Women and the Egyptian revolution

2011 is ending as it began: with images of thousands of Egyptian women and men standing up against a Western-backed military regime--from a 10,000-strong march of women two days ago, to another mass Friday march today. These make it clear that the Egyptian revolution is ongoing, and that women continue to play a central role.
The Western media are used to depicting Arab and Muslim women as passive victims in need of forced liberation (justifying the war in Afghanistan). While the Egyptian revolution busted this and other myths, the New York Times was still puzzled by the active participation of women against the regime--and claimed they have been otherwise peripheral to the political process. While official political structures have excluded women, they have been at the heart of the revolutionary process--from the movements leading up to the January uprising, to the strikes and protests that have kept it going.

PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION

As prominent Egyptian socialist Gigi Ibrahim explained in a talk last March, the Egyptian revolution began after a decade of struggles for Palestine solidarity, civil liberties, and economic justice. In December 2006 women textile workers began a strike in Mahalla:

"Some 3,000 women garment workers stormed into the main spinning and weaving sheds and demanded that their male colleagues stop work. "Where are the men? Here are the women!" they chanted. Then 10,000 workers gathered in the factory courtyard and once again women were at the forefront."  

This built the unity and confidence of women and men to challenge the regime, and triggered a wave of strikes over the next few years leading up to the revolution. It also produced a solidarity movements like the April 6 Youth Movement co-founded by Asmaa Mahfouz.

UPRISING

On January 25, Asmaa Mahfouz released a video that went viral, calling on people to go to Tahrir against the regime. Women were central to the uprising, leading chants and confronting riot police. 

Through the process of women and men uniting to change the world, they also changed themselves. Longtime feminist activist Nawal el-Saadawi described the mood inside Tahrir Square during the 18 days that toppled Mubarak:

“All the differences between Egyptians evaporated because of the revolution. Muslims and Christians were together, women and men were together. There was equality between all. The revolution washed away all the discriminations that was forced on us by the regime.”  

SOCIOECONOMIC DEMANDS

The January uprising not only toppled Mubarak but unearthed an accumulation of grievances, including women's rights, and the people of Egypt have continued the revolution for socioeconomic change. On International Women’s Day there was a mass rally in Tahrir Square demanding women’s rights:

“Women workers are demanding an end to discrimination in hiring and promotions, and want government-funded child care…On March 8, International Women’s Day, some 1,000 women and their male supporters rallied in Cairo to demand, among other things, that women be allowed to run for president and become judges.”

Women are also playing an important role in the workers movement, whose mass strikes were key to toppling Mubarak and remain central to challenging the military dictatorship. Dr. Mona Mina, a longtime activist and member of Doctors Without Rights, helped organize a national doctor’s strike in May—demanding higher wages for all workers and increased funding for health care—and was recently elected to the leadership of the union, in an election that challenged the Muslim Brotherhood.
As socialist Hossam El-Hamalawy explained, the Brotherhood are not a homogeneous reactionary block as portrayed in the media. Their leadership support neo-liberalism and have tried to call off strikes and demonstrations, but much of the youth of their membership have been part of the revolution and can be won to more progressive politics. When the regime and its allies attacked the Revolutionary Socialists, numerous groups came to their defence.

EXPOSING AND CHALLENGING THE REGIME 

Just six months ago when I had to chance to visit Egypt, there was widespread support for the military and a belief that "the people and the army are one", though some of the radical street art challenged this notion. But faced with ongoing strikes and demonstrations pushing the revolution forward, the military has lashed out at the strengths of the revolution—banning strikes, burning a Coptic Church in an attempt to provoke sectarian divisions, and attacking women—including forced virginity tests under threats of electrocution earlier in the year. As this video from The Real News show, there has been brutal crackdowns by the military regime every month since the toppling of Mubarak. The regime is a key pillar of US control of the region, so the US has continued to supply it with weapons, and it's only because of the recent international outcry and mass mobilization of women that Hilary Clinton claimed to have been "shocked" by the recent brutal beatings.
But the march of women and the demonstration today show these attacks have only increased the determination of ordinary Egyptian women and men to unite and fight for a better world--of democracy, economic justice, and women's liberation. 

How do we build the "occupy" movement?

Fuelled by the economic crisis and inspired by the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread around the world. 

    Today marks one week of the movement across Canada and Quebec. Like all movements, there are a series of debates emerging that will determine its direction and success. Is occupation a tactic or a principle? Should the focus be on the internal procedures of those actively occupying, or outreach to broader communities and struggles? How do we build a movement of the 99%?

THE MOVEMENT OF THE 99%

     The occupy movement marks the re-emergence of the anti-capitalist movement. Building on years of struggle against war, climate chaos and economic crisis, it identifies these and other issues as symptoms of a massively unequal system that benefits the one per cent.

     The 99% includes poor and working class people, students, racialized and oppressed groups. The very issues at the heart of this new movement--police brutality, racism and other forms of oppression, the struggle to pay tuition and defend good jobs--creates barriers for most of the 99% to maintain a permanent outdoor occupation with police presence and long meetings during working hours.

     That is why the main strategy of the one per cent so far has been to wait for those actively occupying to become isolated. How do we build the occupy movement into a real movement of the 99%?

LESSONS FROM EGYPT

     The Occupy movement has been inspired by the Arab Spring, but the corporate media have perpetuated a distorted view of the Egyptian Revolution: that it was a spontaneous event, organized purely over social media, that drove dictator Hosni Mubarak from power only through the occupation of Tahrir Square, and that is over.

     Firstly, the Egyptian Revolution was a product of a decade of struggle in which occupations was one of many tactics. When the Iraq War began thousands occupied Tahrir Square, and then built other movements--from political movements for civil liberties, to economic struggles over wages.

     Secondly, while social media played a role at the start of the uprising, the state and corporations turned off all internet and cell phones, yet the revolution grew because people used  more traditional methods--meetings in neighbourhoods, workplaces and faith groups which are more accessible to a broader layer of the population.

