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UNIVERSITEIT GENT

FACULTEIT POLITIEKE EN SOCIALE WETENSCHAPPEN

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION IN

OUTLINE OF A SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

Wetenschappelijke verhandeling

aantal woorden: 26157

NOEMIE PICAVET

MASTERPROEF MANAMA CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT

PROMOTOR: PROF. DR. B. DE SMET

COMMISSARIS: PROF. DR. K. BOGAERT

ACADEMIEJAAR 2013 – 2014

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Abstract

Deze scriptie geeft een beknopt overzicht van de solidariteitsacties die in België werden georganiseerd als antwoord op de Arabische Lente van 2011. De focus ligt op de Egyptische revolutie en de relaties die ontstonden tussen de maatschappelijke middenvelden van beide landen. Doorheen dit onderzoek wordt er gereflecteerd over de politieke solidariteit, de gehanteerde middelen om actie te voeren, de sterktes en zwaktes en de betrokken actoren die worden aangehaald en geanalyseerd binnen het kader van de omwentelingen die Egypte doormaakte tussen januari 2011 en de zomer van 2014. Aan de hand van interviews met actoren uit het verenigingsleven en het maatschappelijke middenveld in België, alsmede dankzij de ontmoeting met enkele Egyptische activisten en een stage bij het Comité voor Kwijtschelding van de Schuld van de Derde Wereld, kon ik een licht werpen op de tendensen en de essentiële elementen voor de oprichting en ontwikkeling van sterke en doeltreffende solidariteitsbewegingen. De solidariteit zou moeten verder gaan dan het initiële enthousiasme en de hoop die deze indrukwekkende volksbewegingen uit de Arabische wereld opwekten. Primordiaal is namelijk een stevige basis van diepgaande relaties waar het vertrouwen, de verdeling van informatie en doelstellingen en een heldere, nauwkeurige agenda-setting voorop staan. Dit geldt des te meer omdat de solidariteitsbanden over de grenzen heen gecreëerd worden en dus ook verschillende identitaire scheidingslijnen moeten kunnen overstijgen. Aan de grondslag van de vele moeilijkheden die de enkele zeldzame Belgen die zich wensen in te zetten voor het Egyptische volk ondervonden, ligt mogelijks een niet te onderschatten gebrek aan wederzijds begrip en uitwisseling tussen het Egyptische, Arabische en Belgische maatschappelijke middenveld.

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I would like to thank

Brecht de Smet, for his patience and his always interesting advices, All the people I interviewed and without whom this research could not happen. Those meetings were always rich, full of hopes and motivations. The CADTM staff for the great experience of solidarity work I lived with them and for the possibility they offered me to meet Egyptian activists like Mahinour el Badrawi from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights. Mahinour and Ghalia Djelloul for the long discussion I had with them on the Egyptian political situation. Finally, I am infinitely grateful to Miko, Lucie, Hélène, Lucia and Patricia for their precious help with my English, Anneleen, Alix, Rik and Anthony for their essential helping hand in the transcription of the interviews in Dutch and above all Cedric, who supported me during this long work.

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Table of contents

Abstract ______1 Table of contents ______6 List of abbreviations ______8 Introduction ______9 Methodology ______10 Limitations of the study ______12 Structure ______14 CHAPTER I: Solidarity and social movements, a theoretical approach ______15 Solidarity______15 Challenges for political solidarity ______20 Actors of political solidarity ______22 Conclusion ______26 CHAPTER II: Introduction on the Belgian solidarity movement with ______27 CHAPTER III: A FIRST WAVE OF SOLIDARITY ______34 1. In support to the 25th January Egyptian Revolution ______34 2. The reaction in Belgium ______37 1. The Belgian actors ______37 2. Actions for the Arab revolutions ______40 3. Why acting for the region? ______41 4. How did everybody organize their solidarity? ______43 5. Obstacles ______46 a. No tradition of work on the region ______46 b. Lack of understanding ______48 c. Lack of organisation in Egypt ______49 d. National or regional struggle more than international ______51 e. Libya and political instability ______52 3. A failed attempt to build a durable transnational political solidarity ______54 CHAPTER IV: After emotion, construction? ______59 1. What transition after Mubarak? ______59 1. Under the SCAF ______59 2. Morsi and his deposal ______59 2. The following Belgian solidarity ______61 1. Information replaced political actions ______61 a. Conferences and articles ______61 b. A solidarity trip to understand Revolutionary dynamics ______63 c. Information relays ______68 2. Development of sectoral advocacy collaborations ______74 a. Worker’s rights ______74 The actors ______74 Their solidarity ______76 Obstacles ______77 b. Economic and political work ______78 7

The actors and their solidarity ______78 Obstacles ______81 c. Feminist solidarity ______83 The actor and its solidarity ______83 Obstacles ______83 3. Transnational advocacy network took the place of the popular mobilization ______85 Appendices ______87 CHAPTER V: what solidarity at the heart of instability? ______87 1. Under the army ______87 2. The Diaspora’s comeback______88 3. Confusion and destabilization within the Belgian civil society ______92 CONCLUSION ______96 1. On the Belgian field ______96 The solidarity, theoretically ______100 In Egypt, summer 2014 ______104 Appendix one: List of interviews conducted in 2013 ______106 Appendix two: Number of Egyptian’s living abroad in 2000, (Pagès, 2012, p. 95). ______107 Bibliography ______108

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List of abbreviations

11 11 11 : Koepel van de Vlaamse Noord-Zuidbeweging ABVV / FGTB : Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond / Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique ACV/CSC : Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond / Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens ANND : Arab NGO Network for Development AWSA-Be: Arab Women Solidarity Association – Belgium CADTM : Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde CEE Bankwatch Network: Central and Eastern European Network for monitoring the activities of international financial institutions CIEP: Centre d’Information et d’Education Permanente CNAPD : Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie CNCD-11 11 11: Centre National de Coopération au Développement EGA ULB : Etudiants de Gauche Actif, Université Libre de Bruxelles EBRD: European Bank of Reconstruction and Development ECESR: Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights EIB: European Investment Bank EIPR: Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights IFIs : International Financial Institutions IMF : International Monetary Fund INTAL: International Solidarity Movement in Belgium with the goal to organize opposing forces around the world to realize the right to wealth ITUC: International Confederation LSP/ PSL : Linkse Socialistische Partij / Parti Socialiste de Lutte MENA : Middle East and North Africa MOC : Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien PVDA/PTB : Parti van de Arbeid van België / Parti du Travail de Belgique SAP/ LCR : Socialistische Arbeiderspartij / Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire SCAF : Supreme Council of Armed Forces TAN : Transnational Advocacy Network TSM: Transnational Solidarity Movement UCL : Université Catholique de Louvain UGent : Universiteit Gent Vrede vzw: Flemish Peace Movement WB: World Bank

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Introduction

In the history of popular movements, the beginning of 2011 constituted an extraordinary turnover. All over the Arab world, millions of people took the streets to challenge an excessively unfair political and economic hegemony. At the same time, in several Western countries, thousands of protesters occupied the public space to denounce the impact of neoliberal policies and the growing inequalities all over the world.

Far from the stereotyped idea of fundamentalism and terrorism, the Arab population regained for a while their space in the political game to require with force democratic governments, fair redistribution and legitimate freedoms. These massive popular mobilisations generated renewed hope for the creation of alternative by and for the people, especially since Egypt and Tunisia quickly managed to overthrow their despotic regimes. It also breathed a new lease of energy in the international solidarity since it seemed clear that 99% of the population was suffering for the benefits of only 1%. Separated by thousands of miles, a wind of solidarity arose from both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, paving the way for a new era of popular alternatives and economic redistribution.

Three years later, however, no more is taking over the streets and few people still speak loud and clear about the Arab uprisings as revolutions. What provoked such a change? In order to understand and highlight the development and slowdown of this promising new international solidarity, this study analyses the actions undertaken in Belgium to sustain the uprisings occurring in one of the most important countries in the region: Egypt. From solidarity protests organised by leftist parties to feminist relationships challenging women’s position in the society, from volunteers’ travels aspiring to establish a strong counter-power to trade unions solidarity, this study highlights the existence and trends of the relations between the Belgian and the Egyptian civil society, in the frame of the Arab popular movements. Could it be possible to speak of a solidarity movement in Belgium? What are the reasons of its success or failure? These are the main questions of this research. 10

Methodology

The research drew only on primary sources, as the studied topic is so new and still in evolution. The main data are, therefore, coming from semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 22 Belgians involved in solidarity actions with Egypt. Kaleidoscope of the Belgian militant landscape, these persons represent different kinds of political involvements: from sheer militancy dedicated to a lot of political issues, to professional work within an infrastructure with a delimited purpose, or even some journalists and researchers interested by this topic. Research on the internet and suggestions of my promoter, Brecht de Smet, led me to the first interviewees who often could recommend me to other involved organisations or people, in a kind of snowball effect. Even if the interviews were not entirely defined and timed, seven subjects were always addressed to the person. Namely: 1. Why Egypt especially? 2. Which purposes were pursued? 3. Which actions were undertaken? 4. Which obstacles was encountered and are they still valid today? 5. What would have to be done and must be done today according to you? 6. What reception have you met in Egypt if you had contacts with the country? 7. What is your definition of solidarity?

Unfortunately, seeing that the Belgian associative, militant and political worlds are being so divided between for example Flemish and French, but also according to their political trends and frames of action, it was not easy to meet the needed network. Therefore, several times I discovered by mere chance some initiatives that were not linked to any other group even if they were working on the Egyptian topic. Another problem encountered during this thesis was the weakness of the solidarity movement in Belgium. Indeed, it was complicated to find, contact and meet potential interviewees. After the first contact, people often refused to meet me or sent me to someone else, arguing that their action would not be relevant for my research.

Next to these interviews, I have done a kind of participative observation through three month’s internship at the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (CADTM 11

Belgium)1 for which I worked on the Egyptian debt. It allowed me to observe from the inside how the network of Belgian and European organizations operate; which impact they can have on a political level as well as on public opinions and what are their institutional and human constraints. Thanks to this experience, I could have a more precise perception of the associative landscape and the problems encountered while working on Egypt and the Arab region.

To analyse the actions that occurred in Belgium, I based myself on the significant literature about solidarity, social movements and the Egyptian revolution. Around solidarity, three central persons helped me deepen the question: Kurt Bayertz, with his classification in his “Four uses of solidarity”, the historical approach of the Norwegian Steinar Stjernø and the interesting critique of solidarity written by Ruben Gaztambide- Fernandez in 2012, who questions the colonial background of this concept and suggests ways to build relationships which challenge the existing social arrangements and hierarchies. Later, I explored other solidarity movements’ analysis in order to compare them with the Egyptian case. In particular, the works of the Swedish sociologist Håkan Thörn about anti- apartheid transnational activism (2003, 2006, 2009) were relevant, with also the Zapatistas movement studied by Thomas Olesen (2004a, 2004b) and Johnston and Laxer (2003), Power’s study (2009) on the U.S. solidarity with Chile and finally a master thesis about the Belgian solidarity committees created to sustain the Sandinista revolution (Roemer, 2011). Charles Tilly’s work on social movements (2009) gave as well a pertinent theoretical overview of the subject.

To understand Egypt’s upheavals and revolutionary process, several researchers helped me. Brecht de Smet with his Ph.D. dissertation (2012) and articles (2011, 2013 with Bogaert, and 2012 with Zemni) offers interesting and accurate analyses of the 25 January Revolutions, its antecedents, actors, forces and weaknesses. The collaboration of Koenraad Bogaert (2011, 2013) and Sami Zemni (2012) deepened my understanding of the role of neoliberal policies and the possibilities of the revolutionary process. Other authors such as Armbrust (2011) and Callinicos (2011) also bring an interesting point of view about the topic. Reports from several organisations, such as the International Crisis Group and the Jubilee Debt Campaign, but also articles in the international press gave me some factual lighting.

1 Organisation working on the cancellation of the Third World Debt, 12

Limitations of the study

The spatial framework of this thesis is limited to Egypt. This choice was made since Egypt has always constituted one major pillar of the region. Strategically located in the geographic centre of the Arab region, next to , with the Suez Canal in its frontier, Egypt strongly influenced the political game according to the decisions of its last three leaders, Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. Due to a question of time and size of the thesis, this research did not take into consideration Tunisia that often came into the interviews. This could be the subject of further study that would enlarge the scope of analysis to a comparison of the solidarity movement with Tunisia and Egypt.

Secondly, I chose to define the frame of my research to the Belgian civil society. The definition of this term evolved through the time. Firstly, John Locke described his civil society within the market to justify the existence of the private property; then, the classical theorists intervened, with Marx, who defined this concept as the conflicting sphere of class relations. Later, Gramsci developed the idea that a civil society is constituted by the institutions through which the imposes its bourgeois hegemony on the population; institutions that people have to challenge to regain power (Johnston & Laxer, 2003, p 44-45). More recently, the term still evolved depending on its users: civil society was presented as the way to gain democracy in previous Eastern communist countries, it is used by liberals in order to limit the state participation in the society, and it is nowadays analysed in a global and international shape (Shaw, 1999). The several interviewees emphasized the importance of solid, challenging civil society constituted by grassroots and sometimes spontaneous organisations. I will consequently use Larry Diamond’s definition of civil society: “the realm of organised social life that is voluntary, self-generating, self-supporting, that is autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or a set of shared rules”. Thenceforth, I did not contact the few politicians involved in a kind of solidarity with the Arab uprisings, although some Belgians representatives are touched by the Egyptian socio- economical situation and use their position to influence Belgian foreign policies2.

2 Inter alia, the Belgian senator Olga Zrihen and the Member of the Marie-Christine Vergiat, that both participated and co-organized a Seminar on the Egyptian and Tunisian debt regarding Europe and Belgium 13

One other significant limitation has been chosen to analyse this solidarity movement: I gave no places to the social networks as a whole. As Aouaragh affirmed it (2011), social networks constitute handy tools for the mobilisations and also the solidarity networks. However, the increase communication possibilities are not the cause of revolutions and international support. In Egypt, Internet and mobile phone shutdowns organized by Mubarak’s government did not stop people from protesting; on the contrary it even strengthened the movement embittered by this umpteenth use of repression. For international solidarity movement, the absence of existing social networks and internet did not prevent previous international mobilisations to have a strong impact on a country or a problematic (for example, the anti- apartheid movement that lasted 40 years without Internet and the current efficient communication channels). Social networks must be seen as an incredible tool to connect, to spread information, to debate, to challenge status quo, in one word to help make things move quicker, but people and specially organized people are still the central core to create change.

This research is temporally bounded between the beginning of the revolution and the time of its writing, in March 2014. As it is studying an ongoing revolutionary process, this study is intended to be out of date as soon as it will be finished. Regarding the actual violent repression, the political polarization orchestrated by the army in power and the pursuit of the same economic politics, we can assume that other political upheavals will occur in the future. Then, each of them will have an impact on the Belgian solidarity landscape. Nonetheless, this research will attempt to highlight the major tendencies which will remain anyhow either reinforced or left on the sidelines.

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Structure

This study is divided into three parts. First of all, I start the research with a short analyze of the existing literature on solidarity and its actors in order to define and theorize different concepts and create parallel with the actions that occurred in Belgium. Then, I come to the heart of the matter with a presentation of the different Belgian solidarity actions illustrated on a timeline to facilitate the lecture. The chapters three and four describe the different waves of solidarity, their actors, their purposes, their obstacles and their mode of actions. Finally, I conclude this thesis with a return to the theoretical analyze that I put into perspective with the practical results I obtained.

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CHAPTER I: Solidarity and social movements, a theoretical approach

What substantial fuel makes people involve themselves for other persons’ issues? Solidarity is always the term that appeared when people are getting involved for someone else’s unfair fate. However, what does it mean in the case of solidarity with the Egyptian population? Why are some people touched and engaged when others are not? What does this concept that everyone uses represent? What does it concretely imply and who is involving himself? To find an explanation, deepening the studies done around this notion can be interesting. General definition of solidarity, its origins, its application in international and political context, its consequences on society and its ability to mobilize in social movements, all these topics have been analyzed by a few social scientists. In order to understand the practical solidarity that Belgium lived for Egypt, it is also interesting to compare it with previous research on similar solidarity movements. Thenceforth, it could be possible to get an image of the developments, forms, obstacles that give to international relationships of support strength and durability. In this way, the following chapter provides a non-exhaustive theoretical overview of the question, which shortly tackles of the history, the few theories about solidarity and the ways to collectively take actions for solidarity.

Solidarity

A major problem appears when talking about solidarity: how can it be defined and applied concretely? Bayertz (1994, p.4) stresses that there is neither a clear definition nor binding obligation linked to this concept, which is often subject of idealization and hopes. It has thenceforth been used in a lot of different ways and purposes, sometimes contradictory. Generally, solidarity can be defined as a particular relation of mutual responsibility based on morality, values and obligations. Gaztambide-Fernandez (2012, p. 50) formulated three characteristics that determine all kinds of solidarity. It always implies a relation between people whomever they are; there are obligations and duties to attain justice and equity and that is true for every defended topic; to reach real solidarity, actions must be conducted by those involved in the relationship. 16

Solidarity exists at different levels of relationships, from the tiniest family to the universal solidarity between all human beings. To define and embrace the whole idea, going back to the history of the notion is useful in order to grasp its evolution. The concept evolved and through time it embraced and represented different notions. According to the German philosopher Kurt Bayertz, four different uses of the term solidarity appeared throughout history. These changes would be partly due to the specific historical context. For their part, as we will see, the differences of definition are explained by the kind of relationship that characterized each type of solidarity.

It is important to note, that, surprisingly, the term solidarity has not always existed! It was only in 1804 that one of the first public uses appeared. The French civil code described the solidarity as a legal term in its article 1202: “commitment by which people bind themselves together for each other and for all” (Blais, 2007, p.12). Before entering the official vocabulary, the relations of solidarity existed under other labels particularly close in signification.

The oldest type of solidarity is the human one. It represents the mutual and moral responsibility essential for a good agreement and functioning within the community of all human beings. Most religions played an important role in the definition of particular relationships as a strategy to gain social cohesion. The concept of community and fraternity were used to organize and pacify groups larger than the family. Christianity in Europe particularly emphasized on the moral responsibility that people must have for each other and especially for the most disadvantaged, as all human beings are equal before God (Stjerno, 2004, p. 88). This “human solidarity”, not yet defined like that, was based on idealized moral and values of fraternity. Outside the religious frame, lawyers of the Middle Ages also used this notion through the legal expression “obligation in solidum”. It represented the mutual responsibility that bound the members of the family to pay a collective debt (Bayertz, 1999, p.3). This first kind of solidarity tended to be universal: all human beings were falling under the scope of this relation of mutual responsibility. Organizing societies and producing norms have always been important in all societies in order to reach a kind of social peace. Indeed, positive feelings are rarely predominant: most of the time, conflicts often govern relationships between people. However, through history, these concepts of universal community and responsibility 17 have often been used by Christians as a strategy to justify and impose colonization (Bayertz, 1999, p.4).

During the 19th century, a change occurred in the previous perception of the human relationships. The reflexion around social cohesion went under more scrutiny with sociologists like the French Auguste Comte3 and Emile Durkheim4 or later with the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies5. Instead of organizing all human beings, which is an almost impossible mission, they limited solidarity to societies with common history, culture, ideals and goals. Moreover, they tried to elaborate secular models that reassured social cohesion and solidarity in the increasingly industrialized and individualist European societies (Gastambide- Fernandez, 2012, p. 47). This lecture of solidarity as a social tool does not politically challenge the society’s construction and its power relationships like others later will do. It rather tries to understand the way that people can be included in the society and the rules that must prevail to integrate everyone.

Just before these thinkers and their social solidarity, the French revolution produced the first shift in the story of solidarity. The civic solidarity appeared with this historical caesura. From that moment on, solidarity left the legal and Christian fields to become a political notion: a legal obligation of the state to protect and redistribute wealth between all its citizens. Following the same lines, Pierre Leroux6, the father of , strongly criticised Christian charity which presents the relief to others like an obligation without any equality in its relations. He defended solidarity as a natural law that requires protecting and ensuring security for all human beings on an equal base. The state is then the practical representation of this law, offering social and economic security through fair redistribution (Stjerno, 2004, p. 26-30). The civic solidarity became thus this legal obligation to redistribute wealth between all citizens of the state.

3 French philosopher (1798-1857), he is the founder of the doctrine of positivism and one major precursor of the sociology. 4 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is one of the founders of the modern sociology. He is the author of the “La Division du travail social” that defined the evolution of the solidarity within the society. He developed the idea of two kinds of solidarity, the mechanic and the organic one. The first solidarity prevailed in the previous traditional societies; the second one would exist in the industrialized and individualist societies thanks to the work’s division. 5 Born in 1855 and dead in Germany in 1936, Tönnies is known for his distinction between communities and societies and the definition he gave of what gives equilibrium to these groups. 6 French philosopher and economist (1797-1871), he defended the idea of a republican socialism that emphasized the importance of equality. 18

With the Industrial Revolution and its deep transformations on society, the last expression of solidarity occurred: the political solidarity. The previous social arrangement was disrupted by increasing secularism, urbanisation, capitalism and the development of the modern state (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012, p. 48). Due to these quick changes, social inequalities exploded, and became the everyday life of the majority of the population. In this context, organizing the losers of the societal game, the workers, became essential. To gain more strength, concerned people engaged themselves in structured actions based on a political vision of solidarity: they raised themselves in order to defend their common interests and change the society according to a definite ideal. Several intense popular movements occurred then, inter alia the Paris Commune in 1871, the First International and the emergence of the international . The first people who theorized this new vision of societal relationships were Karl Marx7, Friedrich Engels8 and Max Weber9. For them, the social cohesion of the French bourgeoisie did not matter anymore; they privileged groups’ interests, especially the workers’ interests and class struggles. This political solidarity is thus seen as the source of social progress, a tool used to gain and maintain rights. It is defined by Bayertz in these words: “solidarity denotes the emotional cohesion between the members of these social movements and the mutual support they give each other in their battle for common goals”. The conception of the political solidarity implements real equality between the subjects of the relationship. However, it is also an “exclusive and adversarial” position (Gaztambide- Fernandez, 2012, p.48) since it is crucial to choose an enemy against whom the fight has to be leaded. In the first Marxist theory, only the worker class is fighting, and this group is quite limited (women or foreigners are not taken into consideration). Throughout the years, this category of actors will be extended to the interests of the majority of the population (Stjerno, 2004, p.59). It is this last solidarity that interests us in this research, the solidarity that generates strategies in order to change the social, economic and political system. It is this solidarity that mobilized millions of Egyptians from 2011 until today.

