Alliance Voices: Rebuilding Socialist Alliance

Alliance Voices: Rebuilding Socialist Alliance



This is probably the best, most honest and clear-sighted contribution to Alliance Voices I have read since I became a member of the Alliance. Ewan clearly lays out all of the problems which have crept into organisational practices in recent years and identifies ways that we can go about breaking them down. Although the conference is presently taking place I'm not sure if this perspective will gain any traction; however, it has already informed some amendments to the party-building resolution, some of which have been adopted already. More on that later.

Alliance Voices: Thinking About Party Leadership and Functioning in the Socialist Alliance

Alliance Voices: Thinking About Party Leadership and Functioning in the Socialist Alliance


*disclaimer: despite taking leave from organising midway
through last year, I'm still an (inactive) member of the Socialist
Alliance. As always, my opinions on this blog are wholly my own.*

This is a very useful and timely discussion of how a socialist organisation should actually organise, how we address some common problems, etc. However, I think some more elaboration is needed in a few particular areas; in general, some more "derivation from first principles", such as why team leadership building is so important, from where stances on rotating full time organisers, ensuring branch democracy and taking into account different capacity to organise or be involved, etc.



I also think we need to take into account democratic culture a lot more - how it is established and maintained. Rather than a brief note on why establishing cliques along social lines is bad, perhaps it would be better to reflect on what steps need to be taken to ensuring a functioning, healthy democracy in the party, nationally and in branches and local leaderships. This is the best way to combat cliques, in my opinion and experience.



Additionally, I think we need to adopt policy or procedures around bullying to match those on homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. We fight in our workplaces, schools, etc to ensure bullying behaviour is eradicated, yet I have seen no desire to prevent it in the party.

Tunisia: Assassination throws government into chaos

Reposted from July. Originally published in Green Left Weekly.

For the second time in six months, Tunisia's government has been thrown into chaos after the killing of a left-wing leader. Mohamed Brahmi, a leader of Tunisia's Popular Front, was assassinated on July 25.

Brahmi was attacked by two men on motorbike outside his home in Ariana, a suburb of Tunis, and was shot 11 times. He was taken to Mahmoud Matri Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

His widow M'barka told radio station Mosaique FM: “He died as a martyr to his opinion and position”, Tunisia Live said. She added that “he was killed by a terrorist gang”.

Brahmi was an activist for many years under Ben Ali's dictatorship. He was born in the impoverished interior town of Sidi Bouzid, where the uprising that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 began. After the 2011 uprising, he founded the Popular Movement.

On April 9, the Popular Movement joined with the Popular Front, which is made up of a large variety of radical left groups involved in the trade union and other social movements.

On July 7, Brahmi resigned from the Popular Movement after it rescinded the decision to join the front.

In the aftermath of the killing, interior minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou announced that the same gun used to kill Brahmi had been used to assassinate Chokri Belaid six months earlier.

Belaid, also a Popular Front leader was killed in similar circumstances, gunned down by assailants on motorbikes outside his home on February 6.

Ben Jeddou named a suspect, Islamic fundamnetalist Boubacar Hakim, also wanted on suspicion of smuggling weapons from Libya. He has been connected with the al Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sharia.

However, the group denied responsibility in a Facebook statement, calling Brahmi's killing "a political assassination, part of attempts to push the country toward chaos".

Brahmi's murder "only profits remnants of the former regime and lackeys of the Zionists and Crusaders", it said.

The response to the killing was swift, with protests breaking out across the country. A general strike on July 26 shut down banks, shops and flights, as thousands rallied in Tunis to join Brahmi's funeral procession.

Demonstrations took place around the country, with a police station and offices of the ruling Ennahda party set on fire in Siliana.

Popular Front activist Mohamed Mofti was killed in the southern mining town of Gafsa after being struck in the head by a tear gas canister. Tear gas was also used to disperse protests demanding the dissolution of the government in Tunis, Sidi Bouzid, Siliana, Montastir and Sfax.

Protesters in Tunis converged on the Bardo square, location of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) that is overdue to release a new draft constitution. The Islamist Ennahda party, in a "troika" alliance with two secular parties, holds a majority in the NCA, and the interim government.

Protesters converged on the Bardo on July 26 to demand the dissolution of the Ennahda-led government and the NCA.

They were met by a smaller number of government supporters who rallied across the square, chanting "there's no room for Sisi" — comparing the calls to dissolve the government to the recent ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt by the military.

Despite their similar positions as post-dictatorship democracies with Islamist governments, comparisons between the current events to those in Egypt, where large liberal secular protests preceded the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood government by the military, are weak at best.

A "Tunisian Tamarod" movement, demanding a constitution which would represent all Tunisians and not only Islamists, gained 200,000 signatures in June, but was unable to make a big impact or mobilise strong support on the streets.

Beji Caid Essebsi, the leader of the ex-regime Tunisia Call Party, used the opportunity to demand the dissolution of the NCA. He also criticised a proposed law that would extend a ban on ex-regime figures taking office.

This demand has also been raised by the Popular Front. In an interview with International Viewpoint, leader of the socialist Workers' Left League Alhelm Belhadj said: "The government has failed ... it was put in place to manage a transitional period of one year. Eighteen months have gone by and the essential tasks for which it was there, those of the Constitution, have not been fulfilled."

The Popular Front had proposed to launch a big national protest movement for justice for Chokri Belaid on August 6, before Brahmi's murder.

The anti-government sit-in at the Bardo was dispersed on July 27. The police claimed they were intervening to prevent violence between the two camps in the square after a spate of "stone throwing".

Thousands of anti-government protesters resumed their "Sit-in of Departure" on July 28, where they remained until August 2.

Sixty-five members of the NCA have withdrawn from the body in protest; several have been taking part in the sit-in.

