 379,000 to 433,000) during the same period. In addition, between September and October 2014, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Asian-American workers who still had jobs decreased by 44,000 (from 8,339,000 to 8,295,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.2 percent in October 2014; while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.6 percent during that same month. In addition, the number of white male workers workers in the U.S. labor force decreased by 95,000 (from 64,259,000 to 64,164,000) during the same period, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data..

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all female workers over 16 years-of-age was still 5.9 percent in October 2014; while the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 5.8 percent during that same month. In addition, the total “seasonally adjusted” number of all male workers over 16 years-of-age not in the U.S. labor force increased by 122,000 (from 37,031,000 to 37,153,000) between September and October 2014.

In October 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all U.S. workers (male, female and youth) was still 5.8 percent; while 8,995,000 workers were still officially unemployed in the United States during that same month, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November 7, 2014 press release:

“The rates for adult men (5.1 percent), adult women (5.4 percent), teenagers (18.6 percent), blacks (10.9 percent), and Hispanics (6.8 percent) changed little over the month…In October, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 2.9 million. These individuals accounted for 32.0 percent of the unemployed...

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was about unchanged in October at 7.0 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job....

“In October, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, little changed from a year earlier...These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

“Among the marginally attached, there were 770,000 discouraged workers in October, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Employment in…mining and logging, wholesale trade, information, financial activities, and government, showed little change over the month…” 

Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge's November 3, 2014 Letter

(The following letter from Australian anti-war and Latin American solidarity activist Joan Coxsedge—who is also a former member of the Victoria state parliament--originally appeared in an Australian-Cuban solidarity group’s newsletter)

"Dear Comrades, 

"Gough’s gone and left a hole in many Old Labor hearts.  Not without flaws - think of East Timor and his embrace of State Aid which has led to a criminal imbalance between rich private schools and the public variety - but he made up for them with vision and courage in pushing ahead with a range of strong progressive policies after decades of Menzies-style stagnation. It became a matter of pride to be an Australian, unlike now.

"Media dills scoff at ‘conspiracy theories’ regarding Whitlam’s untimely dismissal, when there is an abundance of evidence to prove that the CIA was up its filthy neck in killing off his government.

"Do these idiots seriously believe that an outfit that since its inception has rampaged around the world to create profitable investment climates for multinationals, organised coup d’etats in more than 30 countries and unknown numbers of secret wars, subverted democratic processes with massive illegal funding of political parties and trade unions in cahoots with leading Mafias, established murder squads and torture centres and plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, Rafael Trujillo and other heads of state and ran the murderous Phoenix Programme in Vietnam, would ignore a new reforming Labor prime minister?

"Especially one which briefly transformed Australia into an independent state, reversed its foreign policy status towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported Zones of Peace and demanded to know whether the CIA was running Pine Gap, who sacked ASIO head Barbour and ASIS head Robertson, and then poured petrol on the fire by stating that the CIA had funded Australian political parties would not have been targeted by the CIA?

"Of course not.

"The Nixon White House loathed Whitlam and sent `coup master' Marshall Green and other CIA heavies to destroy his government. Whitlam knew this. ’The question is whether any duly elected reformist government will be allowed to govern in the future. What is at stake is whether the people who seek change and reform are ever again to have confidence that it can be achieved through the normal parliamentary process’, he said on 29 October 1975, at the ANU, just days before he got the chop, a question that’s never been acknowledged, let alone resolved. Governor-General Kerr played a vital role in the dismissal, shattering our dreams for a more independent Australia.

So why against all advice did Gough appoint this drunken buffoon?  Kerr was known to be anti-union with long-standing ties to British and American intelligence which started in WW2 when he worked in the hush-hush Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs. A prominent member of the invitation-only Australian Association of Cultural Freedom, founded, funded and run by the CIA, Kerr also served two terms as president of LawAsia, another CIA front. The CIA paid for his travels, coughed up whenever he asked for money and `told him what to do,' according to a CIA Deputy-Director.

"Kerr made a complete galah of himself whenever he appeared in public with his striped trousers, tails and top hat. His chief mentor was another charmer, Sir Garfield Barwick, who promoted tax avoidance, advocated against Labor’s Banking Act, defended Menzies’ Communist Party Dissolution Bill before the High Court and handled ASIO’s case before the Petrov Commission. 

"Whitlam fell and democracy fell with him, but another future PM was sinking in the boot. Hawke made regular trips to the US Consulate in Melbourne calling Whitlam ‘politically crazy’ with the message that the ALP was always happy to keep Washington in the loop. Since then? A downthill run, with both parties in thrall to US imperialism.

