Embarih Tunis,
al-yom Mesr (yesterday Tunisia, today Egypt) has become the beacon of
this much feared popular revolt of the poor. Let the ruling classes of the
region, including the EPRDF clique, resort to a much stronger defense, but
there is nothing that can stop the rising of a determined people. The heroic
people of Tunisia just showed us the way yesterday. Today, it is the turn of
Egypt. This beacon of human civilization in the region can still become a
beacon of revolution.
The Egyptian people rose to a determined struggle to end
the rule of the monstrous regime that has repressed them for decades. Time and
again, they have tried to voice their concerns and demands for a better life
and for freedom. The answer they got from this arrogant regime was sheer
repression. The demand to end poverty was met with police brutality;
women’s demand for the protection of their right was answered in a manner
that was humiliating and dehumanizing to them. Despite the odds, Egypt has
produced great individuals; economists, social scientists, women activists,
journalists, human rights activists and so on. At one time or another, they
have all been silenced or beaten and thrown into jail. The Egyptian people have
tried the peaceful way. It did not work. On the contrary, the response they got
from Mubarak’s regime was brutal repression. They tried to vote for the
candidates of their choice during the ‘elections’ that have been
held for years now the last one just a few months back. Every time Egyptians were
told that the ruling party, National Democratic Party, won the elections and
their popular candidates were all “defeated”. As the contradiction
and conflict, latent though, between the people and the ruling class got
sharper, the arrogant regime even claimed that it has won more than 99% of the
votes in the last elections. This insult to the intelligence of the Egyptian
people would not be taken any more. The people have finally said
“enough!” Just the other day, Tunisia, tired of such ruling class
deception, threw out its dictator. Egypt is precisely doing that now.
Let’s hope that they will finally overthrow Mubarak’s regime and
install a government that respects freedom and democracy.
Egypt made its first attempt toward a fundamental social
change way back in 1952 when its first revolution overthrew the Farooq
monarchy. But, that was quickly hijacked the Free Officers Movement, very much
like the Derg of Ethiopia, and Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power. Nasser’s
regime failed to take Egypt through social development and freedom though he
still addressed issues of poverty in a reformist way through what he called
“Arab Socialism”. Nasser’s “Arab Socialism”
reverberated throughout the Arab World and Arab nationalism rose in the Middle
East as a result. The Palestinian factor gave another dimension to his reign as
Arabs united to fight Israel. Nasser led Egypt through the two Middle East wars
of 1956 and 1967. By the late 60s, Nasser’s Egypt started to go into crisis
as a result of a stagnating economy on the one hand and the consequences of the1967
war on the other. That led to the emergence of Anwar Sadat who introduced
changes in the country’s policy and resorted to peace overtures to Israel
despite the last Middle East war in 1973 that took place under his presidency.
Egypt under Sadat emerged out of the Soviet orbit and became a staunch US ally
in the Middle East next to Israel. (For an excellent analysis of this period
see Mohammed Hussein’s Class Conflict in Egypt.)
Egypt under Sadat went further down the road of poverty
and a quasi-military dictatorship. Anger was built up throughout the Arab World
against his regime as a result of the unilateral peace treaty that he entered
with Israel in 1979. Islamic fundamentalists became more active than ever and
infiltrated the Egyptian army including the elite corps called the Presidential
Guard. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated by fundamentalist elements from within
the army and Mubarak succeeded him. Egypt has been ruled by him ever since. With
neo-liberal economic policy prevalent and dictatorship the country descended to
deeper poverty as the population grew to 72 million with an unemployment rate
of 9.7% in 2010 (9.4% in 2009) and with 20% of the population living under the
poverty line. It is this grinding poverty coupled with an absolute dictatorship
that finally threw the people of Egypt into the streets to bring their misery
to an end.
Heroic Egyptians went to the streets in their hundreds of
thousands in the four largest urban centers namely Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and
Port Said. On Friday, they torched the ministry of foreign affairs building and
the headquarters of the ruling party that were still burning as these lines are
written. They fought with police tooth and nail in the streets of these cities.
They paid in lives and blood. They are determined to overthrow the regime,
there is no turning back. They openly and loudly said, “Al-yom Ya Mesr, yela yela Mesr!!”
