The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History of Egypt--Part 21-1992-2000 Period-section 1

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on April 8, 2014)

As Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt recalled, the Mubarak regime mostly tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood between 1981 and 1991, but in 1993 it “launched a major assault on the organization, denouncing it as `illegal,’ and accusing it of having `ties to extremist groups” responsible for violently opposing the Mubarak regime; and “hundreds of suspects” were then “jailed and tried in military courts after successive rounds of arrests.” Yet as James Gelvin’s The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs To Know observed:

 

“The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was formed in 1928. Its last confirmed use of violence was in 1948 when its `secret apparatus’ assassinated the Egyptian prime minister who had ordered the organization dissolved…After years of repression, the `supreme guide’ of the brotherhood renounced violence altogether in 1972, and his successor renewed the pledge in 1987.”

 

According to the same book:

 

“In Egypt it was groups splintering off from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood or unaffiliated with the brotherhood that perpetrated the violence…The government responded to Islamist violence with heavy-handed repression. In the wake of the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat, for example, the Egyptian government imposed an emergency law that entitled the state to restrict freedom of assembly, arrest and detain suspects without warrant, monitor and censor publications, establish exceptional courts to try those accused of violating presidential decrees…”

 

“20,000 troops with tanks and armoured cars,” for example, occupied “slum areas in Cairo, such as Imbaba,” in 1993 and “tens of thousands were arrested,” according to a 1994 article about Egypt by Chris Harman. In addition, “death squads set out to kill those activists who escaped,” the main mosques used by the radical Islamists were blocked with concrete,” and “and “parents, children and wives of activists were arrested and tortured,” according to the same 1994 article.

 

During the subsequent 1990s conflict between militant Islamic splinter groups in Egypt and the Mubarak regime “over 1,200 people were killed, 10,000 wounded and scores of thousands detained under the emergency laws,” according to The Rough Guide To Egypt.  In 2010 the same book also described, in the following way, the political and economic system that existed in Egypt under Mubarak’s U.S. government-backed regime between 1981 and early 2011:

 

“Mubarak’s regime has long been a thinly-disguised military dictatorship allied to an oligarchy. Ex-military and police officers hold top jobs in civilian life; the army is a profit-making entity (owning farms, factories and construction businesses using conscript labour); and senior officials and wealthy entrepreneurs (often from the `Menoufi Mafia’ promoted from the Delta governorate where Sadat and Mubarak were born) collude in a web of mutual corruption. Most Egyptians refer to the ruling elite as the `band of thieves’…”

 

In addition, according to A History of Egypt, “the parliamentary elections of 1995” in Egypt “were particularly notorious for fraud and violence;” and in Egypt ’s November 2000 elections “Muslim Brotherhood candidates and supporters were hindered and harassed, and even physically blocked from entering polling stations.”  The same book also indicated how the economic situation of most people in Egypt worsened under the Mubarak regime during the 1990s:

 

“”According to international standards, the percentage of the Egyptian population living in poverty increased from 20-25 percent in 1990 to more than 45 percent in 1997. The real wages of most workers have steadily declined over the past several decades. Unemployment has risen sharply, with published figures running between 9 and 10 percent, but those are underreported and almost certainly should be adjusted upward by at least an additional 5 percent. The direness of the situation is further masked by widespread underemployment and low wages, compelling many individuals to find supplementary work and even full-time second jobs in order to support their families…Food prices have increased to distressing levels…”

(end of section 1 of part 21)

The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History of Egypt--Part 20: 1990-1992 Period

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on March 26, 2014)

The only legal leftist opposition party which the Mubarak regime still allowed in 1990, al-Tagammu, “absorbed many radical Egyptians” who still then believed “that significant change” in Egypt “can be accomplished only by assembling democrats, Marxists, Nasserists and independents into a united force against the present regime,” as the 1990s began, according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970.

Although the Mubarak regime’s Egyptian government was legally represented in the United States in the early 1990s by the Washington, D.C. law firm--Patten, Boggs & Blow--of the now-deceased Ron Brown (later a Secretary of Commerce in the Democratic Clinton Administration), it continued to repress political dissidents in Egypt during the 1990s. During the early 1991 attack on Iraq by the Bush I Administration’s war machine, for example, at least 11 Egyptian students at Air Shams University in Cairo were arrested for producing leaflets containing anti-war material on Feb. 7, 1991; and on Feb. 8, 1991, Dr. Mohammed Mandour, Head of Psychiatry at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Cairo and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, and Dr. Emad Atrees were arrested after making public statements in opposition to the first Gulf War. In addition, Dr. Mandour was “reportedly tortured severely” by Mubarak regime security forces, according to the May 1991 issue of the UK-based Article 19 human rights organization magazine, Censorship News.

