Egypt - Return of the deep state

[stefano]

The Egypt thread's too long now. Let's kick off a new one.
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So over the past week Defence Minister Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the military ruler, and Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, the top cop, evidently decided to put the young liberals who drove the 2011 uprising back in their box. Alaa Abdel Fattah and Ahmed Maher, two of Egypt's most famous youth activists, have been arrested along with at least 50 others who participated in protests against military rule in the past two weeks. It also looks like strings are going to be pulled to acquit the killers of Khaled Said on appeal - two cops who beat Said to death in the last weeks of Mubarak's regime while passers-by watched, which turned him into a symbol for the uprising against Mubarak. Just for the insult, the defence is saying that Said suffocated when he swallowed a bag of hashish. Egypt's media, which in most cases has very strong links to the military and businessmen who got fat under the old NDP, have been demonising the young liberals, calling them girly, lazy, stupid and so on.

I liked this bit in Mada Masr today. Excerpts, my bold.

Devastation is upon us

Omar Robert Hamilton
...
What we do next will define the world to come. I don't know how we win. Not any more. I look to history and see only failure, only loss. We have never won. We have won battles, but never the war. I see the failed revolutions of 1848, the Spanish Revolution, Chile, Tehran, Oakland, Istanbul — moments of inspirational possibility. All crushed. Maybe it is loss that we should be measuring. How to — somehow — slow the devastation that lurks.

Why am I writing this? Because devastation is upon us. Mohamed Ibrahim and the Ministry of the Interior have been unleashed. First on the Brotherhood and now on the activists who — for better or worse — launched and sustained this revolution we were once all so in love with. This revolution that gave so many of us the best part of our identities. This revolution that is drowning.

For the police, it's about pride. The pride that's taken such a battering since January 28. Men with guns and leather jackets have very little else to hold on to. Their lives revolve around pain and fear. The more afraid you are, the stronger they become. And you can never be afraid enough to satisfy them.

And what's it about for us? A future less choked with certainty? I think that's all anyone's ever wanted out of this.
...
The police are the cancer at the core of a rotten state. A state whose institutions all now conspire against her citizens. The unholy trinity of the ambulance service, the hospitals and the morgue; who hide the dead from parents, robbing them of even mourning. The prosecutor and the judiciary who hide away the prisoners from the lawyers and activists whose lives are spent on courthouse steps. The constitutional committee who would have you sent to a military court in a heartbeat. The media who would see the country burn. Each is as rotten as the other. Each wields their weapons against the people. But still the police go too far for some, for those who prefer to control through economics and class rather than shotguns and tear gas. The state — weak and rotten as it is — will fracture.

We too are divided. Now more than ever. We will never be as united as we were in the 18 Days. Unity is born of simplicity, and nothing is simpler than chanting "ir7al," saying no. But tyranny is upon us again. We do not need to agree on the details or what exactly comes next. We just need to say no.
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Somewhat encouragingly, there are signs that the unions are starting to stir - three big strikes in August, which were squashed through intimidation and bribes. But the state's power of intimidation is substantial, and there aren't that many workers left in the textile factories. And Moursi's disastrous year in power has left most Egyptians thinking that that is all they can expect from democracy - a corrupt beardy party-state - and so they're better off under a dictator.

By TE Lawrence, probably relevant to every revolution: "When we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace."

[JackRiddler]

Can't agree. People will continue positing in the familiar Egypt thread. What is "too long"? All you have to do is click on last page.

[vanlose kid]

*

Good piece Stef. Have to agree with Jack though, and for reasons he probably condemns. You should move this (or post the full piece) in the Egypt thread, if only for the sake of wafting away all the incense burnt in obeisance to the new pharoah.

*

PS: one note on the OP. This " The state — weak and rotten as it is — will fracture." Not likely. The author is getting carried away by language there.

*

PPS: One more thing, the author, and most people, seem to "forget" because it doesn't fit the narrative is that the MB were put in power by the deep state. In a sense nothing has changed at all. Only the deep state made it so that the people begged them to come back. And they did.