    Thirdly, while the mainstream media were focusing on Tahrir Square, the revolution was spreading to the factories. It was when workers across Egypt began mass strikes that Mubarak was driven from power.

   Finally, while Mubarak is gone and Tahrir is no longer occupied, the Egyptian Revolution is continuing the deepen through mass strikes and protests, and occasional occupations like at series of campus occupations last month.

     The ongoing Egyptian Revolution demonstrates that societal change is a process, not an event, in which movements rely on a variety of tactics--including occupations--and where the success depends on the active participation of the working class. Had the Egyptian revolution remained confined to Tahrir Square it would not have succeeded. It needed Tahrir to spread.

LESSONS FROM NEW YORK

     The Arab Spring inspired Wisconsin workers and students to occupy their state building for three weeks against budget cuts. Some were disappointed when the occupation ended, but it was part of the process of radicalization that triggered the occupy movement, which has gone through different phases.

     In the summer, people in New York launched “Bloombergville”, a protest camp to oppose mayor Bloomberg’s budget cuts. People camped for weeks, but without outreach to broader community and labour allies the occupation was isolated and disintegrated.

     Occupy Wall Street learned the lessons and has been successful because of outreach beyond the park.

     As a participant to both occupations told The Real News,

“what the unions and community groups bring along with them is a lot of people who have been organizing in marginalized communities and a lot of people who are hardest hit by economic crisis and also racism and sexism and all the other oppressions that we all face. So they bring those struggles here, and they also bring concrete demands because they fight around those concrete demands all the time. That’s incredibly important for this kind of movement to ground itself in very concrete struggles that are actually taking place all the time.”

     As a result of labour solidarity, bus drivers have refused to transport arrested protesters. 

OCCUPY CANADA

     Despite claims by the Canadian state the occupy movement is not relevant here, people across Canada and Quebec know better.

     Canada is built on occupied Native land, and there has been growing solidarity with First Nations people--and participation from aboriginal activists in the occupations--fighting for self-determination against a government that denies its own colonial history, ignores missing and murdered aboriginal women, and maintains brutal conditions that spread illness and suicide on reserves.

     For years people across Canada and Quebec have also mobilized against Harper’s regime of war, Islamophobia, tar sands and austerity--and against the local “one per cent”, from the BC Liberals to the Toronto regime of Rob Ford.

     In the context of a global economic crisis, social democracy is incapable of delivering reform--and people have watched governments elected from the left (from Barack Obama in the US, to George Papandreou in Greece, to David Miller in Toronto) impose the same neoliberal agenda.

     The “orange wave” for the NDP, riding on the wave of inspiration provided by the Arab Spring, expressed people’s hopes of a better world--rather than support for the NDP platform that vowed to continue the military budget. The recent Ontario elections were much more about competing party platforms, and as a result drew the lowest voter turnout in the province’s history.

     But the occupy movement shows this is not because of apathy. Thousands of people have joined the occupy movement—the first political experience for many—as they look for an alternative outside the dominant institutions of the system that can’t offer real change.

DEBATES

     But like all movements there are fault lines that could fracture the movement.

     On the question of demands there are two potential dangers. The media are asking for a few simple demands that the system might accommodate, eliminating the systemic critique at the heart of the movement.  On the other hand, some participants are calling for no demands in a way that reduces the movement to the procedural form divorced from the radical content and the movements that inform it.

     A related problem to the exclusive focus on procedure is that it reduces the movement to the minority able to occupy for long hours, isolated from broader communities and struggles.

     This can give rise to seeing this group as the agent of change--through a frenetic calendar of events that the majority of people don’t have the ability to participate in, or elevating the occupation from a tactic to a principle. 

     As the temperature drops, it will become more unsustainable to maintain outdoor occupations, and prioritizing this over outreach beyond the occupation will cut the movement off from broader struggles. At Occupy Toronto there have been efforts to build beyond the park--joining the Ryerson Social Justice Week on day three, and marching with labour and community allies against the local 1% regime of Rob Ford today.

     As we’ve seen from Tahrir to Wisconsin, occupations are simply one tactic in a broader movement for change. The main strategy needs to be the active participation of masses of people—in the streets, campuses, and workplaces. Only through self-emancipation can we create a world for the 99%, by the 99%.

The Egyptian revolution: phase two

My previous post looked at the first phase of the Egyptian revolution, and the struggles that led up to it, which has won significant political reforms--from the removal of Mubarak, to the promise of free and fair elections, to the partial opening of the Rafah border, to partial freedom of speech and assembly. But basic political reforms are not complete, and the social and economic demands tied to them have not been met. This is phase two of the Egyptian revolution.


UNFINISHED REVOLUTION

Ganzeer's poster, "The Freedom mask"

     Despite the removal of Mubarak, his regime is still intact: the emergency laws and military trials of civilians are still in effect; police cracked down on demonstrators on Nakba Day and beat a bus driver to death in June; the regime arrested journalist Rasha Azab and interrogated journalist and activist Hossam el-Hamalawy; the regime censored murals commemorating martyrs and arrested the street artist Ganzeer (for his poster that says "New! The Freedom Mask! Greetings from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to dear Egyptians. Now available for an unlimited time").
     Like the decade of struggle leading up the revolution, these political questions are part and parcel of social and economic demands. Workers are demanding a minimum wage of 1200 Egyptian pounds ($200). Women demonstrated in Tahrir on International Women’s Day for government-funded child care, an end to discrimination in hiring and promotions, and an end to sexual harrassment and violence against women. Peasants have began reclaiming the land. This week families of martyrs demanding justice joined a sit-in by homeless people demanding housing. 

