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"Honour killings" and the oppression of women

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 06:43:29 +0100

"Honour killings" and the oppression of women

7 March 2011. A World to Win News Service. It has been nearly four years since Doa Khalil, a 17-year-old woman in Iraqi Kurdistan, was stoned to death by her relatives to protect the "family honour". This dreadful act shocked those who saw the clips of the scene recorded on mobile phones and circulated on the Internet. It dramatically demonstrated the ongoing oppression of women in a patriarchal world.

Since then an increasing number of young women have been victims of "honour killings" or other similar crimes in many countries. Most were teenagers.

Even a list confined to those whose murder attracted international attention shows that this anti-woman activity is persisting in many places in the world, especially in the Middle East (including Turkey) and South Asia.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of "honour-killing" victims may be as high as 5,000 women. However the real numbers might be much higher, especially if other "honour"-related crimes are taken into account. "Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to 'honour'-related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. The officials say this is 'merely the tip of the iceberg' of this phenomenon". (Independent, 10 February 2008)

These are the figures for the UK, not the Middle East or South Asia where the statistics are even more horrific.

In Iraqi Kurdistan where the stoning of Doa took place, more than 12,000 women were killed in the name of honour between 1991, when the U.S. and other Western imperialists first invaded Iraq, and 2007. (The New York Times, 20 November 2010)

Another place where there are many honour killings is Pakistan, where the practice is called "karo-kari". If we can believe government figures, "over 4,000 women have fallen victim to this practice in Pakistan over the last six years." (BBC, 2 March 2005)

Honour killings have occurred in many countries, including Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to the Wikipedia page on "honour killing".

A woman can be the victim of an honour killing for various reasons – because she loves someone of her own choice or has a boyfriend, but also because she refuses to enter into an arranged marriage, is a rape victim, or seeks a divorce from an abusive husband, or for adultery. In many cases suspicion alone is enough to justify the killing. For example, in Jordan in 2007 a father shot his 17-year-old daughter because he suspected her of having sexual relations despite a medical examination that proved her virginity.

Deliberately ineffective laws

In the face of the reaction against honour killing among the people on a world scale, some governments such as Turkey, the Kurdish autonomous government in Iraq and Pakistan have outlawed the practice. However, for various reasons, these governments are still very lenient towards those who break this law. For example, under international pressure the Kurdish autonomous government amended the law to criminalise honour killing, but the changed laws remain on paper only, and the authorities have little or no desire to enforce them. In many cases they turn a blind eye on such murders. In the case of Doa, the local security forces made sure that the stoning went ahead without any interruption.

In some cases the youngest male members of family carry out the killing in order to get the minimum punishment. In other cases it is becoming increasingly common to force the "disgraced" woman into taking her own life.

In Batman and surrounding towns in Turkey's southern Anatolia where there has been a high number of honour killings by stoning, strangling, shooting or burying women alive, it is now often reported that young women have committed suicide.

"In the past six years, there have been 165 suicides or suicide attempts in Batman, 102 of them by women. As many as 36 women have killed themselves since the start of this year, according to the United Nations." (NYT, 16 July 2006) These suspicious cases caused the United Nation to dispatch special envoy Yakin Erturk to Turkey to investigate. The envoy "concluded that while some suicides were authentic, others appeared to be honour killings disguised as a suicide or an accident."

In Pakistan "honour killing" is supposed to be punished as murder but in practice the police and even the courts ignore it. If the killer claims that his act was to protect his honour, he will be freed. In Pakistan, like Iraqi Kurdistan, under international and national pressure a bill was introduced to punish those convicted of honour killing with sentences ranging from seven years in prison to the death penalty. However some articles of the law introduced during the U.S.-backed Zia al-Haq regime left room for the killers to buy their freedom by paying compensation to the victim's relatives. This law directly contributed to the increase in the practice of "karo-kari" in Pakistan and it remains in force today.

However, in the vast majority of cases, the killers are close relatives of the victim, so that even compensation is not required to buy pardon, and the killers go free.

In March 2005 the Pakistan government allied with Islamists to reject a bill introduced by a woman member of parliament that sought to strengthen the outlawing of "honour killing". The parliament rejected the bill by a majority vote, declaring it to be un-Islamic. (BBC, 2 March 2005). Finally the bill was approved a year later. But the practice is still widespread and its victims numerous.

The role of the governments

There is an ongoing debate on the reasons behind such anti-women actions in Pakistan, Kurdistan, Turkey and other South Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Some see the culture as the main cause and some attribute it to the dominant religion.

While there might be some truth to both of these explanations, neither gets at the whole truth and even both taken together are not quite correct if not connected to the oppression of women, the social system of patriarchy and the production (economic) relations those social relations correspond to. These forms of the oppression of women are necessary to maintain and ensure the functioning of backward feudal and semi-feudal relations of production, which in turn, in today's world, are tied up with imperialist domination.

What might have become part of the culture in fact is what serves the interests of the ruling class. Such a culture and morality have been developed and imposed on the people through centuries with the prevalence of this kind of production relations. And it is fair to believe such values are included in the laws and the interpretation of dominant religions.

Protecting patriarchal "honour" is in fact protecting a certain production relation and in the final analysis it is protecting the interests of the ruling class. It is also protecting the male domination that exists in every country of the world today, in various forms according to the dominant production relations.

It is not a surprise that Kurdish rulers, who are themselves representatives of semi-feudal and clan relations and constitute one of the pillars of US domination of Iraq, are reluctant to seriously fight against "honour killing" and are so lenient toward those who commit it.

It is not a surprise that the Pakistani government and parliament, which represent backward economic and social relations and at the same time are at the service of imperialism, have mounted so much resistance to any law that might curb such practices. And when such laws are approved under pressure, they still leave room for the perpetrators to continue committing these crimes.

Let's take a quick look at how the perpetrators and not the victims are protected by the law in places where the practice is widespread. In fact the law often explicitly protects the killers.

For example in Jordan, according to the current law, "He who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty." (From article 340 of the Penal Code) In Syrian law, "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants, descendants or sister committing adultery or illegitimate sexual acts with another and kills or injures one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty." (Article 548) Moroccan law says, "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery." (Article 418 of the Penal Code)

There are similar laws in Haiti that pardons the husband or partner who murders his wife in case of adultery. (Article 269 of the penal code) In Brazil and Colombia, up until about 20 years ago when the laws were changed, a husband was allowed to justify the murder of his wife as an 'honour killing".

In all of these countries the laws have assigned men to the role of protecting family "honour" and in fact, if not in words, have lead and encouraged them to kill women for this purpose.

In some countries like Iran and Afghanistan the practice of "honour killing" was not common or at least not widespread in the past, but has increased sharply in the last couple of decades.

In Iran, even though the law does not allow it and the religious leaders have spoken against it, the government is taking over the role of protecting family "honour" and doing the killing itself. For example, Atefeh, a teenager in northern Iran, was executed because of a relationship with a man who was abusing her. In fact being raped is officially a crime in Iran. The state went ahead with her execution despite the protests of her father and family.

There is also the well-known case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery last year. Under international pressure her sentence was changed to death by hanging instead, but the Islamic Republic is determined to punish her despite protests from her family, including her son.

These cases show that even though the families or relatives may not care about their so-called honour, the state does care and imposes its rule to ensure that families are forced to control the sexual behaviour and relationships of their female members.

The above examples are clear signs that the ruling class and its apparatus is the main body responsible for these kinds of crimes. And that this is an act designed to protect a class structure that is very much dependent on the oppression of women.

The role of religion

In the debate about "honour killing", some people argue that it originates from a particular religion: Islam. There is some evidence to support this view. For example, the practice is most common in the Middle-East and South Asian countries where Islam is the dominant religion. But at the same time there are also arguments against that view.

The practice of "honour killing" is not particular to Muslims. There are non-Muslim countries where honour killings are practised – in Brazil, before the law was overturned, in just one year nearly 800 husbands killed their wives. Also honour killing is practised in India among Hindus and Sikhs. The case of Mandeep Atwal, 17, from a Sikh family living in Canada, is only an example. Mandeep was sent to India by her family where she was murdered because she did not want to enter into an arranged marriage and loved another man.

There is also the argument that in the Qar'an and in the Hadith (stories about and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed), there is no reference to "honour killing".

Whatever arguments there might be about whether or not the practice is rooted in Islam, it is certain that Islam and other religions have been in the service of the ruling class, and wherever it has been necessary, all the religions in one way or another have promoted the practice. Even if the Qur'an does not refer to honour killing and even if some interpretations of the Qur'an might forbid it, prohibiting "honour killing" would be in sharp contradiction with the overall spirit of what Islamic laws encourage.

In fact, when a religion imposes sex segregation and decrees that women should be covered and stay behind men, when women are harshly treated by the man and the family, and when husbands are given permission to punish their wives, "honour killing" can only be considered an extension of all that.

Islam forbids sexual relationships outside marriage. Zina (adultery) is forbidden for both men and women. But at the same time men are permitted to have several wives. In some cases, under Shia Islam, they are allowed to enter into temporary marriages (Sighe- or Siqe), even for a few hours. At the same time, only women are required to be loyal to their husbands and only women are supposed to protect their chastity. Islamic laws allow men to deny women the right to a public life. Men can forbid them to leave home. So "honour killings" are indeed an extension of that spirit. Overall, while it may be true that "honour killings" did not originate from Islam, this religion has very much contributed to and promoted and even enforced the practice wherever Sharia (Islamic law) has been adopted.

To get rid of such backward and reactionary practices that takes the life of thousands of hopeful young women and represses and terrorises many more millions of women throughout the world, it is necessary to organise and fight against it. However it should be emphasised that to get rid of "honour killing" and other forms of the oppression of women, the economic and social system that produces and reproduces this oppression must be overthrown. But changing the system is not possible without struggling against the dominant reactionary ideas and behaviour. So fighting against the system and uniting with those who fight against all forms and manifestations of the oppression of women are inseparable.

It has now been a hundred years since 8 March was first declared International Women's Day. The stubborn persistence of male domination in the whole world, from the countries where it exists in the most open form – where it is considered normal and legitimate for men to have the power of life or death over ''their'' women – to the imperialist countries where it exists in disguised but no less deadly forms – is an indication of the thoroughly revolutionary and worldwide change that it will take to get rid of this evil.

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On the 14 February Iranian people's protests

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:02:38 +0100

On the 14 February Iranian people's protests

28 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. In the largest anti-regime protest in a year, on 14 February the Iranian people came to the streets once again in solidarity with the people's struggles in the Middle East. The uprising that started in June 2008 after the fraudulent presidential election had suffered a setback due to both the brutal suppression of the regime and the weaknesses of the reformist leaders.

Despite denying permission for the march, the regime could not prevent it. People coming into the streets were confronted by thousands of security forces in various uniforms and plainclothes who did all they could to prevent any assembly. At first people were confined to the sidewalks. Whenever they found the opportunity, they took over the streets chanting anti-regime slogans. The streets around Tehran University, Valiasr Square, Hafte Tir Square, Enghelab Square, Azadi Square and the whole area between the latter two squares were filled with protesters.

The slogans mainly targeted Ali Khamenei and his role as Guide and symbol of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In addition to "Death to Khamenei", other slogans reflected the influence of the struggle of people in Tunisia and Egypt. People chanted, "Ben Ali, Mubarak, now this is time for Seyed Ali" (Khamenei), "One way ticket for Seyed Ali", "Death to the dictator" and "Khamenei, Mubarak your unity Mubarak" (in Farsi, mubarak means congratulations – we congratulate your unity, meaning you are very much the same). Some of the most common slogans from last year's uprising such as "Allahu Akbar" (god is great) and expressions of support for the reformist opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi were heard much less than before.

The security forces and anti-rebellion Guards, including thousands of plainclothesmen riding on motorcycles and in cars equipped with masks, helmets and batons, were stationed at all strategic points of the city. Their mobility allowed them to chase the protesters. When people chanted slogans, they were attacked by the security forces. The people did not run away. They would alternately advance and retreat and continue their protest and chanting.

