Demands remain unmet, the death toll rises – and the uprising rises again

This is the third day of a renewed uprising in Egypt. It seems that many of us were waiting for it to happen. And why now, just days before parliamentary elections?

Many demands remain unmet: The emergency laws are still in place, the military council holds on to power (and there was disbelief that it would in fact relinquish it, elections or not), a set of constitutional principles has been written undemocratically, and on and on. The uprising rose again when the protestors found themselves before a violent security state, once again. As the death toll has risen across the country, the protests have intensified.

Should it be surprising that the ruling military council has employed some of the same tactics in response to the uprising as the Mubarak regime did in January-February 2011?

When the protests began to heat up, after the police violently removed protestors from Tahrir square, a spokesperson for the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) publicly declared that the protestors were thugs, unlike the ‘noble revolutionaries’ of the 25 January Revolution. They were troublemakers trying to destabilize the country. Then, the following day as protests spread another member of SCAF spoke publicly declaring that the military will protect the people from the police.

At the time of the 25 January Revolution state forces immediately launched a propaganda campaign branding the uprising as one propagated by ill-doers, foreign agents. And then when the regime removed the police after the street wars on the 28^th of January, Mubarak publicly spoke, declaring that he stood with the military to protect the people from the police.

And of course since taking over the country SCAF has been employing many of the same tactics as its predecessor – branding the revolutionary groups as foreign agents, jailing protestors and trying them in military court, and the litany of abuses goes on.

And the revolution must go on. When lives are lost, there is no turning back. When people feel their freedom in open protest, there is no turning back. Justice will be realized.

The Non-Conspiracy of Conspiracy

Conspiracy theories are commonly believed, or at least circulated, among the Left in the industrialized North and seem to be even more commonly held, across the political spectrum, in the ‘developing world’. It is only after living in Egypt for three years have I come to see how widespread the language of ‘conspiracy’ is here. And it on the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States that a discussion of conspiracy theories seems appropriate.

Conspiracy theories of the alleged terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 are appealing for two reasons, not least of which is the US government’s use of the attacks for imperial undertakings abroad and the solidification of a ‘state of exception’ at home. (‘State of exception’ refers to the exceptional and provisional becoming part of the normal apparatuses of governance. What we may simply refer to as institution of constitutional dictatorship within the US. See Agamben 2005) The human and financial costs of the War on Terror are huge, immeasurable – and there is no doubt that the events on 9-11 proved to be a very convenient modus operandi for heightened control over citizens, economies and minds around the world.

A second reason for the appeal of conspiracy theories that tell of US government’s role in the attacks is that the federal investigations of the attacks were neither transparent nor thorough. The 9-11 commission in charge of the primary investigation was not a democratic entity, was not held accountable by the public for its work, and has been routinely criticized for its lack of comprehensiveness (for example, by not even addressing the collapse of Tower No. 7). Since there was not a thorough investigation nor a vibrant public debate about how to respond to the attacks, there is reason to question the official story told.

When the US government again decided not to be transparent about its alleged assassination of Osama bin Laden a few months ago, many today question that bin Laden was actually killed. Just today I saw a show on Aljazeera English, during which Pakistanis were interviewed who witnessed the US military coming into their town (where bin Laden was allegedly in hiding) and who still do not believe that the military found and killed bin Laden. Why? Because the US military has never furnished evidence of the assassination. As soon as he was allegedly killed, his body was brought aboard a military ship and thrown overboard.

So, yes, it is reasonable indeed to question the official story told. It seems much less reasonable to believe the official story when there is no formal, open inquiry through which one may be able to come to an educated opinion about what happened on 9-11 or the day that bin Laden was allegedly killed.

But this does not mean that it is reasonable to believe the conspiracy theories surrounding the 9-11 attacks. As Noam Chomsky has argued, most conspiracy theories put states in a potentially very precarious position, taking a very heavy risk. For instance, if the US government was in some capacity behind the attacks, then people within the government would have to know, and the chances of a leak are there. Any chance is too heavy a risk for a government in that it would lose all its legitimacy before the people.

More than this, though, conspiracy theories reveal that people feel impotent. And at the same time, I would argue, they construct a powerlessness among people. They create a story that makes states and influential groups omnipotent – and themselves ‘the victims’. As soon as protestors stormed the Israeli Embassy in Egypt this past Friday, and ‘threw out’ the Israeli ambassador, rumors spread that the Egyptian government was behind the embassy attack. According to the rumors, it was all part of the government’s plan to have an excuse to control protest activity even more – and within hours the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) did just that, by activating its emergency powers. The delayed response on the part of the military to the protestors’ attack may be suspicious, but arguing that the government was behind the attacks amounts to erasing from the historical memory those who participated. What about the risks they took? The burden they bore? The real reasons they had for kicking out the Israeli ambassador?

