Egypt: Prelude to the present events (from 2010)

[Hannah Bell]

Pt. 1

June 7, 2010

FOR THE first time since he took power 30 years ago, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt--the largest Arab country and a key U.S. ally in the region--faces a serious political challenge to his dictatorial regime on two fronts.

On the one hand, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who once butted heads with George W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq, has launched a new movement for democracy to challenge the 82-year-old dictator. ElBaradei's campaign has electrified a country ravaged by poverty and political repression for so long.

More significantly, a new wave of workers' strikes and protests unseen in decades is shaking the regime and promising to reverse neoliberal policies that have reigned more or less unchallenged for 30 years. "The current wave of protests that is erupting forms the largest social movement Egypt has witnessed in more than half a century," wrote Joel Beinin, a leading labor historian of Egypt, in a report for the AFL-CIO-backed Solidarity Center in Washington.

The conjuncture of these political and economic struggles could usher in a new future for Egypt and the whole region--and could signal the start of the first serious challenge to U.S. imperialist domination of the region since the days of the Arab nationalist project of the 1960s.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/07/challenge-to-mubarak


Pt. 2: The rising class struggle

According to the Workers Liberty Web site, Egypt's official unemployment rate stood at 9 percent at the start of 2008, but began to rise with the impact of the global economic crisis. Actual unemployment is between 20-30 percent and is compounded by chronic underemployment for large numbers...44 percent of all Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. Over 2 million don't have enough income to pay for food...Egypt's minimum wage has been 35 Egyptian pounds ($6.17) per month since 1984.

So it wasn't surprising that the last few years witnessed a massive increase in the level of strikes and protests... Shari Maglis El-Shaab--or the People's Assembly Street in Arabic--is a very busy short road in midtown Cairo that runs for less than one mile...The street is named as it is because the Egyptian Parliament--dominated today by Mubarak's own party--stands on it...In the past three months, the People's Assembly Street has been transformed into a protest zone for ever-increasing numbers of workers and the poor.

Strikers who previously occupied workplaces in their own cities over wages and benefits (some for weeks and months to no avail) decided to take trains to the capital to confront the "people's representatives." Dozens of workers and the poor from every corner of the country camped out on the People's Assembly Street sidewalks between January and May of this year. They brought with them their pain and frustrations from years of suffering under neoliberalism.

Thousands of other poor Egyptians walk by every day and cheer the strikers on. Neighborhood residents (many poor and struggling themselves) donate basic food supplies--and, of course, tea...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/08/rising-class-struggle


Beginning of the End?

June 9, 2010

IN HIS much-anticipated speech to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation "celebrating" May Day, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak failed to address workers' mounting grievances. Instead, the nervous 82-year-old dictator threatened "lawless" strikers and opposition figures.

He promised to hold "fair" and "free" parliamentary elections later this year, while leaving the door open to running for a seventh term in next year's presidential campaign. But many analysts concluded from Mubarak's angry tone that the regime was trying to intimidate opposition forces.

Still, the picture is mixed. Because of the sharp rise in political and class struggle in recent months, Mubarak has also been forced to make some significant concessions...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/09/beginning-of-the-end



So the "what a surprise" narrative i've heard isn't quite true. and the fact that elbaradei is named as the leader of an opposition that has "electrified" people makes me question the "leaderless" narrative as well.

I'd also read a congressional analysis from 2010 or 2009 that said mubarak's exit had been under discussion for a while.

hmm.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Makes you wonder

where the US aid goes.