@3arabawy Profile by Business Today Egypt: A Revolutionary Socialist

8/2/2019 @3arabawy Profile by Business Today Egypt: A Revolutionary Socialist

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A member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists move-ment since 1998, Hamalawy is a veteran supporter of laborrights. The blog he started in 2006 covers industrial actionsby the Egyptian working class and news of police abuse. Ha-malawys work as a labor and political activist has led to hisdetention several times by the former regime and shaped his

political and economic inclinations.

Q: What were the reasons for your detention by the regime?Hamalawy: Ive been detained three times before, and they

were all prior to the revolution. The first time was in October2000 when I was a postgraduate student at the American Uni-

versity in Cairo. I was organizing a protest on campus in solidar-ity with the Palestinian Intifada.

These protests were not only mobilized against the US andIsrael, but they were also critical of Mubarak. We were slam-ming the local regime for its complacency with what was goingon in the Occupied Territories.

At some point we managed to bring down the US flag fromatop the university, which at the time overlooked Tahrir Square.

I was then kidnapped on October 8 and kept in custody for fourdays during which I was tortured. I was detained again in 2002at the State Security headquarters in Nasr City and another timein 2003 following the antiwar riots in Tahrir Square.

Q: The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) is suppos-edly the body responsible for protecting labor rights. What isyour opinion of the ETUF and has it been doing its job?

Hamalawy: The ETUF is not a trade union. It is basically astate-run bureaucratic structure of appointed government of-

ficials as well as security-friendly workers. It is made up of thosewho have close ties to the security services and factories man-agement, and so they are not representatives of the workplace.

Ever since it was established in 1957 by Gamal Abdel Nasser,

the ETUF has been the regimes arm when it comes to mobiliz-ing and controlling the working class. If you look at electionrigging over the decades, whose buses are shipping voters intothe different polling stations? Its the ETUF. When Mubarak

visited any city, who were these people standing on the side

clapping and cheering? They were public sector employeesmobilized by the ETUF.

The ETUF has only ever endorsed two labor strikes. Thefirst was in 1994 or 1995 by the miners and the second was in2010 by the Tanta Flax and Oils Company. Other than that,the federation has never supported a strike, never lobbied forlabor rights. They were a driving force behind privatizationand supported the neo-liberal scheme. I regard them as a body

A RevolutionarySocialist

Famousfor his online blog arabawy.org, Hossam El Hamalawybegan his career in 2002 as a journalist with the Cairo Times.

He later moved on to work as a freelancer for several Westernpublications and news outlets and a researcher for the HumanRights Watch organization.

His work includes the co-authoring of reports on the extraordi-nary renditions and secret prisons in Egypt. He is also the found-ing managing editor ofAl-Masry Al-Youms English edition and

was part of the founding editorial team of Al Ahram Online.

Long-time labor and political activist Hossam El Hamalawy gives his insight on the labormovement in Egypt and what it may hold for the countrys economic and political future.By Amr Aref

MohsenAllam

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different provinces collecting signatures and raising awarenessabout the importance of representative trade unions, as thisculture had been non-existent since 1957.

In December 2008, they declared the establishment of thefirst independent trade union in Egypt, which triggered a

domino effect. They were followed by pension workers andhealth technicians, and then on January 30, 2011 the nucleusfor the first independent trade union federation was an-nounced in Tahrir Square. In the span of one year they grewfrom just three unions to somewhere between 150 and 200independent unions.

Q: The establishment of independent trade unions that trulyrepresent the workers is without a doubt a positive developmentfor the labor market in Egypt. However, some business ownerswould argue that the laborers are not economically savvy. Forexample, their position on privatization is based on a corrupt

experience, yet they stereotype this experience as the underlin-ing framework for any privatization deals. This is despite thefact that some of these deals could be beneficial to them and theeconomy. What would you say to that argument?Hamalawy: They are trying to put forward this tricky argu-

ment that corrupt privatization is bad but privatization itself isgood. Give me one single privatization deal that was not cor-rupt. Privatizations in itself is corruption. You are making the

workers pay for the mistakes of management.

Factories that were losing money and later privatized weremaking these losses due to the lack of investments which is notthe workers fault; its managements responsibility.

Neo-liberalism is about getting out of your capitalist crisis bymaking the workers pay for it when they actually have nothing

to do with it. In the Shubra meeting that I mentioned earlier,Saeed Al Gohary, who is the head of the General Union forTextile Workers, told the Mahalla workers that they have noright to ask for anything since their company is making losses.

Kamal Al Fayoumi, a leader of the labor movement in Mahalla,replied saying, Listen, I am a worker. You give me a produc-tion plan and I implement it for you. What happens with theproduct is not my problem but its the marketing and manage-ments responsibility. Dont make me pay for their mistakes.

I thought that this was a brilliant destruction of the neo-liberal logic. This attitude, that the workers dont know whatsbest for them, is patronizing. Its the same patronizing attitudeof the regime over the past decades, so I completely reject it.

of investigations and security informants rather than one that

represents the workers.