Ennahda spokespeople have announced they are willing to discuss forming a government of national unity, but refuse to discuss dissolving the NCA.

When the wizard gets to me, I'm asking for a smaller heart

As a huge fan, I'm really disappointed to hear that, despite looking at the situation closely, Amanda Palmer has decided to cross the picket line of the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel and organise a gig in Tel Aviv.

I first came across Amanda Palmer around 2007; I was playing in a band with a couple of schoolfriends, and one of them suggested we play Coin Operated Boy. We weren't particularly good, but it was fun, and I borrowed the Dresden Dolls' whole discography at the time to listen to. 

Track forward a few years, and, after buying tickets to the gig when it was supposed to be in February, I had the honour for the first time of rocking out with AMANDA FUCKING PALMER live for myself earlier this month. It was at my partner's insistence that we got the tickets; she also backed the AFP kickstarter.

The stories of friends who had attended concerts left me with high expectations for the show; even so I was blown away. It was truly one of the most amazing gigs of my life. Although there was no crowd surfing pashes for me or my friends, at one point during 'Do It With A Rockstar' she did thrust the microphone into my mouth. I nearly fainted!




But I'd never be able to appreciate her music in the same way if she goes ahead with this gig. Simply taking a tour with Breaking the Silence, which she's cited as the reason she tipped to booking a gig, doesn't neutralise performing a public show in an apartheid state.

I hope Amanda (or anyone reading this) have read the PACBI website - if you haven't, you should really consider some of the arguments rebutting common reasons to break the boycott put here. Particularly worth reading in this context:

2. Why Not Boycott Other Human Rights Offenders Too?

...Israel is today the only state practicing a three-tiered system of oppression – occupation, colonization and apartheid – while being treated by Western states as part of their “democratic club” and, consequently, receiving unlimited political, economic, diplomatic, academic and cultural support from them. This entrenched and persistent Western complicity is precisely what perpetuates Israel’s colonial oppression and makes it a moral obligation for citizens of the West to endeavor to end their states’ respective complicity in Israel’s crimes. Striving to end collusion in human rights violations should be the absolute minimum that we expect from any conscientious artist or cultural worker.

I think AFP should go to Tel Aviv, and play for the kickstarter obligations. And I think she should take the tour with Breaking the Silence too. Visit the old city of Hebron, where a few hundred settlers terrorise the 10,000 Palestinian inhabitants in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the areas around the Ibrahim Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs. Visit Nablus, go through checkpoints where Palestinians are routinely denied entry while settlers are allowed to drive right though. Visit Bethlehem's 300 checkpoint at 4am, when Palestinian workers from the territories have to line up to try and get into Israel to start their jobs at 8am. If she is like me, then seeing these things for herself will break her heart and fill her with rage. If not, then I can respect that. Nonetheless, as someone who is totally on the right side of politics and who put on a 'Fuck Tony Abbott' T-shirt proferred by a fan during the signing after the gig, simply having that experience, documenting it, and sharing it with her fans will be a powerful thing.

But to play a public gig in Israel is to cross the picket line and say - this isn't cultural and religious apartheid, just another country with a few problems. And I would lose a lot of respect for Amanda Palmer and her amazing, challenging, uncompromising body of work if she does that.

ASIO Harassment

Originally published by Green Left Weekly. 

On Tuesday the 16^th of April, I received a knock on the door from two members of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, better known as ASIO.

The two told me they would like to have a conversation. When I asked what they wanted to speak about, they told me they were doing their job - protecting national security – and had a few questions about my involvement in activism in Sydney.

Apparently the latest threat to national security is “political violence” in the activist community. As a Palestine solidarity activist involved in organising the Sydney rally to commemorate Nakba (the catastrophe, when the state of Israel was created and Palestinians dispossessed) the agents wanted to speak to me about any concerns I might have, or for me to identify any individuals who I was worried might be responsible for acts of political violence.

I replied that the only fears of violence that I had from my involvement in Palestine solidarity activism were from the far right groups and individuals who often organise counter mobilisations – or simply send threatening and intimidatory emails, messages and phone calls in an attempt to stop or derail our protests and other events.

I was also questioned by the employees about the recent rally against police violence at Mardi Gras – which I didn’t attend – and the picket lines at the University of Sydney, where I study, organised by the National Tertiary Education Union. Once again, my answer was that the only violence I have seen in my time as an activist has been initiated by those seeking to silence our right to protest. 

 

In the case of Sydney University, this comes from members of the “Public Order and Riot” Squad of the NSW Police force, who have been sentin to break up the picket and other protests to defend education and student rights. At the latest picket, they were responsible for breaking one student's leg and another's ribs.

Other people in Sydney and Melbourne involved in campaign groups have also been approached by ASIO and asked not to speak about these visits.

In a context of the “war on terror” overseas — which has involved Australian troops involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past decade — there is a war on civil liberties at home.

ASIO’s mandate is broad and without scrutiny. The organisation is responsible for providing security assessment for refugees seeking asylum in Australia, with no public oversight. Tamil asylum seeker Ranjini and her two sons are locked up in Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre because ASIO decided she is a “security risk”.

 

Security organisations have had their powers expanded and budgets increased by Labor and Coalition governments, and consequently have increased their monitoring of Australians.

As $900 million is being slashed from our universities through an “efficiency dividend”, the new ASIO headquarter building in Canberra is facing yet another costly delay in opening. After being estimated to cost $460 million when construction began under the Howard government, the full price tag is now being estimated at over$631 million dollars – over 2/3 of the university cuts.

Construction has had no parliamentary oversight, and there was no public consultation.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (the ASIO Act) even makes it illegal to publish the identity of any officer, agent or employee of the organisation. 

Last year, Green Left Weekly reported on activists involved in pro-Palestine and pro-Tamil solidarity campaigns in Adelaide who had also been visited by South Australian Police working in “security and intelligence”.

