Samir Amin - on the "Arab Spring" developments (2012)

Aijaz Ahmad: Hello and welcome. We have with us today Professor Sameer Amin, one of the world's leading Marxist thinkers. He is associated himself with two major forums, the Third World Forum and the World Forum for Alternatives. I'll first like to ask Sameer you to tell us a little bit about these two forums that you have been leading and structuring. And after that, we'll go on and discuss the situation as it has developed in the Arab world in this year of uprisings and turbulence and reactionary restorations and so on. So tell us a little bit about the two forums that I just mentioned, the Third World Forum and the World Forum for Alternatives.

Samir Amin: Well, good afternoon, Ajaz, and good afternoon and thank you for this interview. Well, Third World Forum was created in the 70s of past century as an independent association, as an independent network of thinkers from Asia, Africa, plus Cuba, from the non-aligned countries. We had felt, some of us, at that point in time, that non-alignment needed also to be supported by an independent organization of thinkers, of the left, Lato Sensu. And we established Third World Forum as such. we have been given a diplomatic status within the non-aligned, in Senegal, within the non-aligned movement. And that is an independent, I'm stressing, which means independent from the governments of the non-aligned group and from the major parties which were also component of non-alignment. But in order to support and to reinforce the non-alignment vis-à-vis the imperialist coming aggression, which we felt was going to come. And then we have survived as such since then, which means three decades and more, four decades now. But then towards the end of the century, exactly in 1997, we felt the need to enlarge and reinforce that network by associating more closely on the one hand Latin America and on the other hand also France in the north, in Europe and North America and Japan. And that is when we created together, with a number of think tanks, the World Forum for Alternatives in Cairo in 1997. We were ahead of time since, as you know, the World Social Forum, the first assembly was met only in 2001 in Porto Alegre in Brazil, but we organized the first, it was a media event, it was not a major event, a first event in Davos in 1999, which was the Anti-Davos in Davos.

Aijaz Ahmad: When I first heard of the World Social Forum, the very first thing that came to my mind at that time was in fact the names of the two forums you were already running and even the similarity of the name and so on. Let me ask you a very broad question about the Arab situation at the moment. One of the tendencies that I think all of us need to work against is the tendency to lapse into one big thing, everything that has happened in the Arab world without enough attention to national specificities. And it is, of course, true that there is an immense upsurge of democratic demand across the Arab world. That is one thing that is common among all of these movements. But then after that, you have national specificities. It begins in Tunisia, then immediately Egypt. erupts and in the Arab world the centrality of Egypt being what it is, if it happens in Egypt it becomes an all Arab phenomenon. The first thing that we noticed was that these were truly secular, democratic movements, anti-authoritarian within with a strong popular current in it, gradually the Islamist movements begin to emerge under the pressure of the mass movement. A year later, as the electoral field is opened up, we find the Islamist groups emerging in Tunisia, in Egypt, and so on. So can you give us a sort of a broad picture of this whole development?

Samir Amin: Well, there are two mistakes which should be avoided. The first one is the one that you indicated. One should not speak of the Arab world, lato sensu, and generalize too quickly. Each country has its particular characteristics, of course. even if there are common characteristics to the whole region. The second mistake that should be avoided is to come to a fast conclusion whether the Arab Spring, as it has been called, has been successful within one year or defeated. It has been neither successful nor defeated. It's only the start of a wider movement. My first point would be to indicate that the upsurge of people in Tunisia and in Egypt particularly was not unexpected. It should have been expected and it was expected, at least by a number of people on the left. Why is it so? Because the previous regimes during the Bandung period The Arab countries, or a number of Arab countries, were on the forefront of the struggle for liberation and social change, and I would say progressive social change, even if not socialist. The names of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the name of Boumediene at least, are well known. But these regimes, even if they were not democratic, were perfectly legitimate because one, they achieved a lot from above, but they achieved land reform, they achieved a move towards industrialization, they achieved a gigantic jump ahead in the fields of public services, basically education, health and so on, and they achieved through all that a kind of full employment, kind of, of course, and with guarantees to the working classes, to the popular classes, and an upward mobility from popular classes to middle classes. That gave them a perfect legitimacy. But once they got out of steam because of their internal limitations, and that was within 10, 15 or 20 years of achievements, of real achievements, and that coincided with also the coming out of steam of historical, really existing social, as one would say. And when capital moved on the offensive under the umbrella of so-called neoliberalism and market economy, etc., etc., the ruling classes, in order to remain in office, in power, abandoned the national popular program and aligned on the demands of neoliberalism through privatization, through dismantling of public services, through opening the economy, etc. Now, this neoliberal recipe led to a social disaster within a few years. All which has been achieved throughout 20 years of national popular regimes were lost within a few years, coming back to growing and fast-growing inequality, mass unemployment, precarity, destruction of the public services, particularly education and