John Rees answers some key questions about the dramatic events in Egypt.
Why was there a renewed revolutionary explosion last week?
When Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February he was replaced by a civilian government but real power lay in the hands of the high command of the Egyptian Army, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). At that point the army were popular because they had refused to open fire on the protestors. In January and February the main forces used against the protestors were the police and the Central Security Forces, not the army. The army promised an end to the Emergency Law which makes protest illegal and a quick transition to an elected civilian government. Some forces that had been against Mubarak went along with the army, crucially the well-organised Muslim Brotherhood which calculated that it would do well in elections if they were held quickly.
But SCAF failed to deliver on any of its promises and it has repeatedly attacked demonstrators in Tahrir Square and brought over 12,000 people before military courts. The last straw was when the deputy Prime Minister, Ali El-Selmi, published a proposal that the army and its budget should be removed from any democratic control in the proposed new constitution. Even the Muslim Brotherhood then realised that SCAF meant to control the new political set-up from behind the scenes.
The demonstration on Friday 18th November was called ‘The Friday of One Demand’ and it turned into one of the biggest demonstrations in Tahrir since the fall of Mubarak. It was also one of the most united demonstrations since the fall of Mubarak. It was made up of the youth coalitions, the Popular Committees, the left and, importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood~and hundreds of thousands of Egyptians not closely allied to any organisation. There was indeed ‘one demand’: that SCAF leave power in favour of an elected government. The demonstration in Tahrir was matched by demonstrations in Alexandria, Suez and other Egyptian cities.
Why are SCAF so determined to hold on to power?
SCAF is not just the armed force of the state in the same sense that we can talk about most armies in the world. It is also a very powerful economic actor in its own right. The Egyptian army directly owns factories and whole sections of the economic infrastructure of Egyptian society. The generals are not just the highly paid protectors of the state; they are themselves property owning members of this class. The military owns lucrative businesses including fertilizer and chemical plants, vast real estate holdings, road construction firms, factories that make home appliances, clothing and much more. ‘They have wide-ranging economic interests from bottled water, raising cattle, construction — things far removed from any sort of military industries,’ notes Egypt expert Michael Hanna of the New York-based Century Foundation. The term ‘military-industrial complex’ may be an overstatement when used about some societies. But it is simply a literal description of the Egyptian ruling elite.
Can the revolution win?
If heroism and sacrifice were enough to win then the incredible bravery of Egypt’s revolutionaries would have secured them victory already. But in a revolution victory does not just go to the brave. The brave must also know how to formulate a strategy which can maximise their forces and organise them in a way that can defeat their enemies.
There is, in a sense, dual power in Egypt. The army is one source of power and the other source of power is the ‘Republic of Tahrir’ (i.e. the constant mobilisation of revolutionary forces including, but not limited to, the demonstrations in Tahrir). But army has (and is rebuilding) state power as its weapon and the revolutionary forces are not creating their own institutional form of power, like the workers, soldiers and peasant councils of the Russian revolution or, even, the National Assembly of the French Revolution.
One of the reasons that the Tunisian revolution has made a faster transition away from the old regime is because it did at least create some form of popular representation, whatever the weaknesses of the regime that has emerged so far. Such an institution would make the revolution stronger by allowing it to co-ordinate and concentrate its forces and political demands. It would allow the working class to emerge as the leader of all the oppressed and exploited and not just act as (and be portrayed by SCAF as) a sectional economic interest.
In short that strategy should be: no compromise with SCAF; for a Popular Assembly of all revolutionary forces; full support for the workers struggles; for workers to take a political lead in defending every oppressed and exploited section of society against the SCAF government. If these developments, or something like them, do not take place soon then the counter-revolution will gain a, perhaps decisive, advantage.
John Rees participated in the revolution in Tahrir Square in January and February and is co-author (with Joseph Daher) of The People Demand: a short history of the Arab Revolutions (available from www.counterfire.org).