27.07.2005

Repression and desperation

Relatives have been searching for missing British tourists after three bombs exploded in the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm al-Sheikh on July 23. Police claim that the bombs were strategically placed around a popular hotel and busy market place and designed to cause maximum destruction. Up to 88 people are thought to have been killed in a country whose economy has yet to recover from a series of terrorist attacks aimed at foreign tourists. An Egyptian islamic jihadi group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but this has yet to be proven. After their own population was hit by the after-effects of the Luxor outrage in 1997, Egyptian terror groups were forced to announce that there would be no repeat of those types of attack. Many of the victims of last week's bombs were Egyptian tourist workers, but holidaymakers from across Europe were also killed. The 1997 attacks devastated the Egyptian economy and tourism industry. Sixty-eight people died when terrorists opened fire on tourists visiting a temple. Authorities are now investigating possible links between the most recent attacks and bombs last October which killed 34 people at a Red Sea resort. The Socialist Workers Party insists that the 7/7 London bombings can mainly be put down to Britain's involvement with the Iraq war, so how then does the SWP explain a similar terrorist act carried out in Egypt? Egypt has no troops in Iraq or Afghanistan and has strong historical links with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. But jihadi groups see the regime of Hosni Mubarak as unislamic and in league with the 'great Satan'. Egypt is one of the USA's most heavily subsidised client sates. Egypt is also a country where living standards have deteriorated over the last 20 years. Today it is estimated that over 10 million individuals are unable to meet their basic food and non-food needs, whilst around 45% of Egyptians have a life expectancy of less than 40. Doubtless this is to no small degree a consequence of the government's policy of embracing IMF/World Bank neoliberalism and the rolling back of the state sector, including social services. Meanwhile, as a further result, traditional peasant farming and artisan occupations have been increasingly squeezed and made unviable. They are out-competed, not least by foreign imports. There has been an associated influx into the cities, especially Cairo, which is now said to have between 10 and 20 million inhabitants. Most eke out a living through servicing the tourist industry or in marginal occupations. But it is not only the masses who suffer. Students and unemployed or semi-employed ex-students, the sons and daughters of the middle classes, see no future for themselves either - and it is this element in particular that has in desperation turned to islamic extremism. They constitute the cadre of the jihadi groups. No matter how fantastic and unrealistic, the ideologues of this movement promise its martyrs paradise and, after the destruction of the corrupt powers-that-be, a harmonious world. There appears to be no other alternative. Nasserism and 'official communism' have run out of all momentum - indeed Egypt's Communist Party dissolved itself into president Nasser's Arab Socialist Union half a century ago. Even the Muslim Brotherhood has become respectable. Instead of direct confrontation with the regime, it pursues accommodation and seeks to make political capital through moral purity campaigns and targeting individual apostates, outspoken intellectuals, wanton women, homosexuals, etc. The present crop of jihadi groups trace their origins back to splits from the MB in the 1960s. Islamic terrorism was born out of frustration with the failure of both the secular and muslim oppositions. It has flourished despite the massive repression meted out after the assassination of president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. In the west Sadat was hailed as a champion of peace and was awarded the Nobel prize in 1978 for his role in bringing about a deal with Israel. When he was killed, US president Ronald Reagan declared that America had "lost a great friend". Libya, in contrast, saw people come out onto the streets in jubilation at his death. Following Sadat's death, the assassins were identified as members of Islamic Jihad. An emergency was imposed that has become the norm. It is estimated that 2,500 'associates' of the assassins were arrested, detained without trial and forced under torture to confess to their involvement. Such abuses continue today. The 1990s saw a wave of terrorism, with islamic militants targeting tourists in an attempt to topple the Mubarak regime and impose their caliphate. This was met with measures of extreme repression - suppression of democratic rights, lengthy curfews, mass arrests and arbitrary detention. Amnesty International remains "highly concerned" about the number of critics and opponents of the government who are held incommunicado for prolonged periods, often on the most spurious of charges. The Egyptian authorities have crammed the jails and effectively turned them into schools for terrorism. Hanny Megally, the executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, tellingly says that "the real emergency in Egypt today is the continual existence of the emergency law itself". Working class organisations and trade unionists have also been hit. Any attempt at organisation and freedom of expression has been violently suppressed - the 'official communists' have paid a high price for their accommodation with the 'progressive' Arab nationalists l Emily Bransom