Egypt , livre ebook

Egypt
Egypt
Contested Revolution
Philip Marfleet
First published 2016 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Philip Marfleet 2016
The right of Philip Marfleet to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3552 0 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3551 3 Paperback ISBN 978 1 7837 1794 1 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 7837 1796 5 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 7837 1795 8 EPUB eBook
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Preface
PART I: MAKING REVOLUTION
1 Introduction
2 The Streets
3 The Workers and the Movement
4 Crises and Confrontations
PART II: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT
5 Islamism and the State
6 Fate of the Left
PART III: COUNTER-REVOLUTION
7 Egypt Under Mursi
8 Brotherhood, People, State
9 Towards the Coup
10 Counter-Revolution and Beyond
Postscript – Cairo, April 2016
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
My thanks to many friends and colleagues in Egypt for years of shared experiences, debates and discussions. As I write in early 2016, it would be unwise to identify those who face continuing threats from the military regime.
Thanks especially to Anne Alexander, John Rose and Adrian Budd for their careful reading of drafts of the book; thanks also to Egyptian readers who remain anonymous. The views expressed are very much my own. Given the complexity of events, the obsessive secrecy of successive Egyptian regimes and the difficulty of establishing the pattern of events during crucial phases of the revolution some assessments I have offered may be contentious – and our discussions will continue.
Thanks to David Shulman of Pluto Books for his patience and forbearance, especially when unexpected developments delayed progress. Many thanks to expert editor Thérèse Wassily Saba for her meticulous work on the manuscript and careful monitoring of my transliteration from Arabic. My special thanks to Lynne Hubbard, Ellie Marfleet and Harry Hubbard for putting up with my absences and silences – hugs to you all. Thanks also to friends and colleagues who prompted my interest in Egypt, its people and cultures, especially Talal Asad, Tanya Baker, Enid Hill and the late Tony Cliff.
When I was four or five years old, my father Gerry Marfleet showed me his album of photographs from Egypt. In 1940 he had been conscripted and sent to the Middle East as part of a British army of occupation. Stationed in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, he was eventually sent to Egypt and encamped at Helwan. Fascinated by the Orient, and especially its literary associations, he had found himself in the ‘antique land’ of Ozymandias – the pharaoh Ramses II who, wrote Shelley, had ordered an inscription on his monumental image constructed at the edge of the desert: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Almost 60 years later Gerry might have considered another of Shelley’s works in the context of Egypt. ‘The Mask of Anarchy’ had been written to commemorate a massacre of democracy activists in England. It concluded with lines that could have been composed in Arabic by witnesses to events in 2011 that launched sustained struggles against the pharaohs of the twenty-first century:

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many – they are few!
......................................
The brave men are brave
The cowards are cowardly
Come with the brave
Together to the Square.
Ahmed Fouad Negm
Glossary
Arabic words and phrases
abaya – cloak (for women)
‘adl – justice
‘amil (pl. ‘ummal ) worker
ansar – helpers/supporters (had special status in Islamic history as associates of the Prophet and members of the first umma )
awqaf (sing. waqf ) – religious endowments
‘ashwa’iyyat – informal areas, ‘slums’
‘aysh – bread
‘aysh baladi (made with wholewheat flour)
‘aysh shami (made with white flour)
baladi – country(side)/of the people/folk
baltagiyya (sing. baltagi ) – gangs/thugs
batil – illegitimate/false
‘eid – feast
feddan – measurement of land area; 4,200 square metres (0.42 hectare); 1.038 acres
fellah – (pl. fellaheen ) tiller, farmer, peasant
higab/hijab – headscarf for women
feloul – remnants/leftovers
fuul – fava beans
hizb – party
harakat – movement
hadith (pl. ahadith ) – reports/accounts (of the Prophet’s words and deeds)
haram – sanctuary; or impermissable
hukm al-askar – military rule
hurriyya – freedom
ihtijajat fi’awiyya – special (sectional) interests
ikhwan – brotherhood
infitah – opening; al-infitah al-iqtisadi – economic opening
insaf – fairness
intifada – uprising
jahiliyya – ignorance (of divine guidance)