According to reports, protests broke out in other cities such as Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Rasht, Babul, Mashhad and Boushehr. This time the Tehran protests – a dozen in all are known – also took place in areas such as Jeihoun street in Hashemi, which saw little activity last year. They were also reported in Shohada (formerly Jhaleh) Square and Khorasan street, places long under the influence of the regime. Even more interestingly, Rudaki and Jeihoun streets were the scene of heavy clashes with security forces. People taught some of the security forces a lesson by beating them. Shots were fired at the demonstrators and according to some reports one of the protesters was killed in this location. A few telephone boxes were also smashed and displaced.

In Forsat street near Tehran University, the people set fire to the motorcycle of a Basiji militiaman. The Basiji van that came to his rescue was heavily damaged. To counter the tear gas, people burned rubbish bins or lit fires. In many locations, the stone-throwing fights between the youth and Basiji continued late into the night.

Two people were killed, Sane Jhaleh, a Tehran university student from the Kurdish city of Paveh, and another youth, Mohammad Mokhtari. Blundering stupidly, the regime denied murdering Sane Jhaleh. They announced that Sane was a member of Basij and hurriedly forged a membership card for him, claiming he had been killed by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (an opposition group). His family immediately denied this. His brother called the Voice of America TV station explaining that Sane had long been an opponent of the regime and had never been a member of the Basij. His brother was later arrested for making this announcement. The regime did not give Sane's body to his family and instead arranged a funeral for him as a Basij member. This pathetic act angered the people, especially many in Kurdistan.

The Islamic Republic rulers, frustrated and embarrassed by the dimension of the demonstrations, claimed there were no real protesters involved, only hooligans. Keyhan, a newspaper close to the security forces, and Khamenei announced that they numbered only around 300. Ahmad Reza Radan, the commander of the security forces, went even further, declaring there were only 150 demonstrators, while at the same time announcing that 300 had been arrested. This discrepancy made him the butt of jokes among the people. Some opposition forces announced that a million people took part in the protest. It is safe to say hundreds of thousands of people attended in Tehran and other cities.

On 20 February, in memory of the two martyred protestors, people attempted to take to the streets again. The large number security forces, including anti-riot units on motorcycles, used more force and violence than the week before. They used tear gas to disperse crowds in several places, including near Valiasr and Vanak squares. The protest spread to many more towns and cities than the previous one, especially in Kurdistan. Shops closed in some Kurdish cities, including Mahabad, Sanandaj, Bukan and Mariwan. In some Kurdish cities the protests turned into clashes with security forces.

There were reports of at least one person killed and many more injured and hundreds arrested. The arrest and expulsion of university students continued in the following days.

The regime has arrested the "Green" reformist leaders Mousavi and Medhi Karroubi, along with their wives. The latest reports from their supporters say that their whereabouts are unknown.

The people are preparing for future protests.

Excerpts from "Some Notes Regarding the Recent Protest" sent to Haghighat (newspaper of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)

14 February was an important event after nearly a one-year gap in the people's uprising. Perhaps it could be called a turning point. What caused the temporary pause in the people's movement was the damaging effect of the Green leadership and the regime's intense suppression.

During the last year the regime used everything possible to repress the people. Many were imprisoned. Newspapers and bookstores were closed. One person was executed every eight hours.

When the Tunisian and Egyptian people rose up, the silence was broken. The rays of the struggle of the people of Egypt reached Iran. People began talking about the struggle of the people in Tunisia and Egypt and comparing those struggles with their own. People finally came to the streets in large numbers.

When we say 14 February is a turning point, we can point to a number of factors: the large number of participants; the participation of people from different sections and different age groups and mostly youth; their actions and their slogans. All this shows that the people's struggle has become more daring and fearless.

The 14 February protest was glorious. It had a high degree of radicalism. Most of the slogans targeted the leader of the Islamic regime and Khamenei. These slogans in fact target the Islamic republic and are certainly at a higher level than the slogans in 2009 which were mainly aimed at Ahmadinejad. The slogan "Death to Khamenei" is like "Death to the Shah", who was also the symbol of a regime, and its aim likewise is against the whole system. This time you could hear slogans such as "Freedom, freedom, freedom" much more than "Allahu Akbar". This was a step forward compared to the uprising in 2009. This time the people were not upholding Mousavi, they were saying they don't want this regime, but in a more radical way.

There were also varying reactions to this demonstration from different sections of the people. Through the media, the imperialists are trying to impose their line on the people's struggle. They say that the people in Iran as well as Egypt do not want revolution and violence; they are only looking for reform within the existing political structure. For example, in a talk show with the German Foreign Minister, on ZDF (the German government TV channel), the presenter concluded that in Iran, Khamenei, like Mubarak, should leave but the structure should remain intact. This is also the line that BBC-Persian service and Voice of America publicize.

But the reaction of Iran's ruling power was also astonishing. Even during the most radical days of the 2009 uprising, members of Parliament had not chanted anything like now – "Death to Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami" – and they called on (regime figure) Rafsanjani to be more far-sighted and not do stupid things.

This panicked behaviour stems from great fear. In fact they might have expected or have been promised that the "sedition" was over and they could continue in the old way with their pathetic lives. However the 14 February uprising, after months of silence, ended their dream.

It was reported that Khamenei, in a meeting with the military and security commanders and the Information Minister, demanded to know why they had not been able to suppress the movement completely.

People's spirits once again are high. They are courageously and responsibly discussing and summing up their struggles. Despite the regime's threats, the people are happy and proud of their power. Once again people are talking about what they have suffered through all these years and declaring that nothing can heal their wounds unless this regime goes to its grave.

This is fascinating. It is a fertile land for revolutionary seeds.

Important issues are being discussed among the people, such as the advantages or disadvantages of some slogans. For example, regarding the slogan "We will not forgive or forget", one youth argued if someone from the security forces is in doubt and might want to leave his position and weapon and join the people, he would be put off by this slogan. Some were discussing the usual foreign media discourse that says they should wage the struggle peacefully so that the price would not be too high. Others would respond that the price of not using violence would be higher than using it. The discussions were at a higher level than last year. There seemed to be fewer illusions and more people were prepared to listen and learn.

There is no doubt that the revolutionary struggle of the people in Egypt and Tunisia has triggered a re-awakening among the Iranian people, and we should be proud of this. Whatever develops, we should understand that the oppressed people - Asians, Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Africans and Iranians – all face common enemies....

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Libya: Big powers need new monster

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:00:18 +0100

Libya: Big powers need new monster

28 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. The Western powers may have turned against Muammar al-Gaddafi, declaring him mentally unstable after discovering his unexpected political instability, but he has been their man.

He has ruled not only in their political interests, but even more basically in the interests of their finance capital and world economic system, and in turn their interests have been his. If they are ready to dump him now, it is not because his nature has changed but because he is no longer able to do the job.

Even as the US, UK and France were pushing through a UN Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo 26 February, the Libyan regime was using British-trained security forces and British-supplied armoured cars, CS tear gas, shotgun shells and mortars against demonstrators. French-built fighter aircraft were being sent to bomb rebel strongholds. Gaddafi's most trusted unit, Brigade 32 under the command of one of his sons, was using hi-tech military equipment supplied by the US arms manufacturer General Dynamics.

The world and the Libyan people are supposed to forget the sight of US President George W. Bush (and later President Barack Obama), UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warmly embracing Gaddafi, welcoming him back into their fold as if they were long-lost friends.

In the UN resolution these powers vowed to track down and freeze Libya's financial assets, as if their location were a secret or not already under their control. The bulk of Libyan funds abroad, the country's sovereign wealth fund, are managed by the JP Morgan Bank, part of Wall Street's second biggest financial institution, JPMorganChase. Since 2008, Blair, who orchestrated Gaddafi's return, has been a senior consultant to Morgan. Among the investments made on behalf of this fund are shares in the London Financial Times. The parent company owns part of Facebook; JP Morgan is currently seeking to buy into Twitter.

(For a naked description of Blair's 5 million-dollars-a-year job, see JPMorganChase.com. Blair also currently works as the unpaid special envoy for the Quartet – US, the EU, the UN and Russia – for the Middle East, where he helps oversee Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.)

The fact is that the wealth produced in Libya has mainly enriched the imperialist powers, both through the enormous profits their oil companies have reaped from the exploitation of Libyans and workers there from other Third World countries, and through the recycling of the share of that oil revenue that went through the Gaddafi regime's hands but for the most part was invested in European and American banks and companies. The riches produced in Libya are so much a part of the world capitalist system that world stock exchanges and especially the Milan bourse fell at the prospect of an interruption in this flow of fresh blood to their vampire hearts.

The UN Security Council resolution set what might be a new world record for hypocrisy.

It was revolting enough to see the Chinese regime – responsible for the Tiananmen massacre and now straining to keep out the wind of revolt from the Arab world, a government that for years has supplied cheap labour for exploitation in Libya – voting to condemn Gaddafi for repression. It was even more disgusting to see the US pressuring China and other countries to endorse a threat to bring Gaddafi regime members before the International Criminal Court, even though Washington has refused to join the ICC for fear that past, present and future American officials might be charged with crimes against humanity for their illegal wars, coups, assassinations and other violations of international law.

But even worse than the hypocrisy, the purpose of the UN resolution is not to help the Libyan people in their just cause, but to interfere in events in pursuit of the same kind of imperialist advantages that led them to support Gaddafi in the first place. Although the measure may give the Gaddafi inner circle no choice but to fight to the end, it is also a call to other regime members to jump ship and seek US protection now or face the consequences. The US is "reaching out" to last-minute defectors like Gaddafi's Justice Minister and even current members such as his long-time Interior Minister. There is reason to fear that the US is seeking to pull together some kind of new/old regime from such criminals.

While the proposals being made for imposing a no-fly zone on Libya might sound like a way to save lives, it should be remembered how such zones worked out in Iraq. The US and its allies claimed that a UN resolution gave them the authority to impose a no-fly zone in northern Iraq in the wake of the first Gulf War in 1991. Along with economic sanctions, this no-fly zone was part of the attempt to re-establish US (and British) domination in Iraq that led to the 2003 invasion.

This is not meant to argue that the US is as eager to invade Libya as it was Iraq, although it is striking that Obama officials have repeatedly said that they do not rule out anything, including what Clinton called "possible bilateral actions" (in other words, a "coalition of the willing"). American warships in the Mediterranean have been repositioned off Libya's coast. But there are major reasons why the US might prefer to avoid direct military action, including the fact that its invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have gone so badly, and the likelihood that today's newly aroused Arab people would become even further enraged by the sending of American or even European soldiers to Libya. So far, it has pretended to be above the fray.

The Iraq experience

The experience of Iraq shows that the imperialists are never concerned about anything but their own interests. In his recently-published autobiography, Blair repeated that his religion justified ignoring the opposition of the majority of the British people to participating in the US-led invasion, and stubbornly argued that even if Iraq's weapons of mass destruction turned out not to exist, still invading was the "right thing to do" because it got rid of Saddam Hussein. Yet he turned around and took personal charge of re-opening relations with Gaddafi not long after, even though Gaddafi was as much an enemy of the Libyan people then as he is now.

This is not a matter of inconsistency, but of consistently pursuing the same interests. The UK expected to benefit from the invasion of Iraq both by advancing its partnership with the US at the expense of other imperialist powers such as France, and also by reopening Iraq's oil fields for British companies, also at France's expense. In reopening relations with Libya, the UK was both acting within its overall "special relationship" with the US and also pursuing particular advantage for BP, Shell and other British companies, in competition with Italy and France.

The US UK and other powers inflicted seven years of horror on the Iraqi people in the name of establishing a "democracy", as if any government imposed by invasion and occupation could be considered democratic. Now, with all the ultimate power over Iraqi affairs that the continuing presence of 50,000 American soldiers implies, the government that occupation has produced is repressive and hated. It is a target of the people's upsurge just as much as other regimes in the region.

For instance, on 25 February large demonstrations against the Nouri Maliki government in Iraq took place from north to south, from mainly Shia Basra through the capital and north through the Sunni regions to Mosul and Kurdistan, despite the opposition of the Iranian-influenced Shia religious establishment and also despite the unprecedented level of intimidation by the US-backed regime. Just before the Iraqi "Day of Rage", modelled on the upsurge in Egypt and Tunisia, several demonstrators were murdered by the Kurdistan government that was set up under the protection of the US no-fly zone in the early 1990s.