     But these demands challenge the military regime and the corporations that support them, which persists despite Mubarak’s overthrow. As a striking doctor said, “Every percentage point for increasing health care will come from the budget of the Ministry of Interior and other parts of the oppressive machine.” The same economic crisis that contributed to the revolution is driving a deeper wedge between political reforms gained and the social and economic demands that have yet to be met. The stock market even panicked at a raise in the minimum wage to 700 pounds.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

British PM concluding weapon sales to Egypt's regime

     The Arab spring is a huge threat to Western imperialism in the region, and the counter-revolution is taking a variety of forms: direct military intervention in Libya, indirect intervention through Saudi Arabia in Bahrain, and a combination of weapons sales and  “financial aid” in Egypt. But with the Eurozone in crisis, the funds are relatively small for such a large and strategic country as Egypt, and the government was just forced to reject the loan--citing the "pressure of public opinion". Meanwhile the internal counter-revolution in Egypt is based on a combination of co-opting and attacking the revolution.

     While corporations and the regime are claiming the mantle of the revolution—on murals and posters—they are attacking the strength and unity on which the revolution depends. One of the first acts of the military regime after the fall of Mubarak was to ban strikes that helped drive him from power, and since then it has broken up sit-ins, and harassed union activists in education and transportation. It has also overseen attacks on the International Women’s Day March--including subjecting women to virginity tests--and the burning of a Coptic church.

     The regime has accused striking doctors—who earn less tan $3/day of being traitors to the revolution, while the state-controlled trade unions have accused the independent trade unions of being "counter-revolutionary among the workers". Just as Stalin’s counter-revolution used the language of socialism, so the military regime in Egypt is using the language of revolution in an attempt to undermine the movement for change. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood is complicit with the military regime in its quest for power, using religious language to call off demonstrations. But many of its membership, particularly the youth, were radicalized by the revolution and continue to demonstrate.

WORKERS

     In this context workers struggles are key to counter divisions and push the revolution forward. As Hossam El-Hamalawy wrote last month in The Guardian,

May Day in Tahrir: "Workers of Egypt, unite"

“Many are disappointed with Egypt's progress – me less so because I never had high expectations from an army takeover. But two things have changed in Egypt in the past 100 days which give me hope, and both relate to the fact that the revolution is unfinished. The first is that mass strikes are continuing. The second is that workers have taken the step of establishing independent trade unions, which I believe are the silver bullet for any dictatorship.

Attempts are already under way by middle-class activists to place limits on this revolution and ensure it remains only within the realm of formal political institutions. But the main part of any revolution has to be socio-economic emancipation for the citizens of a country. So this is phase two of the revolution, the phase of socio-economic change. What we need to do now is take Tahrir to the factories, the universities, the workplaces. In every single institution in this country there is a mini-Mubarak who needs to be overthrown. In every institution there are figures from the old state security regime who need to be overthrown.”

     In neighbourhoods, the Popular Committees to Defend the Revolution have continued to advocate for better services and to remove corrupt officials. In workplaces, more than 150 independent unions have formed since the fall of Mubarak—from textile and aluminum workers, to postal and hospital workers, and even workers who issue marriage licences. In March, doctors organized national strikes demanding better wages for all workers, the removal of corrupt officials, and an increase in the health budget from 3 to 15% of GDP. On March 25 an independent union uniting all hospital workers was launched in Cairo, and 3 days later the hospital director resigned. In April postal workers from across Egypt met to organize an independent union. According to Adil Hisham, a postal worker,

“Alongside supporting workers’ demands, we’ll be working on setting up our independent union as quickly as possible. … Now is the time for workers in Egypt to set up independent organisations to defend themselves from the bosses’ attacks, and to unite their demands in the wake of the victory of the revolution which opened the door to all workers to get organised and speak with one voice.”

May Day poster in Tahrir Square

     On May Day, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Unions mobilized the first national public demonstration for workers in over 60 years, and a Democratic Workers Party was launched to represent workers demands—from raising the minimum wage to 1200LE, removing corrupt managers renationalization of privatized industries, and ending Egypt’s ties with Israel. 

    In the first week of June there were strikes or protests by flight attendants, petro workers, subway workers, and Parliament workers, while a pharmacists union formed. Meanwhile, protesters marked the anniversary of the death of Khaled Said by chanting outside the Interior Ministry and spray-painting his face all over the notorious building--while vans full of riot police watched passively. For the past two weeks Suez Canal workers have been on strike. This week hundreds of British trade unionists sent a solidarity message, demanding the Egyptian regime respect the right to strike and protest, and the British government stop selling weapons used to suppress strikes and protests.

ARAB SPRING, WORLD SPRING
     The Egyptian revolution is inspiring people all over the world. Shortly after the fall of Mubarak workers in Wisconsin occupied the capital building, inspired by the Egyptian revolution and received solidarity messages from Egypt. Then Tahrir arrived in Madrid as tens of thousands occupied the main square against austerity. In Canada, Parliamentary page Brigette DePape interrupted the throne speech calling for an Arab spring in Canada. 
     Though our conditions are different, we too have been inspired by Palestinian resistance and mobilized against the Iraq War; we too are mobilizing against police indifference and injustice, from the missing and murdered aboriginal women to the mass arrests at the G20; we too have lived through a generation of neoliberal policies, and are facing an austerity agenda; we too are facing attacks on our trade unions, but are starting to fight back. 

     That’s why we need to learn more from the Egyptian revolution. As an Egyptian activist said recently, "If you're inspired by our Arab revolutions, do as we did. You need one, I know you need one. And we need you to do one. It's not just an Arab spring, it's a world spring."

The Egyptian revolution: phase one

This week marks 5 months since the start of the Egyptian revolution on January 25. Though Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper compared the liberation movement of 80 million people to toothpaste, most of us have been incredibly inspired by one of the most significant developments in our generation. While the media have stopped reporting on it, there was a renewed debate when Parliamentary page Brigette Depape held up a “Stop Harper” sign during the throne speech, and called for an Arab Spring in Canada. She was falsely accused of equating conditions in Canada and in Egypt, and for even suggesting that we have anything to learn from Arab spring since we already have parliamentary democracy. I think we have a tremendous amount to learn from the Egyptian revolution (and so do Egyptian activists) and was fortunate to visit Cairo to learn.