The same publication also reported that “the EOHR recorded that Mohamad Abdel Fateh, a teacher and Sameh A. Said, a university student and EOHR members, were arrested and detained under a 15-day detention order, allegedly for possessing anti-war leaflets: and were “reported to have been tortured;” while on Feb. 27, 1991 “the EOHR recorded that Hamdain Sabahi, journalist…was arrested allegedly for voicing his opposition to the [first Gulf war] at a student meeting, at Cairo University on Feb. 24” and “was reportedly tortured.”

So, not surprisingly, the Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 summarized the human rights situation in Egypt under the Mubarak regime in the early 1990s in the following way:

“…One of the most noxious features of the system is the apparently pervasive use of torture in detention. According to the independent Egyptian Organization of Human Rights [EOHR] torture of suspected criminals inn police lock-up is routine, while convincing evidence exists of the systematic use of torture against suspected political dissidents by the State Security Intelligence [SSI] force…

“The inescapable impression gained is that President Mubarak prefers to retain the reserve powers in the state of emergency as a means of guarding against popular discontent with government policies—and protecting his own seat…In 1991, the leading women’s organization in the Arab world, the Cairo-based Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, was told by the government to close down…”

Yet the same Human Rights Watch World Report also observed:

“In bilateral aid, Egypt is fiscal 1991 received an estimated 1.3 billion in military assistance…from the United States. Despite well-documented abuses in Egypt that are widespread, persistent and serious in nature, including torture, the [Bush I] Administration apparently does not consider aid to Egypt to be barred by Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, which prohibits security assistance to any `country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights…”

And not until September 2005 were opposition political candidates finally allowed to run against Mubarak in Egypt’s presidential elections. Yet according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt, “joint military exercises between Egypt and the United States have been ongoing since 1981;” and “it is estimated that Egypt received more than $50 billion in US aid between 1975 and 2004, and when indirect aid and non-governmental sources are factored in, the total is much higher.”

(end of part 20)

The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History Of Egypt--Part 19: 1976-1989 Period

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on March  11, 2014)

 

In January 1977, additional mass arrests of Egyptian left activists were again made by the U.S. government-aligned Sadat regime when mass demonstration broke out in Cairo and the 12 other main Egyptian cities to protest against the Sadat regime’s attempt to take away the food subsidies that the Egyptian government provided for Egypt’s still-impoverished masses—after IMF and World Bank officials demanded in December 1976 that Sadat’s regime cut $64 million from direct subsidies in exchange for a $450 million credit with the IMF. According to Atef Said’s 2009 “Egypt’s Long Labor History” article in Against The Current  “the uprising began with textile workers demonstrating in the Supurp section of Cairo (in the Helwan district) as well as by the navy in the Alexandria arsenal.” And according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt:

 

“…When the subsidy cuts were announced, riots exploded in Cairo and Alexandria , the worst in 25 years.  Shops were ransacked, especially those containing imported goods; Sadat’s offices at the Abdin Palace were even attacked. Angry crowds chanted, `Sadat dresses in Style, while we live seven to a room.’ (Sadat’s selection as one of the world’s ten best-dressed men by the Italian Chamber of Haute Couture did nothing to endear him to the Egyptian masses.)…The people shouted, ` Nasser ! Nasser !’ The army had to be called in to restore order. The official death count, probably underestimated, from the three days of violence was over 150. The subsidy cuts were hastily rescinded…”

 

Yet “both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Associations condemned the rising and sent messages of support to the state against what they called a `Communist conspiracy’,” according to Chris Harman’s 1994 article on Egypt.

 

But after Sadat’s regime began moving towards signing a peace agreement with the Israeli government in 1979 that would end the Israeli military occupation of Egyptian territory in the Sinai peninsula (but not the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem), some Islamic splinter groups began to express opposition to Sadat’s regime in the late 1970s. As Dilip Hiro’s Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism noted, “since such actions ran counter to Islamic sentiment at home…it widened the gulf between” Sadat’s “regime and the Islamic groups” and “helped the Islamic movement…to widen its base” so that “in the spring 1978 elections for the student union officials, the Islamists won 60 percent of the posts;” and “the impending signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in March 1979 so angered the Islamic students that they mounted anti-government demonstrations at Alexandria and Asyut universities: a daring step, since it made the demonstrators liable to life imprisonment.”

