Fragile victory in Egypt: Will U.S. foreign aid impede the will of the Egyptian people?
By Michael Dean Benton
North of Center
As I write this (Sunday February 13), the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has been forced by the Egyptian people to step down as president after thirty years of ruling the country with an iron fist. The Armed Forces Supreme Council has temporarily taken control of the nation while the Egyptian people are still occupying Tahrir Square and are publicly demonstrating for more democratic openness in the decision making on the future direction of their country.
As we congratulate the Egyptian people on this partial revolutionary victory it is time for Americans to reflect on their own involvement with and support of the 30 year reign of Mubarak.
Mubarak and the U.S.: true valentines
We have long been a major problem in the world. We provide back-door support of any brutal regime that privileges American corporate interests over the interests of their own people. We actively destabilize, if not outright attack, any social-justice-minded leader that privileges their own people over the profiteering American/Western way of privatizing natural resources or public services.
Our involvement with Mubarak’s dictatorship has been that of a close friendship, with many American presidents citing his support of Israeli and American ambitions in the region as a necessary evil. A series of American presidents have also claimed access to the Suez Canal for American military ships as a geopolitical necessity.
Our involvement takes on an even more sinister tone, though, as we recognize that as far back as 1995 during the Clinton presidency, through a process known as extraordinary rendition, the C.I.A. has been transporting prisoners to Egypt for interrogations and torture. These have been administered in Egypt by the 18 year former-head of the feared Egyptian National Intelligence Agency Omar Suleiman.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Showing posts with label Egyptian Revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egyptian Revolution. Show all posts
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Abu Atris: A Revolution Against Neoliberalism?
[Thivai: Excellent short essay -- discusses neoliberalism here and abroad, through the lenses of David Harvey, Timothy Mitchell and Naomi Klein. Would be a great intro for people that are not familiar with neoliberalism or political economy or broader global interconnections or problems with free market/privatization in a real world setting.]
A revolution against neoliberalism? If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated.
by Abu Atris
Al Jazeera
...
Rhetoric vs. reality
Two observations about Egypt’s history as a neoliberal state are in order. First, Mubarak’s Egypt was considered to be at the forefront of instituting neoliberal policies in the Middle East (not un-coincidentally, so was Ben Ali’s Tunisia). Secondly, the reality of Egypt’s political economy during the Mubarak era was very different than the rhetoric, as was the case in every other neoliberal state from Chile to Indonesia. Political scientist Timothy Mitchell published a revealing essay about Egypt’s brand of neoliberalism in his book Rule of Experts (the chapter titled "Dreamland" — named after a housing development built by Ahmad Bahgat, one of the Mubarak cronies now discredited by the fall of the regime). The gist of Mitchell’s portrait of Egyptian neoliberalism was that while Egypt was lauded by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund as a beacon of free-market success, the standard tools for measuring economies gave a grossly inadequate picture of the Egyptian economy. In reality the unfettering of markets and agenda of privatization were applied unevenly at best.
The only people for whom Egyptian neoliberalism worked "by the book" were the most vulnerable members of society, and their experience with neoliberalism was not a pretty picture. Organised labor was fiercely suppressed. The public education and the health care systems were gutted by a combination of neglect and privatization. Much of the population suffered stagnant or falling wages relative to inflation. Official unemployment was estimated at approximately 9.4% last year (and much higher for the youth who spearheaded the January 25th Revolution), and about 20% of the population is said to live below a poverty line defined as $2 per day per person.
For the wealthy, the rules were very different. Egypt did not so much shrink its public sector, as neoliberal doctrine would have it, as it reallocated public resources for the benefit of a small and already affluent elite. Privatization provided windfalls for politically well-connected individuals who could purchase state-owned assets for much less than their market value, or monopolise rents from such diverse sources as tourism and foreign aid. Huge proportions of the profits made by companies that supplied basic construction materials like steel and cement came from government contracts, a proportion of which in turn were related to aid from foreign governments.
Most importantly, the very limited function for the state recommended by neoliberal doctrine in the abstract was turned on its head in reality. In Mubarak’s Egypt business and government were so tightly intertwined that it was often difficult for an outside observer to tease them apart. Since political connections were the surest route to astronomical profits, businessmen had powerful incentives to buy political office in the phony elections run by the ruling National Democratic Party. Whatever competition there was for seats in the Peoples’ Assembly and Consultative Council took place mainly within the NDP. Non-NDP representation in parliament by opposition parties was strictly a matter of the political calculations made for a given elections: let in a few independent candidates known to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in 2005 (and set off tremors of fear in Washington); dictate total NDP domination in 2010 (and clear the path for an expected new round of distributing public assets to "private" investors).
Parallels with America
The political economy of the Mubarak regime was shaped by many currents in Egypt’s own history, but its broad outlines were by no means unique. Similar stories can be told throughout the rest of the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Everywhere neoliberalism has been tried, the results are similar: living up to the utopian ideal is impossible; formal measures of economic activity mask huge disparities in the fortunes of the rich and poor; elites become "masters of the universe," using force to defend their prerogatives, and manipulating the economy to their advantage, but never living in anything resembling the heavily marketised worlds that are imposed on the poor.
Unemployment was a major grievance for millions of Egyptian protesters [EPA]
The story should sound familiar to Americans as well. For example, the vast fortunes of Bush era cabinet members Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, through their involvement with companies like Halliburton and Gilead Sciences, are the product of a political system that allows them — more or less legally — to have one foot planted in "business" and another in "government" to the point that the distinction between them becomes blurred. Politicians move from the office to the boardroom to the lobbying organization and back again.
As neoliberal dogma disallows any legitimate role for government other than guarding the sanctity of free markets, recent American history has been marked by the steady privatization of services and resources formerly supplied or controlled by the government. But it is inevitably those with closest access to the government who are best positioned to profit from government campaigns to sell off the functions it formerly performed. It is not just Republicans who are implicated in this systemic corruption. Clinton-era Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin’s involvement with Citigroup does not bear close scrutiny. Lawrence Summers gave crucial support for the deregulation of financial derivatives contracts while Secretary of Treasury under Clinton, and profited handsomely from companies involved in the same practices while working for Obama (and of course deregulated derivatives were a key element in the financial crisis that led to a massive Federal bailout of the entire banking industry).
So in Egyptian terms, when General Secretary of the NDP Ahmad Ezz cornered the market on steel and was given contracts to build public-private construction projects, or when former Minister of Parliament Talaat Mustafa purchased vast tracts of land for the upscale Madinaty housing development without having to engage in a competitive bidding process (but with the benefit of state-provided road and utility infrastructure), they may have been practicing corruption logically and morally. But what they were doing was also as American as apple pie, at least within the scope of the past two decades.