     This blog entry will focus on the first phase of the Egyptian revolution--the 18 days that shook the world, ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak, and won political reforms--and the struggles that led up to it. The next entry will look at phase two of the Egyptian revolution, which seeks to extend these reforms and connect them with longstanding social and economic demands.

 

PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION

     Egypt is the largest country in the Arab world and has been used, along with Saudi Arabia and Israel, to enforce US imperialism in the region. For 30 years the people of Egypt lived under the repressive Western-backed regime of Mubarak, who has used a vicious state apparatus to enforce neo-liberal policies keeping more than 40% living on less than $2/day. This view of Cairo--where a few nice hotels overlook a vast expanse of slums--provides the context for the Egyptian revolution. While it has been presented as a spontaneous event organized on social media on January 25, it is the product of a decade of struggle for political, economic and social reforms.

      In 2000 the second Palestinian intifada provided inspiration to resist imperialism. In 2003 Tahrir Square was briefly occupied as part of the international protests against the Iraq War. In 2005 the Kifayah movement emerged to speak out against the Mubarak dictatorship. In 2006 strike waves emerged, starting with women textile workers of Mahalla.

     Independent trade unions have been at the heart of movements against repressive regimes—from the Solidarity movement in Poland to the overthrow of Apartheid in South Africa, and began forming in the lead up to the Egyptian revolution. Since 1957 Egyptian workers have been ruled by the state-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions, which undermines their ability to fight, but this began to change after Mahalla. As Egyptian journalist and activist Hossam El-Hamalawy said in a videotaped speech in 2008, 

Mahalla strike

"Mahalla showed us the hope...If Egypt falls the entire Middle East is going to fall. We have the biggest working class in the region with a long and militant history of industrial struggle, and we are very optimistic about the developments in the future...We hope in the near future that we're going to witness the revolution."

In 2007 there were more than 500 strikes in Egypt, including the property tax collectors who struck for 3 months--including an 11-day sit in by 5000 women and men in downtown Cairo--and won a significant wage increase. The democratically elected strike committee became a permanent structure, forming the first independent trade union, and in July 2010 the Independent Teacher’s Syndicate was formed.

     Meanwhile global food prices rose dramatically from 2006 to 2008, and since then the great recession has worsened unemployment especially for youth. When the Mahalla workers planned a strike on April 6 2008, there was solidarity from youth who formed the April 6 Youth Movement, advocating for free speech and democracy. In June 2010 the brutal killing of Khaled Said prompted a surge in opposition to police brutality. In November 2010 rigged elections increased resentment over the most basic lack of democracy. On December 17 Tunisian university student Mohamed Bouazizi triggered an uprising; when Tunisian workers organized a general strike, the dictator Ben Ali was driven from power on January 14.

     So the fusion of a decade of political and economic struggles—sharpened by the economic crisis and inspired by the Tunisian revolution—led to the first phase of the Egyptian revolution, beginning January 25.

PHASE ONE

Christians protecting Muslims praying in Tahrir Square

     Social media certainly played a role in the beginning of the uprising, as the video by April 6 Youth Movement leader Asmaa Mahfouz—calling on people to go to Tahrir Square—went viral. But with mass poverty and illiteracy, many Egyptians have neither the resources nor the ability to navigate social media, and the mobile phones and the internet were shut down on Janary 26-7. Yet the uprising intensified through traditional mobilizing techniques in the streets and mosques. People went through their buildings and streets calling to their neighbours to join them, and when churches were closed on Friday many Coptic Christians went to mosques to hear about the mobilizing—analogous to the way churches were used in the American Civil Rights Movement as organizing bases. One of the workers at our hotel described hearing thousands of people outside, and when he went into the streets he was carried by a wave into Tahrir Square.

     The revolution was a combination of spontaneity and self-organization. Having failed to quell the revolution by shutting down social media, the regime tried to create panic by shutting down the banks and businesses, and sending plain clothes police to attack the demonstrators. But popular committees formed to organize security, sanitation, childcare, literacy and health care in Tahrir Square. On January 30 the Egyptian Federation of  Independent Unions was launched in Tahrir Square, uniting 14 unions.

     Women played leading roles in the revolution—from the workers struggles that preceded it, to the youth like Asmaa Mahfouz, to the countless protesters--and unity was built between Muslims and Christians. On Friday February 4 Christians protected Muslims for Friday prayers, and Muslims reciprocated the solidarity during Sunday Mass. And while the cameras were on Tahrir, the workers were taking the revolution to the factories. This followed the pattern of the Tunisian revolution, where workers were not the first organized force but were the most decisive by the role through the use of mass strikes, as El-Hamalawy documented:

“All classes in Egypt took part in the uprising. Mubarak managed to alienate all social classes in society. In Tahrir Square, you found sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, together with the workers, middle-class citizens and the urban poor. But remember that it's only when the mass strikes started on Wednesday that the regime started crumbling and the army had to force Mubarak to resign because the system was about to collapse...

From the first day of the January 25 uprising, the working class has been taking part in the protests. However, the workers were at first taking part as "demonstrators" and not necessarily as "workers" – meaning, they were not moving independently. The government had brought the economy to halt, not the protesters, with their curfews, and by shutting down the banks and businesses. It was a capitalist strike, aimed at terrorising the Egyptian people. Only when the government tried to bring the country back to "normal" on 8 February did the workers return to their factories, discuss the current situation and start to organise en masse, moving as an independent block…

Suez Canal workers strike February 9

On Saturday I started receiving news that thousands of public transport workers were staging protests in el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The temporary workers at Helwan Steel Mills are also protesting. The railway technicians continue to bring trains to a halt. Thousands of workers at the el-Hawamdiya sugar factory are protesting and oil workers announced a strike on Sunday over work conditions. Nearly every single sector in the Egyptian economy has witnessed either strikes or mass protests. Even sections of the police have joined in.”

