Egypt: Contested Revolution

273 Pages·2016·3.579 MB·English

by  Philip Marfleet

Egypt

Egypt
Contested Revolution
Philip Marfleet
First published 2016 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Philip Marfleet 2016
The right of Philip Marfleet to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3552 0 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3551 3 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1794 1 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1796 5 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1795 8 EPUB eBook
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processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the
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Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the European Union and United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Glossary viii
Preface xii
PART I: MAKING REVOLUTION
1 Introduction 3
2 The Streets 16
3 The Workers and the Movement 35
4 Crises and Confrontations 54
PART II: THE PAST IN THE PRESENT
5 Islamism and the State 77
6 Fate of the Left 96
PART III: COUNTER-REVOLUTION
7 Egypt Under Mursi 117
8 Brotherhood, People, State 134
9 Towards the Coup 154
10 Counter-Revolution and Beyond 175
Postscript – Cairo, April 2016 199
Notes 205
Bibliography 219
Index 245
Acknowledgements
My thanks to many friends and colleagues in Egypt for years of shared
experiences, debates and discussions. As I write in early 2016, it would
be unwise to identify those who face continuing threats from the military
regime.
Thanks especially to Anne Alexander, John Rose and Adrian Budd
for their careful reading of drafts of the book; thanks also to Egyptian
readers who remain anonymous. The views expressed are very much my
own. Given the complexity of events, the obsessive secrecy of successive
Egyptian regimes and the difficulty of establishing the pattern of events
during crucial phases of the revolution some assessments I have offered
may be contentious – and our discussions will continue.
Thanks to David Shulman of Pluto Books for his patience and
forbearance, especially when unexpected developments delayed progress.
Many thanks to expert editor Thérèse Wassily Saba for her meticulous
work on the manuscript and careful monitoring of my transliteration
from Arabic. My special thanks to Lynne Hubbard, Ellie Marfleet and
Harry Hubbard for putting up with my absences and silences – hugs to
you all. Thanks also to friends and colleagues who prompted my interest
in Egypt, its people and cultures, especially Talal Asad, Tanya Baker,
Enid Hill and the late Tony Cliff.
When I was four or five years old, my father Gerry Marfleet showed me
his album of photographs from Egypt. In 1940 he had been conscripted
and sent to the Middle East as part of a British army of occupation.
Stationed in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, he was eventually sent to
Egypt and encamped at Helwan. Fascinated by the Orient, and especially
its literary associations, he had found himself in the ‘antique land’ of
Ozymandias – the pharaoh Ramses II who, wrote Shelley, had ordered
an inscription on his monumental image constructed at the edge of the
desert: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye
Mighty, and despair!’ Almost 60 years later Gerry might have considered
another of Shelley’s works in the context of Egypt. ‘The Mask of Anarchy’
had been written to commemorate a massacre of democracy activists
egypt: contested revolution
in England. It concluded with lines that could have been composed in
Arabic by witnesses to events in 2011 that launched sustained struggles
against the pharaohs of the twenty-first century:
Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many – they are few!
......................................
The brave men are brave
The cowards are cowardly
Come with the brave
Together to the Square.
Ahmed Fouad Negm
vii
Glossary
Arabic words and phrases
abaya – cloak (for women)
‘adl – justice
‘amil (pl. ‘ummal) worker
ansar – helpers/supporters (had special status in Islamic history as
associates of the Prophet and members of the first umma)
awqaf (sing. waqf) – religious endowments
‘ashwa’iyyat – informal areas, ‘slums’
‘aysh – bread
‘aysh baladi (made with wholewheat flour)
‘aysh shami (made with white flour)
baladi – country(side)/of the people/folk
baltagiyya (sing. baltagi) – gangs/thugs
batil – illegitimate/false
‘eid – feast
feddan – measurement of land area; 4,200 square metres (0.42 hectare);
1.038 acres
fellah – (pl. fellaheen) tiller, farmer, peasant
higab/hijab – headscarf for women
feloul – remnants/leftovers
fuul – fava beans
hizb – party
harakat – movement
hadith (pl. ahadith) – reports/accounts (of the Prophet’s words and
deeds)
haram – sanctuary; or impermissable
hukm al-askar – military rule
hurriyya – freedom
ihtijajat fi’awiyya – special (sectional) interests
ikhwan – brotherhood
infitah – opening; al-infitah al-iqtisadi – economic opening
insaf – fairness
viii
glossary
intifada – uprising
jahiliyya – ignorance (of divine guidance)
jihad – striving, exertion, fight, war
karama – dignity
khedive – governor of a province or region of the Ottoman Empire
kifaya – enough
mazar – place of reverence
manabir – (sing. minbar) pulpits
mathaf – museum
midan – (pl. mayadin) square
millioneyya – million-strong march
mukhabarat – intelligence (secret police)
mulid – (pl. mawalid) festival
murshid – guide (usually of Muslim Brotherhood)
naqabat – unions/syndicates
nizam – order (regime)
riba – usury
salaf – predecessors/forefathers
sha’ab – people
shahid (pl. shuhada) – ‘witness’, martyr
shari’a – laws of Islam
shura – consultation (name of the Upper House of Egyptian
parliament)
tahrir – liberation
tali’a – vanguard
tat.hir – cleansing/purification
thawra – revolution
ultras – hard-core football fans
umma – collective of Muslims, sometimes ‘nation’
wasta – connections/influence
State agencies and institutions; political parties and movements
Amn al-Markazi – Central Security [Force] – CSF (riot police)
Destour (Constitution) Party
Gama’at Islamiyya – Islamic groups/associations (Islamist organisations,
variously called Gama’a Islamiya, al-Jamaat al-Islamiya, al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya)
ix