However, in the current climate the most important thing is not the depredations of deposed Mubarak regime cronies. It is rather the role of the military in the political system. It is the army that now rules the country, albeit as a transitional power, or so most Egyptians hope. No representatives of the upper echelons of the Egyptian military appear on the various lists of old-regime allies who need to be called to account. For example, the headline of the February 17th edition of Ahrar, the press organ of the Liberal party, was emblazoned with the headline "Financial Reserves of the Corrupt Total 700 Billion Pounds [about $118 billion] in 18 Countries."
A vast economic powerhouse
But the article did not say a single word about the place of the military in this epic theft. The military were nonetheless part of the crony capitalism of the Mubarak era. After relatively short careers in the military high-ranking officers are rewarded with such perks as highly remunerative positions on the management boards of housing projects and shopping malls. Some of these are essentially public-sector companies transferred to the military sector when IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs required reductions in the civilian public sector.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
A revolution against neoliberalism? If rebellion results in a retrenchment of neoliberalism, millions will feel cheated.
by Abu Atris
Al Jazeera
...
Rhetoric vs. reality
Two observations about Egypt’s history as a neoliberal state are in order. First, Mubarak’s Egypt was considered to be at the forefront of instituting neoliberal policies in the Middle East (not un-coincidentally, so was Ben Ali’s Tunisia). Secondly, the reality of Egypt’s political economy during the Mubarak era was very different than the rhetoric, as was the case in every other neoliberal state from Chile to Indonesia. Political scientist Timothy Mitchell published a revealing essay about Egypt’s brand of neoliberalism in his book Rule of Experts (the chapter titled "Dreamland" — named after a housing development built by Ahmad Bahgat, one of the Mubarak cronies now discredited by the fall of the regime). The gist of Mitchell’s portrait of Egyptian neoliberalism was that while Egypt was lauded by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund as a beacon of free-market success, the standard tools for measuring economies gave a grossly inadequate picture of the Egyptian economy. In reality the unfettering of markets and agenda of privatization were applied unevenly at best.
The only people for whom Egyptian neoliberalism worked "by the book" were the most vulnerable members of society, and their experience with neoliberalism was not a pretty picture. Organised labor was fiercely suppressed. The public education and the health care systems were gutted by a combination of neglect and privatization. Much of the population suffered stagnant or falling wages relative to inflation. Official unemployment was estimated at approximately 9.4% last year (and much higher for the youth who spearheaded the January 25th Revolution), and about 20% of the population is said to live below a poverty line defined as $2 per day per person.
For the wealthy, the rules were very different. Egypt did not so much shrink its public sector, as neoliberal doctrine would have it, as it reallocated public resources for the benefit of a small and already affluent elite. Privatization provided windfalls for politically well-connected individuals who could purchase state-owned assets for much less than their market value, or monopolise rents from such diverse sources as tourism and foreign aid. Huge proportions of the profits made by companies that supplied basic construction materials like steel and cement came from government contracts, a proportion of which in turn were related to aid from foreign governments.
Most importantly, the very limited function for the state recommended by neoliberal doctrine in the abstract was turned on its head in reality. In Mubarak’s Egypt business and government were so tightly intertwined that it was often difficult for an outside observer to tease them apart. Since political connections were the surest route to astronomical profits, businessmen had powerful incentives to buy political office in the phony elections run by the ruling National Democratic Party. Whatever competition there was for seats in the Peoples’ Assembly and Consultative Council took place mainly within the NDP. Non-NDP representation in parliament by opposition parties was strictly a matter of the political calculations made for a given elections: let in a few independent candidates known to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in 2005 (and set off tremors of fear in Washington); dictate total NDP domination in 2010 (and clear the path for an expected new round of distributing public assets to "private" investors).
Parallels with America
The political economy of the Mubarak regime was shaped by many currents in Egypt’s own history, but its broad outlines were by no means unique. Similar stories can be told throughout the rest of the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Everywhere neoliberalism has been tried, the results are similar: living up to the utopian ideal is impossible; formal measures of economic activity mask huge disparities in the fortunes of the rich and poor; elites become "masters of the universe," using force to defend their prerogatives, and manipulating the economy to their advantage, but never living in anything resembling the heavily marketised worlds that are imposed on the poor.
Unemployment was a major grievance for millions of Egyptian protesters [EPA]
The story should sound familiar to Americans as well. For example, the vast fortunes of Bush era cabinet members Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, through their involvement with companies like Halliburton and Gilead Sciences, are the product of a political system that allows them — more or less legally — to have one foot planted in "business" and another in "government" to the point that the distinction between them becomes blurred. Politicians move from the office to the boardroom to the lobbying organization and back again.
As neoliberal dogma disallows any legitimate role for government other than guarding the sanctity of free markets, recent American history has been marked by the steady privatization of services and resources formerly supplied or controlled by the government. But it is inevitably those with closest access to the government who are best positioned to profit from government campaigns to sell off the functions it formerly performed. It is not just Republicans who are implicated in this systemic corruption. Clinton-era Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin’s involvement with Citigroup does not bear close scrutiny. Lawrence Summers gave crucial support for the deregulation of financial derivatives contracts while Secretary of Treasury under Clinton, and profited handsomely from companies involved in the same practices while working for Obama (and of course deregulated derivatives were a key element in the financial crisis that led to a massive Federal bailout of the entire banking industry).
So in Egyptian terms, when General Secretary of the NDP Ahmad Ezz cornered the market on steel and was given contracts to build public-private construction projects, or when former Minister of Parliament Talaat Mustafa purchased vast tracts of land for the upscale Madinaty housing development without having to engage in a competitive bidding process (but with the benefit of state-provided road and utility infrastructure), they may have been practicing corruption logically and morally. But what they were doing was also as American as apple pie, at least within the scope of the past two decades.
However, in the current climate the most important thing is not the depredations of deposed Mubarak regime cronies. It is rather the role of the military in the political system. It is the army that now rules the country, albeit as a transitional power, or so most Egyptians hope. No representatives of the upper echelons of the Egyptian military appear on the various lists of old-regime allies who need to be called to account. For example, the headline of the February 17th edition of Ahrar, the press organ of the Liberal party, was emblazoned with the headline "Financial Reserves of the Corrupt Total 700 Billion Pounds [about $118 billion] in 18 Countries."