On February 11 Mubarak was forced to step down. 
     The first phase of the Egyptian revolution has won significant political reforms--from the promise of fair elections, to the partial opening of the Rafah border, to partial freedom of assembly and speech that are obvious on the walls and streets of Cairo. But these political reforms are not complete nor guaranteed, nor do they represent the full demands. The revolution is continuing as a battle between those trying to restrict the gains to minor political reforms, and those trying to deepen the revolution to achieve the social and economic demands that have been at the heart of the revolution and the struggles that preceded it. The next blog entry will look at this, the second phase of the Egyptian revolution.

The revolution will be painted: Cairo street art

A blossoming of street art on the streets of Cairo celebrates the first phase of the Egyptian revolution. But as corporations and the military regime attempt to co-opt and undermine it, graffiti is also reflecting efforts to continue the revolution.

     This mural recently appeared in Cairo a few blocks away from Tahrir Square. On a wall scarred by street fights--punctured with bullet holes and charred by molatov cocktails--a piano has emerged. This is reminiscent of a slogan that appeared on the walls of Paris during the uprising in May '68--"Sous les pavés, la plage." (Under the paving stones, the beach.)--and speaks to the spirit of collective optimism of the Egyptian revolution, which toppled a tyrant and is creatively reclaiming the streets. 

     There is also more direct celebrations, like this one in Tahrir Square: "Enjoy the revolution". On the left hand side in faint letters is another message, "long live freedom". This graffiti is not only a celebration but an act of ongoing resistance. As street artist Ganzeer explained, "Creating graffiti involves taking ownership of the streets, just like we did during the uprising. And so of course it's political, and illegal." The wall has also become a place to mobilize for further protests continuing the demands of revolution: it includes posters mobilizing for May Day demonstration for workers rights, and rallies in solidarity with Palestine.

     The revolution is not simply about a ballot box--as Egyptian activists recently explained in a video--but is about justice, dignity, fair wages, accessible healthcare, and other socioeconomic issues. This is obvious from the new walls of Cairo, where one of the most popular signs on the street art is not the ballot box but the fist--a sign of united struggle against injustice. The fist appears on many walls of Cairo--from a stencil showing a red fist (including a cross and a crescent on the fingers) smashing a tank, to a poster for May Day protests--reflecting the strength of the revolution, from the unity built betweem Muslims and Christians, to the emergence of strikes that finally drove Mubarak from power and that are continuing to push the revolution forward.

WILL THE REVOLUTION BE CO-OPTED?

     But the military regime and corporations are trying to limit the scope of the revolution to the political reforms that have been won, divorcing them from the social and economic demands that were part and parcel of the revolution and that continue to be raised. The regime is attacking the strength of the revolution--banning strikes and demonstrations, and overseeing attacks on a women's rights march and the burning of a Coptic church--yet still claiming the mantle of revolution. While the May Day poster was recently taken down from Tahrir Square, the Egyptian tourism industry has taken up the fist to promote itself. Meanwhile corporations are making use of the revolutionary spirit to market themselves: a mural showing demonstrations rising out of Egypt's flag has been replicated by a Kleenex company.

      The ongoing revolution--a battle between the regime and the corporations they serve on the one hand, and ordinary Egyptians on the other--is reflected on the walls of Cairo over the memory of those who died in the uprising. A mural commemorating the martyr Islam Raafat was erased by the government, prompting outrage over censorship  and a remake of the mural (the photo to the right is the second version).
     The same regime that is censoring street art depictions of martyrs (which show them as vibrant and active participants in the revolution) has plastered Cairo with posters and stickers depicting Tantawi, head of the military regime, claiming to honour the martyrs (depicted as passive victims, while ignoring that it was the military regime that killed them). This reflects broader attempts by the regime to co-opt the revolution: the military regime has claimed that Egyptian doctors are traitors to the revolution by striking for better health care, while the state controlled unions have labeled the emergence of independent trade unions as "the counter-revolution among the workers". Just as Stalin's counter-revolution used the language of socialism, so the military regime in Egypt is using the language and symbolism of revolution in an attempt to reverse the new movement for change.

PERMANENT REVOLUTION

     It's in this context that the work of street artists like Ganzeer is so powerful. He has criticized the "mindless nationalism" of some graffiti, and instead used street art to expose the regime and continue the revolution. One of his largest works of street art, under the 6 October Bridge (location of a key point during the uprising when protesters successfully fought back police and joined Tahrir Square), shows a military tank heading towards an Egyptian cyclist carrying a breadbasket. The soldier in the tank has his visor down, a sign of imminent confrontation, while the breadbasket looks like a city full of people. This mural challenges the myth that the people and the army are one, and raises questions over the future of the Egyptian revolution as these two forces--the people and the military regime--face a collision course.

     Ganzeer has also been much more direct in criticizing the regime, with this mural--"the people want to bring down regime lovers". The work (see the original here) features Mubarak arm in arm with Tantawi, the culture minister, and future presidential candidate Amr Moussa--a visual depiction of the continuity of the Mubarak regime that the revolution has yet to change. No sooner had this appeared that it was defaced. Ganzeer was also arrested after putting up posters depicting someone blindfolded and gagged with the words, "New..the Freedom Mask! Greetings from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to the beloved people. Now available in the market for an unlimited time".
     While the regime is trying to undermine the revolution, the fact that it must present itself as the defender of the revolution is a sign of weakness. Its caution was on display June 6, on the anniversary of the killing of Khaled Said: when demonstrators covered the Interior Ministry (where the regime tortures dissidents) with stencil's of Khaled's face and even posed for pictures, half a dozen vans full of riot police passively looked on.
     Street art, reflecting the political freedoms won during the first phase of the revolution, is raising people's confidence for the second phase. As Egyptian journalist and activist Hossam El-Hamalawy wrote in The Guardian,

"This is phase two of the revolution, the phase of socio-economic change. What we need to do now is take Tahrir to the factories, the universities, the workplaces. In every single institution in this country there is a mini-Mubarak who needs to be overthrown." 