health, etc., etc. And then the regimes, those regimes, lost their legitimacy and became more and more responsive to the popular resistance by police, by repression, without anything else. They were fully supported by the US, by the Western imperialist power, in spite of there being more and more police regimes with no legitimacy. So we were expecting the explosion at some point in time, and it came. It started in Tunisia. It moved quickly in Egypt. And we ought to see that at that point in time, the Western powers, particularly the U.S., were, as well as the regimes themselves, surprised by the amplitude of this upsurge of the people. and now we have to go perhaps a little more into some details i mean the movement at least i will speak of egypt in some details the movement brought together a variety of components the re-politicized youth which is a new branch of the new proletariat with precarity, etc., etc. The new trade unions which have emerged through the enormous strikes which preceded the upsurge because they happened in Egypt in 2007 and 2008, the movement of resistance of small peasants to the accelerated expropriation produced by neoliberal policies, etc., etc. All these movements are potentially, but I'm stressing potentially, left-oriented in the sense that they were expressing a double protest. a protest against the social disaster, but also a protest against the police regime, the ugliest form of police regimes for democratic demands. And at that point in time also organizations and movements within the middle classes, democratic oriented, moved in. Now, but in the case of Egypt at least, this alliance, it's not yet an alliance, but this coming together of movements potentially left-oriented. Why do I say potentially? Because while they were clear on their demands, They were not conscious of the link between the social disaster and the police regime, the objective link between that and so-called neoliberalism, which means really existing capitalism and imperialism as it is for us today. That link is not yet well established. It does exist among a minority of the radical left. It penetrates within the youth and within the new trade unions, but it is still at the very beginning. And therefore facing that potential alliance of progressive democratic forces, progressive socially oriented, progressive and potentially even I would say potentially socialist in the longer run, there is a block organized of the reactionary forces, which brings together a number also of components, but basically the high command of the army, because the support of the U.S. to $1.5 billion a year was given to an Egyptian army, not in order to reinforce its military capacity, but in order to destroy it by corrupting the high command and having the high command moving into and associating with the comprador bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Because while it is being repeated in the medias that the Muslim Brotherhood were in the opposition to the regimes of Sadat and Mubarak, this is a lie. The Muslim Brotherhood were opposing Nasser's regime, but it is Sadat who brought them back immediately when he turned to the right at the international level by aligning on the US and at the internal level by aligning on neoliberalism through the structural adjustment programs etc. They were allies. The proof of it is that the Sadat and then Mubarak gave them, sold out to their benefit, three major institutions of the society, education, and it was through education that the veil was reintroduced in the society, justice, and it is through justice that the sharia was reintroduced, and the TV. Do you see a government giving to the opposition such major institutions? No, they were part. but there was a balance of power the high command remained in in at the top of the in the commanding positions and the Muslim Brotherhood were allies supporting them now with the At the beginning of the Movement, as you know, and as everybody knows, the Muslim Brotherhood took position against the Movement. They were expecting, as the US establishment, as the government itself of Mubarak, the defeat of the protest by mere repression. But first day, 1 million people on the streets, 300 people killed. Nobody called the Western NATO to the rescue. Second day, 2 million people in the streets, 300 people killed. Third day, 3 million people, 300 people killed. And perhaps fifth or sixth day, 15 million people, which meant the change in the balance of force. And it is only at that point in time that the Muslim Brotherhood the leadership without even supporting still the movement say, well, we don't mind our people joining the movement. They had already joined the movement as everybody in the nation. The strategy which was developed by the reactionary bloc under the leadership of Obama himself, a short transition, quiet, with fast elections, so-called free pluriparty elections, and that's finished. It will establish a new legitimacy, the elected parliament. The movement did not consider that that should be the target. The movement asked for a longer transition in order to allow to the popular classes and the movement to organize itself, to conquer positions in society, and then perhaps we could have meaningful elections. anyway we have had the elections and as you mentioned as well in tunisia and conditions in tunisia are quite similar with differences but quite close to the case of egypt we had a victory of the islamists muslim brotherhood 40 percent in tunisia and 60 percent or more in egypt now This victory of the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood was not unexpected and is not curious. It was expected. Why? Because the neoliberal recipe had led to what I'm calling a lumpen development in Egypt. That is a spiral going down with survival activities in the so-called informal sector developing fast fast fast and with the significant productive activities being more and more reduced. This was the recipe of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has nothing to offer but such a pattern of development. This pattern of so-called development, loop and development, which in fact is popularization, which means... growing poverty, unemployment, precarity, et cetera, et cetera, for the majorities, the vast majorities, while a small minority becoming billionaires is benefiting from that pattern of