Speculation, Mr. Marx?

How can one speculate about the outcomes of the military’s action in Egypt? Of course it’s irresponsible of the Brotherhood’s leadership to say the brothers ought to defend their revolution with their lives. It’s sufficient to defend it at the ballot box if they can’t find a way to do it peacefully on the street.

Having first placed its forces in the way of the Brotherhood’s demonstrators, the military can scarcely escape its share of the blame for what happened when they subsequently tried to cross those lines. The decision was not just to replace Morsi’s government, but also to limit the reaction. It was clever but ineffective to neutralize the Brotherhood’s leadership. So now they have blood and prisoners on their hands.

So far this is judgmental but not at all dialectically principled. Observers say Morsi’s government never did get entire control of the state apparatus, that much control remained with Mubarak appointees or at least with people who had no stake in the revolution. What they say is now pretty evident: the police and the courts got behind the military’s solution – at least for now but not, I’d guess, forever. That doesn’t mean these state elements are lined up permanently and out of principle with the parties of secular revolution either. The danger is they could just as easily decide to play their own hand. But since – the supposition runs – they never joined the revolution, but rather stayed where they were and continued to be who they are, any subsequent realignment is just as likely to be counter-revolutionary as not. Here, the dialectical role normally played by class interests is played by considerations of state.

 

One can be more precise. In the Marxist theory of history, the state is the instrument through which, when possible, class interests are adjusted and reconciled. We can also say that, since they consist of people, and people are political as well as economic animals, the political interests of the state elements are always at stake in a revolution. When the object of a revolution – control of the state – is, as here, imperfectly achieved, state elements can retain, more or less, their original pre-revolutionary character, which as a set of political interests governs their action.

But if we try to determine what is dialectically necessary about the working out of the revolution through the current coalition of state elements and bourgeois-liberal parties, we immediately run into the problem of the executive, a problem exacerbated by the circumstance that the military itself has an essentially independent executive. (More on this below.)

As mere subjectivity, or to the extent it is merely subjective, the executive is not subject to dialectical law, is free to determine itself. Just so, Nasser – or even Gaddafi himself – started as a revolutionary, but became as the holder of the state power over balancing economic interests merely the tool, or latterly a member, of the big bourgeoisie. Sadat and then Mubarak came in not as revolutionaries, but as preservers of the state, and were subject to the same transformation.

I would expect El Sissi to, let’s say, enjoy the same opportunities. Certainly the name of preserver still fits the role the military has been playing. But in revolutionary times, we might ask, preserver of what? There is no revolutionary state to preserve, because what there was is precisely what the military removed from power. The free-floating notions “Egyptian people” or “Egyptian nation” can be substituted for the notion of state in the logic of the dialectical moment, but as free-floating only give the executive subjectivity free play. In the end, the minister/general could decide to preserve whatever he thinks worthy to be preserved, and in that way follow in Sadat’s and Mubarak’s footsteps.

 

It would help matters to fill in the content of the interim state with something other than personality. The idea of using technocrats suggests that the current executive, including the interim president, would like the state to function. But the attempt to give it revolutionary content in the form of El Baradei’s appointment as prime minister has already cost the coalition one of its constituents, the Salafists. The subsequent appointment of the economist El Beblawi seems to be a compromise between the two approaches.

Another danger derives from the contradictions between the military and the revolution. The revolution blamed the military for deaths that happened while Mubarak was still in power but got little satisfaction from the courts. Now the courts, the military, and the police share in an interim state that has also involved itself in the deaths of civilians, and is at the same time aligned with the other set of revolutionaries. Thus another split could either separate the interim state from the revolution entirely, or force the Brotherhood out of the revolution entirely. The answer to this case is of course the same as the answer already given: fill in the content of the state with the revolution as a whole.

But this depends on what the Brotherhood are willing to do. Negotiating for participations involves abandoning the claim of legitimacy. Well…prisoners are not ordinarily permitted to negotiate at all. Bringing them to the table would already be a concession to legitimacy. Yet the mood is not conducive to accepting such a gesture as a concession. At least the violence has abated for now.

The State Department thinks Mr. Morsi ought to be let out of close confinement. But these are revolutionary times. They ought to wrap their heads around that. Mr. Morsi will be let out when the military deems the danger of civil war between armed political factions, with themselves as umpire, to have abated. What’s a little imprisonment, even if false, compared to that?

 

Which brings me around to another standpoint for viewing the question, the standpoint that applied the first time the military injected itself into the role of political executive for the Egyptian Arab Spring: that as preserver of the nation and people the Egyptian military does not consider itself subject to civilian control. So could it ever become part of a revolution that stands for that principle? Could it become an element of a revolutionary state that had adopted that principle? So to the extent the secular liberals advocate civilian control of the military, the coalition is, again, unstable, and at least in this particular could lend itself to counter-revolution.

My notes say, “That’s enough. I’m well ahead of the facts again.”

