Daily Times

The jubilations and the distribution of sweets in the streets of Lahore and other cities by the activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and other organisations of the religious right after the announcement of Morsi’s winning the presidential election in Egypt was, to say the least, farfetched and preposterous. The dogma indoctrinated in these religious zealots by the reactionary clergy, mainly financed by the black economy, that Islamic obscurantism will dominate the planet is a delusion that defies the laws of gravity. After Recep Ergodan in Turkey and similar Islamic bourgeois leaders emerging in different Muslim countries, Islamic fundamentalists are trying to inoculate a false perception in the minds of the youth of a Pan-Islamic revivalism.

After the mass movement that overthrew Mubarak in Egypt, the revolution without a revolutionary Marxist leadership and party went into disarray. Despite their heroism, the old state and system remained intact and began to regain control of the situation. A revolution arouses great hopes in the hearts and minds of the masses, but when these are not delivered, the whole process can unravel and go into reverse. Apathy and despair set in. With Mubarak’s fall, the military seized the opportunity to assert itself. The armed forces have huge stakes in the Egyptian economy and their perks and privileges are embedded in the system. They will not let go their tight grip on crucial policies through the National Security Council dominated by the Generals. Hence the elections held under this despotic regime were fraudulent and blatantly rigged.

In March 2011, the turnout of the Egyptian referendum was 80 percent; 50 percent voted in the parliamentary elections, but only between 15 to 20 percent voted in the final run-off presidential election between Mohammad Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq — Mubarak’s last prime minister and representative of the old guard. However, in the first round of the presidential elections, Morsi and Shafiq got almost five million votes each while the progressive candidates got more than 12 million votes. The Nasserite candidate, Hamdeen Sabbahi, representing the left, won in the main cities and bastions of the revolutionary youth and the proletariat. In Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and Port Said, he won massively, leaving all other contenders far behind. The US imperialists and the junta ensured that he could not get to the final round. The military that carried out a soft coup wanted their candidate Shafiq to be pronounced as the victor but the Americans prevailed, with the fear of a backlash that could unleash a mass fury threatening the whole system.

In any case, there have been no fundamental differences between the imperialists and the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, the Ikhwan ul Muslimeen was the brainchild of the former US secretary of state John Foster Dulles who tried to use Islamic fundamentalism after the victory of Jamal Abdul Nasser in the Suez war of 1956 to destabilise left governments in the Middle East and preserve capitalist exploitation and imperialist plunder. After a certain strain in relations, the CIA has been lately cosying up to the Brotherhood. In the last analysis, they have no differences on economic policies. A recent article by Reuters said, “ Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has drawn up a strongly free market economic plan and pledges to move fast to negotiate a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if it forms a government after this month’s presidential election.” In order to obtain a loan from the IMF mainly to service its massive debt of $ 189 billion, the Muslim Brotherhood will have to accept the usual conditions. It will be compelled to administer a large dose of bitter medicine to the Egyptian people in the form of severe austerity, mass privatisation, slashing subsidies and cutting living standards.

The Financial Times reports, “Nearly half of the people earn less than $ 2 a day…With a fiscal deficit of 10 percent of the GDP, the state cannot absorb 700,000 job seekers entering the labour market annually…Rivals portray the Brotherhood as a nebulous organisation obsessed with religion, but its wide ranging plan projects a pragmatism that puts growth ahead of ideology…One of the significant realignments resulting from the Arab spring is the growing warmth between western policy makers and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. This is born out of necessity, but strengthened by the surprising discovery that on economic issues, the west and Islamists often see eye to eye.”

Alan Woods wrote in Marxist.com on June 12, “Serious representatives of the bourgeoisie understand the real class nature of the Muslim Brotherhood…Its actions in government will be determined not by the holy Quran nor by the democratic ideals but exclusively by the defence of its class interests…this means it will carry out a vicious anti-working class policy…The Brotherhood tries to be all things to all men. To the masses, they pose as democrats and supporters of the revolution. To the generals, they appear as the sternest defenders of order. To the Islamists, they are more pious than the prophet himself. To the Americans, they are respectable Islamic moderates, friends of the west and so on.”

The Islamists initially did not support the movement against Mubarak, but they saw his fall as an opportunity to work with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and play a role in the government. The section of the bourgeoisie they represent had waited a long time to share the plunder. They jumped onto the bandwagon when it was already rolling, but at every step, they strove to do a deal with the generals. One of the greatest strengths of the Egyptian revolution was its spontaneity, yet it also proved to be its principle weakness. Egypt’s Generals, like their counterparts in Pakistan, are striving for a deep state, which will enable them to control behind a parliamentary facade.

In Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, the revolutions erupted not for a superficial change in the political superstructure, but to end poverty, unemployment, inflation and misery, imparted by a rotting capitalist system. To reduce the struggle to an imperialist-style culture, wars about religion and secularism at the expense of the struggle for the transformation of the socio-economic system that will ameliorate the lot of the Egyptian people will be the gravest betrayal of the left in Egypt. It is clear that in the absence of a revolutionary leadership and the crusades of the reactionary media, the objectives of the revolutions were distorted. But the crisis in the economy and society that triggered these revolutions has exacerbated. Without a socialist change, these revolutions cannot be victorious.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com