Q: 2006 saw one of strongest waves of labor protest in Egyptshistory. Can you discuss how the wave started and how it isnow culminating towards establishing trade unions that areindependent of the ETUF?Hamalawy: The labor movement that started in 2006 is the

strongest one since at least 1946 following the end of the Sec-ond World War. At that time, a huge wave of social and politicalprotests broke out calling for independence from the Britishas well demanding social justice. Later, in 1977, Egyptian work-ers went through a very strong strike wave that was crushedby Sadat and labeled Intifadet Al Harameyaor an Intifada ofThieves; kind of like how they are now calling revolutionaries

baltageyaor thugs.However, for the most recent wave that started in 2006, it

started when former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif had prom-ised workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving two monthsbonuses and failed to deliver. As a result, 3,000 female garment

workers started a strike. They marched into the departmentsthat house their male colleagues and chanted El Regala Fein,

El Hareem Ahom(Here are the women! Where are the men?)They actually shamed them into action.

As I told you earlier, the ETUF had never supported a strike

action, so typically they were standing against this one. This ledto a campaign of collecting signatures by the workers demand-ing the impeachment of their union officials and the with-drawal of confidence from the state-run union.

By January 2007, the workers had collected 13,000 signaturesand descended on the headquarters of the General Union forTextile Workers located in Shubra. They gave them an ultima-tum, either to impeach the officials or else the workers wouldlaunch an independent national federation of trade unions.

The ETUF refused to impeach the local officials, and therewere crackdowns by the security apparatus against the Mahallaworkers. They imposed many restrictions which prevented theworkers from establishing their union. However, they [workers]had started the [struggle].

It then became customary that after every strike the workerswould collect signatures demanding the withdrawal of confi-dence from the union of concern. From October 2007 untilDecember 2007, the property tax collectors led by Kamal Abu

Eita went on strike demanding that they be re-associated withthe Ministry of Finance (MoF).

In 1974, these employees had been disassociated from theMoF and instead became part of the local municipality. Thismeant the termination of several benefits such as salary allow-ances and the like. You would find a property tax collectorbringing in millions of pounds into the state treasury, yet hissalary was a mere LE 250 a month.

The strike culminated with an 11-day occupation of Hussein

Hegazy Street and was successful as the workers managed toraise their salaries by 325%. After this strike, the leadership de-cided to [create] an independent trade union for the propertytax collectors. Kamal Abu Eita and his comrades toured the

All of this inspiration and therevolution is not yet over, soimagine what will happen once itis. I have no doubt that we will winthis war with the regime and thatthe revolution will be successful.

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Q: I understand that the labor movement does not yet have apolitical arm due to restrictions set by the controversial law forpolitical participation. Are there currently any efforts to estab-lish such an arm regardless of the restrictions?

Hamalawy: The law that organizes the formation of politi-cal parties in Egypt bans the establishment of any party that isbased on sectarian, race or class ideology. This means forexample that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists ingeneral shouldnt be allowed to form parties. However, their

relationship with the army allowed them to do so.It also means that socialists and workers cannot form their

political parties either. The logic is that they would be callingfor the rights and benefits of workers and so they are empower-ing one class over the other.

However, this does not mean that efforts on the ground toestablish a labor party have stopped. I am part of the EgyptianRevolutionary Socialists movement which is the biggest organi-

zations in the revolutionary left, and our fight in creating a real

grassroots federation of trade unions still continues on a dailybasis.

What we are striving for is to build a labor party that will havereal industrial and urban presence. We hope to link the strike

leaders together and link them with the most militant sectionsof the student movement and the farmers movement in orderto create a strong political party.

Q: I understand that you believe a strong politicized labor move-ment is the only hope for the success of the Egyptian revolution.Can you explain why you believe so?Hamalawy: I believe that the labor movement holds the

seeds of hope for the success of this revolution, because I be-lieve that the roots of oppression, poverty and the malaise in

society can be largely linked to the capitalist system that we areliving in.

It is this capitalist system that basically creates the inequali-ties that we are living under and reaps the fruits of the labor forthe sake of those who only own but dont actually participate inthe production process.

The workers are the ones who create the profit in this soci-ety. They are the ones who operate the machines and they arethe ones who can bring them to a halt. This is largely the mostsuccessful peaceful weapon you have when you are fighting adictatorship.

Q: How would a general strike serve this fight?Hamalawy: In order to pull together a general strike, you

first need to have an entity with roots and branches in the dif-ferent workplaces. This means that you have people on theground who are ready to mobilize when there is a call for it.

When all the workers go on strike and put forward theirdemands, the regime will have no other option but to satisfythem. Otherwise, the entire country comes to a halt and the

whole system collapses. And if the army decides to open fire,I think it would be impossible for them to maintain the ranks.

They might be able to brainwash some officers into shootinga small number of protesters in Tahrir Square by calling themthugs and so forth, but can they shoot a million people in thesquare?