ACT NOW to support Egyptian hospital workers

Poster for Egyptian doctors' strike

The Egyptian healthcare system only receives 3.5% of GDP. Doctors work under state-controlled unions led by corrupt officials with ties to the Mubarak regime, which have prevented them from advocating for better healthcare and working conditions. Most Egyptian doctors work in public hospitals or charity clinics, working up to 100 hours/week for less than $3/day—forcing many to look for other work or leave the country. But the Egyptian revolution has united doctors with other hospital workers in a movement for change. 
            On June 4, 2011 I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Mohamed Shafiq in Cairo, Egypt. He is a member of the Higher Strike Committee of the Doctors’ Strike. As he explains in the interview transcript below, Egyptian doctors joined the revolution in Tahrir Square, and through the process became politicized. In May they organize two national strikes—demanding an end to corruption in the Health Ministry, a fair wage structure for all workers in Egypt, hospital security, and an increase in the budget for the Ministry of Health. Egyptian doctors are also uniting with other hospitals workers—nurses, porters, and technicians—in independent trade unions to push for better healthcare and working conditions, and this new model is starting to spread. On June 10 they will march to Tahrir Square.

But the military regime is trying to undermine the doctor strikes and the independent trade unions to divide the movement for change, restricting the Egyptian revolution to political reforms and preventing the social and economic demands that are at the heart of it. Now is a key time to support Egyptian doctors and the emergence of independent hospital trade unions, and their united efforts to improve health care for all Egyptians, working conditions for all hospital workers, and wages for all workers.

Act now to support Egyptian hospital workers:

1) Send solidarity messages to canada.egypt.solidarity@gmail.com. Messages will be translated, compiled and sent to hospital workers, and those received by Thursday night will be sent by Friday when they return to Tahrir Square

2) Ask your trade union or community organization to do the same

3) For updates from Canadians building solidarity with Egyptian workers visit the facebook group “Solidarity with Egyptian trade unions”:http://on.fb.me/j7z5Eo

4) For updates on international solidarity, visit the Solidarity with Middle East and North African Workers Network at http://menasolidaritynetwork.com

5) To read the transcript of the interview with Dr. Mohamed Shafiq, read below

Can you describe the role of physicians during the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square?

The physicians were the only profession that joined Tahrir Square in a collective way. We were not just protesters, we made six field hospitals in Tahrir Square and joined the revolution from day one until the removal of Mubarak. We joined in a way that were helping the protesters, healing the wounds, the casualties we were removing from Tahrir Square to other hospitals. Some of our friends in the general hospitals were protecting them. In the field hospitals we managed to keep all the protesters in the field safe who suffered form high blood pressure, from diabetes, any kind of disease we received them and gave them medication. We had many contributions and donations form people all over Egypt and continued our work until the step down of Mubarak.

Can you describe the impact of the revolution on the physicians?

The impact is just revolutionary. Doctors used to study a lot of time. We spend most of our time in hospitals, we don’t get in contact with reality that much, but it was out duty. There were many casualties of our citizens in Tahrir Square, and associations decided rapidly that we would help to save our citizens. What we saw while healing the protesters was a revolutionary experience.

I will give one that I had myself. There was this protester who was killed by a sniper bullet in the head, so we searched for his mobile and checked for his brother. So we called him and he came to receive his body. The very next day his brother came to the field hospital with an injury of the skull. So I asked him, you received your brother just yesterday, you are married, you have children. He said, really I didn’t care about politics, I don’t know about Mubarak, but I know that my brother was right and he died for this cause and I will continue to raise this cause myself. And he mended his skull and went back to join the protests.

So we had many, many, many experiences. We saw people who lost an eye and then they go back and fight. We saw people, he received his son—this is story a friend told me—the father came to take the body of his dead son, and after two or three days he came back for his second son. So the experience we have taken was shocking, just revolutionary.

You recently organized strikes. Can you talk about the strikes and their demands, both in terms of physicians and for the broader healthcare system?

This is the first strike to be in the Egyptian country [national strike] ever. We started in our syndicate on the 25^th of March and we had some demands due to our revolutionary experience. Our demands were democratic and social demands. The first was the removal of the Minister of Health, which is a prominent figure of the NDP [Mubarak’s party]. He was the director of a hospital which we saw with our own eyes was carrying rocks to join those who attacked us and our brothers in Tahrir. We wanted to remove him because he cannot be in a revolutionary government. We also wanted to remove all the corrupt figures in the Ministry of Health who conducted an organized corruption of the Ministry of Health and the health of poor Egyptians during the reign of Mubarak.

Our second demand is a just and fair wage structure for all the workers of Egypt, physicians included. Our third was to provide security in hospitals because we work with no security whatsoever. Our fourth and most important demand was to increase the budget of the Ministry of Health from 3.5% of the total budget to 15% of the total budget, which is our main fight now because we think what is happening in Egypt is some sort of tragedy or comedy, I don’t know which.

We have no supplies in hospitals, we have nothing to offer, the health care service is ridiculous. People are dying because we don’t have a bed in the ICU. They don’t have the price to buy medicine. And we are just pretending as if we are giving real services. This is something that we have protested against several years before, but now we are raising our voice.

So after the ignorance from the government we decided to make a partial strike which would only be for the outpatient clinic, not the ICU or Emergency or emergency surgery. And we did it twice, on the 10^th of May and the 17^th of May. And in spite of all the prosecution from the ministry, from the government, it included 85% of all hospitals and health care centres in Egypt. We have several experiences, that in the strike day we greeted the patients with chocolates and juice, and tried to explain why we are not seeing them today and they should come tomorrow because we want to improve the services given to them, that the medicine that is given to them is poor quality and that we won’t accept this injustice anymore. Because the victims we have seen in Tahrir Square have given us a message. They died for this cause.

Can you talk about the challenge of building solidarity form physicians to the revolution and other causes, and the challenge of building solidarity amongst other groups for physicians?