These visits are an attempt to intimidate people into ending their involvement in legitimate political organisations. Organising and attending demonstrations is not illegal and people involved in these activities should not be monitored by ASIO.

There is no law that prevents people from speaking publicly about a visit from ASIO. Shining a light on these practices is important to show that we will not be intimidated into exercising our democratic right to protest.

If the powers that be were serious about national security, they might abolish this spy agency - and withdraw our troops from the costly and unjustifiable occupation of Afghanistan - instead of harassing activists who are only exercising their democratic right to protest.

Tunisia: Ennahda fails to deliver promises of work and freedom

Originally published in Green Left Weekly, Saturday September 1

Almost a year since Tunisia's Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, Islamist party Ennahda, leader of the coalition government, continues to lose the confidence of those who rose up against dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in late 2010.

Anger was prompted by Constitutional Article 27, which was passed by the Committee on Rights and Freedoms on August 1, defining women's rights as "complementary" to those of men, placing women "at the heart of the family and as man's associate".

This enraged feminists democracy activists, who saw the article as trying to undermine the principle of equality for all citizens, enshrined in Article 22. Formal equality for women has been a strong principle in Tunisian society since the days of post-independence ruler Habib Bourguiba.

Activist Wafa Ben Hassine wrote in independent collective blog Nawaat on August 3 that "the gains that women have acquired in Tunisia are admittedly unmatched in the Arab world, and Tunisians are proud of that".

Thousands of people took to the streets of downtown Tunis to protest against the definition of women in Article 27 on August 13. Reuters said protesters chanted "Rise up women for your rights to be enshrined in the constitution".

The question of women's rights, and the relationship between religion and the state in Tunisia, has come into focus since the January 14 downfall of Ben Ali. The dictator used Tunisia's legacy of equality to justify suppression of political Islam movements such as Ennahda, as well as taking part in the “war on terror”.

Hardline Salafists were locked out of taking part in the CA elections, but have polarised national opinion with a campaign of aggression against alcohol vendors. The first Salafist Party, the Reform Front, was granted official recognition in May, reported Tunisia Live. Ennahda leader Rasheed Ghannouchi attended the party's first conference in July.

In mid-June, suspected Salafists destroyed an art exhibition in Tunis they considered offensive to Islam, resulting in riots that left one dead, while in August actor and comedian Lotfi Abdelli's show in Menzel Bourguiba was obstructed by a Salafist sit-in.

Media freedom

Media freedom is another front where confidence in Ennahda had been shaken.

Two hundred journalists rallied on August 22 against the appointment of Lofti Touati to director general of the Dar Assabah state-run newspaper. Associated Press reported the protests were angry at the government for going back on a promise to consult with civil society leaders before making such appointments.

Touati is a former police commissioner. He has come under fire after ordering a piece in Dar Assabah critical of his appointment and accusing him of being "too close to Ennahda" to be replaced with advertisements.

Minister of foreign affairs, Rafik Abdessalem, was reported by TAP state news agency on August 26 as saying that Ennahda's goal was to "clean up" the media and prevent them from "[transforming] themselves into forums of opposition to government action".

Tunisia's president Moncef Marzouki responded at the congress of the centrist Congress Party for the Republic (CPR), one of the parties of the troika government.

He criticised "the appointments of Ennahda supporters in key positions whether they are competent or not”, Jeune Afrique reported on August 25. “Our brothers in Ennahda are working to control the administrative and political state."

Tunisian cyber activists, at the forefront of the uprising against Ben Ali, have lodged a bid with the Interior Ministry to reveal the identity of the figure responsible for administering Tunisia's regime of internet censorship, nicknamed "Ammar404".

Nawaat reported on August 21 that Sofiane Chourabi, one of the initiators of the idea, said: "It seems that this government is working on wiping out and marginalising this issue, so that those who committed violations would not be held accountable."

Food, work and national dignity

On the economic front, Ennahda and the coalition have done little to differentiate from the old regime. Al-Akhbar English reported on August 17 that the minister for investment, Riadh Bettaib, announced the state would take out a further $1 billion in World Bank loans.

And radical labour struggle has continued to grow. The General Union of Tunisisan Workers (UGTT), under radical left leadership since it's constitution in January, has led a wave of strikes in the south and interior aimed at fulfilling the Jasmine revolution's demands of “work, freedom, national dignity”.

City-wide general strikes have swept through Tataouine, Monastir, Kasserine and Kariouan, as well as Sidi Bouzid, the town where fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself on December 17, 2010, which triggered the Arab uprisings.

Day workers in Sidi Bouzid demonstrated on July 26 over a two month delay in wages, reported Al Akhbar English, attacking the party offices of Ennahda. Ongoing water shortages in the region over the past six months have also raised anger. Sidi Bouzid's governor, Mohamed Najib Masouri, has blamed residents who failed to pay their bills for the shortages.

The December 17 Progressive Forces Front, along with the UGTT and other forces, organised a demonstration on August 9 to take up the demands of securing water supplies and settling workers' wages.

The demonstration also called for the resignation of the governor and the regional commander of the National Guard, and the dissolution of the whole CA for failing to address the issues of Sidi Bouzid and Tunisia's poorer interior regions.

The protest was attacked by police with tear gas and rubber bullets, putting five in hospital. Blogger Lina Ben Mhenni said one young activist of the Tunisian Workers' Party (POT), Saddem Akermi, was hospitalised after he was shot with a rubber bullet.

An Ennahda spokesperson blamed the demonstrations on the party Nidaa Tunis (Call to Tunis), which formed on July 19 and is comprised of ex-regime figures.

He claimed to have "proof that some figures within the region known to be close to Nidaa Tunis sided with criminals, thieves and alcohol vendors to spread anarchy in Sidi Bouzid," reported Leaders.

