Thursday, 17 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
We All Shall Be Free!
You can take my heart beat but you can't break my soul - we all shall be free.
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Hossam on whats happening in Egypt now
The following is taken from Hossam's excellent blog at www.arabwy.org
Since yesterday, and actually earlier, middle class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies about “let’s build new Egypt,” “Let’s work harder than even before,” etc… In case you didn’t know, actually Egyptians are among the hardest working people in the globe already..
Those activists want us to trust Mubarak’s generals with the transition to democracy–the same junta that has provided the backbone of his dictatorship over the past 30 years. And while I believe the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who receive $1.3 billion annually from the US, will eventually engineer the transition to a “civilian” government, I have no doubt it will be a government that will guarantee the continuation of a system that will never touch the army’s privileges, keep the armed forces as the institution that will have the final say in politics (like for example Turkey), guarantee Egypt will continue to follow the US foreign policy whether it’s the undesired peace with Apartheid State of Israel, safe passage for the US navy in the Suez Canal, the continuation of the Gaza siege and exports of natural gas to Israel at subsidized rates. The “civilian” government is not about cabinet members who do not wear military uniforms. A civilian government means a government that fully represents the Egyptian people’s demands and desires without any intervention from the brass. And I see this hard to be accomplished or allowed by the junta.
The military has been the ruling institution in this country since 1952. Its leaders are part of the establishment. And while the young officers and soldiers are our allies, we cannot for one second lend our trust and confidence to the generals. Moreover, those army leaders need to be investigated. I want to know more about their involvement in the business sector.
All classes in Egypt took part in the uprising. In Tahrir Square you found sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, together with the workers, middle class citizens, and the urban poor. Mubarak has managed to alienate all social classes in society including wide section of the bourgeoisie. But remember that it’s only when the mass strikes started three days ago that’s when the regime started crumbling and the army had to force Mubarak to resign because the system was about to collapse.
Some have been surprised that the workers started striking. I really don’t know what to say. This is completely idiotic. The workers have been staging the longest and most sustained strike wave in Egypt’s history since 1946, triggered by the Mahalla strike in December 2006. It’s not the workers’ fault that you were not paying attention to their news. Every single day over the past three years there was a strike in some factory whether it’s in Cairo or the provinces. These strikes were not just economic, they were also political in nature.
From day 1 of our uprising, the working class has been taking part in the protests. Who do you think were the protesters in Mahalla, Suez and Kafr el-Dawwar for example? However, the workers were taking part as “demonstrators” and not necessarily as “workers”– meaning, they were not moving independently. The govt had brought the economy to halt, not the protesters by its curfew, shutting down of banks and business. It was a capitalist strike, aiming at terrorizing the Egyptian people. Only when the govt tried to bring the country back to “normal” on Sunday that workers returned to their factories, discussed the current situation, and started to organize en masse, moving as a block.
The strikes waged by the workers this week were both economic and political fused together. In some of the locations the workers did not list the regime’s fall among their demands, but they used the same slogans as those protesting in Tahrir and in many cases, at least those I managed to learn about and I’m sure there are others, the workers put forward a list of political demands in solidarity with the revolution.
These workers are not going home anytime soon. They started strikes because they couldn’t feed their families anymore. They have been emboldened by Mubarak’s overthrowal, and cannot go back to their children and tell them the army has promised to bring them food and their rights in I don’t know how many months. Many of the strikers have already started raising additional demands of establishing free trade unions away from the corrupt, state backed Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions.
Today, I’ve already started receiving news that thousands of Public Transport workers are staging protests in el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The temporary workers at Helwan Steel Mills are also protesting. The Railway technicians continue to bring trains to halt. Thousands of el-Hawamdiya Sugar Factory are protesting and oil workers will start a strike tomorrow over economic demands and also to impeach Minister Sameh Fahmy and halt gas exports to Israel. And more reports are coming from other industrial centers.
At this point, the Tahrir Square occupation is likely to be suspended. But we have to take Tahrir to the factories now. As the revolution proceeds an inevitable class polarization is to happen. We have to be vigilant. We shouldn’t stop here… We hold the keys to the liberation of the entire region, not just Egypt… Onwards with a permanent revolution that will empower the people of this country with direct democracy from below…
Since yesterday, and actually earlier, middle class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies about “let’s build new Egypt,” “Let’s work harder than even before,” etc… In case you didn’t know, actually Egyptians are among the hardest working people in the globe already..
