Four years after the electrifying 25 January uprising, when millions of Egyptians brought down the Mubarak dictatorship, a ruthless counter-revolution is continuing apace.
Nothing better symbolises the trashing of the revolution’s demands – bread, freedom, social justice – than the lavish investment conference held in the Egyptian resort town Sharm el-Sheikh in mid-March. The Egyptian Economic Development Conference declared Egypt “open for business”.
More than 2,000 attended the three-day event, which aimed to position Egypt as an “attractive destination on the global investment map”. The violently repressive conditions that now dominate may well be perfect conditions for global capital to set up camp.
Big business representatives had the opportunity to schmooze with Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as well as a host of kings, princes, senior diplomats and heads of state.
Typically, war criminal and former UK prime minister Tony Blair was a guest of honour. Blair now spends his days spruiking business opportunities in the Middle East and blaming Islam for the disaster that followed the 2003 war on Iraq he helped lead.
It didn’t take the attendees long to get into the spirit of things. Multinational cereal producer Kellogg Company acquired an 86 percent stake in Egypt’s largest biscuit company. British Petroleum signed a US$12 billion deal with Egypt’s petroleum minister. The billions were rolling in all weekend.
The conference wasn’t just about money. This was also a political event. A conference press release helped clarify: “Under the administration of President Sisi, significant inroads have been made in restoring political stability and tough decisions are being taken to reshape the economy.”
In his opening address, el-Sisi gave special thanks to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, which have bankrolled his government to the tune of US$23 billion since 2013.
The Egyptian regime, along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, represents the driving force of the counter-revolution that has pushed back the Arab revolts that began in 2011. This conference was about reactionary friends showing their support for el-Sisi.
US secretary of state John Kerry was there to “lend American support”. The US has now resumed providing Egypt with US$1.3 billion in military aid every year.
The new regime in Egypt has sought to cement its rule in large part by crushing any opposition. On one night in August 2013, a brutal assault by security forces on Muslim Brotherhood protesters at the Rab’a sit-in killed 1,000 people.
Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. Pro-democracy and civil rights organisations are being shut down after new laws threaten life sentences for “compromising national unity”. According to the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, at least 41,000 Egyptians – most of whom are social, labour or political protesters – were arrested between July 2013 and May 2014.
The CEO of Qalaa Holdings, a large investment company in Africa and the Middle East, was quoted by the Guardian complaining that the “images that have been coming out of this part of the world have been, by the nature of media, unrepresentative of what’s happening on the ground”. He went on, “We want to convey the normal, more representative part of the story, which is that Egypt is open for business.”
There is nothing more unrepresentative of the daily experience of the vast majority of Egyptian society than a couple of thousand CEOs and princes hobnobbing at a luxury resort under the patronage of a tyrant.
