Development Challenges and Solutions After the Arab Spring

Ali Kadri, Ali Kadri

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137541406
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Commercio e tariffe

Since the events of 2011, most Arab countries have slipped into a state of war, and living conditions for the majority of the working population have not changed for the better. This edited collection examines the socioeconomic conditions and contests the received policy framework to demonstrate that workable alternatives do exist.

Part I

Political Economy

1

Egypt: Failed Emergence, Conniving Capitalism, Fall of the Muslim Brothers – A Possible Popular Alternative

Samir Amin

1. Failed emergence of Egypt

Egypt was the first country of those in the periphery of globalised capitalism that tried to emerge. Even at the start of the nineteenth century, well before Japan and China, the Viceroy Mohammed Ali had conceived and undertaken a programme of renovation for Egypt and its near neighbours in the Arab Mashreq (Mashreq means East, in other words, eastern North Africa and the Levant). That vigorous experiment took up two-thirds of the nineteenth century and only belatedly ran out of breath in the 1870s, during the second half of the reign of the Khedive Ismail. The analysis of its failure cannot ignore the violence of the foreign aggression by Great Britain, the foremost power of industrial capitalism during that period. Twice – in the naval campaign of 1840 and then by taking control of the Khedive’s finances during the 1870s, and then finally by military occupation in 1882 – Great Britain contributed to blocking the emergence of Egypt. Certainly, the Egyptian project was subject to the limitations of its time, since it manifestly envisaged emergence within and through capitalism, unlike Egypt’s second attempt at emergence – which we will discuss from the next paragraph on. That project’s own social contradictions, like its underlying political, cultural and ideological presuppositions, were undoubtedly responsible, at least in part, for its failure. The fact remains that, without imperialist aggression, those contradictions would probably have been overcome, as they were in Japan. Beaten, emergent Egypt was forced to undergo nearly 40 years (1880–1920) as a servile periphery, whose institutions were refashioned in service to that period’s model of capitalist/imperialist accumulation. That imposed retrogression damaged not only its productive system, but also the country’s political and social institutions. It operated systematically to reinforce all the reactionary and medievalist cultural and ideological conceptions that had been useful for keeping the country in its subordinate position.

The Egyptian nation – its people, its elites – never accepted that position. This stubborn refusal in turn gave rise to a second wave of movements, which unfolded during the next half-century (1919–1967). Indeed, I see that period as a continuous series of struggles and major forward movements. It had a triple objective: democracy, national independence and social progress. These three objectives, however limited and sometimes confused their formulations, were inseparable from the other. In this reading, the chapter (1955–1967) of Nasserist systematisation is nothing but the final chapter of that long series of advancing struggles, which began with the revolution of 1919–1920.

The first moment of that half-century of rising emancipation struggles in Egypt had put its emphasis, with the formation of the Wafd (a nationalist political party) in 1919, on political modernisation through adoption (in 1923) of a bourgeois form of constitutional democracy (limited monarchy) and on the reconquest of independence. The form of democracy envisaged allowed progressive secularisation, if not secularism in the radical sense of that term – whose symbol was the flag linking cross and crescent (a flag that reappeared in the demonstrations of January and February 2011). ‘Normal’ elections then allowed, without the least problem, not merely for Copts (native Egyptian Christians) to be elected by Muslim majorities, but for those very Copts to hold high positions in the state. The British put their full power, supported actively by a reactionary bloc comprised of the monarchy, the great landlords and the rich peasants, into undoing the democratic progress made by Egypt under Wafdist leadership. In the 1930s, the dictatorship of Sedki Pasha, which abolished the democratic 1923 constitution, clashed with the student movement then spearheading the democratic anti-imperialist struggles. It was not by chance that, to counter this threat, the British Embassy and the Royal Palace actively supported the formation in 1927 of the MB, inspired by ‘Islamist’ thought in its most backward ‘Salafist’ version of Wahhabism as formulated by Rachid Reda – the most reactionary version (anti-democratic and against social progress) of the new-born ‘political Islam’. The conquest of Ethiopia undertaken by Mussolini, with world war looming, forced London to make some concessions to the democratic forces. In 1936, the Wafd, having learned its lesson, was allowed to return to power, and a new Anglo-Egyptian treaty was signed. World War II necessarily constituted a sort of parenthesis. But a rising tide of struggles resumed as soon as 21 February 1946, with the formation of the ‘worker-student bloc’, reinforced in its radicalisation by the entry on stage of the communists and of the working-class movement. Once again, the Egyptian reactionaries, supported by London, responded with violence and, to this end, mobilised the MB behind a second dictatorship by Sedki Pasha – without, however, being able to silence the protest movement. Elections had to be held in 1950 and the Wafd returned to power. Its repudiation of the 1936 Treaty and the inception of guerrilla actions in the Suez Canal Zone were defeated only by setting fire to Cairo (January 1952), an operation in which the MB was heavily involved.

