Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy
Professor Mark LeVine interviews journalist and blogger
Hossam el-Hamalawy on the situation in Egypt.
Mark LeVine
Last Modified: 27 Jan 2011 13:07 GMT
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Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist and blogger [CC - 3arabawy]
Hossam el-Hamalawy, is an Egyptian journalist and blogger for the website
3arabawy.
Mark LeVine, professor of History at UC Irvine, managed to catch up
with Hossam via Skype to get a first-hand account of events unfolding in
Egypt.
Mark LeVine:
Why did it take a revolution in Tunisia to get Egyptians onto the streets in
unprecedented numbers?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
In
Egypt we say that Tunis was more or less a catalyst, not an instigator,
because the objective conditions for an uprising existed in Egypt, and
revolt has been in the air over the past few years. Indeed, we already
managed to have 2 mini-intifadas or "mini Tunisias" in 2008. The first
was the April 2008 uprising in Mahalla, followed by another one in
Borollos, in the north of the country.
Revolutions
don't happen out of the blue. It's not because of Tunisia yesterday
that we have one in Egypt mechanically the next day. You can't isolate
these protests from the last four years of labour strikes in Egypt, or
from international events such as the al-Aqsa intifada and the US
invasion of Iraq. The outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada was especially
important because in the 1980s-90s, street activism had been effectively
shut down by the government as part of the fight against Islamist
insurgents. It only continued to exist inside university campuses or
party headquarters. But when the 2000 intifada erupted and Al Jazeera
started airing images of it, it inspired our youth to take to the
streets, in the same way we've been inspired by Tunisia today.
Mark LeVine:
How are the protests evolving?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
It's
too early to say how they will go. It's a miracle how they continued
past midnight yesterday in the face of fear and repression. But having
said that, the situation has reached a level that everyone is fed up,
seriously fed up. And even if security forces manage to put down
protests today they will fail to put down the ones that happen next
week, or next month or later this year. There is definitely a change in
the level of courage of the people. The state was helped by the excuse
of fighting terrorism in 1990s in order to fight all sorts of dissent in
the country, which is a trick all governments use, including the US.
But once formal opposition to a regime turns from guns to mass protests,
it's very difficult to confront such dissent. You can plan to take out a
group of terrorists fighting in the sugar cane fields, but what are you
going to do with thousands of protesters on the streets? You can't kill
them all. You can't even guarantee that troops will do it, will fire on
the poor.
Mark LeVine:
What is the relationship between regional and local events here?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
You
have to understand that the regional is local here. In 2000 the
protests didn't started as anti-regime protests but rather against
Israel and in support of Palestinians. The same occurred with the US
invasion of Iraq three years later. But once you take to the streets and
are confronted by regime violence you start asking questions: Why is
Mubarak sending troops to confront protesters instead of confronting
Israel? Why is he exporting cement to be used by Israel to build
settlements instead of helping Palestinians? Why are police so brutal
with us when we're just trying to express our solidarity with
Palestinians in a peaceful manner? And so regional issues like Israel
and Iraq were shifted to local issues. And within moments, the same
protesters who chanted pro-Palestinian slogans started chanting against
Mubarak. The specific internal turning point in terms of protests was
2004, when dissent turned domestic.
Mark LeVine:
In
Tunisia the labour unions played a crucial role in the revolution, as
their large and disciplined membership ensured that protests could not
be easily quashed and gave an organisational edge. What's the role of
the labour movement in Egypt in the current uprising?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
The
Egyptian labour movement was quite under attack in the 1980s and 1990s
by police, who used live ammunition against peaceful strikers in 1989
during strikes in the steel mills and in 1994 in the textile mill
strikes. But steadily since December 2006 our country has been
witnessing the biggest and most sustained waves of strike actions since
1946, triggered by textile strikes in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla,
home of largest labour force in the Middle East with over 28,000
workers. It started because of labour issues but spread to every sector
in society except the police and military.
As
a result of these strikes we've managed to get 2 independent unions,
the first of their kind since 1957 property tax collectors, including
more than 40,000 civil servants, and then health technicians, more than
30,000 of whom launched a union just last month outside of the state
controlled unions.
But
it's true that one major distinction between us and Tunisia is that
although it was a dictatorship, Tunisia had a semi-independent trade
union federation. Even if the leadership was collaborating with the
regime, the rank and file were militant trade unionists. So when time
came for general strikes, the unions could pull it together. But here in
Egypt we have a vacuum that we hope to fill soon. Independent trade
unionists have already been subjected to witch hunts since they tried to
be established; there are already lawsuits filed against them by state
and state-backed unions, but they are getting stronger despite the
continued attempts to silence them.
