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As I pointed out a while ago, Shamus Cooke is an ubiquitous supporter of
the Syrian Baathists, using all the boiler-plate "anti-imperialist"
arguments.
Today he has a piece on ZNET where he tries to put the best possible
spin on the Egyptian army overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood
government, a party that he has described as "not a natural expression
of the religious attitudes of people in the Middle East, but instead an
unnatural political creation that serves a specific geo-political
agenda, specifically that of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia."
He has now escalated his stupidity into the stratosphere:
"It's true that many Egyptians have a semi-idealized view of the
Egyptian military; but this is not a sheepish bow to authority, but a
uniquely Egyptian perspective based on real history. Former Presidents
Nasser and Sadat were military-linked heads of state who played a
progressive role in many arenas of Egyptian life, especially in
economics and national independence (in recent polls Sadat and Nasser
remained the two most popular Egyptian politicians to date, regardless
of both having died decades ago)."
full:
http://www.zcommunications.org/whats-next-for-the-egyptian-revolution-by-shamus-cooke
Sadat "played a progressive role in many arenas of Egyptian life"?
No wonder so many young people when offered a platter of "Marxism" look
for some other dish on the menu.
It also irks me that Cooke provides no footnote on "recent polls". I
spent 15 minutes looking through Google and Nexis to find any such
polling and nothing turns up.
During the entire course of the "anti-imperialist" defense of military
rule in the Middle East--from Colonel Qaddafi, to the Syrian heavy
artillery and air force "liberating" Qusair, and now to Sadat--one of
the main casualties besides the Arab people has been leftist journalism.
If I were writing an article for ZNET (as if I would ever have anything
to do with a toad like Michael Albert), I would not dream of making such
a statement without backing it up. Here are the facts on Sadat:
http://libcom.org/history/1977-egypts-bread-intifada
A short history of the country-wide uprising against the termination of
state subsidies for basic commodities in January 1977. Despite savage
repression resulting in hundreds of deaths, spontaneous strikes,
demonstrations, and widespread rioting forced the government to back
down in just two days.
In 1974, Egypt’s president, Anwar El Sadat, embarked on a series of
economic reforms, pursuing an open-door, or ‘Infitah‘, economic policy.
Wishing to encourage foreign and domestic investment in the private
sector, Sadat sought to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Gamal
Abdel Nasser, under whom Egypt had seen massive nationalisations and the
emergence of a planned economy with little private investment.
These reforms also had a political factor; Sadat was seeking to move
closer to the United States and the West and to distance himself from
the policy of ‘positive neutralism’ employed by Nasser in regard to his
attitude towards the Soviet Union and the West. Nasser’s policies had
alienated opinion in Britain and the United States, and led to the
withdrawal of investment offers to Egypt, and eventually to the
nationalisation and crisis of the Suez Canal. By moving closer to the
West, Sadat hoped to attract investors back to Egypt.
Sadat’s government began by privatising large state-run firms, and
returning land that had been nationalised under Nasser to its former
owners. This policy had the desired effect; foreign investment returned,
land speculation was rife, the construction and tourism industries
enjoyed a boom and consumer imports increased.
Egypt still had a large debt burden, and in late 1976 Sadat took a
series of loans from the World Bank with the condition that state
subsidies on foodstuffs and other essential commodities would be
severely limited.
On January 17, 1977, the government announced plans to cancel around
LE277 million (around £30 million) worth of subsidies, especially on
food, as well as the cancellation of bonuses and pay rises for state
employees. This immediately led to rapid price increases.
Reaction to the announcement was immediate. On the morning of the 18th
workers in factories around Cairo walked out. At Helwan, an industrial
city just south of the capital, workers rushed out of the factories and
on to the streets in spontaneous demonstration against the government.
Workers in Shoubra el Kheima, to the north of Cairo, did much the same,
in many cases occupying their workplaces.
Students of engineering at Ain Shams University held mass meetings and
organised a march on parliament, which was joined by civil servants and
students from Cairo University. A delegation of students entered
parliament to present a set of demands to MP’s, and when they did not
return for some time clashes broke out between demonstrators and police,
leading to the rally being broken up by force.
Opposition to the state’s new economic plans were not confined to Cairo.
Factory workers in Alexandria led demonstrations and strikes with
support from students of Alexandria University, and in a few days unrest
had spread to Mansoura, Quena, Suez, Aswan and many other urban areas
around the country.
Incidents of violence between protesters and the police increased, as
did acts of sabotage. Railway lines were cut and tracks blocked, railway
stations were set on fire and police stations attacked. Hotels, shops,
casinos and upper-class districts became targets of popular anger, as
did the headquarters of the ruling Egypt Arab Socialist Party in Cairo,
which was attacked and set on fire.
Crowds attempting to reach the Ministry of the Interior were violently
dispersed and fired upon by troops. In some areas, arms and ammunition
were seized from police stations by demonstrators.
Strikes and demonstrations in industrial districts grew in intensity,
with workers in a single factory often walking out and touring other
plants in the area to convince others to join them. An example of this
was in Giza, where striking workers from the textile factories were
joined by thousands from print shops, wool factories, silk factories and
military plants. In Helwan large-scale rioting broke out, with the
railway lines between the city and Cairo being cut.
Attacks on shops, banks, and government buildings were met with brutal
force from the police, fearful of demonstrators seizing control of arms
from sieged police stations.
Government buildings in Cairo were ransacked, and another attempted
march on the parliament building in Cairo was met with violence, as was
a march on the presidential palace, and demonstrators were again fired
upon, leaving many people dead.
Within just two days rioting and strikes had occurred in most major
cities and industrial towns of Egypt. Shocked by the intensity and rapid
spread of the protests, the government cancelled its economic decrees on
the night of the 19th after only forty-eight hours. In an attempt to
contain unrest, it ordered a military crackdown and deployed army units
in to the streets who responded to unrest ferociously.
Fighting continued until the next morning, with rioting taking place
throughout the night leading to the deaths of many demonstrators and
arrest of many more. Owing to the savagery of the state response to the
insurrection, it is estimated that around 800 people were killed during
the uprising with hundreds more injured.
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