jihad – striving, exertion, fight, war
karama – dignity
khedive – governor of a province or region of the Ottoman Empire
kifaya – enough
mazar – place of reverence
manabir – (sing. minbar ) pulpits
mathaf – museum
midan – (pl. mayadin ) square
millioneyya – million-strong march
mukhabarat – intelligence (secret police)
mulid – (pl. mawalid ) festival
murshid – guide (usually of Muslim Brotherhood)
naqabat – unions/syndicates
nizam – order (regime)
riba – usury
salaf – predecessors/forefathers
sha’ab – people
shahid (pl. s huhada ) – ‘witness’, martyr
shari’a – laws of Islam
shura – consultation (name of the Upper House of Egyptian parliament)
tahrir – liberation tali’a – vanguard
ta hir – cleansing/purification
thawra – revolution
ultras – hard-core football fans
umma – collective of Muslims, sometimes ‘nation’
wasta – connections/influence
State agencies and institutions; political parties and movements
Amn al-Markazi – Central Security [Force] – CSF (riot police)
Destour (Constitution) Party
Gama’at Islamiyya – Islamic groups/associations (Islamist organisations, variously called Gama’a Islamiya , al-Jamaat al-Islamiya , al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya )
Haditu ( Al-Harakat al-Dimocratiyya al-Tahrir al-Watani , or DMNL)
Harakat al-Tagheer – (sing. Haraket El-Tagheer ) Movements for Change
Hay’aat al-Tahrir – Liberation Agency
Hamla Sha’biyya min Agl al-Tagheer – Popular Campaign for Change
Hizb al-Watani al-Dimuqrati – National Democratic Party (NDP)
Ikhwan al-Muslimin – Muslim Brotherhood
Ittihad al-Qawmi – National Union
Ittihad al-Ishtiraqi – Socialist Union
Ittihadiyya – Federation Palace (presidential palace outside Cairo)
Jihad – Jihad [Islamist organisation]
Jihaz al-Amn al-Dawla (State Security Service)
Jihaz al-Amn al-Qawmi (National Security Service)
Karama (Dignity) Party
Kifaya! – Enough! Slogan of the Egyptian Movement for Change (and name by which it is usually known)
Mubahath Amn al-Dawla (General Directorate of State Security Investigations, SSI)
Majlis al-Shaab – People’s Assembly (Lower House of Parliament)
Majlis al-Shura – Shura Council (Upper House of Parliament)
Mukhabarat al-Aama (General Intelligence and Security Service)
Mukhabarat al-Harbeya (Military Intelligence Service)
Nadi al-Quda – Judges’ Club/Association
Tagammu’ (Rally/Coalition) – National Progressive Unionist Party (NDUP)
Tahaluf (Alliance) – Socialist Popular Alliance Party
Tamarud (Rebellion) – political campaign
Wafd (Delegation) Party, nationalist organisation founded in 1919; New Wafd Party founded in 1983
Al-Waqa’e al-Misreya , Egypt’s official gazette, giving information on laws, regulations and procedures
Wasat (Centre) Party
Abbreviations, acronyms in English
ADNP – Arab Democratic Nasserist Party
AKP – Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
ASU – Arab Socialist Union
CENTO – Central Treaty Organisation (the ‘Baghdad Pact’)
CSF – Central Security Force (Amn al-Markazi)
CTUWS – Center for Trade Union and Workers Services
EAAT – Egyptian Association Against Torture
ECESR – Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights
Ebda – Egyptian Businesses Development Association
ECP – Egyptian Communist Party
EOHR – Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
EPCSI – Egyptian Popular Committee in Solidarity with the Intifada
ESDP – Egyptian Social Democratic Party
EFITU – Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions
ETUF – Egyptian Trade Union Federation
ERSAP – Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Programme
FJP – Freedom and Justice Party
NEPAD – New Partnership for Africa’s Development
IFI – International Financial Institution
IMF – International Monetary Fund
LCHR – Land Center for Human Rights
MUSIAD – Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (Turkey)
NAM – Non-Aligned Movement
NDP – National Democratic Party
NSF – National Salvation Front
NSPO – National Service Products Organisation
OpantiSH – Operation Anti-Harrassment
PCSU – Privatization Co-ordination Support Unit
PTA – Property Tax Authority
Retau – Real Estate Property Tax Union
RCC – Revolution Command Council
SSI – State Security Intelligence ( Mubahath Amn al-Dawla )
SCAF – Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
UNHCR – Office of the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees
USAID – United States Agency for International Development
Preface
I began writing this book almost four years after the first of the events known as the ‘Arab Spring’. These had been extraordinary developments, initiated in January 2011 by mass movements in Tunisia and Egypt that emerged apparently without warnin