Of
course, in the last few days the crackdown has been directed against
street protesters, who aren't necessarily trade unionists. These
protests have gathered a wide spectrum of Egyptians, including sons and
daughters of the elite. So we have a combination of urban poor and youth
together with the middle class and the sons and daughters of elite.
I think Mubarak has managed to alienate all sectors of society except his close
circle of
cronies.
Mark LeVine:
The
Tunisian revolution has been described as very much a "youth"-led
revolt and dependent on social media technologies like Facebook and
Twitter for its success. And now people are focusing on youth in Egypt
as a major catalyst event. Is this a "youth intifada" and could it
happen without Facebook and other new media technologies?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
Yes,
it's youth intifada on the ground. The internet plays only a role in
spreading the word and the images about what goes on the ground. We do
not use the internet to organise. We use the internet to publicise what
we are doing on the ground hoping to inspire others into action.
Mark LeVine:
As
you might have heard, in the US, the right wing talk show host Glenn
Beck has gone after an elderly academic, Frances Fox Piven, because of
an article she wrote calling on the unemployed to stage mass protests
for jobs. She's even gotten death threats, some from unemployed people
who seem happier fantasising about shooting her with one of their many
guns than actually fighting for their rights. It's amazing to think
about the crucial role of trade unions in the Arab world today
considering more than two decades of neoliberal regimes across the
region whose primary goal has been to destroy working class solidarity.
Why have unions remained so important?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
Unions
have always been proven to be the silver bullet for any dictatorship.
Look at Poland, South Korea, Latin America and Tunisia. Unions were
always instrumental in mass mobilisation. You want a general strike to
overthrow a dictatorship, and there is nothing better than an
independent union to do so.
Mark LeVine:
Is there a larger ideological program behind the protests, or just get rid of
Mubarak?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
Everyone
has his or her reasons to take to the streets, but I would assume that
if our uprising became successful and he's overthrown you'll start
getting divisions. The poor will want to push the revolution to a much
more radical position, to push the radical redistribution of wealth and
to fight corruption, whereas the so-called reformers who want to put
breaks and more or less lobby for change in top and curb powers of state
a little bit but keep some essence of the state. But we're not there
yet.
Mark LeVine:
What is the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and how will its remaining aloof
from the current protests impact the situation?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
The
Brotherhood has been suffering from divisions since the outbreak of the
al-Aqsa intifada. Its involvement in the Palestinian Solidarity
Movement when it came to confronting the regime was abysmal. Basically,
whenever their leadership makes a compromise with the regime, especially
the most recent leadership of the current supreme guide, it has
demoralised its base cadres. I know personally many young brothers who
left the group, some of them have joined other groups or remained
independent. As the current street movement grows and the lower
leadership gets involved, there will be more divisions because the
higher leadership can't justify why they're not part of the new
uprising.
Mark LeVine:
What about the role of the US in this conflict. How do people on the street
view its positions?
Hossam el-Hamalawy:
Mubarak
is the second largest recipient of US foreign aid aside from Israel.
He's known to be America's thug in the region; one of the tools of
American foreign policy and implementing its agenda of security for
Israel and the smooth flow of oil while keeping Palestinians in line. So
it's no secret that this dictatorship has enjoyed the backing of US
administrations since day one, even during Bush's phony pro-democracy
rhetoric. So one should not be surprised by Clinton's ludicrous
statements that were more or less defending the Mubarak regime, since
one of the pillars of US foreign policy was to keep regimes stable at
expense of freedom and civil liberties.
We
don't expect anything from Obama, whom we regard as a great hypocrite.
But we hope and expect the American people - trade unions, professors'
associations, student unions, activist groups, to come out in support of
us. What we want for the US government is to completely get out of the
picture. We don't want any sort of backing; just cut aid to Mubarak
immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle
Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel.
Ultimately,
Mubarak will do whatever he has to do to protect himself. He will
suddenly adopt the most anti-US rhetoric if he thought that would help
him save his skin. At the end of the day he's committed to his own
interests, and if he thinks the US won't support him, he'll turn
somewhere else. The reality is that any really clean government that
comes to power in the region will come into open conflict with the US
because it will call for radical redistribution of wealth and ending
support for Israel or other dictatorships. So we don't expect any help
from America, just to leave us alone.
Mark
LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting
researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University
in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House)
and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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