 

The same book also recalled that “in late August [1981] the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin reportedly warned Sadat that Israel would not honor its commitment in the [1979 peace] treaty to vacating the Sinai Peninsula in April 1982 if open criticism of the treaty was tolerated in Egypt.”

 

So in early September 1981, Sadat’s regime “suddenly jailed more than 1,500 people” who “were thought to be Muslim militants” mostly; “but the roundup reached all across the political spectrum, including the well-known journalist Muhammad Hasanein Heikal and the feminist leader Nawal al-Saadawi” as well as “160 Copts” of the Christian minority, according to A History of Egypt. In addition, according to Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, Sadat then “purged the” Egyptian “military of 200 officers suspected of being” pro-Muslim Brotherhood.

 

But on Oct. 6, 1981 Sadat was assassinated by Egyptian military personnel who were apparently supporters of Islamic fundamentalist extremist groups. As Holy Wars recalled:

 

“…Four soldiers armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades attacked the review stand at the military parade in a Cairo suburb…They killed Sadat and 7 others. They were led by 24-year-old Lt. Khalid Ahmad  Shawki Islambouli…Islambouli and his 3 colleagues belonged to Al Jihad organization [Munazzamat al Jihad]…Ordinary Egyptians demonstrated their passive approval of the assassins’ act by refraining from public mourning…During his trial Islambouli outlined his reasons for killing Sadat: the Egyptian President had made peace with Israel; he had persecuted `the sons of Islam’ by his wholesale arrest of them in early September [1981]; and the current laws of Egypt, being incompatible with the Sharia, imposed suffering on believing Muslims…”

 

Following Sadat’s assassination, his vice-president--former Egyptian Air Force Marshall Hosni Mubarak--took over as head of the Egyptian military’s regime; and according to A History of Egypt, Mubarak then “used his authority firmly, suppressing an uprising in Asyut later in October [1981] with a death toll of 87 and jailing another 2,000 people around the country.”

 

Since 37 percent of all the people living in Egypt still lived below the poverty line in 1981 (with 44 percent of all Egyptians living in rural areas still impoverished), during the 1980s, however, increasingly visible mass political opposition to the Egyptian military regime of Mubarak seemed to increase. As Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt : 1920-1988 noted, the Egyptian secular left “scored a major success in the 1983 election to union committees and boards.” But, not surprisingly, “”intervention by the” dictatorial Mubarak regime’s “security services prevented the elected candidates of the left to win seats on ruling trade union bodies,” in Egypt in 1983, according to the same book.

 

By the mid-1980s, inflation in Egypt “ran as high as 24 percent” and “increases in wages fell far behind rises in the cost of living,” according to A History of Egypt. So, not surprisingly, “in 1985-1986 alone some 100,000 people” in Egypt “took part in more than 40 strikes…in a country in which 20 percent of the labor force worked in factories;” and “in February 1986 a mutiny broke out in the” Egyptian “security forces,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988. But, in response, “all these actions were brutally suppressed by the authorities” of Mubarak’s U.S. government-backed military regime; and “many strikers” in Egypt “were imprisoned,” according to the same book.

 

Yet, according to The Communist Movement in Egypt : 1920-1988, “by 1988 there were indications of the emergence of united or common front of progressive forces” in Egypt . And the same book described the state of the movement to democratize Egyptian society in 1988 in the following way:

 

“Our comrades have sponsored the establishment of the Union of Egyptian Peasants which unites several thousand agricultural laborers, owners of small land plots and tenant farmers. The union…fights against the onslaught on the gains of the peasants won as a result of the agrarian reform…

“There is also growing opposition to the policy of the authorities on the part of…unions of lawyers, journalists, physicians and actors, clubs of college and university teachers, the committee for the defense of national culture, as well as youth, student and women’s associations…

 

“The Egyptian Communist Party, still having to operate underground, is playing a…part in…these actions…The demand that the ban on the Communist Party be lifted is heard increasingly…”

 

Despite the 1980s growth in the movement for democratization in Egypt , however, in a late 1980s “trial of the Egyptian Communist Party,” the court system of the Mubarak regime was still able to produce a verdict which sentenced 34 anti-imperialist communists and other anti-imperialist Egyptian activists to prison. And according to Atef Said’s 2009 “ Egypt ’s Long Labor History” article in Against The Current, during the Egyptian steel mill workers strike in 1989, “the police killed workers” and “strike leaders were arrested and brutally tortured over several weeks.”