7 Father of the Marxist philosophy and one of the father of sociology (1818-1883), he is known for his materialistic conception of history, his revolutionary activity, his description of capitalism based on class struggle. 8 German socialist philosopher, he is a major theorist of Marxism (1820-1895). 9 (1864-1920) German economist, sociologist and philosopher, he is as well one founder of the modern sociology with Marx and Durkheim. 19

The scope of the political solidarity evolved since several decades. After the fall of the Berlin wall and thus the end of the communist ideology, neo-liberal globalism became the predominant force of governance all over the world with its numerous economic requirements called structural adjustment or the “Washington Consensus”. In the same time, another linked phenomenon produced durable change on a social global scale: it is the globalization with its time-space compression, new means to accumulate intensively capital, increase of networking between societies and finally the development of a global consciousness among the population all over the world. Since then, people are all facing a period of international social alterations where solidarity is threatened by the triumph of unquestioned neoliberal ideology privileging corporate to human. The effects of globalization with its shock capitalism10, increased individualism and consumerism create similarities beyond borders: the living conditions of all human beings are from now on profoundly intertwined. Therefore, today’s activists want to construct resistance and solidarity on a global scale, beyond borders, religion or origins in order to compensate the social consequences of the current devastating economic policies (Stjerno, 2004, p 344-348). The anti-globalization movements, the No borders activists, the Zapatistas revolution, the Occupy movement (and its “we are the 99%” slogans) are popular expressions of this new need of struggle’s convergence. According to Olesen (2004b, p. 259): “Global solidarity, in contrast, is a form of solidarity that emphasises similarities between physically, socially and culturally distant people, while at the same time respecting and acknowledging local and national differences.” Far from Marx class solidarity, today, people around the world fight against a common enemy: the neoliberal policies.

Johnston and Laxer (2003, p.47) made a relevant comment on the use of the term global for the current solidarity. Even if globalization tends to homogenize the world, cultures remain too diverse and different to develop a common understanding and shared identities. Speaking of global solidarity is an almost impossible task since nowadays’ world still remains strongly separated and different. Global solidarity among global civil society would need to have regular contacts between non-actors around the world who share understandings of their issues they are fighting for.

10 Klein, Naomi. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism, New York: Picador. 20

The authors advocate speaking of transnational movement, operating across nations through regular interactions. It means that the national aspect remains important: struggles are still constructed within the state by national actors and take the international notions afterward, through coalitions of different national actors.

Challenges for political solidarity

As socialism became less trendy with the end of the URSS, solidarity re-gains today a great popularity. It is used by lots of different actors: activists, communitarians and multiculturalism defenders, feminist scholars (who abundantly theorized around solidarity as a way to challenge oppressive and colonial relationships) or traditional political parties (which increasingly use solidarity when their programs become consensual) and even national governments through their international solidarity. The danger of such common use is to forget or diminish the political power of solidarity which can produce the wish to challenge an unfair world. Solidarity can be a real tool of change. However, it has therefore to overcome misconceptions and miscomprehensions.

In his “modes of assistance” (2004), Blunden decrypts the different kinds of relationships that can exist between entities in order to differentiate solidarity from the rest. He presents the concept of solidarity as a common system which reinforces activity between two subjects. Far from colonization (which submits a servile person into the projects of the colonizer), commodification (the person is recognized, but only for the usefulness of the other individuals in the relation. The subject of commodification is treated as a commodity, a pure exchange value) or non-recognition (when, in the relation, the existence of the other is not recognized), solidarity relations are based on trust and honesty and the one who assists shall do it under the conditions of the other (Brecht, 2012, p.309-324). This lecture can be useful in order to analyse the alleged relationships of solidarity. Are they really based on equal relations of comprehension and respect or do the actors have interests in the exchange?

For Gaztambide-Fernandez (2012), solidarity has to get rid of its history of charity, paternalism and unequal colonial relationships still present. For the author, there must be a substantial educational and communication renewal to hope to achieve this objective and allow solidarity to become the powerful tool of change it can be. In those lines, Gaztambide- 21

Fernandez suggests a precise active pedagogy of solidarity which will convey anti-racist and de-colonial discourses. This education would have to be based on three modes of solidarity. The first one is a relational solidarity, build through a deliberated commitment of the participants Secondly, the solidarity would be transitive since showing solidarity is a truly active commitment in which people personally fight at the side of the other person. Through this encounter, both people will be transformed and enriched. Finally, the solidarity would have to be creative. Creativity is essential to modify the current hierarchy and social constructions. There is a need to invent new and innovative ways to live all together.

Gotovitch and Morelli in 2003 analysed the history of international solidarity in order to highlight several linked pitfalls which avoid the solidarity to become a powerful lever of change. First of all, since the nineties, solidarity at the national and international level has become institutionalised with more and more partnerships between NGOs and states. Therefore, the political lecture of the injustices in the world is often forgotten. This is reinforced by the development of material and legal solidarity promoted when disasters or Human Rights violations occur around the world. In this case, people involved are putting pressure on the abusers to stop their crimes or asking material and financial assistance for the victims of disasters. A consensus exists around this solidarity: actions have to be taken. However, the urgency often impedes reflections on the structural causes of the catastrophe. If the actors of the solidarity do not have a clear political position and analyses, we assist here to a come-back of the charity ideology. According to the authors, such an ideology is not able to collectively construct a durable common interest on a social basis. Secondly, division and competition due to sectarianism and conflicts between political trends undermine the force of solidarity movements.

In 2004, Stjerno also presented several challenges for solidarity. With the current incredible communication and technology developments, it is much easier to mobilize people for a cause since information is democratized. Nonetheless, this has its backlash: solidarity movements are volatile and quick supplanted by other topic if they are not based on solid common grounds. The authors argued that individualism became a sort of religion which could lead to a weakening of solidarity. In addition to individualism, consumerism is rising with its concept 22 of individual freedom to choose. Altogether, this new “dogmas” jeopardize the importance of collective interests. Finally, globalization more and more destroys the previous social barriers: multinationals are steadily gaining authority and putting pressure on states and international organizations in order to put their interests first and foremost; social problems touch everyone (climate change, migrations, etc.) and states are not strong enough to protect their citizens. For the author, there is a need to institutionalize solidarity through rights and obligations within a global citizenship. Stjerno defends the idea that we could reach a global citizenship through dynamic popular mobilisations which use social movements as actors of solidarity.

Actors of political solidarity

Thus, political solidarity generates actions for social changes. Different set of actors is involved in the organisation of these actions. I already mentioned the phenomenon of popular movements named social movement. That is what lived Egypt during the last three years: an intense and coordinated popular mobilisation based on a common purpose which is to change their society according to a social ideal. It is then interesting to deepen a bit the question of the social movements, especially since, the concept of social movements evolved throughout time.

Since the Marxist theory, the history of political solidarity is closely intertwined with a powerful actor of change, a counterweight to oppressive authority: the social movements. This concept appears for the first time in 1850 thanks to the German sociologist Lorenz von Stein. It characterised the proletarian struggles firstly and soon became the label of all popular struggles. Törn (2003, p.27) gave an interesting definition of this political phenomenon: […] form of collective action that articulates a social conflict and ultimately aims at transforming a social order; it is a process of action and interaction involving as a fundamental element the construction of a collective identity, or a sense of community, of “us”, sharing a set of values and norms, in opposition to “others”, i.e. antagonistic actors, or “enemies”. Empirically, a social movement is constituted by different forms of practices: production and dissemination of information, knowledge and symbolic practices, mobilisation of various forms of resources, including the construction of organisations and networks, and the performing of public actions of different kinds (demonstrations as well as direct actions). 23

People are getting involved in social movements because they are affected by one or several injustices in the world. However, following Törn, but also Johnston and Laxer’s reflexion (2003), the only feeling of solidarity or empathy is not enough to ensure the success of the mobilisation. People also need to possess a profound sense of shared identity, solidarity based on collective positive projects and likewise the conviction that collective conflict can produce real changes. Charles Tilly, who argued that social movements are more the interaction between the different actors (the “us” and the “enemy” to challenge) than the actors themselves, added some more restrictions to the definition of social movements. According to him, three elements have to be present in order to constitute a social movement: a campaign of collective claims; a repertoire of various political actions (like presented in the definition of Törn; and finally a chosen public representation of the movements (Tilly, 2009, p. 4-5). If these three characteristics do not exist in a mobilisation, the author argues it can not be called social movement since it has not all its strength.

Through time, three different waves of mobilisations can be distinguished (Stjerno, 2004, p. 344-348). Their differences are linked to a modification of the political solidarity’s concept that shapes the movement.

As said before, the first apparition of social movements as a political phenomenon happened at the end of the nineteenth century with the proletarian mobilisation empowered by the Marxist theory. Their actors were organized by trade unions and churches to defend workers’ rights. Nevertheless, the influential theory of socialism and its vision of equal distribution became soon predominant, relegating in the shadow the will to theorize once more on the concept of solidarity.

The second wave appeared around May 1968 and the seventies in answer to the lack of political attention and actions around severe social issues such as environment, gender, discrimination or nuclear danger. As in the nineteenth century, it was a period of active changes, with economic crises, increased individualism and significant emerging social problems that these movements highlighted. This second wave had this strength: they united all kinds of political and religious tendencies. Despite this force, these mobilisations suffered from several problems. They were not representative of the entire population; they lacked organization and thus were doomed to a quick breathlessness if they were not institutionalized 24 by one group of interests; finally, they were not strong enough to become a solid actor of solidarity (Stjerno, 2004, p. 344). Even if they were not enough organized, this new movements allowed bringing back the solidarity to the front stage of political and sociological debates. For example, the proponents of the modern social theory present solidarity as a solution for the increased individualism linked to the capitalist economic system (Stjerno, 2004, p.288-290). In modern society, political solidarity would thus represent “the moral relation that marks a social movement wherein individuals have committed to positive duties in response to a perceived injustice”, a perceived injustice that touches them directly or others persons (Sholz, 2009, p.3). This reaction is not based on personal interest as Michael Hechter defends it in his rational choice theory, but on political altruism founded on empathy and cognition plus a readiness for collective actions (Stjerno, 2004, p. 326). This second type of social movement is based on a moral wish to commit ourselves for an unjust cause. This empathy leads us to involve in solidarity actions which would challenge and change one encountered issues.

The third wave of social movements occurs at the present time, in the context of increased globalization. Already mentioned above, it is inter alia the Zapatistas struggle or the Indignados which aim at changing internationally the economic liberal system.

According to the sociologist and political scientist Sidney Tarrow (2001), the mass-based social movements are hard to organize and to maintain on a long-term basis. This difficulty is even bigger when a transnational identity arises. On the most cases, citizen actions for global solidarity do not fulfil the criteria needed to construct a real transnational social movement. Actions of political international solidarity can as well be undertaken by other forms of international solidarity relationships. Three different structures for collective actions can be differentiated: the transnational coalition, the transnational social movement and finally the transnational advocacy network.

Tarrow again defined the transnational coalitions (in Sephton, online). It is a collaborative arrangement with specific oriented means which gather different actors pooling their resources in order to struggle against a short-term threat or opportunities. It can be seen as the precursor of the social movement, which arise when plethora of different actors from divergent backgrounds are gathering without sharing the needed common identities (linked to 25 social movement). Tarrow further differentiates four kinds of coalitions: two based on short time duration (instrumental and event coalition) and two other which aim at living for a long- term (federated and campaign coalition).

The transnational social movement (TSM) is a social movement at the international level. They have the same purposes at different scale and share the idea of solidarity across country boundaries: to denounce a problem of international concern, to develop solutions thanks to coalitions of allies and sharing of information, and finally to put pressure in order to implement their solutions through coordinated social mobilization in more than one country (political actions, demonstrations or lobby). Like the social movement, the transnational mass-based movements are complicated to construct and to maintain.

Finally, the transnational advocacy network (TAN) is well defined by Keck and Sikkink (1998, p.91) as a set of: relevant actors working internationally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and a dense exchange of information and services. These actors are usually a bunch of morally motivated activists that do not make use of mass mobilizations. They are pursuing a definite goal: to change the term of the international agenda and debate, by substituting more democratic positions to unjust one.

26

Conclusion

Obviously, political solidarity is fed by empathy for people suffering from an unfair societal construction. It is an adversarial feeling, as solidarity fights a perceived injustice provoked by something or someone. This solidarity has the strength to gather people who wish to offer an ideal existence for everyone. The actions for solidarity are incorporated in a broad strategy of social and political change. Nowadays, due to the globalization process that touched every field of our existence, people tend to develop broader solidarity than the worker-focused solidarity from Marx. This global or better, transnational solidarity is embracing everyone who is flouted by the current economic system which is always privileging capital and investments to human beings. However, this wish is quite complicated to materialize into a real solidarity relationship based on equality. As Johnston and Laxer expressed it (2003, p.76), this global perception is limited by several elements, such as the social and cultural distance or the facts that the networks of actors come principally from Western countries.

Moreover, decades of colonialism, paternalism and charity have profoundly influenced the relationships between human beings around the world. The racist perception of the Arab world and its population that is commonly conveyed in Western discourse is a flagrant example of the difficulty to consider the other as an equal citizen. It is essential to develop our understanding of the other through communication and education, in order to overcome this distance between us and them and thus create real solidarity relationships which can be efficient levers of change. Acute analyzes of the world, potential alternatives and roadmaps to reach common ideals have to be defined together with the different actors of the relationship: the one who is directly suffering from the situation and the one who is still preserved. Without that, we could easily fall in the frame of charity or colonialist projects that do not perceive the other as an equal citizen and therefore loose any relationships of trust essential for ongoing cooperation among actors. A major effort must also be made to construct structures of solidarity which can organize, mobilize and undertake efficient actions for social justice on a transnational level.

27

CHAPTER II: Introduction on the Belgian solidarity movement with Egypt

To have a clear vision of the solidarity actions in Belgium, I presented them on a timeline (see next page) that begins in 2011 with the 25th January Revolution and ends mid-2014. This enumeration is surely not exhaustive and mostly based on internet researches: each interviewee could not always give me a complete list of his actions and suggested I should take a look on the organisation’s website or Facebook page.

The actions are represented on the diagram according to their date but also following their forms. I chose to organize the eighty-six actions in five different categories: - Actions in the public space (26) - Public positions in the press or toward authorities (13) - Conferences, debates, lectures... (30) - Exceptional publications of newspapers about the situation in Egypt (4) - Mobility: Meetings and seminars, based on mobility from Egyptian or Belgian in the other’s countries, with a strategic purpose of collective work. (12, plus the World Social Forum) To simplify the lecture of the timeline, I did not represent all the articles that have been published online or inside a usual publication produced by the interviewed actors. However, it has to be taken into consideration that numerous depth articles or interviews were written, especially after each new episode in the political evolution of the Egyptian revolution.

Two first obvious conclusions can be drawn. There are not so many solidarity actions, and they are entirely linked to the actuality in Egypt. Moreover, several tendencies or waves can be highlighted. A first enthusiasm with a lot of political actions appeared just at the beginning of the revolution and stopped with the number 17 which is the first and last national protest organized in support to the populations in uprisings. This mobilisation coincides with the beginning of the NATO intervention in Libya that seems to create a shift in the activities.

28

29

30

Number Date Actions 25 January 2011 Day of Anger, first mass mobilisation Place Tahrir, Egypt 1 28 January 2011 Solidarity meeting Ghent organised by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR/SAP) 2 29 January 2011 Meeting in front of the Egyptian embassy (Diaspora and leftist parties), Brussels 3 4 February 2011 200 people in front of the European Commission, organised by the « Comité de soutien aux révolutions tunisienne, égyptienne et des peuples de la région », Brussels 4 4 February 2011 Amnesty International action in front of the Egyptian embassy 5 4 February 2011 action at the Bourse, by the “Comité de soutien aux révolutions tunisienne, égyptienne et des peuples de la région » 6 6 February 2011 Protest at Bourse in Brussels, organised by the « Comité de soutien aux révolutions tunisienne, égyptienne et des peuples de la région » 11 February 2011 Mubarak’s departure and Security Council of Armed Forced (SCAF) transitory government 7 12 February 2011 Party action for Mubarak’s departure in front of the Egyptian embassy, mainly Diaspora and leftist parties 8 12 February 2011 World day of action against violence in Egypt, Amnesty International 9 15 March 2011 Publication from the Formation Léon Lesoil / LCR on Egypt, Tunisia 10 23 February 2011 Protest in front of the European Commission (Egalité) 11 23 February 2011 The Worker’s Party of Belgium’s (PTB/PVDA) trip in Egypt 12 28 February 2011 Meeting at the Université Libre de Bruxelles to organize solidarity (with the Left Socialist Party, PSL – the Etudiants de Gauche Actifs linked to LCR – Jeunes anti capitalistes) 13 8 March 2011 Solidarity meeting Ghent, organised by the solidarity committee 14 13 March 2011 Debate at the anticapitalist Spring school of the Léon Lesoil Formation, LCR’s association of continuing education 15 14 March 2011 Solidarity meeting by the 17 December-Comite Antwerp (LCR) 16 17 March 2011 « Solidaire » special edition of the PTB’s newspaper on the 19 March 2011 Military intervention in Libya by NATO 17 20 March 2011 National protest in solidarity with the popular uprisings, Brussels (organised by the two pacifist organisation, Vrede for the Flemish and the CNAPD for the French part) 18 26 May 2011 « Midi de la CNAPD », lecture on the situation in the Middle East with Rabab Khairy (from the national platform of cooperation CNCD) 19 April-May-June 2011 “Le choux”, special edition on the Arab uprisings published by the Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien (MOC) 20 20-21 August 2011 The Summer Marxist University of the PTB programmed a debate with Samir Amin 21 7 September 2011 The General Federation of Belgian Labour (FGTB) send a letter to the Egyptian Prime Minister in order to ask the respect of the worker’s rights and trade-unionism. 22 1-2 October 2011 ManiFiesta festival organised by the PTB with Médicine pour le Peuple, programmed a lecture with Nawal Al Saadawi on the Arab Spring 23 End November 2011 Egyptian Delegation of the independent trade union (EFITU) in Belgium at the FGTB 2012 24 13 January 2012 Day of study : Arab Spring one year after, by the MOC with the help of its association for continuing education (CIEP) 25 30/1 – 1/2/2012 Special Meeting of international federations of trade unions (ITUC – CES – SSO) + FGTB to meet EFITU Egyptian trade Union in 31 26 21 February 2012 Study day at Ugent University around the Arab Spring, organised by the Menarg center of research, Vrede and 11 11 11 in the frame of the “Middenoostenoverleg” 27 22 February 2012 “Midi de la CNAPD” lunch-debate on the Arab revolutions one year after with Samir Amin 28 22 February 2012 Conference with Samir Amin, Brussels, organised by INTAL 29 9 March 2012 Declaration of sustain from LCR through the IV International to the women in the process of revolution of the Arab region 30 23-24 March 2012 Formation weekend organised by the movement INTAL to prepare their trip to Egypt 31 27 March 2012 MOC, plus the Christian confederation of trade union (CSC-ACV) and CNCD’s common conference on the Arab Spring and the Trade Unions in Mons 32 29 March 2012 Solidarity letter for , co-signed by Solidarité Socialiste, CNCD-11.11.11 & 11.11.11, FGTB-ABVV, CSC-ACV, CGSLB-ACLVB, FOS-socialist solidarity, INTAL and the MOC 33 2-14 April 2012 Preparation trip in Egypt by Intal 34 27 May 2012 Debate at the Anticapitalist Spring School, organised by the Léon Lesoil Formation (LCR-SAP) 24 Juni 2012 Election of 35 27 Juni 2012 Press release from CNCD against the payment of the Egyptian odious debt 36 From 9 to 24 July 2012 Solidarity trip to Egypt organised by Intal 37 2 September 2012 Lecture from volunteers INTAL about Egypt in Antwerp about their trip 38 17-21 September 2012 Week of exchange and actions on the relations UE/Arab World, organised by CNCD and its Arab partner ANND 39 22 September 2012 CNAPD : 7 hour for peace, debate on the Arab revolutions 40 19 October 2012 Lecture from volunteers at Intal in Alost 41 10 December 2012 Action by the Belgian trade unions in front of the Egyptian embassy 15-22 December 2012 Referendum for the new constitution 2013 42 11 January 2013 Information session about commercial agreement, CNCD/11 11 11 43 12 February 2013 Solidarity protest against sexual harassment in front of the Egyptian embassy (co-organised by Beril Karaoglan, researcher Ugent) 44 10 March 2013 Point Sud, CNCD newspaper, on commercial agreement with the Arab region 45 21 March 2013 Theater : « No Time for art » at the Halles de Schaerbeek, in Brussels 26-30 March 2013 Social Forum in Tunis with the participation of the CADTM, Intal, FGTB/ABVV, CSC/ACV, CNCD, 11 11 11, PTB/PVDA, 46 29 April 2013 Bankwatch launch of the report : 'The great Middle East beanfeast’ on IFI's implication in the Arab region 47 9 May 2013 Bankwatch workshop in Istanbul on “Reporting energy and finance in Europe's Neighbourhood” with Arab partners 48 27 May 2013 Seminar CSC-ACV on the Arab Revolution and workers rights 49 June 2013 Delegation from Egyptian Trade Unions at FGTB 50 26 June 2013 Declaration of the European citizen from Egyptian origin to the European Parliament 51 28 June 2013 Solidarity letter from FGTB to the Egyptian Trade-Unions for the 30 June Protests 30 June 2013 Protests against Mohamed Morsi 52 30 June 2013 Protest in Brussels against Mohamed Morsi, in solidarity with Tamarrod (Mourad Samy) 3 July 2013 Morsi’s deposal and Egyptian army in power 53 7 July 2013 Brussels, protest against the military « coup » on Luxemburg place 54 7 July 2013 Opinion Peace Brecht de Smet – Vivienne Matthies-Boon From Rebel to Revolution? Formal Democracy and its Grievances 55 12 July 2013 Press Release from CNAPD against the army’s confiscation of the revolution and in solidarity with the Egyptian population 32 56 14 July 2013 Action against the military « coup » in front of the European Commission 57 17 July 2013 Mourad Samy Letter to Belgian Prime Minister and European Parliament 58 28 July 2013 Protest against the military coup in front of the European Institution, Schumann, 59 18 August 2013 Action against the military « coup », 650 persons on the Luxemburg place 60 23 August 2013 Action against the military coup 120 Pro Morsi in Brussels in front of the European Commission 61 23 August 2013 Action for the democratic change, 80 anti-Morsi on the Luxemburg place (Mourad Samy) 62 6 September 2013 Action against the military “coup” in front of the Egyptian embassy 63 6 September 2013 LCR letter of sustain to the Revolutionary socialist after the arrestation of one of their member 64 8 September 2013 Action against the military “coup” in front of the courthouse, Brussels 65 9 September 2013 General meeting ECOLO-J around the revolutions 66 21 September 2013 Silent protest against the military coup at the Bourse, Brussels, 67 24 September 2013 Conference on Egypt organised by ATTAC-Brussels with Maged Mosleh and Baudoin Loos 68 6 October 2013 Action against the military coup for Morsi and the return of the democracy, Brussels 69 13 October 2013 Protest against the military coup, 300 persons, Brussels 70 18 October 2013 Letter from the Committee for the abolition of the Third World’s debt (CADTM) and CNCD to the Belgian Prime Minister about the payment of the Egyptian and Tunisian debt toward Belgium 71 19 October 2013 Film-debate « uprising » at the Festival des Libertés in Brussels with CNCD 72 25 October 2013 Lunch info CNCD/11 11 11 about Egypt with Natacha David (ITUC) 73 27 October 2013 Stand Pro-Morsi and against the military coup at the Belgian Muslim Fair 74 6-7 November 2013 Week of Advocacy on Policies and Issues of Cooperation and Partnership, organised by CNCD/ ANND / EUROSTEP 75 9 November 2013 « Ces femmes qui ont marqué la révolution », conference with Radhia Nasraoui et Shahinaz Abdel Salem, organised by AWSA-Be 76 10 November 2013 « Women at the Bar » with the Egyptian militant Shahinaz Abdel Salem, organised by AWSA-Be 77 11 November 2013 “Lundi against debt” organized by CADTM in Liège, on Egypt with Mahinour el Badrawi from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) 78 12 November 2013 International symposium on debt and Human Rights in Egypt and Tunisia, organised by CADTM 79 12 November 2013 debate organized by CADTM on Tunisia, Egypt and ’s debt, Brussels 80 13 November 2013 Meeting of expert to organize co-working on Tunisian and Egyptian debt 81 17-18 November 2013 Formation weekend on the illegitimate debt, CADTM 82 22 November 2013 Exhibition "Femmes du monde arabe et révolutions" organised by AWSA-Be 83 5 December 2013 Debate in the Vooruit Ghent – Wat blijft er over van de Arabische Lente, in the frame of the Festival van de Gelijkheid (Festival of libertiy) 84 20 December 2013 Signature of the Open Call from ECESR: Egyptian Human Rights Organizations Oppressed – CNCD et CADTM 85 31 December 2013 Petition of the « plateforme belge pour la justice et la démocratie en Egypte », for the Morsi’s return 2014 14-15 January 2014 Referendum for the new Egyptian constitution 86 11 January 2014 Debate organized by the Egyptian community in Belgium for a boycott of the Constitution written by the military coup, in Brussels at the Cultural Arab Center 87 28 février 2014 Debate on the revolutions and counter revolutions organised during the Anticapilist meeting by Fondation Léon Lesoil (LCR) 33

After that, there are almost no more public protests until Morsi’s deposal. Only two actions took place at the beginning of 2013, one against sexual harassment in Egypt and another for the worker’s rights. During the fifteen months between the NATO intervention and Morsi’s deposal, a kind of a second phase occurred where no political activities took place anymore. They are replaced by a growing need of information with sixteen public conferences on Egypt and the Arab region’s situation, plus the development of specific new collaborative work based on meetings and trips in Egypt or Belgium.

