Egypt - Reaction to Morsi and MB seizure of power

Khawaga - could you point me towards reading that would explain more about how the MB has its cadres organized?

The Libertarian Socialist Movement organizes anarcho-communists who believe in class struggle as a way to overthrow capitalism and oppressive state power. The LSM adopts the aspirations and demands of the working classes, industrial workers, small farmers, wage earners, proletarians, and anyone who does not have ownership over the power of his work and sells it without control to the production process.

We believe in the practice of direct democracy in neighborhood assemblies and communes and in the boards of commissioners of cities and provinces on the basis of mandated temporary powers, not authorized decision making powers, but within the framework of decisions taken in advance in the neighborhood assemblies and communes.

We are against the capitalist ownership of the means of production, and against all forms of paid work, we strive for the development of production units under the self-management of workers run for the benefit of society as a whole, including the full needs of the community.

We believe in a network of enclosed cooperatives linking productivity and self-managed production units, consumer cooperatives and community-based managed services including elimination of the parasitic activity of intermediate trade.

We believe in the right of the community to full control of all natural and financial resources in order to achieve their needs.

We believe in the right of society to create self-protection units, management and local accountability.

Our main program is: liberation of the workers from the yoke of paid work: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

(Translation by Tahrir-ICN)

Egyptian police arrest 2 workers in Suez for inciting strikes
Egyptian army prevented striking steel workers from blocking a key highway following the arrests

Police arrested two workers at a Suez steel company on Monday who have been accused of leading strikes, a company official told Ahram Online.

Following the arrests, the striking workers tried to block a key highway from Suez to Ain Al-Sokhna, but were prevented by the Egyptian army.

The two workers arrested were part of a group of fifteen accused by company management of inciting workers to strike, said Mohamed Soliman, head of legal affairs at the private sector company.

The workers have been on strike at their factory in Al-Ataqa industrial zone in Suez for three weeks, demanding higher bonuses and allowances.

Suez Steel is a private sector company which employs 2,200 workers on contracts and another 2,000 day workers, according to Soliman, who added that the workers' syndicate committee had resigned after failing to mediate between the workers and company management.

Last week, the company threatened to cut down its workforce in response to the strike, claiming profit losses worth LE925 million over the past three years.

Suez Steel was established in 1997 and was 80-percent owned by Banque du Caire.

The company was privatised in 2007 and purchased by Solb Misr which is owned by Gamal El-Garhy, a prominent Egyptian businessman.

Currently, Solb Misr owns subsidiaries Misr National Steel and Egyptian Company for Iron & Steel Products alongside Suez Steel.

Solb Misr, along with Beshay Steel and Egyptian Steel share 35 percent of the market.

Ezz steel is the dominant steel producer in Egypt and MENA with around 55 percent of the local steel market.

Steel imports represents the remaining 10 percent.

Solb Misr's steel production capacity stands at two million tonne per annum.

Egypt: Revolutionary Socialists on the latest massacre in Cairo - 14 Aug 2013

Didn't the British SWP call for a vote for the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi?

Despite revolutionary activists’ anger at the Brotherhood, voting for Mursi and against Shafiq is an important step in building a revolutionary movement beyond the elections.

As the Revolutionary Socialists put it recently, “The question is which of the two would we rather fight? A general who will call in the tanks or an opportunist Muslim Brother who is vacillating under the pressure from below and who can be exposed before his own rank and file and the masses?”

In fact the choice is clear. A vote for Shafiq would be a vote against the revolution.A vote for Mursi is a vote against the legacy of Mubarak and for continuing change. Revolutionary activists will not enjoy voting for Mursi. If they do not do so, however, they are likely to experience the real nightmare scenario—a president cloned from the dictator they overthrew last year.

ocelot wrote:

Egypt: Revolutionary Socialists on the latest massacre in Cairo - 14 Aug 2013

From the statement:

"The Revolutionary Socialists did not defend the regime of Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood for a single day."

That's funny. I could have sworn I recalled this mob calling for votes for the Brotherhood earlier on. No doubt they find it embarrassing to admit it, but they shouldn't stoop to lies.

Sounds to me like you're talking about a vanguard. Well, there is a vanguardist group in Egypt called Revolutionary Socialists. they are a puppet of the Socialist Workers' Party in the UK and I certainly don't wanna be led by them. In fact, I want to see them excluded from every arena of public life

Statement by the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement

Authoritarian methods, used today by [General Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi, are an example of state terrorism against the people. Claiming that this excessive violence is directed against a certain segment because of its ideology is intellectual nonsense. This terrorism was practiced by the military and police forces not only against the [Muslim] Brotherhood, but days before military forces attacked workers in Suez, and charged them with incitement to strike, as if the right to strike has become a punishable offence. We are now back to the same emergency law [as before].

The Army and the police now give the pretext for the party of parties to exercise violence against the various segments of society, including also the state and its agencies in the game, working in collaboration with the media to create an image for the people that there is a monster to destroy, so to kill him becomes a community’s mission.

But the parties involved in the massacre of today seek only their own advantage. The conflict, since its inception, between the two parties was for seats and positions in the state, and both parties do not care about the blood, both parties play the poor against the poor in the skit of distraction and claim their rights from the remnants of the businessmen and statesmen. That polarization does not only serve the owners of capital and owners of high-level positions in the state.

THERE IS NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR! DOWN WITH THE STATE! DOWN WITH THE MILITARY! DOWN WITH THE POLITICAL SYSTEM! DOWN WITH CAPITALISM!

Mahalla textile workers on strike again

Security crackdowns against two labor strikes — at the Suez Steel Company and Scimitar Petroleum Company — and a potential one at the Misr Textile Company in Mahalla, have been eclipsed by news of crackdowns against the Muslim Brotherhood.

Receiving negligible media coverage, these industrial actions were crushed by police and the Armed Forces within the span of less than one week...

An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and ordered its assets seized, in the latest blow to the Islamist movement of deposed president Mohammed Mursi.

The court also banned "any institution branching out from or belonging to the Brotherhood," the official MENA news agency reported, possibly restricting the movement's political arm the Freedom and Justice Party.

The ruling comes amid a crackdown on the Brotherhood and more than a month after hundreds of Islamist protesters died in a police operation to disperse their Cairo sit-ins, sparking a wave of nationwide violence.

A judicial source told AFP the court ruled that a government committee should be created to manage the Brotherhood's seized assets.

The Cairo court "ruled to ban all activities by the Muslim Brotherhood organization, the group emanating from it and its non-governmental organization," MENA reported.

The ruling may be appealed and overturned by a higher court.

Formed in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned for decades before a popular uprising overthrew its arch foe president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

It dominated subsequent parliamentary elections and won the presidential election in June 2012 through its candidate Mursi, who himself was overthrown by the military on July 3.

The new military-installed government now accuses the Islamist movement of "terrorism," and police have arrested at least 2,000 members including most of senior Brotherhood leaders.

In the past three years, the movement set up headquarters in a multi-storey building in Cairo and opened offices across the country for its Freedom and Justice Party.

All these buildings are likely to be seized under the court order, which can also if upheld criminalize membership with the movement.