Revolution Against Revolution

For some time now the revolution in Egypt has been spinning like a top, on a narrower and narrower basis, until it belonged to the Brotherhood alone, and not really to the nation and its people. The pattern of reported incidents, not to mention the whole tendency of the merely partisan constitution, has been obvious. I drafted a post to that effect, but didn’t publish it, having a garden to put in, and thinking the crisis was not that near.

Mostly I thought the opposition was not strong enough to force a revolution against a revolution, especially given the Brotherhood’s demonstrated support in the electorate. Morsi could align his party more closely with the Salafists, with the seculars, or even with the military, broaden his base, and right the top. Maybe this is what he was trying to do, but perhaps he made the wrong choice.

Parochialism alone would not have made the seculars strong enough, against the well-organized and unitary Brotherhood, to make their revolution. Demonstration versus counter-demonstration might have continued in a stalemate.

Thus the action of the military on the side of one set of demonstrators, ostensibly to give it peace as against the other set, was a surprise to me. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been. After all, the military considers itself a secular institution, and found itself part of a state that, unlike Mubarak’s, was no longer secular. The situation was not quite too bad as to make martial law a social necessity. But the die is cast. The military moved as soon as it had colorable grounds to move against a colorably legitimate government. The courts seconded them by providing the interim president.

Meantime, under the threat that an Islamist party would actually enforce an Islamist constitution, the secular liberals seem to have found greater unity, and the Coptics to fear for their very existence. Given the present combination, and despite the threat that temporary military control over the public apparatus will become permanent, it’s possible to reopen the question whether a bourgeois revolution, as opposed to a revolution merely to legalize a formerly outlawed party and its mere beliefs, is possible in Egypt. So, good Moslems who happen to be in business, say in tourism, might have voted for Morsi last year, but now lean towards the seculars. Coptics who sat out the elections because nobody seemed to be courting their votes might now appreciate that tolerance is a plank in the secularist platform. And women are less likely to expect the Brotherhood to take note of, much less safeguard and expand, their political and civil liberties.

Dialectically, where’s the new liberal energy coming from? It’s one thing to confront a politically backward or timid people with repression. It’s another to substitute one form of repression for another over a people that is already revolutionized. The timidity is gone; the means for agitation are at hand. The Brotherhood’s voter may not have resented that Morsi let the economy stagnate. Not having any to begin with, the generality of them cannot be sensible of opportunities being lost. It’s different with the petit bourgeoisie: they can embrace the principles of liberal bourgeois revolution out of class interest. Moreover, the naturally liberal student movement is revitalized and sitting at the table with El Baradei and the rest.

 

The present liberal-democratic combination is formidable. It also may not last long. I can only hope that the United States government will know what to do this time and not just urge everybody to remain calm so that the price of oil can go back down. Why is it OK to spend blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan to establish democracy, but do nothing, not even formulate and follow a consistent policy, when all of the Arab Middle East, from the Maghrib to the Levant, is going through revolution? The revolutions are trying to do the work of democracy in a way that costs us neither blood nor treasure, and that our blood and treasure couldn’t in principle have a better likelihood of doing well.

Egypt is the center of gravity. We ought to find a way to help them make their revolution against a revolution. 

The Crisis

In a crisis, a revolutionary must know what to do. One of the things to know is whether it is really a crisis, and not to be panicked by an unexpected reverse or mere threat. This much speculative philosophy can also know. But to predict the result is beyond its power, precisely because it is the time for individuals to act, and philosophy cannot predict even the action, much less the result, of the determinations of individual subjectivity.

It’s good to know that, even in the time of crisis, the Egyptian revolution is still behaving like a revolution. And more particularly that it recognizes the counter-revolution for what it is, and is able to see the courts and the military as the face or maybe the agent of the counter-revolution.

It’s a crisis because the counter-revolution brought it on. Consider their actions, words, and decrees:

·    The courts dissolved the body that was charged with making a new constitution, on grounds of what is left of the old constitution. Logically, to say nothing of the political meaning of the decree, it’s begging the question, which is what the constitution and the state should and will be. (I understand the convention had already become frustrated with itself, and so nothing was done at the time.)

·    The military too are using what is left of the old constitution, that is, the instrument created by the state the revolution was against, to justify their efforts to crush the revolution.

·    The courts have dissolved parliament. What if parliament dissolves the courts? Seems to me the French solved a similar problem in a similar way.

·    Meanwhile, all the functions the courts have taken away from the revolution, including the legislative power, they have given to the military.

·    Thus the military will appoint the constitutional convention, they say. What if the president appoints his own? Suppose further two constitutions are drawn up. Then who decides?

·    And the military want to write themselves an existence separate from and alongside the civil state into the constitution, to include their own budget under their sole control. How will they fund it? Why don’t they give themselves the power of taxation to boot?

All that’s left undone is “firmness,” fraud, arrests, violent confrontation, and a coup – in that order. There’s no reason a really efficient despotism can’t be oligarchic. Burma, for instance.

All this – the counter-revolution putting forth its strength – suddenly makes the revolution seem rather weak. It once looked (to me at least) as if the Brotherhood might be able to leverage the parliament and the presidency together to complete the revolution. It’s now apparent that the revolution never gained control over the state apparatus, nor any part of it. Even if parliament refuses to dissolve itself, it has no physical assets with which to oppose the counter-revolution.

