Egyptian police fired tear gas and used water cannons on the crowds who were chanting “Down with Mubarak”. But demonstrators have been enthused by the revolution taking place in neighboring Tunisia and are determined to change the regime.
"We want a functioning government, we want Mubarak to step down, we don't want emergency law, we don't want to live under this kind of oppression anymore," one young Egyptian told Al Jazeera.
"Enough is enough, things have to change, and if Tunisia can do it, why can't we?" the young man added.
"We might be trying to copy what happened in Tunisia. If Egyptians manage to even come close to what they did then I can proudly say today was successful but we still have a long way to go." said another demonstrator.
These developments, the spreading of social unrest from Tunisia into the numerous oppressive Arab regimes in the region is the worst nightmare for US interests as the US government has supported most of them in exchange for being able to plunder the wealth and keep support for the Palestinians to a minimum.
As always, the youth are playing a major role in the organizing of the protests but reports indicate that older Egyptians and children have been in the streets. But what is also significant both in the Tunisian protests and in Egypt is the absence of any significant role by the Islamic groupings. The Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamic group and one of the largest opposition groupings in Egypt has not officially supported the protests.
There have also been protests in Yemen against the government there, Yemen is another regime that is very much in the US’s back pocket but is unpopular with many Yemenis. The Saudi’s, a staunch US ally and one of the most repressive regimes on earth where women are not allowed to drive, can’t leave the house without being accompanied by a male relative and can face beheading for alleged adultery have to be watching these developments with some concern. Youth unemployment is also very high in Saudi Arabia.
The US will be having nightmares about these developments and will be doing whatever it can to contain the unrest and prevent the likelihood of protests occurring against the Saudi regime. These thugs are the trusted friends of US capitalism in the area along with the Zionists and a country sitting on oil. The Saudi’s also buy billions in US military equipment and weapons as a counter to Iran in the region and to keep its own population cowered.
There are also demonstrations in solidarity with Egypt planned in cities around the world and it certainly seems so far that what began in Tunisia has opened a Pandora’s Box, a very welcome development. As we have been saying on this blog, the situation throughout the world is extremely volatile as poverty, corruption and oppressive governments weigh down on workers and youth as well as increasing sections of the middle class. The US is no exception. Much of the problems the Egyptians and others talk about exist here.
As an earlier blog pointed out, what is lacking is a leadership that can pull all these forces together. But great lessons are learned and new leadership thrown up through struggle. We have said many times that consciousness lags behind events and we are seeing the political crisis playing out after the economic crisis laid the groundwork. How far things will go it is impossible to determine, I certainly couldn’t say.
But there is no doubt that we are in a period of historical crisis of capitalism and there is no turning back. We will see similar movements here in the US. The future for the US is not a rosy one with the rise of China and the potential crumbling of its trusted fellow looters in the Middle East; the so-called American Century has lasted less than 10 years.
Many middle class writers and activists are overly pessimistic about the US working class and its seeming passivity; they are incapable of considering that workers and youth here will enter the game in a serious way. But it is inconceivable to me that the US working class will not fight and enter the stage at some point despite being burdened with an ideologically corrupt leadership. And while a movement will not be smooth and will contain elements of reaction and racism; a lesson I draw from history is that when it moves in to struggle the working class has a powerful tendency to seek class unity and overcome the divisions within it that are perpetuated b the capitalists as a divide and rule tactic.
Lets face it, 24 hours before the young Tunisian set himself on fire kicking off the present situation, no one would have suggested that Tunisia would be a center of world events.
1 comment:
People are consistently critiquing the Arab world for being too complacent about the dictators which oppress them. They are finally revolting and rather than being met with support, they are met with cynicism, condescension, and accusations about crushing Christians and Jews. NO one points out that just a few weeks earlier Muslims in Egypt were acting as human shields against the bombing of churches. NO wonder the arab world has is so suspicious of outsiders, because no matter what they do, they are branded as extremists. Egyptians want freedom, and Mubarek is not a secularist, he is just a brutal dictator who would crush any and all forms of opposition, religious or secular
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