This is the main issue because we are now facing many difficulties. We have been fought by the regime. We have been portrayed as traitors for the revolution, striking against the benefits of the patients and their rights to receive medication and treatment, which is very ridiculous our demands our demands is in the heart for those patients. But you know the media is very powerful, the mass media is a very powerful weapon and is used against us. So we are trying to reach out more for the people.

We are trying to make contacts with our colleagues, other healthcare providers. There are strict divisions between physicians, nurses, porters, technicians. We are trying now to break all these limitations. The independent trade unions starting in every hospital is a good start, and we are just beginning. On the 10^th of June, this month, we are preparing to launch a march to Tahrir Square with doctors and other healthcare providers, and we are trying to call for all the medical forces, civil society and of course our patients to join us in Tahrir Square.

Because the coming budget is still the same, it’s still 3.5%. Still for Egyptian citizen health is not cared for. But all they [the military regime] care for is security and police forces. So we are trying to change, otherwise nothing we’ve done will be benefit for the normal citizen, who does not care about elections or constitution, but he cares about getting a decent meal and decent healthcare service.

Can you talk about your new independent trade union and the relationship between different hospital workers?

            There was a complete separation between the physicians, nurses, technicians. Everybody had his role. Don't cooperate or chat, even though we work for long hours together. So the idea that we work together to fight for the same rights is a bit bizarre. It just started after the revolution, it is spreading by the minute.

             In our trade union we had a good experience. What we did is make the consultant, the specialist physicians sit at the same table as the porters and the nurses and the technicians. And we decided that we vote how we would manage our hospital. We voted to kick out our old hospital manager and to elect a new one. And we voted, everyone of the profession had only a single vote. And we fought that those who humiliate the workers, the porters, would be expelled from the union. And we fought and won this fight. We have changed our manager and we have elected the one that everybody selected. Not only the doctor, everyone selected the new manager. And we have a union that now runs that hospital how it should be run, and decides what to do with the money we have.

We no more have a manager who just orders and we obey. No more have a consultant who shouts at the nurse or shouts at the porter or a manual worker. This spirit, which I find the most inspiring, is one of the most refreshing experiences I’ve had. I’ve been to Tahrir Square for 18 days, but I have never felt as the first day that the council met, where the gynecological consultant, the head of the department sat, and behind him was a manual worker, and they were debating how the money of the hospital should be spent. This is a feeling I have never had before, and this is what we have in our hospital, and I hope we transfer this to different hospitals.

We have now about six independent trade unions in hospitals in Egypt, and we have about 700 or 800 hospitals in Egypt. What we are trying to do now is transfer this experience to every hospital in Egypt. It is already taking place and already arguments are going in every hospital on how things should be run, how to deal with the shortage of supplies, how to deal with the escape of doctors from shifts because we are not paid, how to deal with the corrupt old managers, how to deal with officials and deputes of the managers and the managers who are taking thousands of Egyptian pounds while we are taking pennies, how to decrease what they are taking and increase what we are taking. That’s why we pushed in the syndicate for a minimum and a maximum wage, and for a wage structure not only for doctors and nurses and healthcare providers but for all the workers of Egypt.

What can people outside Egypt do to support Egyptian hospital workers?

This interview is a start. We are trying to reverse the bad propaganda that is made against us in the doctors strike in Egypt. We are trying to reverse this picture. We are trying to reach the most backwards sections of the Egyptian population—which is agitated by this propaganda, which in turn agitate some of our colleagues—to call for a complete strike. Not a partial strike but a complete strike, which of course we can after it gain all our rights in a couple of hours, but of course there will be many victims, our own citizens, and we are against this utterly. And so what you can do, and every union and health care provider in the world, is to give us letters of solidarity, come to us with Tahrir Square on the 10^th of June, if it’s possible. Whatever support we can have will be beneficial. 

10 myths busted by the Egyptian revolution

The Egyptian revolution has busted 10 key myths about society, the “war on terror”, and social transformation. We’re told that ordinary people can’t run society, that we need a police force to maintain order and that change comes from above. We’re told that Muslims and Christians can’t get along, that Muslim women are passive victims in need of liberation, and that the “war on terror” is necessary to spread democracy to the Middle East. When the revolution erupted it was presented as a spontaneous event, in which the people and the army were one and notions of class were a thing of the past, and as an event that unique to Egypt. The ongoing Egyptian revolution is busting all these myths.

MYTH 1: MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS CAN’T GET ALONG

For a decade the world has suffered through a “war on terror” based on a “clash of fundamentalisms” that presents Muslims as inherently violent and incapable of unity with Christians. But what beautiful photos have emerged from Tahrir Square to challenge this myth, photos of Christian protesters protecting Muslim protesters while they pray on Friday—an act of solidarity reciprocated on Sunday during Christian prayer.

MYTH 2: MUSLIM WOMEN ARE PASSIVE VICTIMS
    The “war on terror” has resurrected the White Man’s Burden, seeing Muslims as “half devil and half child”. The infantilizing half of this equation is especially applied to Muslim women, who are presented as passive victims incapable of their own emancipation, who must be liberated by force. The near decade-long occupation of Afghanistan was first launched and recently extended based on this racist and sexist notion. But it has been abundantly clear—from photos of women leading the demonstrations or youtube clips of women in hijabs shaming the riot police—that Muslim women are leading the fight for their own liberation, and for their country.

MYTH 3: WESTERN GOVERNMENTS SUPPORT DEMOCRACY
    Another justification for the “war on terror” is that West governments want to spread democracy to the region. Besides the massive arms deals to dictators in the region—from $282 million to Tunisia, to more than a billion annually to Egypt, to a recent $60 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia—this notion was called into question five years ago when Western leaders responded to democratic elections in Gaza by cutting humanitarian aid.
     In the past month, Western governments were caught openly supporting dictators—from the French foreign minister offering to help Ben Ali "appease the situaion through law enforcement techniques", to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defending Mubarak as "immensely courageous and a force for good", to Obama’s refusal to cut military aid to the dictatorship. Even when the US was forced to concede that Mubarak had to go, the Canadian and Israeli governments continued to support him.