*

[stefano]

That thread's 127 pages long and has been running for almost three years, it's very broad. My interest now is the specific forms that Sisi's counterrevolution is taking, and how it and the reaction to it are playing out in the framework of elections to be held within two and a half months after the new constitution is ratified, so by end March. There's no reason to consolidate.
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Some possibly good news from today:

Partial strike expands at Helwan Iron and Steel

Demonstrations started at the company on Tuesday 26 November, and over the last week have grown to an estimated total of 5,000 striking workers – out of a total workforce of some 12,600 laborers. Workers at this public-sector company have mentioned their willingness to escalate industrial action if their demands are not met.

The workers’ demands include: The operation of the company at its former capacity, the sacking of officials allegedly responsible for the company’s financial losses, the reinstatement of sacked/relocated workers, and the payment of overdue profit-shares.

However, administrators emphasize there are no profits to be shared, as the company has not been generating profits, but rather incurring losses — amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds — over the past few years.
...
“We have discussed moving our protest outside the company; taking it to the Holding Company for Steel Industries, or the General Union of Metallurgic Workers. Yet the new ‘protest law’ stipulates that we need authorization to stage such protests. This authorization has not yet been granted,” Omar said.

He added, “we don’t want to be jailed or labeled as outlaws, trouble-makers, or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is why our protests have been confined within the company’s walls.”

A big part of the reason there are no profits is that army-connected managers (often retired senior officers) steal those companies into the ground. That's why I expect labour to align with the young revolutionaries at some point; the interior ministry evidently expects the same, and so wastes no time dealing with pickets.
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Bad news:

A 15-year-old high school student has been arrested and is being held in administrative detention, accused of "owning a ruler with the Rabea al-Adaweya slogan." The Kafr al-Sheikh student was detained last week after one of his teachers turned him in to the police.

_________

The state — weak and rotten as it is — will fracture." Not likely. The author is getting carried away by language there.

Yes, I agree, but it will lose support. Recently Tamarod, which did a lot to organise the mass demonstrations that legitimised the coup and which was sponsored by some old regime operators, broke ranks by criticising the new protest law. Could be camouflage, but it could also be the rapid dawning of the realisation that Sisi's rule is only going to be good for a few people, and temporarily useful cheerleaders are not part of that club.

One more thing, the author, and most people, seem to "forget" because it doesn't fit the narrative is that the MB were put in power by the deep state.

Do you reckon? I don't. It occurred to me a few times, especially when they ran Ahmed Shafik for president and so drove the liberals to vote Moursi. There is a non-conspiratorial explanation though - that they didn't trust Amr Moussa, who does have some real reformist instincts, in the same way they trusted the proven loyalist Shafik. But there were enough signs of election theft in favour of Shafik to convince me that they were trying hard to get the guy in. The MB did a lot to counter the fraud (against them, I mean, they ran extensive tricks of their own) by having several monitors in every polling station in Egypt, something no other formation had the capacity to do, centralising tallies in real time and sending them out to the press. If they hadn't done that Shafik would have got in. And Moursi had about a month in which he could have defused the growing rage against him, they couldn't have guaranteed that he wouldn't. So I think it happened the way we saw it.

Edited - sorry, suffering from a bit of date confusion. The uprising started almost three years ago. How time flies! It seems only yesterday Egypt was run by a bemedalled narcissist who sent psychos to beat the shit out of idealistic kids.

[stefano]

The Salafis are aligning with Sisi.

Assistant to the head of media affairs of the Salafist Nour party Nader Bakkar criticised the Muslim Brotherhood after Brotherhood loyalists held a demonstration outside his residence and reportedly chanted slogans offending him and his family.
...
Bakkar argued that the protest came in response to the Nour party's announcement that it would vote yes on the post-Morsi amended constitution, the final draft of which was submitted on Tuesday to interim president Adly Mansour.

The Nour Party has come under strong attack from some Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, for supporting the 3 July transitional roadmap, which included the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, amending the 2012 constitution and holding new elections.

Egypt's second largest Islamist party said on Monday that it is not against the running of Defence Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for presidency in the looming elections, in an interview with al-Faijr Algerian newspaper.

Salah Abdel Maaboud, an upper board member of Nour Party, said that there is no reason to be against Sisi if he provides an electoral program that takes Egypt out of its current turmoil.

The representative of the ultraorthodox party said that they will participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

"Nour party has decided to vote for the constitution to end the state of polarization in Egypt and seek the stabilisation of its political transition to democracy," Abdel Maaboud said, adding that the draft constitution is better for Egypt and that it keeps Islam as a basis for legalisation.
...
On the party's participation in elections, Abdel Maaboud said, "We are against the election of an Islamist to be Egypt's president, the experience has failed before, we do not want to repeat it. it is currently inconvenient and the Egyptian streets are not ready to accept candidates from a religious background."