A vast economic powerhouse
But the article did not say a single word about the place of the military in this epic theft. The military were nonetheless part of the crony capitalism of the Mubarak era. After relatively short careers in the military high-ranking officers are rewarded with such perks as highly remunerative positions on the management boards of housing projects and shopping malls. Some of these are essentially public-sector companies transferred to the military sector when IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs required reductions in the civilian public sector.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Guardian February 13th Live Feed on Reports from the Egyptian Revolution
Egypt in transition - Sunday 13 February• Military leaders dissolve parliament and suspend constitution
• Protesters scuffle with soldiers attempting to move them on
• Tutankhamun relics stolen from Egyptian museum
• Read the latest summary of the day's events
Guardian
...
Reuters has an interesting round up of reaction to the military's announcement that it is dissolving parliament and suspending the constitution.
AYMAN NOUR, OPPOSITION ACTIVIST
"It is a victory for the revolution. I think this will satisfy the protesters. This resolution satisfies the Egyptian street, especially the part related to dissolving the parliament and shura council, and I think we are facing a new situation starting from today. We must have dialogue with the military council about putting a temporary, constitutional document to manage affairs in the transitional period."
HASSAN ABU TALEB, AL-AHRAM CENTRE FOR POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES
"The army has started using 'revolutionary legitimacy' as a basis for its actions. The army's commitment to a civilian and freely elected government, parliament, and an open space for political parties is a good sign. But there are many questions still. Who will be in this committee and what kind of role will the military play in drafting the new constitution? Will their role in the new constitution give them roles as ones given to the military in Turkey? There are still a lot of grey areas but it is clear that these decisions are opening the door for an entirely new system to come to order."
ABDULLAH HELMY, OF THE "YOUTH REVOLUTION UNION"
"The people have won. The youth of the revolution would like to thank the armed forced for their speedy response to our demands. The system has fallen and now we will get ready for reform."
HISHAM KASSEM, RIGHTS ACTIVIST AND PUBLISHER
"It seems to be the only way out. It might not be very political in the sense that I worry about the outcome of an election. The pattern is that the most powerful families always win the elections. The National Democratic Party (NDP) made sure their members were in it. These same families will win again with new faces, but via what political groups? The NDP has completely collapsed, no one will run on that platform. The party will completely collapse soon. (Six months) could be tough, and it's not easy to draft a constitution."
MAHMOUD NASSAR, PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The army has moved far along to meet the people's demands and we urge it to release all political prisoners who were taken before and after the January 25 revolution. Only then will we call off the protests."
CROWDS IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"Victory! Victory."
SAMY SAYYID, ACTIVIST AND PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The immediate release of political prisoners is needed. They must be freed! We will only be safe when they are out."
AHMED ABDEL AZIZ, 39, PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The coward is a coward and the brave are brave. We stuck to the last day and we won and watch out for more victories to the brave people of Egypt."
To Read the Live News Feed
• Protesters scuffle with soldiers attempting to move them on
• Tutankhamun relics stolen from Egyptian museum
• Read the latest summary of the day's events
Guardian
...
Reuters has an interesting round up of reaction to the military's announcement that it is dissolving parliament and suspending the constitution.
AYMAN NOUR, OPPOSITION ACTIVIST
"It is a victory for the revolution. I think this will satisfy the protesters. This resolution satisfies the Egyptian street, especially the part related to dissolving the parliament and shura council, and I think we are facing a new situation starting from today. We must have dialogue with the military council about putting a temporary, constitutional document to manage affairs in the transitional period."
HASSAN ABU TALEB, AL-AHRAM CENTRE FOR POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES
"The army has started using 'revolutionary legitimacy' as a basis for its actions. The army's commitment to a civilian and freely elected government, parliament, and an open space for political parties is a good sign. But there are many questions still. Who will be in this committee and what kind of role will the military play in drafting the new constitution? Will their role in the new constitution give them roles as ones given to the military in Turkey? There are still a lot of grey areas but it is clear that these decisions are opening the door for an entirely new system to come to order."
ABDULLAH HELMY, OF THE "YOUTH REVOLUTION UNION"
"The people have won. The youth of the revolution would like to thank the armed forced for their speedy response to our demands. The system has fallen and now we will get ready for reform."
HISHAM KASSEM, RIGHTS ACTIVIST AND PUBLISHER
"It seems to be the only way out. It might not be very political in the sense that I worry about the outcome of an election. The pattern is that the most powerful families always win the elections. The National Democratic Party (NDP) made sure their members were in it. These same families will win again with new faces, but via what political groups? The NDP has completely collapsed, no one will run on that platform. The party will completely collapse soon. (Six months) could be tough, and it's not easy to draft a constitution."
MAHMOUD NASSAR, PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The army has moved far along to meet the people's demands and we urge it to release all political prisoners who were taken before and after the January 25 revolution. Only then will we call off the protests."
CROWDS IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"Victory! Victory."
SAMY SAYYID, ACTIVIST AND PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The immediate release of political prisoners is needed. They must be freed! We will only be safe when they are out."
AHMED ABDEL AZIZ, 39, PROTESTER IN TAHRIR SQUARE
"The coward is a coward and the brave are brave. We stuck to the last day and we won and watch out for more victories to the brave people of Egypt."
To Read the Live News Feed
Friday, February 11, 2011
Brian Becker: Saluting the Egyptian people -- A true victory is secured, revolution still unfolding
Saluting the Egyptian people: A true victory is secured, revolution still unfolding
by Brian Becker
ANSWER
...
Yesterday, Mubarak defiantly insisted that he would not leave, which the people had expected when they gathered in the hundreds of thousands.
Today, Egypt erupted. Protesters in the North Sinai town of El-Arish exchanged gunfire with police and hurled Molotov cocktails at police stations. (AFP, Feb. 11)
“Downtown, more than 10,000 tore apart military barricades in front of the towering State Television and Radio building, a pro-Mubarak bastion that has aired constant commentary supporting him and dismissing the protests. They swarmed on the Nile River corniche at the foot of the building, beating drums and chanting, ‘Leave! Leave! Leave!’ They blocked employees from entering, vowing to silence the broadcast. Soldiers in tanks in front of the building did nothing to stop them, though state TV continued to air.” (AP, Feb. 11)
The steadfast determination of the youth-led uprising coupled with the dramatic entrance of the Egyptian working class into the mass movement radically changed the relationship of forces.
Imperialist hypocrisy, fear
Having armed and financed the Mubarak dictatorship’s 30-year-long war against the Egyptian people, the U.S. government abruptly shifted its position in a last-minute effort to prevent U.S. imperialist interests in Egypt going down with Mubarak’s doomed ship.
As the regime seemed to be crumbling in the face of the uprising and the mass strike wave, Obama appeared on national television yesterday to announce that the U.S. government saluted the youth-led uprising.