"We live in a democracy we’re told, but genuine democracy means ‘people’s power’ so how did we bugger up such a noble concept and turn it into a global system run by corrupt oligarchs and plutocrats, puppet masters for our rulers. Everywhere, from east to west, north to south, these crooks have transformed democracy into a toxic form of governance threatening the survival of our planet.

"Way back, Mark Twain wrote: ‘If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it,' a quote that could have been written for today. A vote implies real choice and we have none. It used to be a sacrosanct civic duty, but now it's a fake system to give the illusion that voting matters when the real power lies with unelected bodies like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Oranization, the World Economic Forum and other powerful non-government outfits and think-tanks.

"These mobsters dictate global policies and draft secret treaties like theTransatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships affecting billions of people. These agreements, conducted in unprecedented secrecy, give US corporations more rights than they’ve ever had in history, allowing them to flout the laws of sovereign countries in which they do business.

"If a `sovereign' nation attempts to enforce its laws against an American corporation, it can be sued for `restraint of trade.' Those agreeing to these ‘partnerships’ are fully paid-up agents of US corporations.  If you’re not outraged then you bloody well should be!

"Always a relief to turn to Cuba. While most of the world tightens its borders and runs away from the problem, Cuba has opened a new chapter of solidarity by sending 255 doctors and nurses to West Africa to deal with the Ebola outbreak, once again giving the world a lesson in internationalism. The latest group of Cuban medicos will not receive the privileged medical evacuation that other doctors have received, but will be treated in situ like the local population.

"Compare Cuba with the US which sent soldiers and Australia which sent no-one, but the root problem for Sub-Saharan Africa is that its medical systems were weakened by the imposition of draconian policies by agencies like the IMF. These inspiring words from a Cuban-Argentinian doctor to his children about how a revolutionary ‘should always be capable of feeling, in his deepest self, any injustice anywhere in the world.’    Viva Cuba!

"Joan Coxsedge."

                                                                                                      

The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History of Egypt--Epilogue: November 2013 to April 2014 Period

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on June 25, 2014)

According to a Dec.28, 2013 press release of Human Rights Watch, between July and December 2013 Egyptian government authorities “killed more than 1,000 pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters; arrested thousands of its supporters, including the majority of its leadership; and engaged in a systematic media campaign to demonize the group” and “a Cairo court in September [2013}” then “found the Brotherhood to be an illegal organization.” The same Human Rights Watch press release also indicated how Sisi’s military coup regime also apparently then used a Dec. 24, 2013 attack on an Egyptian police station in Mansoura as a pretext to further violate the human rights and democratic rights of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and activists in Egypt, by designating the Muslim Brotherhood as “a terrorist organization” on Dec. 25, 2013:

 

“… The Egyptian government’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization appears to be aimed at expanding the crackdown on peaceful Brotherhood activities and imposing harsh sanctions on its supporters….

 

“The government’s designation immediately followed a Dec. 24, 2013 bomb attack on a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura that left 16 people dead and over 130 injured. The government blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the blast without investigating or providing any evidence. The Brotherhood condemned the blast, calling for `perpetrators of this crime [to] be brought to justice.’…

 

“`The government’s decision on the Muslim Brotherhood follows over five months of government efforts to vilify the group,’ said Sarah Leah Whitson , Middle East and North Africa director, `By rushing to point the finger at the Brotherhood without investigations or evidence, the government seems motivated solely by its desire to crush a major opposition movement.’”…

 

“The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Badr Abdellaty, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal acknowledging that direct evidence of the Brotherhood’s involvement in the Mansoura blast was not immediately available. The Muslim Brotherhood has renounced violence since the 1970s….

 

“The government’s terrorist designation seems intended to end all Muslim Brotherhood activities…Those who participate in demonstrations could face up to five years in prison, while those who lead the organization risk the death penalty.

 

“The Dec. 25 government statement said that participation, promotion, and funding of Brotherhood activities would also be subject to criminal sanction under the same section of the penal code. Osama Sharabi, former director of the public administration for artistic work, declared on a Dec. 26 television program on Al Hayah Channel that anyone posting a `Raba’a sign,’ commemorating people killed when the government dispersed the sit-in in Raba’a Square in August [2013], on the social networking site Facebook will also face criminal charges under the penal code.

 

“Within hours of the government’s announcement, Egyptian authorities intensified their crackdown against the Brotherhood. The official Middle East News Agency reported that police arrested 27 Brotherhood supporters, including three university students, on Dec. 26 in the Nile Delta province of Sharkiya on charges including membership in a terrorist organization. The main evidence the article cited against 16 of the accused was the distribution of anti-army and anti-police pamphlets.

