the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 18, 2024
The following article was translated from an article appearing in Lutte de Classe #240, May 2024, the political journal of Lutte Ouvrière, the French Trotskyist organization.
It may have been ten years ago when a military coup put an end to the crisis opened in Egypt by the popular revolt of 2011. But the reasons that led to that revolt are still present and even more acute. Democratic rights and freedoms are more restricted under al-Sissi than they were under Mubarak. Social inequalities have increased. The military caste has considerably extended its grip over the economy, while workers and the laboring classes are crushed under the effects of an unprecedented crisis.
Following in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank have now come to the aid of the Egyptian state, which is threatened with bankruptcy. Although Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s dictatorial regime muzzles the country’s 111 million inhabitants, these big sharks all fear an uncontrollable social explosion, which would exacerbate instability in the region. As the war in Gaza drags on and tensions spread across the Middle East, the sharks are all the more supportive of the Egyptian dictatorship as part of their own domination.
In February 2011, under popular pressure, the General Staff, in agreement with the United States, dumped Hosni Mubarak, the dictator who had been in power for thirty years. To defuse the protests, Marshal Tantaoui, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, enlisted the support of the main opposition forces, notably the Muslim Brotherhood, to participate in the “peaceful democratic transition.” The Muslim Brotherhood brought the credit it enjoyed among the laboring people to the army, which had repeatedly repressed them. Thanks to their charitable actions and the presence of their militants, they appeared honest and concerned for the most disadvantaged, but like other Islamist or democratic political parties, right or left, they defended the bourgeois social order. All these parties regarded the exploited classes as a mass with which they could maneuver, who had to remain in their place, that is, docile and submissive to the ruling classes.
During the period of popular unrest that followed, which saw a succession of workers’ strikes, demonstrations and occupations of central plazas, at no time did the situation escape the control of the generals, who opted to pull back. Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, won the presidential election of June 30, 2012 with 51.7% of the vote. A year later, he was faced with the anger of the popular masses, victims of his austerity measures and hostile to the dictatorial turn taken by his power. The National Salvation Front, a coalition of parties from the right to the far left, took an active part in the movement. On June 30, 2013, after massive demonstrations demanding his departure, Morsi was deposed by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, his Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. The National Salvation Front stepped back behind the army and hailed Morsi’s removal.
Sisi acted with the support of the United States and its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, which did not agree that Egypt be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
So on two occasions, after Mubarak’s departure in 2011 and after Morsi’s election in 2013, the military managed to ride the waves of protest and appear as protectors of the demonstrators and guarantors of change.
In the absence of a party to represent its interests, the working class, despite its massive participation in the protest movement, its strikes, its courage and combativeness, was not in a position to offer a political perspective for the exploited classes as a whole. In the end, it was the army that benefitted from the anti-Mubarak and anti-Morsi protests.
The overthrow of Morsi earned Sisi a certain popularity, as he claimed to be responding to the demands of the popular movement. He cultivated his image as savior of the nation and bulwark against Islamism. To give democratic legitimacy to his power, he called a new presidential election, which he won hands down. Although Sisi now appeared in civilian clothes, the army continued to rule the country.
The relief that followed Morsi’s removal was short-lived. Left-wing forces and all those who had supported Sisi, considering the army to be the lesser evil, were disappointed. After ferociously repressing supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the army issued decrees and orders designed to muzzle all other opposition to its rule. Determined to restore political stability that would benefit the bourgeoisie, Sisi banned demonstrations and hunted down and arrested left-wing opponents and militant workers. Ten years after his accession to power, freedoms, already restricted under Mubarak, have been further curtailed.
It is estimated that today some 60,000 prisoners of conscience languish in Egyptian jails. Many end up there without even having been tried. Some are held incommunicado for months at a time, while others are beaten during interrogation or denied medical care. The Muslim Brotherhood has been joined there by left-wing activists, journalists, intellectuals, bloggers and artists, whose every word and image is scrutinized. If deemed subversive, they can be arrested. Demonstrations and strikes are illegal. Parties and organizations critical of the regime are censored and banned, as are the independent media. Virtually all media outlets are now under government orders, directly controlled by the state, the secret services or a few wealthy businessmen close to the regime. The use of the death penalty is constantly on the increase: in 2022, judges handed down 538 death sentences. Egypt had the fourth worst record of any country in the world for executions, mainly by hanging.
The dictatorship was exercised with all the more vigor as the depth of the economic crisis made the regime fear a social explosion. With severe inflation, a plummeting Egyptian pound, and a shortage of dollars, Egypt was experiencing one of the worst crises in its history. The State is in vital need of foreign currency to import a large proportion of its food and repay its foreign debt, which stands at almost 165 billion dollars. Interest payments on the state’s debt reached 42 billion dollars a year, or two-thirds of Egypt’s budget revenues. In January, Egypt was considered the second country most at risk of defaulting on its debt, just behind war-torn Ukraine. In the absence of dollars, between 5 and 15 billion dollars worth of goods remained blocked in the ports, paralyzing the activity of numerous companies.
