Tunisian working class, youth and middle class on the march to bring down the corrupt dictatorship of Ben Ali the ally of US capitalism.
Even though the weather is the usual cold snow and ice here this time of the year I am a happy man this morning. Another dictatorship is crumbling at the hands of the people. The Tunisian dictator has been forced to flee and hole up with George Bush's friends the dictators of Saudi Arabia. We must all take our hats off to the Tunisian uprising.
It started off with a young man selling fruit on the streets without a licence and the cops harassing him. In protest he doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. With this, decades of frustration and rage over poverty, unemployment, inequality and repression exploded to the surface and the uprising was on and unstoppable. The dictator Ben Ali who had been in power for 23 years had to run for it. Ali was only the second President of the country since it won independence from France in 1956.
The uprising demonstrates the new period we are in concerning the Internet age and how this links together struggles and issues. And also underlines what this blog has been saying about the importance of the wikileaks information. How it adds impetus to the struggle to change things when it helps expose the rotten and corrupt nature of the regimes of the world and of capitalism.
The New York Times describes the uprising in this way: "The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates and later joined by workers and young professionals found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the US Embassy in Tunisia, released by wikileaks, that detailed the self dealing and excess of the president's family. And the protesters relied heavily on social media web sites like Facebook and Twitter to circulate videos of each demonstration and issue calls for the next one." The Internet age is here and cannot be taken back. It gave capitalism an economic boost, it undermined Stalinism, but overall it has been a blow to all authoritarian and capitalist regimes, to capitalism as a whole and has added to the potential power of the working class.
We have explained on this blog that US capitalism is in crisis. But we have also explained how it remains an arrogant crude super power. US capitalism supported the Tunisian regime all along. It was one of its allies. It did nothing about the dictatorial and corrupt nature of the regime. Over the past couple of weeks US capitalism has seen the riots in Algeria over food prices, and now the uprising in Tunisia, and sees that these have been affecting people throughout the Arab world and the whole Middle East. They are especially worried about Egypt, the main Arab country and its extremely pro US dictatorial regime. So at the very last moment, just this week, Clinton speaking for US capitalism made a speech attacking the Arab regimes, all of them allies and stooges of US capitalism for decades, saying they should reform because if they did not more and more of the youth would seek an alternative.
But here is the problem. US capitalism and its cohorts in the advanced capitalist world loot the wealth of the Middle East. This is the only reason they are there with their occupations and wars and slaughters. With their resources being looted these countries cannot be stable either politically or economically. They cannot give, capitalism cannot give, the youth and the working class an alternative because they are being robbed blind by the advanced capitalist countries. This reality also means that the majority of the working class in the Middle East hate the US and its allies. They are not stupid, they see what is going on.
This reality also means that they hate their own ruling classes who are agents of the advanced capitalist countries' ruling classes. The only way US capitalism and its Middle Eastern allies can try and keep the lid on the area is by repression, occupations and war. And then this in turn leads to uprisings such as in Tunisia. Or it takes the form of increased movements of youth towards the radical Islamic groups like Al Quaeda. Not only is Clinton too late with her speech but she and US capitalism face an insoluble situation.
It is likely now that the entire Middle East is entering into a period of mass movements and uprisings. It is too soon to see how this will turn out in detail. But one conclusion can be drawn. US capitalism and its allies are going to face increasing opposition and will be weakened. And in Iraq and Afghanistan too they will face increased difficulties. I feel confident in predicting that the military of US capitalism will be stuck in Iraq, Afghanistan and increasingly in Pakistan until it breaks and rebels against the control of its masters.
The central problem for the Middle East is that not only has capitalism no alternative but that the working class which is the only force that can solve the problems of the area is not organized and unified throughout the Arab world and Middle East to give an alternative. This is the first necessary step. Organize the Middle Eastern masses into one unified federation of unions that can build a movement for better living standards and take on the capitalist looting of the region. Such a federation should be anti-capitalist in the sense of clearly explaining that as long as capitalism lasts it will loot the Middle East. It should also explain that this looting and capitalism must be ended. On the basis of such an organization there has to be built mass working class parties which would link together and work towards a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.
Remember Bradley Manning is in solitary confinement. Remember also that the released cables of wikileaks have had a big affect in strengthening the Tunisian uprising. Listen to how the Tunisian events have helped people there and elsewhere, have made their lives better, increased their confidence. One young woman in Tunisia quoted in the New York Times said: "We are too many now, we are too big. It is more difficult to silence us." Another quoted a Tunisian poet: "And the people wanted life and the chains were broken."
Wikileaks revelations are changing peoples lives for the better. Giving people more inspiration to fight, increasing the anger against capitalism and authoritarianism. This is very good. We appeal to all who read our blog. Please keep up your campaigning for the release of Bradley Manning, the Defence of wikileaks and of Assange.
Sean.
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