Tag: ikhwan

Hassan el-Brince, a Muslim Brotherhood senior figure and FJP parliamentarian, has joined Wael Kandil in denouncing the labor protests taking place in front of the presidential palace. Brince is repeating the same delusional accusations that those sit-ins are part of some “counterrevolutionary plot.” He even goes further to describe the workers as “mercenaries” paid to protest by State Security Police and businessmen affiliated with the dissolved National Democratic Party.

Instead of seeing the potential in those protests to take the revolution a step forward, liberal writer Wael Kandil dismisses the labor protests in front of the presidential palace as some “trap” or “plot” driven by the counterrevolution to embarrass Morsi and sabotage his efforts.

Kandil claims “these protests can never be spontaneous… how did they [the workers] get the courage to go to the presidential palace if they were not driven by state agencies?” The only “legitimate” protests according to Kandil would be protests in support of the release of the detainees, but labor protests aiming at improving work conditions must be driven by some plot.

This is the same chorus sung following Mubarak’s fall, when intellectuals and the political forces were denouncing the labor strikes as فئوية calling on the workers to give SCAF a chance. Then it was PM Essam Sharaf’s turn, and the same intellectuals were running columns in newspapers denouncing strikes and asking the workers to give Sharaf a chance.

The fact remains, those strikes toppled Mubarak; they are the biggest threat to the junta and our only weapon to bring down this regime.