(end of part 19)

Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge's September 28, 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,

"I've lived through many things during my long lifetime, hot wars and cold wars, and know when something is rotten. And everything about this government--and its state component--is rotten to the core. If there's evil around, it is based in the madness of capitalism and its crazy supporters.

"There was Tony Abbott, surrounded by an army of photographers and sleazy hangers-on, holding the hand of an indigenous child in Arnham Land--after stripping $536 million from the indigenous budget, a quarter of which was for desperately needed health care.

"Standing outside a flash-looking tent, he took us to war: one without borders and one without end. An open-ended conflict against people with no armies, no air forces, no air defenses, no navies and with no clarity of purpose.

"This time we're backing the latest US-installed regime in Baghdad in support of Chevron, Exxon, Marathon Oil and the rest, a war that has expanded into Syria. And how ironic that last year the most powerful nation on earth wanted to pound Assad into oblivion and is now pounding his mortal enemies.

"But Assad is no mug and must be watching with increasing concern as America's air power spreads to more and more targets outside its originally stated aim. How soon, before a missile explodes in a Syrian regime weapons depot or some other government facility, naturally `by mistake.'

"Screaming headlines and `terror plots' engulfed us when 800 police raided 25 homes in Sydney looking for Muslim extremists with media cameras at the ready, while in Melbourne an 18-year-old was shot dead by police. And I doubt we will ever know what really happened there.

"The beheadings by religious lunatics and their off-shoots are horrific. But during the 21 months between James Foley's abduction and beheading, 113 people were reportedly beheaded in Saudi Arabia and 45 foreign maids were imprisoned on death row. But they won't be attacked because they're Washington's `friends.'

"In our insane US-dominated world, it's not aggression when, for the past 13 years, Washington has bombed and invaded seven countries--killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions without a declaration of war. But it is `aggression' when Russia accepts a petition from the Crimeans--97% of whom voted to rejoin Russia, where Crimea had resided for centuries.

"Osama bin Laden was not called a terrorist when he worked for the CIA and was invited to Texas to meet its then-Governor George W. Bush to discuss running an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Nor was the al-Qaida network, when its members received training in the US as part of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union and worked alongside NATO in Kosovo.

"Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook blew the whistle on US perfidy when he told the House of Commons that Al Qaida was a product of western intelligence agencies. And that Al Qaida was used by thousands of Islamic extremists who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan. It's called `blowback.'

"We are not in a global war between `democracy' and `terror', as we are being asked to believe. The US is not going to look at historical wrongs and injustices and the reasons why it has become so hated around the world. Instead it is seeking vengeance by way of its monstrous arsenal of weapons, which will create even more terror, filtering out what they don't want us to know.

"The `war on terror' is quickly evolving into a worldwide war against all forms of progressive political action--which is why the slogan is so hypocritical.

"The irony is that while Australian governments continue to unquestioningly embrace Washington's deadly campaigns, the US consistently fails to reciprocate, especially in matters of trade, treating us like a pack of servile mugs. It's revealing that the US sends in the army to tackle the Ebola outbreak in poverty-stricken West Africa while Cuba is sending in 165 health workers.

"When Abbott's popularity plummeted post-budget, it was perfect timing to unleash a `national security crisis.' Government hacks are deliberately pushing a campaign of hysteria and then telling everyone to keep calm. And gullible Australians are falling for it.

"I'm not calm. I'm bloody furious at the failure of Labor to put up a fight, especially for failing to stand up for civil society against the raft of draconian `anti-terrorist' laws about to engulf us--without any oversight or pretense of protection or safeguards or the protection of a Bill of Rights.

"ASIO doesn't need new powers. They can already secretly investigate, detain and interview people, bugger up your computer, and do lots more--with habeus corpus and the Magna Carta thrown out the window along with the right of dissent, the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. Its entire edifice rests on the assumption that secret agency personnel are people of integrity with the well-being of our country at heart--when nothing could be further from the truth. The only terrorists we've had in this country were the Utasha: Croatian fascists who were feted by the Liberals, trained with the Australian Army and protected by ASIO.

"C.S. Lewis described the road to hell as a gradual descent, a soft moderate slope that is hardly noticeable until the destination is reached. And that's the path we're on.

