Al-Ahram Weekly | Labour Party

Continuing a series on the political parties contesting the November general elections, Amira Howeidy traces the roots of the Labour Party, chronicles its switch to an Islamist ideology, interviews its leader, Ibrahim Shukri, and sounds out political experts on the party's performance

Farewell to Marx

Hussein is the brother of Ahmed Hussein, a prominent nationalist figure who founded and led the Young Egypt Party in the days of the monarchy. A political activist at the early age of 14, Adel Hussein formed student committees to oppose the British occupation and regularly joined anti-British demonstrations. As a student in the Faculty of Science, Hussein joined the underground communist movement and, as a result, was imprisoned between 1953 and 1956. After obtaining his university degree in 1957, Hussein was sent to jail again between 1959 and 1964. Upon his release he joined the staff of Akhbar Al-Yom newspaper and continued to work as a journalist for the next 10 years.

In 1974, Hussein began what he called a "long journey of scholarly research". The outcome was a two-volume study entitled The Egyptian Economy: from independence to dependency, which was briefly banned. Another controversial work followed under the title Towards a New Arab Thought: Nasserism, development and democracy, in which Hussein urged young people to move beyond the fundamentals of the traditional Egyptian schools of thought. After obtaining an academic prize from the Kuwaiti government in 1981 Hussein published his third work, Normalisation - the Zionist plan for economic hegemony in 1984.

This marked the end of Hussein's research years which he described as "a very fruitful period of my life during which I reached the peak of maturity, and which witnessed my transformation to an Islamist ideology". He began a new period of political activity by joining the Labour Party and focusing his efforts on crystalising the party's Islamist ideology.

He came under fire for the shift from Marxism to Islamism and was occasionally branded as an opportunist, willing to change his position to follow the latest political trend. Scoffing at this accusation, Hussein said: "I have been in the opposition under King Farouk and presidents Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. So, how can I be a political opportunist? I have gained nothing, politically, financially or otherwise."

		Al-Ahram Weekly Issue 244 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875