(en) Egypt, Media, Anarchist thread of 130 years and present role

The black bloc in Egypt say they are the defenders of protesters opposed to President 
Mohamed Morsi's rule. ---- The last time kids in black caused this much trouble in Egypt, 
it was Satan's fault. Well, at least that's what the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mubarak 
government claimed during the infamous "Satanic metal affair" of 1997, when over 100 
metalheads - musicians and fans - were arrested and threatened with prosecution and even 
death simply because they dressed in black and liked extreme music. ---- The persecution 
of Egypt's metalheads, or "metaliens" as many called themselves, drove the burgeoning 
scene underground for much of the next decade. It did not begin to resurface until the 
mid-2000s, at the same time as political movements like Kefaaya emerged, and the strikes 
in the industrial centre of Mahallah occurred. This period saw a renewed, if still 
sporadic, militancy that would coalesce into the revolutionary surge of late 2010 and 
early 2011.

It didn't surprise me, then, to see that some of the key organisers of the 18 days of 
protest were old friends from the country's metal scene. The seemingly sudden reemergence 
of black among Egypt's remaining revolutionaries, specifically the visual markers of the 
black bloc - which despite being described as a group by the media [AR], commentators and 
government, is more accurately understood as a tactic and strategy - thus brings back 
vivid memories, of both the sounds of Egyptian metal and the anarchistic heart beat of the 
original Tahrir protests. Metal and anarchy - as Egypt's political and religious 
authorities have argued with great ferver - have always gone together quite naturally.

Indeed, there was a clear if little remarked upon anarchist presence in Tahrir during the 
original 18 Day uprising; anarchist books can in fact be found in stalls along Talat Harb 
Street on the way to the Square where the group held a public march and prayer. And Tahrir 
itself remains in many ways the epitome of the ideas of horizontalism (horizontalidad) and 
self-organisation (autogestion) that are at the core of modern anarchist theory and practice.

Anarchism's Egyptian roots

In fact, anarchism actually has a long history in Egypt and the Levant more broadly. As 
the research of Edinburgh University Professor Anthony Gorman has demonstrated, it 
stretches back to the 1860s when Italian political refugees first made their way to the 
more hospitable surrounding of Alexandria and other Egyptian cities, where they inspired 
the foundation of the "Free Popular University" in 1901.

Egypt in this period was in the midst of an unprecedented and increasingly desperate 
state-driven modernisation campaign that increased its integration into the global economy 
during the first and in some ways still most intense phase of globalisation. The constant 
movement of northern Mediterranean communities to and through its eastern and southern 
shores going back centuries - as merchants, slaves, pirates, workers and activists - is a 
seminal lesson in how integrated the Mediterranean has traditionally been, and hopefully 
will again be.


Clashes outside presidential palace in Cairo

Italians and Greeks, who by the fin de si?cle had established vibrant communities tens of 
thousands strong in the major cities of the Mediterranean's southern and eastern rims, 
were increasingly enmeshed in the politics of the indigenous labour movements, and brought 
a strong dose of anarchism, including anarco-syndicalism, which specifically focused on 
labour struggles through self-organisation. Anarchist-agitated strikes were being staged 
and arrests being made for illegal organising by the 1890s, if not before.

Anarchism, along with any other political ideology that would compete with Nasserism, was 
sidelined during the heyday of pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 60s. But at least some 
contemporary Egyptian anarchists trace their roots to local anarchist activity in the 
1940s [AR].

The rise of the anti-corporate globalisation movement

Anarchism's appearance in Egypt in the 19th century provides the historical context for 
understanding its reappearance today, during the next great struggle age of global 
integration within a Western-led (but no longer dominated) global neoliberal system. Since 
Sadat's initiation of the infitah, or opening in the 1970s, Egypt has been as deeply - and 
unfavourably - incorporated into this system through its dependent relationship with the 
US, and with the IMF and World Bank as it was into the 19th century European dominated 
global economy.

