A new Arab revolt? Mass movement is rekindled

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I have re-entered the streets and taken workplace n recent weeks the masses of Egypt and Tunisia action in significant numbers. In response, the parties in power in each country—bourgeois popu­ list parties with an Islamist veneer—have stepped up repression, while at the same time engaging in ma­ neuvers with parties representing either old regime or bourgeois secular forces, or sometimes coalitions blending elements of each.

A similar upsurge and a corresponding array of class forces are visible in Palestine as well, even if the vastly different circumstances make the parallels seem ob­ scure at first.

In Tunisia and Egypt the leading forces in the state include degenerated remnants of the bonapartist bourgeoisie that ruled for most of the period after formal independence was achieved. Once their dicta­ tor was overthrown, elections were held; the Islamist bourgeois populists won but rapidly lost mass sup­ port as their policies were seen to mirror those of the previous regime.

The majority of figures and organizations in the bourgeois opposition in both countries are from the secular liberal camp, who have done little better in differentiating themselves from the old regime’s ap­ proach.

In Palestine the array of leading political forces ap­ pears fundamentally different, yet in essence rests on the same class basis. The key difference is that there is no post-independence regime over which a bourgeois party could rule. Instead, we see a puppet pseudogovernment, the Palestinian Authority, pretending to rule over discontinuous fragments of land still con­ trolled by the colonial power, Israel.

And instead of old regime, Islamist, or liberal bour­ geois parties battling for control of all the spoils and succeeding each other in power, in Palestine the divi­ sion plays out geographically, with Fateh dominant in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza—but all represent­ ing parallel class fractions to those in Egypt and Tu­ nisia.

Tunisia Tunisian politics have long been distinguished re­ gionally by the presence of a large union federation, the UGTT (Tunisian General Labor Union), which, while dominated until recently by a relatively bureau­ cratic leadership, was never formally subordinate to the regime, as was the case with unions in Egypt until Mubarak’s departure and the formation of indepen­ dent unions. What’s more, left parties with a base in the UGTT and other mass organizations have been in­ fluential in leading mass actions.

The activities of the left within the UGTT during and since the uprising against Ben Ali have given it a share in the federation’s leadership. When protests of thou­ sands of youth broke out in November of last year in Siliana, the UGTT’s threat of a general strike forced the government to stop its violent attacks on the youth and to make some concessions. In retaliation, howev­ er, the regime launched attacks against the UGTT, both on its own and through its surrogate armed thugs.

Meanwhile, the left parties, united in the movement against Ben Ali, subsequently suffered a fracturing of that unity, but have since come back together.

Since the spring of 2012, the Tunisian political landscape has been marked by a growing polariza­ tion between two major poles. The first consists of the Islamists of Ennahda (the current ruling party), with allies in the Congress for the Republic. The sec­ ond brings together various forces left over after the break-up of the party of former dictators Zine el Abi­ dine Ben Ali and Habib Bourguiba.

But a third pole, united in the Popular Front, has also arisen. It is made up of Maoists, Trotskyists, Socialists, Nasserite and Baathist Arab nationalists, Greens, antidebt activists, and independents. One of the leaders of the Front was Chokri Belaid, a lawyer well known for defending labor struggles and an outspoken critic of Ennahda. His assassination on Feb. 6 led to a mass upsurge. A million (some estimates say a million and a half) protested around the country after the murder.

There was a general strike in Siliana on Feb. 8. Head­ quarters of the Ennahda party were attacked in sev­ eral places. In Bin Kirdan, tear gas was fired at pro­ testers and some demonstrators broke into Ennahda’s headquarters—this in a town that had voted heavily for that party in the last elections. Hassene Dridi / AP (Left) Feb. 6 demonstration in Tunis protesting the murder of leftist attorney Chokri Belaid.

Belaid had taken part in the protests in Siliani, leading then-Interior Minister Ali Larayedh to accuse him of “stirring up trouble.” After Belaid’s assassination, this same Larayedh, who has overseen the gov­ ernment’s repressive apparatus since the fall of Ben Ali, was appointed prime min­ ister!