so-called development. That led to the explosion. But the Muslim Brotherhood was developing. This pattern of spiral down is very favorable to them. Why? Because with the billions of dollars offered, given to them by the Gulf with the benediction of Obama and of the U.S. establishment, of course, were used precisely to finance the spiral down, to finance the poverty. That is, when a chap needs some money to buy a taxi in order to survive, well, the Muslim Brotherhood come and give him the money to buy the taxi. And when the public services and health are completely destroyed, well, the Muslim Brotherhood, thanks to the money of the Gulf, offer free health, free care in centers of them. So, that this chap would vote for those who support his survival would be a normal thing, which does not mean that simultaneously he will not belong to a movement claiming for re-establishing public services, re-establishing education, re-establishing normal rules for labor conditions, etc., etc. There is this duplication. And therefore, in the case of Egypt, you can see very clearly that as a result of the elections, there are two legitimacies. One I would call a minor legitimacy. Yes, the elected parliament has some legitimacy. but limited one, because the continuation of the struggle for social justice, for democratization of the society, et cetera, et cetera, has also its own legitimacy. And there is a conflict between the two. Additionally, the electoral victory of the Muslim Brotherhood have introduced a secondary contradiction, but still a contradiction, in the reactionary alliance between the high command of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, because now the Muslim Brotherhood are in a position to ask for a higher position within the alliance, not anymore being subordinated to the dictatorship of the high command. This we don't know where it will lead. It can lead to clashes. It can lead to – there are continuous negotiations between them for compromises. We don't know where it will lead. So what I conclude on Egypt. By saying that, in fact, we cannot say that the movement has been successful because nothing has been changed either at the level of the power system, which remains in the hands of the high command of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, nor at the level of changes in the social organization. but also we cannot say that it has been defeated because the movement is still going on and I read this history as the beginning of a long wave I don't know how many years it will continue with ups and downs with possibly victories but also possibly defeats but it will continue as a movement because the main thing positive which has changed is that the people are no more afraid fear have disappeared by by by have getting some results even if tiny results by moving into the streets in millions and not being afraid of repression of of the police with guns and tanks against them, now the fear has disappeared. And this is a change which will have effects in the longer run.

Aijaz Ahmad: You were talking about the development of this reorganization of the reactionary bloc in Egypt itself. There has also been a reorganization of the reactionary bloc in very different ways as well. On the one hand, we see the emergence of the Gulf Council countries as an interventionist force in the Arab world and trying to dominate the new Arab state system through the sheer amounts of money that they have. And their increasingly close alliance and virtual integration with NATO. You have, before the beginning of the Arab uprisings, an earlier transformation that has taken place in Turkey, NATO's own Islamicists sort of taking over there, and now as the Arab people move, Turkey trying to modulate that within the sort of Islamicist direction that Erdogan and his people have there. And these contradictions within our larger world in Northern Africa, in the larger Arab world and larger region of course gives the NATO countries led by the United States but also with British having their own interests, the French having their interests, a chance to intervene in the Arab world. So far covert intervention that is going on in Syria or more indirect but no less far-reaching intervention in the Egyptian affairs themselves. So give us some sense of this reorganization of the reactionary bloc on the regional level and its interventions in Libya and in Syria in particular.

Samir Amin: Yeah, you see, the U.S. establishment and behind the U.S. establishment, the allies, Europeans and others, Turkey, as a member of NATO, derived the lesson from their having been surprised in Tunisia and Egypt by preventing similar movements elsewhere in the Arab countries, preempting them by taking the initiative of initiating the movements. They have tested the experience in Libya. They have tested it in Libya with success. In the sense that in Libya we had no, at the start we had no movement, popular wide movement, civil popular wide movement against Gaddafi. We had small armed groups and one has to question immediately to raise the question where those arms were coming from they were we know it from from the beginning and from the gulf with the support of the western powers and the us and and attacking the army police and so on And the same day, not even the next day, those very people who qualified themselves as liberation forces, democratic liberation forces, called upon NATO, the French and then NATO, to come to their rescue. and that allowed for the intervention. That intervention has succeeded in the sense that it has destroyed the regime of Gaddafi, but succeeded to what is the result of this success. Is it a democratic Libya? One should laugh at that when one knows that the president of the new regime is nobody else than the very judge who had condemned to death the Bulgarian nurses. What a curious democrat he is. But it has led also to the dislocation of the country on a Somalian pattern, that is, local powers, all of them in the name of so-called Islam, but local warlords, finally, with the destruction of the country. Well, one can wonder, raise the question, was not this the real target of the intervention. That is the destruction of the country. I'll come back to this main question. Because the same strategy, the same strategy they try to implement it immediately after on Syria. That is introducing