The general strike will bring the wheel to a halt, and theregime will have to make concessions for it to work again. If the

movement feels that they cannot hold the strike indefinitely,then they will accept these concessions. However, if the move-ment is strong enough it can seize power altogether, seize the

factories and start managing its own affairs.

Q: Do you think the labor movement in Egypt currently has thisstrength?Hamalawy: When Kamal Abu Eita makes statements to the

media, he talks about his independent trade union federationrepresenting over two million workers. However, when there

was a call for a general strike on February 11, we didnt seethose two million workers.

So on paper these independent unions might actually rep-

MohsenAllam

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in any part of the world are self-management of the factoriesand a direct democracy as a political channel for running thecountry. When Ramy Lakah fled the country, who was manag-

ing his factories? It was the workers; they had established self-management.

This concept resonated in Argentina when there was a huge wave of factories being occupied by the workers who man-aged them by themselves. Currently in Egypt, such a move hasnot yet materialized, but I think it will start to happen soonenough.

There is a wave of re-nationalization of the privatized com-panies. However, the workers will soon realize that this is notenough as the government does not invest in these factoriesand will actually bring back the same corrupt management that

ruined them in the first place. This will be a step into the real-ization that the workers must manage the factories themselves.

Q: You are talking about fully empowering the working class,which does not fit well in the current context of global econom-ics. How do you think the ruling class will react to this?Hamalawy: No ruling class will ever give up power easily. If

there werent a concerted effort by the ruling class to safeguardtheir privileges and hold on to power, then this revolution

would have happened centuries ago and it would have all beenover.

The ruling class is armed with prison cells, security forces,

armed forces, mass media operations and the schooling andeducation system. They have these tools. Thats why I believethat the revolutionaries and the working class need to havetheir own tools. They need their own political party and theirown media. Its basically a war.

Q: Do you think that this model of social democracy can bedeveloped in Egypt and serve as an example for other countries?Hamalawy: Absolutely. In the same way the glimpses of

liberation in Tahrir Square and other parts of Egypt providedan inspiration for the Libyans, Syrians and Yemenis to move.

Weve seen Egyptian flags in Greece, Spain and in the Occupymovements and sit-ins.

All of this inspiration and the revolution is not yet over, soimagine what will happen once it is. I have no doubt that we

will win this war with the regime and that the revolution will besuccessful. And once it is, we will be able to build a model forthe whole world; a new model of social democracy. bt

resent two million people, but translating this into real mo-

bilizing power is a different story. There is a great degree ofunevenness in these unions in the sense that they were allestablished under different conditions.

You will find unions that were built in the middle of strikesand others that were founded thanks to a legal process. Thereis also unevenness within each union. For example, the public

transport workers union has unionized 10,000 out of 40,000workers; so not everyone in a sector is a member of a union.

These independent unions are new and are consideredgreen unions. They have not yet established a strong grassrootspresence. What they can do, however, is to intervene when thesituation on the ground is already explosive. They can steer thedirection left or right, but to start something out of the blue isstill not possible.

Q: You say that a strong labor movement is the silver bullet forany dictatorship. However, when I put this in a global contextand compare it with labor movements in Western countries, Isee that even though they have a very well developed and ef-ficient labor representation system, it has not prevented the kindof economic dictatorship or capitalist inequalities that you referto. This is very evident in the Occupy movement in the US andother protests and riots in different parts of Europe. Dont youthink that the labor movement in Egypt will ultimately face thesame struggles as its counterparts in the West?Hamalawy: When I talk about the labor movement, I always

say that they need two arms. They need an independent fed-

eration of trade unions, but that alone is not enough. Trade

unions at the end of the day can be bureaucratized like whatwe currently have in the US and other Western countries; theyend up being what we call corporate unions.

Ultimately, the function of a trade union is to alleviate theconditions of exploitation, meaning that if you are exploitedfor LE 100 per month, the union would fight so that you areexploited for LE 120 per month. However, they do not elimi-nate exploitation altogether.

That should be the job of the political arm of the workingclass, which is the party that will represent their political inter-ests in such debates. This party should work to seize power andactually change the economic and political system.

Q: What about the labor party in the UK that didnt do much to

change the system?Hamalawy: I think of this party as a reformist social demo-

cratic party, and it is not the kind of party I am hoping to build.What I am hoping for is a revolutionary party that in essencederives its power from a big base amongst the laborers and

works to change the regime and not be part of it or reform it.

Nasser and the Soviet Union are also not the kind of socialistmodels that I am talking about, these were state capitalism. Wehave seen glimpses before of the kind of socialism I am talkingabout. In the first two years of the Russian Revolution it wasthe workers unions that were running the country through adirect democracy.

The two wings of socialism that I want to see in Egypt and

Trade unions at the end of theday can be bureaucratized likewhat we currently have in theUS and other Western countries;they end up being what we callcorporate unions.

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Documents

@3arabawy Profile by Business Today Egypt: A Revolutionary Socialist