(roughly: Egypt, it is today [or never]! Forward!) In a historic gesture,
probably the most significant, the demonstrators formed a human shield to
protect the national museum from being looted. Perhaps, this could be the most
unique act of a people in revolt, destroying the symbols of the dictatorship
but protecting the treasures of the nation, its history!
The ruling class did all what it could to defeat the
insurrectionists. Like all ruling classes threatened by revolution,
Mubarak’s regime responded with the usual police force committing brutality.
It cut off telephone and internet connections in a vain attempt to quell the
rebellion. Too late, the insurrectionists were already in the battle field.
Meles Zenawi did the same during the 2005 elections. He abolished the SMS
system from mobile telephony in a vain attempt to curb communication among the
masses. But, the Ethiopian people were determined to vote to Kinijit at the time. Then, the option
left to Meles was to resort to outright election stealing and violence. One
thing that no ruling class, overthrown by revolutions from the days of Louis IX
to today’s dictators such as Ben Ali, Mubarak, Meles and so on …
has ever understood is the fact that once the masses are determined to see
change in their lives by changing the main obstacle to progress, the
dictatorship, nothing will stop them. It might not happen in Ethiopia or
elsewhere yet, but it is only a matter of time.
What is going to happen in Egypt in the coming days will
be very interesting indeed. It is interesting to note the reactions of the
ruling class to the ongoing revolution in Egypt. Indeed, Mubarak clearly showed
that he still does not understand that the Egyptian people have said
“enough!” In the speech he just made, he announced that he has
sacked his cabinet and will announce a new government tomorrow. It is amazing
indeed that ruling classes never learn even from the latest experience. Ben
Ali’s last attempt to quell the people’s revolt was the
announcement of the sacking of the old cabinet and appointment of a new one.
This happened just last month in Tunisia and Mubarak has not learnt a bit. Like
their Tunisian sisters and brothers, the Egyptian insurrectionists quickly
responded, “Down with Mubarak!” This is a clear indication that the
events of Tunisia are being repeated in this historic country once again.
In reorganizing itself and quelling the rebellion, the
classical step that the ruling class will take is to remove the president and
his government and replace it by people that are seemingly
‘popular’. We have learnt that the chief of staff of the Egyptian
armed forces is in Washington. Coincidence? We don’t think so. In as much
as the Tunisian military, with the consent and advice of Washington, hinted for
Ben Ali to flee, the Egyptian army may also remove Mubarak with the support of
Washington. At the moment, that is the only way to save the ruling class. Then,
the question will be: will the insurrectionists go home with such military
coup? There again, they need to learn from Tunisians who continued their fight
till all members of the old regime completely leave the government. Will the
heroic people of Egypt continue their struggle as the Tunisians did? The events
in the coming days will tell.
What makes Egypt different from Tunisia is the fact that
political Islam has quite a substantial following there. Political Islam has
gone a long way since its guru, Hassan El Banna (Palestinian who lived in
Egypt), first constructed it in the late 1920s. It entered alliance with
similar movements in the Middle East particularly with the Muslim Brotherhood
movement in Sudan led by Hassan El Turabi. It is not very clear as what the
role of the Muslim Brotherhood was in the current uprising but it has denied
involvement. Its top leader was nevertheless arrested despite the denial. That
might make the movement more popular and might influence the outcome of the
current uprising. What Egypt needs is a negation of what has prevailed there so
far: poverty and unfreedom. Freedom and democracy is the way out; then undoing
poverty is manageable.
The events in Egypt interest us Ethiopians a great deal
indeed. Egypt has always supported any opposition in Ethiopia with its primitive
‘strategy’ of “containing Ethiopia in under-development”
so that it won’t develop the capacity to utilize the Blue Nile for its
own purposes. Without pre-empting a discussion on the question of the equitable
use of the Nile waters by the ten riparian countries of the Nile basin, I would
nevertheless state that the Egyptian strategy of “containing Ethiopia in
poverty” constitutes a parochial (vis a vis the reality of
interdependence), harmful and primitive. Our thesis in objecting Egypt’s
strategy must be different from that of Meles Zenawi, who just accused Egypt of
supporting the armed opposition in Ethiopia. We are not sure what his reaction
to the ongoing Egyptian revolution might be, but one thing for sure is that the
impact of the insurrection is too scary for him.