Mubarak, father and even more so son, tried to use neoliberal policies to strengthen the 
power elite's economic position within Egypt and globally. Policies of privatisation and 
liberalisation offered unprecedented potential for the elite to strengthen its control 
over the economy. The problem was, and remains, that the greater concentration of wealth 
can only come at the cost of a far more precarious economic position for the vast majority 
of the population. This demanded not just increased repression but also the cooptation of 
new actors into the power elite, whether the emerging bourgeoisie of the 1990s (epitomised 
by Gamal Mubarak) or the Brotherhood elite in the last decade.

From Morocco to Syria the struggles for "freedom", "social justice", "democracy", "bread" 
and particularly "dignity" - which has been a key word for struggles against neoliberalism 
at least since the Zapatista movement made it a centrepiece of its discourse in the early 
1990s - are quintessentially anti-neoliberal struggles. In this regard, they are the 
natural continuation of the struggles of the anti-corporate globalisation movements in 
Latin and North America and then Europe of the 1990s and early 2000s (as epitomised by 
Buenos Aires, London, Seattle, Prague and Genoa), which then morphed into the anti-war 
movement that emerged around the US invasion of Iraq.

Theatres of violence

Many of the anarchist organising principles which Egyptian black bloc activists have 
adopted as their own - such as self-democracy and decentralised organisation, as well as 
militant and often violent confrontations with security forces and symbols of systemic 
power - were deployed by the first generation of black bloc activists in the 
anti-corporate globalisation movement. These activists emerged not just out of anarchist 
circles but also groups like Ya Basta!, Tutte Bianche and Attac (which actually had 
branches in some Arab countries).

They in turn were powerfully impacted by Latin American grass roots struggles epitomised 
by the Zapatistas in Mexico, whose movement, I argued already in 2005 in my book Why They 
Don't Hate Us, constituted the best model for then inchoate politicised youth movements to 
emulate. Indeed, the US government-sponsored think tank RAND warned [PDF] that the 
Zapatista uprising "demonstrated how new technology made it possible for 'swarms' of 
'flies' to overrun governments", precisely the kind of tactics that defined the Tahrir 
phase of the Egyptian revolution.


Inside Story
Demanding 'economic justice'
It could be argued that the anti-WTO "Battle of Seattle" of late 1999, which first put the 
movement on the media and activist map, would have never received the attention it did had 
it not been for the violence against property deployed by protesters, which was and 
remains a rare phenomenon in the US outside of "riots" in poor minority communities.

However, it was also clear by the anti-IMF Prague protest of September 2000 that the use 
of violence, however theatrical and limited to property and aggressive security forces, 
was becoming counter productive. The police used the threat of such violence to deploy 
ever larger and overzealous forces who arrested (often violently) peaceful activists and 
helped disrupt, as well as infiltrating them with greater frequency. The nadir was reached 
with the killing of Italian activist Carlo Giuliano at the Group of 8 summit in Genoa in 
July, 2001, just two months before September 11 completely delegitimised any kind of 
violence by protesters in the US and Europe for the next half decade.

Simply put, routinised violence against property cost the anti-corporate globalisation 
movement significant support in the US and Europe precisely because the the vast majority 
of people in these countries were not suffering enough under the existing system to 
support the level of chaos and disruption such violence was intended to generate. 
Anarchists and hard-core anti-corporate globalisation activists might have wanted the 
"fall of the system", as Egyptians have chanted since the eruption of the revolution (and 
in fact, before), but most everyone else was only looking for a far less painful process 
of reform.

Militant oppositional politics became even more difficult during the Bush War on Terror 
years, both because there was less public tolerance for them and because governments used 
anti-terror laws to increase surveillance, infiltration and prosecution of militant 
activists. It has reappeared with the rise of the Occupy movements globally, especially in 
Greece, Spain and to some degree the United States. But even in the midst of the worst 
economic period since the Great Depression, black bloc tactics alienated at least as many 
potential supporters of the movement as they attracted, leading normally sober observers 
like Chris Hedges to label the tactic (in fact, like so many others, he erroneously 
labeled it a movement) the "cancer of the Occupy movement".

