Egypt: vote Muslim Brotherhood?

Submitted by Matthew on 6 June, 2012 - 9:00

On the face of it, there is some force to the SWP line that voting for the Freedom and Justice Party — the Muslim Brotherhood — in the final round of the Egyptian presidential election is preferable to allowing Ahmed Shafiq, the candidate of the old Mubarak regime, to win (Phil Marfleet, Socialist Worker 2 June).

The argument is that a victory for the oldest and best organised opposition group would represent the continued forward movement of the revolution. Or at least a victory for Shafiq would be the opposite. The Brotherhood is unlikely immediately to crush all democratic forces. Over the last eighteen months, it has been sensitive to the demands and aspirations of the popular movement. And, so the argument goes, it would be possible to put pressure on Muhammad Mursi, the Brotherhood’s dull-as-dishwater candidate, and the Brotherhood as a whole. You can say to them, you want social justice — go on, then, let’s see you deliver...

The disturbing truth is that so far the overwhelming beneficiaries of the last eighteen months of struggle have been the Brotherhood (not only in Egypt), closely followed by the even scarier Salafist movement which came second in the Parliamentary elections (December-January 2011-12). Millions of people have voted for them.

There must be at least an element here of people wanting stability, and voting for something familiar; and the vote reflects the weakness of the secular left in actual communities. But the Brotherhood vote must also include millions of people who participated in or supported the revolution. The left needs to find a way to relate to those millions which goes beyond lecturing them about their political backwardness. Does that include a vote for Mursi?

You could make a case that calling for a Mursi vote is a one-off thing, and doesn’t commit you to any more general support for the Brotherhood. A parallel would be the Presidential vote-off between Jean Marie Le Pen and Chirac in France in 2002. The AWL was against a vote for either; but the then-LCR eventually joined in with “vote Chirac to stop Le Pen”. Though I think it was wrong, this wasn’t contemptible. It didn’t lead the LCR/NPA into general popular frontism, or whatever.

Is “vote for Mursi to stop Shafiq” the same?

There is a general issue of principle involved in whether to vote for any kind of bourgeois party. But there are concrete reasons, too, not to call for “Brotherhood to power” in Egypt.

The image presented by the SWP — on the one hand “the revolution”, represented in an unfortunate and distorted form by the Brotherhood, and on the other “reaction” is much too crude. Something more complex and difficult is going on.

It is likely that large numbers of Egyptians who hated the old regime, who wouldn’t consider voting for its candidate otherwise, will turn out to vote for Shafiq in order to stop the Brotherhood. Many are terrified of the Brotherhood, which in 1946 the SWP’s Tony Cliff described as “clerical fascists”, becoming too powerful.

But question actually posed here is what small groups of revolutionary socialists (like the SWP’s sister group in Egypt the Revolutionary Socialists) say to people. Their votes, and the votes of those they influence, even if they amount to several thousand, won’t make any material difference to the outcome of the election. In that case what all socialists have to do is to tell the truth about the political forces involved — tell the truth about the Brotherhood. To say clearly that they do not represent “the revolution”, and their victory over Shafiq is not a real victory.

So far the Brotherhood/Freedom and Justice Party has gone out of its way to present itself — to the electorate, and to the world — as a moderate Islamist movement. How they will behave now — assuming they win the Presidential election — remains to be seen. And it absolutely cannot be taken for granted. The left needs — not in a hysterical way, but clearly — to be warning of the consequences of a consolidation of Brotherhood power, and calling for the labour and revolutionary movements to be prepare for it and to defend themselves.

The FJP already has nearly 40% of the seats in the Parliament, the Nur (Salafist) party another 28%. Between them they dominate the Constituent Assembly the Parliament elected which has now been suspended by an Egyptian court (on the grounds it was unrepresentative).

Having the Presidency as well will make the Brotherhood even stronger, more confident, more inclined to ride roughshod over other secular, democratic, leftist, feminist, etc. forces.

If the Brotherhood win Egypt is entering a period where they will be the dominant political force. Their strength on the ground is enormous, president or not. Losing the presidency will be a set-back. But the basic pattern is clear. The question for the left, the labour movement, the revolutionary youth, etc, is what to do about it.

The Brotherhood/FJP isn’t an analogue for a social democratic party or, say, Syriza in Greece — where you can clearly see how its election is a step forward for the movement; and so on that basis you can “put them to the test” — make demands on them, relate to their base in that way, with a “united front” approach.

Maybe the Brotherhood will adopt a softly-softly attitude, at least to begin with, towards other parties, women’s rights, Christians, and so on; maybe it will hold back on introducing Islamic law; maybe it will even — contrary to its historical record — be gentle with the labour movement (i.e., not crush strikes).

There will be a period where its precise relations with the army — which still holds effective power — are recalibrated. The Brotherhood has been, throughout all this, very concerned not to provoke the army and to reassure the US that it doesn’t want to provoke the army. This will continue to be a major consideration.

But it is inconceivable, with such a powerful showing in both parliamentary and presidential elections, that the Brotherhood’s bedrock nature won’t be revealed.

The focus for the left and the labour movement surely has to be: whoever wins, we need to organise to fight them. It might be right to “place demands” on the Brotherhood — but you don’t have to vote for them to do that. You have to be clear about what they are, and whether they are the labour movement’s allies. They are not. To call for a vote for them on the grounds that in some sense they “represent the revolution” is to paint them as something they are not.

In the long run or even sooner, it will make it harder to fight them.

• More: “The classic manifesto of political Islam” — Martin Thomas analyses Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb’s 1964 book Milestones here

Comments

Submitted by Pete on Wed, 06/06/2012 - 12:10

In a surprising announcement that appears to come from the leadership of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists, they have apologised to their membership for the statement released on May 28th. See http://www.e-socialists.net/node/8812

The statement of apology, which is only available in Arabic, indicates that the manner of the debate around the call for a vote for the MB was inadequate. It distances itself from, at least it doesn't repeat, the call for a vote for the Brotherhood in the forthcoming presidential run-off this week-end. The apology acknowledges the lack of consultation with the membership and indicates that there may well have been considerable dissent amongst them. The apology does not however make a clear break with the idea of making alliances with Islamists, or in this case casting a vote for the MB, on principle.

This follows a conference of revolutionary forces at the week-end and a major mobilisation yesterday called by that conference which likely attracted in the order of 100,000.

At both events opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood was considerable. Not only is there great alarm from the Coptic Christians about the Brotherhood, never mind the concern from secular socialists, but the Brotherhood were also highly aggressive at Tuesday's demonstration against anyone who advocated a boycott accusing them of being 'traitors'.

Hopefully the culture of criticism of the SWP flawed formulae will continue within the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists.

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