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OK, here we go: "The Brothers, historic rivals for me as an Arab nationalist and leftist, are playing an important role in this revolution. They are putting their neck on the line for it, they are putting their doctors at its service, they are using their influence to sustain it, including having Yusuf Qaradawi himself on Al Jazeera call for support for the people. Above all, they are not usurping control, and, when talking to the media, they stress that no one owns this revolution and that the people who started it are the young men and women who went to the streets on the 25th of January, when all the political parties including the Brotherhood were taken by surprise, and the men and women who marched yesterday in millions, making every political party including the Brotherhood look small and negligible. But today the revolution needs structured organizations to form a fighting machine, and the Brotherhood has experience, resources, and the will to play that role. And they are doing it for the movement without claiming it. This attitude is earning respect from everybody, including the thousands of non-political, nationalist, or leftist youth who are standing the ground with people from the Brotherhood all over Egypt today." That's news to me, as all the reports I've seen state that the Brotherhood refused to endorse the Police Day action, and therefore knew of it in advance, and in the aftermath of Tunisia, when all eyes turned to Egypt, could not have been entirely "surprised" by the outcome. Their low profile is almost certainly a tactic - a smart one that should also be conducted by the worker's movement: defend the democratic revolution to buy the time and space for the expanded self-organization of the worker's movement. Non-socialist leftists such as Dyab Abou Jahjah (who describes himself as an Arab nationalist) council rather a strategic organizational reliance on the Brotherhood. But this is a political organization that, besides the obvious ideological issues, also maintains ties with the regime via its "alias" parliamentary representation, as well as with bourgeois oppositionist ElBaredi. The point here is that this perspective, going out of its way to promote the role of the Brotherhood, is also promoted in a socialist publication, MRzine. -Matt ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