The December 17 Front and UGTT responded with a general strike on August 14. TAP said thousands marched through the town and rallied outside the local courthouse to demand the release of prisoners from the previous protests.

Crisis of legitimacy

These struggles have shaken the confidence of many Tunisians in the Ennahda-led troika to chart a new path for Tunisia after the ousting of Ben Ali.

An International Crisis Group report published in June dismissed the "spectre of a second insurrection", but identified that continued political turmoil and a failure to address severe economic inequality could "risk snowballing into a legitimacy crisis for the newly elected government".

Nidaa Tunis has been presenting itself as the alternative vision to the troika. The party, led by elder statesman and post-Ben Ali prime minister from February to December last year, Beji Caid Essebsi, has been condemned by troika parties as a renewal of the old regime. CPR secretary general Mohammed Abbou told Tunisian radio that Nidaa Tunis represented "a return to tyranny," reported Tunisie Numerique.

Essebsi responded to the attacks, calling them "free of charge". He publicly supported the demonstrators in Sidi Bouzid, saying "it is inappropriate to describe this way the democrats, activists and human rights components of civil society who took to the streets to protest against repression and to defend their rights."

Given the moves of Ennahda in office, and the emboldened Salafist aggression since the downfall of Ben Ali, Nidaa has taken up space for a secular-based "Doustourian" (constitutional) party with the popular recognition and networks to electorally challenge Ennahda outright, unlike the two secular troika partners, the CPR and social-democrat Ettakatol.

Two representatives of the CPR in the CA, Dhamir Manai and Abdelaziz Kotti, said they had joined Nidaa on August 23, joining members of the 17 different parties formed out of Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD).

The left alternative

However, the left has also made steps to challenge both poles of the mainstream political spectrum and follow through on the demands of the Jasmine revolution.

The Tunisian Communist Workers Party (PCOT), which holds three seats in the CA and has some of the best recognition of any of the far-left parties, made the decision to rename itself the Tunisian Workers Party (POT) in July.

Party spokesperson Mohamed Mzam told Tunisia Live on July 11 that the party aimed to "avoid the stereotype most Tunisians think of when hearing the word 'communist'", and that people should instead "focus on what a political party is committed to offer them on political, social and economic levels."

The decision came after a long process of discussion and a general referendum within the party. Discussion had begun immediately after the overthrow of Ben Ali, but was postponed for the CA elections last October. This may have accounted for PCOT's inability to win serious space in the CA.

POT has also participated in the reformation of the national January 14 Front, which was active immediately after the overthrow of Ben Ali to push for further democratisation, but quickly broke apart. Negotiations to re-form the alliance began in July, and on August 13 a first agreement was announced between 12 left parties from a variety of Marxist, Nasserist, Baathist, Green and other backgrounds, alongside independent revolutionaries.

Mohamed Brahmi, of the Nasserist Movement of the People party, said the front was formed "following the example of the December 17 Front set up in Sidi Bouzid".

POT's chairperson Hamma Hammami described the coalition as "a political front and not essentially electoral. It will work for the realisation of the objectives of the revolution."

The reformation of the front is an important step forward for strengthening the democratic struggle. The spectre of a "second insurrection" may well prove a possibility before new elections are due in next year.

Please read Kefteji's posts on the battle for media freedom and the debate over Constitutional Article 27 for more information on those topics. Tunisian Girl has also written an update on the appointment of Lofti Touati to Dar Assabah, including a protest that took place as my original article went to print, and the call for a general stike on September 11 in protest.

Visiting Villawood

Today I visited Villawood Detention Centre here in Sydney, where Serco keeps refugees under guard at the behest of our government. I've visited the single men in stage 2/3 before, as well as the high security section stage 1 (where both asylum seekers with criminal records and those who have made trouble or staged protests inside detention centres are kept). But today was my first time visiting the Housing stage, where families and children are kept locked up.

I met Ranjini, a Tamil woman who fled Sri Lanka in 2008, as the Sinhala chauvinist government was tightening the net on the breakaway northern territory of Tamil Eelam. Her first husband, the father of her two boys, was killed in the fighting. Her two boys, 6 and 8, have lived through the voyage from Sri Lanka to India, from India to Christmas Island, then the stagnation of our detention system until about a year ago, when she was released into the community to have her asylum application processed. However, a few months ago she was called up by Immigration, plucking her two sons out of school, to be locked back up in Villawood.

Her younger son is full of energy - he pulled me outside to play hide-and-seek, to build a tent out of the soccer goals, to try and fix his bike's broken wheels. He is allowed out of the centre to go to a public school, where he is accompanied by a minimum of 3 Serco guards; they can visit parks, and once Clovelly Beach, but only after it's been investigated and cleared by Serco. For now, though, he is still full of beans; he reminded me of the young boy at my neighbour's house in Wollongong. But I know that growing up behind barbed wire has to be wearing on his mind. He made me promise to bring him a real tent the next time I visit.

These are the human beings that our establishment politicians and media voices demonise to misdirect our alienation and anger.

Egypt: Morsi Sworn In Before Regime's Court

Submitted for publication to Green Left Weekly.

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate for Egypt's Presidential Elections, Mohamed Morsi, was sworn into office on July 30, after the Electoral Comission announced on June 24 that he had beaten ex-regime candidate Ahmed Shafiq with 51.7% of the vote.

Morsi sworn in before High Constitutional Court. Photo: Xinhua

Significantly, Morsi swore the oath before Egypt's High Consitutional Court (HCC) – which on June 14 declared the law regulating the 2011 parliamentary elections, in which the Muslim Brotherhood won close to half of all seats, unconstitutional.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which had exercised presidential powers after Hosni Mubarak's resignation, then dissolved the Parliament on June 17 with a supplementary Constitutional Declaration that also gave itself several Presidential powers and oversights.