So now the only thing to do is return to the Square. Unfortunately the police are one of the state elements that did not come under the revolution’s control. Thus begins the cycle of fraud, arrests, violence.

Someone could ask, will the secular revolutionaries go to the Square? Maybe they have gone. Or does the counter-revolution seem to them the lesser of two evils? At least some of them must have voted for Shafiq. Poor fools! Soon they may find their reward.

Unfortunately, you can’t dissolve the military. But sweeping the courts out of existence, or at least denying that they exist, is the right thing to do. The revolution can judge through its own tribunals. It’s been done. Here’s a case in which, in order to take the state into its own hands, the revolution has to take the law into its own hands.

The People of Egypt Cast Their Votes

[Draft completed May 24, but I did not post it because I thought it might take a few days to count the votes. Posted now without further comment.]

I could wait until after the votes are counted and post on the results, but since this is speculative philosophy…. Anyway, a lot of anecdotal evidence is ready to hand. A few things it suggests follow.

·    Many of the Brotherhood’s voters are poor, and some are voting specifically economic interests. Overall this is favorable to the revolution. The fact that a few of them think Allah will provide jobs just illustrates the contradiction analyzed in an earlier post.

·    Just guessing, but about half the Brotherhood’s voters among the poor are women. So have no fear they would ever curtail the political liberties of women. What party would ever disenfranchise its own political base?

·    Given the choice of candidates, the vote can be expected to reveal splits in the Brotherhood bloc. This gives the liberal/secular parties an opportunity to gain concessions, possibly in matters of civil liberty and religious law. There’s still a constitution to be written.

·    It’s unclear how the individual elected through this process will govern. There is no new constitution, nor a proposal that can be put to a vote, nor even it appears a process for drafting one anymore – this latter thanks in part to the interference of the courts. So the revolution is incomplete, and the election of a president, even a revolutionary one, will do comparatively little in itself to complete it.

·    If you want to complete the revolution, you also have to reduce the military to obedience to the revolution via a constitution. Certain candidates won’t do this. Others might, but I can’t say from here whether any of them are on the record in this sense. The military’s claim to a special role or status under the constitution has an historical basis, but that is one of the things the revolution was made against. Without a constitution, this battle will be the president’s to fight – or not.

·    And so it’s easy to see that the people of Egypt have a choice between a president who will personally fight the courts and military, and one who will not. In other words, a choice between revolution and counter-revolution. I continue to maintain the Brotherhood is a sound revolutionary party on these points, a little Islamic law more or less not to the contrary.

·    Yes, they have a party plank for making Islamic law one of the principles of the constitution. This causes a great deal of hand-wringing among Western journalists. But their wishes are not under consideration.

All this presupposes a result in which the Brotherhood have not split so much they cannot elect their candidate in the next round. You can’t rule out a run-off between the leading liberal/secular candidate and a Brotherhood candidate either until they count the votes in the current round. One can say the revolution will roundly defeat any of the candidates from the former regime in the run-off, or it will look and feel like fraud – whatever Mr. Carter happens to observe – and the revolution will have to start over from Square one.

Waverings in Egypt

Dialectical movement can be detected in Egypt; there is wavering on the principal fronts of the revolution. The action of the revolutionary parties is in the open; they remain very strong.

What is behind the contrary action? The journalists don’t seem to know what it is; they may have suspicions, but nothing that can be proven. But it can scarcely hide from speculative philosophy.

Two examples: the stance of the army, and the trial of the former despot. There was also wavering about the elections, but the revolution itself shared in this.

The only sound result for the revolution is a military wholly subservient to the civil power. It’s only slightly better for a member of the military to become head of state than for the military to become the state itself. To ask whether the military should guard the constitution is the same as to ask whether it should interfere in politics at all. The answer to both questions is No, but to date, the army hasn’t unequivocally embraced this answer.

The army’s record is mixed. When only a few are found in the Square, it may try to disperse them. When there are many, it might defend them from thugs dressed as policemen. It might beat a woman alone, but fear to do the same to thousands or tens of thousands.

It’s not just the numbers. On the one hand, they punish the revolution and its values. Confronted with its strength, they tend actually to defend it.

Same with the courts. Do they intend to convict Mubarak or not? and of what? and on what evidence? Does he really have to be present in court? The fact is, a full hearing of the evidence, and maybe in particular the evidence of the defense, would implicate others in the crimes alleged against the despot. The revolution earnestly wants to truth to come out. These ”others,” perhaps, do not. But who are they?

We know through dialectics that they must belong to a class entity of some considerable strength, otherwise they could not cause state institutions – the military and the courts – to waver in the face of the revolution’s strength. I suggest, the whole argument suggests, the big bourgeoisie, operating in their typically clandestine manner, are that entity. The Islamist subclasses are the only other entity strong enough, and they might have similar interests, but they would act openly, wouldn’t they? And maybe their attitude is already apparent to observers on the scene.

So the counter-revolution has taken up arms. The fight is joined. Control of the state and its apparatus hangs in the balance.

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?