The government responded to the planned protests by sending security forces to occupy the streets of Baghdad and other cities. Helicopters swooped down over the heads of the crowds in Baghdad's own Tahrir Square. At least 29 protesters were shot or beaten to death. Security forces attacked a TV station and burst into restaurants and other places looking for journalists. The next day they rounded up about 300 people, including prominent writers, artists, lawyers and other intellectuals. Many are known to have been tortured.

When the Islamic Republic of Iran does these things, the US condemns it. This time not only did the US stay silent, most major Western media did too. (One exception: Washington Post, 26 and 27 February)

How could whatever the US might resort to in Libya, with whatever coalition of allies and rivals it might pull together, be expected to do anything positive for the people there?

Italy and Libya: a history that's not really past

Here something has to be said about Italy: it is the power whose fangs have been sunk deepest and longest into the Libyan people's neck, and it is also the power whose prerogatives other imperialist powers would like to grab for themselves.

Italy's connections with the Gaddafi regime are so close that the two countries even signed a mutual defence pact, promising among other things to help each other maintain internal security. Berlusconi was the last Western leader to come out against Gaddafi. Then, worried that Italy might be left out of a post-Gaddafi Libya, Berlusconi suspended that pact and made it known that the US was welcome to use its naval and air bases in Italy against Libya.

Italy began extending its influence into Libya in the late nineteenth century with the connivance of France, which had pushed Italy aside in seizing Tunisia, which was then considered far more desirable booty. In 1911 Italy invaded and seized the country from the disintegrating Ottoman empire. During the war of resistance in the 1920s, the Italians are believed to have caused the deaths of a hundred thousand Libyans, about half the population of the eastern part of the country, through bombings and other military assaults and the herding of the population into desert concentration camps and penal colonies in Italy where many died.

In 1939 Italy declared its Libyan colony an integral part of Italy itself, its "fourth shore". It should be remembered that while this happened under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, Italy's policy of taking over and colonizing Libya had begun long before and was in fact a point of consensus among Italy's ruling class. Among its goals was to relieve social pressures in the countryside by sending Italian peasants to settle on stolen Libyan land – 20,000 in one convoy alone in 1938. In all more than 110,000 Italians went, eventually making up a third of the population of the capital and almost 15 percent of the Libyan population as a whole.

In this context, the fears expressed by Italy's Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa that Italy might face an influx of Libyan refugees of "Biblical proportions" shows that even a secondary imperialist power can rival the others in hypocrisy. The Italian government is now complaining about the prospect that some of those whom Mussolini once labelled "Muslim Italians" might seek shelter in what was once declared their country, whether they liked it or not.

But this is not just a question of historical justice. Italian and in fact imperialist capital in general have continued to dominate Libya without interruption, although not smoothly and not always in the ways the imperialist powers might have preferred.

Gaddafi's "Green Revolution"

With the defeat of the Axis powers in World War 2, France and Britain took charge of Italy's former colony. Following Libya's formal independence in 1951, when power was passed to King Idris, the UK and US each set up strategic military bases.

The opening of enormous oil fields in the 1950s was to change the country completely. The 27-year-old army captain Gaddafi, along with a handful of other lightly armed officers, overthrew the king in 1969. While the history of what Gaddafi called his "Green (Islamic) Revolution" is complex and needs analysis in its own right, the basic plan was to build up a political structure that could oppose the imperialist powers by nationalising oil and selling it to them instead of just letting them take it on their own terms.

Instead of freeing the country from imperialist domination, however, this dependence on the imperialist world market generally limited Libya's ability to oppose imperialism to futile proclamations and reactionary gestures such as bombing airliners and other civilian targets.

The rising price of oil in the 1970s actually propelled Libya's further enslavement to imperialism in the economic realm. Plans for agrarian reform and other developmental measures took a back seat to the perceived need to funnel resources into increasing the country's oil and natural gas production instead. From an agricultural exporting country that had not needed to sell oil to feed itself from before Roman times to the late 1960s, Libya moved toward its situation today, where it is almost entirely dependent on imports for everything. (Whether or not Libya could sustain its present population without imported food is debatable, but the huge growth of the native population, along with the large presence of foreign workers, amounting to almost 20 percent of the country's residents, are almost entirely linked to oil, gas and related industries.)

Further, oil and gas are not one-off investments. Selling them competitively on the world market requires constant infusions of capital to expand production and improve productivity and infrastructure, even for a country like Libya with the natural advantage of pumping crude oil that is exceptionally cheap to refine.

The process through which Libya came back into the arms of the US and UK during the course of the 1990s was not a smooth one, and again deserves more analysis than possible here. Among the factors whose role needs to be better understood are the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the stepped-up US and British sanctions and falling oil prices. One decisive moment came in an outstanding example of Gaddafi's signature combination of "anti-imperialist" rhetoric and reactionary deeds, when in 1995, supposedly as a punishment for the PLO's compromises with Israel in the Oslo Accords, he declared that all of Libya's large population of Palestinian refugees had to leave overnight and walk home if necessary. Although in the end some remained, many thousands were dumped over the Egyptian border or put aboard ships that spent weeks at sea because no country would take them in.

By 1999 Libya and the UK restored relations. It seems that Britain was especially anxious not to let Italy alone enjoy feasting off Libya. By 2004, Blair was making the first of several trips to shake Gaddafi's hand, sign trade deals and sell the Libyan regime the arms Gaddafi is using today.

Ongoing secret US-Libyan negotiations came out into the open after 11 September 2001, when Gaddafi publicly said that he wanted to enlist in the "war on terror" and put his intelligence (and torture) services at the disposal of the US. For Gaddafi, 9/11 represented both an opportunity and a confluence of interests with the US, since the kind of Sufi Islam on which his regime has drawn its authority is hated by Sunni fundamentalists of the Bin Laden (and Saudi) variety, who have threatened his regime. The years of talks and step by step rapprochement finally came to maturity in 2003, when the "Lion of the Desert" was said to be terrified by what the US did to Saddam Hussein.

It should be noted that for all Gaddafi's attempts to identify himself with the original "Lion of the Desert", the leader of the war against Italy Umar al-Mukhtar, he never broke with Italian capital. ENI, the Italian state oil and gas company, never ceased operations in Libya. In fact, the economies of the two countries became increasingly intertwined. Italy's dominant position in Libya was formalized at a 2008 meeting in Gaddafi's tent where Berlusconi and he signed a treaty purported to compensate Libya for the harm Italy had done to it.

This was another example of a Gaddafi gesture whose real content was the opposite of what it was said to be. Italy promised to pay Libya 5 billion dollars in reparations. But this money was actually to come from the exploitation of workers in Libya and further plundering of its resources, since its source was a tax on the (greatly increased) Italian share of Libyan hydrocarbons. Further, all of it was to be spent on hiring Italian contractors and buying Italian machinery and other imports, exclusively for infrastructure projects to be defined by the two countries. This meant building and upgrading roads, pipelines, docks and so on to facilitate Libya's dependence on exports and imports – again, to the profit of Italy.

In short, these "reparations" were to be the kind of "tied aid" that the US, for example, uses to reap yet greater profits in the name of "foreign assistance" – tying Libya more tightly to Italy in the name of "anti-colonialism". (See "Assessing Italy's Gran Gesto to Libya", Claudia Gazzini, Merip.org)

This assignment of much of Libya's known oil and gas reserves to Italy for the next decades has undoubtedly been a factor in spurring the UK to make its own moves, especially by buying rights to exploration for new fields that promise far greater wealth – bait which of course has been irresistible to the Gaddafi regime.

It is extremely important to note the relationship between politics and economics here. The "Libyan model" of seeking to tweak the imperialists' nose politically while maintaining dependence on the imperialist world market eventually collapsed. In the end, Gaddafi was not able (and ceased to even try) to exercise political independence from imperialism. At the same time, the imperialist powers were obliged, because of their general and particular (rival) interests, to make do with the political superstructure Gaddafi had built and adopt it as their own instrument for the domination of Libya.

Ironically, despite Gaddafi's flaming rhetoric, it has been principally the Libyan people and not the imperialist powers that have brought him face to face with the same ignominious end as heads of historically client regimes like Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali.

Looking for advantage amidst turmoil

As British journalist Robert Fisk wrote, right now it is the people and not the US who are the "shock and awe" factor in the Middle East. But in Tunisia, the imperialists and probably the US were able to take advantage of the existence of an imperialist-trained and dependent army to pull the plug on Ben Ali in time to preserve some elements of the old regime. In Egypt, the army has long been the US's key asset. In both countries, the old tyrant did not need to make a last stand; he could just shuffle off to retirement. The absence of any imperialist "Plan B" in Libya helps explain why the struggle there has been so bloody from the start.

None of these factors ensure continued imperialist control against the newly aroused and increasingly politically sophisticated mass movements, as the forced resignation of the Tunisian prime minister and the continuing face-off between protesters and the security forces in both countries attest.

But the US has even less to work with in Libya. The US and other imperialists have had very little contact with the Libyan military, or any other sector of Libyan society. In fact, it seems that the military is very weak compared to the militias, special brigades and other security forces personally led by Gaddafi family members. There certainly seems to be a major section of the population whose loyalty has been bought with privileges. Gaddafi was not just raving when he declared that Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt.

There is also the factor of the broader situation: while the US has far fewer direct economic interests at play in Libya than elsewhere, the last thing it needs is escalating uncertainty and possibly popular upheaval in between Egypt and Tunisia. Especially not in the midst of a region whose present instability is matched only by its strategic importance to the whole US-dominated world order.

This is the light in which we should judge the big powers' reaction to the situation caused by the people's uprising, and their attempts to continue dominating Libya amidst this splendid turmoil.

– end item-

On the lifting of subsidies in Iran

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:55:27 +0100

AWorldToWinNewsService

On the lifting of subsidies in Iran

A World to Win News Service. 21 February 2011. After years of discussion and controversy in Iran's ruling class about the lifting of subsidies on electricity, fuel, water and other basic needs of the people, this measure was finally implemented by the government at the end of 2010.

The price of petrol increased by 600 percent, and the price of diesel fuel was multiplied by 22. The price of petrol went up 7.5 times. The price of electricity increased depending on consumption, so for the average consumption of 200- 400 KWh per month families will have to pay five times more than before, and those who consume more than 600 Kwh will see their bills jump by up to 12 times. There are 16 items subjected to price increases. They represent the most basic needs of the masses, including water, wheat (bread), sugar, rice and cooking oil, as well as petrol, diesel fuel and naptha (for cooking and heating), and electricity.

A much milder bill had been introduced to the Iranian parliament during the Mohammad Khatami presidency, but the conservative-dominated parliament refused to approve it, partly out of concern about the social consequences and partly because of factional contention. So the bill was abandoned until Mahmoud Ahamadinejad re-introduced it toward the end of his first term as president. However parliament, still in the hands of Ahmadinejad allies and concerned about possible unrest, refused to sign the bill. It was still under discussion and investigation during the presidential election in 2009, when the uprising that followed disrupted the process. The issue was left unresolved.

At the first opportunity Ahamadinejad introduced the bill yet again. After months of conflict in which parliament imposed some changes, it was finally approved and became law in March 2010.

The conflict between the government and parliament caused the intervention of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Guide. In fact, all factions within the regime – the parliament, the top clergy, including the Khamenei faction, the Expediency Council under Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and the Council of Guardians under Ayatollah Ahmad Janati – emphasised the necessity of lifting the subsidies and declared that this was not an option but a must for the Islamic regime. Even the reformist factions of the regime, particularly those led by Houssein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami, did not oppose the bill but only its timing and pace. They warned that it could give rise to "blind rebellion".

One of the main centres of the bureaucrat bourgeoisie is the economic wing of the Sepah-e-Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). During the last few years it has monopolised the most profitable and most sensitive branches of the country's economy.

The main changes that parliament imposed on the bill was to slow the implementation process. The law of "purposeful (focused) subsidies" approved by the parliament and the Council of Guardians in January 2010 says that "the local price of petrol, oil, white oil, natural gas and all other petroleum products… should increase gradually so that by the end of the five year development plan prices must not be less than 90 percent of the export price."