For 18 days, Mubarak’s police and thugs murdered, beat, arrested and tortured thousands of valiant and peaceful protesters—and during that entire time, the U.S. government refused to cut its massive financing of the regime.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to call for Mubarak to step down immediately. The senior U.S. civilian officials and the Pentagon’s top command stayed in constant contact with their agent Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s vice president, and their other agents in the senior leadership of Egypt’s military.
For now, the Egyptian military has assumed the power in Egypt. This is the preferred plan of the U.S. government. The continued presence of Mubarak was accelerating the militancy and radicalism of the uprising. Suddenly, as a consequence of the entrance of the people in a genuine uprising, Mubarak turned into a liability rather than a valued asset.
The main goal of the U.S. government now will be to find a way to sustain the authority of the Egyptian military high command, which has functioned as a client for the past 30 years.
It is too early to know how the ouster of Mubarak will impact the overall struggle in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.
A great victory has been secured. But the institutions of the dictatorship remain and behind them stand the Pentagon and the CIA. Undoubtedly, a new stage in the struggle will quickly unfold. The opening of political space for revolutionary and working-class forces to organize is of monumental importance.
The Israeli Zionist regime is deeply alarmed by the prospect of the end of the dictatorship. Although the Israeli regime pretends to be the great champion of “democracy,” the reality is that it fears the development of a genuine people’s government in Egypt, the largest Arab country that possesses the largest army in the Arab World.
The 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which followed the Camp David Summit Accord, is in fact a complete misnomer. The treaty gave the Israeli military a green light to wage war against other Arab peoples free from the threat of interference from the Egyptian military. In fact, this treaty sidelined the largest Arab army from engaging in any opposition to Israeli war plans against Lebanon, Syria, other Arab countries and especially the besieged Palestinian people. In exchange for the agreement, the United States provides nearly $2 billion to Egypt—most of it military aid—each year.
Youth, workers made the revolution
The young people of Egypt and the mass of the working class have, through their own efforts, changed the political equation.
To Read the Entire Commentary
by Brian Becker
ANSWER
...
Yesterday, Mubarak defiantly insisted that he would not leave, which the people had expected when they gathered in the hundreds of thousands.
Today, Egypt erupted. Protesters in the North Sinai town of El-Arish exchanged gunfire with police and hurled Molotov cocktails at police stations. (AFP, Feb. 11)
“Downtown, more than 10,000 tore apart military barricades in front of the towering State Television and Radio building, a pro-Mubarak bastion that has aired constant commentary supporting him and dismissing the protests. They swarmed on the Nile River corniche at the foot of the building, beating drums and chanting, ‘Leave! Leave! Leave!’ They blocked employees from entering, vowing to silence the broadcast. Soldiers in tanks in front of the building did nothing to stop them, though state TV continued to air.” (AP, Feb. 11)
The steadfast determination of the youth-led uprising coupled with the dramatic entrance of the Egyptian working class into the mass movement radically changed the relationship of forces.
Imperialist hypocrisy, fear
Having armed and financed the Mubarak dictatorship’s 30-year-long war against the Egyptian people, the U.S. government abruptly shifted its position in a last-minute effort to prevent U.S. imperialist interests in Egypt going down with Mubarak’s doomed ship.
As the regime seemed to be crumbling in the face of the uprising and the mass strike wave, Obama appeared on national television yesterday to announce that the U.S. government saluted the youth-led uprising.
For 18 days, Mubarak’s police and thugs murdered, beat, arrested and tortured thousands of valiant and peaceful protesters—and during that entire time, the U.S. government refused to cut its massive financing of the regime.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to call for Mubarak to step down immediately. The senior U.S. civilian officials and the Pentagon’s top command stayed in constant contact with their agent Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s vice president, and their other agents in the senior leadership of Egypt’s military.
For now, the Egyptian military has assumed the power in Egypt. This is the preferred plan of the U.S. government. The continued presence of Mubarak was accelerating the militancy and radicalism of the uprising. Suddenly, as a consequence of the entrance of the people in a genuine uprising, Mubarak turned into a liability rather than a valued asset.
The main goal of the U.S. government now will be to find a way to sustain the authority of the Egyptian military high command, which has functioned as a client for the past 30 years.
It is too early to know how the ouster of Mubarak will impact the overall struggle in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.
A great victory has been secured. But the institutions of the dictatorship remain and behind them stand the Pentagon and the CIA. Undoubtedly, a new stage in the struggle will quickly unfold. The opening of political space for revolutionary and working-class forces to organize is of monumental importance.
The Israeli Zionist regime is deeply alarmed by the prospect of the end of the dictatorship. Although the Israeli regime pretends to be the great champion of “democracy,” the reality is that it fears the development of a genuine people’s government in Egypt, the largest Arab country that possesses the largest army in the Arab World.
The 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which followed the Camp David Summit Accord, is in fact a complete misnomer. The treaty gave the Israeli military a green light to wage war against other Arab peoples free from the threat of interference from the Egyptian military. In fact, this treaty sidelined the largest Arab army from engaging in any opposition to Israeli war plans against Lebanon, Syria, other Arab countries and especially the besieged Palestinian people. In exchange for the agreement, the United States provides nearly $2 billion to Egypt—most of it military aid—each year.
Youth, workers made the revolution
The young people of Egypt and the mass of the working class have, through their own efforts, changed the political equation.
To Read the Entire Commentary
John Bussey: How to Handle Employee Activism
How to Handle Employee Activism: Google Tiptoes Around Cairo's Hero
by John Bussey
Wall Street Journal
As the world marveled this week at the remarkable story of Wael Ghonim, the Google manager who helped organize a popular rebellion in Egypt, a great sigh of relief could be heard rising from much of the rest of American business:
"I'm glad," came the exhale, "the guy doesn't work for us."
Who wasn't amazed at the power Mr. Ghonim wielded against the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak? An Internet geek and Google's Mideast regional marketing executive, Mr. Ghonim helped administer a group of Web pages that served as a rallying point for activists long before crowds gathered in Tahrir Square. He was detained by the police, made a martyr in the streets, and then released. A popular hero was born.
A lot of U.S. companies, which now manage millions of employees abroad, watched with trepidation. Many of them now earn more abroad than they do in America. And much of that income comes from the sale of big-ticket items—power systems, infrastructure equipment, aircraft, telecommunications—that only governments can afford to buy.
Companies may not want to be lapdogs to dictators. But they also don't want to tick off their chief customer. It's a balancing act, one that inevitably leads to a policy of corporate discretion: Best to stay off the radar screen.