This includes power to dissolve and appoint the constituent assembly elected by parliament to draft a new constitution.

The conformation of Morsi's win, however, was overshadowed by protests and sit-ins at Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square and elsewhere around the country, demanding the parliament be restored and the supplementary Constitution Declaration be revoked.

The Muslim Brotherhood called on its supporters to join the protests on Friday June 22, demanding the military respect Morsi's win.

However, Judge Tahani El-Gebaly, a member of the HCC, insisted in comments to al-Ahram newspaper that Morsi was bound to accept the addendum after taking oath before the court.

An AFP report quoted Morsi as saying there would be "no Islamisation of state institutions" during his Presidency, while the Herald Sun reported his vision of Egypt was as a "democratic, modern and constitutional state".

He also stated that he would "stand with the Palestinian people until they regain all their rights" – however, the supplementary Constitutional Declaration also declared the SCAF has sole authority over military matters and is the only body which can declare a state of war.

Egypt's military receives billions of dollars of aid from the US government annually; a key concern of American commentators has been the potential of the new regime to break the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, brokered at Camp David.

After taking office, Morsi began accepting protesters into his office to hear their grievances. On July 4 it was announced a group of public-sector teachers demanding permanent full-time contracts who had been protesting had their demands granted by Morsi. In response, Al-Ahram ran the headline: "The people know the way to the palace"

However, protesters demanding an end to military trials of civilians and the release of political prisoners were prevented from entering, reported Al Arabiya on July 4.

The demands of Tahrir - for democratisation, equality before the law, putting regime figures on trial - are still being fought tooth and nail by the regime. Yet the independant worker's movement seems to be winning far more sympathy amongst the population - and, as such, presenting far more of a threat to the "new" regime.

General Adel Al-Morsi, head of the Military Judiciary Authority, was reported Daily News Egypt as saying that no ‘political prisoners’ are facing military trials, only 'criminals'. He also said responsibility lay with the President to pardon any charged by military courts.

Morsi, who officially resigned from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party after election results were announced, called for supporters to take to Tahrir on June 29 for the "Friday of the transfer of power". Protesters chanted "Down with the power of the military," reported AFP.

However, Egypt Independant reported on July 2 that Mostafa al-Ghoneimy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau, announced they would no longer be supporting the Tahrir sit-in.

Sayed al-Nazily, a member of the Brotherhood Shura Council, said members were instructed to continue the sit-in until a July 9 challenge to the ruling which dissolved parliament.

Ahram Online's Yasmine Wali reported on July 3 that the Square was almost empty, with only a handful of Brotherhood supporters remaining. Other activist groups such as the April 6 Youth Movement also suspended their involvement in Tahrir.

As the struggle between the SCAF and Morsi for control of the state apparatus unfolds, it seems clear that, despite the hopes of many, Tahrir's revolutionaries will still need to take to the streets to win their demands.

Egypt: Brotherhood claim presidential win amid big street protests

This was orginally published in Green Left Weekly here, going to print on June 24 shortly before Morsi's victory was announced. Stay posted for another update on his swearing in, the Brotherhood's withdrawal from Tahrir, and the military's advances.

[Although official results are yet to be announced, it seems] Muhammad Morsi, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate, has won the second round of Egypt's presidential elections, held on June 16-17.

However, his opponent, ex-regime candidate Ahmed Shafik, also declared victory on election night, claiming there was no way Morsi had secured the million-vote lead their camp claimed.

Election Contest

In the lead-up to the second round of voting, several prominent left forces, including the Revolutionary Socialists and the April 6 Youth Movement, declared their support for Morsi's campaign.

In a statement on May 28, the Revolutionary Socialists described Shafiq as the "face of the counter-revolution", and without a candidate standing for the Tahrir revolution, called for all supporters of the January 25 revolution to unite behind Morsi.

The statement attributed Shafiq's success to "the smear campaigns, systematic repression and intimidation of the social and popular forces "

An independant election monitor supported by Middle East Voices substantiated Morsi's claim of  leading with around 51.8% of the vote. (the final count was 51.7% Morsi)

Much of the attention from the elections, however, was taken up with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF)'s maneuvers to limit the power of the winner.

Military Declares Power

After the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled on June 14 that the Parliamentary Election Law regulating the 2011 elections was unconstitutional, the SCAF issued a decree dissolving the Islamist-majority parliament on June 17, shortly after the presidential polls had closed.

The day before the ruling, the Justice Ministry had also decreed that military police and intelligence officers could arrest civilians, continuing the legacy of the state of emergency, which legally ended at the start of June.

Al Jazeera English quoted Mohamed Beltagy, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as describing the decree as a "military coup" which had not been discussed in Parliament.

On June 17, Ahram Online reported Saad El-Katatni, speaker of the Parliament, as having told the SCAF he would continue to convene the body despite its dissolution.

The SCAF has also issued a "supplementary constitutional declaration" seizing many Presidential powers for the council itself.

Armed forces were deployed in great numbers across Egypt ahead of the announcement of official results – originally scheduled for June 21.

Amr Ahmed, from the Egyptian Socialist Party, told Green Left Weekly: "There are four main points to the declaration.

Firstly, that the SCAF are the only ones responsible for everything relating to the military, the appointment of leadership, and [Field Marshall] Tantawi is to hold the power of Commander in Chief and Secretary of Defence

Second, that the SCAF must approve any declaration of a state of war.

Thirdly, the SCAF will hold the authority of Parliament until a new one can be elected.

Fourth, the SCAF will control the body to draft a new constitution within 3 months, to be approved by a referendum after that.

So at present you can see the SCAF will remain in the scene regardless of who is the president.... they will be like a marionette in the hands of the military."