The hypocrisy of the Islamic regime

There is no doubt that the vulnerable sections of society will suffer tremendously from the subsidy cuts.

But Ahmadinejad claims that he introduced this policy to help the poor. He argues that most of the subsidies have benefited the better-off section of the people. By ending these price subsidies, he says, the money saved can be distributed among the poor instead, as "focused subsidies". He said, "Why should 70 percent of the subsidies serve 30 percent of society? If the new plan is implemented we will not find even one poor person anywhere in Iran.” (BBC Website, 3 September 2010)

In fact Ahmadinejad not only tries to hide the real outcome of this policy for the masses but also goes further and calls it "justice". Ahmadinejad is trying to deceive his audience. The government will pay people $40 to compensate them for the $80 more a month to be extorted from them by increasing prices for fuel, electricity and other basic needs.

In fact what Ahmadinejad is trying to sell as a plan for justice and the elimination of poverty with an Islamic or Iranian brand is the same kind of plan that has been imposed on third world countries by the U.S. and its imperialist allies. It is another version of the "Washington Consensus" formulated in the mid-1980s by the World Bank, IMF and other imperialist financial institutions and dictated to India, Egypt, Brazil, Tunisia, Jordan and other countries.

As Haghighat, the publication of the Communist Part of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) wrote in issue 53, "Besides the massive increase in poverty due to the sudden increases in daily expenses, the internal economy in the cities and countryside will suffer another big blow because oil and gas are key inputs. So we will witness another round of the collapse of small factories, one of the biggest austerity measures and destruction of economic structures in the recent history of Iran, and it will cause major displacements in the economic and social geography of the country."

Some regime leaders have warned about the period of austerity ahead. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the head of the regime's Basij militia, said, "Those who might be vulnerable to the subsidy reforms when it is first implemented should make an effort to show more tolerance and patience so they can taste the sweet fruits of this law after this stage is over." (Mehr News Agency, 28 October 2010)

Ayatollah Janati, who holds a high-ranking post in the Council of Guardians and was the Imam leading Friday prayers on 17 September 2010 said, "Implementing the subsidy reform law will certainly result in some tensions that the government must minimize, just as it must also minimize the damage to the deprived section. But certainly we are in a period of semi-austerity. We should ask god to help us. Otherwise, if it is not god's will to help, nobody can do anything." (Friday Pray in Tehran, 17 September 2010)

Unlike Ahmadinejad's nonsense, these comments by some of the most reactionary elements of the regime show that they know what they are doing and where the social consequences could lead. Further, they are well aware that their deceitful measures might not work, so they warn the masses not to protest.

Ahmadinejad, from the very first day, warned about those who want to "harm" the implementation of this law. He said, "If anybody sees someone trying to sabotage the market with rumours, he or she should be handed over to the authorities.” (BBC Website, 5 October 2010)

Ahamd Reza Radan, one commander of the security forces, said, "There are some people who want sedition, but they should know that the police will stand by the government with all their power."

Brigadier-General Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, the top commander of the security forces, said, "Today sedition is continuing in other forms, such as economic forms, and there is a possibility that some people intend to organise strikes here or there and close down some workplaces. But the security forces can overcome all these centres of sedition."

A member of Parliament, Ezatollah Yousefi, even demanded the execution of those who disrupt the implementation of the law. He said implementing the "focused subsidies plan is tied to the existence of the economic well-being of the system." (BBC Persian service, 5 December 2010)

Who benefits?

Haghighat believes that the aim of the "focused subsidies" is to create a concentration of capital to invest in oil and non-oil sectors of the economy. This concentration will be the product of two processes: the limiting of oil and gas consumption in Iran so as to maximize exports, and the increased draining of the people's income by selling them oil and gas at international market prices.

In fact what is implemented by this "focused subsidies" law is an important part of the kind of package that goes along with that dictated by imperialist financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF for the third world countries in order to facilitate the flood of capital and ensure the profitability of capital when invested in those countries. Such an approach has taken place on a global scale in the last few decades and many countries have been the victims of such programmes implemented by the local rulers.

Ahmadinejad's justification that the subsidies should be eliminated because the well-off are the main beneficiaries has been rejected as baseless even by the Iranian parliament's research centre. It is the middle strata and lower classes who benefit most from subsidies because they are the biggest users of public services and spend the largest proportion of their incomes on most basic needs such as bread, tea and sugar.

According to one IMF expert relating to Iran, the government once argued that subsidies were the best way to distribute national wealth. He says that when oil prices were low, this was less of an issue. Now that prices have surged to almost $150 a barrel he suggests they end the subsidies and sell at market prices. This means the amount of money through sales locally and internationally that would go into government coffers is substantial.

In fact this is what Ahmadinejad is doing. The Iranian bourgeoisie wants a bigger share of the spoils. IMF dictates to end the subsidies coincide with the desires of the regime.

This neo-liberal economic reform started around 1987, after the Iran- Iraq war when Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani became president.

"In that chapter of 'moderating the economic structure' of the country, Sepah-e-Pasdaran Generals, the Grand Ayatollahs and 'their dear sons' converted themselves into the owners of industry and the land and tall buildings, and became the shareholders of the big American, European and Korean multinational companies. The share received by the displaced villagers were the slums, slavery and productions lines, and the search for work in the city centres." (Haghighat)

In today's new chapter of these economic changes, lifting the subsidies is at the centre but there are other aspects also. For example, the government has committed itself to allocating 20 percent of the money saved from eliminating subsidies for reconstruction of infrastructure. However, the infrastructure involved is likely to be sections that would facilitate the transport of the foreign capital, things the Shah had started in 1960s. Also, 30 percent of that income would be allocated to "vulnerable industries" harmed by the lifting of subsidies. But as some of the high ranking officials have hinted, this financial assistance will be conditioned on enterprises modernising their machinery and introducing new technology to increase their competitiveness. The main beneficiaries would be those plants that rely on high technology and not small manufacturers and workshops.

At the same time the regime has committed itself to trimming the government and corporate bureaucracy to make them more efficient. These all are part of a neo-liberal approach to development as advocated by the World Bank, the IMF and the "Washington Consensus" that will mainly benefit the global capitalist network and partly the ruling class at the direct cost of the large majority of the people.

The policies dictated by the imperialists through their financial institutions have failed to eliminate poverty as it claims; and instead the results have been disastrous for the masses. Skyrocketing inflation, rising unemployment, currency devaluations, the growth of export-oriented agriculture and industry, the increasing importation of basic necessities and luxury goods as well, and the destruction of the national economy, have all given rise to the increasing misery and suffering of the people in many countries. The main beneficiaries of these policies are imperialist finance capital and the native bourgeois bureaucrats who sell out the country and facilitate the imperialists plundering investments.

Islamic regime economically at a dead end

Why is the Islamic regime, despite repeated anti-Western slogans and especially when faced with US-led international economic sanctions, going after a risky programme that has already failed in many countries?

The answer is simple: they are at a dead end and deep in a crisis. The Iranian bureaucrat bourgeoisie can no longer continue in the old way.

The Islamic Republic cannot escape the dictates of the international circuits of capital and needs to adopt these economic measures. For instance, it must allocate more capital to its petroleum industry, where productivity does not meet international capitalist standards precisely because of a lack of new investment. Thus, as the Haghighat article quote above emphasizes, the regime faces an increased need to rob the masses to meet capital's dictates.

In fact the Islamic bourgeois bureaucrats in power have reached their limit and know well that their wealth can grow no further without the help of imperialist capital and are willing to go along with World Bank/IMF dictates, even though they will not admit it publicly.

The Iranian government gained $260 billions in 2007-8 just from rising oil prices. The government considered it cheaper and more efficient to import many items of basic necessity like wheat, rice and tea and goods like household appliances. The profits from this trade spurred the growth of some bureaucrat capitalists, mainly those connected to the ruling power gangs. Farmers cultivating rice and tea in the country could not compete with the imports and most of them were shattered.

By cutting subsidies the government hopes that this will help it be admitted into the WTO (World Trade Organisation). It has applied and been turned down several times before. The bureaucrat capitalists love loans from abroad and will benefit directly or indirectly from them. However this will lead even further to the subjugation of Iran to imperialist capital, as experience elsewhere shows.

-end item-

Corrections

In our 14 February 2011 news service article in Egypt, we incorrectly referred to the head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen as a general. He is an admiral.

On the state of emergency in Egypt, we incorrectly said it began after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1952. It has been in force since 1967, with an 18-month interruption in 1980-81.

Egypt: Some background to today's revolt

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:52:35 +0100

AWorldToWinNewsService
Egypt: Some background to today's revolt

A World to Win News Service. 21 February 2011. Following are excerpts from an interview by AWTWNS with Ray Bush, Professor in African Studies and Development Politics in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds (UK).

- Could you tell our readers something about the nature of the Egyptian military, its role in Egypt, in the region, and its relationship to the U.S. and other Western powers?

There is much rhetoric about the demonstrators and the army being "hand in hand". It may well be that the foot soldiers know and understand the need for change and identify strongly with the demonstrators. However, the military itself is deeply and inextricably linked to and underpins the Mubarak regime. The $1.3 billion [from the U.S. yearly] has mostly kept the military happy with their guns and technology, yet they have actually been kept most quiet by feeding at the trough of capital accumulation.

They have done this by being entrepreneurs, industrialists and real estate managers. The military is involved in production of commodities – from toasters to shopping malls and development of desert land. It might be that they have become impatient with the declared neo-liberal zeal of Gamal Mubarak [one of President Hosni Mubarak's sons and until now chosen successor] and they did not want him to inherit the presidency. They didn’t want this as they feared even Gamal’s limited neo-liberalism would penalise the cronyism of the military economic adventures, and therefore they have seen a good opening to clip the wings of Gamal and those who have toyed with a privatisation that might undermine their "unfair" economic interventions. The point is that the military are at the core of the regime and of the economic system that underpins it and these issues will need to be resolved in any transition arrangements.

- It seems that the revolt against the Mubarak regime has won the support of broad strata in Egyptian society. What do you think accounts for this?

There are three reasons why this has happened. The first is the long-term structural attacks on the living standards of the poor that have been driven by economic reform since 1991 that started in 1987 in the countryside. Despite sustained levels of economic growth there has not been any "trickle" down alleviating poverty. About 40 percent of the population live on less than $2 per day (but some people have actually said that 80 percent live on less than $2, which would make people poorer than Zimbabweans).

The medium term is the upsurge in working class (and farmer) unrest. Driven by unofficial trades unions since mid 2000s – between 1998-2010 there were more than 2,000 workers' collective actions, especially after the Nazif "liberalising" government from 2004.

And finally the street demonstrators, the incredible sacrifice of Egyptians killed by security forces in the opening days of protest, many assembling to mark and rebel against the security forces guilty of killing Khalid Said murdered on 6 June 2010 [when he was dragged out of an Internet café and beaten to death].

- Could you say a few things about the way that Western imperialism has shaped Egyptian society, and the economy in particular - I heard on BBC that Egypt is now the world's largest importer of wheat? How did this come about in the country with the fertile Nile delta?

Imperialism has always been keen to ensure the Suez Canal and links with Israel are stable. Additionally the large labour force is a potentially enormous source of cheap labour. [Egyptian workers abroad] have at different times been crucial in the development of the industrial and petroleum sectors in the wider region.

The underdevelopment of Egyptian agriculture relates to decades of impoverishment and neglect and since law 96 of 1992 the changes in land tenure of tenants to whom Nasser had given rights to the land in perpetuity.

Farmer struggles have been largely undocumented and downplayed, yet rural violence is systemic and systematically applied to dissenters. Between 1998-2000 there were more than 100 deaths and in 2010 between Jan-May alone there were 116 killed in rural conflicts. Rural conflicts relate to struggles over access to land and also demarcation disputes and struggles over irrigation.

After law 96 of 1992, all land ownership was politicised in a way unheard of since 1952 and relatives of landlords dispossessed by Nasser have returned in many locations to claim back land that they argue is "their land". This has led to court battles, and battles with police and thugs employed by old landed elites. [These attempts by the old landed elites] are being met by opposition in villages, by women challenging authority and by support for farmer resistance from urban intellectuals.

