The Long Revolution of the Global South. Samir Amin
(or capitalist aristocracy), even though this new ruling class had, in the end, to accept submission to imperialist domination, first by the British, then by the United States. The ambiguous 1952 coup d’état came as a response to the impasse of the movement. From these differences comes another, of obvious importance, concerning the future of political Islam. The army and the state, with the support of the nation, defeated Algerian political Islam (the FIS), which had revealed its ugly face. That certainly does not mean that the question has been finally settled.
Bendjedid, Boumedienne’s successor, pursued an extreme neoliberal path, similar to Sadat and Mubarak’s infitah: widespread privatizations throughout the national economy, participation of senior officers in pillaging state assets, dismantling national control of the petroleum sector, uncontrolled opening to multinational corporations, and corruption. But after the defeat of the FIS attempt to impose its project for a reactionary theocracy, also subordinate to the demands of neoliberalism, President Bouteflika initiated a corrective economic policy, going as far as re-nationalizing some large companies. Bouteflika also defeated the Western project to create a “Sahelistan,” which would have been formed to the detriment of Algeria, Mali, and Niger. This para-Islamic state, in the image of the Gulf States, would have confiscated the rent extracted from exploitation of petroleum, uranium, and other minerals for the exclusive benefit of its emirs. The project was completely in line with the objectives of the U.S. strategy of domination. Simultaneously, the government made concessions to democratic and social demands, such as those of the Amazighs, unequaled elsewhere in the Arab world. But still, these were timid corrections, and the Algerian people, even when they showed full confidence in Bouteflika’s promises, probably expected more.
For these reasons, in the April 2014 elections, the majority supported Bouteflika, despite the handicaps of age and health. These elections also showed the categorical rejection of political Islam’s attempt to make a return to the political scene, appearing in the new garb of “national reconciliation.” But electors did not make this choice enthusiastically, as can be seen from the rate of participation—only 51 percent, against the 67 percent from the preceding presidential election.
The Algerian model, then, gave obvious signs of stronger consistency than that of Egypt, which explains why it had shown more resistance to its later degradation. Consequently, the Algerian ruling class remains mixed and divided, split between those still holding national aspirations and those submissively giving in to compradorization (sometimes these two conflicting orientations are combined in the same person!). Bouteflika’s reelection bought some time and made it possible to avoid the chaos that conflicts within the ruling class would produce. In Egypt, by contrast, with Sadat and Mubarak, this dominant class became completely a comprador bourgeoisie, harboring no national aspirations. Economic, political, and social reforms controlled domestically seem to have a chance in Algeria. The question of democratic politicization is, in any case, the core challenge, in Algeria and Egypt as elsewhere in the world. The Western powers fear a change toward national and popular democracy in Algeria. Also, they have not given up their project of destroying the state and society by means of an alleged “Islamist” government. The support they gave to the Islamist candidate defeated in the April 17 presidential election is clear evidence of that. They have not given up on their objective of breaking up Algeria by supporting a possible secession of the Algerian Sahara and Kabylie. Their rhetoric of “promoting democracy” and “respect for cultural differences” is aimed at hiding the real objectives of their strategy.
The recent history of Algeria and Egypt illustrates the powerlessness of these societies, even now, to face the challenge. Algeria and Egypt are the two countries in the Arab world that are possible candidates for “emergence.” The ruling classes and established governments bear major responsibility for the failure of these two countries to reach “emergence.” But the societies themselves, the intellectuals, and the militants from the various social and political movements, must also bear some responsibility. Will both parties succeed in rising to the challenge, together and through their conflict?
Tunisia: The Revolution in an Impasse
Tunisia initiated the wave of Arab revolutions in December 2010. I heard some of the participants, who arrived with some excitement to share their accounts at the World Social Forum in Dakar (February 2011), in which the World Forum for Alternatives, the Third World Forum, and I, participated. During the organization of the Tunis World Social Forum in 2013, I had the possibility of hearing more and holding discussions with representatives of a wide spectrum of Tunisian political and social forces (except for the Islamist party Ennahada): the Front Populaire (whose president received me in his office at the Assembly), Mounir Kachoukh, the Parti des Patriotes (whose leader, Choukri Belaid, had just been assassinated by henchmen of Ennahada), Abdeljalil Bedoui, the UGTT, etc. Our sister and friend Hassania had expertly organized many of these meetings.
The impression I got from these meetings is hardly enthusiastic. All or almost all were exclusively concerned with questions of governmental organization and the strengthening of political democracy as well as questions about secularism and women’s rights. On these questions, Tunisian opinion appears to be in advance of that of Egyptians. We should not be surprised. Bourguiba had opened up spaces for this, despite his autocratic behavior. Nevertheless, no one or almost no one in Tunisia appears to understand that the insertion of the country into liberal capitalist globalization is the origin of the disaster. All share the same fatal illusions about Europe, from which they expect support! On this level, Tunisia lags behind Egypt and Algeria.
During the World Social Forum in Tunis, Ennahda, like all other movements, had been invited to attend, present its program, and respond to questions. Ennahda abstained and confided to the famous Tariq Ramadan and his supporters (unfortunately from Le Monde diplomatique) the task of propagandizing on its behalf. Ennahada, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, pursues only a single objective: exercise power, all the power. The certificate of conversion to democracy that Europeans have awarded is meant to obscure this reality. Europeans know that the most effective means to guarantee the continuation of their pillage of the countries south of the Mediterranean is to entrust management of these countries to their Islamist friends.
All the conditions necessary to see any Arab country break out of the current impasse are far from coming together, at least in the near future.
The Constituent Assembly resulting from the October 2011 elections in Tunisia was dominated by a rightist bloc that combined the Islamist party Ennahada and numerous reactionary cadres, formerly associated with the Ben Ali regime, still in place, and infiltrated into the “new parties” under the name of “Bourguibists.” Both unconditionally support the “market economy” such as it is, a system of dependent and subaltern capitalism. France and the United States do not ask for more: “Everything changes so that nothing will change.”
Two changes are, nevertheless, on the agenda. Positive: a political, but non-social democracy, that is, “low-intensity democracy,” that will tolerate a diversity of opinions, respect human rights more, and end the police repression perpetrated by the preceding regime. Negative: a probable decline in women’s rights. This is, in other words, a return to a multiparty “Bourguibism” with an Islamic coloration. The Western powers’ plan, based on the power of the comprador reactionary bloc, will put an end to this transition. They favor a short transition (which the movement has accepted without assessing the consequences), leaving no time to organize social struggles, and will allow the establishment of this bloc’s exclusive “legitimacy” through “correct” elections. The Tunisian movement was largely uninterested in the economic policy of the former regime, concentrating its critiques on the corruption of the president and his family. Most of the opposition, even on the “left,” did not question the basic direction of the mode of development implemented by Bourguiba and Ben Ali. The outcome was, thus, predictable.
President Moncef Marzouki had been a human rights campaigner and thus a victim of repression. But he seemed unable to make the connection between the poverty of his people and the choice of a liberal economic policy by the state, which he did not question. Curiously, he took the initiative to organize in Tunis in February 2012 an international conference on Syria that provided grist to the mills of the Western interventionists!
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