"Don't expect any help from our current Governor-General. Back in 2001 when he was Major General Cosgrove, he told an Australian Army Land Warfare Conference that attacks against the US `blurred the hitherto quite distinct boundaries of the functions and responsibilities of the security, law & order and administrative arms of government,' spelling out a clear intent to politicize our army so that it will be prepared to take part in operations against civilian dissidents or militant trade unionists in an industrial situation.

"It is with deep sadness I report the death of comrade Alec Van Engel. Dedicated trade unionist, passionate socialist who never stopped fighting for a better society, Alec always supported Cuba. A thoroughly decent man who will be greatly missed.

"Joan Coxsedge."

Black Male Worker Unemployment Rate Increases To 11 Percent In September 2014

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased from 10.8 to 11 percent between August and September 2014; while the official unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.6 percent in September 2014, according to the “seasonally adjusted” Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, between August and September 2014, the total number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of age increased by 35,000 (from 929,000 to 964,000), according to the “seasonally adjusted” data.

In September 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 30.5 percent; while the total number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 5,000 (from 213,000 to 218,000) between August and September 2014, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers (youth, male and female) was still 11 percent in September 2014, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 21.6 to 24 percent between August and September 2014; while the number of Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 121,000 (from 901,000 to 780,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force decreased by 123,000 (from 1,149,000 to 1,026,000) between August and September 2014.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 17.7 to 18.7 percent between August and September 2014; while the total number of unemployed white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 51,000 (from 783,000 to 834,000) during the same period, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, between August and September 2014, the “seasonally adjusted” number of white youths in the U.S. labor force who still had jobs decreased by 13,000 (from 3,637,000 to 3,624,000).

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 19.6 to 20 percent between August and September 2014; while the total number of officially unemployed youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased by 39,000 (from 1,085,000 to 1,124,000) during the same period, according to the “seasonally adjusted’ data..

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Latino workers (male, female and youth) in the United States was still 6.9 percent in September 2014; while the total number of Latino workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 72,000 (from 13,080,000 to 13,152,000) between August and September 2014, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, In addition, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 7.2 percent in September 2014; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.8 percent during that same month.

.

Between August and September 2014, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Asian-American workers in the U.S. labor force decreased by 33,000 (from 8,751,000 to 8,718,000); while the number of Asian-American workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 118,000 (from 4,952,000 to 5,070,000) during that same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted data. In addition, between August and September 2014, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Asian-American workers who still had jobs decreased by 15,000 (from 8,354,000 to 8,339,000), while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Asian-American workers was still 4.3 percent in September 2014.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.4 percent in September 2014; while the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.8 percent during that same month. In addition, the total “seasonally adjusted” number of white workers (male, female and youth) who still had jobs decreased by 46,000 (from 116,754,000 to 116,708,000) between August and September 2014; while the total number of white workers in the U.S. labor force decreased by 331,000 (from 123,275,000 to 122,944,000) 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 6 percent in September 2014; while the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 5.9 percent during that same month. In addition, the total number of female workers over 16 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 26,000 (from 68,525,000 to 68,499,000) between August and September 2014, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data; while the total “seasonally adjusted” number of all male workers over 16 years-of-age not in the U.S. labor force increased by 107,000 (from 36,924,000 to 37,031,000) during the same period.

In September 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all U.S. workers (male, female and youth) was still 5.9 percent; while 9,262,000 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’ October 3, 2014 press release:

“…The rates for adult women (5.5 percent), teenagers (20.0 percent), and blacks (11.0 percent) showed little change over the month…Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs…in September [was]…4.5 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 3.0 million in September. These individuals accounted for 31.9 percent of the unemployed…

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in September at 7.1 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 September, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged 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 698,000 discouraged workers in September…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Employment in…major industries, including manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, and government, showed little change over the month…”

The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History--Part 18: 1962-1976 Period

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on March 1, 2014)

In 1962, Nasser’s military regime also established the “Arab Socialist Union” as the one official political party in Egypt, in an effort “to absorb all progressive political forces” in Egypt “into the state system” of Egypt, according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988. And after Nasser’s regime released all imprisoned Egyptian communist activists from prison in April 1964, appointed a new General Secretariat of the Arab Socialist Union on Dec. 13, 1964 ( in which 6 of its 15 members were Egyptian leftists), and created a secret unit within the Arab Socialist Union, “al-Tandhim al-Tali’” (which included some leading Egyptian communist activists) to lead the socialist transformation of Egypt, United Communist Party of Egypt and Democratic Movement for National Liberation [DMNL] activists decided to formally dissolve their independent leftist political groups in 1965.