Those activists want us to trust Mubarak’s generals with the transition to democracy–the same junta that has provided the backbone of his dictatorship over the past 30 years. And while I believe the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who receive $1.3 billion annually from the US, will eventually engineer the transition to a “civilian” government, I have no doubt it will be a government that will guarantee the continuation of a system that will never touch the army’s privileges, keep the armed forces as the institution that will have the final say in politics (like for example Turkey), guarantee Egypt will continue to follow the US foreign policy whether it’s the undesired peace with Apartheid State of Israel, safe passage for the US navy in the Suez Canal, the continuation of the Gaza siege and exports of natural gas to Israel at subsidized rates. The “civilian” government is not about cabinet members who do not wear military uniforms. A civilian government means a government that fully represents the Egyptian people’s demands and desires without any intervention from the brass. And I see this hard to be accomplished or allowed by the junta.
The military has been the ruling institution in this country since 1952. Its leaders are part of the establishment. And while the young officers and soldiers are our allies, we cannot for one second lend our trust and confidence to the generals. Moreover, those army leaders need to be investigated. I want to know more about their involvement in the business sector.
All classes in Egypt took part in the uprising. In Tahrir Square you found sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, together with the workers, middle class citizens, and the urban poor. Mubarak has managed to alienate all social classes in society including wide section of the bourgeoisie. But remember that it’s only when the mass strikes started three days ago that’s when the regime started crumbling and the army had to force Mubarak to resign because the system was about to collapse.
Some have been surprised that the workers started striking. I really don’t know what to say. This is completely idiotic. The workers have been staging the longest and most sustained strike wave in Egypt’s history since 1946, triggered by the Mahalla strike in December 2006. It’s not the workers’ fault that you were not paying attention to their news. Every single day over the past three years there was a strike in some factory whether it’s in Cairo or the provinces. These strikes were not just economic, they were also political in nature.
From day 1 of our uprising, the working class has been taking part in the protests. Who do you think were the protesters in Mahalla, Suez and Kafr el-Dawwar for example? However, the workers were taking part as “demonstrators” and not necessarily as “workers”– meaning, they were not moving independently. The govt had brought the economy to halt, not the protesters by its curfew, shutting down of banks and business. It was a capitalist strike, aiming at terrorizing the Egyptian people. Only when the govt tried to bring the country back to “normal” on Sunday that workers returned to their factories, discussed the current situation, and started to organize en masse, moving as a block.
The strikes waged by the workers this week were both economic and political fused together. In some of the locations the workers did not list the regime’s fall among their demands, but they used the same slogans as those protesting in Tahrir and in many cases, at least those I managed to learn about and I’m sure there are others, the workers put forward a list of political demands in solidarity with the revolution.
These workers are not going home anytime soon. They started strikes because they couldn’t feed their families anymore. They have been emboldened by Mubarak’s overthrowal, and cannot go back to their children and tell them the army has promised to bring them food and their rights in I don’t know how many months. Many of the strikers have already started raising additional demands of establishing free trade unions away from the corrupt, state backed Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions.
Today, I’ve already started receiving news that thousands of Public Transport workers are staging protests in el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The temporary workers at Helwan Steel Mills are also protesting. The Railway technicians continue to bring trains to halt. Thousands of el-Hawamdiya Sugar Factory are protesting and oil workers will start a strike tomorrow over economic demands and also to impeach Minister Sameh Fahmy and halt gas exports to Israel. And more reports are coming from other industrial centers.
At this point, the Tahrir Square occupation is likely to be suspended. But we have to take Tahrir to the factories now. As the revolution proceeds an inevitable class polarization is to happen. We have to be vigilant. We shouldn’t stop here… We hold the keys to the liberation of the entire region, not just Egypt… Onwards with a permanent revolution that will empower the people of this country with direct democracy from below…
Friday, 11 February 2011
Egypt; one down ... Way to go people!
Today is a historic day, 11.2.11 or 11.02.2011. If you are into numerology, they are significant numbers but of course what has made this day above others is that the revolution in Egypt took a significant step forward. They ousted Mubarak, the dictator backed by the West, thirty years he reigned.
There is so much to say about it; the hypocrisy of the western rulers who have gone from saying that Mubarak is a good man (Tony Blair seriously said this and this was the sentiment of many others) to saying that they will help Egypt achieve a western style democracy. It was the actions of the people that got rid of the tyrant in the first place. They didn't need outside "help" for this, unlike the fate of another dictator (in Iraq) who was ousted by the West who also destroyed the entire country in the process with over a million or two million people killed, hundreds of thousands maimed and displaced because their dictator was out of favour, and the West fancied its geopolitical chances. The double standards are incredible.
The people of Egypt are quite capable of making a future for themselves better than their past under Mubarak, they have already set up civilian committees in towns and cities across Egypt, they have set up new unions and workplace committees to organise civilian and social lives, all this can and should continue, there is no reason whatsoever to go back and live as before under military rule. Egypt is the birth place of civilisation, they now have the capability of starting a new civilisation one without exploitation or tyrannical rule. Over the centuries the technology has built up so that life can be run with all that any one person needs across the globe, life should be organised according to our needs and not for greed.
