Egyptian Anarchists Seek Self-Governed Society

[Dan Clore]

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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http://thedailynewsegypt.com/egypt/egyptian-anarchists-seek-self-governed-society.html
Egyptian anarchists seek self-governed society
By Hanan Solayman
Special to Daily News Egypt
January 20, 2012, 8:23 pm

CAIRO: They do not believe in governments, they boycotted the elections,
they demand “direct democracy” and they’re associated with chaos and
have been targeted by the military and some Islamists.

Egypt’s anarchists are anticipating a crackdown before the first
anniversary of the January 25 uprising. They are perceived as seeking
chaos; villains who want to bring down the state, defy authority and
spread lawlessness.

The word ‘anarchy’ in Greek means "no authority." Anarchists’ central
belief is that “no man is good enough to be another man’s master,” and
that “good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly,
while bad people will find a way around the laws.”

Anarchy became the new bogeyman — a place once reserved to the Muslim
Brotherhood under the Mubarak regime. Many believe that this ideology is
dangerous to Egypt.

“Egypt, the homeland, is not the same as the system or the state or the
government. The people called for the overthrow of the regime and this
means to bring the current system or the state down, as it happened
before with the Abbasids, Ayyubids, Ottomans and others whose state was
overthrown, but Egypt was not harmed,” said self-proclaimed anarchist
Yasser Abdel Kawy, an artist, photographer and graphic designer.

The state, according to Abdel Kawy, is a means to practice authority
which is why it needs to be replaced with a self-governed society. “I
have no fear or worries about what may happen to Egypt if the state is
gone. We don’t have this sharp division or difference when it comes to
ethnicity or religion,” he added.

Global movement
Egyptian anarchists established their first entity, the Libertarian
Socialist Movement (LSM), in May amidst a global revolutionary wave that
included tens of activists all calling for direct democracy as opposed
to parliamentary democracy.

In direct democracy, decision-making comes from the people directly
without mediators like members of parliament.

Similar protests and occupy movements known as “Take the Street” evolved
in different parts of the world like the United States, Spain and Italy.

“It is true that much of the ‘Occupy’ movement can be traced to
Anarchist ideals. This can't be explained by anarchist propaganda but
more by the failure of the current system of capitalism and
parliamentary democracy,” said architect Tamer Mowafy, who describes
himself as an anarchist.

People feel vulnerable to the incisive attacks on their standards of
living and no longer believe that politicians will help them, Mowafy said.

Leftist parties and the democrats in the US proved themselves useless.
On the other hand, traditional Marxist alternatives have been
discredited beyond reclamation after 1989, he said.

“It is evident that people taking part in the ‘Occupy’ movements almost
spontaneously embrace anarchist principles. The movement is leaderless,
all decisions are made within a general assembly, and instead of
majority rule consensus is always sought,” he added.

“Anarchism means struggling against the authority of the state and
capitalism; that’s why if you’re not a leftist, you can’t be anarchist,”
said Yasser Abdullah, a freelance translator. Anarchism is a
socio-political movement that mobilizes society without seeking power,
he added.

Horizontal authority
Instead of vertical authority, anarchists call for horizontal
cooperatives organized “by the people, for the people”. Supporting
multi-independent syndicates is one of their goals. They support the
idea of workers taking over factories and companies which will be
self-managed by elected workers committees.

Abdullah gave the example of the Ultras, Egypt’s organized football
fans. These groups are horizontal networking movements with grassroots
support. They are leaderless and have joined the revolutionaries in the
common fight against police brutality, and so they share common ground
with anarchists.

Abdullah belonged to a communist entity before embracing anarchism. His
father, he recalled, “was one of the workers who made the real wealth of
Egypt for 42 years until retirement, but never tasted it.”

The fear of anarchism, Abdullah explained, stems from the “fear republic
we live in.”

Egyptians have been practicing various brands of anarchism not related
to politics unknowingly, the most popular example of which are the
monthly co-ops, a communal money saving system which is entirely managed
by the individuals in the group, replacing banks.

“In the past, people governed themselves when there was no government.
However, we do not mean that we’ll restore the tribal system or go back
to pre-modern times, but we seek more developed forms of ruling based on
cooperatives, volunteerism and no central authority,” Abdullah said.

Even in times of natural disaster like earthquakes, he said, people
self-organize and divide tasks between them.

There are no holy texts or models to follow in applying anarchism. It is
open to new ideas and is tailored to the needs of diverse societies.

“In some areas, an anarchist model would include some centralized
authorities when it comes to foreign representation and the military,”
Abdullah said. “As long as there are foreign threats, the army can be
kept as it is … as an institution.”