Egypt cannot be ignored as a powerful state . One out of four Arabs is Egyptian and what happens there will have demonstration and other impacts on the broader Middle East. The problem the West has is the need they see to establish a "stable" transition but not being seen to determine the outcome of that transition. The West's links with [Mubarak's Vice President and now de facto head of state Omar] Suleiman are key here, as he is implicated in links with U.S. security over many years.

- end item-

Egypt: a great victory won, more to be done

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:51:22 +0100

AWorldToWinNewsService
Egypt: a great victory won, more to be done

14 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. The Egyptian people have accomplished something great. They are to be congratulated, admired and emulated. They have earned the right to a mighty celebration. Everywhere people are happy for them and for what their achievement may mean for the today's intolerable order in the region and the globe.

In a word, they have made their voices and their lives count. Because this is real, not just rhetoric, it has consequences:

- They have brought down a tyrant whose rule has been a pillar of American domination of the Middle East, the dispossession of the Palestinian people, the enslavement of Egypt to alien interests and the robbery and humiliation of its people.

- In the course of a few weeks, they have awoken to political life and surged onto the political stage in their millions, breaking the chains of hopelessness and cynicism that have held them and too many of the world's people captive.

- They have truly taken the initiative in their hands, creating a situation all too rare in today's world, one where events have been driven mainly by the struggle of the people and not the manoeuvring of reactionaries.

This has demonstrated a truth that far fewer people would have been able to see only a short time ago: that even in a region where the status quo has seemed as eternal as it is hated, the reactionaries big and small are not necessarily the masters of people's fate. Their power depends on guns, deception and the people's passivity, and now that the people have been able to shake that power mightily, we can all more clearly see how it might be possible to go even further.

In addition to revealing the weaknesses of the rulers, the Egyptian movement has also revealed something often hidden about the people themselves: their ability to transform themselves as they transform the world around them.

Without exaggerating what can be done in a few days in a few square blocks of one city, the people massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square gave themselves and the world at least a glimpse of another kind of society.

The square was once the location of a British colonial barracks. Later it was surrounded by vast buildings symbolizing the country's continuing foreign domination and the cement-worshiping, soulless might of a regime that has been foreign capital's greedy local partner. Once a venue for protests, its roundabout and roads were redesigned to exclude strollers and crowds.

But in the course of 18 days, it became a place where people demonstrated their determination to end oppression and their willingness to take risks and make sacrifices with no thought to personal reward, beginning to cherish and take responsibility for not just their own families but brothers and sisters near and far, and finding themselves able to make more individual contributions to collective strength than they every might have thought possible.

As one demonstrator told a reporter, in Tahrir Square she had a taste of the kind of society people want to live in.

Now that the door to the future has been forced ajar, extremely powerful forces are conspiring to slam it tightly shut again.

Chief among them are the imperialist powers, especially the U.S., along with the UK, Germany, France, Italy and other countries whose rulers have fattened off the looting of the countries they dominate and the exploitation of their peoples. Like Washington and London, Peking has emphasised its desire for “stability and normal order”, not change, in Egypt. (AP, 12 February)

Although imperialist hands are often all but unseen in Egypt, their grip extends throughout that society.

Economically, what Egypt produces, and how, is determined by the imperialist-dominated world market and ultimately by the interests of imperialist capital. That is why an exceptionally fertile country with a favourable climate and plentiful water went from being self-sufficient to becoming dependent on imported food, and why 40 percent of its population can barely eat even as others grow obscenely wealthy. The very so-called prosperity that Egypt has undergone in the last decade has meant ruin for many people, while the countryside has stagnated or worse and the capital has become swollen with millions of former peasants hungry for any work. Selling tourist trinkets and services has replaced any project to build up the country. One of Egypt's main sources of income has become the ten percent of its workforce who labour abroad. Educated youth and intellectuals are unable to find any permanent employment, let alone make the kind of contribution to their country's needs that could bring fulfilment.

Why, in a potentially agriculturally rich country with developed industry, one whose people have shown their desire to take care of one another, are there 50,000 children living and starving on the streets of Cairo alone?

The people's misery has been a source of wealth for some. This is not just a matter of corruption, although there has been plenty of it. The "normal workings" of capitalism in this country dominated by foreign capital have enriched the classes most closely associated with that capital, the owners of the banks and big businesses – often monopolies in their field – closely tied to foreign investment and the world market.

This economic set-up has political representatives to enforce it.

For more than half a century, the chief representative of foreign capital has been the army. The army overthrew the monarchy in 1952, bringing an end to British domination, and for several decades starting in the mid-1950s tied its fortunes to the USSR, then emerging as a social-imperialist (socialist in words, imperialist in facts) rival to the U.S.-led bloc. While the U.S. was happy to see the weakening of British influence in Egypt, it worked to make the Egyptian army an instrument of its own political domination.

For the last three decades Egypt's senior officers have been systematically trained at the National Defense University in Washington and have been in frequent contact with their U.S. counterparts. Over this period the U.S. has handed over a total of $40 billion to the Egyptian military, which ranks second only to Israel as a long-term recipient of the "aid" money the U.S. spends to protect its strategic interests.

This is not just a matter of buying influence, but of shared interests. The Egyptian armed forces directly own a significant section of the country's factories and other enterprises and real estate. Other huge state companies in industries such as textile and petroleum are run by ex-generals. The military is not just the backbone of the state, as it is in every country; it is also a key player in the country's imperialist-dependent economy.

At the same time, while the armed forces have been Hosni Mubarak's political base, his family has used their political position to extend their influence through the private sector and help it expand. These private-sector oligarchs are in their own way also dependent on the state, but friction has broken out between them and some armed forces leaders.

No one can deny that the U.S. kept Mubarak in power for three decades, even though some people in the Obama administration are now trying to blame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and not the president for the embarrassing fact that the U.S. tried to cling to him until his next-to-last day. (The New York Times, 14 February 2011) Now it seems that even General Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's right-hand man and eleventh-hour Vice President, the man Washington officials publicly named as their second choice if Mubarak became unsustainable, may have become so closely associated with Mubarak's refusal to resign that he, too, has become politically unviable. But as Egyptians said when they heard rumours that Mubarak is dying, the dead have long ruled Egypt.

When it comes to those who represent the dead hand of the past squeezing the living, the U.S. can still count on the Egyptian armed forces. Mubarak personally appointed his generals and had the power to determine the composition of the entire officer corps. (Some people think that because 40 percent of soldiers are conscripts, the Egyptian army as an institution is "one hand with the people". Actually, the wall between officers and the rank and file is even more impervious in Egypt than most countries.)

Mubarak made the head of the Armed Forces Supreme Council now running the country, Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawi, Defence Minister in 2008, and also handed him the portfolio for the Ministry of Military Production – two posts he continues to hold. This makes Tantawi not only head of the military but also the country's chief CEO. His commitment to U.S. domination of the army, the country and the region is attested to not only by the praise U.S. officials are heaping on him by name, but by the fact that in 1991, he was head of the Egyptian forces that fought side by side with the American invaders against the Iraqi people.

(In this regard, nothing says more about American political goals in the Middle East and the world than the fact that the U.S. sent its troops to remove Saddam Hussein, but for decades did not even publicly criticise Mubarak, a bloodthirsty tyrant as hated as Saddam, and generally like his Iraqi cousin in every way but one – Saddam displeased the U.S.)

An analyst for the Whitehall think-tank Royal United Services Institute, Shashank Josji, concluded, Tantawi "embodies the reactionary forces still embedded at the heart of a regime that may have shed its figurehead but not its essence." (BBC, 12 February 2011)

A 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable made public thanks to WikiLeaks calls Tantawi "Mubarak's poodle", but the truth is that right now he is Washington's lead dog in Egypt.

As for the Supreme Military Council's second in command, armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Sami Enan, while he is less known to the public and not as closely associated with Mubarak, he is definitely a favourite of General Mike Mullen. During the recent upheaval, the chief of staff of the American armed forces has frequently taken time out from overseeing the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to call Enan, despite the Obama government's supposed non-interference in Egyptian affairs. In a podcast distributed to U.S. service members, Mullen expresses great confidence in Enan. "We've had a very strong relationship with the Egyptian military for decades," the American general said. "And as I look to the future, I certainly look to that to continue." (U.S. Department of Defense Website)

Even if we didn't know these men by their friends, we would know them by their works. Along with suspending the now-irrelevant constitution that assured Mubarak's political future, dissolving the completely discredited parliament Mubarak had stuffed with members of his own party (who are resigning by the thousands to set up a new party) and declaring itself in charge, the military Supreme Council's first acts were to ratify Egypt's shameful alliance with Israel – following the explicit public demand of an Obama spokesman – and approve the cabinet that Mubarak himself had appointed, headed by Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, the head of the air force like Mubarak once was.

Immediately after the military council declared itself the supreme authority, Tantawi met with the once and future Central Bank Governor, Justice Minister and head of the Constitutional Court, and then chatted on the phone with his Zionist counterpart, Israeli Defence Minister and chief Palestinian-killer Ehud Barak. The old/new Finance Minister, Samir Radwan, announced that there would be "no change" in government economic policies.

As if this weren't enough proof that the military is determined to act as the guarantor of the continuity of the country's political and economic structures, its first actions on the ground were to use a combination of cajoling and bullying in an attempt to clear protesters out of Tahrir Square, and to threaten to ban strikes by the independent labour unions and professional associations that have broken free of government control.

Still a lot of rubbish to be removed

It's a good thing that the Egyptian people have shown their strength and determination, because they still have a lot of work to do.

They face political battles in the coming days that could be decisive, not in the sense that winning them would mean the final defeat of a whole filthy power structure and the kind of society it represents, but in that the immediate question is whether or not the forces of order are going to be able to stuff the genie back in the bottle. The movement must not loose its momentum and the initiative it has gained at the cost of such sacrifice.

There are additional immediate victories needed to survive and go forward.

Right now the question is posed of "stability" versus "instability". For the enemies of the people, "stability" is defined above all not by preventing looting, meeting people's immediate needs and cleaning up the rubble, but by the Supreme Council's repeated call that the crowds should stop making demands and go home.

That kind of "stability" would mean the end of the kind of fearless and vibrant political debate that the people have always been denied until now. It would mean an end to people meeting in voluntary forms of organisation to take collective decisions and enforce their will. The people need the streets and the square, and they are furious with the continuation of the state of emergency that has been in force with only a short interruption since the monarchy was overthrown. So far Tantawi has adopted the same hypocritical excuses made by Mubarak and then Suleiman – any consideration of dropping the state of emergency law must come later, after calm is restored. In other words, first shut up and then we'll see about your right to speak.

The emergency law is no mere formality. The military is still detaining people without charges, and in some cases torturing them. Human Rights Watch reported that they were aware of at least 119 people detained without charges by the army and the military police between the night of 28 January, when the military moved to replace the regular police, and the time Mubarak resigned. The Guardian wrote that according to testimony it has gathered, the military detained “thousands” during the three weeks of upheaval.

As part of their test of strength with remaining forces of the old regime, the people are demanding the punishment of government officials and security forces who shed the people's blood, starting with those responsible for the murder of Khaled Said. Last June the police pulled that Alexandria youth out of a cyber café and beat him to death on the spot. That murder inspired the "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page that helped initiate what some Egyptians are calling "the revolution of dignity".

The importance of whether or not security forces pay for their crimes can be seen in the way this issue is still being fought out in demonstrations and violent repression in Tunisia, where clearly it has more to do with the future than the past. The current struggle in that country a month after the ouster of the Ben Ali regime shows another factor just beginning to make itself felt in Egypt: some social classes tend to be satisfied now that the tyrant is gone, while many basic masses are thirstier than ever for the kind of basic change in their lives that the still-standing system can't offer. Other major immediate issues will certainly take shape shortly. In the course of these battles the people can build their understanding, organization and strength.

It is particularly important that the people do not let themselves be fooled – and not fool themselves – with the illusion that they can wield power and obtain freedom through referendums and elections. If the military really does organize new elections and fulfils its promises to hand over government to some civilians, it will be for the purpose of demobilizing the people, driving them off the political stage and robbing them of their initiative. The purpose would be to "stabilize" the real power, the dictatorship of imperialism's local partners, with the army as their core and defender, no matter what kind of suit the prime minister and cabinet members wear.

