Middle East
Democracy
That The US Fears
By Simon Assaf
03 April, 2005
Socialist
Worker
Cairo,
in Egypt, is at the heart of the Arab world. The talk in the city is
of coming change. For nearly 25 years Washingtons ally, Hosni
Mubarak, has ruled the country. In each of those years emergency laws
have been in force.
Last week delegates
from across the Middle East, Europe and North America gathered in Cairo
at an international conference on globalisation, imperialism and Zionism.
The gathering mood
for change meant there was a fascinating mixture of Islamic, nationalist,
socialist, peasant and trade union activists from across Egypt. On the
first evening over 1,000 people crammed into the opening rally, which
was followed by three days of discussion.
The dominant theme
of the conference was the urgent need to oppose the occupation of Iraq
and how real reform could be achieved in Egypt.
The democracy hailed
by George Bush and the Washington neo-cons is not the democracy people
in the Arab world are fighting for. In Egypt a new campaign called Kifaya
Enough in Arabic has been launched, calling
for real democracy.
The campaign is
demanding the end of Hosni Mubaraks reign as president and opposes
plans to nominate his son as the next president.
Marwana, a young
lawyer, was arrested while handing out Kifaya leaflets at the Cairo
Book Fair. George Bush talks about spreading democracy in the
Middle East, she says.
But we know
the type of democracy Bush is talking about it is the democracy
that answers only to Washington. The democracy we want is one that serves
the people.
Marwana was held
for ten days in a police station. The cells were full of poor
women, many of them seized in the regular police sweeps. The women often
had no idea why they were there, and had no lawyers to represent them
and often not enough money to pay fines.
Dina is a member
of the anti-globalisation movement in Egypt. There is rising struggle
in Egypt, she says.
The vast majority
of Egyptians want an end to corruption that allows billions of dollars
to be salted away by officials and their hangers on. We want an end
to the emergency laws that have been used to keep people down. We want
an end to laws that outlaw independent political organisations and trade
unions, and ban public gatherings. In the last 24 years over 20,000
people have been killed by the state.
Every day
in Cairo the police sweep through the underground Metro or stop minibuses
heading to the slums that ring Egypts capital. They seize young
men on the pretext that they are cracking down on Islamic militants,
or looking for drugs. They seize you if they find a piece of hashish
on you, or if you have forgotten your ID papers.
Every night
they pack off hundreds of young men to police stations and state security
centres. If you are lucky they might hold you for a couple of hours,
or a couple of days. If your luck is rotten they will beat you, or torture
you with electric shocksa facility available in all of Egypts
police stations.
The police
have to fill a daily quota of arrests, so they seize people at random.
Torture under Mubaraks regime is routine.
The most severe
repression under the present regime is often meted out to those who
dare to oppose the governments links with the US and Israel.
Ali Abdul Fattah,
from the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, is the director of the Egyptian
Media Centre for Culture and Development and general secretary of the
Popular Committee for Supporting the Iraqi and Palestinian People. He
says, I make a link between the liberation of the land and the
liberation of the people.
The Arabs
are under occupation, the degree of freedom in Arab countries is very
restricted. Demonstrations are banned, going out in the streets to protest
is banned, raising political slogans is forbidden. All this affects
support for the cause of Iraq and Palestine across the whole of the
Arab world. If the people were free, that would be the end of the matter.
We have previously
had rulers who expressed our aspirations. But now all the regimes try
to keep the people down. I was imprisoned 12 times because of my support
for the Iraqi and Palestinian cause. I was accused of opposing
a friendly country, in other words, opposing Israel.
Ali says people
in Egypt find strength in the anti-war demonstrations across the world
I respect the British people who came out and demonstrated
and who are sympathetic to the cause of humanity in Iraq and Palestine.
We need a humanitarian project, not linked to any particular religious
creed, to promote truth, justice and equality for all the peoples of
the world.
The democracy movement
has been boosted by a rise in struggle among Egyptian workers and peasants.
Anti-globalisation activist Dina says, Workers at the Ora Misr
factory have occupied the factory after the asbestos they use to manufacture
drainage pipes has claimed the lives of four workers. Their workmates
asked for protective clothing, and occupied the factory when their demands
were ignored.
Strike leader Sayid
Abd al-Latif Ibrahim tells Socialist Worker that the strike has highlighted
the plight of workers in the new privately financed industries.
The factory occupation
has won widespread support across the country and the strikers have
survived attempts by the security forces to break their strike. This
occupation is important because it is taking place in a factory that
is considered vital for the Egyptian economy where workers are banned
from taking industrial action, says Sayid.
The second
important strike over the last six months took place at the ESCO company
in the historic industrial centre at Mahala al-Kubra, he adds.
This strike was against the privatisation of the plant.
Dina says, The
most important development is the re-emergence of the peasant movement,
around the village of Sarando in Egypts agricultural heartland,
the Nile Delta.
The landowner,
Salah Mandar, owned the14,000 hectares of fertile lands prior to the
land distribution in the wake of the 1952 revolution. Fifty years later
that same landowners family has unleashed a wave of repression
on the villagers to drive them off the land.
But the peasants
have stood up and said they will not give up their lands, despite the
killings and state repression. The peasant resistance has begun to spread
to other districts where the old landowners are trying to seize back
land and has relaunched the militant peasant organisations that were
crushed in the 1970s.
Last week the Sarando
peasants seized and killed one of the landlords goons. The goons
have been spreading terror in the countryside. Movements in solidarity
with the peasants have spread to other rural areas and to the cities.
Abdul Maguid al-Khoury,
from the village of Tamshish, is one of the most vocal leaders of the
militant peasant movement. He opened the session on the struggles of
Egyptian workers and peasants at the conference.
The Tamshish
peasants drove out the landowner in 1952 and forced the government headed
by Gamal Abdul Nasser to instigate a countrywide redistribution of land,
he tells Socialist Worker. In the days before the revolution 35
rich families owned over 50 percent of the land, while 25 million peasants
eked out a living on the rest. Tamshish has a special place in our history
because we seized our land ourselves, we did not wait for the government.
We grow wheat,
maize and cotton, although with globalisation we are finding it difficult
to sell cotton because of cheap American imports. The ugly face of new
technology means they are also trying to force us to grow genetically
modified crops.
They say we
have to abandon the seeds that we have sown for thousands of years.
Now with the privatisation laws the old landowners family are
claiming that they are the rightful owners and are saying we must hand
the land back to them. Even though they came with their thugs and are
backed by the state security forces they have been met with determined
opposition.
Political and economic
issues are fusing in Egypt. Dina says, People have had enough,
and the rising struggle is opening up space for ordinary people to voice
their opposition. The Kifaya campaign is finding an echo on the street.
For the first time in 24 years we can organise demonstrations calling
for Mubarak to resign.
The future
of the movement in Egypt is to rebuild the rank and file unions and
peasant organisations. For too many years we have been hampered by the
suffocating hold of the yellow unions and state-sponsored peasant organisations.
This is now beginning to change, and we are begining to see how the
struggle in the countryside and the factory is fuelling and giving confidence
to general discontent.
On the last day
of the conference, news came of the arrest of over 200 Islamic opponents
of the regime. Some 400 delegates took to the streets in solidarity
with them and with peasants facing attack in the Nile Delta.
For an hour delegates
faced riot police. The chant Down, Down Bush, Blair, Mubarak
was heard on the streets of Cairo. British delegates agreed to organise
an international campaign in solidarity with all facing repression in
Egypt. Rush protests at the arrests to the Egyptian ambassador.
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