 

But according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988, “the Nasserized leadership of al-Tanhoni al-Tali” within the Arab Socialist Union “successfully isolated its Egyptian communist members” and “immobilized them;” and “sporadic attempts to reorganize the Communist parties” in Egypt under Nasser’s regime “were quickly squashed by the powerful intelligence and security agencies” of the military regime—that were collectively known as the mukhabarat, according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt. And as Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 observed:

 

“…Nasser accomplished only limited socialist measures…Nasser contained the communists, kept a watchful eye over them, and very cunningly co-opted them. He destroyed communism organizationally and prevented the Marxists from functioning as a viable political alternative…

 

“Since Marxism was forced to operate underground it was given neither the chance to make its message nationally known nor to develop a measure of credibility which could have won it adherents…Nasser paralyzed the Marxists by repressing and co-opting them…And for the decade between 1965 and 1975 there was no independent Marxist political activity in Egypt.”

 

In his  September, 2009 Against The Current article, “Egypt’s Long Labor History,” Atef Said also noted that “while granting trade unions many rights, Nasser made sure these unions were designed in a hierarchical structure that put them under the control of ruling-party officials.”

 

In addition, in August 1965 “more than 220 Muslim Brothers were arrested” and “seven, including Sayid Qutb,” the head of the Muslim Brotherhood,” were hanged for treason,” in 1966, according to A History of Egypt. According to Dilip Hiro’s Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, “in 1964, as part of a general amnesty, Nasser” had “released the Brotherhood members” but “many of its leaders were reportedly implicated in 3 plots to assassinate Nasser;” and “as a result, following the arrest of 1,000 Brothers and the trial of 365, the top leaders were executed in August 1966.”

 

Still, according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988, “as a result of the shake-up following Egypt’s disastrous military defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war” in which between 15,000 and 20,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed (following the Israeli war machine’s surprise attack and the subsequent Israeli military occupation of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan Heights territory, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in June 1967), Egypt’s underground “communist movement was revitalized.” And when it became evident, following Nasser’s death on Sept. 28, 1970, that Nasser’s successor as head of Egypt’s military regime, Anwar Sadat, was now aligning his Egyptian government regime politically and militarily to the US imperialist government, an underground communist party was again re-established in Egypt in 1975. As The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 observed:

 

“…For most leftists the break with Sadat came…certainly after the 1973 war with Israel [in which about 8,000 Egyptian and over 2,000 Israeli troops were killed] brought him in close cooperation with the United States. By this time, Sadat’s…policies represented a clean break with the Nasserist tradition.”

 

As Lloyd Gardner’s The Road To Tahir Square recalled:

 

“[U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger…arrived in the Egyptian capital on Nov. 5, 1973 for his first meeting with Sadat…Sadat lost no time, in November [1973] and again at a second meeting in December [1973] in outlining his requests to `my friend Henry.’…He wanted to develop the country…as he had already discussed with…David Rockefeller. He had one specific request for the immediate future: he wanted the United States to become responsible for his personal safety…Sadat’s special bodyguards were sent to the United States for training. A new police unit…was established in Cairo. A CIA employee called John Fiz, who could read and speak Arabic, was installed in the [Egyptian] presidential office and had the task of dealing with all matters regarding security…”

 

According to The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970, “ conditions were” thus “ripe for the revival of the Egyptian Communist Party…in 1975 when the earlier decision to disband the party was declared no longer correct;” and “the party was revived as an active, underground organization” at that time.

 

By the mid-1970s under Sadat’s regime, “the number of millionaires” in Egypt “rose from 500 to 17,000 and an affluent middle class developed,” but “the condition of the urban poor and fellaheen” (peasants of Egypt) “worsened,” according to The Rough Guide To Egypt; and “some 5 million families” in Egypt subsisted on less than $30 a month, and one and a half million Egyptians migrated to work in the Gulf States,” according to the same book. As Dilip Hiro’s Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism also observed:

 

“…Sadat’s economic policies widened the gap between the poor and the rich by causing sharp increases in foods and rents, and by delivering a grievance blow to local industry with imports of cheap foreign goods. Between 1964-5 and 1976 the share of the middle 30 percent of the Egyptian population halved: from 40.2 percent of the gross domestic product to 21.52 percent. The corresponding figures for the lowest 60 percent were 28.7 percent and 19.93 percent. In contrast the top 10 percent nearly doubled their income: from 31.9 percent to 58.55 percent. The new rich flaunted their affluence…”

 