There’s no defined vision for how the society would look like. Yet,
there are some basics like having no authority but voluntary
cooperatives, syndicates and a general assembly that comprises of all
citizens to ensure the maximum level of rights and freedoms in a society
where all people are equal.

It also works for a fair distribution of wealth from a leftist point of
view. Not a single group of people would who have the upper hand in the
society, whether businessmen, politicians or members of parliament.

Laws are what people decide according to the norms and traditions, but
each case would have a different ruling based on the circumstances.

“The ideology is ideal and unpopular in Egypt. It seeks a utopian
society where there are no social class differences and no authoritarian
state as in the police or the army, which is difficult to achieve”, said
Dr. Mostafa Kamel El-Sayed, leftist political science professor at the
American University in Cairo. Only small communities around the world
find their inspiration in anarchism, but historically, it’s hard for
people to live outside the context of the state, he believes.

“They are not dangerous, however. They do not pose a security threat.
Bringing the state down doesn’t mean using violence against some people
in particular. This is the leftists’ rhetoric and it should be clearly
understood to the society,” he added.

A decade ago, Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat, political science professor at Cairo
University, wrote an article titled, “Anarchism: The philosophy that
translation was unfair to”. The Islamist academic explained how
anarchism’s accurate translation is more close to “state-less society”
rather than “chaos”.

“As the national state finds itself in a growing crisis amid
globalization, anarchic ideas on how to manage a society without a state
gains attention if developed more,” Raouf wrote. Recent developments
like global networking, rise of the civil society and growing democracy
in a way that fosters localities have common ground with anarchism
according to Raouf.

Worldwide Utopia
For Mowafy, Anarchism is an international movement that seeks a unified
self-governed humanity. At this final stage no armies are needed.

“However, within the current context, nobody in his right mind can ask
for the army to be dissolved,” he noted. The army, like any other
national institution, should be under the control of elected civilians
and its budget revised by people's representatives to protect national
security, he added.

Viral Nassar, an Egyptian-French, believes in the ladder theory. "It
will be pointless to spread anarchism now in Egypt. People don't
understand basic politics to grasp the most infamous system ever and
adapt to it,” he says.

"Democracy with all its deceits will let people know how ugly and bloody
democracy is," he added.

Anarchic models include Christiania, the Freetown of Denmark. It’s an
example of how a society can rule itself with no supervision from the
municipality of Copenhagen which the town belongs to geographically.
Only nine rules govern Christiania, some of which are: no weapons, no
hard-drugs, no violence, no bulletproof clothing, no sale of fireworks
and no stolen goods.

Michael Lund, journalist at Denmark Radio, said that Christiania has
developed as a unique experiment where nobody owns land or homes and
everything is decided by debating until everyone agrees. It has produced
artists, new designs of everything from bicycles to clothes and is one
of Denmark’s biggest tourist destinations.

“However, there are also problems. The idea of no leadership and
everyone having to agree on everything has made it very difficult for
the inhabitants to make fast decisions about anything. Also,
Christiania’s belief that cannabis is not illegal has attracted gangs
that sell hashish,” said Lund who lives less than 2 km from the “free
city” and passes by it regularly. He has also visited it numerous times.

The people of Christiania, who often don’t trust the police, have not
been able to keep these gangs out, which has let to violent incidents
between different gangs, Lund said.

“There’s also a critique that Christiania has become a closed society,
where only people who know somebody there can live — which is actually
opposite to the original idea of the free city”, he said.

Although the January 25 revolution was leaderless — which is favored by
anarchists who prefer to be unknown as soldiers in the life battle or
“anonymous” as they prefer to call themselves — Abdullah stressed that
the revolution found anarchy by itself and it was not anarchists who
made it.

“It’s a disgrace to say that anarchists are behind the revolution
because if we were, [the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] wouldn’t
be ruling. We should have never left after Mubarak stepped down.
Unfortunately, the people like to re-invent the wheel and fall into the
same mistakes of other revolutions,” Abdel Kawy noted.

Creative chaos?
According to anarchists, anarchism can never be imposed from above. The
real bet is the people who will realize the flaws of parliamentary
democracy and choose direct democracy.

“We seek to build libertarian constructs within the current society,
mainly cooperatives, labor unions and syndicates. Lower levels in the
society as in localities are the most jammed because as you go smaller,
more issues become common to inhabitants of such localities. Once people
become confident of their ability to manage their own affairs
democratically, they will seek to extend the space where they can
practice self-management,” Mowafy said.

How would a country of nearly 80 million govern themselves making
decisions altogether?

“Think outside the box,” said Abdullah. “Voting can be on Twitter.”


--
Dan Clore

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Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"