Revolution in Flux

A redaction in part of my last post on the Egyptian revolution is in order, as events and evidence of their causes have been reported from the scene.

First, is the military really planning to supplant the revolution? If so, only for a time – but the time is not theirs to spend. Do they really seek to split the revolutionary parties, hoping to profit by aligning themselves with one revolutionary faction, to the disadvantage of the others? There is evidence of that, because going ahead with the elections now is thought to favor the Islamist parties. The secularists aren’t even sure whether they will vote, though they are sure they’d like the vote to be delayed.

And if the vote does take place, and the Islamists win, but the secularists sit out, wouldn’t that split the revolution? The people who occupy Tahrir Square would then be in revolution against the winners of the election.

It’s right opportunism pitted against left adventurism all over again. The right hand of the revolution sees the opportunity of political gain, even a majority in the lower house of parliament for Islamist principles. It’s partial, immediate, therefore opportunist victory; political liberties may alone be in sight (and there may even be a hidden agenda against certain forms of civil liberty).

So the adventure in left adventurism is whether to vote. And if you don’t, whether to create a definite split in the revolution. Which leads where? to another adventure?

There’re signs cooler heads will prevail. One report says the Islamists have sent their cadres to the Square. Whether to give their support to the secular left of the revolution, or just to keep an eye on them, who can say? And certainly whether to vote is not a closed question on the left, though compelling the military to step back is the preferred option.

I can see pretty clearly now that any potential for cleavage is grounded in class differences between the two groups of parties: the right representing an underclass that is not quite proletarian; and the left representing a petit bourgeois who will not be satisfied by anything less than the full range of political and civil liberties. Since the vote of the underclass demographic, if cast, would predominate in the Arab world, elections can pretty much be expected largely to go their way. That’s why constitution framing is so important.

Revolutionists: Save the splits for the constitutional convention itself!

The physical situation also poses dangers. One of the things that makes it look like the military caretaker government is, or feels like it could be, allied with the revolutionary right is their common concern, for example, for the Palestinian state: the one because it enhances their prestige as a card for Egypt to play in any disagreement with Israel; the other because of religious and nationalist sympathies and hostilities. Here the two political programs coincide.

But perhaps I gave the military too much credit when I said “guardians of the constitution” has a subtext. Really both the phrase, and the overall political touch, now seem just clumsy. Their appeal to a putative “silent majority” is lame. The Field Marshall in charge would have moved much faster if he had anything personally in common with Mubarak, or Sadat, or Nasser.

The physical fact is, the army stands between the revolution – the left revolution – and a more open and perhaps more serious threat. The black-shirted police have the looks of the horse and camel riders who had their butts handed to them last winter in Tahrir Square. (I thought I recognized one or two of them in recent video.) They, rather than the military, explicitly constitute the physical projection of counter-revolutionary interests.

The question is: whose interests? Who gives them orders? Who bankrolls their pay and equipment? It’s clever that they use U.S.-made tear gas. Nominally, the police are within the Ministry of the Interior. Nominally the military is the caretaker government. Who’s taking care of the Ministry? There’s intelligence and purpose here that reeks of the big bourgeoisie. Are they really in a position to defy the military?

Anyway, the revolution already beat the thugs once. Are the latter any stronger now? How does the revolutionary right, not confronting them in the Square, feel about them?

Things will change again soon enough. But the revolution in Egypt is strong. And now it knows for sure its work is just begun…

…and supposedly, the elections are starting tomorrow.

Questions about Egypt

What if you ask the same series of questions about Egypt?

You don’t get very far, do you? Because…

1.       Did the interim government really behave as an interim government?

A: The interim government is more or less openly exercising and consolidating its power at the expense of the revolution and its principles.

2.       Did the parties so organized have platforms? or programs? If so, what’s in them?

A: I’m certainly having trouble understanding the class orientation of the Islamist parties. But it’s clear in Egypt they’re just as alarmed by the attitudes and action of the military as any of the secular revolutionary parties are. This means they feel the danger to the political liberties they’d like to exercise. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’d like to exercise those liberties in favor of the full range of civil liberties, for the full range of citizens – not excluding women and non-believers. But…

3.       Did they have a fair chance to campaign on their programs?

A: …before we could find out, they’d have to start exercising them first. Elections draw near. Has anybody made the actual, threatened, potential, or imaginary encroachments of the military an issue? Demonstrations are a fact; are parties soliciting votes on that ground?

4.       Do the parties or programs have any identifiable class orientation or content? 5. How strong politically are the classes the (secular) revolutionary parties represent

A: To answer these questions with a question: Is there any evidence the military is playing class-oriented politics? Or again, have they any real basis of support other than the mere fact of power? I suspect the answer to both is: no.