In getting rid of Mubarak, the people have inflicted a serious blow to the power structure. The U.S. and the Egyptian military tried their best to hang on to him not because their domination depended on any individual but because the people driving him out creates a dangerous and unstable situation for these rulers.

For decades the army has mainly been able to hide its fist by outsourcing most of the day-to-day work of arrests and torture to the police, and even managed to stay out of the political limelight as an institution, despite Mubarak's military base and the role of the generals. It has benefited from the popular illusions this has made possible and people's confusion about the role of the army historically due to its role in driving out the British and defending the country against Israel. It has also benefited from people's hope for some other solution other than going up against an army, especially, although not only, because they don't as yet have an army of their own.

But now, against its will and against the hopes of the masters of empire, the army has had to move to the front lines politically, and if it uses the old police, the military police or any other armed body against the people, it will squander a vital part of its political capital. This is not a good situation for the people's enemies.

In the course of fighting the immediate battles, those who most want to see Egypt freed and especially those who hate all forms of oppression and exploitation have to confront the deep causes for the misery of the country and its people and for the criminal state of the world as a whole. They need to study the experience of revolution, both the failure of so many countries to achieve liberation after the fall of their own Mubaraks, and especially the communist-led Russian and Chinese revolutions which, despite shortcomings and eventual defeat, demonstrated the possibility of moving toward breaking free of world imperialism as part of a global revolutionary movement aimed at the liberation of all humanity.

Experience has shown that real revolution is very difficult, but it has also shown that nothing else has even a chance, in the long run, of beating back the forces seeking to "stabilise" everything Egyptians hate and breaking through to the future glimpsed, if only partially and briefly, during the days and nights of combat and solidarity, great pain and great joy, in Tahrir Square.

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"The 'grand' – and deadly – illusion"

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:46:27 +0100

"The 'grand' – and deadly – illusion"

7 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from an article in the issued dated 6 February 2011 of Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. For the full text and other materials: www.revcom.us

"The army is with us!"

When a struggle gets to the point where state power itself comes into play, this cry almost always goes up among the people. Usually this happens when things are on a precipice, when things feel far out on a limb: the old power no longer has enough legitimacy to rule, but those forces who want really fundamental change lack the understanding, organization, and/or support to take power themselves. Meanwhile, the army senses, or is told, that the old governing force has outlived its usefulness to the actual powers-that-be. At that point, some “hero” from the army emerges who claims to listen to the people. And the people then flock under his wing.

It is not hard to see why this sentiment would spontaneously emerge. It is very hard for the people, even a revolutionary people, to overcome the violent repressive force of an army – even a poorly organized one, let alone a modern, fully equipped one. It would be easier if the army, or a section of the army, would "come over" to the people's side. Even more to the point, people do not spontaneously understand the real nature of things, they do not spontaneously penetrate beneath the appearance of things to get to their essence. Thus, if the army has not previously been used against the people, or if someone emerges from the army promising to make reforms, and people do not have a scientific understanding, then they will fall into this trap.

But what IS the reality? What IS the essence of the matter? Armies are not neutral instruments. Armies are not machines that can be wielded equally well by everyone. Armies arose when society became divided into exploiter and exploited, in order to enforce that division and to enforce the will of the exploiters. Armies are created by certain classes, and they enforce the interests of those classes. In fact, in any and every system, the army is the chief institution through which the ruling class enforces its will. In modern society, armies do not and cannot represent the nation as a whole – they represent those classes who control the nation. In the Middle East, those classes are the imperialist powers of the West, along with the reactionary classes (the bureaucrat-capitalists, those who are based in feudal or semi-feudal exploitation of the peasants, etc.).

How then does it happen that the army seemingly turns against the ruling power?

In 1978, in Iran, millions of people went into the streets against the ruler of Iran, known as the Shah. For years the Shah had built up the army, and in the early stages of the upsurge the army defended him, mowing down protesters in the street. But at a certain point, when it became clear to those ruling class forces who stood behind the Shah that the army would not be able to continue to drown the people in blood... and when it became clear that continuing on that course risked further "radicalising" the people and bringing the army itself into danger... at that point, the army was told to step down. The Shah was told to leave. In this case, it was the U.S. capitalist-imperialist class giving the orders —reflecting the fact that in oppressed nations like Iran (as well as Tunisia and Egypt) it is the imperialist powers who dominate and set the terms for political and economic life.

In regard to the current crisis in Egypt, it is important to note that top-ranking Egyptian army officers were in the U.S. for conferences at the Pentagon when this upsurge broke loose. After a day of "consultations", they cancelled the rest of the conference to hurry back. One can easily imagine the content of those “consultations.”

Sometimes, army officers in the oppressed nations will stage a coup that displeases, or seems to displease, the rulers of the U.S. But even in these cases, the army does not act "above classes" or "for the people" or "for the nation" – no, for all the populist rhetoric and even, sometimes, the railing against imperialism, at bottom the army in these cases represents the interests of bourgeois class forces which feel held down by the current arrangement with the imperialists in their country, and who hunger for a bigger share in the exploitation of the people. Those among the people who swing behind the army in the hopes that it will represent the masses will soon find it instead representing one or another section of those who aim to exploit and oppress the masses. And sooner or later the "army heroes" of yesterday will come to terms with the same imperialist masters whose oppression drove people into rebellion in the first place. Conclusion? There can be no real liberation without the decisive defeat, and dismantling, of the stranglehold of political and ultimately military power that is exercised by the ruling class and its replacement with a new, revolutionary state power.

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Egyptians fight for springtime against the forces of winter

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:45:29 +0100

AWorldToWinNewsService
Egyptians fight for springtime against the forces of winter

7 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. "The status quo in the region is clearly untenable," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a gathering of representatives of the big powers in Munich 5 February. Speaking in blunt terms because she was addressing her fellow tormentors of the Middle East and the globe, she urged them to deal with what for them is an unpleasant truth.

Of course, what she did not say, even when speaking behind the backs of the people, and did not have to say when addressing her colleagues, is that it has been the U.S. and its allies who imposed the status quo that the people and youth of the region, and right now Egypt, are trying to crack open at the risk of broken bodies.

What the U.S. and its allies are now trying to put into place in Egypt is a new and reinforced version of the status quo. The U.S. and the European powers seem of one mind about this task. President Barack Obama and other U.S. representatives have made clear that they not only support Omar Suleiman, the military intelligence chief President Hosni Mubarak anointed his vice president, they consider him the essential ingredient in achieving what they openly state as their goal in Egypt, a "stable, orderly transition".

A transition to what? The centrality they place on Suleiman goes a long way toward answering that question. He is Mubarak's right-hand man of long standing and head of the secret police. Trained in the U.S., he is a classmate and close colleague of the American generals who commanded the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Suleiman was delegated by the CIA to torture America's enemies. He is the Egyptian Washington most trusts to protect U.S. interests. Most importantly, beyond his personal qualities, he is a product and leader of the armed forces who have run the country ever since the overthrow of the British-led monarchy in 1952 and who are the West's main hope that nothing fundamental will change in Egypt.

Yet the protest movement is supposed to believe that he and the other generals are going to bring about or at least preside over real change and the fulfilment of the people's aspirations.

Whatever elections may be held, and whatever rights may have to be conceded to the people, for the U.S. the most important is maintaining as much continuity of the old state structure as possible. This means especially the army, not only as the central pillar of the state, as it is in every country, but also with its specific character in Egypt as the arbiter of political life.

But the U.S. and the Egyptian armed forces face a critical contradiction: without at least some break with the old ruling structures, people might not consider the new-old regime acceptable. Yet if concessions are granted and some of these structures are broken with, that might raise hopes and embolden the people to demand more radical change. "Revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment", as the call for the 25 January "Day of Rage" put it, and more, an end to the poverty for the majority, the futurelessness faced by even educated youth, the humiliation of the nation and the whole intolerable numbing status quo that Mubarak has come to represent.

Either way, this is not going to be an easily-solved problem. That means that no matter what Washington and its Egyptian partners want or even what they do, it may be a long time before winter returns to Egypt.

This situation presents the U.S. with inherent constraints in its efforts to regain control. One way this contradiction manifests itself is around Mubarak's continuing presence. All of Washington (which hasn't been this united in years) and much of the Cairo elite suburb of Heliopolis seem to agree on the obvious truth that this 82-year-old ailing autocrat has no real future and that his son Gamal has none either. So it is striking that Frank Wisner, the man Obama sent to have a heart-to-heart talk on his behalf with Mubarak, told the Munich conference that Mubarak should leave but not quite yet. The same sentiment was later expressed by Clinton when she was asked to react to his statement. (The New York Times and BBC, 7 February 2011)

Wouldn't it seem that the best thing the generals could do would be to dump Mubarak, if they want to encourage demonstrators to leave the streets and back up their claim that they stand with the people? Some observers have pointed to bonds of personal loyalty among armed forces leaders (appointed by Mubarak) as the reason for the repeated insistence by the new Prime Minister (and air force head) Ahmed Shafiq and Vice President Suleiman that Mubarak must stay for now. This may well be a factor. But there also seems to be an element of cold calculations: if Mubarak is not allowed a "graceful exit" but is driven out by the people, that might make it all the harder for the armed forces to resist the people's other demands. Suleiman is trying to get the people to get off the streets and go home not by giving them what they want – Mubarak's head on a platter – but by trying to get opposition forces to negotiate about anything else but that.

In fact, the U.S. and the generals are so desperate to negotiate rather than capitulate that they are even trying to include the Muslim Brotherhood, even as they continue to argue that the armed forces must stay in power as a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism. On 7 February, after a day of talks between Suleiman, the Brotherhood and minor opposition parties that seemed to reveal little room for agreement, Obama pronounced, "Obviously, Egypt has to negotiate a path, and I think they're making progress" – the "progress" being not that the negotiating parties are drawing closer but that they are negotiating at all. The point of these negotiations is to convince the people in Tahrir Square and the streets of other cities that the future is no longer in their hands.

Equally telling are the points around which the still-Mubarak regime, with Washington's support, has tried to focus political attention. Suleiman wants the establishment of a committee to consider amending the constitution, specifically Article 76, which effectively prohibits generals and Muslim Brotherhood members from running for president, and Article 77, which authorized Mubarak to be re-elected as many times as he wants – a law that the people have now overruled. Another little problem is that in the present parliament, elected only a few months ago with U.S. approval, Mubarak party members hold 86 percent of the seats, an embarrassing indication that elections don't necessarily have much to do with the will of the people.

It has been widely said by observers in Tahrir Square that the army has been using carefully calibrated tactics meant to simultaneously reassure demonstrators and encourage them to leave. The presence of tanks and other armoured vehicles has been meant both as a show of defending the demonstrators and an implicit threat. People prevented the army from clearing the square by sitting down in front of advancing tanks, and many spent the night of 5 February sleeping with their heads stuck in tank treads to keep them from moving. This shows both their hope for army support and their willingness to die for their demands. But what has not been as widely commented on is the fact that Clinton/Suleiman's political manoeuvres share the same purpose: to drive the people back to enforced passivity. Certainly the regime and the U.S. would like nothing better than for everyone to go home and for political life in Egypt to fizzle out as it fixates on constitutional changes and elections.

Actually, while the stated demands of the people's movement do not call for a new political and economic system, they have brought it onto a collision course with the imperialist structures of domination as they presently exist.

First of all, people want Mubarak out now. The U.S. and the generals might have to give in, but exactly how Mubarak goes may make a big difference in the mood of the people and even the political landscape. Further, many people don't want him to escape to some Disneyland. They want him and his henchmen tried and punished. Since his henchmen are more central to pro-U.S. "stability" than ever, this is a real contradiction.