So, not surprisingly, prior to the re-establishment of an underground party of Egyptian communist activists on May 1, 1975, strong evidence of mass dissatisfaction of Egyptian workers with the U.S. government-aligned Sadat regime’s economic policies appeared. As The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 recalled, “on Jan. 1, 1975 a workers’ strike took place in Helwan, Egypt’s major industrial center;” and “it quickly spread to Cairo, where demonstrations in the Bab-Alouq had turned violent.” And, not surprisingly, in response to these protests Sadat’s military regime “arrested about 500” Egyptian “communists, leftists and Nasserists, including members of the underground leftist Jama’al-Bila-Isim” group “which produced al-Intesar and theAhmed ‘Urabi al-Missri” newspapers.

 

During the mid-1970s, Sadat’s regime also apparently “used the Islamists to deal with those it regarded, at the time, as its main enemies – the left” and “treated the reformist wing of the Islamist movements – grouped around the monthly magazine al-Dawa and on the university campuses by the Islamic Associations – with benevolence, as the Islamicists purged the universities of anything that smelled of Nasserism or Communism,” according to a 1994 article by Chris Harman. In addition, according to Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism:

 

“In May 1971 Sadat carried out a `corrective’ coup against the left-leaning Ali-Sabri group in the ruling Arab Socialist Union, and actively encouraged Islamic sentiment and groups as a counterweight to the leftist influence. He directed General Abdul Munim Amin to establish about 1,000 Islamic Associations in universities and factories with the sole objective of combating…Marxism…Muslim Brotherhood exiles from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere began returning to Egypt.”

 

During this same 1962 and 1976 period the number of Egyptians of Jewish religious background still living in Egypt also continued to decrease. By 1967 only 3,000 Egyptians of Jewish background still lived in Egypt. And, following the June 1967 attack on Egypt by the Israeli war machine “the few remaining Jewish officials holding public posts” in Egypt “were discharged and hundreds of Jews” in Egypt were arrested, including “the chief rabbi of Egypt, R. Hayyim Duwayk, and the rabbi of Alexandria”, according to the Encyclopedia Judaica. After being released, the detained Egyptians of Jewish background, as well as those Egyptians of Jewish background who hadn’t been detained, were permitted to emigrate from Egypt. So by 1970, less than 1,000 Egyptians of Jewish background still lived in Egypt; and by 1971 only about 400 Egyptians of Jewish background still lived in Egypt.

(end of part 18)

The Movement To Democratize Egypt: A People's History of Egypt--Part 17: 1954-1962 Period

(The following article originally appeared in The Rag Blog on February 17, 2014)

Between April 1954 and the second half of 1954, “the arrests and prosecution of communists” in Egypt “was stepped up” by Nasser’s regime and “dozens of” Egyptian leftists received “long-term jail sentences at hard labor,” according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970. In addition, after “an assassination attempt by a Muslim Brother” on Nasser’s life failed, according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt, “perhaps as many as 50,000 people were arrested and over 1,000 put on trial,” “six Brothers were hanged,” and Sayid Qutb, who had inherited Hasan al-Banna’s mantle as” the Muslim Brotherhood’s “leading member spent the next 10 years in prison;” and “within a month, all political parties had been abolished, their leaders imprisoned, and the opposition press closed” in Egypt.

 

But Nasser’s military regime then signed an arms deal with the Soviet Union in September 1955 (and apparently lost its CIA-backing), finally obtained in January 1956 the withdrawal of all UK troops from Egypt, and next nationalized the previously UK and French-owned Suez Canal in Egypt on July 26, 1956. In response, Israeli, UK and French military forces then invaded and bombed Egyptian territory in the October 1956 Suez War, in a failed attempt at Israeli annexation of the Sinai Peninsula and to return control of Egypt’s Suez Canal to UK and French imperialist interests; and, as a result of this Israeli-UK-French military attack, 1,000 Egyptian civilians and between 1,600 and 3,000 Egyptian troops were killed and 4,900 Egyptian troops were wounded.

 

Around the time of the October 1956 Suez War, Nasser’s regime then stopped imprisoning Egyptian leftists until 1959. So, not surprisingly, “in Washington, in…October [1956], the [U.S.] National Security Council discussed covert ways of getting rid of Nasser;” since “[then-U.S. President] Eisenhower had declared himself against a frontal attack, but he mused about various alternative methods,” according to Lloyd Gardner’s The Road to Tahir Square. But on Jan. 8, 1958 the now-released leftist members of the Egyptian Movement for National Liberation [EMNL] and other political groups of Egyptian communist activists joined together to form the United Communist Party of Egypt.