Globalisation on steroids in the Arab world

The Arab and broader Muslim world constitute a very different environment for struggles 
against neoliberalism and the various policies it involves than did the advanced 
capitalist West. Unprecedented petroleum rents allowed for rapid development of the 
smaller Gulf countries in the last two decades, but for the economic and political 
situation of the vast majority of the region's peoples has become more bleak during the 
last generation. This at the same time that their ability to connect with and become 
culturally - if not economically and politically - integrated with global movements and 
ideas increased at an unprecedented rate.

In a lecture-hall filled with 500 people at the Prague anti-IMF protests of September 
2000, not a single audience member raised their hand when I asked if anyone was from the 
Muslim world. Within a few years, however, activists from the Middle East and North Africa 
were becoming an increasing presence in the global peace and justice movement, while at 
the same time taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by Western 
governments and NGOs to network with their peers (and especially each other) in the 
mushrooming number of "civil society"-related workshops and conferences of the post-US 
Iraq invasion period.

The internet, of course, made it that much easier to learn about tactics - such as that of 
the black bloc's - and allowed various groups both in and outside the region who shared 
similar goals and attitudes to become acquainted. At the same time, the growth of the now 
(in)famous Ultra movement, clearly inspired by similar movements of football fans in 
Europe, provided the perfect laboratory for experimenting and perfecting the kinds of 
aggressive and even violent confrontations with security forces and regime thugs that 
between January 28 and February 4, 2011 literally saved the revolution.

It is not surprising that as their ability to shape the political situation has lessened 
in the two years since the initial uprising, the Ultras and sympathetic fellow-travellers 
among Egypt's revolutionary movements would search out new strategies, tactics and symbols 
to reshift the momentum, and as important, the national narrative, towards more favourable 
terrain. Members of the Revolutionary Socialists, the most sympathetic group to anarchists 
in terms of strategies and political goals (and who've consequently been attacked with 
them by SCAF and the Brotherhood) have from the start of the Revolution repeatedly told me 
that the key to its success will be constantly learning from and teaching ever widening 
circles of people. The explosion of talk about the black bloc in Egypt - even more so 
among the government, its supporters and the Egyptian and Arabic-language media than in 
Western media - is evidence of just how successful their strategy has been.

From an examination of the proliferation of Egyptian black bloc websites (including here, 
here, here, and here), video pronouncements of activists, (see also here), twitter feeds, 
and the use of black bloc description and logos, and discussions with friends in the 
broader Ultra movement and others who've followed recent changes in strategies, it's clear 
that while the adoption of black bloc tactics is centred around the Ultras, it's not 
limited to them, since not all activists who've donned the balaclava or black hoodie are 
members of one of the main Ultra clubs, such as Zemalek or Ahly.

It's also clear that while the activists who came up with the idea to publicly identify 
themselves with the tactic are familiar with its recent history, it would be a mistake to 
assume they share (or even spend time debating over) a coherent anarchist political agenda 
or philosophy, or are all equally grounded in the larger anarchist-influenced discourses 
that have shaped the broader global Occupy movement - which, let us remember, was directly 
inspired by and even born out of Tahrir's historic 18 days of anarchist-style 
self-organisation. On the other hand, some of the self-identified Egyptian black bloc 
activists list their "university" on their facebook page as "UNAM", the National 
Autonomous University of Mexico, which has a long history of affiliation with the 
Zapatistas, while a return to some of the analysis of black bloc tactics written during 
the pre-2001 period reveal similar debates and challenges facing the movement in the West 
then and in Egypt today.

