Egyptian socialists say ‘third way’ has crumbled amid uptick in attacks

Egypt’s Revolutionary Socialists have called for a “mass struggle” in the country, warning liberals against supporting what it called the ruling “military Mubarakist faction”.

The group, which began in the late 1980s and is influenced by Trotskyist ideology, said in a statement last week that they felt “surprise and disgust” at Egyptian liberals who have attempted to take a “half-way position” during the turmoil the country is witnessing.

The Revolutionary Socialists played a leading role in the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak, calling for strikes and protest in the run-up to Mubarak’s toppling on 25 January.

One of the movement’s best-known members is Mahienour al-Masry, an activist and human rights lawyer active during the uprising who was sentenced to 15 months in prison in May 2014 for violating Egypt’s controversial protest law.  

In their most recent statement, the group accuses Egypt’s current rulers of “using terrorism as an excuse to increase repression”.

According to the group, recent bloody attacks in Egypt have left activists who oppose both the government and the Muslim Brotherhood “united with the state against the threat of our real enemy: ISIS”.

The group denounces those who “[weep] over the soldiers killed in Sinai at the hands of treacherous 'religious fascism' while not uttering a word over the murder of peaceful protesters after Eid prayers”.

The statement is a reference to events last week in the village of Nahia, some 15 kilometres from Cairo, where activists say security forces shot dead six peaceful protesters during a march after prayers to mark the end of Ramadan.

The statement, titled “On terrorism and closing the nation’s ranks,” sparked debate among many on the left of Egypt’s polarised political landscape.

Veteran leftist activist Munir Mogahed attacked the Revolutionary Socialists, saying that the group was “close to” the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mogahed told an interviewer that “there is a difference between defending human rights and defending the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood,” which Egyptian authorities consider a “terrorist organisation”.

Ziyad al-Alimi, a founder of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, also attacked the group, saying that they had “come to support the Brotherhood unconditionally”.

Egyptian journalist Shahira Amin warned in a column for Middle East Eye last week that many Egyptian liberals, particularly secular activists who led the 2011 uprising, have “forsaken their values” by failing to express outrage at what she called “the government’s suppression of freedoms”.