 

Yet between 1956 and 1957 the number of Egyptians of Jewish religious background living in Egypt decreased from 50,000 to less than 9,000. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, in November 1956, “immediately after the Sinai Campaign” of the Israeli military, “hundreds”  of Egyptians of Jewish background “were arrested” by Nasser’s military regime and “about 3,000 were interned without charge in four detention camps.” In addition, the Egyptian government then “served notice on thousands of Jews to leave the country within a few days;” and “the deportees were made to sign statements agreeing not to return to Egypt and transferring their property to the administration” of the Egyptian government, according to the same book. The Encyclopedia Judaica also noted that “the International Red Cross helped about 8,000” Egyptians of Jewish background “to leave the country, taking most of them to Italy and Greece in chartered boats,” the system of deportation continued into 1957,” and “other Jews left voluntarily” in 1957 “after their livelihoods had been taken from them.” That same year, as A History of Egypt noted, “in retaliation for what became known as the War of the Tripartite Aggression in Egypt, the Egyptian government” also “sequestered all French and British property” in Egypt; and all French and UK citizens, regardless of religious background, “who were resident in Egypt were ordered to pack one suitcase and depart immediately.”

 

And less than a year after Nasser’s regime merged with a pro-Nasserist regime in Syria on Feb.1, 1958 to form the United Arab Republic (which lasted until a military coup on Sept. 8, 1961 by Lt. Col. Abd al-karim al-Nahlawi in Syria produced a Syrian regime that withdrew from the Nasser-dominated United Arab Republic), Nasser’s military regime again began imprisoning Egyptian leftists. As The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 recalled:

 

“On Jan. 1, 1959 hundreds of communists were arrested and imprisoned and a campaign of sustained repression was implemented whose goal was the complete destruction of Egyptian Marxism. The communists were stunned by the arrests, and…by the brutal treatment they received in prison. According to Muhammad Sid Ahmad, no one in the movement expected Nasser to behave so harshly since the left had undertaken to endorse the government, and even when it was critical of individual policies of the regime, it was done within a line of general support. Nasser nevertheless…through imprisonment and torture—intended to put an end to organized Marxism in the country…”

 

Yet at the same time Nasser’s regime continued to imprison Egyptian leftists, it also implemented more anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist economic reforms within Egyptian society after July 1961. As Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 observed:

 

“The socialist transformation of the Egyptian state was initiated in July 1961 with the following measures: (1) profit sharing, whereby 25 percent of profits in all enterprises were to go to workers; (2) participatory management by which 4 employees (at least 2 from labor) were to be elected by employees to the management boards of all enterprises; (3) a ceiling of 5,000 Egyptian pounds was placed on annual wages; (4) a progressive income tax was enacted to increase to 100 percent of income over 10,000 Egyptian pounds and 149 companies, including 15 banks and 17 insurance companies, were nationalized; (5) 51 percent of 91 companies not nationalized was to be publicly owned; (6) mass transportation was taken over by the public sector; (7) the maximum amount of agricultural land that could be owned was limited to 100 feddans; and (8) all rents were permanently frozen.”

 

Between 1960 and 1964, real wages also “increased by one-third” for Egyptian workers, “while the number of weekly hours of work declined by 10 percent,” according to Solidarity Center’s 2010 report, The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt.

 

And after Nasser’s military regime also nationalized Egypt’s flour mills and pharmaceutical companies, it adopted a National Charter on May 21, 1962 which “proclaimed Egypt to be a socialist, anti-imperialist, and Arab nationalist state” despite having imprisoned so many Egyptian leftists between 1959 and 1961, according to the same book. In addition, despite its frequent acts of political repression, Nasser’s military regime was able to increase the “average life expectancy” in Egypt “from 43 to 52 years” between 1952 and 1970, according to The Rough Guide To Egypt.

 

According to James Gelvin’s The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs To Know, Nasser’s regime also “significantly reduced the ranks of the unemployed” by passing a “Public Employment Guarantee Scheme, which, as the name says, guaranteed every university graduate a job in the public sector;” and “the scheme was amended three years later to include all graduates of secondary technical schools” in Egypt. The same book also recalled that “declaring an education to be a right of every citizen…Nasser eliminated fees at Cairo University” and “the state also attempted to keep household commodities affordable by furnishing subsidies for many of them, including basic foodstuffs, petroleum products, electricity and water.”

(end of part 17)