Has the Egyptian revolution been aborted? Interview with Hossam El-Hamalawy

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By Bassam Haddad

July 12, 2013 – Jadaliyya – Hossam El-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist and activist who maintains the popular site www.arabawy.org. He is associated with the Revolutionary Socialists group. Hossam El-Hamalawy starts by rejecting the "coup vs. revolution" debate, and addresses briefly the short and long history of the military's involvement in politics in relation to the June 30 events.

He then moves on to discuss in more detail the developments of the past two years, revealing that we cannot assume that "what we had was an 'Ikhwani' [Muslim Brotherhood] regime; it was still the Mubarak regime, but they gave a share of the cake to the Islamists". The army assumed they can use the opportunistic leaders to stabilise the streets, according to Hossam.

This strategy began to fail in November 2011 during the Muhammad Mahmoud Street clashes, and other similar events when the Islamists, according to Hossam, were "chanting for SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] against the revolutionaries". In due time, "it became clear in the run up to the June 30, to the military, that the Ikhwan have lost control" and were no longer able to find a solution to stabilise the situation.

Hossam notes the intersection of interests of the army and anti-Mohamed Morsi groups at a given moment, but rejects the claims that the mobilisation that took place is the work of the feloul (remnants of the Mubarak regime) or the military. Hossam proceeds to discuss this matter as well as a breakdown of the components of the Tamarod [rebel] movement, developments within the movement, the class element, the Independent Federations of Trade Unions and other relevant topics to the question of an "aborted revolution".

Hossam also provides a critique of the movement for not being able to incorporate the disadvantaged sectors. He concludes with the necessity of moving ahead and opposing both the army and the Muslim Brotherhood as false binary alternatives.

I will stop here and leave the rest up to Hossam to communicate using all his own words in the video above.