6.       The leading Islamist party is thought to be the strongest of all the parties. Can they be considered tolerant?

A: At least, and probably at most, it’s clear the military is secularist. So…

7.       We are afraid of Sharia. Should we be afraid of Egypt on that account?

A: …they would not be comfortable within a state organized along fundamentalist lines. And maybe we can say they would not allow that to happen – but unfortunately that would be saying too much. Government by secular despotism founded on military power has become a tradition in Egypt. Yet the notion Islamist democracy is fractured with contradictions. Are these really the only two choices?

8.       What are the parties’ attitudes towards the West?

A: I’d like to reserve this question, because it remains to be seen what the attitude of the military towards Egypt is. It’s a very short step from protecting one’s interests to projecting them. Someone led the military from defending the revolution to monitoring it. Look for an identifiable figure, with an identifiable program, to come forward.

In the meantime, what’s really missing is any acknowledgement of the subordination of the military to the civil power. On the contrary, the military wants to be the “guardian of the constitution.” Since there is none at this point, one could ask what they would be willing to guard.

But it’s not that difficult a statement to unpack, is it? The military could be the guardian, say in a democracy, of the “people.” Or, in a despotism, of the state. It might be termed the guardian of the “country” or the “nation,” by which both the people and their lands are meant. But to be guardian of the “constitution” could mean nothing but to take strictly civil or political threats under their guard: in short, to substitute the judgment of military for civilian authorities on what constitutes such a threat. Once allowed that standing, in nearly all cases, the first step, or the last step, is the appointment of a dictator from the ranks. Napoleon is only the most prominent example.

The Egyptian revolution would have been better served to write a constitution that places the civil over the military power first, and deal with the malefactors afterwards. Now they must confront the military if they wish to recover that ground. Meantime the military has not been taught to obey the civil power (that’s a Western idea anyway, isn’t it?), which puts its commitment to protect the revolution into question. Or again, the revolution never made itself a power (except in and through the courts), and so there was nothing for the military (who cannot be, or at least have not been, brought before the courts) to obey.

In today’s paper it says the military want to go forward with the elections. And they intend to see they are not disturbed by unrest. This could easily be made an excuse to put them off, and place the blame on the revolution.

And whose orders are the police following anyway?

Questions about Tunisia

Tunisia appears to have gone about things in a manner calculated to secure the revolution. They allowed parties time to organize and campaign, and elected in the first instance a constitutional convention, rather than putting something or someone in place, to whom the convention would become more or less a threat. And who would find plenty of reasons to interfere with its deliberations.

So the questions are:

1.       Did the interim government really behave as an interim government?

A: It focused on making the elections possible, not on stealing the outcomes. At least that was the outcome.

2.       Did the parties so organized have platforms? or programs? If so, what’s in them?

A: They campaigned – and given the amount of time allowed, meaningfully – on recognizably different platforms, and even against each other’s platforms so recognized.

3.       Did they have a fair chance to campaign on their programs?

A: Yes, “impartial” international observers thought so, and those people do seem to know the difference.

4.       Do the parties or programs have any identifiable class orientation or content?

A: There were explicitly revolutionary parties on the ballot. The parties criticized each other’s relative standing and role in the revolution…

5.       How strong politically are the classes the (secular) revolutionary parties represent?

A: …so there is enough strength to contend for the principles of the revolution themselves…

6.       The leading Islamist party has proven to be the strongest of all the parties. Can they be considered tolerant?

A: …and enough strength to earn a place in the governing coalition. So the government will include a party with specifically revolutionary credentials even as opposed to Islamic credentials. To that extent, the plurality party is behaving with tolerance…

7.       We are afraid of Sharia. Should we be afraid of Tunisia on that account?

A: …and they have to recognize specifically bourgeois expectations. The question of women, for example, is open and near the top of the agenda. Under these circumstances, Sharia could be realized, if at all, only to limited extent.

8.       What are the parties’ attitudes towards the West? That is, and specifically, their neighbors across the Mediterranean?

A: Of course it would be counter-productive to run on a platform to adopt Western values, but neither could the unemployed rationally support a platform that rejects Western capital (in spite of the strings attached). There is nothing in the result to make me abandon my view that Tunisia is naturally and geographically a Mediterranean state rather than an Arab state.

The result is that the revolution goes well. No element has come forward openly against the hope of the people for civil and political liberty. They can still rely, justifiably, on what they already have to prevent it from being taken away.