The 30th of June 2013 constituted a new break in the Belgian political life linked to Egypt. From June to October, at least thirteen actions took place in the public space. Meanwhile, several peace opinions were published, and many debates decrypted the new Egyptian upheavals. As from December 2013, however, a lower rhythm of activity seems to become the norm again.

What explains these changes and instability in the actions undertaken in Belgium regarding Egypt? Who are the actors involved, what are their relations to Egypt, and what goals and hopes are they pursuing? What is their vision of solidarity and how are they building it? Also finally, what are their forces and weaknesses and how could it be ameliorated? These aspects will be analyzed in the following chapters. I shall consider the different forms of solidarity according to the chronological phases and divide the research in three phases. The first wave is the one that begins with the Arab uprisings and extends to the Libya war. The second phase lasts until the 30th June 2013 with the involvement of new actors. Finally, the last wave begins with the impressive protests against Morsi in June 2013 and their impact on Belgian actors. For each part, it is fundamental to go back to the political situation in Egypt in order to understand who wishes to involve and for which reasons. 34

CHAPTER III: A FIRST WAVE OF SOLIDARITY

1. In support to the 25th January Egyptian Revolution

“Bread, liberty and social justice”, that is the slogan of the Egyptian uprisings. It describes the unsustainable situation in which the majority of the Egyptian population has to live: namely a repressive dictatorship which destroys all opposition, where every day is a battle to find sufficient money or food to live and where any possibilities of improvements are blocked by a corrupt and disproportionately wealthy elite. This situation is too quickly imputed by Western countries to corrupt regimes that could be revoked by more “democracy”. It is then important to go back to the causes of this unbearable poverty.

In fact, for thirty years, Egypt social and economic development is locked by a strategic relationship of economic dependency to the International Financial Institutions (IFIs)11 that justified the imposition of harsh neoliberal programs with broad negative effects on the population. This began in the seventies with President Anouar El-Sadat and his opening policies called Infitah that dismantled the socialist state built by Nasser. This first program of economic and politic liberalisation caused numerous waves of protests since it advocated the development of an attracting economic framework for foreign investors by inter alia water downing all social gains of the Nasser period. Already in 1977, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was involved in the design of this new neoliberal project. The institution was pushing for a very controversial proposition: cuts in the food subsidies that violently affected the majority of the population. The popular disagreement was sharp, and bread riots occurred in the country to reject this anti-social political attempt. The state answered with violence and muzzled this popular movement through repressions (Bogaert, 2013a, p.221, 225). Under Mubarak, the situation remained stable until the late 1980s and the population even lived a sort of political detente on the state’s use of violence. Nonetheless, the respite was short-lived seeing that the Egyptian economic and financial crises changed the game at the end of the eighties. The state was quite vulnerable as it was fully dependent on foreign incomes, mainly remittances from migrant workers in the Gulf, foreign loans, canal fees,

11 These financial institutions are created by nations. The World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and inter alia the European Investment Bank (EIB) are the most famous IFI’s 35 tourism and military help. Moreover, Egypt was constrained to reimburse a significant national debt at steadily increasing interest’s rates to Western countries mostly (Bromsey, 1994, p.202). In 1988, the debt situation was unsustainable, growing to over 100 percent of the national income with 38 billion USD due to foreign creditors (Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2013, p.23). In addition, the Gulf war sent back all the migrant workers who flooded the labour market and could not help anymore with the much-needed remittances. Furthermore, oil prices had fallen taking in its fall the petrodollars revenues and wages. Tourism was not in a good wealth either (De Smet, 2012, p.209).

Under pressure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to receive new loans, Mubarak enforced the ERSAP in 1991 (Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Program) a direct application of the neoliberals principals promoted by the Washington Consensus12. To decrease foreign debt, the ERSAP imposed to cut state subsidies on consumer goods, privatize public companies, liberalize markets and prices, freeze wages, commercialize agriculture lands and implement a flat tax (De Smet, 2012, p. 210). The usual neoliberal recipe: , liberalization and dismantling of the states’ functions. All state’s wealth and institutions were sold at small prices, and the best parts were taken over by a monopole of Westerns and local political elites. Corruption and nepotism were settled down with manipulated elections and general collusion of the economic and politic world. In the same time, repression became institutionalized with intimidated media, pressure on workers and farmers, stifled opposition and one unique trade-union controlled by the state (Callinicos, 2011; De Smet, 2012, p. 211-214).

According to economic indicators and the IFIs, the situation in Egypt has lived an impressive economic improvement with a “marvellous” 7% GDP growth in 2010. Behind this inappropriate and artificial facade, increased poverty and destruction of all the social bases were the only consequences of the neoliberal packages that the Egyptian population felt. In 2011, one-fourth of young people was unemployed, and twenty out of the eighty millions of Egyptians were living under poverty line, a number that doubled between 2000 and 2011.

12 Term invented in 1989 to represent the list of economic measures constituting the reform package for developing countries facing economic difficulties specially regarding their debt and imposed by Washington- based institutions (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the US treasury). The 10 economic prescriptions are strongly influenced by the neoliberal ideology of the Chicago school of economics, they promote: of state companies, fiscal discipline, tax reform, suppression of state subsidies, market determined interest rates, competitive exchange rates, trade liberalization and liberalization of foreign investment, reinforced property right and finally deregulation. 36

Failing in redistributing wealth and improving the social situation, only small elite grossly enriched. Moreover, the project to decrease the national debt through neoliberal programs also failed: in 2011, Egypt still owed 32 billion US Dollar in public foreign debt (Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2013, p.24-25). It is a limpid representation of Harvey’s definition of : an elitist political project which aims at accumulating wealth at any cost by dispossessing everyone else. Privatization, liberalization and state’s functions emaciation are only tools for political elites and foreign investors to consolidate and enlarge their interests (Bromley, 1994).

After thirty years of this unfair situation, Egypt was seethed with anger. Intensive and numerous protesting dynamics came out over a decade. Revolts extended to farmers who were suffering from land expropriations, increased land prices and violence from landowners who are sustained by the state’s power. More than one million strikes took place between 2004 and 2010 with the famous Mahallah Al Koubra fabric’s strike13 for model. Since 2000 and the second Palestinian Intifada, civil and democratic protests were organized by inter alia NGOs, new political parties and new medias actors like journalists, bloggers. It became the movement in 2005 which extends its protests to the Mubarak’s politics (“Kefaya” means “enough”). Helped by the new communication tools, the enthusiasm generated by the and this irremediable state’s crises of legitimacy, the 25th January Revolution brought down Mubarak on the 11th of February, after eighteen days of massive protests (Bogaert, 2013b, pp. 20-23).

13 It is the biggest factory in the Middle East, with 27 000 garment workers. The movement of strikes in the fabric started in 2006 and impacted all Egypt due to this scale, intensity and successes. For example, in 2008, 20 000 strikers stopped the production to call for a national minimal salary (De Smet, 2012, pp. 257-264). In February 2014, 12 000 workers of the fabric went on strike because of the non-redistribution of the factory’s earnings in bonus like planned. 37

2. The reaction in Belgium

The revolution created new possibilities of change and conveyed hopes. Mourad Samy, a Belgian from Egyptian origin, described this tension at the beginning of the uprisings: finally, opportunities existed that could lead to the old regime’s falling down, and even the whole system’s condemnation with inter alia the Occupy movement. The revolution was an incredible event in the history of his country, and, according to Mourad, protest was the best mean of action to deeply change the situation:

[…]du matin au soir j’étais collé là derrière internet, je ne savais plus rien faire d’autres que ça, parce qu’ils [the youth in the street creating the revolution] avaient cette foi et cette détermination que ce qu’ils avaient fait était juste et vrai. Et c’était vrai et c’était juste et ils ont eu raison. Et comme dit El Baradei, après qu’il ait quitté toutes responsabilités dans la vie politique égyptienne, ce sont ces jeunes là qui vont faire l’avenir de l’Egypte ; (ces jeunes) qui ont la bonne façon de faire.14 Like Mourad Samy, some other Belgian actors were touched by the Egyptian claims and their popular uprisings in January 2011. This sympathy for their struggle pushed some of them to organize some actions.

1. The Belgian actors

Who was active in Belgium at the beginning of the Egyptian uprisings? First of all, three radical leftist parties were directly involved: the small Left Socialist Party (PSL/ASL), a radical Trotskyite party with mainly its student French wing “Etudiants de Gauche Actifs” (EGA); the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR/SAP) Belgian section of the Fourth International and its association for formation (Formation Léon Lesoil) also from Trotskyite tendency, and finally the biggest communist party, the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PVDA) from Marxist-Leninist orientation. They all share the same objective: the replacement of capitalism and its exploitation system by socialism. The cleavage between these three organisations is due to historical evolutions and political affinities. LCR and PSL were defending a Trotskyite vision of socialism when PTB took his influence in the Maoist China in reaction to the USSR’s excesses. However, for the 2014 election, a softening of those positions happened, leading to a large coalition around the major party PTB/PVDA (under the label: PTB/PVDA go15). Since 2008, the PTB/PVDA wants to get rid of historical

14 Interview with Mourad Samy, Brussels, 17 October 2013. 15 http://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/detail_ptb-go-une-gauche-radicale-plutot-qu-une-extreme- gauche?id=8186537 38 labels and debate in order to dispose of sectarianism. LCR joined the actual electoral coalition, but PSL, the smaller and more radical party remained out of the new movement.

Two Belgian peace organisations were also engaged in some actions mainly as instigators of the single national demonstration in support with the people in uprisings. “Vrede vzw” is the peace organisation for the Flemish part of the country and the CNAPD (Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie) is acting in the French part. Their structures and positions are a bit different. The Flemish association is more radical than the French one thanks to its structure, which is not depending on any other associations. Close to the Marxist theory, they defend a substantial transformation of the actual economic system that should be anti-capitalist. For Vrede, war is the result of an unjust social and economic system and the organisation has for objective to research and fight the economic reasons of each conflict. Since CNAPD is a platform of 48 French associations, the coordination is less radical in its political vision in order to gather all its members (namely youth organisations and movements of continuing education). The CNAPD has two objectives: to sensitize public opinion and mobilize against war, exclusions and inequalities due to unfair economic system16. “Disarm to develop” is both Vrede and CNAPD’s principal slogan.

Some simple citizens also took part in this first movement. However, if they were not coming from any organisation, these individuals were mainly Belgian from Egyptian origins and Egyptians. It must be noted that this Diaspora in Belgium is not significant (see annexe 2). According to the Egyptian embassy in Brussels, there are between 9,600 and 12,000 Egyptian nationals in Belgium, with only 1,800 people officially registered at the embassy. En considérant que nous avons +/- 1784 ressortissants égyptiens enregistrés ici à l'Ambassade donc arrondissant à 1800. Que sur ce nombre il faut en retirer +/- 10% qui ne seront plus en Belgique à l'heure actuelle, cela nous donne un total approximatif de 1600 personnes. Qu'en moyenne on considère que chaque personne représente une famille de 3 cela nous ferait un total approximatif de 4800 personnes.

Et enfin en considérant que chaque personne dont nous avons la connaissance n'est en fait que la partie visible de l'Iceberg et que pour une connue il y en a entre 1 et 2 d'inconnue cela nous ferait un total approximatif d'entre 9600 et 12000 ressortissants égyptiens en Belgique17.

16 See website : http://www.cnapd.be/Introduction025.html 17 Mail from the Egyptian embassy on March 10th 2014. 39

Seeing that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that the number of Egyptians living abroad was about 2.7 million18 in 2010, the present Diaspora in Belgium is particularly insignificant. The majority of the migration flows into Western countries, mainly United States and several European countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands. Moreover, knowing that there are more than 400 000 Belgian from Moroccan origin in Belgium19, the Egyptian presence in our country is relatively paltry compared to the entire Arab Diaspora. Therefore, the number of Egyptians active in solidarity actions is proportionally low.

During the three first months of the Egyptian uprisings, all these actors gathered in several citizen committees in order to organize efficient solidarity actions. The final purpose of these committees was to facilitate the coordination of further potential national movement. Developed first at a local level, one group rapidly organized itself in Ghent; the “Solidariteitsgroep met de Egyptische, Tunesische en Libische revoluties en de volkeren in beweging”, constituted by about ten individuals, coming from inter alia the SAP/LCR Gent section and UGent researchers like Brecht de Smet. Another was organized in Antwerp, “Het 17 December-Comite”, with a few members of the SAP/LCR party and also students from the Arab Union. Three other smaller citizen committees were constituted in Brussels: - The Comité de Soutien aux Revolutions by the students at the ULB - The Comité de soutien aux révolutions tunisiennes, égyptiennes et des peuples de la région in Brussels, with several leftist parties - The Comité de soutien des Egyptiens de Belgique by the Egyptian diaspora At the national level, a committee constituted by organisations and experts was also formed on 21 February 2011: the platform Tahrir. Its purpose was to coordinate solidarity actions undertaken by these associations in support with populations in North Africa and the Middle East. This platform only gathered three times20.

18 See : Démographie en Belgique, un citoyen sur quatre est issu de l’immigration, Le Soir.be, 4 mars 2013. http://www.egypt.iom.int/Doc/IOM%20Migration%20and%20Development%20in%20Egypt%20Facts%20and %20Figures%20%28English%29.pdf 19 See : http://archives.lesoir.be/premiere-un-barometre-du-metissage-top-10_t-20130302- 02AFW1.html?query=immigration&firstHit=0&by=10&sort=datedesc&when=- 1&queryor=immigration&pos=1&all=13660&nav=1 20 Interview with Ludo de Brabandere from Vrede, Ghent, 28 June 2013 40

2. Actions for the Arab revolutions

The seventeen first actions undertaken in Belgium during the first part of the Arab Revolutions (between January 2011 and 20 March 2013) share a common characteristic: they are solely political activities in the public space undertaken by the Diaspora and organisations with anti-imperialist programs. Only five out of the seventeen actions focus directly on Egypt (two by Amnesty International to denounce Human Rights’ violations, two by the Diaspora joined by leftist parties and finally one trip to Egypt with two members of the PTB/PVDA’s direction). The first general tendency was to focus on the region as a whole and especially on the two main countries with uprising: Tunisia first and shortly after Egypt. There was no specific attention to Egypt, like Thomas Weyts said it:

We werkten heel hard met de idee van:“Arabische” revoluties. We waren nooit enkel gefocust op Egypte. Iedereen weet heel goed: Tunesië is Egypte niet, en Egypte is Bahrein niet. Maar dat was ook op een moment dat er in de hele regio wel beweging was. 21 The attention went to the uprisings in themselves, as the expression of a massive popular discontent toward decades of embezzlements and the expression of a wish to establish favourable balance of power to the people. Seeing all these uprisings occurring at the same time and in different neighboring countries, all trying to reject the general political status consolidated by Western cooperation and commercial policies, generated a great enthusiasm. For the majority of actors, it was thus not relevant to show solidarity for each country distinctly since they lived similar situations. For all of them, solidarity has to be constructed with the entire world, for all the populations who wanted to get rid of unfair policies.

Comme je t’ai dit, nous on a exprimé une solidarité pour la Tunisie et les Egyptiens parce que cela se passait là, mais on l’aurait fait si cela avait été en Argentine ou au Guatemala, quoi.22

Nevertheless, Bert de Belder with his party the PTB/PVDA, brought greater attention to Egypt. It is indeed a strategic country in the region with which the communist party never had connections before.

But, to be honest, in Egypt, we almost had none before the revolution, although it’s a really important and big and potentially powerful and influential country, as far as the communist and revolutionary movement in Egypt was concerned, we didn’t have any

21 Interview with Thomas Weyts from LCR/SAP, Ghent, 24 June 2013. 22 Interview with Samuel Legros from the CNAPD, Brussels, 30 July 2013 41

direct links. So, in fact, when the Arab revolution in Egypt emerged, our first challenge was to find contacts, because we found the event very significant, very hopeful, to see the masses coming out in the street and chasing away a dictatorship, and taking things into their own hands, our analyses, our assessment of the situation was that was very important and that we had to establish contacts with the main actors inside that movement, and to support that movement23.

They are the only actors who rushed to Cairo as soon as they could, one week after Mubarak’s departure, to build relationships with the revolutionary forces over there. PTB/PVDA is the most-important communist party in Belgium, in number and forces. They have thus the resources to organize such trips, unlike other smaller revolutionary parties. It was strategically crucial for them to create such connections with a dynamic revolutionary movement seeing that they were urging for the same mean of action.

3. Why acting for the region?

Thus, these actors were involved the three first months of the Arab revolution because of the uprisings that were claiming social justice through a broad political and economic change in Arab countries. It is the same demands that these Belgian actors also require from the entire world.

All the revolutionary left wanted to sustain, given that they all defend the revolution as the mode of action to create a change. Thomas from SAP explained it:

Ik ben hier een revolutionaire socialist en ik steun wat er ergens anders beweegt, omdat ik denk dat dat belangrijk is, […]24.

The PTB/PVDA, the PSL/LSP and the LCR/SAP share a common vision of the world. According to them, like in the 99% slogan of the Indignados, the majority of the population is a part of the worker’s class which has the same enemy: imperialism, the global capitalist system and all its actors (IMF, multinationals, World Bank, etc.). Their political projects are based on the popular revolution led by the working class to overthrow the destructive economic system and replace it with socialism and fair redistribution. The Arab uprisings were thus very promising as they were formed spontaneously and within the population: a revolution from below like the Belgian revolutionary left wants to provoke. Moreover, their

23 Interview with Bert de Belder, Brussels, 17 May 2013 24 Interview with Thomas Weyts, Ghent, 24 June 2013 42 shared anti-imperialist vision helped to analyse and condemn the decade’s long Western implication in the region.

The two peace organisations also had to be involved in such a movement which aims at changing the political and economic game. In both their analyses, global peace could be reached as soon as a fair economic system would be established. On se présente comme mouvement anticapitaliste, et peut-être même marxiste, mais bon c’est quoi, cette étiquette marxiste. Et la base de notre analyse est qu’il faut étudier, travailler et faire des actions sur tout ce qui est paix/guerre du point de vue que la paix et la guerre sont fort liées avec la justice sociale et que donc le dossier économique est lié. […] Et c’est pour ça que notre position est très claire, il ne faut pas des armées, il faut une politique qui soit juste au niveau social et économique, c’est une position simple.25

The collective claims of the unique national protest emphasized four points: first, solidarity with uprisings which aim at developing freedoms, social progress and democratic rights; secondly, condemnation of any political support from the West to the dictatorial regime; third, call to the European Union to support a fair economic and social development; finally, claim for the respect of the country and population’s sovereignty. That was the lowest common denominator of claims, to gather as many organisations as possible since everyone could defend these requirements.

The Diaspora was concerned because Egyptians in Belgium were the first aware of the impossible situation of their country. Most of the time, they had to leave their country to find possibilities to live worthily and send money back to their family. Therewith, the remittances are one of the major revenues for Egyptian population, according to the International Organization for Migration and the World Bank the remittances were estimated to an approximate amount of 7.8 billion US$ in 2009 (5% of the national GDP)26 and constituted an important element to fight poverty. In 2012, this number even reached US$19 billion27, growing in correlation with the passion for the 2011 revolution28. As intimate spectator of the Egyptian poverty, the Diaspora deeply wished change for their families and friends still back there, and they all sustained the uprisings at home. However, as

25 Interview with Ludo De Brabandere, Ghent, 28 June 2013. 26 See : http://www.egypt.iom.int/Doc/IOM%20Migration%20and%20Development%20in%20Egypt%20Facts%20and %20Figures%20%28English%29.pdf 27 See: http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/egyptian-expat-remittances-reach-us19-bn-2012 28 See the evolution of the remittances in the following graphic online: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/egypt/remittances 43

Mourad Samy asserted it, the Diaspora is strongly divided on the political and religious level. Some of them, like Mourad, extended this aspiration to the whole world given that we all live in an unfair system which produces nothing good for most of the population.