Responses

The US government has signalled concerns with the situation. Hilary Clinton responded to the declarations with a statement on June 14 calling for the military authorities to "fully transfer power to a democratically elected civilian government as planned", reported Ahram Online.

However, the role of the US has been far from helpful to the transition to democratic rule in Egypt. In fact, in March Clinton waived the requirement  for certification of basic human rights conditions in the country before the United States' $1.3 US billion of aid to Egypt could be released, reported the New York Times on March 26.

The Guardian reported that Egypt's benchmark index dropped 1.9% in the early hours of Monday morning, on the back of the expected win of Morsi and the military maneuvers.

Initial protests at the dissolution of parliament drew thousands to the street on June 15. Then on June 18, a joint statement was issued by a variety of left forces to "Announce [the signatories'] complete rejection of the Supplementary Constitutional Declaration."

The statement called for the president-elect to reject the Supplementary Declaration, cancel exceptional measures issued by the SCAF and refuse to take the oath of office before the SCC. (ed: Morsi did take the oath before the SCC, which I write about in my following article)

The statement called for a protest in Tahrir Square on Tuesday June 19; tens of thousands responded, rallying through the night.

The Muslim Brotherhood called for its supporters to join the protests throughout the week, launching its own vigils in public squares throughout the country against the "coup".

Ahmed told Green Left Weekly: "What's happening now has nothing to do with the goals of the revolution or the people, but is part of the ongoing conflict between the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood for power and influence in the state."

Where to for the Revolution?

Since the first-round elections, when all candidates reflecting the demands of the revolution were defeated, Egypt's revolutionary camp has been split on how to approach the electoral processes and the political sphere.

One important chapter for breaking people's illusions in the Muslim Brotherhood is the question of sexism and sexual harrassment, which was brought to the fore in December when footage of a female protester being beaten and stripped half-naked in Tahrir by soldiers spread online.

Ahmed said: "On this issue there is no conflict between the SCAF and the MB. The Brotherhood said that it was the fault of the protester for being in Tahrir Square that this happened to her."

"The illusion of fundamental differences between the MB and the SCAF will become more and more apparent over time."

Where to for Tahrir?

The "leaderless" approach of the Tahrir revolutionaries, uniting around basic demands for democratic and economic reforms, has been a factor in the lack of significant wins in the political sphere for the demands of the revolution beyond the winning of electoral process and the trial of Mubarak.

"We have pushed to take some advancements and achievements, but they have all been taken up by the Brotherhood", Ahmed told GLW.

"We need to create a third power, an organisation of the revolution, to represent its agenda & goals, and lead people towards the revolution's milestones."

"The Egyptian Socialist Party is seeking to create this third political force with other figures on the left – such as Sabahy and El Baradei – that can represent the revolution."

Writing on her blog Tahrir & Beyond on June 17, Gigi Ibrahim, a leading member of Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists, declared: "the revolution has no machine, no organised group, no political party sufficient enough to adopt the revolution's goals and capable of fighting the two most organised and biggest threatening machines to the revolution, the NDP (Mubarak's party) and MB, and the SCAF"

Throughout the struggles around the elections, the workers' movement has continued to push for economic & political reforms in workplaces across Egypt.

Public Transport workers in Cairo went on strike for two weeks in March, demanding the removal of corrupt Mubarak-era officials as well as a bonus equal to 100 weeks pay.

On March 27 they went back to work, winning their demands for improved pay and conditions.

The strong showing of Hamdeen Sabahy, who put forward a Nasserist platform of expanding subsidies and state investment, and polled a close third behind Shafik in the first round of the presidential elections, shows that the prospects for building on the demands of workers and democracy activists in the political sphere are good.

The question is – will they find the vehicle to exercise their own power? Or will the mauevering between the SCAF & MB stagnate the January 25 revolution?

Their Leadership and Ours

Along with the previous post, The Tyranny of Coffee, this piece is part of a larger article I submitted to Resistance Pre-Conference Discussion discussing how socialists, particularly youth, should organise in Australia today.


UPDATE: 4000 page views, w00t!

The kind of leaders and the vision of leadership prevalent in society today today are fundamentally deformed by the nature of class society. Under modern global capitalism, leadership – whether in civil society, parliament or industry – is structured hierachically. Leaders, whether formally elected or, like Rinehart,Palmer and Forrest, not at all, are expected to command those below them, and implement their own individual vision of how to carry out decisions that are made, either by them or collectively.

The socialist vision of leaders is something radically different. Socialists understand that, as human beings, we are best equipped to solve our problems collectively, through collaboration and teamwork. Our vision of leadership is collective too; decisions that are made by a group should be carried out by a group, with the different ideas of how to carry things out that all members hold tested out in practice. Our organisers are not "leaders" to instruct members on how to carry out their assignments or tasks they have taken on, or take on responsibility for doing everything themselves, but members of the team, there to ensure decisions made collectively through branches or executives are actually getting carried out in practice, and to help comrades out when they need it.

Failures should not lead to individual shame or demotion, but are also the responsibility of the whole team involved. Going it alone as activists or taking on too much work as individuals rather than as a team, no matter how much easier or more efficient it might seem in the short term, is a quick route to developing bad ideas unchecked, becoming more and more alienated from those we are seeking to lead, and in the long run, burning out and losing faith in people or activism altogether.

Youth are particularly vulnerable to being under-developed as leaders in class society – we are underrepresented in leadership positions both in politics and the economy, under-developed or mis-developed as leaders by civil society programs and official forms of student politics, and super-exploited and in the workplace. Yet since we haven't yet risen to better jobs with better perks, and we haven't yet been as ground down by the capitalist system as the rest of the working class, we are also most open to ideas about changing the society that we live in in a revolutionary way.