Secondly, they want Mubarak's state of emergency lifted right now. When an interviewer asked Suleiman when he planned to do that, he responded indignantly, "What? Now?" Even as the armed forces claim to stand with what they call the "legitimate demands of the people", under the state of emergency laws still in force they are still arresting people without charges, often physically abusing them and in some cases holding them. This includes dozens of Egyptian activists and bloggers (whose Web activity is used to track them down), foreign journalists and NGO workers, and so on. "Human rights groups said that security officials under Mr Suleiman, even as he talks about leading a transition, are continuing to abduct and detain without charges people it considers a political threat." (NYT, 6 February 2011) The government seems to be not so much seeking to eliminate the protesters, which given the size of the movement and the state of the country would be impossible right now, but to deliver a message.

This is a grave situation. The "police state" that people hate Mubarak for constructing remains intact. Many people say that even though their hopes that Mubarak would give in to the "march of a million" 4 February turned out to be too optimistic, if they leave Tahrir Square and disperse now, they may be hunted down one by one in their homes. The army has been systematically filming, photographing and checking IDs. A number of reports from the square indicate that some people believe they have gone too far to turn back. They may lose their lives fighting for real political change, but they may lose them anyway if they don't succeed.

Much more than their safety is at stake. The political education and evolution of the Egyptian people in the very likely extended period of effervescence ahead requires that they be able to speak, exchange views and debate fearlessly. Whether or not the state of emergency is abolished will play a big role in that. People's rights to expression, communication, publication, assembly and so on are not just abstract questions, they are very important in shaping the ongoing political process. Suleiman's promises amount to saying the people's rights may be respected later, when the movement ebbs and political life begins to flow through official channels, but not now when they most need them.

This not just a question of rights as expressed in law, as important as that is. How Mubarak goes is very related to whether or not people will feel ease of mind, as well as renewed energy to push further. Conversely, if Mubarak or people like Suleiman are in charge, no matter what the law says people will rightly feel threatened. The demand that Mubarak be punished is not only a demand for justice in regard to his past crimes, but also has to do with how much people will feel free to discuss and act on politics in the future.

The U.S. claims to be supporting the people's rights, but any political or even regime change led by Washington is, by definition, meant to serve the interests of the U.S. and not the people. In fact it could only be in direct contradiction to the people's demand to have their country back. The U.S. government's manoeuvring is not just an the international level; Washington is actually working to achieve its aims within Egyptian society itself, especially through the Egyptian officer corps it financed and trained, and more generally through the big military and civilian capitalists dependent on American capital and the world market, and their ability to influence some of the middle classes. At the same time, the military's claims to defend the rights of the people are meant solely to preserve and bolster the army's central role and are just as much in contradiction to the people's demands.

As Clinton emphasized in her Munich speech, what the U.S. has to do in Egypt is very difficult. The kind of transition her government is trying to engineer "takes some time. There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare." The NYT reported, "She also underlined the need to support Egypt's state institutions, including the army and financial institutions, which she said were functioning and respected." (5 February 2011)

These institutions are not neutral, even if many Egyptians may still think so. The subordination of the Egyptian economy to international capital takes place within the spontaneous workings of the market, but political structures of domination are also required. They are necessary for the U.S. monopoly capitalists to keep down the Egyptian people, fend off other monopoly capitalist powers and serve the U.S.'s overall geopolitical goals of empire, which involve profits not just in a particular place at a particular moment but overall and long term. These political structures are ultimately based on class alliances between international monopoly capital and local exploiters dependent on them. Because this means more than a few sell-out puppets, these institutions are not built up overnight or easily improvised.

The U.S. has class partners it can trust running the army, judiciary, bureaucracy and other levers of political power. Even though some U.S. government officials have been worried that the base of the Mubarak regime is too narrow, that it is too confined to those who directly profit from their relationship to the state and excludes other, perhaps newly rising capitalists, and that there are whole sections of middle class businessmen and professionals who feel smothered by this situation, still, to quote Obama's Vice President Joe Biden, as long as Mubarak was "a stable ally" they "would not call him a dictator." Now that the people have made him extremely unstable, and his presence a potential force for further instability, they might want to turn to others. But that's not so easy, in part because the existing structures are an obstacle to that.

For instance, Clinton said that if Mubarak does resign, then according to the Egyptian constitution the speaker of parliament and not Suleiman would have to become head of state. That's one problem – how to construct legitimacy for a regime when what's happening is mainly that the U.S. is giving orders. She also pointed out, in the Munich speech, that Mubarak's resignation would, according to the constitution, require elections within two months. But constructing an imperialist-friendly multi-party system would not be so easy either, given that the bulk of Egypt's ruling class inside and outside the state is in Mubarak's party or identified with his one-party system.

These considerations are further complicated by Egypt's strategic location and importance as a main anchor of American domination of the Arab world and a neighbour to Israel. Just to give one example, it's hard to imagine how an elected Egyptian government which claimed to represent the voice of the people could, without paying a political price, use batons, water cannons, tear gas, electric prods and gunfire against Palestinians, as Mubarak's security forces did during the January 2008 "jailbreak from Gaza".

But to the degree that even people opposed to foreign domination think that their goals and interests can be met by democratic rights and especially by elections, they are vulnerable to all sorts of imperialist tricks. Experience has shown that even in the third world, the toppling of "police state dictators" and autocrats does not necessarily mean liberation from the clutches of international monopoly capital and American political domination: the lack of liberation after the fall of the Marcos regime in the Philippines, the Suharto regime in Indonesia, the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the apartheid regime in South Africa are all examples worth pondering.

Even the fall of the Shah in Iran, while it led to an Islamic regime that the U.S. sees as a real problem, did not lead to the country's liberation. And while the Egyptian revolution led by Gamal Nasser that toppled the monarchy delivered a big blow to Britain and took some steps forward, it eventually came under the sway of the U.S. and gave birth to Mubarak and his made-in-USA generals.

More than regime change is required. In each of these cases, old political institutions gave way to new ones to varying degrees, but what stayed the same was the country's subordination to imperialist capital, not only externally but in terms of the organization of its internal economy and its internal social relations, and its political structures, especially the political rule of local partners of imperialist capital. Even in Iran, for all the anti-imperialist rhetoric of its reactionary government, the logic of the world market ultimately dictates.

The basic problem is not really one of "free and fair elections" or "majority rule". As has been seen in Egypt in the last few weeks, where the majority stands at any given moment is fluid, with the number of people willing to fight for radical change ebbing and flowing according to events and their own estimate of what currently seems possible. Certainly there are times when the silence of millions of people is objectively favourable to the reactionaries. The U.S. and its Egyptian military are counting on these factors and hope that the determination, fearlessness and energy that the people have displayed on the streets can be defused, dulled and dissipated through constitutional and electoral manoeuvres.

What is needed in Egypt is not just a different regime but a different political and economic system. It requires defeating and smashing the old state, including the military, and establishing a revolutionary democratic dictatorship, what Mao Tsetung called New Democracy. This means the rule of those classes whose interests lie in breaking free of imperialism, not finding a way to collaborate with it, opening the door to socialism and eventually a communist world. That's the only kind of revolution that can lead the emancipation of the Egyptian people and the flowering of their collective and individual abilities that have been crushed for so long. Despite the reversal of the Chinese revolution after Mao's death, still that country's ability to free itself of foreign domination and transform one of the world's most backward societies into a example of emancipation points to the possibility of a whole different trajectory for revolution in Egypt.

Egyptians fighting for their country's future need to think about that and join the conversation with those who are already working to take the world on that trajectory.

-end item-

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"We want our Egypt, not Mubarak"

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:41:25 +0100

AWTW News Service

"We want our Egypt, not Mubarak"

1 February 2011. A World to Win News Service. Whether or not Hosni Mubarak's reign will come to an end is no longer the question. How he goes, and what this transition leads to, is what is being fought out.

As men and women dressed in business suits as well as torn sandals jubilantly swelled the size of the demonstrations by a hundred-fold in a week, many people thought that the "march of a million" 1 February would end in victory. They thought Mubarak would go, the tanks would leave the streets and the country would be theirs.

What American and European governments consider most important is what they call an "orderly transition". When the Egyptian president announced that he will stay in office until his terms expires in September, he argued that the only choice was a transition under him or "chaos". Some Egyptians were swayed by Mubarak's argument. Die-hard regime supporters were emboldened by U.S. President Barack Omaba's failure to call for Mubarak to step down immediately.

But "order" is not the main priority of many of the millions who have been demanding "Mubarak out!" They took Mubarak's speech as a gesture of defiance and contempt for the people. They were infuriated by his vow to remain on Egyptian soil to the end of his days. At the massive gatherings in in Cairo and Alexandria, he had already been hung in effigy.

It might seem simple for the U.S. to just dump a hated, discredited and isolated autocrat. The fact that the U.S. has so stubbornly resisted that step so far is a sign that things are not so simple, even if the U.S. does end up taking that route.

It must have been infuriating for Egyptians to hear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argue on 31 January that the U.S. can't tell Mubarak to go because that is up to Egyptians to decide. It is the Egyptian army that has kept Mubarak in power, and it is the U.S., to a large degree, that tells that army what to do.

In late January, as the revolt mounted, the head of the Egyptian armed forces and his staff were conferring with the American government and military in Washington. If they had been told that Mubarak must go immediately – as happened with the Shah of Iran in 1979 and may have been the case with the Ben Ali regime in French-dominated and less strategically important Tunisia – then one way or another Mubarak would have been gone. Even if the U.S. dumps him now, events have already proved that this has not been the U.S.'s preferred outcome.

No matter what changes the U.S. ends up having to accept, it will do its best to minimize the role of the people and avoid encouraging their movement. That is one important reason why the U.S. has preferred that Mubarak be allowed a dignified exit and not be seen as driven out by "the street", with what that might mean for other U.S.-dependent Arab regimes. But above all it wants to make sure that whether or not Mubarak is able to preside over the transition, the regime he built and led remains as intact as possible.

The army: not neutral

While Obama's support for Mubarak was qualified and not necessarily permanent, he was effusive in his praise for the Egyptian army and the way it has handled the protest movement.

During the upsurge before 1 February, the police had been unable to stop the demonstrators, although they killed hundreds and badly hurt many more. In many cases people attacked the police and put them on the run. Armoured cars were pulled down and burned in Cairo and Alexandria. In several cities police stations were assaulted and destroyed. A wave of looting seems to have been largely the work of the police themselves.

People organised neighbourhood roadblocks and crudely-armed groups to protect lives and property. They also organised to protect themselves against provocateurs, clean up the streets and preserve public sanitation and pass out tea and food in Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square, a highly symbolic location named after the 1952 army coup that brought down the British-controlled monarchy, as well as in front of the main mosque in Alexandria. They proudly explained to reporters that the square and the country now belonged to them.

But the army remained omnipresent, demonstrating its power. It lined Cairo's avenues and bridges with armoured vehicles and massed about a hundred new U.S.-supplied tanks around the square. To prevent people from converging on the capital and Alexandria, it cut off the roads and public transportation linking Cairo and other major cities with the provincial towns. Soldiers searched people as they entered the rally and checked IDs. Helicopters filmed the crowds from above. American and French-made fighter planes buzzed Tahrir Square. The military erected a protective wall around Mubarak's residence.

Keeping order while the people want to overthrow the regime is not a neutral act. After Mubarak's non-resignation speech, many protesters suddenly feared that if he wasn't going to resign after all, they might be hunted and punished.

Whose army is it?

If it is true, as some reporters surmise, that the U.S. told the Egyptian military at Tahrir Square that it should refrain from a "Tienanmen" solution, when the Chinese government gunned down a square full of protesters, it is not because anyone in the Obama administration or Washington's corridors of power cares more about Egyptian lives than American interests, but because if the army does open fire on demonstrators in a sustained way – rather than firing into the air, as it has done sporadically so far – the situation may spin even further out of control politically.

The U.S. financed, armed and trained these armed forces and has paid close attention to their military and political training. It is the biggest Arab army and the tenth biggest in the world. Its intelligence service reaches into every corner of society and its prisons and torture chambers are among the world's most fearsome. It would be hard to exaggerate the ties between these armed forces and the U.S. Almost all of U.S. financial aid to Egypt, 1.3 out of 1.5 billion dollars a year, goes to the military. Over the past decades the only country anywhere to receive more American aid has been Israel.