Between Iraq and Tunisia lies the ground where the Arab Spring was sown. The whole region, with one or two notable exceptions, had been subject to despots. Now, it may be, the path of democracy will follow the path of revolution.

How the revolutions are going

[Drafted: October 26, 2011. Certain propositions in the draft have been overtaken by events.]

After a hiatus occasioned by family obligations, I am pleased to be able to return to my blog on the Arab Spring.

The progress of the revolutionary classes since summer is mixed. In no case can one say that the revolution has been won and secured, but neither can one say that in any case it has been irretrievably lost.

In chronological order, it was…

·         Tunisia

·         Egypt

·         Libya

·         Yemen

·         Syria

…roughly. Countries ruled by despots or strongmen with no lineage.

The Arab Spring has not touched Arab royalty or aristocracy – at least not with its heavy hand. So as it now appears…

·         Jordan

·         Bahrain

…are not part of the same calculus.

Don’t forget that Iraq is something very nearly resembling a democracy. And soon there will be no army of occupation whatever.

The prospects for democracy – well, let’s not make sweeping, vacuous, or overly optimistic generalizations. Let’s just say what we are looking for:

·         Political liberties. Even the Islamist parties will not settle for less. Not just the right to vote, but the other freedoms relating to the exercise of that right. Including – we’d like to say – that there be no litmus test for the legitimacy of a party or voter, including religious litmus tests. Which indicates…

·         Civil liberties. And in particular freedom of religion, of conscience; religious tolerance and the absence of state religion. And, again, the civil liberties the exercise of political liberties presupposes.

·         Freedom to do business. On something like the Western model: free entry and exit, property rights enforceable at law. With oversight of the big bourgeoisie, and, through independent agencies or checks and balances, of the government, executive and legislative, itself. Plus unions. Plus consumer and workplace protection.

That’s what would be on the list if it is to be, as I’ve assumed, petit bourgeois revolution, in which the leading elements are middle class.

There must be other agendas, and among them, counter-revolutionists will find levers to manipulate. For example, we know there are demands for accountings, in money or blood. I’ve already shown this to be such a lever.

More important, even to superficial observers, is the fundamentalist element in the opposition. This poses a difficulty to the class analysis because it is not easy to identify fundamental Islam with a consistent set of economic class interests. It shares in the overall conservatism of Arab society, a conservatism that still respects royalty and aristocracy even when it is able to overthrow mere despots. Even the middle class are, by and large, social conservatives, aren’t they?

It’s in the lowest classes that the strain is most keenly felt. For them, the revolution has been about economic justice. It’s in their interest to organize the economy around the creation of jobs – that is their freedom to do business. And to that extent they are aligned with middle class revolution, which would like nothing better than, by putting them to work, to profit.

But Islamic fundamentalism arose as a reaction to the influence and values of the West, and this happened before it took up the cries for economic justice and the accounting with the thieves. To make matters more difficult, the two attitudes are incommensurable. What happens when economic justice looks itself in the mirror and sees religious conservatism? Could the latter become a lever for counter-revolution?

Class analysis, on its own, cannot pretend to answer. And there’s another reason the matter escapes pure class analysis: the entities in question are not self-determining. The results will depend on still more powerful entities of the same order, i.e., other states, and in particular Western states. To be more precise, in Syria, as in Egypt, the revolution wants to win the state on its own merits, without outside help. But the state being won, as in Libya, other states have an interest in how the revolutionary state gets formulated, and their state interests, again as in Libya because if its oil, may become decisive. These kinds of interests, like religious “interests,” are not commensurable directly with class interests, and here too that analysis finds a limit.

So the answer is: that’s what elections are for….

The Slain

 [Composed October 26, 2011]

Gaddafi didn’t look any better dead than Hussein did when they caught him alive. Both cowards hiding in holes in the ground. Maybe they didn’t start out that way.

Which makes me wonder whether Mubarak is subject or will be sentenced to the death penalty.

It’s probably fortunate the world was spared the sight of the dead bin Laden. Not sure how many of his confederates were photographed. It’s a big success. The revolution will have to proceed without them. They were counter-revolutionaries one and all.

It hasn’t been a good season for Arab despots and ringleaders.

Who’s next? The people know.

They (not sure who) tried at Saleh and missed. He’s not likely to give them another chance.

My (metaphorical) money says the juvenile Bashar won’t live long enough to mature. But I wouldn’t bet any real money on it. He’s been doing better (growing?) as a counter-revolutionary lately.

The smartest one was Ben Ali, who left the country when he still had his life, his health…and his money.

And so, apart from royalty and aristocracy, the way has been largely cleared for democratic revolution in the Arab world – at least of the persons who stood in the way.