MYTH 4: CHANGE COMES FROM ABOVE
    We’re told that change comes from above—from Parliament in social democratic countries, or through military intervention in dictatorships—both based on the idea that ordinary people can’t fun society, and that specialists in suits or uniforms must change society for them. Eight to ten years of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan—costing a million lives and billions of dollars while undermining living standards—show the success of this strategy of dealing with tyrants. The people of Egypt have shown in 18 days how mass movements from below can deal far more peaceful and powerful change.

MYTH 5: POLICE ARE NEEDED TO STOP VIOLENCE
    During the uprising there was a direct correlation between police presence and violence: people were shot when police tried to crack down on the initial uprising, then there was peace and calm when the police forces melted away, then violence returned when plain-clothed police attacked Tahrir Square, then violence stopped after they were repelled.
    That doesn’t mean it was a completely nonviolent revolution. Protesters burnt down police vehicles and the NDP party headquarters, and defended themselves with rocks and molatov cocktails. But whereas police violence lashed out at demonstrators to squash the pro-democracy movement, protester force was strategically directed at the repressive regime, playing an important role in defending the revolution.

MYTH 6: ORDINARY PEOPLE CAN’T RUN THE WORLD
    The most inspiring lesson of Tahrir Square is that ordinary people can run society. Egyptians self-organized to provide medicine, security, food, childcare, sanitation, literacy, and communication—without bosses, the police, the courts, or parliament—offering a glimpse of what a better world could look like.
  
MYTH 7: REVOLUTION IS PURELY SPONTANEOUS
    The media portrayed the Egyptian revolution as a spontaneous event without organization. Spontaneity certainly played a role, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. As Mona El-Ghobashy  explained,

“There’s a pre-history to this revolt. Egyptian politics didn’t begin on January 25th… we have to link it to the fabric of Egyptian politics starting in 2000, for simplicity’s sake, but protests actually occurred in the 1990s, as well. One of the largest protests was a quarry workers’ strike in 1996 that really shook the country at the time.”

     After that there were mass protests in 2003, as part of the global movement against the Iraq War, including tens of thousands of people who occupied Tahrir Square; the following year the Kifayah (“enough”) movement against Mubarak was born; these political movements fed into economic battles, producing strike waves triggered by women textile workers in Mahalla in 2006 (for an account of the strike wave, watch this video), which connected economic demands with solidarity with Palestine and freedom of assembly. These years of organizing created the experience and networks that combined with the spark of the Tunisian revolution to detonate mass resistance across Egyptian society.

MYTH 8: WORKERS ARE NOT CENTRAL TO REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS
     In Tunisia, protests began with an unemployed student self-immolating and spread to involve all sectors from peasants to lawyers. While the organized working class was not the first to take action, it was the most decisive: it was the general strike that finally drove Ben Ali from the country. The same process unfolded in Egypt, where all classes took part in the Tahrir Square protests but workers played a key role in ousting Mubarak. According to Hossam El-Hamalawy,

“All classes in Egypt took part in the uprising. Mubarak managed to alienate all social classes in society. In Tahrir Square, you found sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, together with the workers, middle-class citizens and the urban poor. But remember that it's only when the mass strikes started on Wednesday that the regime started crumbling and the army had to force Mubarak to resign because the system was about to collapse.”

The mass strike unites economic and political demands and propels revolutions forward, a dynamic identified 95 years ago by the German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg:

“Every new onset and every fresh victory of the political struggle is transformed into a powerful impetus for the economic struggle, extending at the same time its external possibilities and intensifying the inner urge of the workers to better their position and their desire to struggle. After every foaming wave of political action a fructifying deposit remains behind from which a thousand stalks of economic struggle shoot forth. And conversely. The workers’ condition of ceaseless economic struggle with the capitalists keeps their fighting energy alive in every political interval; it forms, so to speak, the permanent fresh reservoir of the strength of the proletarian classes, from which the political fight ever renews its strength, and at the same time leads the indefatigable economic sappers of the proletariat at all times, now here and now there, to isolated sharp conflicts, out of which public conflicts on a large scale unexpectedly explode. In a word: the economic struggle is the transmitter from one political centre to another; the political struggle is the periodic fertilisation of the soil for the economic struggle.”

MYTH 9: THE ARMY AND THE PEOPLE ARE ONE
    It is for this reason that the military high command, reflecting the ruling elites in Egypt, have so quickly called for strikes to end, which would stop the beating heart of the revolution. While rank and file soldiers have identified and joined with the demonstrators, the high command is intent on restricting the revolution, reflecting a class divide in Egypt that will become more apparent at time goes on. As El-Hamalawy explains,

“Thousands of public transport workers were staging protests in el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The temporary workers at Helwan Steel Mills are also protesting. The railway technicians continue to bring trains to a halt. Thousands of workers at the el-Hawamdiya sugar factory are protesting and oil workers announced a strike on Sunday over work conditions. Nearly every single sector in the Egyptian economy has witnessed either strikes or mass protests. Even sections of the police have joined in. At this point, the Tahrir Square occupation is to be suspended. We have to take Tahrir to the factories now. As the revolution proceeds, an inevitable class polarisation will take place. We have to be vigilant. We hold the keys to the liberation of the entire region, not just Egypt. Onwards we must go, with a permanent revolution that will empower the people of this country with direct democracy from below.”

MYTH 10: IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE
    The Egyptian revolution is part of resistance movements sweeping the globe in response to the economic crisis. Each new outburst catches governments and media off guard, and is quickly explained away as an isolated incident, only to erupt somewhere new. Protests and strikes have spread across Europe (from Greece and Ireland to France and Britain), South Africa, India, and Thailand. Now we're seeing how economic crisis can trigger political crisis, with resistance against austerity combining with longstanding anger against repression and corruption. The Tunisian spark has ignited the Egyptian detonator, triggering revolt across Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, and Djibouti.
    How far and how deep this resistance spreads is an open question, and that’s what’s so exciting.