Revolution as creative destruction

Egypt's president declares state of emergency

In the wake of the Brotherhood/FJP's electoral victories, the anemic performance of the 
official "opposition" represented by the "National Salvation Front" and a population 
desperate for some sort of economic recovery, revolutionary forces were on the defensive 
in the last few months. But the mass protests and then violence surrounding the Port Said 
verdict and the second anniversary of the start of the uprising on January 25 has 
generated a recalibration of the political scales. The black bloc has become a public (and 
even more so media and government) symbol of the militant opposition that is quite 
literally on the march against the still unstable emerging order.

It's hard to overstate the dangers a well - yet self-organised and decentralised protest 
movement could present to Egypt's power elite. The country's military chief, Abdel Fatah 
al-Sissi, is not exaggerating when he says ongoing protests threaten a "collapse of the 
state"; nor are prosecutors wrong in considering those deploying black bloc tactics as 
"terrorists". For what is the goal of revolution if not the collapse of the existing 
state, and how can protests aimed at that end not terrorise those presently in power?

All true revolutions involve a supreme act of creative destruction - an anarchic and 
ordering impulse that both destroys the old order while creating something new to take its 
place. The reason most revolutions either fizzle out or are hijacked or taken over by 
forces other than and often opposed to those who first led them lies precisely in the 
failure to move successfully from the destructive to the creative phase and discourse. 
This is as true of the axial religious revolutions, including the Abrahamic faiths, as 
well as for modern political revolutions in Mexico, Russia, China, or Iran.

It's anarchic impulse stems directly from the fact it is directly taking on the existing 
system. But if one state - that is, arrangement and network of power relations - is to be 
replaced by another one, a new system has to replace the one that disintegrates. 
Similarly, every true revolution is a powerful combination of what the sociologist Manuel 
Castells calls "resistance" and "project" identities; the former being narrow, closed and 
hostile to outsiders, the latter open, inviting and future-oriented.

You can't bring about the "downfall of the system" and the creation of one in its place 
without both. As important, you can't in the long term keep tens of millions of people 
supporting destruction if the positive vision of the future is not there for them to see. 
The problem is that while the two halves of the creative destruction equation naturally 
overlap for much of a revolutionary period, at some point the destruction has to subside 
and the creation has to become the dominant process, otherwise the revolution becomes 
either self-destructive and nihilistic, coopted, or redirected (often by the military, as 
epitomised by the phenomena of Bonapartism or Caesarism). In such a situation, one time 
supporters will turn against it in favour of the stability of a restored if changed ancien 
regime (if in new clothes).

What made Tahrir truly revolutionary during the 18 days, but sadly too few days since, was 
that in the Square you could see, feel, the possibility of a new Egypt, a different Egypt, 
an Egypt that could fulfill the dreams of the majority of its inhabitants. Young and old, 
rich and poor, Muslim and Copt, metalhead and Sufi, everyone radiated "silmiyya" - 
peacefulness - even as they screamed at the top of their lungs for days on end.

It was clearly a liminal, paradoxical experience, and one which, as Georgetown professor 
and Jadaliyya co-editor Adel Iskandar reminded me in a recent conversation on the present 
situation, was itself a two-part phenomenon: "the one from January 25 to February 4 which 
was violent, confrontational and black bloc-esque... and the Tahrir of the Utopian 
imaginary that dominated between February 4 to 11... The two continue to exist and 
manifest with oscillating frequency."

The key question is, of course, how to control the oscillation, particularly when you 
can't really tell either when the tipping point has arrived and which way it is tipping. 
For two years now the Egyptian "state" has been in this liminal state; the structure at 
its core - that is, the deep state of power holders through whom the vast majority of the 
networks of power and wealth flow in Egypt - has remained seemingly stable, and is 
enlarging a bit as the Brotherhood and its own networks of power and patronage are, with 
some difficulty, absorbed into this elite. But the state remains gelatinous and porous 
outside of the core nucleus, and if the opposition can siphon enough power and legitimacy 
away, the system could, as General al-Sissi warns, move towards collapse.