Reflecting on Mr. Ghonim's extracurricular activities, an executive at one big U.S. manufacturer operating abroad was adamant: "Anything that affects the brand – we hate that," he said. "It wouldn't be allowed." Mr. Ghonim can be admired for his considerable contribution to civil liberties in Egypt, but also shunned as too great a liability to business.
Of course, that's exactly the sort of traditionalism the Google culture, and much of Silicon Valley, rebels against. Google, after all, is the company whose corporate motto is "Don't be evil" and whose co-founder, Sergey Brin, pulled operations from China because the country was censoring Google searches.
To Read the Rest of the Article
by John Bussey
Wall Street Journal
As the world marveled this week at the remarkable story of Wael Ghonim, the Google manager who helped organize a popular rebellion in Egypt, a great sigh of relief could be heard rising from much of the rest of American business:
"I'm glad," came the exhale, "the guy doesn't work for us."
Who wasn't amazed at the power Mr. Ghonim wielded against the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak? An Internet geek and Google's Mideast regional marketing executive, Mr. Ghonim helped administer a group of Web pages that served as a rallying point for activists long before crowds gathered in Tahrir Square. He was detained by the police, made a martyr in the streets, and then released. A popular hero was born.
A lot of U.S. companies, which now manage millions of employees abroad, watched with trepidation. Many of them now earn more abroad than they do in America. And much of that income comes from the sale of big-ticket items—power systems, infrastructure equipment, aircraft, telecommunications—that only governments can afford to buy.
Companies may not want to be lapdogs to dictators. But they also don't want to tick off their chief customer. It's a balancing act, one that inevitably leads to a policy of corporate discretion: Best to stay off the radar screen.
Reflecting on Mr. Ghonim's extracurricular activities, an executive at one big U.S. manufacturer operating abroad was adamant: "Anything that affects the brand – we hate that," he said. "It wouldn't be allowed." Mr. Ghonim can be admired for his considerable contribution to civil liberties in Egypt, but also shunned as too great a liability to business.
Of course, that's exactly the sort of traditionalism the Google culture, and much of Silicon Valley, rebels against. Google, after all, is the company whose corporate motto is "Don't be evil" and whose co-founder, Sergey Brin, pulled operations from China because the country was censoring Google searches.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Lisa Hajjar: “Omar Suleiman, the CIA’s Man in Cairo and Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief”
[Herb Reid related to me: "I've been watching Al Jazeera on the revolution in Egypt. As one demonstrator said awhile ago, now that Mubarak is gone it is time to get rid of the Mubarak dictatorship."]
“Omar Suleiman, the CIA’s Man in Cairo and Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief”
Democracy Now
During his televised speech on February 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak delegated some of his presidential authority to handpicked Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Professor Lisa Hajjar of the University of California, Santa Barbara chronicles Suleiman’s record, including his role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, his close ties to Israel and his personal involvement in the torture of prisoners.
To Watch/Listen/Read
“Omar Suleiman, the CIA’s Man in Cairo and Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief”
Democracy Now
During his televised speech on February 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak delegated some of his presidential authority to handpicked Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Professor Lisa Hajjar of the University of California, Santa Barbara chronicles Suleiman’s record, including his role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, his close ties to Israel and his personal involvement in the torture of prisoners.
To Watch/Listen/Read
Slavoj Zizek: For Egypt... There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice falls, or the uprisi
For Egypt, this is the miracle of Tahrir Square. There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice falls, or the uprising is betrayed.
by Slavoj Žižek
Guardian (United Kingdom)
One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?
From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face" of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
by Slavoj Žižek
Guardian (United Kingdom)
One cannot but note the "miraculous" nature of the events in Egypt: something has happened that few predicted, violating the experts' opinions, as if the uprising was not simply the result of social causes but the intervention of a mysterious agency that we can call, in a Platonic way, the eternal idea of freedom, justice and dignity.
The uprising was universal: it was immediately possible for all of us around the world to identify with it, to recognise what it was about, without any need for cultural analysis of the features of Egyptian society. In contrast to Iran's Khomeini revolution (where leftists had to smuggle their message into the predominantly Islamist frame), here the frame is clearly that of a universal secular call for freedom and justice, so that the Muslim Brotherhood had to adopt the language of secular demands.
The most sublime moment occurred when Muslims and Coptic Christians engaged in common prayer on Cairo's Tahrir Square, chanting "We are one!" – providing the best answer to the sectarian religious violence. Those neocons who criticise multiculturalism on behalf of the universal values of freedom and democracy are now confronting their moment of truth: you want universal freedom and democracy? This is what people demand in Egypt, so why are the neocons uneasy? Is it because the protesters in Egypt mention freedom and dignity in the same breath as social and economic justice?
From the start, the violence of the protesters has been purely symbolic, an act of radical and collective civil disobedience. They suspended the authority of the state – it was not just an inner liberation, but a social act of breaking chains of servitude. The physical violence was done by the hired Mubarak thugs entering Tahrir Square on horses and camels and beating people; the most protesters did was defend themselves.
Although combative, the message of the protesters has not been one of killing. The demand was for Mubarak to go, and thus open up the space for freedom in Egypt, a freedom from which no one is excluded – the protesters' call to the army, and even the hated police, was not "Death to you!", but "We are brothers! Join us!". This feature clearly distinguishes an emancipatory demonstration from a rightwing populist one: although the right's mobilisation proclaims the organic unity of the people, it is a unity sustained by a call to annihilate the designated enemy (Jews, traitors).
So where are we now? When an authoritarian regime approaches the final crisis, its dissolution tends to follow two steps. Before its actual collapse, a rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy; its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down …
In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroads, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew; within hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although street fights went on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game was over.
Is something similar going on in Egypt? For a couple of days at the beginning, it looked like Mubarak was already in the situation of the proverbial cat. Then we saw a well-planned operation to kidnap the revolution. The obscenity of this was breathtaking: the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, a former secret police chief responsible for mass tortures, presented himself as the "human face" of the regime, the person to oversee the transition to democracy.
Egypt's struggle of endurance is not a conflict of visions, it is the conflict between a vision of freedom and a blind clinging to power that uses all means possible – terror, lack of food, simple tiredness, bribery with raised salaries – to squash the will to freedom.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Democracy Now Reports on the Egyptian Revolution: February 9th/10th
Democracy Now
February 10th
Striking Egyptian Workers Fuel the Uprising After 10 Years of Labor Organizing
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the job Wednesday demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely studied the Egyptian labor movement for years. “This is huge, because there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labor protests in Egypt,” Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.”
