Egypt: Morsi forced out of office
When the politically more advanced sections of the Egyptian masses stood up to their Government, Army (the real power in Egypt) and police to occupy Tahrir
Square and continually demonstrate, in the face of great personal risk, in order to get rid of US imperialism’s placeman, Hosni Mubarak, as President, they
could hardly have expected that within a very short period they would not only succeed in that and elect a new President, but that less than a year later
they would be taking to the streets again. Nor could they have expected that this would be alongside Mubarak supporters, and for the purpose of getting rid
of their new elected President. Much less would they have imagined that they would be calling on the army to depose this new President! The Army did as the
masses asked and removed the elected government, putting into power President Adly Mansour at the head of an interim government which will remain in office
until new elections are organised under a new constitution.
When the situation in Egypt is looked at in the light only of the information given in the above paragraph, the reader could be forgiven for thinking that
the Egyptian people, having given a form of bourgeois democracy a short trial, are now returning to the comfort of a military dictatorship but that would
be a great mistake. In the July/August 2012 edition of Lalkar, when looking at the Presidential elections, we made the point that it is easier to know what
you don’t want than to know exactly what you do want. It was in this state of mind that many Egyptians went to those polls. In a contest at that time that
came down to a straight choice between Ahmed Shafik, a former air force general and the last Prime Minister appointed by Hosni Mubarak, on one hand, and
Mohamed Morsi of the Moslem Brotherhood (MB), on the other, Shafik was seen by many as too close to what Egyptians didn’t want. Many of them voted for
Morsi as the lesser of the two evils. As a result Morsi won by a small margin, gaining 51% of the vote.
Having won the election, the Brotherhood, going back on all its previous promises, packed the constitutional committee to try and drag the country
backwards to an Islamist state and yet, at the same time, tried to please US imperialism and its guard dog in the Middle East, Israel, by filling in the
lifeline tunnels to Gaza. Gaza is run by Hamas, an organisation that has very strong links to the Brotherhood, which makes this harder to understand unless
you take the view that Morsi and the MB were prepared to do anything to keep the imperialists sweet, believing that this was the key to retaining power.
Of course, the things that helped create the opposition to Mubarak’s rule – the high food prices, fuel shortages and rising unemployment/poverty –
remained. A government with no great support, keeping one eye on the army and bending over backwards to placate imperialism, while trying to force the
masses to accept the road to the MB’s own brand of Islamic fundamentalism, is not in any position to do anything to ease these particular problems. The
last straw for many Egyptians was the Brotherhood’s support for the US-backed Islamic terrorists who have been sent into Syria to overthrow that country’s
government in the same way that they did in Libya. When it was revealed that Morsi was trying to raise fighters to send to Syria to do imperialism’s dirty
work, the resentment that had been building boiled over. The protesters called on the army, the only power in Egypt at present with the capacity to remove
the government, to do just that. This was not taking a step backwards or asking for a return to the past. The veteran protesters whose struggle on the
streets of Egypt has now ousted Mubarak and Morsi are certainly not calling for the army to retain power. This is an onward march and these struggles are
educating the masses of the Egyptian people. Communists are also more visible in these struggles now. Will the masses have to clash with the army at some
point? Will they reject altogether the yo-yoing between the army and the Brotherhood and find an ideology that represents the majority of them regardless
of religion and in favour of their interests rather than those of imperialism and its puppets? Again, it is too early to say at present but right now it is
the turn of the MB to call its supporters onto the streets demanding the return of the Morsi Government. Since Morsi was removed as President there have
been over a thousand deaths. MB supporters have been involved in clashes not only with the police and soldiers but also with their civilian opponents. They
have also targeted the minority Christians in Egypt in sectarian attacks and burnt down scores of churches, which can only be calculated to start yet
another religious clash in the region. This has alienated the Brotherhood totally from most Egyptian people, leaving the MB and its plans in tatters.
When the military moved in on the strongholds that the MB had created, there was relief and support among the majority, as these strongholds had been the
scene of torture and killings by the Morsi supporters, and the most common criticism that was levelled at the army by the masses who had called for the
removal was that the crackdown on the MB ‘camps’ had taken too long to be initiated.
The situation in Egypt is confusing, volatile and fast-moving. Not surprisingly, this finds its reflection in the confusion reigning in left circles as
well as in the camp of imperialism and the reactionaries. Some on the left find themselves calling for the reinstatement of Morsi because he was
‘democratically’ elected and then removed through military action. Yes, the military removed the government but this action was fiercely demanded by the
masses. Communists should not be slaves to formal bourgeois democracy, for, surely, if a government elected on the basis of all kinds of promises reneges
on them, the people have the right to call for its removal. That is precisely what happened in Egypt. Instead of criticising this practice, we should be
attempting to introduce it in our own country.
The camp of imperialism and reactionaries is no less marked by confusion, dissension and disagreements than are left circles. The Saudis, who have been
propped up by US imperialism for decades, were more than a little uneasy when the US allowed Mubarak to be toppled and replaced by the MB, partly sensing
that the support they receive could also disappear just as quickly in the right conditions, and partly because they are closer to the Salafi brand of
Egyptian fundamentalism than the MB’s . Precisely for this reason the Saudis have thrown their weight very publicly behind the action of the Egyptian Army.
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have also publicly given their support to the new government, while the other US puppets in the region, Qatar
and Turkey, have publicly taken the opposite line since they are close to the MB. The US and other imperialist powers are caught in a bind, unable openly
to approve of the actions of the Egyptian army, for they contradict their “democratic” rhetoric, but unable at the same time to condemn them either. These
dissensions and contradictions in the camp of the reactionaries are a major headache for imperialism, for they come at a crucial time when US imperialism
is busy attempting regime change in Syria and they threaten to derail their nefarious project.
As the maturity of the Egyptian masses grows and they reach for answers and direction, we could do much worse than point them to the words of the late
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, speaking in 1961 at the National Assembly on the result of the Casablanca Summit conference: ”
Liberty cannot be protected by beseeching or compromising with the imperialist. Nor can liberty be protected by reaching a truce or being soft with
imperialism. Liberty and freedom are protected far away from the castles of feudalism and reactionary elements, away from the cringing whispers, away
from individual egoism hiding behind lax words and undefined expressions.
“The battles of freedom cannot be met except by a conscious, positive struggle and cannot be fought except in opposition to and face to face with the
very powers of imperialism.
”
Things, however, turned out completely differently in the Middle East. Beginning with the late 1950s and early 1960s, imperialism aligned with the
nationalists to crush the communist and working-class movement, before going on to defeat the nationalists. Once that had been done, all resistance to
imperialism and its stooges retreated into the only safe place available, namely, the mosque. Islamism became for a while the banner of revolt against
imperialism and its agents. Islamism, in turn, having very little to offer, is exposing itself as a hollow, worthless and an essentially pro-imperialist,
ideology – only wrapped up in obscurantist claptrap. This is proven by the recent events in Egypt where, after assuming office, the MB took less than a
year to expose itself and, by extension, the ideological baggage of Islamism. Thus the wheel has come full circle. The only way forward is through the
proletarian ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which fights against imperialist domination and its puppets alike and offers real solutions to economic problems.
At the moment, the Egyptian masses are groping for answers to their real problems – answers which they have not yet found. One thing, however, is certain.
They are on the move and they have lost the fear of their oppressors, and will not be easily forced into a state of submission. It is to be hoped that
through their ongoing struggle they will grasp the truth that only under the leadership of a party of the working class, which fights for a bright
socialist future, can the Egyptian masses achieve their liberation from oppression and exploitation, hunger and destitution. We wish them well.