Mubarak's police attack strikers, provoke riots. posted by Richard Seymour

Amid all the justified talk about Mugabe's repression in the face of rebellion, Mubarak's dictatorship has just passed through another of it's - I hope - terminal convulsions. It comes in the form of an apparently well-planned assault on what might have become a general strike, in part motivated by soaring prices. It turned into a riot, a full-scale intifada, as Egypt's police unleashed hell on Mahalla al-Kobra textile workers yesterday. Hossam el-Hamalawy has full details here, with photos. You can see further images here. Zeinobi at Egyptian Chronicles has ongoing updates. Agence France Presse also has a decent report with photographs.

From the early hours of the morning, it seems, the factory at the centre of the strike was occupied by plain clothes security forces, including figures from the mukhabarat. Tens of known labour activists were prevented from entering the building, and a great deal of pressure was put on union leaders to call off solidarity strikes. It looked as if the strike had 'fizzled out' as one report put it. However, when workers and local residents gathered in the main square to protest, they were met by ranks of armed guards and beaten and attacked with tear gas. With what can only be described as incredible courage, the protesters resisted instead of dispersing, and what ensued was a lengthy battle, with rocks hurled and trucks and cars overturned. Across Egypt there were hundreds of arrests, many of them random, and bloggers were nicked alongside activists and politicians in an effort to prevent the news about what was happening from getting out. At least two people are reported to have been killed by the police, with 100 more injured. In Cairo, it is reported, the traffic was light and schools empty as people responded to the strike call. But where protesters tried to organise, the police attacked them. By 10pm, Mahalla was entirely occupied by security forces, with announcements instructing citizens to stay in their homes and power to the city cut off.

The manner in which the Egyptian state aborted this strike and attacked protesters has prompted the Muslim Brothers to boycott upcoming elections. This is a landmark for the Mubarak state, in the context of a rising wave of rebellion against the government's neoliberal policies. Mahalla workers have been the most militant and effective fighters in the country, and their successes have enlivened the whole society. If this day of carnage and crackdown was supposed to put a stop to that, I doubt that it will be effective. But then I suspect that Mubarak knows that the issues over which people are protesting generalise very rapidly from apparently economic concerns into a critique of the regime and society. And do not forget the paymaster. The United States government has taken risks with its assets in the Middle East by gambling on the invasion of Iraq. Mubarak is significant enough for them that he is the second largest recipient of aid next to Israel. Like Iraq, Egypt has long been one of the major powers in the Middle East, and an obvious candidate to lead a regional insurgency against American hegemony should it fall into the wrong hands.

Labels: egypt, general strike, mahalla, mubarak, police state, repression

Victory posted by Richard Seymour

The Mahalla workers have won:

I could hardly get to anyone from my strikers’ contacts; I expect their phones are busy with incoming and outcoming calls… Then I finally managed to get to a Socialist activist who was at the factory… He confirmed the news… It’s a victory… the strikers accepted the settlement in a mass meeting, and left the factory around 5am…

Mabrouk for the Mahalla workers… Mabrouk for the brave men, women and children who solidly stood defiant in the face of govt pressures for a week… Thanks to all the activists and labor unionists around the world who sent in messages of support…

This is just the beginning ya shabab… I’m sure Mahalla has become a source of inspiration to all the textile workers, if not the entire Egyptian working class….

Labels: egypt, mahalla, strike, working class

Speaking of inspiring rebellion against a military dictatorship... posted by Richard Seymour

The Mahalla strikers are not receiving splash headlines in Western media outlets, largely because the revolt by Egypt's working class is undermining a client-state of America, not to mention one of the world's finest torturers (see pics and here). 27,000 workers at Egypt's largest public sector factory are striking against low wages and abuse by management, and demanding a share of the immense profits that have been made from their labour. This is the second time in the space of a few months that Mahalla workers have gone out on strike, and when they agreed to return to work last time, they warned management that they were ready for more if their demands were not met. Their demands were not met, and they are out for more. Apparently, the government have offered a deal, but it has been rejected, and the strike continues. They have occupied the factory, and in response management have declared a week-long holiday, with the proviso that anyone remaining in the factory is trespassing and may be violently attacked by government troops, a threat that increases when the Minister for Labour accuses the strikers of sabotage. Several union leaders have already been arrested, but the workers aren't backing down.

A Solidarity Committee has been launched. The 7th December Movement (Workers for Change), a group apparently inspired by the Kefaya coalition, is trying to link this working class struggle to Kefaya's campaign to oust Mubarak and the NDP. Kefaya is a sort of popular front led by an ex-communist and now Islamist scholar named Abdel Wahab al-Messiri. It doesn't root its political strategy in the working class, but rather seeks to recruit them as an ally in a broader campaign, which they hope will include the Muslim Brothers one day. It's worth keeping an eye on what they're doing because they are the main grassroots opposition to the regime. But when it comes down to it, there is simply no match for the combined power and resilience of the working class. 3Arabawy is your best source of information on this struggle, and you'll find his regular updates linked in the sidebar.

Labels: egypt, kefaya, mahalla, strikes