Hossam El-Hamalawy - Counter-Revolution in Egypt: Sisi's new republic

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, was perhaps the important event of the 'Arab Spring'. It was a seminal moment for me, and a generation of activists who saw Revolution on the TV and social media on a nightly basis. I, like many other activists, followed events closely. The fall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak was a joyous day.

Hossam El-Hamalawy was an activist, socialist and journalist during those days. This, his analysis of the Egyptian state's evolution and the change and continuity it experienced during and after the Revolution is based on close study of events and documents, including leaked papers, and interviews. Some of it, including references to the imprisonment of activists and events during the Revolution is based on his own experiences.

Friedrich Engels' described the state as a collection of "special bodies of armed men" whose position seeks to defend the status quo, and expand capital's interests. This is nowhere more clear than in Egypt. In the decades before the Revolution the Egypt state had a huge, and overlapping, network of organisations, police, army, informers, spies and agents who watched, punished and restricted anyone expressing dissent. This included trade unionists, socialists, human rights campaigners and Muslim activists who questioned or challenged the existing setup. At the same time, Mubarak was a master at using the state against itself to prevent any threat to his position- giving its leading figures overlapping mandates, turning favourites against each other, bolstering one organisation against another, carefully manipulating the system to protect his position.

In February 2011 the Egyptian military deposed Mubarak. They did this under pressure from below and to try and limit the revolution. El-Hamalawy argues that we cannot see this event as part of a disguised plot by the generals to give themselves power through a coup even thoug this is what happened in July 2013 when Sisi took power from th elected President Morsi. El-Hamalawy argues:

While it is impossible to know every general's thinking, informed accounts suggest the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces aimed for a quick end to the uprising, a return to normality and troop withdrawl. One general explained the priority was to 'restrain the unrelenting revolutionary impulse, so that it does not smite the state's military, security, and economic apparatuses.

Crucially, says El-Hamalawy, "the generals were eager to transfer power to an elected [civilian] government as long as their interests were protected." This is further confirmed by a US State Department report that said the Army preferred "after the Mubarak experience" a situation like in Turkey, were "the army mainstains its status... but stays in its barracks under a democratic order"and is the "guarantor of democracy".

No doubt the military wanted a say in events. But they were not, at that stage, trying to dominate. What changed? Here the importance is the old saying that "Revolution is not an event, but a process". Morsi, who replaced Mubarak, was unable to hold back or end the Revolution. In fact, as El-Hamalawy says, his election became a focus for further radical demands. 

The coup that Sisi led in 2013 was a response to the ongoing revolution, not the revolution per se. But it was, from the generals point of view, a necessary one. El-Hamalawy writes that "by the Spring of 2013, the country had become ungovernable". Industrial disputes were escalating and the capitalist class were "abandoning" Morsi after ongoing "mass protests". It was, a classic moment when the working classes were no longer willing to be governed in the older way, and the ruling classes were unable to govern in the old way.

Post coup Egypt demonstrates a strengthening of the state in both its size and its scope. The military is more powerful, and has managed to displace other forces such as the police as the chief instrument of control. The military have also extended their roots further into Egyptian society. Military capitalism, writes El-Hamalawy, "expanded massively in scale and scope after the coup":

From about $300 million in the early 1980s, the post-coup military's civilian involvement - via debt-financed projects run directly by the army or in partnership with local and international capial - rose to $200 billion over five years... this equalled two-thirds of GDP. Civilian employment in such ventures also grew from about two million in December 2016 to five million by September 2019.

He continues:

The repressive apparatus generals, with the military at the centre, have become predatory elites who sometimes cooperate with the civilian bourgeoisie but also seize their capital by force. 

Repression, punishment and violence against dissenters has reached new levels. The Egyptian state is building some of the largest prisons on the planet, and modelling them on US prisons. Sisi's government has placed itself at the heart of every Egyptian cultural and political institution - from soap operas to mosque sermons. It is difficult to be optimistic about the situation in Egypt in the short term, though El-Hamalawy finds evidence for the "slow revival of dissent" and occasional strikes and protests. More importantly he notes that Eygptian society is also under enormous strain - not least from the global context of Trump and Israel's War on Iran and genocide against the politicians. These tensions are reflected within the state itself and El-Hamalawy notes that "cracks in authoritarian security coalitions rarely stay small".

Any hope we have for a renewed mass struggle will lie in the growth of confidence from below and the breaking open of disagreement within the state. For those studying Egypt Hossam El-Hamalawy's book is a must read. Despite at times the detail being a little overwhelming the book gives a clear picture of the way that Sisi's current government rests on a seemingly powerful, but inherently unstable, state-machine. There's much here on the specifics of Egypt. But the analysis will be useful for everyone trying to understand tensions in other states globally.

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