A first coup d’état, in 1952, by the Free Officers (leaders of the 1952 coup), and, above all, a second coup in 1954 by which Nasser took control, was taken by some to crown the continual flow of struggles and by others to put it to an end. Rejecting the view of the Egyptian awakening as advanced above, Nasserism put forth an ideological discourse that wiped out the whole history of the years from 1919 to 1952 in order to push the start of the Egyptian Revolution to July 1952. At that time, many among the communists had denounced this discourse and analysed the coups d’état of 1952 and 1954 as aimed at putting an end to the radicalisation of the democratic movement. They were not wrong, since Nasserism took the shape of an anti-imperialist project only after the Bandung Conference of April 1955. Nasserism then contributed all it had to give: a resolutely anti-imperialist international posture (in association with the pan-Arab and pan-African movements) and some progressive (but not socialist) social reforms. The whole thing was done from above, not only without democracy (the popular masses being denied any right to organise by and for themselves), but even by abolishing any form of political life. This was an invitation to political Islam to fill the vacuum thus created. In only ten short years (1955–1965), the Nasserist project used up its progressive potential. Its exhaustion offered imperialism, henceforward led by the United States, the chance to break the movement by mobilising, to that end, its regional military instrument: Israel. The 1967 defeat of Egypt marked the end of the tide that had flowed for a half-century. Its reflux was initiated by Nasser himself, who chose the path of concessions to the right, the infitah or opening (an opening to capitalist globalisation of course), rather than the radicalisation called for by, among others, the student movement (which held the stage briefly in 1970, shortly before and then after the death of Nasser). His successor, Sadat, intensified and extended the rightward turn and integrated the MB into his new autocratic system. Mubarak continued along the same path.

Under Nasser, Egypt had set up an economic and social system that, though subject to criticism, was at least coherent. Nasser wagered on industrialisation as the way out of the colonial international specialisation which was confining the country to the role of cotton exporter. His system maintained a division of incomes that favoured the expanding middle classes without impoverishing the popular masses. Sadat and Mubarak dismantled the Egyptian productive system, putting in its place a completely incoherent system based exclusively on the profitability of firms, most of which were mere subcontractors for the imperialist monopolies. Supposed high rates of economic growth, much praised for 30 years by the World Bank, were completely meaningless. Egyptian growth was extremely vulnerable. Moreover, such growth was accompanied by an incredible rise in inequality and by unemployment afflicting the majority of the country’s youth. This was an explosive situation. It exploded.

During the Bandung and Non-Aligned period (1955–1970), the Arab countries were in the forefront of the struggles of the peoples, the nations and the states of the South for a better future and a less unequal global system. Algeria’s Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and Boumedienne, Nasser’s Egypt, the Ba’ath regimes in Iraq and Syria, and the South Yemen Republic, shared common characteristics. These were not democratic regimes according to the Western criteria (they were ‘one-party’ systems), nor even according to our criteria, which implies positive empowerment of the peoples. They were, nevertheless, legitimate in the eyes of their peoples, for their actual achievements: mass education, health and other public services, industrialisation and guarantees for employment, and social upward mobility, associated with independent initiatives and anti-imperialist postures. However, they were continuously and fiercely opposed by the Western powers, in particular through repeated Israeli aggressions.

These regimes achieved whatever they could in that frame within a short period, say 20 years, and then ran out of steam, as a result of their internal limits and contradictions. This, coinciding with the breakdown of Soviet power, facilitated the imperialist neoliberal offensive. The ruling circles, in order to remain in office, have chosen to retreat and submit to the demands of neoliberal globalisation. The result has been a fast degradation of the social conditions. All that had been achieved in the era of the National Popular State for the benefit of the popular and middle classes was lost in a few years, poverty and mass unemployment being the normal result of the neoliberal policies pursued. Thus, the objective conditions for the subsequent revolts were created.

