Democratic Palestine : 20 (ص 29)
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- Democratic Palestine : 20 (ص 29)
- المحتوى
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paper, predicts a 35% wage decrease in the government sector
over the coming five years. We can imagine the size of unem-
ployment if we add the two million unemployed who will
return from abroad in the next two years, searching for work.
Politically,what the authority ‘grants’ is single precisely deli-
neated freedom, freedom of the press, while the mass move-
ment and freedom to organize are prohibited; strikes are con-
sidered criminal acts. President Mubarak personally amended
the election law for the people’s council (parliament). The new
rule recognizes only one ballot - the official one. Fraud was
used to deprive the nationalist opposition of representation; in
this way, it was kept out of the people’s council, the consulta-
tive council and the local councils.
In Mubarak’s term, barbaric repression has been practiced
against the legal moves of workers, students and peasants.
University campuses and Al Azhar mosque were violated. Now
1,236 central security soldiers are being tried in the state secu-
rity courts; 1,205 of them face capital punishment, despite the
fact that there is a general consensus, even among Officials,
that their uprising was spontaneous. It erupted as a result of
their bad living conditions and the humiliation to which they
are subjected.
There are some who challenge these facts and the realities of
daily life; they insist on circulating illusions about ‘reforms’
and counting on changes from ‘within the regime’. However,
these illusions find no echo among the masses. The leaders who
promote such illusions are being isolated and losing credibility.
There is a process of polarization going on within the parties
they lead; there is a split between the leaders and their base.
I would like to stress one point in conclusion. We make a
sharp distinction between the ‘reforms’ such as I have des-
cribed, which we reject, and the necessary struggle to impose
reforms and seize our rights in all aspects of life.
What are the lessons to be drawn from the elections
conducted by Mubarak?
What kind of democracy do you demand?
The main lessons can be summarized as follows:
1. Exposure of the illusions that there were essential diffe-
rences between the regimes of Sadat and Mubarak. In fact, the
latter imposea a much worse election law than his predeces-
sors. The amendment changed the elections from a district
system to one central ballot, in order to impose more restric-
tions and allow more chances to control the results. It guaran-
tees depriving all opposition forces from representation in the
parliament, while in the past a few individuals were able to
enter. Still, the authorities were forced to falsify the election
results, which exposes their claims about democracy and
honesty.
2. Democracy is not a gift from God. It can never be attained
by using logical, reasonable arguments, or by appealing to the
‘enlightened’ sector in the authority. Democracy must be
seized through mass struggle, and the struggle of the conscious,
organized popular movement.
3. Rejection of the tendency to accept reality and adapt to
the situation. The opposition has quickly given up resisting the
amended election law. They did not seriously try to exert any
pressure, especially not on the mass level, even though they had
a good example before them: The success of the lawyers in
forcing the regime to back down on amending the rules for the
lawyers’ union. This achievement was due to their perseverance
and the mobilization of all lawyers in the battle against the
regime.
4. The political and social struggle cannot be confined to the
forms and channels allowed by the authority or its law. The.
struggle has to be broadened through an active practice and
imposed by force. In fact, the masses practice this policy, for
all forms of mass struggle are illegal. The punishment for
sit-ins and strikes, for example, is life imprisonment with hard
labor. Only the fact of broad mass struggle prevents the regime
from simply implementing this law. We raise this issue because
many political leaders think a lot about legalities. As a result,
they refuse to call for mass movements, or even to participate
in any action that is ‘against the law’; they wait for the
authority’s permission! Even worse, these leaders were able to
obtain a court order allowing them to organize mass meetings
and marches, but they backed down because this order contra-
dicted the authority’s orders!
5. Serious work to infiltrate the bourgeois institutions,
mainly in order to use them as a platform for propagating the
programs of the nationalist parties. This is not an aim in itself,
nor the main form of struggle, though there are indications
that some forces consider it so. There is no doubt that the
nationalist and leftist forces benefited from the previous elec-
tion campaign. It allowed some organizations to have broad
contact with the masses and inform them of their program and
policies. However, their failure to gain representation was fol-
lowed by a period of paralysis and disunity, which only con-
firms the legalistic mentality of their leaders. They did not
follow up and utilize the contacts gained with the mass move-
ment, as if their job had ended with the elections.
There is a tendency to exaggerate the reasons for the relative
freedom of the press, considering it the main test of the
regime’s ‘democracy’ The signs of the democracy that we are
demanding stem from a class basis. We concentrate on demo-
cratic freedoms that serve the interests and struggles of the toi-
ling masses, and allow freedom of movement for the more
radical forces, i.e., the real left. Thus, we struggle to seize the
right to form parties without restrictions, and the freedom to
political, social and trade union organization. We struggle for
ridding the parties of the authority’s hegemony, and for the
right to strike, sit-in and demonstrate, etc. In general, we
struggle for all that serves the organization and mobilization of
the toiling masses.
Can you inform us about the activities of the revo-
lutionary movement in the mass organizations?
First,it is necessary to know about the background.The most
important lesson learned by the traditional Egyptian bour-
geoisie is persistently working to dismantle the revolutionary
movement and, more important, isolating it from the mass
movement, while seeking to control the latter, especially the
labor organizations, if it is not able to liquidate them. The
bourgeoisie gained experience in this field because at an early
stage it was faced with well-developed, active workers’ and
peasants’ movements. Since the 1980s, there has been a pro-
tracted, strenuous struggle by the trade union movement. With
the bourgeois revolution, led by Saad Zaghloul, one of the first
decisions of his government was dissolving the general wor-
kers’ union. The union leadership was arrested and the workers
subjugated to the worst kind of oppression for several decades.
The bourgeoisie sought to dominate the movement and orga-
nization of the working class, as well as to passify it. This
policy was applied by all, from the Wafd Party to the elite par-
ties under the monarchy, to the extent that the Honorable
Abbas Halim from the ruling family sought to establish a
workers’ party.
In Nasser’s era, the state consolidated its grip on the labor
organization, subordinating it to the state’s bureaucratic poli-
tical formation (the Arab Socialist Union); membership in
the latter was required for being nominated to any trade union
position. Following the collapse of the monarchy, the regime
violently suppressed the peaceful strike of the Kafr Dawar
workers. The military court instituted the death sentence which
was carried out on two union leaders, Khamis and al Bakarey.
In spite of this, the workers supported the July revolution,
especially in the period when its nationalist position was con-
solidated after the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956.
The progressive direction pursued by the regime in the social
and political arenas gave the workers many gains. Then came
the 1967 defeat. This led the workers, together with all the
popular ranks, to confront the capitulationists, to reject defeat
and expose its internal causes, to move for seizing their right to
participate in decision-making, and supervise the plan for
‘change’ which became a mass demand for insuring the base of
liberation.
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