The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 8, No. 1/2 (Winter/Summer 2012)
Editorial PDF
We would like first to apologize once more to our subscribers and readers for the long delay in publishing Vol. 8, which has to do with extreme unforeseen circumstances very much related to the twin systemic crises in the Eurozone and advanced capitalist countries in general, and the Middle East in particular. The crisis in the latter, which was covered under the disguise of the “Arab Spring”, is becoming increasingly clear, as we stressed in the 2011 Issues of the Journal, that far from expressing genuine revolutions of the Arab peoples represented in fact the plans of the elites to redesign the political map of the broader Middle East. This is not disputable any more by the genuine antisystemic Left which has not yet been integrated into the New World Order, as far as Libya and Syria are concerned. In both cases it is clear that we face armed insurrections planned by the transnational elite and carried out by itself (Libya) and/or its client regimes (Syria) in the area (Gulf States, Turkey as well as the post “revolutionary” states in Tunisia and Egypt) through their proxies in the form of an assortment of jihadis, mercenaries and the likes.
However, what is not yet clear for many, even among many in the genuine antisystemic Left, is what exactly happened in Egypt and Tunisia, where the client autocratic regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak were replaced by a new form of client regimes based on the Muslim Brotherhood. To shed some light on this crucial issue we host in this Issue two articles on Egypt, which is yet again in the front page news, that offer two different views on the current events with respect to the constitutional referendum, by two authors in the antisystemic Left who have written extensively on the matter. The issue which in effect is discussed by the two authors is the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in connection to the “revolution” in Egypt (and beyond, in Tunisia, Syria, Libya)—a pivotal issue that will possibly determine the future of the entire Middle East and Iran.
James Petras criticizes the ‘unholy ‘alliance between political forces on the extreme Right and the Left, including collaboration between NATO regimes and Marxist sects which has developed in connection with the struggle to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from establishing a kind of Islamic “democratization in the country. For Petras, “secular liberals and leftists should have joined with the Morsi regime to oust the remnants of the brutal Mubarak regime. They should have supported the elected legislature, even while challenging Morsi’s pacts with the IMF, the US, EU and Israel.”
Takis Fotopoulos, on the other hand, attempts to show that the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power will secure the integration of the countries concerned into the New World Order of neoliberal globalization and representative “democracy” in a new form of more sophisticated client regime based on Islamic ‘democratization’, whereby all the rituals and paraphernalia of ‘democracy’ are present. For him, the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (as well as in Tunisia before it) has been engineered by the transnational elite, and carried out with the help of the local elites and the US-dependent local armies, since the previous client autocratic regimes were politically bankrupt and clearly incapable of imposing the “economic restructuring” required by neoliberal globalization without the occurrence of serious social turbulence. Therefore, the real dilemma for the Left is not whether to support or not the Muslim Brotherhood regime against the remnants of the Mubarak regime (which is dead anyway) but whether to avert the Islamic “democratization” of the country and join forces with Nasserites, nationalists and others in a Popular Front to avert the full integration of the country into the New World Order.
Finally, we would like to wish everybody a creative and militant 2013, a year which may well lead to seismic changes in both the Middle East and the capitalist centers. The next Issue of the Journal (which will be the last one of Vol. 8) will be published early in the New Year.
Editorial Committee
December 2012
The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol. 8, Nos. 1/2 (Winter/Summer 2012) ; Contributors ; Editorial ; Egypt and Argentina: The Right-Left Alliance, James Petras ; The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic “democracy” in Egypt as part of the New World Order, Part I: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Rise to Power ; Part II: Towards a New Form of a Client Regime, Takis Fotopoulos.