Defying Regime Threats, Thousands of Workers Join Protesters in Tahrir Square
February 9th
After Record-Level Turnout in Tahrir, Egyptian Protests Spread to Parliament, Cabinet Buildings; Labor Unions Launch Strikes Nationwide
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is seizing new momentum one day after hundreds of thousands turned out for one of the largest protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to date. A gathering of protesters led to the evacuation of the Egyptian cabinet building today, and tent camps are also being set up outside the Egyptian parliament. Egypt’s labor movement has launched new strikes across the country, with an estimated 10,000 workers taking part. Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviews a demonstrator outside the Egyptian parliament building.
“We Are Writing History by Our Blood”: Egyptian Physician on Why Protests Won’t End Until Mubarak Resigns
Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to Egyptian physician Dr. Ali El Mashad in Cairo’s Tahrir Square over the weekend. Dr. Mashad describes being injured in the streets and bleeding from the head. “We are writing history by our blood,” he says. Mashad says he will not stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves office.
Human Rights Watch: 300 Deaths, Massive Detentions and Abuse under Mubarak Regime Crackdown
Human Rights Watch is reporting that at least 302 people have died in Egypt since pro-Mubarak forces launched a violent response to the popular uprising last month. The group says at least 232 people have died in Cairo, 52 in Alexandria, and 18 in Suez, but warns the actual death toll could be far higher. We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef, who has been monitoring the situation on the ground since the protests began.
“People Are Taking Care of Each Other”: Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat Camps with Protesters Overnight in Tahrir Square
Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat reports on the festive atmosphere in Tahrir Square last night following a record-level turnout of protesters: “People are really taking care of each other very well, giving each other food, water and blankets. It was a very moving experience,” Kamat says.
“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising
The longtime Middle East correspondent of The Independent newspaper in London joins us from Cairo to talk about the popular uprising ongoing across Egypt, its regional implications, and how Obama should respond. “[The protesters] are asking for nothing less than Americans accept in their own lives,” Fisk says.
February 10th
Striking Egyptian Workers Fuel the Uprising After 10 Years of Labor Organizing
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the job Wednesday demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely studied the Egyptian labor movement for years. “This is huge, because there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labor protests in Egypt,” Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.”
Defying Regime Threats, Thousands of Workers Join Protesters in Tahrir Square
February 9th
After Record-Level Turnout in Tahrir, Egyptian Protests Spread to Parliament, Cabinet Buildings; Labor Unions Launch Strikes Nationwide
Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is seizing new momentum one day after hundreds of thousands turned out for one of the largest protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to date. A gathering of protesters led to the evacuation of the Egyptian cabinet building today, and tent camps are also being set up outside the Egyptian parliament. Egypt’s labor movement has launched new strikes across the country, with an estimated 10,000 workers taking part. Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviews a demonstrator outside the Egyptian parliament building.
“We Are Writing History by Our Blood”: Egyptian Physician on Why Protests Won’t End Until Mubarak Resigns
Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to Egyptian physician Dr. Ali El Mashad in Cairo’s Tahrir Square over the weekend. Dr. Mashad describes being injured in the streets and bleeding from the head. “We are writing history by our blood,” he says. Mashad says he will not stop demonstrating until Mubarak leaves office.
Human Rights Watch: 300 Deaths, Massive Detentions and Abuse under Mubarak Regime Crackdown
Human Rights Watch is reporting that at least 302 people have died in Egypt since pro-Mubarak forces launched a violent response to the popular uprising last month. The group says at least 232 people have died in Cairo, 52 in Alexandria, and 18 in Suez, but warns the actual death toll could be far higher. We speak with Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef, who has been monitoring the situation on the ground since the protests began.
“People Are Taking Care of Each Other”: Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat Camps with Protesters Overnight in Tahrir Square
Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat reports on the festive atmosphere in Tahrir Square last night following a record-level turnout of protesters: “People are really taking care of each other very well, giving each other food, water and blankets. It was a very moving experience,” Kamat says.
“The Great Tragedy is Obama Chose Not to Hold Out His Hand”: Robert Fisk on the Gap Between U.S. Rhetoric and Action in the Egyptian Uprising
The longtime Middle East correspondent of The Independent newspaper in London joins us from Cairo to talk about the popular uprising ongoing across Egypt, its regional implications, and how Obama should respond. “[The protesters] are asking for nothing less than Americans accept in their own lives,” Fisk says.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Jack Shenker and Chris McGreal: Egyptian talks near collapse as unions back protests
(Essential reading: Guardian: "Egypt protests - Wednesday 9 February")
Egyptian talks near collapse as unions back protests
Guardian
by Jack Shenker and Chris McGreal
Government refuses transition plan as demonstrations are joined by strikes – and vice-president's coup ultimatum raises tensions
Talks between the Egyptian government and opposition have all but collapsed after the regime balked at surrendering power to a transitional administration in the hope that mass protests would die down this week.
Instead, the unrest is spreading as some of the largest demonstrations yet against President Hosni Mubarak were joined by labour strikes across the country, including on the Suez canal, in the city of Alexandria and by public transport workers in Cairo.
A prominent member of a key opposition group, the Council of Wise Men, said negotiations had "essentially come to an end". A western diplomat said Washington was alarmed by the lack of political progress and the Egyptian vice-president Omar Suleiman's warning of a coup if the opposition refused to accept the government's terms.
Diaa Rashwan, of the Council of Wise Men, said he offered Suleiman a compromise in which Mubarak would have remained president but with his powers transferred to a transitional government.
Rashwan said this proposal was rejected at the weekend and there had been no further movement.
"The regime is taking a hard line and so negotiations have essentially come to an end," he said. "Suleiman's comments about there being a danger of a coup were shocking to all of us – it was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable.
"The regime's strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don't really want to talk to anyone. At the start of this week they were convinced that the protests were going to fade away."
Instead, the largest anti-Mubarak demonstration so far took place in Cairo on Tuesday. This came on the same day as 25 separate big demonstrations elsewhere in Egypt and the start of a series of strikes as trade unions joined the fray. Some stoppages are mainly about wage demands, but in the present crisis there is little doubt that they are timed to support the pro-democracy movement.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Egyptian talks near collapse as unions back protests
Guardian
by Jack Shenker and Chris McGreal
Government refuses transition plan as demonstrations are joined by strikes – and vice-president's coup ultimatum raises tensions
Talks between the Egyptian government and opposition have all but collapsed after the regime balked at surrendering power to a transitional administration in the hope that mass protests would die down this week.
Instead, the unrest is spreading as some of the largest demonstrations yet against President Hosni Mubarak were joined by labour strikes across the country, including on the Suez canal, in the city of Alexandria and by public transport workers in Cairo.