Millions, if not tens of millions of Egyptians understand that if the state structure 
rehardens or concretises in the shape it's apparently taken, they will be either frozen 
into pretty much the same place they were under Mubarak, or pushed even closer to the 
margins or completely outside the state. Indeed, the "state of emergency" once again 
declared, now by a democratically elected President, and the organised attacks on women by 
forces clearly aligned with the existing power regime, reflects this desperate need to 
clear as many people away from the power networks as possible before the new system hardens.


Follow spotlight coverage of the struggling young democracy

And that's where anarchist and black bloc tactics come in, as they constitute one of the 
most imaginative and creative responses to the hardening process (it's also why those 
commentators who have dismissed them as "pretty silly" have little understanding of the 
history of such tactics or their proven utility in revolutionary Egypt). The question is 
how the majority of Egyptians who are not directly involved in this struggle (but directly 
affected by it) will understand this dynamic. How will they respond to the kind of 
tactical violence epitomised by black bloc tactics and anarchist principles if it 
continues and the government responds with more violence?

Will they see the creative and project aspect of the protests, and accept them as the only 
means not merely to finish the job of taking down the system but of building a truly new 
political and social economy for Egypt? Or will they focus mostly on the destructive and 
resistance element of it - as a one way path towards social, political and economic 
disintegration and chaos against which a religio-authoritarian system, however unpalatable 
in principle, seems the better choice?

However we might want to judge their tactics more broadly, their commitment and loyalty to 
other protesters are hard to question. When women were being brutally attacked in Tahrir 
Square last week, beyond the ability of groups like Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment to 
protect them, black block activists have literally appeared out of nowhere to take on the 
often armed groups of attackers and protect the women and other activists.

Limited success, broader future?

It's worth noting that the success of Zapatismo has in fact been fairly limited on the 
ground. The Zapatistas have managed to carve out a relatively - and constantly threatened 
- autonomous zone for indigenous Mexicans living in the Chiapas region. It has not 
fundamentally changed the broader political economy of Mexico, never mind defeated or even 
seriously challenged "global neoliberalism", against which the movement launched its war 
on January 1 over 19 years ago (although Subcommandante Marcos' words to disappointed 
tourists hoping to visit the local Mayan ruins the day the revolution was launched - "I'm 
sorry. This is a revolution" - was surely repeated to scores of disappointed tourists 
unable to visit the Antiquities Museum at Tahrir Square during the revolution).

While holding off the brutal march of neoliberalism into the Lacondan mountains of Chiapas 
is certainly a victory, the Egyptian revolution cannot succeed if it's limited to one 
geographic region or social group; its initial success and ultimate victory depend 
precisely on its spread throughout society and across the country. There is no partial 
victory, and small "liberated" spaces, such as Tahrir, cannot survive surrounded by an 
ocean of Brotherhood-cum-military neoliberal authoritarianism.

It's clear that black bloc tactics and the militant revolutionaries deploying them will 
not on their own carry Egypt further than the Zapatistas have pushed Chiapas (which, 
interestingly, has a Human Development Index ranking of .646, almost identical to Egypt's 
.644), never mind Mexico as a whole. But if they succeed in throwing the country's 
power-holders off-balance and reinvigorating the youth led-opposition, and can provide a 
creative and ultimately positive vision and strategies for continuing the revolution into 
its third year and convincing increasing numbers of ordinary Egyptians to keep up he 
struggle for real freedom, dignity and social justice, they will have played an important 
role in Egypt's tortured transition from an authoritarian to truly democratic system.
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Mark LeVine is professor of Middle Eastern history at UC Irvine, and distinguished 
visiting professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden 
and the author of the forthcoming book about the revolutions in the Arab world, The Five 
Year Old Who Toppled a Pharaoh.