Unless we actively take steps to safeguard against it, the dominant consciousness of leadership developed under class society also plays out within activist spaces. This is true for a variety of oppressed groups in society, but particularly so for youth and new members – given the seriousness with which socialists committed to building an organisation take our task of fighting to overthrow the system, it is only natural for older and more experienced comrades to step in when new ones are making mistakes or unsure of what is to be done – and this isn't always a bad thing. But if it happens repeatedly, then it means that we aren't allowing space for young activists to develop as real leaders, with confidence in their own abilities, but who understand they aren't operating alone.

Egypt: Streets erupt as court dissolves parliament in 'coup'

This piece was finished shortly before polls opened in last weekend's Egyptian Presidential elections, which it now seems the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Muhammad Morsi, who revolutionary groups such as the April 6 Youth Movement and the Revolutionary Socialists backed, has announced his victory in. Official results will be announced Thursday. Stay posted for more in-depth coverage. Originally published at Green Left Weekly.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Egypt's second-round presidential elections between ex-regime figure Ahmed Shafiq and Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi will go ahead after the High Constitutional Court (HCC) ruled on June 14 that Shafiq's candidacy was constitutional.

The ruling declared that the Political Disenfanchisement Law, which barred ex-members of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) from holding high government offices, was unconstitional.

In what came as a shock to many, the HCC also said Egypt's Parliamentary Elections Law, which had regulated last year's parliamentary elections, was unconstitutional, dissolving the lower house People's Assembly.

The elections last year brought the Muslim Brotherhood to the fore and, combined with the Salafist al-Nour party, gave the Islamists a majority. Morsi, the Brotherhood's candidate in the presidential elections, led the first round of voting over May 23-24.

But Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, a legislator from the Social Democratic Party, said Egypt's electoral law was "flawed and brought in a flawed parliament," Reuters reported on June 15.

"Parliament had lost much of its stature and credibility ... because of the Islamist parties' misuse of the majority they enjoyed."

But many activists have called the moves a "coup". Enjy Hamdy, from the leading activist organisation the April 6 Youth Movement (A6YM), said: "This all must be seen as a military coup, an attempt by the army to stay in power longer to protect their interests, which we will not accept."

First-round candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh also called the results "an obvious military coup", reported Bikya Masr.

The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), who have retained presidential powers since Mubarak was ousted on February 11 last year, has blamed ongoing protests and struggles for democratic reform on "foreign hands", while refusing popular calls to relinquish their authority to a civilian "salvation council" to oversee Egypt's elections.

Ahram Online reporter Wael Eskaner tweeted in response to the ruling: "It's not true that Egyptians aren't ready for democracy, it's the Egyptian regime that isn't."

Angry protests were launched around the country after the results. Two thousand protesters marched from Mohandeseen to Tahrir Square in Cairo on June 15 in a protest called by the Revolutionary Socialists, A6YM and others, Ahram Online said.

However, despite thousands taking to Tahrir Square, street protests did not reach the critical mass needed to shut down the city.

Ahram Online's reporter said marchers tore down and defaced campaign posters for Shafiq. Immediately after the results images becan circulating social media of protesters stamping on Shafiq's posters or hitting them with shoes.

Despite the protests, the presidential run-off was set to go ahead at the weekend of June 16-17.

The Tyranny of Coffee

Before I became an activist, coffee was not a usual part of my diet, outside of the occasional late-night writing (or gaming) stint.

The best photo of myself drinking coffee I could find...

But in the last couple of years, as I've become a full-time activist, I've found myself drinking coffee more and more, to the point where now I generally feel like I'm not firing on all cylinders if I haven't had one to start the day. So i thought I'd take a minute, while I'm buzzing on this morning's coffee, to reflect on what that means.

I think coffee is a fine thing, and probably no more hurtful than any other mildly addictive substance (let's not forget the conditions of alienation, increasing automatisation, atomisation, etc for the majority in current first-world capitalist nations, in which material context such things have to be considered). I'm more interested, though, in the role "coffee" has to play in social activity and activism.

I've been to many meetings in my day over a cup of coffee (this way was my first real introduction to regular coffee-drinking). It's a good shot of zest for those early morning picket lines or stalls, long skype meetings, tedious days of email and data entry, etc... And meetings over coffee are a great way to get to know new members of your organisation or campaign group, sketch out ideas, and bond with people (and let's not forget that, as Eddie Izzard pointed out, "coffee" dates can often have a more adult connotation too...)

But if coffee dates are the primary way of getting stuff done in an activist group (even if between meetings), I think there's some issues. It's hard for there to be accountability to an informal gathering in a cafe (or a pub, or wherever). A coffee meeting doesn't have a constitution, and it's open only to those already in the circle. Even with people who are well-intentioned or don't mean to be cliquey or exluding, there are some implicit assumptions in coffee meetings - that people know each other and are friendly, that they have the right to make decisions and act on them, that attempting to involve more people in the process is at odds with formal meetings. Those who work during cafe opening hours are excluded; those who can't afford to drink coffee are excluded.

I'm not saying such meetings should be banned by serious activists, just that any organisation which wants to grow, involve more people and lead them in doing something needs to be open, accountable and easy to get involved in and take on responsibility in; coffee dates, pub lunches and other informal meetings have their place in this, but collective and democratic decision making meetings are essential.

Now, I'm off to put the percolator on...

Arab Spring Meeting Notes #4 - What We Aren't Being Told

This is the fourth in my series of meeting talk notes, which started here. Feel free to use these in whatever way, and let me know if there's anything I've gotten wrong or missed out on important pieces of the puzzle.

I've got 10 minutes, which is not enough time to talk about full history of the Arab Spring, and not even really enough time to talk about my experiences in the region in any depth. Instead, I want to highlight the key things that we aren’t being told about the Arab uprisings by the powers that be. I feel they help us to see the most important things about this period of struggle.