Conspiracy theories in a way nullify these questions. And the same for 9-11. There are real reasons why people would want to attack the United States. It is not a benevolent player in the international arena. It does things – like invade countries – that create enemies. On the anniversary of the tragic events of 9-11 it is important to publicly come to terms with the ways in which the US has created enemies – and how the government’s very responses to the attacks has done so.

More than this, the events of 9-11 – and this past Friday in Egypt – illustrate that one of the techniques of governance is the use of tragedy and dissent to consolidate power. This is not a conspiracy but a modern technique of state power. In places where states have so little legitimacy, it is no wonder that conspiracy theories thrive. And in places where people believe what their governments tell them, circulation of conspiracy theories can do some good.

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

False Premises of Austerity Measures

This past year we have seen an explosion of social unrest throughout the Global North – in Greece, France, states in the US, the UK – as austerity measures continue to be imposed on debt-ridden states. The debate about debt is often framed as one in which governments need to pay their bills and the way to do this is by slashing government spending.

There are a number of problems with how this ‘debate’ is framed. In a balance sheet there are credits and debits, or revenue earning activities and expenses, so if one is indebted, one can raise revenues and/or cut expenses. Austerity measures are sold on the premise that ‘paying one’s bills’ will happen by cutting expenses – not by gaining revenues. In other words, it is assumed that states like Greece will not pay their bills by earning more.

This is a convenient ‘assumption’ because many debts came from policies that stripped governments of revenue-generating capabilities. Governments around the world got into trouble by offering tax breaks, tax holidays, low tariffs and subsidies to the private sector – and usually to its biggest players. In this environment companies have been hopping from one tax scheme to the next, from one lower than the previous one, and on and on.

And not just. Under a system of “corporate welfare” states subsidize private industry through infrastructure development, all at considerable cost. Walmart is one exemplary beneficiary.

And not just. Under privatization governments have sold public assets, which in the short run actually translates into a windfall in state coffers. (Take, for instance, Egypt’s GDP figures in the late 1990s and early 2000s: The country’s GDP growth skyrocketed as it sold huge public assets into private hands.) But the huge surpluses don’t last long before being eaten up by public-private contracts. The government puts up for bid private contracts for the delivery of (currently or formerly) public services. Private contractors bid to provide a service that the government used to provide or could have provided. The government pays the contractors, often at exorbitant rates, often going into debt, to do something it could have done itself. (See this previous blog entry on public-private partnerships in Egypt.)

Take the US state of Wisconsin and the debacle of austerity that in early 2011 led the state legislature to end collective bargaining rights and cut funding for public services, including education. This was forced through under the premise that the state’s pension and other employee benefit trust funds were bankrupting the government. A closer look revealed however that the fund is nearly entirely funded and that it was not entirely so in part because of $195 million annually in Wall Street investment manager fees. If Wisconsin managed its own fund rather than contracting out management to Wall Street, then the fund would require a modest contribution from the government. And the government would be in an even better shape to ‘pay its debts’ if Governor Walker hadn’t early in the year pushed through $127 million in tax cuts!

These austerity measures have been the raison d’être of multilaterial agencies (International Monetary Fund, World Bank) in the Global South for the last thirty or more years, pushing debt-ridden countries like Egypt into slashing government spending in a way that led to major social dislocation and unrest. Without hard currencies (dollars, Euros, yen) countries in the Global South were sold the promise of devaluing their currencies in order to make their exports cheaper. The idea would be that they would earn hard currencies needed to buy industrial equipment with revenues from primary commodity exports. But this policy led to a rise in imports, especially essential staples, accompanied by a drop in the prices of commodities exported.

These ‘structural adjustments’ ushered in the ‘developing world’ an era of rising inequality, lower living standards, and heightened political repression (as ruling regimes undemocratically adopted policies that were unpopular). It is in this context – of decades of austerity – that we are now witnessing the Arab Spring and growing dissent to the last push of ‘adjustments’ in countries in the North (the US, European Union, Canada).

And it is based on false premises. If debt-ridden states ended corporate welfare in the form of subsidies, tax breaks and the like, then this would be the start of getting out of debt. If governments ended public-private contracts, then states would stop going further into debt by accumulating massive expenses in the form of contracts. If states ended currency devaluations, then trade imbalances may begin to correct themselves.