 

“On Dec. 27, the news agency also reported the arrests of 19 Brotherhood members in the adjacent province of Gharbiya for membership in a banned organization. The Interior Ministry announced that three had been killed and 265 arrested at protests throughout Egypt on December 27, according to the state-run Al Ahram newspaper. An article in the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm early on Dec. 28 indicated that the death toll had increased to five and cited a security source as saying that the number of Brotherhood protesters arrested on Dec. 27 had risen to 304.

 

“The Interior Ministry blocked the publication of the Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party’s daily newspaper on Dec. 26, Al-Ahram reported….

 

“On Dec. 23, Al-Ahram reported that the Central Bank had frozen the bank accounts of over 1,000 nongovernmental organizations reportedly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This announcement so drastically affects health services in Egypt, much of which Brotherhood-linked charities provide, that the Health Ministry announced a`state of emergency’ on Dec. 26,Daily News Egypt reported, citing a ministry statement. The official Middle East News Agency reported on Dec. 27 that the Minister of Endowments had decided to take over all mosques belonging to banned organizations, presumably including the Brotherhood, and to replace its preachers. The government has also begun procedures to seize over 140 Brotherhood-affiliated schools and to freeze the assets of over 130 of its senior leaders…”

 

But despite its record of human rights violations and political repression during the last 6 months of 2013, on the third anniversary of the start of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution the military coup regime of Sisi and the pro-Sisi regime’s Egyptian mass media were still able to mobilize large numbers of people in Egypt to express their support for Sisi’s military regime in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Jan. 25, 2014. As a Jan. 26, 2014 statement of the Revolutionary Socialists group in Egypt observed, “despite the fact that its base of support has relatively decreased, it does enjoy positive backing from some sections, mostly artisans, workers from small workshops and street vendors, as well as sections of the middle class who are desperate for `stability’ and who have `had enough of the revolution’, in addition the old ruling party’s network of interests;” and “more importantly, wide sections of the masses have been demoralized and are looking for a saviour.”

 

Yet as the Revolutionary Socialists’ Jan. 26, 2014 statement also noted:

 

“…The phase of El-Sisi’s rule is clearly a period of counter-revolutionary offensive. The military, the police, Mubarak’s cronies and opportunist forces are in control….El-Sisi’s regime can only continue on the basis of killing, repression, incitement and distortion against the revolution and revolutionaries…."

 

And in its Feb. 10, 2014 statement the UK-based Egyptian Solidarity Initiative group indicated what happened to opponents of El-Sisi’s military regime who attempted to demonstrate in Egypt on the third anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution on Jan. 25, 2014:

 

“Army leader Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi…used the third anniversary of Egypt’s Tahrir uprising to attack activists who led nationwide protests against the dictatorship of President Mubarak. When demonstrators gathered in Cairo on Jan. 25 2014 to mark the 2011 events they were targeted by snipers and by riot police using teargas and live ammunition.

 

“Health officials say that 64 people were killed, most as a result of gunshot wounds; participants believe that the figures are much higher and that in addition more than 1,000 demonstrators were arrested. Several lawyers who visited police stations to secure access to those detained were seized and imprisoned…”

 

The Egyptian Solidarity Initiative group’s February 10, 2014 statement also described the current political situation for people in Egypt in the following way:

 

“Egyptians have struggled courageously for their freedoms – now they ask if gains of the 2011 revolution are to be dismissed with a new wave of repression. Egypt Solidarity calls urgently for support of those under assault from a regime hostile to human rights and social justice….New laws forbid public protest without permission of the authorities. Young activists associated with the movement of Tahrir Square are prominent among those now in prison for defending the right to public assembly and to freedom of expression. Amnesty International reports that `repression and impunity [of security forces] are the order of the day’

.

“In December 2013 peaceful activists opposing the government’s campaign to vote `Yes’ in a contentious referendum on a new constitution were arrested in Cairo for displaying `No’ posters. Human Rights Watch says: `Protecting the right to vote requires safeguarding the right to free expression… Egyptian citizens should be free to vote for or against the new constitution, not fear arrest for simply campaigning for a “‘no’” vote.`

Amnesty [International] comments that current policies are `a charter for state-sanctioned repression and carte blanche for security force abuses’. In a detailed report on Egypt at the third anniversary of the 2011 revolution, the organisation concludes that such policies are `a betrayal of all the aspirations for bread, freedom and social justice’”…

 

“Secular activists not affiliated with the Brotherhood – and who have been among the latter’s most outspoken critics – are now also accused of `terrorism’, a practice familiar from the Mubarak era. The young revolutionaries of 2011, acclaimed worldwide for their principled opposition to Mubarak’s regime, have also been described as a `fifth column’ and as `paid agents of enemy powers’…

 

“Many democratic advances that followed the fall of President Mubarak are now in danger. All branches of the state apparatus are being used to quash dissent and to create a climate of fear: university campuses, freed of security forces in 2011, have been invaded by riot police using live ammunition and birdshot against students; academics who defend human rights have been charged with offences including terrorism and espionage; workers exercising their rights to form independent unions and to challenge employers face intimidation and arrest; human rights organisations have been attacked, their files stolen and their officers arrested; media organisations which express independent views have been assaulted and closed, and their staff accused of terrorism….”

