How did I know? Simple: everyone in Tahrir who was interviewed for the American and British TeeVee "news" was well groomed, spoke fluent, colloquial English, and in general was light-skinned. On the other hand, every pro-Morsi individual I saw on the TeeVee was poorly dressed, dark skinned, often snaggle-toothed, and all spoke either only Arabic or extremely halting English.
How much more obvious could it get?
The Egyptian upper and middle classes believed that "their" revolution had been stolen (in free and fair elections) by the peasants, and they wanted their property back. They would get it back through the reconstitution of the military dictatorship of the past which would be allowed and required to perpetrate a coup to depose the Peasant Morsi and install someone "better suited" to the office and position of Leader in the Presidential Palace.
So it ever was, so it is to be now.(To paraphrase the Late Great Yul Brynner.)
Well. Here we are. The script was practically pre-written.
Our friends at World Socialist Website, some of the sharpest political, social and economic analysts on the face of the earth (no hyperbole there, they are that good) have done their scrutiny of the latest Egyptian "revolution" and come up with this:
Egyptian military regime plans sharp attack on working class
Yes. Well. Isn't that the plain truth of the matter?
When has there ever been a bourgeois uprising without an attack on the working class and lower orders, I ask you.
To quote:
The day after carrying out a bloody massacre killing 51 supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood (MB) President Mohamed Mursi, the newly-installed Egyptian army junta issued a constitutional decree vesting unlimited powers in the military-backed president. It also named free-market economist Hazem El-Beblawi as prime minister, signaling plans for a sharp attack on the working class.
These events confirm that last Wednesday’s military coup against Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) did not represent the aspirations to democracy and social equality that drove masses of workers and youth to protest against Mursi last week. Rather, with the support of liberal and pseudo-left forces that joined the Tamarod (“rebel”) coalition, the coup aimed to forcibly pre-empt rising political opposition in the working class before it turned into a revolutionary struggle against the entire ruling class.
Indeed.
This analysis is nuanced by the fact that the writer recognizes divergent currents in the uprising, legitimate aspirations for democracy and social equality that had been denied by the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the so far successful effort of neo-liberal pseudo-left forces to take control of the discontent and transform it into a restoration of the status quo ante.
More:
Like last Wednesday’s coup, the new constitutional declaration enjoys Washington’s support. Egypt’s Al Ahram daily cited anonymous US officials who praised the declaration for having “laid out a plan for the path forward.” They added, however, that Washington would “react with some caution” to the plan, as it was issued only one day after the bloody massacre of MB protesters outside the Republican Guard barracks in Cairo.
Mansour’s naming of El-Beblawi as prime minister is a signal to the major international banks and the Persian Gulf oil sheikhdoms that the junta will carry out deep attacks on the working class.
El-Beblawi is founding member of Egypt’s Social-Democratic Party, having done a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Paris and worked as a UN official. He is widely known as an advocate of cuts to state subsidies for grain and fuel prices, on which millions of workers in Egypt depend. He laid these views out in an interview with Daily News Egypt on June 29, the day before protests began against Mursi.
He said, “We must create a clear understanding for the public that the level of subsidies in Egypt is unsustainable, and the situation is critical. Subsidies have exceeded reasonable limits, and take more than 25 percent of the budget … People must understand that they must accept some of the consequences: the cancelling of subsidies requires sacrifices from the public and therefore necessitates their acceptance.”
The New York Times praised El-Beblawi’s nomination as a “signal that the military-led transitional government intends to move forward with economic reforms and restructuring, including reductions in the country’s vast public subsidies.”
It could not be any clearer what this is all about, could it?
The poor and the underclass generally is to be made to pay for the resurgence of selected segments of Their Betters and the Lower Orders must be made to accept it. Period. End of discussion.
Morsi's rule and that of the Brotherhood was fraught with failings in part because of its emphasis on serving the Lesser People of Egypt -- which led to all kinds of economic sanctions from the Powers That Be who were intent on establishing the now nearly universal program of extractions from the working classes for the purpose of supporting an ever more bloated financier class and a subservient professional class. This has become the universal ruling program since the evaporation of the Soviet Union, may its shadow rest in peace.)
Morsi and the Brotherhood followed a different model, one that was based in service to the underclass, but which was rigid and which was undermined by its rivals and opponents from the beginning. It was almost inevitable that it would collapse or be deposed.
And so it has been.
The march of Neo-Liberal economic "reform" will not be stopped. Not in Egypt, not in Syria, not anywhere.
And the bloodied masses will be made to pay for it:
It will not be long before the army turns the methods of mass killing and provocation against opposition in the working class to El-Beblawi’s reactionary social agenda.
Tensions are still running high in Egypt, amid the junta’s continuing crackdown on MB members. Though Monday’s massacre of pro-MB protesters outside the Republican Guard barracks in Cairo was provoked by the army, prosecutors are now preparing charges including murder, thuggery, and undermining general security against 650 pro-MB protesters who survived the massacre.
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