Posts Tagged ‘Mubarak مبــارك’

The new strike wave shaking Egypt

Once again Egyptian streets are filled with protesters as civil servants, textile and postal workers join a strike wave… Anne Alexander reports on how their demands are fast raising the political temperature

The Mubaraks on Twitter

Inspired by Baba, Gamal launches a Twitter account…

Egypt workers fight for pay, (and) against the state

Reuters published a report, where I’m interviewed, on the labor movement, titled “Egypt workers fight for pay, not against the state”..

Striking Egyptian workers are unlikely to escalate demands for better conditions into a political challenge to the government, but stoppages will make state assets less attractive to investors.
Worker frustration with rising prices and shortages of subsidised bread flared into two days of clashes with security forces in this pot-holed city north of Cairo in April last year.
The tough security response and the government’s offer to hike some wages highlighted official concerns about an escalation of discontent in a country where a fifth of the 77 million people live on less than $1 a day.
More than a year later strikes continue unabated, but political opposition groups seeking to capitalise on worker grievances have failed to broaden action into a wider protest against the rule of Hosni Mubarak, president since 1981.
“Not a single political party has the power, even the Muslim Brotherhood … (to) stop or push the strike wave forward,” labour activist Hossam el-Hamalawy said.
He said the Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest opposition group, had limited organised support among workers and political activists using the internet had failed to rally workers.
“Workers aren’t just going to wake up and go on the internet and read that some Facebook activist called for a general strike and obey that, it doesn’t work that way,” Hamalawy said.
Mostly leftist and liberal activists agitated for a general strike in solidarity with Mahalla el-Kubra workers. Most workers ignored the calls and the Brotherhood did not take part.
LABOUR UNREST
“Each (political group) is trying to influence people for their ideology,” said Gehad Taman, a labour organiser at a textile mill in Mahalla el-Kubra, adding that efforts by political activists had mainly undermined worker claims.
Years of authoritarian rule have weakened opposition groups and, analysts say, added to apathy among many Egyptians.
But labour unrest has become common. Even professional groups like doctors, pharmacists and lawyers have stopped work or threatened strikes over pay.
Factory workers have been at the forefront as a cabinet of reform-minded ministers, appointed in 2004, revived a programme of sell offs, stoking worries about job security and pensions.
The action has often been organised outside official trade federations which many workers see as allied to the ruling National Democratic Party, which dominates Egyptian politics.
No big state firms have been sold since a bid to offload Banque du Caire failed to receive high enough bids in June last year. But once the world economic climate improves any new sales may find investors more wary as long as strikes continue.
“Labour unrest feeds into a certain amount of caution in foreign investors,” said EFG-Hermes economist Simon Kitchen.
“The unrest is a symptom of over-staffing and poor management and that is what perhaps would deter the foreign investor,” he added.
Egypt has sought to draw investment based on its location between Europe and Asia, and by offering lower labour costs.
“Our labour code allows these strikes to happen,” Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin said, but added demands were modest.
SLIDING DEMAND
Speaking to reporters this month, he said strikes mostly hit state or recently privatised companies and blamed a surge in commodity prices, which has now eased, for the 2008 unrest.
Inflation peaked at 23.6 percent in August last year, but has tumbled to around 10 percent amid a world downturn.
Firms are trying to convince workers that, amid sliding demand for exports, now is not the time for industrial action.
“Strikes are not acceptable under the current circumstances,” Khaled Mahfouz, a spokesman for Mahalla el-Kubra’s Misr Spinning and Weaving, told Reuters. “Our sales have suffered in this crisis as we deal with world exports.”
The average annual salary for workers at Misr Spinning and Weaving, the largest textile manufacturer in Africa and the Middle East, was 15,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,682) in 2007-08, versus 8,500 pounds in 2002-03, Mahfouz said.
The call for worker restraint was echoed by the president in a speech to mark this year’s May Day labour holiday.
“If employers accept some losses or a fall in profits, then labourers have to cooperate with them in these difficult times in a manner that preserves their establishments and preserves the opportunities for honest work they offer,” Mubarak said.
But he also urged business leaders to avoid ostentatious displays of wealth, a nod to concerns often cited by Egypt’s struggling workers and the poor that economic reform may have generated growth but the benefits have not trickled down.

While my quotes mentioned above were correct, I agree with Per that the conclusions I’d draw would have been different. Workers are refraining from the the existing “political parties,” but that doesn’t mean their fight is not “political” or is not a direct “political” challenge to the state. On the contrary I see the strikes to be increasingly getting politicized–A politicization, that is not necessarily manifested in the conventional political manner: parliamentary voting behavior, membership in political parties, or adopting the Kefaya agenda, etc.