The army is not only the ultimate protector of the state, it is also Egypt's single most powerful economic force. It owns a network of factories, hotels, real estate and other businesses. Further, retired generals run many state-owned enterprises, such as the textile mills that have historically been core components of the country's export-oriented economy, along with the state-run petroleum industry. This makes the army a partner as well as a political and military enabler of Egypt's domination by foreign capital and the imperialist world market.

There are undoubtedly real differences between the wealthy, modernized army and Egypt's petty criminal police who pick the people's pockets for bribes. The police, not the army, have been in charge of street-level repression for decades, and that has had an affect on how the army is seen. It was no accident that the first minister Mubarak threw overboard in an attempt to appease the people was his hated Minister of the Interior.

Further, the armed forces have been able to preserve something of a nationalist aura because of their role in the struggle against British domination, from overthrowing the monarchy to defending Egypt against the 1956 British-French-Israeli invasion when Egypt nationalized the formerly British-controlled Suez Canal. It is also highly regarded for defending the country against the 1967 Israeli invasion that seized Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and its military successes in the 1973 war with Israel which eventually led to Egypt's getting the Sinai back. Many people, it seems, are also confused by the fact that the army is made up of conscripts.

But the army and the police may be playing the kind of "good cop, bad cop" division of labour familiar around the world. What is probably most fundamental in the unfounded hopes that the army will "support the people" against Mubarak is that the people understand very well what it would mean if the army does not.

Mubarak and the army

Mubarak responded to the revolt against him by making the head of intelligence his vice-president – his first vice president and therefore official successor if Mubarak resigns. Omar Suleiman has been in charge of repression for decades and makes frequent trips to Washington and Tel Aviv. A U.S diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks says that he is one of the Egyptian officials most trusted by the U.S. government. Mubarak made the current air force chief Ahmad Shafiq his prime minister. He also met with his regional military commanders.

Although Mubarak, like his predecessors Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadar, is a product of the armed forces, until now there has been at least the claim of a separation between the military and the government. Top officers, for instance, were not allowed to be members of Mubarak's party, and most of his recent (and now ex-) ministers have been civilian businessmen and so-called "technocrats". This moving of the army into the centre of the government has two aims: to overrule the people's movement and keep Mubarak on top as long as possible, and to ensure that if the autocrat does go down the military will preserve regime continuity. This seems to reflect the U.S.'s dual tactics in this situation.

But even the militarisation of Mubarak's government, while meant to be a show of strength, has had negative political effects in identifying the military with U.S./Mubarak rule and widening the target of the people's anger. Chants have arisen demanding the departure of the generals as well as Mubarak himself, all of them seen as U.S. puppets by some people. They are disgusted by the fact that Suleiman, Mubarak's chief negotiator and collaborator with Israel, is now calling for opposition parties to negotiate with him.

The things they do can undo them

One of the most important lessons to be learned from the sudden new situation in Egypt and throughout the Middle East is that the very things that the U.S. has done to keep the region under its heel have created huge problems for continuing American domination.

In addition to the U.S.'s dilemma concerning Mubarak's personal future, the other clearest case of this contradiction is the role of Israel as a factor for regional instability. As a settler state and the only society in the region the U.S. can count on, American domination of the region would be much more difficult without this highly militarized outpost. The current situation in the Arab world highlights Israel's centrality to the U.S., even while it also highlights the problems Israel creates for the U.S.-led empire.

In addition to burning down the 15-storey headquarters of Mubarak's political party and attacking the Ministry of the Interior, crowds have besieged and assaulted the Foreign Ministry building. People throughout the Middle East hate what Israel does to the Palestinians, and solidarity with Palestine has been a feature of the upsurges in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan (half of whose population is Palestinian). Such openly "police state" regimes and monarchies are not only U.S client states in a general sense, they are bulwarks against the Palestinians and pro-Palestinian sentiments among their own people. For example, the Mubarak regime has worked with Israel in the lock-down of the people of Gaza and attempts to control Palestinian politics.

Obama's Secretary of State says she is worried that what follows Mubark may be "not democratic". This is generally taken to express a fear that Mubarak's downfall might favour the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood, historically the father of modern Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and "political Islam" in general. That is one possibility. Even though Islamic fundamentalism does not seek to break with the imperialist world market and the economic and social relations that market imposes, still the Islamicist movement threatens to disrupt the status quo, the present configuration of the Middle East on which U.S. domination depends. But as we've seen in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, as bad as the rise of Islamism can be for the interests of the American empire, it is also a disaster for the people.

In the past the U.S. and Israel helped build up the Brotherhood in order to undermine more radical secular movements. To this day the relations between the Mubarak government and the Brotherhood are complicated and sometimes ambiguous. The Brotherhood has been allowed to hold seats in parliament until recently and stills operates semi-openly, even while officially illegal and often repressed. Suleiman has been both Mubarak's chief of anti-fundamentalist operations and a man said to enjoy the respect of Islamic forces. The regime cracked down at least as hard, if not harder, on shoots of the leftist secular opposition, such as appeared in opposition to the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Brotherhood, for its part, stayed out of the current revolt until it seemed on the verge of victory, and even now insists that it wants to play a subordinate role and not seek power – for now. Yet the U.S.'s stubbornness in clinging to Mubarak and its determination to continue humiliating the Egyptian people even after Mubarak, the vacillating role of some secular forces and the identification of the regime with Israel are all factors that could prove favourable to expanding the influence of the Islamic movement, especially (but not only) in the absence of a revolutionary alternative.

Can the U.S. be a force for democracy?

It would be funny if it weren't so criminal to hear the U.S. talk about the need for "free, fair and credible elections" in Egypt now, since only a few months ago, in November 2010, when Mubarak held parliamentary elections that were anything but what these words describe, the whole Western political establishment went along with them. And when Obama talks about "shared values" between the U.S. and Egypt, it should be remembered that what the U.S. has long shared with Mubarak are not only the tear gas canisters, bullets and tanks used to repress the Egyptian people but also the regime's torture chambers. Since 1995, on orders from Secretary of State Clinton's husband, President Bill Clinton, the U.S. has been turning over its captives to the Mubarak regime for torture in a CIA "rendition" programme.

How could it be otherwise, when the interests of the U.S. and its European allies require dominating countries like Egypt by any means possible? The monopoly capitalist countries cannot act otherwise because their position in the world (including major sources of their wealth and their success in rivalry with each other) is based on the financial and political subjugation of the vast majority of the world's people. Within this division of the world, the U.S. has its own particular national interests and neocolonies.

Therefore the basic interests of the imperialist ruling classes, including that of the U.S. (and not just the government under any particular president or prime minister) are in opposition to the democratic demands of the people in the countries they dominate, for political rights and especially the equality of nations and the right of self-determination for oppressed nations. In general imperialism tends to deny or limit the kind of bourgeois-democratic forms of rule (equal rights for all, especially as manifested in elections) that have generally marked monopoly capitalist rule in the imperialist home countries, where the whole purpose of such structures is to preserve the system and smooth functioning of what is, in essence, the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalist class. For instance, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair now admits that his government took part in the invasion of Iraq against the will of the British people. As we have seen in the U.S., UK and other rich countries lately, even there these rights and basic structures can be modified or abandoned when the rule and interests of monopoly capitalism require that.

It's true that the U.S. has been worried about the narrow social base of its client regimes in the Middle East, and now that a crisis has broken out it will put some reforms into motion. It is telling that such wishes did not become a priority for the U.S. in Egypt until the people pushed the Mubarak regime to the edge of a cliff. As the leading American imperialist political counsellor Robert D. Kaplan wrote about Tunisia, "In terms of American interests and regional peace, there is plenty of peril in democracy. It was not democrats, but Arab autocrats, Anwar Sadat [Mubarak's predecessor] of Egypt and [former] King Hussein of Jordan, who made peace with Israel. An autocrat firmly in charge can make concessions more easily than a weak, elected leader... In fact, do we really want a relatively enlightened leader like King Abdullah in Jordan undermined by street demonstrations? We should be careful what we wish for in the Middle East." (The New York Times, 22 January 2011)

Washington may sometimes desire that its client regimes could enjoy more stability by being less openly autocratic, but it is the maintenance of client or otherwise pliable regimes that is the U.S.'s basic aim. All talk about elections and "democracy" is subordinate to those interests. Lebanon is the only Arab country that can be reasonably described as having an elected government. Yet this month when Hezbollah was able to play the decisive role in naming a new prime minister by entirely legal and constitutional means, the U.S. became enraged and determined to punish the country. When Hamas (closely tied to the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt) won elections in Gaza, the U.S. and its allies cried "terrorism" and have supported Israel's collective punishment of the Gaza people for their impudence. In a different kind of example, Turkey, whose governing Justice and Development party (AKP) is a close ally of Washington, has not gone along with Israeli massacres to the degree required by Obama and U.S. interests.

Denial of democracy and democratic illusions

Yet the fact that people's democratic demands are thwarted in the countries oppressed by imperialism is both a source of instability and rebellion, and of illusions among the people. The U.S. and its allies will do their best to limit the achievements of popular movements to reforms, especially some sorts of elections and rights, however limited they must be to preserve imperialist domination. In Egypt, we can be sure that whatever such reforms do occur will be meant to rob the people of their greatest achievement so far, their leap from enforced political passivity to single-minded determination to bring about real change.

The problem for Egypt as for the whole third world is not just the political structures imposed by imperialism, but the whole economic and social structure of society on which the political institutions are based. The Egyptian people's humiliation and misery has deepened as the country has become more fully integrated into the world market over the past decade. Even the country's relatively high economic growth rate, while winning the praise of the IMF and other imperialist institutions, has brought more hardship for the majority.

No regime can oppose imperialism in any long-term and consistent way unless it breaks free of dependency on the imperialist world market in the organization of its economy as well as in the political sphere. This means a revolution that is not bourgeois-democratic, or in other words not aimed at achieving equal rights within the overall imperialist world order, which is generally impossible for structurally oppressed and dependent countries, but what Mao Tsetung called a New Democratic Revolution, a revolution to break the chains of feudalism and imperialist-dependent capitalism that make a country susceptible to foreign political subjugation.

Instead of more becoming more and more entangled in imperialist globalization, which relies on local reactionary classes to impose a political rule that favours the country's subordination to global capital and lopsided development, New Democracy is a transition to a whole new system, socialism, that can break with world capitalism, a revolution in alliance with the world's peoples whose ultimate goal is the defeat of the world capitalist system and its replacement by a world without imperialism or classes, a world of freely associating human beings, communism.

As Egyptians tell anyone who will listen, the demands now uniting the people against Mubarak are an expression of a burning determination to have their own country back. That is what the U.S. cannot agree to, no matter how much it might have to adjust its actions to further its interests in the complex context of what is possible and not just what Washington might want.

The idea of an Egypt without Mubarak is as exhilarating to the Egyptian people as it is frightening for those who run the U.S. and all the regimes through which the U.S. dominates the region. The result has been a fierce tug of war between the Egyptian people and the U.S. that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the Egyptian people, the region and the U.S.

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Solidarity with the Tunisian revolt!

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:50:07 +0100

Solidarity with the Tunisian revolt!

Athens, December 16^th, 2011

The sacrifice of a small peddler who set himself on fire on the 17^th of last December after having his wares confiscated because he had no “permit”, has sparked a widespread fire on all cities of Tunisia. For a month now the people of this country, with the youth in the forefront, are revolting against the reactionary and autocratic regime. This revolt that started as anger against high prices and unemployment but also against political repression was quickly transformed to a political confrontation and demand for the overthrow of the president and his reactionary regime.

The response of the reactionary forces was the intensification of the repression with 70 dead, hundreds of wounded and widespread arrests of communists and leftists. But the people goes on and escalates his demonstrations so the president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, a lackey of the western imperialists, is forced to flee the country and the PM Mohammed Ghannouchi announces that he will lead the country to elections, in order to disorientate the people and stem the popular resistance. But the popular masses and the youth insist on their resistance although the regime deploys the army and tanks in order to suppress the popular revolt.

The Communist Party of Greece (marxist-leninist) expresses its solidarity with the fighting people of Tunisia and calls all left forces of our country to support jointly the struggle of the Tunisian people and demand the release of all political prisoners.

Press Bureau of the CPG (m-l)