armed groups from the very beginning, from the north Through Turkey, Hatay particularly, the so-called refugee camps in Hatay are not refugee camps. There are very few refugees. They are camps for training mercenaries to intervene in Syria. And this is well documented by our Syrian, Turkish friends. And Turkey as a NATO power is part of the conspiracy, I would say, in that case. And similar with Jordan, introducing from the south with the support, not only neutrality, but I think active support of Israel through Deraa, the south armed group. Now, facing that In Syria, we had objectively a situation similar to the one of Egypt. That is, the regime, which long, long time ago has its legitimacy for the same reasons when it was a national popular regime, had lost it when, in the time of Hafez al-Assad already, it moved to align itself on neoliberalism, privatization, etc., etc., leading to the same social disaster. So there is the objective ground for a wide, popular, democratic, social-oriented appraisal. But by preempting this movement through the military intervention of armed groups, the Western imperialist powers have created a situation where the popular democratic movement is put is hesitating. They don't want to join the so-called resistance against Bashar al-Assad, but they don't want also to support the regime of Bashar al-Assad. That has allowed Bashar al-Assad to successfully put an end or limit the external intervention homes and now in the on the boundary of turkey in the north but but opposing state terror to the real terrorism of armed and supported by foreign powers groups is not the answer to the question. The answer to the question is really a change in the system to the benefit and through negotiations with the real popular democratic movement. And this is the challenge and this is the question which is raised. We don't know, I don't know, and I think nobody knows how things will move on, whether the regime or people within the regime will understand that and move towards real reform by opening more than negotiation, redistribution of power system with the popular democratic movement, or they will stick to their way of meeting explosions just brutally as they have done until today. If they choose, if they continue in that direction, finally they will be defeated, but they will be defeated to the benefit of an imperialist power. Now, what is the real target of imperialism for Syria and for the region? It is not at all bringing democracy. It is destroying the societies, just as they have destroyed the society of Libya. I'll come to Iraq. Well, if we take the example of Iraq, Iraq, what do they have done? they have replaced the real dictatorship of Saddam Hussein by three uglier dictatorships, two in the names of religion, Shia and Sunna, one in the name of so-called ethnicity, the Kurds, which are uglier even, than the Saddam Hussein dictatorships. They have destroyed the country by systematic assassination. I have no other word for that, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of people which were bombed, humanitarian bombing and so on. But in addition to that, the systematic assassination of the cadres of the regime. the scientists, the doctors, the engineers, the professors of universities, and even the poets and so on. All the real elite of the nation that is destroying a country. And this is the target for Syria. That is what has the so-called Liberation Army of Syria claimed to be its program. That we should eradicate the Alawi, the Druze, the Christians, the Shia. When you add those four minorities, you come to 45% of the population of Syria. What does it mean? It means, that means democracy. It means the ugliest possible dictatorship and the destruction of the country. Now, who has a... an interest in that. This is the common interest of the three intimate allies. The U.S., Israel, and the Gulf countries. U.S. why? Because the destruction of the societies of the region is the best way to prepare the next stage, which is the destruction of Iran. with a view of containment and then possibly rolling back of the major. emerging countries, the dangerous one, China and Russia, and potentially, if India is naughty, India, but India is not naughty for the time being. That is the target. It implies the destruction of the societies of the Middle East, including that of Iran as a major target. But now this project of destruction of societies accompanied with the continuation of lumpen development is also the target of Israel. Because if Syria is split into four or five insignificant confessional small states, Well, it is made insignificant and it allows for further easy expansion of the process of colonization of Israel. It is also the target of the Gulf. Well, it is almost a farce that we see today the Emir of Qatar and the King of Saudi Arabia standing with the Western, with Obama, with Sarkozy, with Cameron. as the leaders of the struggle for democracy. One can only laugh. But their hegemony in the region in the name of Islam, in the name, because there are different understanding possible of Islam of course, in the name of Islam implies The destruction of countries like Egypt, basically. Because if Egypt is standing on her feet, then the hegemony of the Gulf is zero. We can just remind what was the Gulf in the time of Nasser, in the days of Nasser. So they have this common, and they are supported within the societies by the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, I would conclude by that we should look at the Muslim Brotherhood not as an Islamic party. The criterion for qualifying and judging an organization's party is not whether they are Islamic or whether they are secular. but whether they are reactionary or progressive. And when we look at the Muslim Brotherhood on all real issues, they are against the strikes of the working class. They are against the resistance of the poor peasants. They are against, they are for privatization. They are in favor of the dismantling of the public service. which means that they are fully aligned on the most reactionary forces. This is a reactionary party using Islam as a flag. And we should, this is the real criterion. Well, I think we, this is the global picture of what are the strategic targets of imperialists and their internal allies, the reactionary forces within the societies of the Middle East.