Mon implication a commencé à partir du début de la révolution égyptienne en janvier 2011. Là d'un coup, tous les égyptiens de toutes les obédiences et courants se sont réveillés, on été pris dans un électrochoc, c'était extraordinaire. Il y avait cette envie que les choses bougent, on voyait bien que Moubarak venait à la fin de son règne et que quelque chose devait changer en Egypte et pas seulement en Egypte, pour moi, personnellement, le mouvement des indignés, le mouvement de tout ceux qui se rendent compte qu'il y a un système qui tourne à vide et qui ne produit plus rien de bon. C'était donc une nouvelle étincelle. 29 If the political parties and the peace movement cooperate to increase their number, the Diaspora, for its part, did not work with the other actors outside their presence during some events. Bert de Belder tried to get into contact with the Egyptian community but did not succeed in inviting them to any further common actions. So we tried to invite them to give a lecture, to be present at their protest rallies. But I think that politically they were not so progressive, although they were democrats against the Mubarak dictatorship and who supported the democratic aspects of the Egyptian revolution against dictatorship and for democracy, but they were not really leftist or progressive in the sense that they also wanted social change, that they wanted to question capitalism as we do with the PTB30.

All the first involved actors were thus sensitive to the fate of the region and wanted to show their sympathy from Belgium. Nonetheless, different political and religious tendencies isolated the Diaspora from the others actors and complicated their cooperation. During their two attempts to create a solidarity committee with Egyptians of Belgium, the tensions were really intense, even leading to a physical fight. Thus, the Diaspora split according to personal affinities.

4. How did everybody organize their solidarity?

Something has to be noted: the same actions were undertaken by everyone in the first phase of the 25th January Revolution, mainly political demonstrations. At the same time, numerous contacts were taken, to have first hand information and then transmit them to the Belgian public. Bert de Belder even went to Egypt because PTB could financially afford it; the smaller organisations simply used their contacts to remain informed

29 Interview with Mourad Samy, Brussels, 17 October 2013. 30 Interview with Bert de Belder, Brussels, 17 May 2013 44 on the situation. For example, LCR did not have any linkage with Egypt before the revolution and through the Fourth International they could get in touch with the “Revolutionary Socialists”. The Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) also sought academics to give their perception of the situation. It was mainly leftist analyses and interlocutors since they only support people who shared a common vision of the world: We zijn alleen solidair met bepaalde stromingen en analyse. We steunen de arbeidersbeweging, de linkerzijde en de vrouwenbeweging31. To mobilize people, it was also important to inform Belgian audiences on the situation there. PTB and LCR each published a special newspaper on Egypt and the Arab uprisings. A lot of articles were written and posted on the internet to analyse the causes of this major event and the reasons to support it. A network to mobilize and get information was slowly created within Belgium and with Egypt, reinforced by the emergence of local and national committees to coordinate all the actions. Common claims were also once formulated, for the unique national protest in March 2011. Nevertheless, after this protest, no more shared position will be defended: the NATO military intervention in Libya divided the fragile solidarity coalition between pro and anti war defenders.

Even if Libya destroyed all chance to build a real solidarity movement, each committee developed a strategy to reach solidarity. For example, Pablo Nyns, member of EGA ULB and the PSL, summarized which actions had to be undertaken according to him, in order to build durable and efficient solidarity actions. The purposes of the student solidarity committee at ULB were the following:

Organiser une solidarité on va dire, symbolique, de pression […], soutenir chaque révolution par de la conscientisation sur le campus, en ayant peut-être un site internet, mais surtout en écrivant des tracts, des articles, en faisant des conférences surtout. A terme, on avait cette idée d’envoyer des biens matériels et de l’argent32.

Namely, solidarity should be organized around three axes: first a strategy of awareness on the situation in the region (which induced an analyse of the situation through contacts with the people on the spot and experts on the subjects plus information productions and transmission to a broader public); secondly a political pressure with public actions (from demonstrations to

31 Interview with Thomas Weyts, Ghent, 24 June 2013. 32 Interview with Pablo Nyns, Brussels, 20 June 2013. 45 press release or lobby work, all coordinated within an organized group) and finally a material or financial support to the protesters in their country. For the PSL, these are the three kinds of actions to do simultaneously and which are necessary in all political actions defending solidarity.

To inform and echo a struggle, to enter in contact and support the actors of change with material resources, to mobilize and finally to connect and organize different leftist organizations in order to take actions together for some one else’s struggle, this is the common strategy used by every solidarity movements. This repertoire of actions, like Charles Tilly named it, is essential in the strategy of a strong and organized international movement. This was the case with the anti-apartheid movement, for which the same kind of transnational actions were undertaken in more than 37 countries and during at least 40 years. According to Törn, the same four categories of political actions were undertaken: a crucial mobilization (through political actions and lobbies), organization (networking and so on), information and finally mobility (of persons and resources. These travels are important to develop an emotional and concrete aspect in the activism and to feed the engagement of the activists) (Törn, 2003, p. 30-33). In Belgium, the solidarity committees with the Sandinista revolution organized also four types of actions: information and sensitization; lobby and political actions (to mobilize people and organize them); material help and finally people’s mobility through the solidarity brigade which went to Nicaragua in order to work there and protect the community from any American interference (Roemer, 2011, p. 27-32). In this context of globalized solidarity, the transnational movement for the Zapatista struggle used the same repertoire of political efforts: mobilization, strategy of information, lobby and political actions (even economic activities and connections in order to sustain the economic development of the communities in the Chiapas), and all that need organisation and coordination of course (Johnston, Laxer, 2003, p.65-67).

The Belgian actors used the same tools for the Arab uprisings, in order to develop something substantial which can last. However, in the rush of the intense mobilisations in the region, they spent more time in public spaces to demonstrate their support and did not last long enough to deepen the other elements needed to strengthen a movement (acute analyses, common claims, sensitization and public statement). The end of mobilization was soon to occur with the controversial NATO intervention in Libya. 46

5. Obstacles a. No tradition of work on the region First of all, the number of people concerned by the region in Belgium is quite low. At a citizen level, Thomas Weyts complained about this fact: without him, no one would have moved for the Arab Revolutions in Ghent. Nu, ik ga eerlijk zijn, ik heb die initiatiefjes hier genomen omdat ik voor een stuk gedegouteerd was dat niemand anders iets deed. Ik ben lid van een kleine organisatie, ik werk ook, dus ik ben niet de best geplaatste. Ik heb altijd het gevoel dat er verschillende andere grotere organisaties – ook in Gent hé, je hebt hier bijvoorbeeld het secretariaat van de Vredesbeweging, die vier of vijf permanenten hebben en die goed bezig rond Palestina en zo. Ik had altijd het gevoel dat er andere groepen zijn die beter geplaatst zijn om brede initiatieven te nemen dan mijzelf. Ik ken wel veel mensen in Gent en ik ken al de organisaties wel, maar… Dus dat was eigenlijk gewoon omdat er niemand anders “bougeerde” terwijl ik toch vond dat er iets moest gebeuren33.

There are not so many citizens interested in the Arab region and unfortunately the same observation applies to the Belgian association’s landscape and the leftist parties. Thomas criticized the fact that associations did not take more of the lead in organizing actions. In fact, with the revolutions, in Belgium, all associations and parties encountered the same problem: no one was working on any countries of the region except Palestine. Ludo from Vrede deplored this fact and blamed even more firmly the Flemish part of the country which is even less involved in the question than the French. The French cooperation coordination (CNCD) has at least one half-time on the Arab world with Rabab Khairy while 11 11 11, the cooperation platform, had no one at all. With the uprisings, the Arab world became suddenly particularly exciting. Then, everyone wanted to fill the gap of information: from journalists to civil society and academic researchers, they all wanted to satisfy this new interest for an incredible upheaval in an unknown region where everything was possible and could be created. Moreover, this absence of any connections with the Arab region is even more apparent in the case of Egypt. If some timid relationships existed with Tunisia, the vacuum is astonishing when it comes to Egypt.

What explains such a gap with a region which is so close to Europe?

33 Interview with Thomas Weyts, Ghent, 24 June 2013. 47

First of all, it is partly due to the absence of colonisation past shared with Egypt and Tunisia implying that no cooperation tradition existed between Belgium and this region where the uprisings occurred. Rudy de Meyer said: […] wij hebben eigenlijk geen traditie zo in het Midden-Oosten hé. Dat is omdat er historisch gezien ook weinig Nederlandstalige NGO’s in de regio zitten. Daarom is er weinig vraag naar koepelwerking, behalve als dat politiek heel prominent wordt, dan zeggen de leden soms “goed, jullie krijgen het mandaat om dat voor ons te doen, ook al zitten wij daar niet hé. Maar dat is weinig eigenlijk34. In Belgium, the associations and NGOs work more on Africa, Latin America and Asia than on the closer Middle East and North Africa. The small size of the Egyptian and Tunisian Diaspora do not help in creating communication. In this context, not much political work was developed before 2011. This observation is especially relevant for Egypt. As several interviewees observed it, the links with Tunisia are more significant as it has been a French protectorate for several decades with thus numerous historical connections. Besides, the language similarity helped to enter into contacts with the civil society there. For its part, Egypt is more connected to the United Kingdom (due to the long British colonial presence) and the United States where an important Egyptians Diaspora is currently living (Pagès, 2012, p.95-96)35.

Secondly, unlike Tunisia, Egypt lived a very intense repression of all opposition parties and organisations during the last three decades. No leftist parties survived united and organized under Mubarak and the civil society was quite weak until the 2000s (De Smet, 2011). It was thus more difficult to find partners, if Belgian actors tried to contact them. In Tunisia, on the contrary, the leftist parties and the civil society could maintain linkages abroad. Thomas Weyts presented this disparity between countries during his interview: Maar Tunesië was gemakkelijker, ten eerste omdat de Tunesische gemeenschap hier wel wat groter is dan de Egyptische. Maar ook omdat ter linkerzijde, zowel de Partij van de Arbeid als wij bijvoorbeeld […] we hadden banden en contacten met verschillende organisaties en mensen in Tunesië. Met Egypte niet, althans ter linkerzijde. […] De PvdA heeft daar bijvoorbeeld oude banden sinds decennia met de Parti communiste ouvrier de Tunisie en nu de PT, de Parti des Travailleurs die nu ook het Front populaire mee trekt. En wij hebben daar ook sinds decennia een zusterorganisatietje, een kleine groep die door repressie tegenslag heeft gekend maar die nu opnieuw zijn begonnen met het uitbreken van de revolutie als Ligue de la Gauche ouvrière, die ook in het Volksfront zitten – in het F ront populaire. Dus dat zijn oude banden36.

34 Interview with Rudy de Meyer, Brussels, 12July 2013. 35 See the map of the Egyptians living abroad in 2000, visible in the annexe two. 36 Interview with Thomas Weyts, Ghent, 24 June 2013. 48

This lack of partners did not help in developing solidarity actions in Belgium. And even if contacts were taken as it was the case for PTB/PVDA, they remained at a significantly basic level with strong communication problems due to the language miscomprehension.

This absence of contacts has an impact on the associative world: no financial and human resources were planned for this part of the world. The lack of time and human resources limited also the potential work on the uprisings. For example, the CNAPD do only have one researcher who is in charge of analysing the whole world. The priorities are thereby conditioned to the interests of the forty-eight members of the CNAPD platform and also to the controversial interventions of the Belgian government. The unique researcher is not able to put all his attention on one unique region. Added to that, the associative world can not easily shake all priorities just to focus on something totally new and unknown. Administrative constraints and work objectives impede rapid involvement in new thematic. For volunteers and militants, who are more flexible than organisations, it is sometime frustrating to see the effect of this work specialisation: namely, one association involved for Palestine will not be able to fight for something outside its usual frame of actions. b. Lack of understanding Before the uprisings, there were not many Belgian researchers working on the Arab world if we exclude Palestine and its famous long-term conflict. In the academic field, only the MENARG group at the University of Ghent (Middle East and North Africa Research Group) and the C.E.R.M.A.C centre (Centre d’études et de recherches sur le Monde Arabe contemporain) at the Université Catholique de Louvain were working on the Arab world before the Revolutions. Nevertheless, these Arab popular movements provoked a significant new wave of interests and generated numerous researches on this region. According to different interviewees, the number of researchers remains insufficient. There is a constant lack of progressive analysis and information that would help to understand all the upheavals. And even inside the academic world, disagreements in the interpretations taint the general understanding of the events. Indeed, it is not an easy task to interpret correctly profound and unstable political upheavals. However, this task becomes even more complicated since the researchers are rare.

49

Moreover, an orientalist, negative and distorted vision sticks to the Arab world and generates fears and incomprehension. Migration flows and Islam are the main causes of the general discourses conveyed on Arabs: Arab people would be anti-democratic, fanatic and dangerous. The public opinion is afraid of this “other”, represented as the perfect antithesis of the democratic Europe, progressive and enlightened (Bouchard, 2012). This idea of an archaic East was developed by Edward Said and, nowadays, feeds mainstream discourses that create more and more detachment from the Arab population’s fate (this is the case in the media, the politic speeches, and also the everyday discussions). In this context, it is even more complicated to develop an analysis free from all “Islamic” partialities. Moreover, the low number of researchers limits the ability to counteract the bad political media coverage. The exact opposite happens to the Latino-American or the Tibetans population, who directly attracts empathy and enthusiasm (Roemer, 2011, p. 75-77). Samuel Legros expressed this problem in the following words: […], dès qu’on parle des arabes, il y a un facteur qui vient brouiller le sens critique, qui empêche vraiment d’analyser les choses simplement avec bon sens37.

At the beginning of the protests, those Islamophobic discourses lessen somewhat: Arab populations were claiming inter alia democracy and liberty that represent perfect western values. However, with the systematic use of violence that occurred thereafter, deception and the slightly racist usual refrain returned in strength: “it is always the same with the Arabs, they always kill each other”… This fear of Islam and Arabs is a useful political tool, and it has to be thwarted by unbiased, critic and extensive researches that go beyond the simplistic vision conveyed today and can be intelligently popularized for the public.

The lack of good interpretative framework became flagrant and problematic as soon as the Arab political situation deteriorated.

c. Lack of organisation in Egypt “Bread, liberty and social justice”, these Egyptians and Tunisians’ slogans had this force to be broad enough to be carried by the majority of the Arab population without being strictly defined. This had the advantage to gather millions in the street of the Middle East and North Africa with different points of view, from democrats to Muslim Brothers, leftists to trade

37 Interview with Samuel Legros, Brussels, 30 June 2013. 50 unionists, etc. This allowed also in Belgium to rally different groups of persons into solidarity, each of them finding what they wanted in this movement.

Yet, seeing that the civil society in Egypt had almost no space to exist until 2011, at the beginning of the revolution the civil society was still in the process of construction. Suddenly, numerous new groups, political parties, youth organisations, trade unions appeared. To have an idea: there were two socialist or communist parties (The Popular Socialist Alliance Party, the Socialist Party of Egypt), five Center-Left parties (the Workers Democratic Party, the Revolutionary Guards, the Social Democratic Party, Equality and Development Party, the Free constitutional party or the old socialist party El Tagammu). They created complicated alliance between them38. To choose who to sustain among all these potential actors was quite complicated to decide.

In addition, no clear political program was developed at the national scale. It became thenceforth almost impossible to elaborate collective demands in Belgium and a consensus within the involved solidarity actors. Samuel Legros also observed that: Mais déjà avec l’organisation de cette manifestation on s’est rendu compte que la solidarité avec des peuples en mouvement est difficile, car ce n’est pas très tangible, il n’y a pas de revendications précises. Il y en a qui disent que c’est pour revendiquer plus de liberté politique, d’autres disent que c’est pour demander plus de droits sociaux et économiques, donc déjà là il y a une divergence dans l’analyse, ici en Belgique, même si finalement, on s’en fout vraiment des raisons pour lesquelles ils s’expriment, l’important pour moi et c’est ce que le CNAPD disait aussi, l’important c’est qu’ils s’expriment et qu’ils rejettent le pouvoir établi et les connivences qu’il y avait entre les pays du pourtour sud de la Méditerranée et l’Union Européenne39.

The uprisings’ discourse was not precise enough to make it adopt by everyone all over the world. The popular uprisings were too weak in their attacks against the ideology of neoliberalism imposed by the structural adjustments to Egypt. This vagueness allowed the Belgian actors to come their interpretations and answers or projects they thought necessary. This was the case in the platform Tahrir which was quickly jeopardized by all the different agendas and priorities carried in the project of solidarity by the associations. Samuel Legros explained that:

38 For more information, you can see the map of the Egyptian political parties in the first phase of the parliamentary elections online : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/dmas/dv/dmas20120125_02_/dmas20120125_0 2_en.pdf 39 Interview with Samuel Legros, Brussels, 30 June 2013. 51

Et à mon avis, c’est cette difficulté de circonscription, le fait que beaucoup d’associations avaient leur propre agenda et priorités à l’intérieur même du monde arabe et nous qui sommes plus généralistes dire l’« expression de la solidarité entre les peuples », qui a fait que finalement cette plate-forme n’avait pas beaucoup de raison d’être40

One claim requested by the Egyptian and Arab population was transparent: they demanded more social justice for all. However, this is quite large, and there was no clear definition of the means and reforms needed in order to reach this more social system. In this context, it is quite difficult or almost impossible to build shared objectives with international actors. It is yet one important pillar of gathering and duration for a solidarity movement if following Törn’s analyses. The anti-apartheid struggle could unite a very broad segment of the population all over the world thanks to a clearly defined common objective: the end of the apartheid (Törn, 2003, p.26).

d. National or regional struggle more than international Moreover, since the beginning of the uprisings, the international help in Egypt had been the subject of intense controversy. Accepting foreign sustains was directly a source of local disrepute and a lot of Egyptian parties were accused or accused others to work for foreigner’s pay (Shaikh, 2012, p.2). This argumentation worked a lot in the bosom of the revolution. The Egyptian power and media intensively used this accusation to publicly attack NGOs and activists. So the majority of the revolutionaries were not in favour of a foreign aid. Eva Vergaelen, a Belgian woman married to an Egyptian and quite involved in the first popular movements in Cairo, recalled that: So the revolutionaries were not really asking for western support because that would only you know, strengthened the stereotype against them. But they were never against it, so if people were coming they would be willing to give information, but more than that not really even if an international movement is always stronger. But they had also to think about the consequences, you can’t just work with any organisations or NGO’s because for example, many NGO’s now in Egypt have been blocked, boycotted because they were imposing western values, whatever41.

Going back to Blunden’s mode of assistance, the Egyptian did not accept any solidarity relationship at the international level because they did not trust the honesty of the European actors. They feared and still fear either to be again exploited by the Europeans (who would

40 Interview with Samuel Legros, Brussels, 30 July 2013. 41 Interview with Eva Vergaelen, Antwerp, 25 June 2013. 52 submit their struggle into their projects in a kind of colonized agenda) either to be recognized only for the usefulness of the same actors. If ideas and outlooks fail to transcend the national boundaries, if fears and mistrust take the lead instead of a wish to enlarge the struggle at the international, no networks, not relationships and definitely no social movement could arise. Indeed, in this context, it is impossible to develop an advocacy with a transnational vision an even less possible to share a collective identity, which is also necessary to struggle together with foreign actors (Törn, 2003, p.26). A social movement is solid if it is fed by a concept of common identity based on solidarity between all actors of the movement. Moreover, Egyptian was not convinced at all that collective actions would lead to change.

Whether in the case of the fight against apartheid or the solidarity with the Zapatistas and the Sandinista struggle, the international struggle was always defended. In the sixties, Sandino already defended the idea that the worst for a population is to fight in isolation (Roemer, 2011, p.22). This is not at all the case of the Egyptians and the Tunisians who are, in majority, fearing external interferences even if they could be beneficial.

According to Johnston and Laxer, this difficulty of understanding a struggle at an international level is higher when networks are trying to be built on tremendous differences and inequalities, which is precisly the case between Egypt and Belgium (2003, p.75). Like Gaztambide-Fernandez told it in 2012, paternalism and unequal colonial relationships remain too present in the background of the concept of solidarity. For the Egyptian, it was impossible to consider the honesty of the European civil society since most of the devastating economic reforms were imposed by Western institutions.

e. Libya and political instability All the Belgian interlocutors from PTB, PSL, LCR, Vrede and CNAPD presented the intervention in Libya as the main cause of failure of this nascent mobilisation. The NATO military invasion and the Belgium participation deeply divided the already fragile Belgian civil society involved in the solidarity process. Thomas Weyts, member of SAP/LCR, co- organizer of few actions in Ghent, described the growing tensions before the intervention and on the national demonstration that happened two days after the entry into war:

Er was in maart een nationale betoging gepland in Brussel. Ik ben naar die (voorbereiding) vergadering geweest in Brussel waar een breed gamma van organisatie en Ngo’s aanwezig waren. 11 11 11 en heel radicaal links zat daar en 53

ook groepen van mensen zoals de Tunesisch en Marokkaanse gemeenschap. Dat waren grote vergaderingen die in de aanloop van de militaire interventie in Libië vielen. Dus, op die vergaderingen was dat een zeer moeilijke discussie. Dat was een met de nationale betoging een poging die een aanloop had kunnen zijn naar een nationale beweging. Het resultaat van de zeer moeilijke discussie was dat die betoging zelf de hete aardappel van het moment uit de weg ging. Het was al aan te voelen dat dit een groot probleem was. Ik weet niet meer wat het numerieke succes van die betoging was, maar het was in ieder geval de grootste betoging die er is geweest rond de Arabische revolutie. Dat was op 20 maart 2011. Er was een breed gesteund platform maar op die betoging zelf, dat vergeet ik niet, waren er pancarten voor en tegen militaire tussenkomst en was het op dat vlak dus een puinhoop. Dat is een echte cesuur geweest.42 Pro and against war defenders could not share claims anymore, and the demonstration on the 20th March was quite representative of this split: signs for and against were carried almost side by side on this day. The ins and outs of this army intervention were not clear for everyone, and the ignorance of the Arab region’s stakes did not help in clarifying the situation. For some people, to stand by the nascent democratic process meant to save the population from its dictator through military intervention. For others, the right to protect only constitutes a way to secure external powers and their interests in the region. Consensus could not be found anymore in the urgency of the controversial situation, and the solidarity actions ceased.

Like Ludo de Brabandere explained it during his interview, people get mobilized if there is an emotional crisis, well mediatised, in which the Western implication is clearly blameworthy. Then, the public emotion can be gathered in a platform of action. This was not the case in Libya where confusion engendered demobilization.

Moreover, as Bert de Belder explained it, all the attention went to Libya. Therefore, the struggle to help Arab population in uprising shifted: Egypt and Tunisia were not the priorities anymore.

So our attention focused also on that issue, because we could directly confront NATO of which Belgium is a member state and even host the military headquarter. […] In that way, for the general public, it was also more difficult to continue solidarity in Egypt and Tunisia, and in the same time to have this different case of Libya, just in between of those two countries. So, that also meant that our positive analysis and perspective of the revolution in Egypt and Tunisia was a bit diluted by what happened in Libya first and in Syria now.43

42 Interview with Thomas Weyts, Ghent, 24 June 2013. 43 Interview with Bert de Belder, Brussels, 17 May 2013 54

Worst, this first war in Libya, the escalation of violence in Syria and the political instability in Egypt and Tunisia deeply influenced in a negative way the vision that Western countries and their civil societies had on the uprisings. From now on, the emergency of fighting violence turned out the fresh attention for the population’s mobilisations and the Egyptian and Tunisian’s uprisings came out of the European priorities. Media as well diverted their attention from these popular discontents to only come back when other new-important upheavals arose.

3. A failed attempt to build a durable transnational political solidarity

Common feeling of injustice, local popular mobilization in committees which were willing to collaborate on a national scale, transmission of alternative and quality information, use of a repertoire of political actions to denounce and claim change for the injured people, creation of several committees and organization of numerous actions in only two months, interactions between the Belgian or Egyptians authorities and the activists who required to challenge their positions, all this constitute the proof that the wish to create a transnational solidarity movement briefly existed, at least for the Belgian actors.

The attempt was there, because all Belgian actors wanted to help in making things change in this region. Everyone was against the dictatorships and wanted them to get away. Everyone wanted to offer human dignity and social justice to all these populations. The collective claims in the beginning were clear: denunciation of the usual Western political, economic and military sustains to the dictatorships, call to the European Union in order that it supports the development of a fair economic and social development and demand the respect of the population sovereignty44. These claims were expressed in several political actions (demonstrations, public statement and committees emerged).

However, the solidarity attempt did not leave the field of emotion, and soon confusion replaced enthusiasm. The committees exploded after three months before doing something

44 This is the main claims of the National protest in March 2011. See : http://cubanismo.net/cms/nl/agenda/nationale-manifestatie-solidariteit-met-de-bevolking-van-noord-afrika-en- het-midden-oosten 55 tangible. Several structural characteristics missed to this attempt in order to become a real social movement. Alisson Sephton presented the determinants of success of transnational social movement in her evaluation of the global call to action against poverty coalition (online, p. 4-11). There are at least four criteria to fulfill in order to define solidarity relationships as transnational social movements. Let see if how it apply to our Belgian actors.

First of all Social movement needs to have a transnational collective identity to mobilize large group of individuals. Defined by McAdam Tarrow and Tilly as: the mutual identification of actors in different sites as being sufficiently similar to justify common action (2001, p.29), no collective identity existed in the case of the Egyptian revolution. Even at the Belgian scale, common identity could not be found after three months of mobilization. Lack of connection, of information, of actors, of consensus within the Belgian civil society impeded any development. Moreover, the dialogue was always complicated between all the different agendas, and this was particularly visible for the preparation of the first national protest. It is worse at the transnational level between Egypt and Belgium since no relationships of trust and collaboration at all could be developed! These difficulties would have been maybe overcome if a coherent anti-establishment interlocutor with a clear political program organized from below had existed in Egypt.

Secondly, to develop a social movement, the actors should be active, with expertise and high density of institutionalized work. None of this adverb could represent the small solidarity actions in Belgium. Their expertise was limited and the exchange of information between Egypt and Belgium was low. All Belgian actors complained about the lack of citizen or organizational involvement. Finally, the lack of interests in Egypt for the European enthusiasm prevented any development of further international dimension and soon destroyed any hint to create a real solidarity movement.

Unlike the Zapatista struggle, the Arab’s uprisings could not yet organized a dynamic of neoliberal criticism in which their struggle would become universal and carried by everyone around the world. According to the Zapatista, being solidaire means to fight everywhere the consequences of the unjust economic system (Olexen, 2004, p. 260-261). It is what the Arab populations have still to organize, a strong anti-neoliberal power behind which everyone can 56 join. The imprecision of their struggle makes the distance too big between their fate and ours; the common feeling of injustice is diluted in the misunderstanding of each other’s situation. What only remained thus was the will to clarify the Egyptian and Tunisian’s fate when new upheavals occurred that further complicated the picture. The Egyptian revolutionaries did not succeed or mainly did not wish in presenting their issues in a trans-national way which could be carried by European as well. According to Olesen, it is one major pitfall of global solidarity: It is increasingly important for such groups to interpret and present their particular problems and issues in a way that gives them trans-national resonance. […] But obtaining this is no easy task, especially for those who have few resources in terms of technology and education (Olesen, 2004, p. 263). The revolutionaries are still in the process of building their argumentation, which is a particularly difficult exercise in a period of instability and political changes. Confronted with this uncomfortable instability, the first actors of solidarity who tried to develop a transnational solidarity against the global economic system abandoned this project and moved their priorities to other easier struggles before building any coalition, mass-based solidarity movement.

57

The solidarity in pictures

In front of the Egyptian embassy, 29 January 2011 6 February 2011 Protest, Brussels

Cover of the “Solidair”special revolution, PTB, 2011

February 2011, Protest for Mubarak’s departure, Brussels 58

LCR and PVDA publications of solidarity posters

Call for the national Manifestation, 20 March 2011

59

CHAPTER IV: After emotion, construction?

1. What transition after Mubarak?

1. Under the SCAF

After Mubarak’s departure, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forced (SCAF) ruled Egypt between February 2011 and June 2012. The General Tantawi at the head of the transitional government used violence to repress the ongoing massive protests. The ECESR (Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights) estimates that 468 people were killed during the military transition45. In terms of governance, the same economic model was preserved and reinforced with the signature of the Deauville Partnership in May 2011 between the G8 and several Arab countries in transition: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. The same model of indebtedness was thus maintained with a loan of 16 billion US$ promised to Egypt in order to support their political and economic development. Moreover, the army passed a law of impunity for the investors. With the SCAF, one of the major economic actor owning almost 25% of the Egyptian market, a general status quo was preserved in a complete lack of transparency46.

In June 2012, the candidate of the , Mohamed Morsi, was elected at the second round with 51.7% of the votes. He was facing a figure of the old regime: the last Prime Minister under Mubarak. The choice was obviously quite limited for all revolutionaries. With Morsi, the hoped democratic process continued its road with inter alia the writing of a new constitution in November 2012.

2. Morsi and his deposal

On the 30th of June 2013, Tahrir and all major Egyptian cities were once again the scene of huge demonstrations. Morsi’s politic did not represent the population’s wish of change. The same security mentality and neoliberal policies were applied with the Muslim Brotherhood.

45 Dixit Mahinour el Badrawi, in her presentation during the CADTM seminar on Egyptian and Tunisian debt November 11th 2013. 46 Mahinour el Badrawi’s presentation on the 11th November 2013. 60

Repression of protests (with almost 500 killed before June 30th, 2013); continuous lack of transparency; defence of privatisation measures in sectors like education, health, transports and electricity; all this with the foreign support of IFIs, in particular the IMF and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which saw its mandate broadened to the Arab Region just after the revolutions in 2011 (El Nour, 2013). According to Xavier from CEE Bankwatch, the EBERD in the countries of the old Soviet Union always privileged economy to democracy, private sector to public services. This Bank participated in the establishment of a legal framework favourable to privatizations and pays only limited attention to social issues and human rights matters. Its goal: to ensure the flows of resources to the European Union47. To satisfy the IMF in order to receive a new loan offer of 4.8 billion US$, the government took several measures like the suppression of subsidies in the heavy industry and on butane gas. Gas prices, therefore, increased by 150% with a massive impact on the poorest. It is indeed the prices on transports, goods and alimentations (like the bread prepared in gas ovens) that raised the most. Moreover, tax exemptions on basic food products (sugar, milk) were removed, producing 30 percent augmentation48. All these measures were taken to reinsure foreign investors and IFIs, even if it further deteriorated social and economic conditions what was precisely the contrary of the population’s demands.

At a political level, the Muslim Brothers applied a strategy of exclusion, refusing any dialogue with other political tendencies, offering powerful political positions to their members and muzzling any opposition. Through the Constitutional Declaration from November 2012, Mohamed Morsi was protected from any legal attack: all his decisions were from now on immune, and the constitutional committee was indissoluble. Only written by Islamists since all non-Islamic actors had withdrawn from the committee and thus without any respect for political balance, the constitution included discriminatory clauses for women (inter alia, no minimum age for marriage and the right to work limited by the domestic duties) 49. Austerity, business as usual with priority for the investors over the population, repression, by using these usual methods, the Muslim Brothers provoked the population’s anger. To have an idea of the massive population disapproval, 9427 demonstrations occurred during Morsi’s

47 Xavier Sol, presentation on the loans from European public Banks in Tunisia and Egypt during the International Symposium of the CADTM on the debt and Human Rights, 12th November 2013. 48 Mahinour El Badrawi, Speaking Notes: Belgium Nov11-14, Egypt’s Revolutions: Economic Crisis, Foreign Debt and Economic and Social Rights. 49 Interview with Mahinour El Badrawi from the ECESR, Brussels, 2 October 2013. 61 year in power. In 2013, it was more than 1100 demonstrations per month that took place in Egypt, with, in addition, strikes, sit-in or marches (Nada, 2013). Egyptians demonstrated seven times more than during the last year of Mubarak’s rule.

On the first of May 2013, a coalition of different laic movements, revolutionaries and old regime supporters created the Tamarrod movement (whose name means “Rebellion”). They launched a petition that required Morsi’s resignation and new elections. By the 30th of June 2013, the group claimed a petition signed by 22 millions of Egyptians50 and massive demonstrations led to the seizure of power by the army, once again, on the 3rd of July 2013.

2. The following Belgian solidarity

Thanks to the timeline of actions, the emergence of a second phase can be highlighted between May 2011 and the end of June 2013. After the first political rush and the citizen’s craze for the uprisings, emerged two kinds of complementary dynamics. On one hand, it is a period of information’s production and sharing with the holding of conferences and publication of numerous articles. These informative events are the result of this need to understand, expressed by the first Belgian stakeholders of solidarity, in the previous party. On the other hand, qualitative partnerships are built between specialized organizations and experts from each country are travelling to meet their interlocutors. Seven travels and seminars occurred after Libya, gathering personalities from Egypt and Belgium. This shows that new kind of work and collaboration are developed, not based anymore on popular and citizen actors but well on specific organisations.

1. Information replaced political actions a. Conferences and articles The first actors failed to gather under collective claims and identity and to organize long-term mass mobilisation with durable Egyptian partnerships. Thereafter, their interests on the Arab uprisings remained but in a mild form: they all still want to understand the evolution in the

50 This is a contested number. According to some channels, there were only 15 millions of signatures (see for example the article in “Le Monde” on the 29th of June 2013 : http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2013/06/29/-15-millions-de-signatures-contre-le-president- egyptien_3437702_3212.html). 62 region, so they limited their work to informative events. As Johnston and Laxer said it (2003, p. 48), information is the weapon of the weak. It is the only way to be able to understand, denounce injustices and build structures for change. Rudy De Meyer from 11 11 11 underlined this wish of understanding which is currently felt among the Flemish organizations. They even created a Middle East committee to keep on informing themselves and their publics (the Midden-Oostenoverleg): Met de Midden-Oostengroep hebben we beslist om te beginnen met studiedagen te doen. We hebben wel een soort actieplatform rond Palestina. En we zullen zien wat er verder komt. […] Het is de bedoeling om het veld van kennis wat te vergroten zodat er meer leden geïnteresseerd geraken. Ook duidelijk te maken hoe belangrijk de regio is. En dan daar dan acties op te bouwen.

Half of the fourteen lectures that took place during this period were organized by actors of the first political wave of actions. These debates and conferences are mostly focusing on the Arab Revolution in general. In the same time, these actors published several articles on their website, sometimes with a focus on the particular situation of each Arab country. - LCR/SAP is the most “active” actor, with still one debate per year on the Arab spring during their annual anticapitalist formation organized by the Leon Lesoil Formation (timeline: 33). They also published several articles about Egypt (it is mainly translations of articles written by the Revolutionary socialists, their sister organisation, or public position of some leftist analyst like Gilbert Achcar). - the Middle-Oostenoverleg including Vrede, 11 11 11 and Menarg held one debate at the Ghent University (26) - the CNAPD continued to show interests to the Arab popular mobilisations with two lunches called “midi de la CNAPD” (18, 27, 38) - PTB/PVDA also organized one conference during the festival Manifiesta and its Summer Marxist University in 2011 (20, 22). After that, the PTB/PVDA does not show interest in the Egyptian case anymore. - PSL/ASL, the smallest leftist party in Belgium, did not do anything anymore on Egypt. They only developed some contacts with Tunisian activists. These activities remain pretty derisory: one action a year per activity, this is not so much. The enthusiasm has greatly diminished.

Among the actors who are invisible on the timeline but who must be mentioned, stands the Diaspora. Mourad Samy (promoter of the forthcoming anti-Morsi protests) and Waleed Ali 63

(organizer of the forthcoming Pro-Morsi mobilization in Brussels) created together a blog on the Egyptian political situation, quickly after the revolution. Dissensions in the comprehension of the political events conducted yet to the closing of the informative project. Like the previous actor, the small diaspora disappeared from the political scene just after the Libya military intervention and would not come back until the 30th of June 2013, as it will be explained later.

During this period, several new Belgian organizations invested some energy in the holding of debates about the Arab Revolutions. In the same vein than the previous actors, the French Christian labour movement, MOC (Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien) linked to the Christian Trade Unions, showed interest in these uprisings. They focused their attention mainly on the role of the social organisations since they also constituted a social movement in Belgium. Therefore, they published a special publication of their newspaper “le choux” and prepared with the CIEP (Centre of Information and Popular Education, linked to the MOC) two study- days on the subjects of social organisations and trade unions’ contributions in the upheavals. However, their involvement in the topic quickly ran out of steam, and they only organized these two actions.

The next section dwells on one specific actor who went deeper in its whish to sustain the Egyptian uprisings.

b. A solidarity trip to understand Revolutionary dynamics A movement, Intal, denotes from the other groups in its approach about the Arab Spring. Intal is an international solidarity movement financially and politically linked to “Medicine for the Third World” (M3M, Médecine pour le Tiers Monde). They work with local partners located in four regions: Palestine, Congo, the Philippines and South America. They relay the work and the situation of their partners through sensitization in Belgium and later lobby on the Belgian government in order to reduce their involvement in the numerous injustices existing in the “South” 51. Their goal is to create a strong anti-establishment power in the North that denounces the omnipresent exploitation system and promotes equal “North/South” relationships. They sustain thenceforth particular local organisations which act in the same optic of citizen

51 Interview with Elise Broyard from Intal, Brussels, 23 May 2013. 64 empowerment, and denounce the logic of humanitarianism and Christian charity. Since they have structural connection with M3M, Intal particularly struggles for the right to health, the access to water and the right to decent work. The movement works with around 600 volunteers (often young workers and students) gathered in local groups mostly present in Brussels and Flanders.

Intal developed an interesting mobilisation process called SOM in French for “Savoir, Organiser, Mobiliser” that means in English: to know, to organise and to mobilize, in order to make changes happen. According to Elise, employee at Intal, this process has been used with success in several cases52. Intal’s logic of change is based on the force of social movements, on the weight of organized citizens. Thus, Intal offers permanent political formations based on conferences and travels (=Savoir) and a structure of volunteer groups (=Organisation) which create actions (=Mobilisation). These groups organize campaigns on several topics often rallied by other organizations in order to create more efficient platforms of actions. For Joaquim Da Fonseca, employee at Intal, the solidarity trips have a particular importance in Intal’s strategy: […] les voyages qu’on fait à l’étranger servent à nous renseigner, nous alimenter et à motiver nos jeunes pour combattre les politiques belges et européennes surtout maintenant, qu’on estime néfaste pour les pays pour lesquels on est solidaire53.

They called the trips solidarity travels, because the travellers leave Belgium with a specific point of view. It is not travelling to understand. The process of analyzing is done before the departure. It is a travel to sustain victims who are mobilized against the exploitation system in which Belgium has responsibilities. It has for purpose to feed participants with emotion and to give them strength and motivation to carry out a campaign to help the persons they met.

Although Egypt is not part of their area of action, Intal decided to organize such a solidarity travel in 2012, one year and a half after the beginning of the uprisings. Before 2012, the movement only timidly took part to the first wave of Belgian mobilization in February and March 2011, mainly by relaying the calls for demonstrations on their website. Travelling to Egypt was quite extraordinary, and justified by a strategic and practical choice. Of course, the important position of Egypt in the region and its intense mobilizations to reach

52 For example, in the Philippines, people previously living in slums were relocated to a place where rents were too high. They conducted a survey with 200 families through which they achieved to reduce rents by half. (Interview of Elise Broyard from Intal) 53 Interview with Joaquim da Fonseca from Intal, Brussels, 23 May 2013. 65 social justice played a role in this choice. However, a more pragmatic reason also confirmed the trip: a member of Intal’s staff had Egyptian relatives who could facilitate the logistic of such a tour in a country where they had never been before. That was not the case for Tunisia for example. This pretty down-to-earth destination proves again the crucial importance of contacts and partnerships in the development of any collaboration and solidarity development.

The main purpose of the journey was to understand the struggle and the dynamics that make uprisings live. That was also the principal motivation of all participants who travel to Egypt. Marc-Antoon de Schrijver recalled it: Maar omwille van de politieke evoluties in Tunesië, Egypte en elders, dachten we Egypte is interessant om de dynamiek te bestuderen van revolutie, contrarevolutie, want wat we natuurlijk toen ook al door dus het was toevallig de enige tijd na januari evenementen. Wat we hadden al begrepen dat niet eenvoudig was een revolutie, bam succes, socialistische samenleving of zo, dus dat een moeilijk dynamiek was van revolutie en contra revolutie, en dat wouden we bestuderen54. Like the first political actors in Belgium, Intal and its volunteers could project high hopes on this revolutionary process since the purpose of the movement and its members is to build a real countervailing power. Going to Egypt allowed studying how the revolutionaries were organizing themselves and eventually providing tips and ways to strengthen their Belgian movement.

The participants did not leave without any background. A whole preparation was planned before the departure: one preparatory travel to organize a program with relevant organisations and actors involved in the uprisings; one weekend of formation with lectures and debates on Egypt’s political situation; a conference with Samir Amin (French-Egyptian Marxist economist); several preparatory groups which analyzed the situation in Egypt and made researches on some sector in Belgium and Egypt in order to build a real exchange of ideas and offer something during the meetings. The question of the travel’s outputs rose very quickly too: it was planned that the participants would write articles in the press, on a public blog, that they would make a tour of lectures in the local Intal groups on their return and finally become ambassador for the launch of a new campaign of solidarity. Indeed, to travel with the only goal to understand a situation is not enough for a solidarity trip. The purpose was also to mobilize the Belgians participants in order to build a campaign back

54 Interview with Marc-Antoon De Schrijver, volunteer at Intal, Brussels, 10 June 2013. 66 home, which denounces the Belgian and European policies towards the region, since they never helped the population, but only allowed a small clique of capitalists to get richer. It was also planned to understand the process of counter-revolution and the European meddling in it, in order to denounce their conservative role in the uprisings and thus the maintaining at all costs of the previous commercial and economic system.

On their return a group was created, the Great Middle East with two travellers. All the participants became actors of sensitization in Belgium and remained involved in Intal but on different subjects. However, several obstacles impeded the creation of a campaign on Egypt and more long-term work on this country, as Joaquim put it: Ça c’est le problème avec l’Egypte, on n’a pas trouvé, moi j’ai mon idée là-dessus, mais on ne peut pas tout faire. Donc, par rapport à l’Egypte, selon moi, il y a une campagne à faire, vachement importante, mais que Intal pour une raison de force, de choix, parce qu’on estime qu’il y a d’autres priorités et que pour l’instant on n’est pas assez gros pour le faire, pour l’instant on n’a pas mené de campagne concrète pour l’Egypte55.

Intal encountered the same issues than the first wave of solidarity: First of all, the movement’s structural work is focused on others regions of the world and it does not have enough human and financial resources to put new priorities on Egypt and the Arab world. Secondly, in contrast to their usual solidarity travels, they did not have real partnerships (outside personal relationships) before going there and did not maintain contacts with the few they met afterward. Moreover, they encountered in Egypt a deep division in the civil society, with, for example, four different socialist parties. To decide whom to sustain became almost impossible. Intal even forgot to ask an evaluation to the people they met, which they usually do. Besides, the Belgian could not find revolutionaries enthusiast by International solidarity; as it was already said, the majority want to struggle on their own, afraid to be jeopardized by Western agenda or defamed by the government and media. Sam illustrated particularly well these reluctances: […] et on demandait toujours aux gens, si nous on retourne en Belgique, qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire pour vous et soutenir la lutte. Et ils disaient toujours : ben c’est très important que tu ailles en Belgique et que tu puisses en parler, de ce qui se passe ici, et que les gens sachent tout ça et pour le reste, c’est notre lutte, c’est nous qui devons le faire et on doit encore voir comment ça va se dérouler, parce que c’est pas sur encore avec Morsi au pouvoir. C’était très flou56.

55 Interview with Joaquim da Fonseca, Brussles, 23 May 2013 56 Interview with Sam Mampaey, Brussels, 25 June 2013. 67

They only asked to talk about their struggle in Belgium, for the rest, it was, and it is still their battle. In this case, it is complicated to organize something internationally.

Furthermore, in the emergency of the upheavals, Intal did not develop a campaign before leaving, like they usually do. Due to the Egyptian confusion on the main issues, no clear campaign could be defined. For Joaquim da Fonseca, employee at Intal, the movement made a mistake in the programming and was, therefore, mired in the complexity of the situation. He expressed this frustration in those words: D’abord trouver la campagne et puis partir en voyage. Et puis, si le voyage change ta campagne, et ben, c’est la vie quoi, tu vois. Mais, d’abord dire ok, on pense que depuis la Belgique la chose la plus intéressante à faire c’est, et franchement pas besoin d’aller sur place pour le savoir. […] Et pourquoi pas cette fois-ci ? Parce qu’il y avait un peu l’urgence du printemps arabe, et que ça grandissait, donc on s’est dit que l’on allait bien trouver une campagne. Et pour aussi une raison de personnel, de raison vraiment objective, on n’a pas eu toutes les forces qu’on voulait, et puis c’est un sujet vraiment compliqué. Le printemps arabe qui était tellement clair, tellement limpide est devenu qqch de très complexe maintenant, hein. Si tu appuies sur un bouton, tu as plusieurs effets possibles, et heu, voilà57.

For Joaquim, the opposite should happen: first to develop a campaign and then to go there to strengthen their motivation. Unfortunately, there are not so many structured organizations with a clear anti-neoliberal vision in Egypt willing to work in an international coalition in the middle of political upheavals and repressions. Thenceforth, their wish to engage the movement in a solidarity work came to nothing.

In the light of this complexity, Intal’s staff changed the movement’s priorities in accordance with the public opinion’s interests in order to make their movement grow: Mais notre travail est aussi orienté vers le fait de toucher un nouveau public et de les insérer dans une dynamique d’un mouvement pour changer les choses. On doit donc pour cela être proche de l’actualité. On peut faire de la solidarité avec l’Egypte, mais la réponse du public ne sera pas énorme. Par contre si on fait qqch sur la Syrie, la réponse sera plus large. Pour réaliser nos objectifs, il nous faut donc nous tourner vers là où l’attention se trouve58.

As Mario stressed it above, Egypt is not fashionable anymore and thus, it is not advantageous for Intal to still focus on Egypt if they want to attract new volunteers. Therefore, they have to connect to the actuality and move to other thematic more fashionable.

57 Interview with Joaquim da Fonseca, Brussels, 23 May 2013 58 Interview with Mario Franssen, Brussels, 23 May 2013. 68

Despite all these problems, Joaquim da Fonseca is still convinced that Intal should work more on the Egyptian and more broadly the Arab case. For him, there is a clear campaign to build on the new commercial agreements with the region introduced by the Deauville Partnership. That could be carried together with the CNCD also working on this subject: […]Pour moi la priorité maintenant par rapport à l’Egypte, ce n’est pas s’emmêler dans les affaires égyptiennes, c’est annuler les accords de libre commerce avec l’Egypte, la Tunisie, la Libye, le Maroc et permettre tout en ayant des échanges culturels, commerciaux, etc, à l’Egypte d’avoir un certain protectionnisme économique le temps qu’il puisse se refaire. Et là, on ne va pas du tout dans ce sens- là, […]59.

Because, for him, on a global scale, all people need to be solidary with Egypt and the whole world that suffers: […] parce qu’on sait que ce qu’il leur arrive à eux, ça pourrait nous arriver à nous aussi, c’est un peu la loi du plus fort60.

Our fates are linked, and we are all the victims of this law of the strongest, at different scales. So in Belgium, citizens can lobby the government in order to truly sustain populations and not privilege private and foreign interests as it is usually the case.

c. Information relays The lack of shared lectures of the current Egyptian situation is one of the most-challenging issues, this is why, after emotion, information took the lead in the Belgian activities around the region. This led us to another kind of actor, which plays a crucial role and particularly lacked in Belgium: analyzers, researchers, people who could explain the complexity of the situation without simplifying it; people who are not influenced by racist or truncated visions and can understand the issues hidden behind every new upheaval. I interviewed several persons who are assuming this function: Ghalia Djelloul, Ph.D. researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain; Eva Vergaelen, former journalist, married to an Egyptian and who lived several years in Egypt before and during the revolution; Ruud Gielens, Belgian actor and stage director also married to an Egyptian actress and living between Egypt and Belgium. Natacha David from ITUC, Mahinour el Badrawi, researcher at the Egyptian Center for the Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) or Brecht de Smet, my

59 Interview with Joaquim da Fonseca, Brussels, 23 May 2013. 60 Idem 69 promoter, they also constitute these few essential bridges of understanding between the Belgian society and the Egyptian one. During her interview, Eva Vergaelen expressed the role she thought she had to assume: Because people has a really different view on what’s happening in Egypt.[…] So I think, mainly, it was about countering the negative perception that exists here in Belgium.[…] I think, different human stories has to be told, because it’s so complicated, so the more different story you have, the most faces we have, the more we can understand the complexity61.

It is a major ascertainment of the entire Belgian civil society: they do not know Egypt, its context and civil society and the people who could enlighten them on this topic are very rare. Moreover, a revolution is a complex phenomenon that never has a quick perfect ending after the first uprisings. It is something that takes time, with up and downs, with slow but sure empowerments of the population. Thenceforth, uprisings and popular revolution can not be easily interpreted, and that has to be reminded again and again in order to avoid simplistic point of view and denunciation. Ruud Gielens, comedian living in Cairo, expressed the issue of information and analyses: Les analyses claires sur les évènements sont aussi impossibles, savoir si c’est une bonne chose ou non. Il y a trop de questions. Et il y a tellement de gens qui posent des questions, comme toi aussi, et je trouve ça trop difficile de répondre parce que tu sais que c’est un processus dans lequel on est et qu’on n’est pas encore à la fin de ce qui va se passer62.

The Arab world suffers also from one more difficulty: its image in Western imagination. Even if we are living next to each other, with only the Mediterranean Sea to separate the countries, the communication and knowledge about the Arab region are very poor. This has something to do with the ambient racism conveyed by both the media and politicians. Eva Vergaelen pointed out this poor media coverage in Belgium, always imbued with stereotypes: It is always the first thing which comes when you speak about Islam and in the media, it is women’s rights as if we are not suppressed in any other countries, system, religion; it always come together: how can you be Muslim and feminist and activist63?

Ghalia Djelloul noticed that, when press interviewed her several times about the increase of rapes against women under Mohamed Morsi. The first question was systematically the

61 Interview with Eva Vergaelen, Antwerp, 25 June 2013. 62 Interview with Ruud Gielens, actor, Skype call, 14 October 2013. 63 Interview with Eva Vergaelen, Antwerp, 25 June 2013. 70 following: is it due to the Islamic government in power? Feminist issues were always the first subject of interests, as if that patriarchal system existed only in the Arab world. For Eva and a significant number of interviewees, media are biased by a general phobia of Islam that feed populist policies and fear of Arab: It really fits in their discourse against Islam, because the whole of Europe and definitely in Flanders, politicians are gaining votes on the backs of Muslims. And this fit in their discourse, “you know, Muslim countries can’t be democracies”, so the media fit the Islamophobia which already exists64.

Their role of “relay” is, therefore, essential to give a more nuanced and correct vision of the Middle East and thus overcome all these clichés. For Ghalia, creating independent knowledge and being able to transmit it is already the beginning of a forceful counter-power: C’est un peu une forme de contre-pouvoir, produire une connaissance indépendante qui va permettre de se poser d’autres questions, de réfuter les thèses des uns et des autres, les discours des pro-frères, des anti-trucs, en fait tout le monde a les mains dans le sac, mais c’est juste empêcher la pensée de tourner en rond65.

Indeed, the more people will be aware of the various issues of an event, the less it will be easy to fool and to satisfy them with simplistic and racist speeches. Then, a new empowered generation could arise, aware of every challenge and able to criticize the policies implemented by their governments. This is why all these actors communicate largely in the media, every time they can. It is also the primary reason that motivated Ruud Gielens to put on a show on the military and police violence in Egypt. By this mean of communication, he wanted to connect with the Western audiences, to offer a personal and emotional contact with the complex reality of Egypt and to go out of the media battle happening in Egypt and Europe that lead to truncated vision of the reality.

Besides giving enlightenments about a complex situation, which is the first step to understanding and thus empathy, these actors perform another important function: they are the ones who allow the creation of networks, helping in connecting organisations, people, and revolutionaries. The network is the second step to equal solidarity relationships on a global scale: […] pour moi, ce qui est très important c’est de les mettre en réseau avec des gens ici, c’est de leur offrir une visibilité, des possibilités d’entrer en contact et enfin de leur

64 Idem. 65 Interview with Ghalia Djelloul, Brussels, 14 July 2013. 71

permettre d’élaborer et de réfléchir ensemble sur ce qui pourrait être fait sans mettre en avant trop un agenda d’un côté ou de l’autre66. Thanks to understanding, communication and networking, people who want to show solidarity, can get out of colonialist help, get out of their agenda and build common strategy of action together.

66 Interview with Ghalia Djelloul, Brussels, 14 July 2013. 72

The solidarity in pictures, part two. The 20th March National Protest in Brussels

MOC and CIEP’s Study day, 13 January 2012. 73

Study Day at Ughent, 21 February 2012 Protest against sexual harassment in Egypt, Brussels, 12 February 2013.

Invitation for the Intal Travel to Egypt 74

2. Development of sectoral advocacy collaborations

Intal’s travel constitutes the last aborted attempt to structure a transnational social movement with Egypt. However, Intal does not remain alone in its strategy of partnerships for durable change and improvement of the socio-economic situation.

As we may see it on the timeline, other Belgian actors entered in contact with potential partners in Egypt and developed other kind of activities: exchange of information, creation of network, seminars and travel of expert. These actions did not appear just after the revolution, it took time to find the potential partners and organize this more long-term collaboration which could fit in the definition of transnational coalition or transnational advocacy network. Three themes are the ground for these new solidarity coalitions with Egypt: worker’s rights, social-economical justice and feminism. These are not brand new struggles: worker’s right was the basis of the first Marxist social movement; the economic justice has been the subject of the anti-globalization mobilization and numerous movements; the feminist fight has also old roots. These three topics of mobilization have a strong background of mobilization. The novelty is that these actors had to create new coalitions in the Arab world.

a. Worker’s rights

The actors Worker’s right organizations were the first to establish contacts with interlocutors in Egypt in order to elaborate common cooperation projects. The two main Belgian trade unions are involved at different scale: the socialist one, General Federation of Belgian Labour (FGTB/ABVV) is the first and the most active followed by the Confederation of Christian Trade Union (CSC/ACV). It is interesting to note that the small liberal trade union (CGSLB/ACLVB) is not involved in any kind of solidarity with neither Egypt nor Tunisia. It can be explained by the size of this union which is smaller than the other two, or also other political priorities. Their international work is coordinated by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) which manages inter-union projects between different countries in order to realize freedom of association and decent work everywhere around the globe. It is important to note that the ITUC determines the partners of union’s projects. Karin Debroey, in charge of the 75 labour relationships with partners in Africa and the Arab World at the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC/ACV), recalled that: C’est aussi une sorte de répartition du travail au sein de la CSI : on se concerte et on voit quels pays, quel syndicat peut appuyer quel syndicat dans le sud. ET pour les égyptiens, il y a beaucoup de programmes qui viennent de chez les américains (EFSAO), et les scandinaves ont aussi pas mal de programmes de coopérations. [… ] Mais, à nous, ils ont plus ou moins dit : vous les belges, faites la Tunisie et le Maroc étant donné que vous êtes là depuis toujours67.

Formally, or at least in the frame of the ITUC, Belgian trade unions did not have to develop structural link with Egypt. FGTB is in charge of the collaboration with Moroccan unions and CSC with Tunisia. It is the American and the Scandinavians that work more on Egypt, due to historical bonds and language facilities. Yet, there is also an internal choice of the federation to work or not on Egypt. It is the case with FGTB that chose to involve more time and energy in relationships with the country. CSC for it part is historically more involved in Asia and did not choose to open new frame of actions excepted with Tunisia. As the trade unions are also based on local unions, local partnerships are sometimes developed outside the frame of the federation. In this context, it must be admitted that the language factor plays a crucial role in the choice of the country. For example the CSC local union from Namur in Belgium that decided to develop a structural link with the small trade union CGTT68 in Tunisia mainly because of the language, as they both speak French, which facilitates the relationship69.

Until the revolution, the trade union landscape in Egypt was quite limited. Only one national trade union, created in 1957 existed: the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF). Controlled by the state, it acted as a security service within the workers, quelling any attempt to associate instead of sustaining and improving working conditions. Members of the ETUF even served as a conservative and pro-Mubarak force during the uprisings, in order to shake the massive mobilisation. According to Natacha David, coordinator of the relations with the ITUC Middle East offices, the leader of the ETUF was riding a camel during the famous

67 Interview with Karin Debroey from CSC, Brussels, 9 September 2013. 68 Confédération Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens 69 Meeting with CGTT Delegation and the local Central CSC from Namur, Louvain-la-Neuve, February 2014. 76

Battle of the Camel on the Wednesday 2 February 2011, in which pro-Mubarak defenders violently invaded the Tahrir place, beating every present person70. It is only after the impressive Mahalla strike movements in 2006 that four small independent trade unions were formed (De Smet, 2012, pp. 267-268, pp. 273-281). Karin Debroey underlined the absence of relationships with Egypt: […] historiquement, nous n’avions aucun contact avec les syndicats égyptiens. ETUF (Egyptian Trade Union Federation), qui était carrément un syndicat inféodé au pouvoir, qui ne permettait pas de libre et même la loi sur la liberté d’association et le code de travail en vigueur ne permettaient même pas de réaliser la liberté syndicale, ils n’acceptaient qu’un syndicat par secteur. Donc il n’y avait pas vraiment de relation de partenariat avec eux71.

Indeed, since there was no recognized and independent trade union, there was no possibility to develop international labour work with Egypt before the 25th January revolution.

The Egyptian revolution led to the strengthening and formalization of the new independent trade unions. From that moment on, ITUC and its members began to collaborate with the nascent Egyptian trade unions, mainly the independent organization EFITU (the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Union) and in a second time with the smaller Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC).

Their solidarity The solidarity work is built around two types of actions. First of all, Western trade unions sustain social movements in the South in order to give them durability and a real anchor in their country. This is done through political, financial and material supports with a preference for expertise based sustain. Christian Vancoppenolle, policy advisor and coordinator of the International Relations Department of the General Federation of Belgian Labour (FGTB/ABVV) stressed that requirement: Ce qu’on veut faire, c’est donner notre expertise pour du soutien logistique, organisationnel, formation, communication, dans ces domaines. Mais c’est ça aussi qu’ils demandent maintenant72.

In the Egyptian case, several seminars with delegations from the two countries were programmed to identify together the assistance that needed to be provided. Christian Vancoppenolle went a couple times to Egypt but also to Tunisia and Jordan in order to build

70 See Natacha David’s presentation for the lunch information about Egypt organized by CNCD and 11 11 11 on the 25th October 2013. 71 Interview with Karin Debroey from CSC, Brussels, 9 September 2013. 72 Interview with Christian Vancoppenolle, FGTB/ABVV, Brussels, 17 October 2013. 77 healthy relationships with the unions there. An international emergency fund was also soon set up by the ITUC to gather financial help for nascent trade unions. Letters of solidarity denouncing illegal arrests or violence were written; one political action took place in front of the Egyptian embassy and finally FGTB/ABVV sustained a complaint of the two independent trade unions against the Egyptian government as it is one of the countries that violates the most rights and freedoms of associations. FGTB/ABVV also developed a study about the condition of legislation for women in several countries (Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine), and they are today asking funds for a second project about Arab women.

Secondly, they organized an important work of information, consultation and awareness in Belgium about the situation in the Arab world. Study days and articles in the unions’ newspapers (“Syndicat” for the FGTB/ABVV, “Democratie” for the CSC) enabled to inform on the situation prevailing in this region. It aims at getting out of the simple but efficient argument of competition among workers and showing the similarities in the claims here and there. All this strategy of sensitization is perceived as primordial in the formation of solidarity relationships73.

There is thus a dual work based on the idea that all workers are fighting for the same purpose: in the North, trade unions sensitize public opinion on this parallel situation and in the South they strengthen the struggling partners.

Obstacles The obstacles are less important as trade unions already have common claims to defend and their partners could be more quickly defined. Two significant barriers are thus overcome. The absence of traditional work with the region nevertheless had an impact on the time it took to find partners and to implement collaboration. It is only ten months after the beginning of the revolution that the first Egyptian workers’ delegation came to Belgium. It also limited the start of a real collaboration, as the Egyptian interlocutors were brand new and needed to define themselves and strengthen their position among the workers.

73 Idem. 78

The financial constraints already limited the Belgian liberal union which is not involved at all. The CSC also complains about difficulties to follow the region. Due to a different priorities’ choice, Karin Debroey is alone to monitor the situation in whole Africa and Arab world, and the CSC do not intend to involve more resources in the topic. They still found a trick to overcome the situation without changing the financial allocation: from now on a pensioner is following the MENA area with Karin.

Moreover, due to the Egyptian instability, ITUC called for with the trade unions there. It is the reason of the minimal involvement of the Christian confederation, as Karin Debroey argued: L’Egypte on a fait moins, parce que la situation n’est pas facile en Egypte, surtout la CSI à différentes reprises nous a dit, écoute, soyez un peu prudent, parce que vous risquez de créer encore plus de problèmes pour les mouvements sociaux là bas, parce que le gouvernement a une sorte de discours anti-impérialisme occidental, à dénoncer les organisations soi-disant financées. Il y a des choses bizarres qui s’écrivaient dans leur journaux, disant que c’était des gens financés par l’extérieur, ce ne sont pas vraiment des mouvements de souche, ce sont des agents de l’extérieur. Donc il faut être prudent, c’est la CSI qui nous a demandé d’être prudents74 . The instability also has an impact on the trade unions’ strengthening and claims. The Belgian actors are limited by the construction of Egyptian proposals as well as curbed by the several political changes that Egypt has been undergoing for three years.

b. Economic and political work

The actors and their solidarity Organisations that work on the economy, the finance or political lobbies are also active around the Arab world. I interviewed three organisations on these subjects: CEE Bankwatch, the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt) and the CNCD-11 11 11 (the national platform for cooperation and development).

CEE Bankwatch is not a Belgian association but has one office of lobby located in Brussels since the European Parliament and Institutions are established in the European capital. Bankwatch is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) with member organisations in countries across central and Eastern Europe. It acts as a network monitoring the activities of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in order to ensure the spending of public finance for people and environment. It has been created in 1995 after the fall of the

74 Interview with Karin Debroey CSC/ACV, Brussels, 9 September 2013 79

Berlin’s wall to promote “environmentally, socially and economically sustainable alternatives”75 to the IFIs’ policies and projects in the post-communist countries suddenly integrated to the European capitalist market. The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has been expressly designed for this task. The network extended its activities to the Arab World after 2011 following the Deauville Partnership that opened the intervention of two financial institutions in the region (the EBRD together with the European Investment Bank, EIB). A new post of coordinator was created in January 2013, and I met Anne-Sophie Simpere just five months after she took office. She worked on four countries inscribed in the Deauville Partnership: Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco in a precise way: […] mais en gros l’angle, c’est en matière de financement et d’investissement que font les états européens après les révolutions et surtout faire du soutien aux associations locales, pour leur donner les clés et les informations pour qu’ils sachent comment réagir à ces différents types d’investissement76.

Her main task is to monitor the European investments, their purposes, impacts and the deadlines along with giving all the information to local partners so they can prepare a response to these types of investments. Her collaboration with local associations is not limited to a relay of information. Bankwatch also organized formations to give tools in order to obtain information, use banks norms, lobby the European sector and block harmful projects. Bankwatch is working with three partners: the Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) and the EIPR (Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights). When I met the coordinator, Bankwatch was busy helping the new partners in the region to elaborate their strategy and priorities.

The Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (CADTM) is also an international network of representatives and local groups in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Member of the World Social Forum, the CADTM presents itself as taking part in the “alter- globalization movement” that rejects the neoliberal dogma. The committee’s mission is to contribute to the emergence of a world based on people’s sovereignty, equality and social justice. To achieve this objective, the CADTM defends the cancellation of the public foreign debt of every country and the abandonment of structural adjustment policies imposed by the Troika.

75 See Bankwatch’s “about us” on http://bankwatch.org/about-us/who-we-are 76 Interview with Anne-Sophie Simpere from Bankwatch, Brussels, 23 May 2013. 80

For Egypt and Tunisia, the abolition of the debt is especially important as these are two emblematic cases of odious debts. In international law, population should not reimburse such debt as it has been contracted by and for a despot, against its population’ interests and without its consent77. Moreover, today, the debt is used as a tool to reinsure neoliberal politics by European countries and lenders in the countries which lived uprisings. Renaud Vivien from CADTM pointed that fact out: La dette est un véritable outil pour mette une camisole aux mouvements sociaux et aux changements politiques. Il faut aussi dénoncer le rôle important joué par le FMI et la Banque Mondiale dans cette contre-révolution. L’Egypte c’est aussi une manière d’illustrer la doctrine du choc, utilisée pour renforcer les politiques néolibérales. Et c’est ce que l’on a pu constater en Egypte : il y a eu une accélération des emprunts et remboursements durant la période de transition et sous Morsi78.

The International Financial Institutions used the dependence created by the reimbursement of the debt in order to impose political and economic status quo, dependence still maintained on and on as political deciders in power accelerate the flow of loans. In this fight, the CADTM was primarily more active with the Tunisian debt as a member organization was already based there (RAID ATTAC CADTM) since 2000. For Egypt, it is only after the revolutions that CADTM began to slowly put attention on the country, mainly through analyses of the British association “Jubille UK” that had more relations due to historical links. It is only with the launch of the International Citizen debt Audit Network (ICAN) at the beginning of 2012 that CADTM Belgium directly met Noah el Choky, involved in the Popular Campaign to drop Egypt’s Debt. Since then, regular contacts have been consolidated with the campaign and the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights. A systematic relay of the identical Egyptian and Tunisian claims (debt moratorium and audit) has since been established. Apart from sensitization, CADTM also lobbies in the European and Belgian parliament in order to allow the establishment of a moratorium and audit on the Egyptian and Tunisian debt. This is in a good path as the European Parliament already agreed on the odious character of these debts79.

The last actor is double with one organisation in the French-speaking part and the other in Flanders. It is the national platform of cooperation for development CNCD-11.11.11. The platforms defend a new paradigm of development for the world based on Human Rights,

77 For more detail about the odious debt, see for example UNCTAD, The concept of odious debt in public International Law, available online on http://unctad.org/en/Docs/osgdp20074_en.pdf 78 Interview with Renaud Vivien from the CADTM, Brussels, 3 December 2013. 79 Interview with Renaud Vivien from the CADTM, Brussels, 3 December 2013. 81 democracy, environmental respect and cultural diversity. To achieve this goal, they coordinate international solidarity actions under the forms of sensitization to change the mentalities, programs of partnerships and political interpellation both in the North and South. Around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the French-speaking organisation mostly developed work on commercial agreements and the debt’s cancellation (with the CADTM), but also lobby work and mutual reinforcement with partners like ANND or ECESR80. The Flemish part is less involved. They only created a committee of Flemish organizations interested to develop more knowledge about the region. The Midden-Oostengroep is a reminiscence of the ancient working group for action which has been creating for the Gaza conflict and dissolved soon after since no common position could be found between the members. Nowadays, the group limits its work to one study-day per year, focused on the whole Middle East and North Africa.

Obstacles For the four organizations, it took time to create space for the MENA region. The CNCD began to work on the issue the soonest, with the platform Tahrir coordinated by Rabab Khairy; it took more than two years for both Bankwatch and CADTM to begin activities at least on Egypt. 11 11 11 for its part does not even have a half-time job to research and produce analysis on the question. Moreover, they are confronted with significant disagreements among member organizations, which do not facilitate the development of thorough work. This can be explained as for the first political actors: no collective work tradition, absence of clearly identified partners or language barriers slowed down the responsiveness.

Moreover, internal problems paved the road of the organizations. At Bankwatch, Anne-Sophie Simpere quit her job in September 2013 to work in a more grassroots organisation. It took three months to find someone to work on the region again. The partnership with local organisations suffered from the sudden change in the association. The CNCD lived the same inconstancy as the MENA coordinator Rabab Khairy, already working half-time, took two maternity leaves during the last three years. The CADTM had no force at all to spend on the Egyptian debt before September 2013. They started focusing more on the subject when I came to help them during a three-month

80 Interview with Rabab Khairy, employee of the CNCD, Brussels, 18 July 2013. 82 internship. Since my internship ended, budget cuts and the departure of one colleague beginning 2014 are likely to impede further work on the region which will mostly depend on the arrival of new external forces like trainees passionate by the issue.

The major limitation is that these economic subjects do not mobilize masses easily. They are quite technical and they require strong basic knowledge. Moreover, the responsible of such topic are difficult to replace since they are so few. Furthermore, if they are clear on their claims, actors are often confronted with a political schizophrenia on the subject they fight for. For example, even if deciders declare that they intimately sustain the popular will for social justice and democracy, even if they say that they want to change their procedure in order to imply more the civil society, new agreements are still signed without any transparency and nothing is set up to change usual policies81.

Finally, the political insecurity that Egyptian partners are currently facing seriously impedes long-term collaboration. Egyptians are overwhelmed by the increasingly violent attacks of the State towards political organizations. For Belgian actors, it is hard to get a clear opinion on the political changes and violence in Egypt. In Rabab first and second Renaud’s words: Pour le moment on a encore un rôle d’observateur mais des observateurs qui doivent vraiment encore tout comprendre, analyser, essayer de situer les enjeux de notre action, de leurs actions, de la solidarité, comme tu dis, tout est soumis encore à tellement de soubresauts possibles, de crises possibles82.

C’est difficile d’avoir une lecture claire de la situation là-bas, avec ces alliances bizarres, et c’est le moins que l’on puisse dire, les retournements de situation, un manque de compréhension des stratégies et d’informations globalement. Même si on a la chance d’avoir Fathi et Mahinour qui au moins sont des partenaires qui répondent et qui expliquent clairement ce qui se passent83.

If these few actors who have relevant partnerships in the region faced difficulties following the actuality in the area, it is almost impossible for the rest of the Belgian civil society to precisly assess the Egyptian political situation.

81 Interview with Michel Cermak from the CNCD, Brussels, 30 July 2013. 82 Interview with Rabab Khairy from CNCD, Brussels, 18 July 2013. 83 Interview with Renaud Vivien from CADTM, Brussels, 3 December 2013. 83 c. Feminist solidarity

The actor and its solidarity One feminist organisation, AWSA-Be (Arab Women Solidarity Association Belgium) is somewhat engaged in solidarity actions for the Arab world in Belgium. It is the only Belgian feminist organisation that involved itself during the Arab uprisings. AWSA-Be has indeed deep connection with Egypt since the original AWSA is located in Cairo and was founded by an Egyptian woman, Nawal el Saadawi. The association has no focus on one specific country; they work as much on Egypt than on Tunisia since they focus on all Arab women and the vision they generate in Europe. Their purpose is to struggle for integration and thus to fight the negative stereotypes associated with the Arab population and especially Arab women. Indeed, the negative media coverage around the Arab world increases devaluation of Arab women and further discriminations. The logic of the organization is to change the mentalities to reach an equal society for all women, and that can be done through education and sensitization both in Europe and the Arab region.

For the association, solidarity must be expressed through several means of action: relay of information, denunciation of abuses here and there, creation of cultural bridges thanks to inter alia solidarity events and finally support for fieldwork and continuing education. Because, “People is power”84 as the Egyptian activist Shahinaz Abdel Salam expressed it during the AWSA-Be conference on women in the Arab Revolution: On est dans un seul monde, on doit s’entraider pour sortir ensemble de cette situation85. It is the people that can make change happen everywhere for everyone, as everyone lives nowadays in the same extreme capitalist, patriarchal and unjust system.

Obstacles AWSA-Be is an association of three employees. They are obviously limited by their daily amount of work. It is only in September 2013 that they received the additional funding needed to create a new job in order to follow more closely the situation in the region. The struggle for women’s rights is not as clear as the worker’s right battle. Women’s right is a sensitive question in the Arab region and contradictory tendencies are working on it, from

84 Shahinaz Abdel Salam intervention during AWSA-Be conference on women in the Arab Revolution, 9th November 2013. 85 Idem. 84 state feminism to Muslim or atheist feminists. It is consequently complicated to elaborate partnerships with associations in the area defending the same claims: feminism, secularism, activism and freedom. One of their principal preoccupations was to find out how to act in Belgium in order to sustain the revolution abroad. To avoid the complex imbroglio, the association limited its work to the sensitization of Belgian public and the Diaspora, in order to change their perception on Arab women’s position. The revolution constitutes a good topic for this purpose as women were empowered during the uprisings and took place in the public area like men. As Fatma Kareli employee at AWSA-Be told me, the staff was quite disenchanted in August 2013 by the turns of the evolution in which women were forgotten and often abused. AWSA-Be was quite lost in its vision of the revolutions and did not know how to react and sustain. Nevertheless, AWSA-Be organized several events around the place of women in the frame of the uprisings: an exhibition, two conferences, a debate in a typical men’s pub and a calendar. They also participated to the political demonstration that took place in February 2013 against sexual harassment towards women in Egypt. They plan to maintain contacts with Egypt and Tunisia, without providing an active political collaboration with organisations there. Meanwhile, they pursue their struggle against discrimination and stereotypes using the revolutions in their best aspects, the ones in which women arrogated forces and position. AWSA-Be’s interest in the revolutions remains fragile, as further political upheavals can have a positive or negative impact on women and public opinion.

85

3. Transnational advocacy network took the place of the popular mobilization

These organizations for workers’ rights and economic justice developed collaborations with Egypt that can enter under the label of Transnational Advocacy network. Going back to Keck and Sikkink’s definition of the TAN (set of relevant organizations working internationally with shared values, a common discourse and dense exchanges of information), we can assert that the CADTM, CNCD, Bankwatch and the trade unions completely meet this description. They are specialized organizations, with accurate expertise, which work on an international scale with a dense exchange of information and the involvement of a small number of activists who are morally motivated or paid for their actions by organizations and institutions. It does not constitute mass mobilizations. Their goal is to change the term of the debate in Egypt and Europe: workers’ right or freedom of organizations, debt cancellation and social justice has to be perceived as a norm by the different national governments and international institutions. They are also transnational because they work within European and international networks for the defense of their causes. The causes they defend are universal in their argumentation: no cultural or regional restrictions could be expressed for debt cancellation, freedoms of organization or social justice which has to be applied always and everywhere.

They also use the same set of tools to shape their solidarity: development of information to sensitize opinion; strong partnerships with local organizations and mutual reinforcement within networks; denunciation of the current political and lobby logic to offer alternatives based on common claims.

If Sephton’s criteria are taken back in order to evaluate the success of these networks of advocacy, what does it said? In the different organizations, there is a mutual identification of the Egyptian and Belgian actors which strengthen their collective actions. This is helped by high dialogue and relationships of trust which help in establishing a shared identity and frame of actions. Moreover, they are developing relation of solidarity like Blunden or Gaztambide-Fernandez defined it: Belgian actors are assisting the Egyptian struggle under their conditions, with a firm commitment at their side producing mutual transformation and enrichment. The agenda 86 and the actions are commonly organized, even if it can lead to several months of wait if the Egyptian instability enables to undertake actions.

They are durable organizations, with a moral authority: they are seen as defending the public interests or the common good, both in Belgium or Egypt. They are making linkage from South to North, defending the idea that the cause they fight for is universal. Thenceforth, they are also mobilizing structures, with local-based recruitment for specific actions with politic or educational purposes. The CADTM or the trade-unions gather local activists who learn from their organizations the universality of the struggle. The Transnational advocacy network can be seen as the precursor of a social movement since they form aware citizen through their fight and their educational activities.

Both the actors of economic and worker’s right can create their political opportunities and campaign. They are not dependent on media opportunities even if they support the visibility of their struggle. They use all opportunities to pressure states and institutions in order to expose the gap existing between their discourses and practices. It is what does the CADTM during his political seminar at the European Parliament, lobbying the European Members of the Parliament so they would respect their engagement for the cancellation of the Egyptian and Tunisian debt (which they have failed so far to implement substantially). They commonly develop tactics in order to implement the norms they judge just and oblige powerful actors to act on vaguer policies or principles they formally endorsed.

The Feminist organization AWSA-Be is not involved on the transnational and advocacy level. The association remains mainly focused on the national level with its activities of sensitization of the Belgian public opinion. AWSA-Be still pursues a nationally focused struggle, the contentious beyond the nation activities are not its main work. It is only sporadically in order to sustain and reinforce their work in Belgium.

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APPENDICES

CHAPTER V: what solidarity at the heart of instability?

1. Under the army

On the 3rd of July 2013, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces removed Mohamed Morsi and took the power once again with Marshal Al-Sisi in the vanguard. Perceived by Egyptians as the incarnation of the old Nasserite army, close to the people and defender of its interests, the majority sustained this takeover. Moreover, the population was so upset by the previous Muslim Brotherhood government that any change was the meaning of new possibilities. However, the significant faction of Muslim Brothers’ supporters did not accept the overthrow of their elected Muslim president. They directly occupied the Rabia al-Adawiyya place in Cairo86 that soon became the theatre of fierce repression and violent confrontations. The army dispersed the place mid-August 2013, killing more than a thousand and harming thousands of others. Since then, the army imposed its authority, accusing the Muslim Brothers of all the society’s ills. A dangerous Manichean dichotomy is used by the military government to justify all their acts.

At the political and social level, everything got worse under the SCAF. An arbitrary and extremely violent crackdown befell on every member of the Muslim Brotherhood and all forms of opposition. 22 000 people have been put in jail between July 2013 and April 201487. Freedoms are systematically violated with, for example, the implementation of the so-called “Organizing the Right to Demonstrate and Public Assembly” law in November 2013 that prohibits demonstrations, numerous arrests and torture of various activists. A travesty of justice pro army is at work, with the collective condemnation to death of 529 Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters for inter alia the murder of one policeman88. The press is totally attached to the government, spreading a whiff of xenophobia and suspicion on every potential traitor of the Nation, finally the freedom of expression is repressed. Ancient members of

86 Symbolic place for the Muslim Brother as Rabia is a saint character in Islam, that defended ascetism and one of the first female Sufi mystic. 87 See, http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/03/27/pour-les-egyptiens-l-urgence-c-est-le-retour-de-la- stabilite_4391105_3212.html 88 http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/03/25/529-freres-musulmans-condamnes-a-mort-en- egypte_4389214_3212.html 88

Mubarak’s regime are back in the game, with the flagrant nomination of Ibrahim Mahlab as head of the government on the first of March 2014. He was Minister of Housing before the revolution and an important bigwig of the National Democratic Party, founded by Mubarak.

At the economic level, until November 2013, the army in power reimbursed 50 millions US$ to the World Bank, accepted a 12 billion US$ loan from the Gulf countries without transparency on the related conditionalities89. Meanwhile, the IMF maintained pressure to suppress more subventions and in February 2014, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) offered a loan to the multinational Nestlé in order to reinforce its activities in Egypt, as it was the principal priority for the economic development of the country (Delaval, 2014).Obviously, the same economic policies are at stake under the pretext of supporting investments.

2. The Diaspora’s comeback

Obviously, a new caesura occurred in the course of the Egyptian story with the army’s soft coup, soft because supported by a vast majority of the population. It has an impact on the activity in Belgium as it is visible on the timeline: a new peak of demonstrations and public positions took place between the end of June and October 2013. Political tearing between the Muslim Brothers’ supporters and the disappointed by Morsi’s politics is illustrated in this sudden political activity. Far from understanding the issues related to this new turnaround, the Diaspora divided into two clans, each convinced to be the proponents of the mere revolution an becoming super active on the street to show their position.

The Muslim Brothers’ defenders are the most active, with at least eleven protests in the public space in Brussels, and one petition addressed to the European Parliament. Indeed, the Brotherhood has members all over the MENA region and in the European Diaspora that is logically touched. Besides, a lot of Muslims recognized themselves in this new tracking against brothers of faith. Frustrated by the everyday racism, the war against Islam and all the related negative stereotypes that they daily faced, a lot of Muslims were pretty active in the Belgian mobilisation, like the young Hanane Hamouchi whom I interviewed. Even if she is from Moroccan origin, she engaged herself because once again

89 Interview with Mahinour el Badrawi, ECESR, Brussels, skypecall. 89

Muslims were persecuted. For her, the army was the puppet of a general Western conspiracy against the first elected Muslim democracy counteracting the economic liberal global order: Or, l’Islam refuse le capitalisme parce que cela rend les gens extrêmement pauvres et l’Islam justement ne veut pas ça. L’Islam veut l’émancipation de tout le monde, il veut garantir l’égalité, la solidarité. Et donc, ce qui c’est passé c’est que l’idéologie des Frères Musulmans cela ne correspond pas à l’idéologie des occidentaux, c’est pour ça qu’on les présente comme des terroristes, des fondamentalistes, etc90.

She was convinced that Western countries were against Islam because it advocates an anti- capitalist ideology. The Muslim Brothers defenders’ were fighting for the return of the legally elected president without any concession and were denouncing the common demonization of Islam that led to the general approbation of this military coup. A platform was created by Waleed Ali that previously worked with Mourad Samy on a blog. The Plateform for Justice and Democracy in Egypt was mainly constituted of citizens; no mosques were involved by fear of being accused of terrorism. They organized actions structured in two ways according to Hanane: Pour faire pression aujourd’hui, les musulmans d’Europe, partout, organisent des manifestations. Ces manifestations ont pour but de toucher l’opinion publique européenne, et on leur remet le droit à l’information, parce que justement ils sont mal informés. On veut les informer correctement sur ce qu’il se passe. Etablir une vérité et à travers ça, aussi faire pression au niveau politique, déjà commencer au niveau de la politique belge et puis on montrera au niveau européen pour dire : arrêter de financer les militaires égyptiens. Parce que justement on a l’impression que l’Occident donne toujours des grandes leçons, mais schizophréniquement elle soutient des dictatures qui les arrange, évidemment91.

Their two purposes were thus to sensitize the public opinion around the reality of the Brotherhood (since Belgians are wrongly influenced by biased media) and to sustain the Brotherhood in Egypt by lobbying the political deciders to stop all financial sustain for the army. On the timeline, these activists are less active after November 2013, with only a petition and a debate organized to boycott the Constitution written by the military power.

The other part of the Diaspora, who wishes Morsi’s departure, only organized two protests and sent a letter twice to the Members of the National and European Parliaments. Indeed, the size of secular Egyptian Diaspora is particularly restrained and the massacres perpetrated by the army disgusted many potential supporters of the new turn-around. Mourad Samy, Belgian

90 Interview with Hanane Hamouchi, involved in the platform for the return of Morsi, Brussels, 8 October 2013 91 Interview with Hanane Hamouchi, involved in the platform for the return of Morsi, Brussels, 8 October 2013 90 from Egyptian origin, carried the small mobilization for the departure of Morsi. He stressed several times the importance of not falling into the dichotomy of anti or pro commonly presented: il faut se méfier de la dichotomie pro et anti Morsi, on est au-delà de ça, la question était que ce rassemblement disait qu’il ne voulait plus de cette politique, on aime la démocratie mais Morsi, ce n’est pas de la démocratie, c’est un système qui va nous mener à notre perte. Donc, nous, le peuple, avons fait la révolution et maintenant nous retirons notre confiance dans ce président et nous le peuple voulons un autre gouvernement92.

For him, the main problem is the extremism in which Egypt is falling down due to the fulsome poverty of the country. The Muslim Brothers are depicted in very hard words in his mouth, like religious extremists privileging the expansion of their Brotherhood at any cost and with a dangerous facade of democratic speeches. He presented the army as the other side of this extremism, which however helped the revolution to come back with its demands: Ben c’est l’autre face de la pièce extrémiste, contre un déchainement d’extrémisme on a un autre déchainement d’extrémisme, organisé lui officiellement par l’armée et une police comme en Europe, qui a exactement cette même folie de la sur-sécurité militare, et qui donc ne fait en rien avancer la cause humaine et la cause d’un développement qui soit positif93.

During his interview in October 2013, Mourad defended the army to some extent but in the same time he denounced the use of over-security and the outburst of violence. In this context, he emphasized the main challenge he thought Egypt has to reach: to establish a real democracy based on moderation and common sense, to get rid of extremist positions and to mobilize in order to install social justice and freedom. Mourad also developed with a hundred of moderated Egyptians in Europe an association gathering the Egyptians from abroad who want to offer practical helps based on their competences to the Egyptian government. Their purpose is to build efficient missions of development to allow a truly social and economic empowerment of their birth country. As Egyptians are retiring within themselves, rejecting foreign help, their project remains at the phase of elaboration.

Through the description of the Diaspora’s relationships with their origin country, one question arose: are their actions meeting the definition of the concept of political solidarity?

92 Interview with Mourad Samy, Brussels, 17 October 2013. 93 Interview with Mourad Samy, Brussels, 17 October 2013. 91

One important consideration is obvious for the Pro-Morsi defenders in Belgium: it is not a universal or global solidarity applying to everyone which is defended. Closer to the Marxist worker’s solidarity (that was limited to the worker’s class), the Pro-Morsi are adversarial, sustaining only the Pro-Muslim Brotherhood back home who defend an Islamic model for their country. They are not pursuing a universal ideal in the sense that their project can not fit everyone. Not every Egyptians are Muslim or in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood, and this political vision of the society is restricted on the basis of culture and religion instead of transcending the boundaries. Moreover, they are pursuing one particular purpose in Europe: to convince the Western public opinion of the benefits of the brotherhood and Islam as political ideology. Like the pro-revolution, the pro-army, they encountered difficulty to develop a stable relationship of solidarity with actors in Egypt, which could last under the upheavals. This situation is precisely due to the violent repression in Egypt against all presumed terrorists, from the Islamists to the defenders of the revolution.

For Mourad and his ideological compatriots, their solidarity attempt did not last long and was mostly limited to lobbying the European and Belgian Members of the Parliament. Far from any networks, coalitions, solidarity movement, they soon abandoned their actions in favour of the revolution to develop a more material and practical solidarity of expertise and knowledge, which is not yet developed. The solidarity is still in the order of the project and does not have any potential relationships and stakeholder in Egypt.

Either at the beginning of the revolution or after Morsi’s deposal, the Diaspora built organizational structure that can be defined by Tarrow’s definition of transnational collaboration: arrangement with appropriate oriented means, which gather different actors who pool their resources in order to struggle against a short-term threat or opportunities. The Diaspora, whether they were pro or anti Morsi, managed to gather different actors, from the simple citizen to the Muslim organization in order to defend one threat: the defeat of their revolution. They soon disappeared when the opportunity, the visibility of their message was not fashionable anymore. It was event coalitions: coalitions who appeared just after the beginning of the revolution and after the 30th of June 2013 and disappeared quite quickly after. 92

3. Confusion and destabilization within the Belgian civil society

Already crippled by the first instabilities of the revolution, the Belgian civil society get lost face the outbreaks of violence perpetrated by the army since July 2013. The first political parties and organizations totally stopped all projects regarding Egypt. For example, the LCR/SAP wanted to go to Egypt with some young members of the JAC (Jeunes anticapitalistes, the anticapitalist youth movement) at the end of 2013. Yet, the trip was cancelled due to the army’s violence as the staff of the Formation Leon Lesoil explained in an email: Malheureusement, vu les conditions de sécurité sur place, les JAC n'ont pas pu se rendre en Egypte. Ils sont finalement partis en Tunisie94.

This is the first huge obstacle of further work in the region: the extreme use of repression among the population. It has an impact on other people, like Ghalia Djelloul, Ph.D. researcher in sociology. She was doing a research on the Egyptian feminist activists living in a limited tensed area of Cairo. Nevertheless, given the climate of insecurity, she changed topic and left for Algeria.

In addition, Belgian civil society has to get out in the middle of the confusion in Egypt. At the beginning, many Egyptians partners like the trade unions, NGOs and intellectuals were sustaining the military authority against the Islamist terrorism. Indeed, a shared anger and disappointment was felt in Egypt towards the Muslim Brothers who only jeopardized the power for their interests and could not build a political balance. A majority of Egyptians were thus sustaining the war against Islamist terrorism which has been exacerbated by the Egyptian media that only lauded the army. On the contrary, the international simplistic media coverage quickly and unanimously denounced the army’s violence as violations of the Human Rights. This difference of lecture increased the miscomprehension growing between Egypt and Belgium. This confusion was expressed by the CNCD-11 11 11 and AWSA-Be which organized special meetings with Egyptian guests to understand the undergoing situation in Egypt and the possible reactions from Belgium. During the information lunch of the national platform of cooperation (timeline: 72) gathering all the actors of the previous platform Tahrir, dissensions were great between those who purely denounced the army like Vrede and all the others who

94 Email received the 22nd February 2014 from the staff of the Formation Leon Lesoil that organizes the Spring Anti-Capitalist meeting. 93 were more divided in opinion over the situation. Natacha David from ITUC came to explain the positions of the International confederation of trade unions. For its part, ITUC continues to defend political solidarity even if everything got worse in Egypt. According to Natacha, it is especially the time to sustain the alternative, moderate and democratic actors who suffered from the extremism in their home country95.

Finally, the position evolved in Egypt as the army repression exploded. More and more Egyptian activists began to criticize the old regime still in place thanks to the army and the abusive security system deployed against all figures of the revolution. A real undermining of revolutionaries is at work to discredit them and prevent them to deeply change the political status quo96. Moreover, the economic actors, like trade unions, are afraid of taking any political position because they would then become the target of the current government. Any political attempt to criticize is today accused of collusion with either the terrorists Muslim Brotherhood or Western agents.

Today, the Egyptian civil society is entirely divided and focused along its activities: economic organizations working just on economic, political actors on the political issues. Very few organizations dare to make connections between the social-economic system and the political game mostly because of fear. The few actors who still try to overcome the simplistic dualism of the state (which only speaks in terms of Nation’s enemy and terrorism) are currently the target of a extreme repression. After an attack by the police during the night of December 18th, 2013, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) denounced the politic of intimidation against Human Rights organizations in an open call entitled: Egyptian Human Rights Organizations Oppressed… A Return to a situation worse than the Pre-January 25th –Era. The police forces arrested six employees without legal basis, abducting them to an unknown detention location. Moreover, the police officers destroyed the Media Unit’s equipment, its furniture, as well as stealing computers. […]

95 The four ITUC employees were working underground in Cairo, and in November 2013, ITUC was thinking of closing their office for a while due to the political insecurity of the army. 96 See Alaa el Aswany’s interview of the 3rd March 2014 by the French newspaper ‘Journal du Dimanche”, published online on http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Afrique/Alaa-El-Aswany-L-Egypte-a-tue-l-islam- politique-l-an-dernier-655588 : « Le pouvoir essaie aujourd’hui de convaincre des millions d’Égyptiens qui n’ont pas participé à la révolution qu’elle était une mauvaise idée ou même qu’elle a été organisée par des agents de la CIA… Le combat contre le terrorisme est utilisé par les autorités pour se débarrasser de la révolution. On accuse les "figures de janvier" qui ont obtenu le départ de Moubarak d’avoir amené les Frères musulmans au pouvoir. » 94

The Egyptian government continues to commit violence and intimidation against the society, (specifically human rights organizations, with no political affiliations or bias but rather specialize in the defence of citizens’ rights), under the cover of its war against terrorism. This highlights the continuous attempts to reconstruct the police state and reviving its power in the public sphere as it was during the reign of the deposed dictator Mubarak97.

In this context, the beginning of long-term partnership based on advocacy network is deeply undermined by the encountered unrest. The Popular Campaign to drop Egypt’s debt refused for example to participate at the seminar organized by the CADTM due to the national political changes. They had to define their position in the current political game once again and found it dangerous for the campaign to take part to international strategic meeting without it.

In conclusion, the current political instability associated to the war on terror orchestrated by the army got the better of the new transnational collaboration structured by actors working on circumscribed thematic. Even those successful in elaborating shared claims and campaigns to support each other are slowed in the development of sustainable solidarity relationships.

97 ECESR’s open call, http://ecesr.org/en/?p=421547, published online 19th December 2013, last consulted 30rd March 2014. 95

The solidarity in picture, last part.

Protest of the Pro-Morsi supporters in Brussels. CADTM conference on Egypt.

AWSA-BE conferences on Egypt and the Arab World. 96

CONCLUSION

1. On the Belgian field

As we saw it throughout this thesis, Belgium did not remain indifferent to the social, political and economic situation that the Arab world lives since more than three years. However, the interested people and the purposes of involvement strongly evolved according to the different upheavals that the region and specifically Egypt faced since the beginning of the popular revolution.

The first three months of mobilization in Egypt from January to March 2011 unleashed passion and enthusiasm everywhere around the world. Finally, the status quo that lasted more than thirty years in the Arab world was overthrown, and this revolution opened the door to all new possibilities and hopes. A determined wish to sustain the Arab citizen movements arose also in Belgium since the popular and also Egyptians claims were echoing a certain category of the Western population who is outraged by the unjust world’s economic and social situation due to inter alia the imposition of neoliberal policies by mostly Western financial institutions. Following the current reflection of anti-globalization and fight against neoliberal hegemony, a lot of political actors and engaged citizens wanted to develop an international or global solidarity with the Arab struggle in order to sustain them. A common idea in Belgium was shared and generated the solidarity: the usual economical recipes provoked the current social and economic carnage in the Arab world and today Europe also is suffering from them with the imposition of austerity measures since the last economic crisis. It is clearly a political solidarity which is defended: the one wishing to globalize political struggles at the scale of the civil society worldwide, with the purpose of fighting Western elites that impose the same economic and political models everywhere and also in Europe. Far from altruism or pure help, solidarity is seen as a mutual reinforcement to change the economic and political game in order to reach new ideals of society. In Renaud’s words: Il faut se renforcer car ce qui se passe en Egypte, à une certaine échelle, c’est ce qui se passe aussi en Europe98.

98 Interview with Renaud Vivien from CADTM, Brussels, 3 December 2013 97

Since Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Arab countries lived massive popular movements; it was thus also by a popular mobilisation that Belgian actors tried to develop solidarity. Production and spread of information, attempt to find interlocutors in Egypt, creation of committees, undertaking of actions in the public spaces, and popular mobilization: the ingredients of a solidarity mobilisation were presents. Nevertheless, this wish to organize a solidarity movement at a transnational level fails.

The first actors rushed into the uprisings before having a clear idea of the prevailing situation, without partners that shared the same identity and goals as Egyptian leftist parties are quite divided and do not ask for the international struggle. Solidarity relationship must be based on two actors: here, however, only the Belgian actor was willing to develop relationship because of their enthusiasm for the popular mode of action used in Egypt. The Egyptians have an incredible fear of being hijacked by Western agendas as they always have been. They still need to overcome this fear in order to strengthen their struggle by giving to it international or universal scope. Ghalia insisted on the importance of the solidarity between civil societies, between the marginalized: Mais la solidarité comme la mise en lien ensemble des capacités justement des marginalisés pour essayer de collectivement de se relever, là c’est la société civile qui peut le faire, tu vois, parce que dans des états, ce n’est pas cette dynamique là, c’est je te donne, tu me rends et tu me rends souvent plus que ce que je te donne, tandis que quand les marginalisés mettent ensemble leur petite ressource, ensemble elles peuvent créer un contre pouvoir de la marge99.

According to her, it is only from below that a mere solidarity can be created, not from governments and top institutions that interpret solidarity relationships in a way that always guarantees their interests. Solidarity has to come from the population. The people organized and politicised would become a challenging forceful civil society, the fundamental counter- power that could give back sovereignty to the people.

Without knowing this reject of international help, the Belgian actors first organized political solidarity, directly in the street to highlight the Egyptian and Arab situations. However, they were soon unable to construct an argumentation and a clear vision of the political situation due to the lack of communication and information. Emotion is thus not enough, like Johnston & Laxer underlined it. Solidarity needs to be structured to live. Otherwise, the flows of information, struggles and new priorities will soon overwhelm the enthusiast pro-

99 Idem. 98 revolutionaries. These political actors did not exceed this step: they remained in the emotion register and were soon disappointed as the changes in the Arab world did not meet their expectations. Solidarity has to be sustained with information and construct relationships based on common frame of action and identities in order to be able to mobilize on the long term. As these steps failed, the actors diminished their involvement and maintained only sporadical activities of information in order to compensate their lack of comprehension of the Arab world.

Even Intal, with its habits to develop international solidarity movements, failed to organize collaboration with Egypt. Their approach was more structured: they have been to Egypt, met people; instability did not stop them. They understood that a revolutionary process takes time and is not an easy trip. However, in front of the difficulties in Egypt, they could not build a healthy collaborative work to sustain a dynamic actor in Egypt. They directly met the local problem of the partner: in Egypt, no leftist organizations could work on deep thematic due to their historical weaknesses that impede them to overcome the overwhelming and quick political changes. Moreover, the international scale in the Egyptian and Tunisian struggle is not present. The revolutionaries there are afraid of the usual colonialist agenda coming from the Western countries and prefer to preserve their struggle from any foreign interference. In the rush, due to the lack of energy and the complexity of the situation, Intal moved back and limited its involvement on the region, like for the other political actors.

As a second Belgian actor of action for Egypt, the Diaspora acted like the thermometer of the political situation even if they are not numerous. Following the different positions and actions they undertake in Belgium, Belgium could live at a small scale the political evolutions and coalitions that occurred back in their home country. They managed to develop national coalitions of short term at the Belgian level. Indeed, they were and still are particularly divided along their religious or political believes and thus are exporting the current Egyptian dichotomy between the presumed enemy of the nation (which are the pro-Muslim Brotherhood and the first revolutionaries) and the pro- Nation who blindly support the government in place. Besides, a lack of analysis about the linkage between social, political and economic problems at the national and international level is dangerously shared in Egypt and among the Diaspora. This missing political lecture of the Egyptian current issues impedes them to take part in 99 others solidarity actions. Far from a global solidarity, an important part of the Arab Diaspora remained mostly isolated from the Belgian civil society since they were defended limited community or religious interests. Moreover, their little number in Belgium avoids having a substantial linkage and interests for the upheavals in Egypt. The situation there remains too far from Belgium: no historical past, no migration flows, no common languages, no fascination for the Arabic culture exist in order to further increase the rapprochement and understanding between the two countries, which today are quite weak. In this context, the first solidarity movement was even less sustained and fed in their nascent enthusiasm.

The third actors set up connections and work with relevant Egyptian stakeholders on three different topics: mostly economic and trade unions struggle and partially feminist issues. They build collaboration together with Egyptian based on common claims to reach shared purposes around these themes. They developed together, and mostly under the Egyptian demands, strategy to construct their goals. Far from a popular basis, this kind of co-working is based on experts and few activists with dense exchange of information. Conferences and spread of information, expert’s seminars, travels, international platform, elaboration of strategies and lobbying are the characteristics of these sectoral collaborations. These solidarities correspond to the definition of the transnational advocacy network and can thus be labelled like that.

Nevertheless, two major problems impede the current further development of these several TAN’s. First of all, the Egyptian civil society is weakened since they are currently struggling to strengthen amid turmoil generated by counter-revolutionaries forces. Secondly, there is today other urgencies like poverty increases, Human Rights violations or state’s violence that always push these substantive work to the background.

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The solidarity, theoretically

Going back to the chapter on solidarity, the different mentioned authors helped in understanding the situation around the solidarity with the Arab revolution. It is in majority a political solidarity which was defended by the Belgian actors. Like Kurt Bayertz defined it (1994), it is the solidarity that arose when groups of people are mobilised to defend common goals and change society according to defined political ideal. To gain more strength and struggle together, concerned people engaged themselves in structured movements which need to share emotional cohesion, mutual sustain, equality in the relationships and moral obligation. This solidarity can be seen as a strong tool to gain social progress. However, to be at least transnational, the solidarity has to develop its three determinant characteristics (relationships, obligations and actions) but beyond national boundaries and cultural differences (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012). Unfortunately that still constitutes a real and important obstacle, especially between the Arab and the Western countries. This difficulty was particularly relevant in this case since the majority of the Belgian potential actors could not even find Egyptian interlocutors.

Furthermore, the analysis of the different modes of assistance made by Blunden also has his place in the understanding of the hoped Belgian solidarity. He formulated the idea that, behind each project of assistance, a particular perception of the relationships and position of their actors prevailed. The Egyptian, fearful to be hijacked by colonialist or paternalist projects, rejected almost all help from abroad. They are too aware that all assistances are not always exempt from hidden interests which could be colonial. In the case of the Egyptian Diaspora, we can wonder if they defend solidarity and the revolution only for the benefit of the population suffering from economic and social injustice. Is there a kind of commodification in the assistance they want to provide to Egypt, in the sense that they use the revolution in order to defend their religious, societal project? It is at least important to recall that they defend restrained dimension of the Arab and Egyptian revolution, which would only apply to the Muslim believers sustaining the same vision than the brotherhood. The same question can be asked with leftist political parties who only defend the Egyptian stakeholder with the exact same vision of the revolution. Is it a real universal solidarity which could apply for everyone that they claim? 101

Even if political solidarity can be defined as adversarial and exclusive, common claims, that can broadly be sustained, have to be developed in order to develop in the future a transnational strategy of solidarity. Until now, this transnational project has been complicated to implement. Johnston and Laxer expressed this difficulty already in 2003. Behind the beautiful discourse on the global world, it is really difficult to imply the global solidarity in the practice. All the actors still play at the national level, even the local one for the political parties and leftist organization who did not manage to organize a national platform. Speaking of transnational is only possible for the third actor, the advocacy network, which slowly elaborate collaboration with Egypt within pre-existent international platform (the ICAN, ITUC, and so on…). Unfortunately, financial and human constraints deeply limit the work that can be done on the Arab region.

Seeing the weaknesses of the solidarity, a clear and objective comprehension of the struggle in Egypt appears to lack. Like Gaztambide Fernandez suggested it, Belgium and Egypt still needs to develop an anti-racist and de-colonial pedagogy of solidarity which could avoid falling too quickly in recurrent stereotyped and Islamophobic discourses like: “they are Muslims, they always kill each other”. Pedagogy, education, formation and information would help to develop a better understanding of the political events, to overcome the negative vision of Islam, to put in question the economic dependencies between the Arab countries and Western institutions and governments. It is new pedagogy of the other that has to be developed, in order to build equal perception of the other and his political actions.

Solidarity is also quite fragile, specifically since political upheavals blur the understanding of the situation in Egypt. Like Stjerno expressed it, solidarity is volatile: as soon as Libya came out of the game, popular mobilization for Egypt was not fashionable anymore and the few organizations switch to other topics in order to follow the public interests. A strong need of institutionalization is needed in order to maintain and develop solidarity and collaboration. This is particularly true in the case of the advocacy network. They could collaborate on trade unions and economic issues since the networks of advocacy, work and activism already existed before the revolution. They are old struggles that master quite well the ins and outs of their fight.

102

To shortly come back to what Gotovitch and Morelli said about the institutionalization of solidarity work, this fear of forgetting political purpose through the emergency assistance and NGO’s works, is real but can be overcome. That is what the CADTM inter alia try to do, by choosing politicized interlocutor: Par exemple aux Philippines, avec le typhon, on a décidé de soutenir l’aide aux victimes, mais celle menée par des organisations locales, politisées et de confiance, non pas les grandes industries de l’humanitaire. (Attention, pas des associations qui font du prosélytisme…)100. A specific attention has to be given to this lack of political lecture, especially since it particularly lacked with the Arab countries. No good channels of information exist, and exchanges between the two regions are not well developed. This concern is widespread among the Belgian actors, as they continue to inform themselves and their publics after having stopped all solidarity actions.

Political solidarity would mean nothing without the actors that move and act thanks to make this feeling concrete. Social movement, advocacy network, coalition, at the national or transnational scale, they are different organizational ways to implement solidarity. However speaking of them is simpler than building them. The Belgian case is a good example of this complexity to construct, gather, develop and maintain together actors of change. The first actors tried to develop a solidarity movement according to the criteria of social movements, which is the most powerful mass-based actor and maybe the more difficult to create. According to Törn’s definition (2003), the historical, social movement is a form of collective action that aims at transforming the social order. It is shaped on a collective identity between all the actors, a sense of community with a set of values and norms. Even if the leftist groups and organizations tended to build a solidarity movement (with Belgian popular committees, political mobilization within actions in the public space, development of a set of commonly defined claims) they failed to gather the more important interlocutors: the Egyptian with whom they wanted to show solidarity. Without them, no relationships at all could be found; the collective actions lost their justification since they were not acting with and for someone, and no common identity could gather the actors from here and there. As Sidney Tarrow recalled it in 2001, it is complicated to organize and maintain mass-based movements on a long term basis. If it constitutes already such a challenge at a national level, the transnational scale remains an unattainable theoretical dream.

100 Interview with Renaud Vivien from the CADTM, Brussels, 3 December 2013 103

The easiest solidarity collaboration to set up is likely the advocacy network. In the Egyptian case, it has been the only organization who could gather Egyptian and Belgian for common work, on a long-term basis. According to Keck and Sikkink (1998), this network of advocacy is made by several relevant actors who are experts in the field they fight for. The transnational linkages are easier to build as soon as similar organizations exist in different countries. The challenge for Egypt was to find someone: CADTM, CNCD, the Belgian trade unions took several months before beginning collaborations with Egyptian and Arab stakeholders. But, as soon as they found them, collaboration could directly begin on a transnational level. Unlike social movements, the transnational advocacy network can be sooner efficient, through a few specialized actors that gather more easily since they already work on really precise subjects. Developing this kind of relationships on a larger scale could develop the knowledge necessary to understand better the political situation and landscape in the Arab countries.

Finally, in Belgian, a kind of solidarity collaboration existed twice for a short-time among the Diaspora. Just after the beginning of the 2011 revolution and right after Morsi’s deposal, the precursor of the social movements appeared among Belgian from Egyptian origin in order to take profit of the political opportunities or threat. However, they only created an event coalition that could not last long after the linked political upheavals in Egypt, and these coalitions could not influence the terms of the game in their favour, since the resources of the Diaspora remains too small.

In conclusion, almost all the authors helped deepening our understanding of the small attempt to develop solidarity between Belgium and Egypt. Nonetheless, the situation on the ground remains the primary factor of limitations or development of any potential solidarity actions. 104

In Egypt, summer 2014

A transnational political movement of solidarity based on clear critics of the neoliberal system and carrying viable alternative economic relations has still to be developed between Europe and the Arab World. This is possible, even if there are still significant challenges to overcome in Egypt and the other Arab countries. To develop solid collaborations, the solidarity actors should be able to overcome the national boundaries and interests. However, Egypt is facing today a lot of internal problems that largely impede to enlarge their struggle at a regional level.

Since February 2014, the popular discontent against the army’s rule is expressed by a massive wave of strikes all over Egypt. Workers stopped working given that they did not receive yet the minimum living wage asked for months. For only February, the Centre for the International Development has accounted two protests per hour with a total amount of 1044 demonstrations from which 58% were undertaken for economic reasons, mainly the wage. These impressive new mobilisations provoked a change of government in March 2014 as the instability was too high. Obviously, it did not satisfy the popular claims as it replaced old figures of Mubarak in power (Chastaing, 2014). Moreover, the government is acting in a dictatorial way, with inter alia this emblematic barbaric judgement of the 529 Muslim Brother’s supporters. The parody of election held the 26, 27 and 28 may 2014, and the citizen reaction further shows that the army is condemned by an increasing percentage of the population who begins to perceive the army as a particularly bloody face of the counter- revolution. Al-Sissi faced a unique and weak rival, the leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi and won with 96,9%, in the context of non-democratic media attached to the power, repression of any oppositional figures, arbitrary arrests and torture on a large scale. Even if the Marshal won 90 % of the votes, the organisation of the election and the tension around it had a dig at his legitimacy: only 47,5% of popular participation, after one extraordinary additional day of election and an important fine for the citizens who did not come. A broad boycott was organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, the disillusioned youth but also the growing number of Egyptians conscious of the return to the old order101.

101 Gresh, A. 29 may 2014, Egypte, le premier échec du « maréchal » Al-Sissi, online : http://blog.mondediplo.net/2014-05-29-Egypte-le-premier-echec-du-marechal-Sissi, last consulted 11 July 2014. 105

A timid optimism can still exist since the Egyptian population continues to increase their pressure throughout massive strikes and a beginning of national coordination of the worker’s actions. Undoubtedly, the process of revolution cannot be considered today as finished. As Brecht de Smet pointed it out: “the challenge for revolutionary actors remained to counterbalance the pacifying reforms from above, with the expansion and development of popular committees, independent trade unions, and opposition parties from below” (De Smet, 2014, p.27). A strong Egyptian and soon Arab counter-power should have to be developed. However, the second essential stage would be to get out of the actual sensitive nationalism in Egypt in order to strengthen their struggle with first their Arab neighbours, and secondly the Western civil society. All together and thanks to time, it will maybe be possible to rebalance the political game in favour of the population.

In the same time, the European civil society must reinforce their understanding of the Egyptian and Arab events and get out of the simplistic perception they readily develop about the uprisings. This should be achieved through the increase of people acting as the relay for information and analyses, but also through direct contacts with Egyptian and Arab actors of change. CADTM, CNCD, CEE Bankwatch and the trade unions should continue their collaboration. It is through them and the networks they built that more knowledge and awareness will be spread on the region. Europeans have the substantial strength to put pressure on their governments. These governments are also responsible for the implementation of socially murderous policies harming population all over the world. Next to information, research and continuing education, the Western and of course the Arab civil societies have to strengthen and organize an intractable critical of the actual worldwide economic strategy. Because it is obvious that neoliberal policies only provoked social rampages, everywhere around the world. 106

Appendix one: List of interviews conducted in 2013

Date Name and status of interviewee Location 17/5/2013 Bert de Belder, member of PTB/PVDA Brussels, headquarter of Intal 23/5 Elise Broyard, Joaquim Da Fonseca and Mario Brussels, headquarter of Intal Franssen, employees at Intal 23/5 Anne-Sophie Simpere, former employee, Brussels, Mundo-B responsible for the region MENARG, at Bankwatch 10/6 Marc-Antoon de Schrijver, volunteer at Intal Brussels, headquarter of Intal 14/6 Ghalia Djelloul, researcher at the UCL Brussels, in her appartement 20/6 Pablo Nyns, member of the Parti Socialiste de Brussels, in a bar Lutte and responsible for EGA ULB 24/6 Thomas Weyts, member of SAP/LCR Gent, at his place 25/6 Sam Mampaey, volunteer at Intal Brussels, bar in the center 25/6 Eva Vergaelen, journalist, married to an Antwerpen, in her office Egyptian, lived in Cairo 28/6 Ludo De Brabander, executive at Vrede Gent, headquarter of Vrede 12/7 Rudy de Meyer, responsible of the Tahrir Brussels, headquarter of 11 11 Platform, employee at 11 11 11 11 17/7 Christian Vancoppenolle, Policy advisor at Brussels, FBTG offices FGTB/ABVV 18/7 Rabab Khairy, responsible for research and Brussels, in a bar advocacy on Middle East and North Africa at CNCD 23/7 Fatma Kareli, employee at AWSA (Arab Call meeting Women’s Solidarity Association Belgium) 30/7 Samuel Legros, researcher for CNAPD Brussels, headquarter of CNAPD 30/7 Michel Cermak, responsible for research and Brussels, headquarter of CNCD advocacy on “Decent Work” at CNCD 9/9 Karin Debroey, political responsible for Africa Brussels, CSC offices and Middle East, CSC/ACV 30/9 Mahinour El-Badrawi, Egyptian Center for Skype call Economic and social rights 8/10 Hanane Hamouchi, Moroccan origin, member of Brussels, at the national library the Platform for Justice and Democracy in Egypt 14/10 Ruud Gielens, actor, director and researcher, Skype call lives between Cairo and Antwerp 17/10 Mourad Samy, Belgian- Egyptian dentist, Brussels, in a bar member of the Associations of the Egyptian from abroad and representative of El-Baradei in Belgium 3/12 Renaud Vivien, General Secretary at CADTM Brussels, in a bar

107

Appendix two: Number of Egyptian’s living abroad in 2000, (Pagès, 2012, p. 95). 108

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