Israeli sub sails Suez, signaling reach to Iran

From Reuters via @MohamedWaked…

An Israeli submarine sailed the Suez Canal to the Red Sea as part of a naval drill last month, defense sources said on Friday, describing the unusual maneuver as a show of strategic reach in the face of Iran.
Israel long kept its three Dolphin-class submarines, which are widely assumed to carry nuclear missiles, away from Suez so as not to expose them to the gaze of Egyptian harbormasters.
It was unclear when last month the vessel left the Mediterranean. One source said the voyage was planned for months and so was not related to unrest after the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom the Israelis see as promoting the pursuit of nuclear weapons to threaten them.
Sailing to the Gulf without using Suez would oblige the diesel-fueled Israeli submarines, normally based in the Mediterranean, to circumnavigate Africa — a weeks-long voyage. That would have limited use in signaling Israel’s readiness to retaliate should it ever come under an Iranian nuclear attack.
Shorter-term, the submarines’ conventional missiles could also be deployed in any Israeli strikes on Iran’s atomic sites, which Tehran insists have only civilian energy purposes.
A defense source said the Israeli navy held an exercise off Eilat last month and that a Dolphin took part, having traveled to the Red Sea port though Suez. Israel has a naval base at Eilat, a 10-km (6-mile) strip of coast between Egypt and Jordan, but officials say it has no submarine dock there.
“This was definitely a departure from policy,” said the source, who declined to give further details on the drill or say whether the Dolphin had undergone Egyptian inspections in the canal, through which the submarine sailed unsubmerged.
A military spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the voyage, first reported on Friday by the Jerusalem Post.
EGYPTIAN POSITION
Egyptian officials at Suez said they would neither confirm nor deny reports regarding military movements. One official said that if there was such a passage by Israelis in the canal, it would not be problematic as Egypt and Israel are not at war.

This comes as the Egyptian regime is beefing up its military, not to confront Israel, but to contain Iran!

Statement from the Revolutionary Socialists بيان الاشتراكيين الثوريين حول خطاب أوباما

The Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists have issued a statement re Obama’s speech…

الاشتراكيون الثوريون
٥ يونيو ٢٠٠٩

Radio Interview: Obama is NOT welcome

My radio interview, recorded 3 June, with “Stand UP! w/ Pete Dominick”

NYT Op-Ed: Our allies not in the White House

The New York Times asked me to write an Op-Ed regarding Obama’s visit…

THE bridge I take to work in central Cairo was painted overnight. On the roads, colored concrete blocks were installed in turns where car accidents happen daily. Main streets in the neighboring city of Giza are suddenly blossoming with flowers. Street lamps are polished, and they are actually working. This could mean only one thing: our country is receiving an “important” foreign visitor.
President Obama should not have decided to come to Egypt. The visit is a clear endorsement of President Hosni Mubarak, the ailing 81-year-old dictator who has ruled with martial law, secret police and torture chambers. No words that Mr. Obama will say can change this perception that Americans are supporting a dictator with their more than $1 billion in annual aid.
The Western press is clearly excited about Mr. Obama’s “significant” choice of Egypt, and his destination, Cairo University, which the news media seem to consider a symbol of enlightenment, secularism and freedom.
The truth is that for years, Cairo University students have been demonstrating against the rising cost of education, demanding the university subsidize expensive text books, only to be rebuked by the authorities, who claim no funds are available. Yet the university somehow managed to find the money to polish up the building dome that will shine above Mr. Obama’s head when he delivers his address.
As for the other host of the president’s visit, Al Azhar University, one of its students, Kareem Amer, is languishing in prison after university officials reported his “infidel, un-Islamic” views to the government, earning him a four-year sentence in 2007. In advance of the visit, Egyptian security forces have rounded up hundreds of foreign students at Al Azhar.
We do want allies in the West, but not from inside the White House. Our real allies are the human rights groups and unions that will pressure the Obama administration to sever all ties to the Mubarak dictatorship. Their visits to Egypt are more meaningful, even if unlike Mr. Obama, they do not get a lavish reception.

Mubarak is a force for stability and good, says Obama

Obama has once again exposed himself for the hypocrite he is. Interviewed by the BBC yesterday, Obama showered Mubarak with praise…

…while acknowledging that there are “obviously” issues of human rights in the Middle East, the President avoided specifics that many Egyptians may have been looking for.
He said President Hosni Mubarak was a force for stability, without commenting on the President’s domestic policies. “He has been a stalwart ally, in many respects, to the United States. He has sustained peace with Israel, which is a very difficult thing to do in that region.”
The counterparts will meet in private for the first time during Obama’s visit to Cairo.
When Webb asked whether he considered Mubarak to be “authoritarian,” Obama deferred. “I tend not to use labels for folks,” he said.
Hossam El-Hamalawy, activist and blogger at arabawy.org, said he felt that Obama was not going far enough. He said that Obama’s silence regarding Mubarak was a “clear endorsement of his regime.”
“The pro-democracy movement here has allies in the west, but they are not in the Whitehouse,” El-Hamalawy said. Despite Obama’s differences from the past, El-Hamalawy was not confident that he will be fundamentally different from his predecessor.
AUC Political Science Professor Walid Kazziha said Obama’s reluctance to emphasize a purely pro-democracy policy was understandable. “He’s not going to raise that issue against any Arab regime that he considers to be moderate,” said Kazziha. “They’re opting for stability rather than democracy.”

In all cases, it seems the old man isn’t attending the speech after all!

For Obama's visit: ِEgyptian universities under security occupation

Mubarak continues his preparations for Obama’s visit… Cairo University is now under the control of the Presidential Guards. In Al-Azhar University, the police are not taking chances, so they rounded up 40 Russian and Asian students!

Between Mubarak's police and Israel: Rafah under occupation

Mubarak’s police troops have in effect occupied the border town of Rafah, terrorizing the locals, under the excuse of searching for tunnels. And if that isn’t enough, Israel is also giving its share of love…