StoryoftheNile

Last week, I was invited by some socialist friends to attend the annual conference of the Centre of Socialist Studies in Cairo. Unfortunately I could attend only two days of the five-day conference because I had to leave the capital for some work. However I was overwhelmed by what I saw and heard there. The conference hall was so full of people coming from allover Egypt, besides there was also participants from the Arab World and the International socialist in Britain.

The conference was hitting on the nail of labour unification under a suppressive regime shifting to cruel capitalistic policies. It hailed 2007 as the year of Labour strikes in Egypt. There have been Labour strikes allover the country since June 2006. The real start was by Elmahala Textiles workers who have been considered as local heroes to be looked upto and taken after. Many workers of other companies in other cities, close to ElMahala ElKobra and far from it, started doing the same. For it seemed to be the only means throughwhich suppressed workers may rise to take back their rights. Elmahala Textiles model was being redesigned and refabricated allover the country. Of course, the owners of the companies, and the government started giving in to some workers and eluding others in order to culminate the situation. One of these rights was increasing rates and salaries. However, the minister of labour force, who was a former labour leader, turned out to be one hell of a woman. She gave the workers more money, but in associatioon with her colleagues in the government, inflation rate was doubled so that despair will be added to disappointment.

To the contrary, the government was spilling the seeds of fire, it seemed to be containing, on a very fertile soil. For now anger was amplified by the workers’ sense of being fooled. The sowers of these seeds were also the petty bourgeoisie who were doubly harmed by the sudden inflation multiplation. Consequently, anger was growing into a collective wrath. And the fire that hadn’t yet been contained was fostered by people breathing fire, and even the very few numbered sects of workers started rising and striking. Ironically, the last summer was even very hot, that Egypt seemed to be on fire.

The target of the conference was to unify all these labour strikers under the umbrella of revolutionary socialism - the revolutionary socialists are the ones directing the Centre of Social Studies. Representatives of more than 25 labour strikes that occured all over the country and of the ones still going on were attending the conference. They were being followed, fostered, and even fueled by members of the centre. every representative gave a little presentation about their strike and their demands. In the end of the day, the common demands were collected and hailed as the demands of Egyptian workers. The crown diamond of these demands was to connect salary to inflation rate, so that no one fools them again. They also wanted to make the administrators of their syndicates and unions elected by them not employed by the government, and to have a decent medical inssurance treatment.

The current situation in Egypt is striking the bell of a very close coming revolution. Egyptian workers are about, 40 million, two thirds of a population of 75 million Egyptians. In their state of wrath and hunger, they can be very influencial. Adding to them: the millions of Egyptians who were middleclass dwellers and fell into the proletariate as victims of a very harsh capitalistic system; and the millions of unemployed youth, the whole country might turn into a Sweeping flood that will not only take rights back, but will also take revenge over a decadent presidential dynasty that has been leading backward for 27 years.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS