Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Closing the circle

By Khaled Dawoud

The 84-year-old leader of what used to be the Socialist, but now Islamist-oriented, Labour Party, Ibrahim Shukri, has been active in politics for 65 years. In 1935, he was hit by a bullet while taking part in demonstrations against British occupation forces.

Before the 1952 anti-monarchy revolution, Shukri was a member of Misr Al-Fatah, or Young Egypt, movement led by the late Ahmed Hussein. Many history books describe Misr Al-Fatah as a "fascist" group, whose leader viewed Italy's Mussolini and Turkey's Kemal Ataturk with great admiration.

Shukri was one of the first parliamentarians to call for genuine agrarian reform to end the feudal system that existed at the time. Thus, when Gamal Abdel-Nasser rose to power with his fellow military officers, introducing new socialist ideas and calling for an end to feudalism, Shukri maintained good relations with the new regime.

Shukri was also a good friend of the late President Anwar El-Sadat who appointed him as agriculture minister for a brief period. Sadat launched the multi-party system in 1977, ending nearly 25 years of single-party rule, but he became quickly disenchanted with the performance of the liberal Wafd and leftist Tagammu.

Ibrahim Shukri

Thus, when Shukri came up with the idea of establishing the Socialist Labour Party, Sadat welcomed the idea and even ordered a number of the ruling party's figures to sign in as founding members. Yet, the honeymoon between Labour and the government was short-lived. Shukri, teaming up with other opposition groups, strongly opposed Sadat's decision to sign the Camp David agreements with Israel in 1978.

However, the identity of the Socialist Labour Party remained blurred, including a variety of political trends, mainly attracted by Shukri's character and his contribution to the nationalist movement. The party's orientation underwent a major change when Adel Hussein, a former Marxist turned a modern Islamist, joined Labour in 1986.

Hussein, brother to Misr was appointed editor-in-chief of the party's mouthpiece, Al-Shaab. For opposition parties, newspapers served as the principal channel for conveying their political views with relative freedom. This is because they are banned from holding public rallies and denied access to national television and radio.

Hussein used Al-Shaab to turn Labour into what he described as a "real opposition party," reflecting a trend that attempts to mix Islam with the "requirements of our modern age," supports Egypt's strong involvement in the Arab world and staunchly opposes Israel and its main ally, the United States.

In 1987, Hussein used his influence to forge an alliance between Labour and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, raising the slogan "Islam is the solution." Sadat released Brotherhood leaders from prison in the mid-1970s and "tolerated" the group's activities, although it was not allowed to function as an independent political party. According to experts on political Islam, the Brotherhood gradually became the nation's most influential opposition group although it lacked legal status.

The government apparently hoped that the Brotherhood would absorb the more radical Islamist groups who used violence in the pursuit of their objective of establishing an Islamist state. Thus, the Brotherhood was allowed to gain control of professional syndicates, field candidates in parliamentary elections on the lists of political parties and openly call for the implementation of Islamic Shari'a (law).

In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Magdi Hussein, editor-in-chief of Al-Shaab, said that the 1987 alliance between Labour and the Brotherhood was aimed at serving the political interests of the two groups and did not signal an ideological merger. Magdi Hussein has been serving a two-year jail term since April for slandering Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali. The Brotherhood needed a party to field their candidates on its slate, and Labour was certain that running on a joint ticket with the country's largest political Islamist group would guarantee that some Labour members would reach parliament. The experiment was very successful. Capturing 78 seats, the Islamic Alliance made up the largest opposition group in parliament, and Shukri earned the title of "opposition leader."

Shortly after this resounding success, Adel Hussein, 68, his nephew Magdi and a few other supporters, tightened their grip on the Labour Party, organising a general congress in which those who opposed the alliance with the Brotherhood, led by the late Ahmed Megahed, were ousted. This triggered a series of splits within Labour, with leading members, including Shukri's son, Ahmed, staging a walkout to protest the Brotherhood's "takeover" of the party and Adel Hussein's tightened grip. The word "Socialist" was dropped from the party's official name.

Shukri insists that this is an abbreviation, denying that it was a political decision. But in many rallies attended by Al-Ahram Weekly's reporters, Shukri and Adel Hussein openly referred to their group as the "Islamic Labour Party", arguing that the party had always called for implementation of Islamic Shari'a since it was first established in 1978.

Meanwhile, Brotherhood leaders were allowed regular space on Al-Shaab's pages to express their views which, for loyal group members, served as guidelines. The newspaper also devoted space to articles by Islamist militants, the content of which seemed little different from leaflets issued by the underground Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya and Jihad groups.

The showdown between the government and Al-Shaab, under the leadership of Adel and Magdi Hussein, started with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. While the government spearheaded efforts to organise a US-led coalition for the liberation of Kuwait, Al-Shaab's headlines declared support for Iraq's resistance to the "American aggression." And while the government was accusing Khartoum of offering training and refuge to Egyptian militants, Al-Shaab published long interviews with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and his former ally, Hassan Al-Turabi, singing the praises of their "Islamic project."

Al-Shaab and Labour leaders were also apparently of the view that one way of attracting public attention was to launch scathing campaigns against cabinet ministers, accusing them of corruption and treason -- unprecedented charges since 1952.

The first target was then Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi and the second was Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali. Fiery headlines on the newspaper's frontpage levelled all sorts of accusations against the two.

El-Alfi was accused of corruption and allowing one of his sons to misuse his position to become a business tycoon. Adding to the sensationalism, El-Alfi was accused of cooperating with the Israeli Mossad intelligence service. As for Wali, he was accused of importing sub-standard foods and crops that caused the death of many Egyptians. He was also accused of "treason" for advocating the normalisation of relations with Israel. Both El-Alfi and Wali won libel lawsuits they filed against Al-Shaab.

In an even more serious escalation, Al-Shaab fired one broadside after another at Culture Minister Farouk Hosni for allowing the re-publication of A Banquet for Seaweed, an allegedly blasphemous novel by Syrian writer Haydar Haydar. For weeks, Al-Shaab writer Mohamed Abbas kept urging Muslims "to join hands and avenge the insult which the Ministry of Culture directed against God and Islam." Students at the Islamic University of Al-Azhar immediately responded to the call, staging one of the most violent demonstrations since the 1991 Gulf War. Moreover, Al-Shaab published extracts from other novels and books reprinted by the ministry in which Islam was allegedly insulted. It even went as far as to publish the telephone numbers of writers and officials at the Ministry of Culture so that people may call and express their outrage, and possibly make death threats.

In late May, the Political Parties Committee, which is in charge of licensing political parties, said it received complaints from two Labour Party members, contesting Shukri's leadership and claiming they were the legitimate chairmen. The Committee later decided to freeze the party's activities and suspend its publications until this internal dispute is resolved.

Shukri, backed by a team of seasoned lawyers, appealed the decision and won. But one day before that ruling was handed down, the Political Parties Committee met again and decided to ask the Parties Tribunal to dissolve the Labour Party and investigate its leaders on charges that could keep them in prison, if convicted, for up to 15 years.

The government could not have been short of charges: forging an alliance with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, turning Al-Shaab into a mouthpiece for militant groups, changing the party's programme and name without notifying the Political Parties Committee and many more. Now, Labour leaders and the government are involved in a lengthy process of appeals and counter-appeals. But Labour leaders last week conceded that they will not be able to take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections under these circumstances. Lacking a mouthpiece and smarting under a ban to hold meetings in party offices, organising campaigns in support of Labour candidates would be almost mission impossible, say the Labour Party leaders. However, nearly 15 party figures will run as independent candidates.

According to Adel Hussein, the party's election battle against the government will be symbolic. The party decided to name the jailed editor of Al-Shaab, Magdi Hussein, as its candidate in his constituency of El-Manial, and promised to make a maximum effort to win him a seat in parliament. Magdi Hussein has already spent nearly a year in prison, and Labour hopes that he will be paroled soon for "good behaviour", having served half the term of his sentence.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the last chapter in the Labour Party's highly checkered history has been written.

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Related stories:
Islamist mouthpiece remains closed 14 - 20 September 2000
New turn in the battle over Labour 15 - 21 June 2000
Precarious politics 25 - 31 May 2000
Catching the Islamist train 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1995
Opposition blaster 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1995
See also 1995 elections

 

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