A prominent member of a key opposition group, the Council of Wise Men, said negotiations had "essentially come to an end". A western diplomat said Washington was alarmed by the lack of political progress and the Egyptian vice-president Omar Suleiman's warning of a coup if the opposition refused to accept the government's terms.
Diaa Rashwan, of the Council of Wise Men, said he offered Suleiman a compromise in which Mubarak would have remained president but with his powers transferred to a transitional government.
Rashwan said this proposal was rejected at the weekend and there had been no further movement.
"The regime is taking a hard line and so negotiations have essentially come to an end," he said. "Suleiman's comments about there being a danger of a coup were shocking to all of us – it was a betrayal of the spirit of negotiations, and is unacceptable.
"The regime's strategy has been just to play for time and stall with negotiations. They don't really want to talk to anyone. At the start of this week they were convinced that the protests were going to fade away."
Instead, the largest anti-Mubarak demonstration so far took place in Cairo on Tuesday. This came on the same day as 25 separate big demonstrations elsewhere in Egypt and the start of a series of strikes as trade unions joined the fray. Some stoppages are mainly about wage demands, but in the present crisis there is little doubt that they are timed to support the pro-democracy movement.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Monday, February 07, 2011
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: Tunisia, Egypt, and the Big Picture
Tunisia, Egypt, and the Big Picture: Egypt lies on the fault lines of the convergence of global ecological, energy, and economic crises—and thus, on the frontlines of deepening global system failure.
by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Yes Magazine
The toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia in the wake of mass protests and bloody street clashes is likely to signify a major transformation in the future of politics and geopolitics for the major countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The Tunisian experience triggered the escalation of unprecedented protests in Egypt against the Mubarak regime. The question is: ‘Will events in Tunisia and Egypt have a domino effect throughout the Arab world?’
The potential fall of Hosni Mubarak is serious stuff. Egypt is “the most populous country in the Arab world,” viewed by the United States, Britain and the West as “a strategic pivot” and a “a vital ally” in the ‘War on Terror’. No wonder then that activists across the world are holding their breath in anticipation that one of the world’s most notorious dictators, and one of the West’s most favored client-regimes, might be overthrown.
The eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy, and economic crises.What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is only a manifestation of a deeper convergence of fundamental structural crises, which are truly global in scale. The eruption of social and political unrest has followed the impact of deepening economic turbulence across the region, due to the inflationary impact of rocketing fuel and food prices. As of mid-January, even before Ben Ali had fled Tunis, riots were breaking out in Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, and Jordan. The key grievances? Rampant unemployment, unaffordable food and consumer goods, endemic poverty, lack of basic services, and political repression.
Global food crisis
In many of these countries, certainly in both Tunisia and Egypt, tensions have simmered for years. The trigger, it seems, came in the form of food shortages caused by the record high global prices reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in December 2010. The return of high food prices two to three years after the 2008 global food crisis should not be a surprise. For most of the preceding decade, world grain consumption exceeded production—correlating with agricultural land productivity declining almost by half from 1990–2007, compared with 1950–1990.
This year, global food supply chains were again “stretched to the limit” following poor harvests in Canada, Russia and Ukraine; hotter, drier weather in South America cutting soybean production; flooding in Australia, wiping out its wheat crops; not to mention the colder, stormier, snowier winters experienced in the northern hemisphere, damaging harvests.
So much of the current supply shortages have been inflicted by increasingly erratic weather events and natural disasters, which climate scientists have long warned are symptomatic of anthropogenic global warming. Droughts exacerbated by global warming in key food-basket regions have already led to a 10–20 percent drop in rice yields over the last decade. By mid-century, world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent due to climate change alone.
But climate change is likely to do more than generate droughts in some regions. It is also linked to the prospect of colder weather in the eastern United States, east Asia, and northern Europe—as the rate of Arctic summer sea ice is accelerating, leading to intensifying warming, the change in atmospheric pressure pushes cold Arctic air to the south. Similarly, even the floods in Australia could be linked to climate change. Scientists agree they were caused by a particularly strong El Niño/La Niña oscillation in the Tropical Pacific ocean-atmospheric system. But Michael McPhaden, co-author of a recent scientific study on the issue, suggests that recently stronger El Niño events are “plausibly the result of global warming.”
The global food situation has been compounded by the over-dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, consuming ten calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy produced. The problem is that global conventional oil production has most likely already peaked, having been on an undulating plateau since 2005—and forecast to steadily and inexorably decline, leading to higher prices. Although oil prices dropped after the 2008 crash due to recession, the resuscitation of economic activity has pushed up demand, leading fuel prices to creep back up to $95 a barrel.
The fuel price hikes, combining with the predatory activities of financial speculators trying to rake in profits by investing in the commodity markets, have underpinned worldwide inflation. Just as in 2008, the worst effected have been the poorer populations of the South. Thus, the eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy and economic crises—inherently interconnected problems which are symptomatic of an Empire in overstretch, a global political economy in breach of the natural limits of its environment.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and Access HyperLinked Resources
by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Yes Magazine
The toppling of Ben Ali in Tunisia in the wake of mass protests and bloody street clashes is likely to signify a major transformation in the future of politics and geopolitics for the major countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The Tunisian experience triggered the escalation of unprecedented protests in Egypt against the Mubarak regime. The question is: ‘Will events in Tunisia and Egypt have a domino effect throughout the Arab world?’
The potential fall of Hosni Mubarak is serious stuff. Egypt is “the most populous country in the Arab world,” viewed by the United States, Britain and the West as “a strategic pivot” and a “a vital ally” in the ‘War on Terror’. No wonder then that activists across the world are holding their breath in anticipation that one of the world’s most notorious dictators, and one of the West’s most favored client-regimes, might be overthrown.
The eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy, and economic crises.What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is only a manifestation of a deeper convergence of fundamental structural crises, which are truly global in scale. The eruption of social and political unrest has followed the impact of deepening economic turbulence across the region, due to the inflationary impact of rocketing fuel and food prices. As of mid-January, even before Ben Ali had fled Tunis, riots were breaking out in Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, and Jordan. The key grievances? Rampant unemployment, unaffordable food and consumer goods, endemic poverty, lack of basic services, and political repression.
Global food crisis
In many of these countries, certainly in both Tunisia and Egypt, tensions have simmered for years. The trigger, it seems, came in the form of food shortages caused by the record high global prices reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in December 2010. The return of high food prices two to three years after the 2008 global food crisis should not be a surprise. For most of the preceding decade, world grain consumption exceeded production—correlating with agricultural land productivity declining almost by half from 1990–2007, compared with 1950–1990.