Salah Abdel Maaboud, a member of the supreme body of the Salafi-oriented Nour Party, said that the Muslim Brotherhood experience in Egypt and Algeria has failed.

In an interview with Algerian newspaper al-Fadjr, published on Monday, Abdel Maaboud said that his party will strongly run for the parliamentary elections, in attempt to win all the seats it can get. The party, however, would not run for the presidential elections, and would not support any Islamist candidate, since it finds the Egyptian streets not currently ready to accept that.

Abdel Maaboud said that the Nour Party is not opposed to Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi running for presidency.

The party has decided to endorse a “yes” vote for the referendum of the newly amended constitution, since it would end the state of polarization in the country, as well as achieve the stability to the political situation.
...
Abdel Maaboud condemned the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party description of the Nour Party’s support of the constitution as “betrayal.” He said that the Nour Party had demanded deposed President Mohamed Morsy to solve the problems at hand and respond to the request of the protesters, but the former president reacted similarly, accusing the Nour Party of betrayal.

Looks like the deal between the generals and Nour is the same as the deal Hussein Tantawi's SCAF originally made with the MB ahead of the 2011-12 election: the beardies will be left alone to win constituencies as long as they stay away from the presidency. The MB went back on that deal when they ran Khairat Al-Shater and then Moursi in the presidential poll; I don't think the Salafis will make the same mistake, especially as the new constitution forbids parties based on religion, a clause that Egypt's pliant courts could easily use to dissolve Nour if so instructed. The Saudis are probably playing a role in this - they have supported the Salafis for ages and Sisi owes them some serious favours in return for the billions they've lent/given his government.

[stefano]

Now you can be arrested for having a thought criminal for a relative.

A prosecutor has ordered the arrest of an Egyptian man whose 15-year-old son was detained last month for owning a ruler bearing a symbol associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the family's lawyer said on Sunday. Mohamed Abdulghani Bakara was accused of "inducing" his son Khaled to take the ruler to school, the lawyer said.

Two of the boy's teachers, Ashraf Raslan and Hamidou el Kheish, also faced charges of "spreading chaos among school students" by inducing him to possess the ruler, judicial sources said.

Vicious persecution of trivial transgressions is standard for a police state, of course: if Everyman is afraid of getting into trouble for a sticker, or a joke, or an ill-timed fart, then the real dissidents find their support drying up.

[coffin_dodger]

Now you can be arrested for having a thought criminal for a relative.

A prosecutor has ordered the arrest of an Egyptian man whose 15-year-old son was detained last month for owning a ruler bearing a symbol associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the family's lawyer said on Sunday. Mohamed Abdulghani Bakara was accused of "inducing" his son Khaled to take the ruler to school, the lawyer said.

Two of the boy's teachers, Ashraf Raslan and Hamidou el Kheish, also faced charges of "spreading chaos among school students" by inducing him to possess the ruler, judicial sources said.

Vicious persecution of trivial transgressions is standard for a police state, of course: if Everyman is afraid of getting into trouble for a sticker, or a joke, or an ill-timed fart, then the real dissidents find their support drying up.

Who 'owns' the news outlet "aswat masriya" - what is it's pedigree?

A cursory search of the internet:

Involving Thomson-Reuters http://ar.trust.org/reportItem/aswat-masriya/, perhaps?

The Foundation’s Aswat Masriya website was set up in October 2011 after the Egyptian Revolution as an independent source of news and information, in the run-up to the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
With funding from the Arab Partnership Fund...

in partnership with
Arab Partnership Fund

what is the Arab Partnership Fund?
could it be this? - https://www.gov.uk/arab-partnership-participation-fund

The Arab Partnership is the UK Government’s strategic response to the Arab Spring.

evaluated here:
http://www.tripleline.com/evaluation-arab-partnership-fund/
Evaluation of Arab Partnership Fund

The DFID Arab Partnership Fund is a £110 million fund jointly managed by DFID and FCO over four years.
Triple Line is assessing how effective the AP Fund has been at delivering its planned outcomes, and the relevance of these outcomes to the needs of countries in transition

Who is the DFID?
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development

Who is the FCO?
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office

Could it possibly be that 'aswat masriya' has an agenda, condsidering it's pedigree?

