Obituary: (1926-2011): 'The right to life' By Faiza Rady Worker, trade unionist and writer passed away peacefully in the northern Delta town of Meet Ghamr on 31 May. "It is with sadness and grief that we mourn the death of a remarkable workers' rights activist and courageous writer, a man who spent his life in defence of the working class," reads the statement issued by the Centre for Trade Union and Workers' Services (CTUWS) on 1 June. "We pay tribute to El-Sirafi as a pioneer of the movement, always at the forefront of labour writers and activists calling for the workers' right to form their own autonomous trade unions, independent of the tutelage of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Unions Federation [ETUF]." A member of the Coordinating Committee for Trade Union Rights and Freedoms, El-Sirafi was also a founding member of the leftist Tagammu Party, and a member of its political bureau. As a labour specialist he was instrumental in determining the party's position on workers' issues. He was also a regular contributor to Al-Ahaly, the Tagammu's paper. A prolific author, he penned 20 books on the labour movement, the most poignant and personally revealing being his autobiography, A Militant Egyptian Worker's Path. Unlike scholarly studies which are always written from the outside, El-Sirafi's books offer a rare insider's perspective. His testimony can, in this sense, be likened to history-in-the-making. In 1975 El-Sirafi became a founding member of the revived Egyptian Communist Party (ECP), disbanded in 1964 by president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. He soon fell out with the ECP, a result, he later said, of the leadership's authoritarian top-down approach and because they had "abandoned all socialist principles". It was not an easy break, for El-Sirafi had had a long history of affiliation with the communist movement. In the 1940s he was a member of the Democratic Movement for National Liberation (DMNL), the group founded by Henri Curiel, celebrated leader of the largest and, arguably, the most effective of the Marxist tendencies. The DMNL had been instrumental in organising militant workers' strikes and the anti-occupation marches of the post- World War II period, the most significant of which was the 21 February 1946 march in which an estimated 100,000 workers and students took to the streets to protest against British imperialism and demand higher wages and better working conditions. It was the 21 February protest which set the tone for the wave of nationalist demonstrations of 1951/52 that preceded and paved the way to the 1952 July Revolution. "Gamal Abdel-Nasser's group did not overthrow the monarchy and liberate the country from British imperialism single- handedly, whatever the history books claim. The process which led to the Egyptian revolution was launched by the workers taking to the streets and fighting for their country's freedom and their rights. The Free Officers capitalised on events and seized the moment," El-Sirafi told Al-Ahram Weekly in an interview. "History isn't the product of one discrete moment; rather, its course is contingent on a long and complex process of development. The process which led to the Egyptian revolution was launched by the workers taking to the streets and fighting for their country's freedom and their rights." "Colonel Nasser was perfectly aware of the workers' revolutionary role. This is the reason he was so afraid of us, why he rapidly proceeded to dismantle Egypt's free trade unions. To keep his grip on power he needed to control the workers." "Under the monarchy Egyptian trade unions were truly independent; this is what made them powerful and effective. Many of the leading trade unionists were either members of a communist party or affiliated to one of the various communist tendencies. It was the Marxist influence that radicalised the workers, instilling in them the belief that social equality could only be realised through class struggle." Poverty and social injustice dominated El-Sirafi's early years. Like millions of children growing up in the impoverished Egyptian countryside in the 1930s the most enduring memory of his childhood is hunger. It became one of the recurrent themes of his autobiography. "As a youth during World War II I used to spend a lot of summer evenings near the railroad tracks watching the trains go by," he wrote. "One night I saw a convoy of Italian prisoners of war who were begging for food. I gave them my dinner, two loaves of dry bread. It was an instinctive gesture of solidarity because I knew what it feels like to be hungry." "I started to work as a conductor for the Zifta-Meit Ghamr United Bus Company when I was 17. I understood early on that union activism was the workers' only defence against exploitation and social injustice. So I became an activist and a union organiser soon after I started working." As a union organiser El-Sirafi was in