The State has to pay ever more interest to its creditors, while the country’s three most important sources of revenue—remittances from the diaspora, tourism, and the Suez Canal—already affected by COVID, have collapsed under the combined effect of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
The country’s primary resource, remittances from the millions of Egyptian workers living in Gulf and Mediterranean countries, has fallen from 30 billion to 22 billion dollars by 2023. The war in Ukraine has deprived the tourism sector of Ukrainian and Russian customers, who had accounted for 40% of foreign tourists. It also caused wheat prices to soar, severely affecting Egypt, the world’s leading importer.
In the Red Sea, attacks by Houthi rebels of Yemen in support of the Gazans have led to a drop in maritime traffic in this strategic zone. The sums paid each year by container ships and other vessels transiting the Suez Canal, usually in excess of 10 billion dollars, have fallen by 40 to 50%. The consequence of the war in the Middle East is the dislocation of economic ties between Israel and Egypt, notably the drop in gas exports from Israel, which has led to damaging power cuts.
To prevent the collapse of a state that is essential to the order of the great powers in the region, Egypt’s regional allies, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as well as international financial institutions, have just released substantial funds. On March 6, the IMF agreed to an 8 billion dollar loan, on condition that the Egyptian pound be allowed to float and that the Central Bank’s interest rate be raised from 24% to 30%. The IMF’s demands are good news for businessmen and speculators, but by making money more expensive, they risk increasing already massive unemployment.
Egypt is not only a country of emigration, it is also a refuge for nine million migrants who have fled regional wars, according to government estimates. Four million Sudanese, one and a half million Syrians, one million Yemenis and one million Libyans are said to have found refuge in Egypt. On March 17, the World Bank granted six billion in aid over three years. On the same day, Sisi obtained 7.4 billion dollars in aid from the European Union to act as a bulwark against migratory flows. Sisi has managed to monetize his role as guardian of the imperialist order with international institutions.
He has also been able to count on Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, his main backers, for whom Egypt’s stability is essential. Since the 2013 coup d’état, which they encouraged, the Saudis and Emiratis have reportedly invested 100 billion dollars in Egypt, and the Emiratis have just announced plans to invest a further 35 billion. While keeping Egypt afloat, this financial windfall has enabled the Gulf monarchies to lay their hands on land, resorts and state-owned enterprises. For example, the Emirates plan to spend 10 billion to develop Ras el-Hikma, a city on the Mediterranean coast, into a luxury resort, a financial center and a free trade zone, complete with port and international airport. The Emirates will receive 65% of the operating revenues. Saudi Arabia is undertaking a similar project in eastern Sinai, at Ras Ghamila, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. In addition to international financiers, the project will benefit Egyptian construction bosses, but above all the army, whose senior officers are keen investors.
With 468,500 men, the Egyptian army is one of the most powerful in Africa and the Middle East. Every year, it receives 1.3 billion dollars from the United States. The officer caste that runs it has established itself at the head of a vast economic empire and, under Sisi’s reign, the list of sectors in which it is involved has continued to grow. By law, the military budget cannot be made public, but it is estimated at between 20% and 40% of gross domestic product (GDP). Under the supervision of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Military Production, some sixty large companies operate in nineteen industries. Armament, agri-food, bakery, media, car manufacturing, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, transport, fertilizers, tourism ... no sector escapes it, which leads Egyptians to say that “most states have an army, but in Egypt, it’s the army that has a state.” Like his predecessors, Sisi has appointed active and retired military personnel to head the major state-owned companies. As officers’ pensions are not very lucrative, these positions enable them to maintain a certain standing.
Even though the private sector accounts for 70% of GDP, the army is in the dominant position. In many areas, the military is the prime contractor for public contracts. The private sector often finds itself in the position of subcontractor. The companies under the army’s control pay no taxes or customs duties. They do not hesitate to use conscripts, cheap labor that they shamelessly exploit, to build bridges, roads and new towns. This labor force was used by the New Capital Company, which managed, under army control, the construction in the middle of the desert of the new capital, supposed to relieve the congestion of Cairo and its 22 million inhabitants. The project is still underway and has already cost over 60 billion dollars. These colossal investments have enriched the concrete merchants and only increased the country’s debt and the army’s grip on the economy.
The army controls all the ports and tolls on the industrial roads it has paved. It has free reign over state lands, which make up 94% of the country’s land, and control over strategic areas such as the coastline, Sinai and the Suez Canal, where the majority of investments are concentrated. Anyone who protests against these privileges is accused of being a Muslim Brotherhood terrorist. A food industry boss who refused to sell his company ended up in prison.