The Ligue de la Gauche Ouvrière (Work­ ers’ Left League, LGO) issued a press release headlined, “Down with the gov­ ernment of murderers!” The League pro­ claimed: “Let the blood of comrade Chokri Belaïd unite us to overthrow this govern­ ment in the regions, in the centers of sov­ ereignty, in all the state institutions, in particular the institution of the Ministry of the Interior and the Constituent Assembly! “Get rid of the governors and delegates and elect activist local bodies to create a situation of dual power! We call together for civil disobedience and the general strike with the sole perspective of bring­ ing down the regime!

An LGO leader stated in International Viewpoint: “The successive governments since the fall of Ben Ali have followed the same neoliberal economic choices, in liai­ son with international capital … there are around 200,000 more people unemployed than at the time of Ben Ali. As for the de­ velopment of the regions of the interior, we face an almost total absence of state and private sector investment. … The new partnership agreement with the European Union will deepen the neoliberal policy.” This bold projection comes on the ba­ sis of continued working-class mobiliza­ tions in recent years. After Ben-Ali’s flight, struggles for social rights took place, most notably in the country’s mining basin as well as in regions of the interior like Sidi Bouzid or Siliana. “Not a day passed,” not­ ed the League, “without a strike or a dem­ onstration, even in small localities, notably around wages.” The struggles also involved precarious work­ ers and unemployed graduates. At the same time mo­ bilizations have continued in defense of civil liberties and women’s rights.

In analyzing Ennahda’s difficulties, Tunisian leftists note that Ennadha had not expected the old regime to fall, and, not believing it was possible to overthrow it, were ready to negotiate with it. “They have shown the people,” said the LGO, “that they practiced the same clientelism as Ben Ali’s party.” All of this could obvi­ ously be said as well of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

In mid-February, protests broke out in the coastal city Port Said against the murder of dozens of people by the regime and its thugs during a mass rally against the regime’s frame-up verdicts in the February 2012 football match deaths (which were widely viewed at the time as having been set up by the regime and its paid thugs). The protests soon spread to many other towns in the Suez region—towns which, like those first to ignite in Tunisia, are heavily working-class in composition and which have often been even more militant than the more highly publicized Tahrir Square protests.

Workers at a Port Said shipyard launched a sit-in, while some residents blocked the road to Sharq alTafrea port. Workers from the Suez Canal Author­ ity’s navigation department expressed solidarity with calls for the resignation and prosecution of Port Said security chief Mohsen Radi and Interior Minister Mo­ hamed Ibrahim. Workers threatened to strike if their demands were not met.

A coalition in Ismailia, another Suez region city, said it was launching a civil disobedience campaign targeting government institutions. In Kafr al-Sheikh, (continued on page 7)

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(continued from page 6) a delta city, members of the National Salvation Front opposition coalition threatened to launch a civil dis­ obedience campaign against what it termed attempts to “Brotherhoodize” the government.

More details on this upsurge among workers outside of Cairo were provided in an Al-Akhbar article dated Feb. 26, titled “Egypt: Civil Disobedience Gains Ground Among Workers.” The authors wrote: “There are many reasons behind the rise in worker actions and popular protests. One being a general mood of anger among organized workers and professionals following an attempt by Muslim Brotherhood labor minister to undermine the unions by issuing legislation severely restricting union pluralism. This coincides with de­ mands for higher wages in the midst of a significant decline in living standards and exorbitant prices.

“Hesham Fouad, a leader in the Revolutionary Social­ ists and a member of its workers committee, explained to Al-Akhbar that workers strikes are not only increas­ ing in frequency, but witnessing a qualitative change. There is a noticeable trend of workers taking over and running their factories [in the face of] attempts by defaulting employers to close facilities and escape the country,” he said. “This concerns the state, “since it knows that giving back the companies to the business­ men will become impossible as the workers gain more confidence.”

Fouad cited the example of workers joining the civil disobedience in Port Said: “The workers of the indus­ trial free zone joined the demonstrations, and dock workers are demanding retribution for victims of abuse at the hands of security forces.” In Mansoura the clashes escalated after the police ran over and killed a protester.

