Arab Revolutions 2011* Riaz Ahmed Intl Socialists (Karachi) worldtowinpk.net *based on Alex Callinicos article ‘The Return of Arab Revolution, ISJ Issue 130 April 2011
Arab Revolutions – Broader Historical Meaning • 1939-40 the German Marxist Walter Benjamin – Widespread in left:
• socialism would come about inevitably
– Rather:
• “it is a tiger’s leap into the past,” • which mobilises the memories of past suffering and oppression against the ruling class
– Revolution
• Not a predictable outcome of a forward historical movement • Is a sudden, unexpected irruption into a history
– Benjamin wrote when
• Hitler-Stalin pact seemed to symbolise the death of all radical hope
– Current 2011 Revs
• rewriting the political map of the Middle East • but have a much broader historical meaning.
Return of the Arab Revolution • Egypt: Free Officers Movement in July 1952
– Against British/French imperialism – pan-Arab Nasserite Movement of Arab Nationalists • Decaying..Experienced defeat from Israel in 1967 • Positively: solidarity shown to the Palestinians
• Persisting Strength Now!
– speed of revolutionary virus spread
• from Tunis after the fall of Zine El Abdine Ben Ali on 14 January to Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya
• Prevent the spread
– Gulf Cooperation Council sent troops into Bahrain
Nasser’s Revolution from Above
Classical Revolutions • Renewal – classical political form of revolution
• Past 20 years – proclaimed revolution dead – triumph of liberal capitalism in 1989 – Or “colour revolutions
Revolution is a 21st Century Reality • Striking – revolutions in Tunisia/Egypt • Popular mobilisations similar to 1640s/1790s • conform to a pattern first set during the English Revolution of the 1640s and the Great French Revolution of the 1790s—popular mobilisations
• Libya – initiating a civil war – Justify latest imperialist intervention
Political Victims of Eonomic Crisis •
•
•
Marx insisted
4
– “it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out”. 5 It is one thing to identify the structural contradictions destabilising a given society, quite another to predict when and how these will fuse to detonate a political explosion
Prolonged economic crisis
– pressure on bourgeois political structures – Exposes fault lines – Fault lines are at once economic and political
Egypt Mubarak /Tunisia under Ben Ali
– poster boys for neoliberalism in region. – World Bank, Sept2010 country brief: Tunisia, couldn’t contain its enthusiasm: – WB: Tunisia remarkable progress • • • •
on equitable growth, fighting poverty and achieving good social indicators. 5 percent growth rate over 20 years steady increase in per capita income Poverty: 7 percent ,the lowest in the region.10
Neoliberalism Failed •
• •
Egyptian and Tunisian economies
– experienced no “miracle” under neoliberalism, – remained heavily dependent on textile exports -Chinese competition/ tourism. – Liberalisation: very sharp economic/social polarisation – fractured the Nasserist system”. – Poverty, inequality and unemployment – 2010 : 44 percent of Egyptians below poverty
On paper Neoliberalism
– transformed an almost entirely state-controlled economic system to a predominantly free-market one.
In Practice
– crony capitalism emerged – State-controlled banks loaned to families supporting government – Denying credit to viable business people who lacked the right political clout.
Global Inflation • Recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-9 – accompanied with rise in the rate of inflation – China /Asia/Latin America • a role in these inflationary episodes • but these are massively amplified by financial speculation.
• From 2006 to 2008 – dramatic surge in the prices of all major food staples – price of rice tripled in five years – price of grain staples 32% jump
Economic Upheval but Political Status Quo? • Economic mechanisms and the political context are different • Middle East – Not the only region where the crisis is generating significant struggles. – Austerity across Europe • serious resistance in 2010, from the general strikes in Greece to the student explosion in Britain. The neardemolition of Fianna Fáil, the historical party of southern Irish capitalism, in the general election of February 2011… is another sign that the situation isn’t exactly one of “political stasis”.
A crisis for the West •
Moments in history – – – –
• • • • •
revolution spread in a region or around the world as if it were a wildfire 1848 1968 1989
Similar social and cultural conditions
– triggered in one country and then spread more broadly. – happened in 2011 and is continuing.28
Rev and Fall of Stalinist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe – strengthened Western capitalism – US imperialism
Contrast Arab revolutions
– Egypt—are a dagger directed at the heart of American imperialism.
Libya : anti-Gaddafi west
– steps in oil producer country, credit for supporting democracy
US caution
– contrasts with panic in Israel
• strategic position seriously compromised by the 25 January Revolution.
In the rapids of revolution •
• •
Trotsky
– History of the Russian Revolution – “The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny”. 43
By this criterion, the events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya all thoroughly qualify as revolutions Revolution – Masses without plan of social reconstruction – But a sharp feeling -- cannot endure the old regime – Political process of revolution
•
• gradual comprehension by a class of the problems arising from the social crisis • —the active orientation of the masses by a method of successive approximations. 55
Trotsky a key feature of revolutions – – – – –
revolve around decisive episodes where control over state power is settled Processes unfold in time Russian Revolution of 1917 -- 8 months from February to October Great French Revolution -- five years German Revolution 5 years to 1923
Egypt Opposition •
Egyptian liberalism
– —represented by Mohamed ElBaradei, Ayman Nour,/Wafd Party
•
• —is almost certainly too weak
The Muslim Brotherhood – – – – – – – –
•
Strong Wrong Islamophobic speculation in Pakistan Brotherhood highly ambiguous and heterogeneous formation different forms the mass anti-colonial movement of the 1940s and 1950s crushed by Nasser, revived since the 1980s as “populist political force”, strong base in the universities and professional syndicates
• in poor neighbourhoods • 20 percent of the seats in the relatively open parliamentary election of 2005. 67 • The Brotherhood’s revived as regime crushed armed jihadist groups
The Brotherhood’s solidly bourgeois leadership – – – – –
divided Between 1.alliances with more secular opposition forces 2. Kifaya democracy movement 3. political quietists favouring an accommodation with the regime. Bourgeois character of Brotherhood -- ambivalent attitude towards the strike wave
Egypt Working Class Under Nasser • Wafd’s dominance – undermined by Communists and the Brotherhood after the WWII – the strength of anti-colonial nationalism – plus mixture of repression and economic reforms – allowed Nasser to reduce the Egyptian working class to a subaltern position in his state capitalist regime.
Chance • If Radical elements – in the movement refuse to organise politically • • • • •
other forces will. Plethora of new Egyptian parties Includes Democratic Workers Party. Very small and weak force Revolutionary socialists important part in the 25 January Revolution – and the development of the Egyptian workers’ movement. If they help Egyptian workers develop a clear political voice of their own, then dramatically greater revolutionary possibilities will open up throughout the Middle East