One is what these uprisings were about – this is the first and foremost western media distortion, that the youth of the Arab world just wanted the West’s liberal democratic rights to go with their iPhones. This is lmost completely untrue.

The Arab Spring began with immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in the city of Sidi Bouzid, in Tunisia's underdeveloped interior which had suffered under the IMF policy splitting the country up into three economic zones based on how easy it was to get goods from those areas to the ports. His situation was created not just by police intimidation, but by the political repression going hand in hand with the economics of third world neocolonialism.

The first few days of wild protests throughout the interior region, especially in the mining cities like Ghasserine, Gafsa, etc which had previously risen up in 08, were not "Facebook" revolutions – which is another western media mistruth. But the internet did prove hugely important - several brave bloggers, inc Slim Amamou and Azyz Amami of the Tunisian Pirate Party & Lina Ben Mhenni of Tunisian Girl / nearly nobel prize fame travelled out to the region rising up, documented bodies in hospital, and spread word to the networks of activists in the big coastal cities of Sfax, Sousse, Tunis; the first two got arrested for this.

So the internet was a tool, but if there weren’t a layer of youth in the region that had been radicalised by a decade of growing struggle – student activism, democratic activism like the 05 election campaign in Egypt, the mini uprisings of 2008 in Egypt & Tunisia – a layer of youth ready to fight the regime in Sidi Bouzid, then these revolutions wouldn’t have happened just because there was Twitter or Facebook.

In fact, when I visited Tahrir square between September and November of last year, the majority of protesters there didn’t even have smart phones. Certainly there are some better-off students and others who are part of the movement who do, but the vast majority of the protesters come from the urban poor population.

The street protests of the January 25 uprising in Egypt were called online by the April 6 Youth Movement and We Are All Khaled Said, inspired by Ben Ali's downfall in Tunisia but responding to the growing anger over the death of Khaled Said in June of 2010, drew the biggest numbers of any protest in 50 years - tens of thousands. However this only took on critical mass after the police attacked Tahrir square and broke up the protests; bridges, main routes were all occupied by police, so many activists took refuge in the homes in neighbouring suburbs - and ordinary people with no access to internet, only state TV, who had heard about and were excited about but unsure of the protests, were won over. On the 28th, there were hundreds of thousands in Tahrir. Those kinds of numbers, combined with a general strike in the second week of Feb, forced the military regime to abandon their support for the figurehead of Mubarak as the elites of Tunisia had done with Ben Ali only weeks earlier.

The fact that these revolutions were as much about demands for a change in economic policies as political freedoms can be seen from the importance of the involvement of the urban & rural poor, and also from the fact that an essential component of them has been labour activity – strikes across private & public sector industries. This is something the western media also consistently fails to mention – as it did for the four years prior to them while strikes and labour protests exploded across the region. And workers continue to press for economic justice. Some Egyptian hospitals have been taken over by the doctors, nurses and caretakers and are being run democratically. In every level, workers are winning demands for better pay, conditions, more democracy at work and to get rid of Mubarak & Ben-Ali-era cronies. How? Not by accepting the power of the new parliament, but by struggling for it themselves.

This brings us onto the next western media angle, also adopted by the post-dictator governments: that the uprisings were great, they won their demands for an elected parliament, now there’s some instability but it’s time the people of the region to get back to work and get on with building their country. This is consistently the attitude of not only the Western press but also our politicians and those of the successor regimes in the middle-east, so it’s perhaps the most crucial mistruth to see through.

When I bumped into her by chance in a café in Tunis where lefty blogger types tend to congregate, Lina Ben Mhenni summed up the most salient response to this that I've heard when she said:

“The revolution did not finish on January 14 (the day Ben Ali was overthrown) — it started on January 14! Ben Ali left the country, but he is just the head of the system.

Every day I am more and more convinced that the whole system is still there. The police are back to committing violence, there are more and more limitations on freedom of speech.

The media is still manipulated by government and political parties — and bloggers and cyber activists continue to play that role of citizen journalists.”

The fact that there has been relatively free elections in Tunisia & Egypt (in some ways even more free in Tunisia than here in Australia – with strictly regulated media & public advertising equally set aside for each candidate) and in lots of other countries through the region in response to the uprisings is a big win for the revolutionary movements. But these revolutionary movements are far from fulfilled. The fundamental economic questions, and even the fundamental political ones, remain to be addressed. The newly elected regimes of Egypt & Tunisia, comprised of Islamist majorities working with “liberal” pro-capitalist forces – ie those who had money or influence before the uprisings began – have both committed to the neoliberal Washington consensus of more IMF loans conditional on restructuring, privatisation, ending subsidies sharpening inequality, etc. They’ve both re-affirmed their roles as team players in the regional geopolitical status, against the wishes of their people – as can be seen from the protests which stormed the Israeli embassy in Egypt on September 9 (again an angle; the major protests in Tahrir, at courts and govt offices earlier in the day were ignored in the mainstream reportage). So the heads have changed, their base of power may have shifted, but there has been little real change; as such, the revolutionary movements are still growing, and still fighting.

Some of the wins of the Arab Spring, though, can be seen in other things; the upsurge in women’s rights activism in Tunisia, for example, or community organisation amongst the poorer villages, suburbs and informal slums surrounding Cairo. These struggles going forward, whether again the government or on different issues like feminism or solidarity organised with those suffering in the frozen interior in Tunisia through the winter, are coming out of the fact that there is a huge new layer of young, inspired, revolutionary youth, who are debating politics in the cafes and streets, and who are convinced they can change the world

The responsibility of us as people wanting a better world here in the west is primarily to learn from the Arab Spring, and secondarily to show solidarity to it. Above all, we should take the spirit which has come to define the era of the Arab Spring – that another world is possible, an alternative to this system is possible, if we fight for it – and make it a reality here in Australia.