The army doesn’t honor every contract it signs. Mohamed Ali, a former actor turned construction company owner, has experienced this first-hand. In 2019, unhappy at not having been paid, he took to social networks to denounce the army’s methods, as well as the top brass’s corruption and contempt. His viral videos fanned the flames of public anger. For three days, several thousand young people demonstrated, repeating the slogans of 2011. The streets of Cairo resounded with cries of “Sisi out!” The repressive apparatus descended on them, and over 4,000 young people were arrested, while those with no criminal record were held for months in pre-trial detention, as an example to deter any resurgence of protest. As one young protester put it: “Bloody police dictatorship, the economic crisis, the army.... They’re crushing us with the toe of their boots, and they’re not giving young people a chance.”
On the eve of the 2023 presidential election, responding to criticism of the megaprojects that had ruined the country, Sisi justified his policies: “If the price of progress and prosperity is to be hungry and thirsty, let’s not eat and drink.” Le Monde reports that in Alexandria in March, during Ramadan, dozens of people responded by marching with placards reading “On a faim, ô Sisi” (“We’re hungry, O Sisi”). The progress that Sisi invokes benefits only a minority who live in luxury, barricaded in secure districts, far from poverty, the misery of the laboring people, and the impoverishment of the middle classes.
Cuts in subsidies for energy and basic necessities, rising transport costs, unemployment: the majority of Egyptians are being strangled. Sixty percent of the population is considered poor and will not benefit from the billions of dollars promised by Sisi, but will pay the interest. The press reports the lucid words of a woman inquiring about the arrival of sugar in a grocery store in the Cairo district of Dokki: “They gave the impression that dollars were raining down on us. How about a shower of cheap sugar?” With shortages and annual inflation of over 39%, and even 70% for food products, getting enough to eat is an obstacle course. A simmering social anger was expressed at the end of February, when 3,700 female workers at the state-owned Mahalla el Koubra spinning mills in the Nile delta went on strike. They did not accept that the 750,000 workers in state-owned enterprises did not benefit from the minimum wage increases granted to the five million civil servants.
Joined by several thousand other workers at the site, the strikers did not hesitate to defy the ban on demonstrations, and were not intimidated by the hundred or so arrests. With the strike spreading to other sectors, Sisi relented and announced that the 750,000 public sector workers would receive the same minimum wage increase as civil servants, bringing it to 6,000 Egyptian pounds (180 euros).
Sisi gave in after a few days’ strike action, aware that he would otherwise be faced with a protest that would be much harder to control. The working class is a force to be reckoned with in Egypt. Despite repressed and domesticated trade unions, the conflagration of working-class concentrations, particularly in the Nile delta, is considered a major risk by the regime.
It should be added that, since October 7 and the war in Gaza, protest has found a new channel for expression. The Palestinian question has come back to the fore, reviving a political life that the regime took years to stifle. The authorities fear that actions in solidarity with the Palestinians will lead to a resurgence of protest that will turn against them. The only demonstrations in support of the Palestinians that the regime authorized on October 20 confirmed its fears. On this occasion, demonstrators took up protest slogans from 2011, such as “Bread, freedom, the Palestinian cause.” The security forces immediately cracked down, making around fifty arrests. The protest was nipped in the bud, but with the war in Gaza dragging on, the Egyptian regime remains under pressure. It has to come to terms with its Israeli and American allies and a pro-Palestinian public opinion that is increasingly in favor of Hamas.
Al-Sisi uses the negotiations on the future of Gaza taking place in Cairo to appear as a peacemaker and defender of the Palestinian cause. He encourages blood, medicine and food drives for the Palestinians, but steadfastly refuses to open the crossing at Rafah, the town on the border with Egypt where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken refuge, and which is one of the only ways for people and material aid to get in and out of Gaza. Al-Sisi thus renders himself complicit in the confinement of the Palestinians, justifying it by claiming that he wants to prevent another Nakba (the name given to the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948) and allow them to stay in their homes. But after seven months of war, over 35,000 dead, 76,900 wounded and the destruction of the Gaza Strip, those who survived have no home and often no family....
In fact, in the event of Netanyahu carrying out his threat of a ground offensive at Rafah, the Egyptian state, which denies it, has built a vast camp in the Egyptian Sinai, along the border with the Gaza Strip, to contain any Gazans who might flee and prevent them from taking refuge in Egypt.
Al-Sisi defends his criminal complicity with Israel by invoking the defense of peace and the nation. But his participation in the oppression of the Palestinians, and more generally in the maintenance of the imperialist order in the Middle East, which runs counter to the feelings of the Egyptian popular classes whose daily lives are increasingly hard, could at any moment lead to a new explosion of revolt. It is to be hoped that such a revolt will go beyond the borders of Egypt, to involve the exploited of the whole region, and that it will learn the lessons of the Arab Spring of 2011: the army is by no means an ally, but always the guardian of the social and imperialist order.