the position to address the kind of social inequality he had experienced throughout his young life and he threw himself into the work with a passion. "I was compulsive," he recalled. "In addition to doing union work I read everything related to workers' issues: the labour code, labour history and the transport company's contracts. I realised that the union's negotiating power was at least partially based on knowledge, and I was intent on acquiring it." It was the young man's budding expertise in labour issues that led his bosses to brand him "the red conductor". Unfamiliar with the term, El-Sirafi investigated and received his first introduction to Marxism. "It was a revelation. I discovered that there was a theory that articulated, in scientific terms, what I was battling to achieve through union activism. It was my teacher in the union, bus driver Abdel-Hamid Hamouda, who defined Marxist thought in the simplest yet most compelling of terms. 'Marxists', he said, 'believe in the worker's right to struggle against exploitation by his fellow human beings. They believe in the worker's right to life'." After having invested so much in trade unionism, El-Sirafi became a committed Marxist. But unlike trade unionism, communist agitation had become illegal. In July 1946, following months of industrial action by the mostly communist-led textile workers of Shubra Al-Kheima, the Sidqi government passed an anti-communist law. On 11 July 1946 leftist and labour newspapers and labour associations were closed. Many workers and intellectuals were arrested and charged with spreading communism. El-Sirafi and his comrades went underground and continued to work. In May 1949 he was detained and accused of "communist agitation". Along with many others, El-Sirafi was tortured whilst in custody. "The first time they tortured me for two hours. They kept asking me about DMNL leaders and members of my cell but I denied any knowledge. It was an endurance test that I had to win somehow, from moment to moment." He was released the following year. Undaunted, and strengthened by the knowledge that he had not been broken, El-Sirafi returned to his political work. It was a time of nationalist mobilisation and strikes in which Cairo transport workers were playing a major role. As a prominent DMNL member and, by 1951, president of the Zifta and Meit Ghamr Bus Workers' Union, El-Sirafi was at the forefront of the workers' struggle which combined nationalist demands with improved working conditions and better wages. Then came the 23 July Revolution. "The workers welcomed the revolution wholeheartedly," recalled El-Sirafi. "But then in August the Free Officers killed striking workers at Kafr Al-Dawar." After Kafr Al-Dawar the Free Officers moved quickly. In December 1952, without prior consultation with the unions, they passed new legislation imposing compulsory arbitration on all labour disputes and issued a degree outlawing strikes. "Although working conditions and salaries were improved the new legislation made the unions redundant and put an end to any organised labour action. The revolution's legacy to the workers was the government-controlled ETUF that continues to oppress us. Nasser gave us bread but he took away our freedom." Defiant as always, El-Sirafi continued his work on the union committee of the Zifta and Meit Ghamr Bus Workers' Union which -- on a local level at least -- retained a measure of independence. Such defiance came at price and in 1953 he was again arrested for communist agitation and labour incitement and once more tortured. He spent the next three years in jail. "Nasser released the communists in 1956 because he needed our help during the Suez War. He understood we were disciplined and knew how to mobilise the workers. And we did, of course." El-Sirafi was detained again during the 1959 mass arrest of communist cadres. He was released in 1964. "I never managed to stay out of jail for long. In January 1977 they arrested me again during the 'bread riots', when people took to the streets because the Sadat administration had removed state subsidies from basic food staples. Then I was only jailed for a year. As I got older the sentences got lighter. In 1990, facing the same charges, I served only six months of hard labour." El-Sirafi's final stint in jail was in 2005, when he was arrested and charged with collecting donations for the Palestinian Intifada. Interrogated at the police station, he insisted that the clerk include in his affidavit that he was proud to admit to the charges. belonged to a generation of committed and courageous workers' rights activists who continued to struggle, against all odds and no matter the price. "During the revolution he came to Tahrir," wrote his grandson Walid El-Sherbini. "He was leaning on his cane, his body bent by age. With tears in his eyes he looked at the sky, saying: 'praise the lord that I lived to see this day'. That was my grandfather."