The period of retreat lasted, in its turn, almost half a century. Egypt, submissive to the demands of globalised liberalism and to US strategy, simply ceased to exist as an active factor in regional or global politics. Instead, the major US allies – Saudi Arabia and Israel – occupied the foreground. Israel was then able to pursue its course of expanding its colonisation of occupied Palestine, with the tacit complicity of Egypt and the Gulf countries.

Depoliticisation of Egypt’s society due to the modus operandi of the Nasserist regime is behind the rise of political Islam. Note that Nasserism was not the only system that took this approach. Rather, most populist nationalist regimes of the first wave of awakening in the South had a similar approach with regard to the management of politics. Note also that the actual existing socialist regimes have all also taken this approach, at least after the revolutionary phase, which was democratic in nature, during which they solidified their rule. So, the common denominator is the abolition of democratic praxis. And I do not mean here to equate democracy with multiparty elections, rather, the practice of democracy in the proper sense of the word. This, in other words, is the respect for the plurality of political views and political schemes and for political organisation. Because politicisation assumes democracy, democracy does not exist if those who differ in opinion to those in authority do not enjoy freedom of expression. The obliteration of the right to organise around different political views and projects eliminated politicisation, which ultimately caused the subsequent disaster.

This disaster has manifested itself in the return to bygone archaic views (religious or otherwise), and this was also reflected in the acceptance of the project of consumer society based on solidification of the so-called trend of individualism, a trend which spread not only among the middle class that benefits from such pattern of development, but also among the poor masses, who call for participation in what appears to be minimal welfare – even though with its maximum simplicity – in the absence of a credible real alternative. Therefore, one must consider this as a legitimate demand from the popular classes.

The depoliticisation in Islamic societies took a prevailing form that was manifested in the apparent or superficial return to ‘Islam’. Consequently, the discourse of the mosque, along with the discourse of the governing authority, became the only ones allowed in Nasser’s period of rule, and more so during the periods of Sadat and Mubarak. This discourse was then used to stop the emergence of an alternative based on the entrenching of socialist aspirations. Then, at the beginning of 1979, with the signing of the Camp David accords, this ‘religious’ discourse was encouraged by Sadat and Mubarak to accompany and cope with the deteriorating living conditions resulting from the subjugation of Egypt to the requirements of imperialist globalisation. This is why I argued that political Islam did not belong to the opposition bloc, as claimed by the MB, but was an organic part of the power structure.

The success of political Islam requires further clarification regarding the relationship between the successes of imperialist globalisation on the one hand, and the rise of Brotherhood slogans on the other.

The deterioration that accompanied this globalisation produced proliferation in the activities of the informal sector in economic and social life, which represents the most important sources of income for the majority of people in Egypt (statistics say 60 per cent). The Brotherhood’s organisations have a real ability to work in these circumstances, so that their success, in turn, has produced more inflation in these activities and thus ensured its reproduction on a larger scale. The political culture offered by the Brotherhood is known for its great simplicity. This culture is content with only conferring Islamic legitimacy to the principle of private property and free market relations. It does so without considering the nature of the activities concerned, which are secondary bazaar-like activities that are unable to push forward the national economy or development. Furthermore, the generous provision of funds from the Gulf States has allowed for the boom of such activities, as these states have been pumping in the required funds in the form of small loans or grants. This is in addition to the charity work (clinics and so on) that has accompanied this inflated sector, thanks to the support of Gulf States. The Gulf States do not intend to contribute to the development of productive capacity in the Egyptian economy (building factories and so on), but only to lumpen development, since reviving Egypt as a developing state would end the domination of the Gulf States, whose model is based on the Islamisation of society. The dominance of the US subsumes Egypt as a comprador state, infected with worsening poverty, but that of Israel must ensure the impotence of Egypt in the face of Zionist expansion.

Imperialist powers and a huge security apparatus boosted the stability of the Egyptian regime. Unlike the perceived wisdom that Islamis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Arab Development via the Channels of War and Oil
• Part I: Political Economy
• Part II: Macroeconomics
• Part III: The Agrarian Question
• Part IV: Two Cases of Development under Conflict
• Part V: Closing Comment
• Index