[stefano]

Of course they have an agenda. But theirs is very definitely not anti-coup, and they've been so timid since the coup (like all corporate media in Egypt) that I've been turning more towards the lefties at Mada Masr for my reading.

Why do you ask? What's your speculation - do you think the whole ruler story is made up? Or do you think that it's true but not a big deal, and that it only makes the news because of some anti-Sisi plot? Or that the Anglos are hinting to Sisi that he should tone down the police state vibe? I guess that last one's possible, and good for them if they are. I don't expect much more than hints though.

[coffin_dodger]

hey Stefano, I wasn't having a pop at you, per se - rather noting your reaction to that story. Existing primarily in an intuitive state of consciousness, with forays into evidence and 'back-story' to clarify and validate my intuitive feeling, means I have a wandering mind, unable (or unwilling) to grasp the minutae of events for fear they will encumber my thinking regarding the 'bigger picture'. I have an enormous amount of shit swirling round my mind so for the sake of my own sanity, I keep things as simple as possible for myself.

That stated, I think the situation in Egypt is thus (in my limited view) - the country has been manipulated by the West for an age. However, what we saw in the Arab Spring was a truly independent, spontaneous and uncontrollable shift in the consciousness of the average Egyptian, something along the lines of 'we've had enough, it doesn't matter how shitty things get, something has got to change... or everything is pointless'.

Control of the Middle east is immeasurably important to the Western Powers. The damage to our integrated, global economy would be disastrous, should our control diminish. Extremely high stakes calls for maximum subterfuge.

In the West's rising dual-reality of political correctness and freedom of expression, where it's increasingly an offence for certain combinations of syllables (that, incidentally, were just hunky-dory a few years ago) to be spoken or written, yet still perfectly acceptable to bomb the living fuck out of foreigners and kill them in far-away places, how does the power behind the curtain 'sell' the subjugation of another culture to it's own, (increasingly illuminated to the dictum, 'we must all get along') populace?

Sending the poor, uneducated and unable-to-help-themselves foreigners 'aid', seems a good start. I admit, that until this very moment in time, I had never considered what that much heralded 'aid' might be. I had assumed, in my wandering intuitive state, that when my gov't announces it is sending £x here and there as aid, that it actually helps the recipients. How blind I am. Of course, it's used to help them 'see things our way'.

It transpires that the voice of fair and impartial aswat masriya is one of the many voices of our control system. It's narrative is aimed at us - the willing (or unwilling) outraged - to elicit emotional response. To assist in seeing things 'our' way.

Many times these things just slip past me. Your response to the article piqued my interest, that's all. It sounds grandiose to say I'm a 'big picture kind of guy', but the reality is that my mind is not wired to grasp much beyond it. Incidentally, I trust Alice on these matters. Hopefully she'll put me right if I'm way off the mark. Wouldn't be the first time.

[stefano]

That stated, I think the situation in Egypt is thus (in my limited view) - the country has been manipulated by the West for an age. However, what we saw in the Arab Spring was a truly independent, spontaneous and uncontrollable shift in the consciousness of the average Egyptian, something along the lines of 'we've had enough, it doesn't matter how shitty things get, something has got to change... or everything is pointless'.

That's true. But, as Napoleon said (and he'd know, wouldn't he?): 'in any revolution, there are those who make it, and those who profit from it'. The revolution in Egypt was largely spontaneous (I say 'largely' because we shouldn't ignore the contribution made by outfits like George Soros's Open Society Foundation and Google, or the Emir of Qatar through Al Jazeera's energetic cheerleading), but then, when it seemed assured that there was going to be some change, the Muslim Brotherhood was in a position to co-opt that willingness because it had the best-organised network in place. Again, when Egyptians got fed up with the MB, the army and deep state were right there with a ready-made alternative, and politely showed the liberal idealists the door.

It transpires that the voice of fair and impartial aswat masriya is one of the many voices of our control system. It's narrative is aimed at us - the willing (or unwilling) outraged - to elicit emotional response. To assist in seeing things 'our' way.

