Coup in Egypt (Updated)

“The governments and media outlets of the American and European bourgeoisie are trying to describe what has happened in Egypt as if it were only a military coup against a democratically elected president, or a coup against the “legitimacy” of formal democracy.  But what has happened in reality far surpasses formal democracy with its ballot boxes.  It is legitimacy via the democracy of the popular revolution, direct democracy creating revolutionary legitimacy.” So argues a statement from the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt.

An article by Turkish socialist Sungur Suvran offers a different perspective: “The deadlock born from the confrontation of two nearly equal social and political forces was simply inextricable. It threatened civil war. It was into this void that the army stepped in and staged its coup. This was a classic case of Bonapartism.”

A July 4 video interview with Gilbert Achcar about events in Egypt: part one here and part two here.

Interview with Ahmed Shawki, who argues “the army didn’t intervene to help the revolutionary movement make bigger gains or radicalize further of course. The aim was to contain the movement. But in a certain sense, this was also as an acknowledgement of the fact that the popular will of Egypt will not tolerate the Morsi government anymore.”

In a new (July 6) statement, the Revolutionary Socialists argue that “The popular uprising of 30 June threw the Muslim Brotherhood out of power, and its plan is now clear. The Brotherhood is seeking to take over the squares in order to project an image of false popularity for the president who was removed by the uprising. It may even be aiming to negotiate his return to power with the support of the US and other imperialist powers in order to accomplish what Mursi promised to do for them in Syria and the region… The masses who made the revolution in January 2011, and sought to complete it in June 2013, are the only ones who can save it from danger.”

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