Socialists quoted in the article exposed the preten­ sions of leaders of the main bourgeois opposition for­ mation, the National Salvation Front. Said one: “All the leaders of the Front who claim to be secular opponents of Islamists do not have economic answers that differ from the Muslim Brotherhood. While the deteriorat­ ing economic conditions indicate that social upheaval is on the horizon, when it happens, it will not be led by any of the leaders of the Front.”

Meanwhile, the response of some bourgeois liber­ als to Brotherhood repression has been to call on the military to seize power. Among supporters of a military takeover are former Mubarak Supreme Court appointee Tahani al-Gebali. She declared: “We must protect our national security at home and abroad. ... It shouldn’t respond to pressure from the Brotherhood to open the tunnels to Gaza and let them implement their schemes in Sinai.”

In fact, the Brotherhood has bent over backward to comply with U.S./Israeli insistence that it continue to assist in the blockade of Gaza. But it has not been quick enough for the liking of the pro-Zionist liberals, who filed and won a lawsuit to demand the government flood the tunnels to Gaza.

As in Tunisia, there is a similarity in policy—whether on the economic, repressive, or diplomatic fronts—be­ tween the ruling party and its secular bourgeois oppo­ nents. They disagree only over who should administer the cuts and accompanying repression, and the means to do so, and which segments of the capitalist class should profit. This coincidence of interests is particu­ larly dangerous given the deepening economic crisis and the swelling volume of insistence that Egypt turn the screws on workers if an IMF loan is to be granted.

Egypt’s latest economic reform plan will cut sub­ sidies for or raise taxes on many basic consumption items. The plan’s announcement came on the eve of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the result of which was a promise that the U.S. would provide $250 million in aid after Egypt promised to reach an agree­ ment with the IMF.

And to improve the regime’s capacity to squash the inevitable anti-austerity protests, the U.S. agreed to send Egypt 140,000 more canisters of tear gas, an order accompanied by an open admission that the emergency shipment was needed because they were running out of supplies given the widespread attacks on protesters. The import permit specified that the manufacturer’s name and the country of origin would be erased from the canisters.

Some liberal opposition groups have called for a boy­ cott of upcoming elections. Others announced their intention to form a “Popular Parliament,” running in parallel with the official one. It’s unlikely that this body will base itself on the committees thrown up in workplaces and neighborhoods at the peak of mass struggles. But perhaps its creation will open a discus­ sion of the need to revive—and to unify nationally— such bodies.

Palestine Meanwhile, the number of Palestinians resisting op­ pression in the streets has once again swelled. Rallies and tent cities have been set up to support political prisoners on hunger strike, actions that gathered mo­ mentum as Samer Issawi—on hunger strike since last August—appeared close to death.

During this same period, running street battles be­ tween Palestinian youth and the occupation army also escalated in size and frequency. All these actions drew fuel from the dramatic increase in number and vio­ lence of settler and IDF attacks, mushrooming settle­ ment expansion, and growing anger at a Palestinian Authority leadership that does nothing but beg Israel for talks.

At the same time, public sector strikes are growing as the PA withholds wages and rejects other demands. These strikes follow massive protests in the West Bank last fall against price hikes and tax increases. The ac­ tions featured calls for the resignation of the PA’s chief economic policymaker, Salam Fayyad, as well as for an end to the Paris Protocols, the economic section of the Camp Oslo Accords, which codifies PA subservience to the neoliberal policies of the IMF, including reinforcing dependence on the Zionist economy.

Protests grew even bigger and more frequent with the news of Israel’s murder by torture of detainee Arafat Jaradat. News of Jaradat’s death led to mass demonstrations in dozens of locations throughout the West Bank, in Gaza, in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, and in pre-1967 Israel. Israeli officials publicly demanded that the PA put a lid on the upsurge (while, of course, in the meantime shooting protesters on its own).

The fury over Israel’s treatment of prisoners and de­ tainees is intensified by recognition that it has carried out frequent re-jailings in violation of the agreement reached to end mass hunger strikes called in 2012 to protest open-ended “administrative detention.”

