I spent a lot of last night watching the final demise of Hosni Mubarak, flicking between BBC World and Al Jazeera. It was dramatic and inspiring.The US backed dictator has gone, swept away by a revolution that will have profound consequences for the Middle East and the world.
Of course the revolution is far from over. it remains incomplete.
On a political level, the Egyptian state remains under the control of the apparatus that Mubarak built. At the very heart of it is a military command that was loyal to Mubarak for thirty years and which owes its strength to the billions of dollars that successive US administrations have poured into it.
Against this background the emerging political and civil forces, that were suppressed by Mubarak, must determine how they will respond to the opportunities that will lie before them.
They will have to no look no further than the impoverished economic conditions of the majority of Egyptians. Forty percent of the Egyptian population live on less than $2 a day.
The Mubarak regime handed over the Egyptian economy to a small handful of business leaders and foreign companies. 100 families own more than 90 percent of the country’s wealth, who benefited from the wholesale privatisation of the economy.
In the end this was a revolution against economic injustice and social deprivation.
This was a working class revolution and the revolution must be deepened to benefit the lives of the people.
It must also be a revolution that breaks the chains that have tied it to both the United States and Israel. It must be a revolution that restores Egypt’s independence, dignity and leadership in the region.
Your capacity for self-delusion remains, sadly, undiminished, Steve.
ReplyDeleteThe demonstrations in Tahrir square were overwhelmingly bourgeois in their composition.
It was the outbreak of strikes in the days immediately prior to Mubarak's departure which convinced the Army Council to sacrifice their 82 year-old leader to the more important priority of preventing the entry of the working-class into the protest movement.
The recent orders of the Army Council against strikes and unions proves that it is frightened of a working-class revolt - not in the midst of one.
I get the impression you rushed to the keyboard without glancing at the post 'Just The Beginning' , where I reprinted the statement of Egyptian revolutionary socialists.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that this revolution has a long way to go, with the Egyptian working class to play the pivotal role. Thus we are seeing attempts by the military to suppress union meetings, labour activism, etc.
This will be a revolution that must deepen and develop from a fight for political demands of democracy into a struggle for economic justice.
Can we expect to see you supporting the cause of revolutionary socialism, Chris?
I find it remarkable that you can accuse me of 'self delusion' when you continue to promote and support the politically bankrupt Labour Party. That's self delusion on a grand scale.
You're right, Steve, I was a bit hasty.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me about the Egyptian situation, however, is how closely it conforms to the historical pattern of 19th Century bourgeois revolts in Western Europe.
The example of France in 1848 is particularly instructive - as is the terrible fate of the Parisian working-class when it attempted to claim its share of the revolutionary spoils.
I foresee a repetition of the "June Days" (when the mostly peasant soldiers and their middle-class officers gunned down the French workers in their thousands) if the Egyptian trade unionists attempt to replicate the mass protests of the middle-class professionals.