 

So, not surprisingly, in its Feb. 10, 2014 statement the Egypt Solidarity group also called on “ governments to suspend all financial, military or other support to the Egyptian authorities that may be used to violate the rights of Egyptian citizens;” and “in particular” demanded the “immediate cessation of all sales and transfers to the Egyptian government of weapons, ammunition, vehicles, cyber-surveillance technology and other materials for use against those who exercise their right to protest.”

 

Yet a month after an Egyptian court judge sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters or activists to death for allegedly killing a single Egyptian policeman (and only a few days before another Egyptian court judge sentenced an additional 683 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, to death), the London Guardian newspaper reported the following in its Apr. 23, 2014 issue:

 

“The US has given the go-ahead for the delivery of 10 Apache helicopters to Egypt that the Obama administration had withheld since the military-led overthrow of…Mohamed Morsi last year…The Apaches' delivery will please Egyptian military officials who had previously claimed in private that the withholding of the helicopters was in effect siding with the government's opponents… “

 

But coincidentally, the Houston, Texas-based Apache Corporation has apparently continued to profit in 2013 and 2014 from its investment in the exploitation of Egypt’s oil and gas resources, despite the human rights violations committed by the Egyptian military coup regime since late July 2013. In the words of a Jan. 30, 2014 press release of the Apache Corporation:

 

“…Recent drilling results, approval of three new development leases and expanded natural gas processing facilities in the West Kalabsha area have set the stage for continued growth and investment in Egypt's Western Desert in 2014. Apache operates in Egypt in partnership with Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corporation [a/k/a China Petrochemical Corporation], which owns a one-third minority interest in Apache's Egypt oil and gas business.

 

“Successful wells included the deepest well drilled in the Western Desert and the first well in a horizontal drilling program targeting tight conventional and unconventional resources.

 

"`We currently have 27 drilling rigs in operation - including four drilling horizontal wells - as well as 5 million exploration acres and 2 million development acres in the target-rich, stacked-pay environment of the Western Desert. Apache sees continued opportunity for profitable investment developing Egypt's oil and gas resources,’ said Thomas M. Maher, Apache's region vice president and general manager in Egypt…

 

“Based on new field discoveries in the North Tarek and Khalda Offset concessions, Apache has applied for two additional development leases expected to be approved in 2014. Three leases recently approved…brought the number of applications approved during 2013 to 20. The leases approved in 2013 converted 66,000 acres of short-term exploration acreage into 20- to 25-year term development leases. Apache currently has 119 development leases…In 2013, Apache…drilled more than 250 wells. Gross production averaged 346,530 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the third quarter…”

 

And according to a Jan. 31, 2014 article by Bradley Olsen that was posted on the Bloomberg News website:

“Apache’s relationship with its partners and Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum hasn’t changed since political upheaval began in 2011 with an uprising against longtime President Hosni Mubarak, said Thomas Maher, the company’s vice president and general manager in Egypt. Apache’s production, drilling opportunities and payments from the government have been largely unaffected, and the company sees growth continuing, Maher said in a telephone interview.

 

“`We’re in a sweet spot now in Egypt,’ Maher said. `All through the three years of the revolution, it hasn’t affected our operations.’…

 

“About 60 percent of Apache’s production in Egypt is oil, most of which it exports…Maher said…”.

 

Yet despite the setbacks that the movement for the democratization of Egyptian society experienced in 2013 and early 2014, in recent months workers in Egypt have apparently continued to struggle for economic justice and more economic democracy within Egyptian society by starting to go out on strike again. As The Militant, for example noted in its Mar. 31, 2014 issue, “since December 2013, more than 100,000 workers, including in steel, textile, transport and postal sectors, have gone on strike;” and “most of these actions have been around unpaid wages…”

 

So don’t be surprised if the struggle for full political, economic and cultural democratization of Egyptian society—like the struggle for a fully democratic society in Texas and the rest of the “United States of Amnesia” (to borrow the words of the late Gore Vidal)—continues during the rest of the 21^st-century.

 

(end of epilogue/update and article)