Who is 'we'? Do you think the West's controllers are some kind of monolithic bloc, who decide on a team to support and then follow through in a consistent way? That's not how it works. In Egypt, for instance, the liberals had Western sponsors in Soros and Google, the MB had its supporters in the White House and State Department, and the generals had their long-standing contacts in the Pentagon. And power games in Washington determined how much support each side would get, in accordance with shifts in the Egyptian situation. It's common even for the security establishment in the US to back both dogs in a fight, just to make sure they have a foot in the door when shit settles down.

This gives rise to a dilemma, for those of us who consider the West's influence pernicious. Are you going to express support for anyone who is not aligned with the West in any way at all? Think, quickly, of the kind of psycho that leaves you supporting. This is a specific problem in the Arab world, I think, because the racist right in the US is so quick to seize on human rights or women's issues as evidence that Arabs are in some way backward, and this has the perverse effect of putting anti-imperialists on the side of religious fanatics or military dictators. It is a thorny question, but I think the best response (and the one I adopt) is to hew consistently to a liberal position, whoever the actors involved are.

Incidentally, I trust Alice on these matters. Hopefully she'll put me right if I'm way off the mark. Wouldn't be the first time.

I have a lot of respect for Alice's insights, but I don't trust her on this specific matter. She had valid personal reasons to consider the MB particularly hostile to her and her family, and has a tendency to consider the enemy of her enemy her friend that I've noticed over a few years on this board, and these two trends have made her insufficiently critical about Egypt's new military dictatorship.

[coffin_dodger]

Thanks for your considered response, Stefano.

This gives rise to a dilemma, for those of us who consider the West's influence pernicious. Are you going to express support for anyone who is not aligned with the West in any way at all? Think, quickly, of the kind of psycho that leaves you supporting

I'm hoping (forlornly) for an Arabian Gandhi. Minus the assassination. Although that's probably many revolutions down the line.

[stefano]

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) — a think tank with strong ties to the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — urged the US government to seize the opportunity to resume friendly relations with Egypt.
...
"Aid to Egypt is not a favor for democracy but an investment in a friendly government that supports vital US interests: Counter-terrorism, strategic access, peace with Israel, good relations with the key oil-producing Arab states. Instead, today we once again witness the absurd spectacle of the US trying to put pressure only on its friends, but not on its enemies, to reform their internal political systems," the report said.

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From the Washington Institute piece (signed Adel El-Adawy and David Pollock):

The upcoming January constitutional referendum, which the EU has just agreed to monitor, would be a suitable early occasion for the U.S. to resume full aid to Egypt.

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Also please enjoy the Washington Institute's illustration of Egypt's Salafis:

[stefano]

The U.S. Congress' new spending bill would restore more than $1.5 billion in military and economic aid to Egypt, which had been largely cut off after Egypt's military ousted President Mohamed Mursi last summer.

The bill includes up to $1.3 billion in military assistance, and $250 million in economic support for Cairo, but ties the funding to the Egyptian government taking steps toward restoring democracy.

The funds also would only be available if the U.S. Secretary of State certifies to congressional appropriations committees that the Cairo government is sustaining its strategic relationship with the United States and meeting its obligations under the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
...
"If the military continues its repressive tactics, arresting democracy activists and does not hold free and fair elections, the certifications will not be possible and U.S. aid will be cut off," Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for the aid, said in a speech on the chamber floor on Tuesday.

I have very little doubt that John Kerry will see the elections that are going to happen in the next few months as sufficient 'steps toward restoring democracy' for that flow to flow.

[American Dream]

This is well worth the half hour it takes to listen:

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16 ... sam-el-ham

Egypt's Terrible Three: Interview with Hossam El-Hamalawy

Jan 16 2014
by Malihe Razazan


Revolutionary Front protest in Talaat Harb Square on 19 November
2013 to commemorate the Mohammed Mahmoud clashes two years prior.

Nearly three years after the fall of Mubarak, with the deep state and the military openly back in control, Egypt seems to have come full circle. How did that happen and what is the situation on the ground really like, with Egyptians going to the polls yet again to vote on a new constitution? Vomena's Khalil Bendib speaks with Egyptian activist, blogger, and journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy.

[slimmouse]

Hey AD, Thanks for that.

Ill make no historical judgement on the content quite yet, and would be really interested to hear from both Alice and Stefano on this.

But I hope you'll agree that the very thought of all these people in their various factions is sometimes probably enough to make a persons head explode.

However we might decide these factions got there