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| Photo: Al Jazeera |
We are witnessing historic changes in world relations. First, and ongoing has been the global financial crisis that is seen by the rest of the world as the collapse and subsequent discrediting of the US economic model. Following this we have the incredible uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East that in the course of a couple of months have cast off the shackles of US financed dictators and revealed further the weakness of Washington’s foreign policy in the region; a policy of support for any thug that ensures the continued plunder of the resources of the region by US capitalism.
Mubarak’s ouster after 18 days of protests and more than 300 deaths and thousands of injuries, “Marks a historic shift in the Middle East and, away from the power structure America has leaned on for the past three decades.” Says the Wall Street Journal. The Arab masses have changed the global balance of forces worldwide weakening global capitalism in favor of the international working class. Let us as American workers discard this nonsense that we can’t stop the vicious assault US capitalism is waging against us at home; that we can’t stop the attacks on education, housing, Unions and public services and the imprisonment of our youth. We can't stop it with the present methods, but the Egyptians have shown us there are other methods that work.
US president Barak Obama, one of a long list of US administrations that have financed these brutal regimes is now a champion of freedom of association and democratic rights. The Egyptian uprising “Inspired us with a moral force that bent the arc of history towards justice” he said yesterday. The workers of the Arab world are not fooled by this hypocrisy. The imbecile Bush made similar pronouncements about changing the way the US was going to do business in the Arab world and that, as today’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal boasted, the Arabs “deserved political freedom as much as the rest of the world” This too was just empty rhetoric. The difference is that the Arab masses have forced such statements from Obama, for Bush it was simply babble.
The main thing for US capitalism is ensuring it can continue to loot the region and obstacles to profit making and the so-called free market economy is kept to a minimum. “To satisfy the aspirations of this revolution, the political reforms will have to be credible and deep, not merely cosmetic,” says the WSJ. “Shallow and cosmetic,” what would have been the previous position, is not feasible any more. But credible political reforms would not serve US imperialism's interests either. The CIA’s man in Cairo and Egypt’s head torturer was also rejected by the Egyptian people in the course of this revolutionary upheaval, which has severely curbed US and western capitalism’s options.
As is to be expected, the Wall Street Journal makes little mention of the working class, the role of workers, young and old in the uprising, and certainly stays clear of any mention of organized workers, left or socialist forces. The few million people that participated were all Internet savvy youngsters led by the executives of tech firms it seems. Murdoch’s editors make it clear what the future should look like; “A democracy with proper constitutional checks, competing branches of government, and the rule of law…” is the only future for Egypt. More than the Muslim brotherhood, global capitalism fears the entrance of the working class on to the scene and the dangers that presents to market fundamentalism to borrow a term from George Soros.
This term rule of law is the real issue. Respect the laws of the market; that is the only rule of law they are referring to. “Can the US succeed in nudging two traditional Arab powerhouses, Egypt and Iraq, into working, pro-western democracies?” The journal asks? Even if it could, and it can’t, they are in a bind. Any genuinely multi-party democratic regime will want to have more control of its economy and its resources, that’s why democratic regimes are not popular with US imperialism, it is why the US overthrew Iran’s Mossadegh in 1953 and installed the murderous Shah; it’s a no win situation for the bankers and the thugs on Wall Street.
Demonstrations are continuing in other parts of the Arab world. In Jordan, crowds went wild with the fall of Mubarak. In Tunisia yesterday people waved Tunisian and Egyptian flags shouting, “Down with dictators,” as crowds cheered. In Tehran, “End executions, stop dictatorships” was scribbled on paper money and “Tahrir Square” was spray painted on traffic signs in the main square where protests took place two years ago. This takes great courage in a country led by religious nuts whose regime has executed one person ever nine hours since Jan 1st according the WSJ, 87 in January alone. “Yes, we are all afraid of violence,” says one Iranian dissident, “but we are no less than the Egyptians; if they can do it so can we.”
The Arab uprisings are causing concern and division between the Zionists. In Israel, some in government, notably Shimon Peres and Ehud barak are calling for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and a peace accord with Syria. “Events in Egypt” says Peres, “increase the need to remove the burden of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Lamenting the departure of their friend, “Saudi Arabia has lost a loyal ally today” says one academic, even the Saudi thugs are responding with some concessions to the poor handing $250 million to needy families and waiving repayment of state housing loans. Naturally, this is accompanied by arrests of demonstrators as a warning against catching the Tunisian and Egyptian diseases. The Saudi ‘s are heavily armed with some of the best and most efficient US military hardware.
Throughout the Arab world unemployment and poverty is rife, even in oil rich Saudi Arabia. What’s more, the vast majority of the population in many of these countries is youth. In Jordan and Syria, 36% of the population is under 15. In Yemen, another vulnerable ally of US capitalism, 44% of the population is under 15. The Syrian youth are grateful to their Egyptian cousins no doubt as Assad has been forced to lift the ban on Facebook and You Tube. The Wall Street Journal adds that the sheikdoms of the Persian gulf have “populations bulging with young people” and that these regimes, “on the surface seem even further removed from democracy than Egypt has been.”
Egyptian Bloggers I have been following on Twitter have been receiving messages of gratitude and thanks from people all over the world. It is truly a great and historic two months for all workers but the Arab masses in particular. Global capitalism publicly states it is concerned about these secular dictators being replaced by “Islamist regimes”, but this is not the real concern. Capital will deal with an Islamist regime if need be. None of these religious states, Pakistan, Indonesia, or even the Iranians, threaten the rule of the market. And as we have mentioned before, the methods that brought down two seemingly entrenched regimes in two months are attractive to the working class; will appeal to those that want to fight; suicide bombing and indiscriminately killing workers and civilians is not. These methods serve the interests of capital and repel workers.
It is a worker’s revolution global capital fears and it is only a workers revolution and the transformation of society along democratic socialist lines that can actually fulfill the aspirations of Egyptian workers that the media so often talks about; and not just Egyptian workers, but all workers. Capitalism cannot.
Struggle is never easy, but it is rewarding. Without struggle there is no progress and without progress there is no life.
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