There were over three hundred Martyrs of this revolution, I posted a few as they met their deaths on the thread below on Egypt, it is for these people that the victory is greatest, those who gave their lives for the future, for a better future, and may they Rest In Peace. They did not die in vain. We are grateful for their sacrifice, all of us in the world who want better, for themselves and for the future, these martyrs have been vindicated, their brave stand paved the way, they will be forever remembered with love and cherished for their sacrifice.
Today there is celebration, may the rightful joy the Egyptians feel tonight strengthen their resolve to complete this task that has fallen to them ... the task of human emancipation and liberation, all power to you in the streets, schools, colleges, workplaces in towns and cities across Egypt, till victory!
There is so much to say about it; the hypocrisy of the western rulers who have gone from saying that Mubarak is a good man (Tony Blair seriously said this and this was the sentiment of many others) to saying that they will help Egypt achieve a western style democracy. It was the actions of the people that got rid of the tyrant in the first place. They didn't need outside "help" for this, unlike the fate of another dictator (in Iraq) who was ousted by the West who also destroyed the entire country in the process with over a million or two million people killed, hundreds of thousands maimed and displaced because their dictator was out of favour, and the West fancied its geopolitical chances. The double standards are incredible.
The people of Egypt are quite capable of making a future for themselves better than their past under Mubarak, they have already set up civilian committees in towns and cities across Egypt, they have set up new unions and workplace committees to organise civilian and social lives, all this can and should continue, there is no reason whatsoever to go back and live as before under military rule. Egypt is the birth place of civilisation, they now have the capability of starting a new civilisation one without exploitation or tyrannical rule. Over the centuries the technology has built up so that life can be run with all that any one person needs across the globe, life should be organised according to our needs and not for greed.
There were over three hundred Martyrs of this revolution, I posted a few as they met their deaths on the thread below on Egypt, it is for these people that the victory is greatest, those who gave their lives for the future, for a better future, and may they Rest In Peace. They did not die in vain. We are grateful for their sacrifice, all of us in the world who want better, for themselves and for the future, these martyrs have been vindicated, their brave stand paved the way, they will be forever remembered with love and cherished for their sacrifice.
Today there is celebration, may the rightful joy the Egyptians feel tonight strengthen their resolve to complete this task that has fallen to them ... the task of human emancipation and liberation, all power to you in the streets, schools, colleges, workplaces in towns and cities across Egypt, till victory!
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Egypt
Like most people I have been following the events in Egypt closely. I even went to the Egyptian Embassy in London on Saturday ( a most exhilarating if at times scary experience).
Right now in Tahrir (Victory) Square in Cairo among those still out demonstrating, there are pro Mubarak supporters armed and dangerous and shooting at people. Reports say some have been collared and disarmed and their first line out of their mouths is that they have not been paid! Quite illuminating really; must be that they have. If that is true is shows how weak pro Mubarak forces are, again, something that is not surprising. Still this is something the pro democracy movement has to contend with.
The organised workers, like the those involved in the production and movement of steel have been crucial in making sure the revolutionary movement has been as successful as it has been so far.
On Tuesday, yesterday, there were eight million people on the streets and an almost complete work stoppage. It's like saying this; we have power, us workers and we can show you this too; we will not work under your rule Mubarak, we are the people and want change. New unions have been formed.
At this moment in Tahrir Square and in other parts of the country it is a matter of arresting and stopping the pro Mubarak thugs, then looking at how progress is regarding his (Mubarak) shifting ... I am praying for the people of Egypt who are making this brave stand; making history.
Right now in Tahrir (Victory) Square in Cairo among those still out demonstrating, there are pro Mubarak supporters armed and dangerous and shooting at people. Reports say some have been collared and disarmed and their first line out of their mouths is that they have not been paid! Quite illuminating really; must be that they have. If that is true is shows how weak pro Mubarak forces are, again, something that is not surprising. Still this is something the pro democracy movement has to contend with.
The organised workers, like the those involved in the production and movement of steel have been crucial in making sure the revolutionary movement has been as successful as it has been so far.
On Tuesday, yesterday, there were eight million people on the streets and an almost complete work stoppage. It's like saying this; we have power, us workers and we can show you this too; we will not work under your rule Mubarak, we are the people and want change. New unions have been formed.
At this moment in Tahrir Square and in other parts of the country it is a matter of arresting and stopping the pro Mubarak thugs, then looking at how progress is regarding his (Mubarak) shifting ... I am praying for the people of Egypt who are making this brave stand; making history.
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