Israel’s brazen disregard of agreements signed con­ cerning detainees and prisoners is paralleled by its repeated and murderous violations of the terms of last year’s Gaza ceasefire. Israel has breached that agree­ ment on more than 800 occasions since it was signed last November. In stark contrast, there have been only two allegations of truce violations by Palestinian groups. The latter, of course, are the only ones to get mainstream media coverage. And we can be sure that when Israel decides once again to attack with massive force, the mainstream media will claim it is in retalia­ tion for supposed missile-fire from Gaza.

Israel’s ceasefire violations include repeated deadly attacks on Gaza fishers, despite the fact that they have been sailing well within the agreed-upon off-shore limit set as part of the ceasefire. In response, the fish­ ers carried out a demonstration at sea on March 3, in which fishers from all over the Gaza Strip brought their boats and formed a flotilla at the seaport.

The everyday racism of Israeli society was horrifical­ ly captured in a set of photos that went viral at the end of February of a vicious attack by dozens of settlers on a lone Palestinian woman. Soon thereafter, Israel an­ Nasser Nasser / AP (Above) Protest camp in front of provincial headquarters of government in Port Said during general strike. Posters show men slain by Egyptian authorities during the struggle.

nounced it would begin “Palestinian-only” bus lines. News of this, and comparisons to Jim Crow policies of the U.S. South, also went viral.

In the face of this increased and ever more widely and openly applied racism and repression, the PA and Hamas have done virtually nothing to defend those whom they supposedly represent. And they will cer­ tainly continue to try to impose austerity measures, as in Egypt and Tunisia.

This, of course, is not surprising, for as mentioned at the start, despite the dramatically different contexts, the class basis of both the PA and Hamas is the same as that of their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia—one or another segment of the capitalist class.

The real question facing Palestine, then, is not so much whether a Third Intifada has broken out or whether it will soon, a subject of widespread media speculation. It is instead whether grassroots commit­ tees gathering in the masses of workers and peasants akin to those of the first Intifada can be strengthened and broadened where they exist, created where they don’t, and linked up across Palestine.

Such base-building is needed regardless of whether the pace and intensity of the ever-present Palestinian grassroots resistance quickens, or whether we are in­ stead in a period of preparation for the next uprising. Such a period would also be useful for strengthening ties being re-forged with the campaigns for return of the millions of refugees in exile, and of Palestinians within pre-1967 Israel.

A related question is whether a revolutionary lead­ ership—that is, a working-class-based party—can be built in time to gather the most militant elements of such committees, providing a framework for develop­ ing a program and a strategy to implement it, as well as to forge ties with similar movements and parties throughout the region.

Regional coordination?

The similarities in the class alignments in each of the countries described above raise the question not just of the need for firmer organization of working-classbased movements and parties within each country, but also of the necessity and possibility of regional solidarity and collaboration.

Fear of just that on the part of the region’s rulers and their masters was seen in a recent attack on a gath­ ering in Algeria. Police raided the first North African Forum to Fight Unemployment and Precarious Work, arresting and deporting unionists from Morocco, Tu­ nisia, and Mauritania. The forum was prepared by meetings of unemployed graduates and young precar­ ious workers in the region. Its meeting in Algeria was designed to prepare for the upcoming World Social Fo­ rum (WSF) in Tunisia.

Tunisia’s LGO said the WSF “should be an effective time to express loudly the rejection of neoliberalism as well as the diktats of the EU and the USA. We expect a significant presence from all the movements opposed to neoliberalism and fighting for the emancipation of oppressed peoples.”

In this regard, the WSF can be a forum for discussing the tasks facing the region’s labor and socialist move­ ments. And we should add, in so doing it can provide, as the region has done so often in recent years, con­ tinued inspiration for those now engaged in general strikes and monster rallies throughout crisis-ridden Europe and elsewhere. n SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2013 7

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6 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2013 As the masses of Tunisia & Egypt re-enter the streets and take workplace action, the bourgeois parties in power have stepped up repression.

The similarities in the class alignments in Egypt, Tunisia, and Palestine raise the possibility of regional solidarity and collaboration.