Egypt: Revolutionary Process and Global Capitalist Crisis

Abstract

The upheaval that has swept the Arab world, beginning in December 2010, reached Egypt on January 25, 2011. The article argues that capitalist globalization and ultimately the 2008 global financial crisis were main causes of the uprising. The Mubarak regime's privatization schemes exacerbated poverty and widened the already huge gap between rich and poor. Mubarak employed repression to ensure that no effective political opposition would materialize to challenge his authoritarian rule and crony capitalism. Strikes and demonstrations beginning in 2006 and the lead up to the uprising demonstrated that the fight for democracy and economic justice had been intertwined. The ouster of Mubarak has not improved the economic situation for the majority of the population and authoritarian rule remained under the military and since the election of the Islamist President Morsi. Popular resistance continues against the Islamists in power to bring about a secular regime that would establish democracy and economic justice.

State and civil society in Egypt: 2011-2015

“…Early signs of changes away from a state-centric relationship to more society-centric one occurred in the first years of the third millennium. In 2005, the Egyptian Movement of Change "Kefaya" (Aoude and Ibrahim, 2013)[3] (meaning "Enough") was established in 2004 called for civil society, supervising of the electoral process and started reporting about human rights situation in Egypt (Beinin, 2011). In 2006, worker protests erupted in Mahalla spinning company and workers went on strike (Beinin, 2011).…”