This year, global food supply chains were again “stretched to the limit” following poor harvests in Canada, Russia and Ukraine; hotter, drier weather in South America cutting soybean production; flooding in Australia, wiping out its wheat crops; not to mention the colder, stormier, snowier winters experienced in the northern hemisphere, damaging harvests.
So much of the current supply shortages have been inflicted by increasingly erratic weather events and natural disasters, which climate scientists have long warned are symptomatic of anthropogenic global warming. Droughts exacerbated by global warming in key food-basket regions have already led to a 10–20 percent drop in rice yields over the last decade. By mid-century, world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent due to climate change alone.
But climate change is likely to do more than generate droughts in some regions. It is also linked to the prospect of colder weather in the eastern United States, east Asia, and northern Europe—as the rate of Arctic summer sea ice is accelerating, leading to intensifying warming, the change in atmospheric pressure pushes cold Arctic air to the south. Similarly, even the floods in Australia could be linked to climate change. Scientists agree they were caused by a particularly strong El Niño/La Niña oscillation in the Tropical Pacific ocean-atmospheric system. But Michael McPhaden, co-author of a recent scientific study on the issue, suggests that recently stronger El Niño events are “plausibly the result of global warming.”
The global food situation has been compounded by the over-dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, consuming ten calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy produced. The problem is that global conventional oil production has most likely already peaked, having been on an undulating plateau since 2005—and forecast to steadily and inexorably decline, leading to higher prices. Although oil prices dropped after the 2008 crash due to recession, the resuscitation of economic activity has pushed up demand, leading fuel prices to creep back up to $95 a barrel.
The fuel price hikes, combining with the predatory activities of financial speculators trying to rake in profits by investing in the commodity markets, have underpinned worldwide inflation. Just as in 2008, the worst effected have been the poorer populations of the South. Thus, the eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy and economic crises—inherently interconnected problems which are symptomatic of an Empire in overstretch, a global political economy in breach of the natural limits of its environment.
To Read the Rest of the Essay and Access HyperLinked Resources
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Democracy Now: Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime
Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime
Live Reports from Cairo with Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat.
Democracy Now
Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif on how life in Tahrir Square "is truly democracy in action."
Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi on the impact of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings on the Middle East.
Mohamed Abdel Dayem of the Committee to Protect Journalists on the continued attacks on journalists by supporters of the Mubarak regime.
Khaled Fahmy, professor at the American University in Cairo, on reports that Hosni Mubarak has resigned as head of the ruling NDP party.
University of California-Santa Barbara professor Paul Amar on the military’s role in a post-Mubarak Egypt.
Stanford Professor Joel Beinin on the Egyptian labor movement and the historical roots of the Jan. 25 uprising.
Egyptian-American activist Mostafa Omar on the role of Egyptian youth in the protests.
And we play the "video that started the revolution"–Asmaa Mahfouz’s Jan. 18th message calling for protests in Tahrir Square on Jan. 25.
To Watch the Reports
Live Reports from Cairo with Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat.
Democracy Now
Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif on how life in Tahrir Square "is truly democracy in action."
Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi on the impact of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings on the Middle East.
Mohamed Abdel Dayem of the Committee to Protect Journalists on the continued attacks on journalists by supporters of the Mubarak regime.
Khaled Fahmy, professor at the American University in Cairo, on reports that Hosni Mubarak has resigned as head of the ruling NDP party.
University of California-Santa Barbara professor Paul Amar on the military’s role in a post-Mubarak Egypt.
Stanford Professor Joel Beinin on the Egyptian labor movement and the historical roots of the Jan. 25 uprising.
Egyptian-American activist Mostafa Omar on the role of Egyptian youth in the protests.
And we play the "video that started the revolution"–Asmaa Mahfouz’s Jan. 18th message calling for protests in Tahrir Square on Jan. 25.
To Watch the Reports
Egyptian Revolution Media Coverage: February 5, 2011
To keep updated on the Egyptian Revolution this saturday:
Democracy Now is streaming a two hour special at 11am (EST) which can be viewed at any time once it has run.
Al Jazeera English is streaming live reports.
Democracy Now is streaming a two hour special at 11am (EST) which can be viewed at any time once it has run.
Al Jazeera English is streaming live reports.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Robert Fisk: Obama Administration Has Been Gutless and Cowardly in Dealing with the Mubarak Regime
Robert Fisk: Obama Administration Has Been Gutless and Cowardly in Dealing with the Mubarak Regime
Democracy Now
The renowned Middle East journalist speaks from Cairo on the historic uprising and how President Obama has lost an opportunity to back a democratic movement in the Middle East.
To Watch/Listen/Read
Democracy Now
The renowned Middle East journalist speaks from Cairo on the historic uprising and how President Obama has lost an opportunity to back a democratic movement in the Middle East.
To Watch/Listen/Read
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Noam Chomsky: “This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember”
Noam Chomsky: “This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember”
Democracy Now
In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term. We speak to MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region. When asked about President Obama’s remarks last night on Mubarak, Chomsky said: "Obama very carefully didn’t say anything... He’s doing what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it becomes impossible, switch sides."
To Watch/Listen/Read
Democracy Now
In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term. We speak to MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region. When asked about President Obama’s remarks last night on Mubarak, Chomsky said: "Obama very carefully didn’t say anything... He’s doing what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it becomes impossible, switch sides."
To Watch/Listen/Read
Bloodshed in Egypt; Voices of the Egyptian Revolution; As Mubarak Pledges To Finish Term, Egyptian Protesters Stay in Streets Demanding Immediate End
Bloodshed in Egypt: Mubarak Supporters Riding on Horses and Camels Violently Attack Protesters in Tahrir Square, Over 100 Injured
Violent clashes broke out just before our broadcast when supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attacked anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Reports are that more than 100 people have been injured. “The entire square is surrounded by thugs, and apparently there are more coming on the way,” reports Egyptian activist Nazly Hussein. "I have seen people come out injured… I saw people carried into the medical center injured." We get live reports from Hussein and ... Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who are both in Cairo.
Voices of the Egyptian Revolution: Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Speaks with Demonstrators in Tahrir Square at "March of Millions"
In a display of defiance unimaginable just weeks ago, millions of Egyptians marched on Tuesday across the nation against the Mubarak regime. ... Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Hany Massoud file this video report from Tahrir Square capturing the voices of the uprising. “Finally I feel it’s my country. It’s not the country of the police. It’s not the country of the governing elites or ruling elites,” one protester said. “I’m really proud to be an Egyptian today.”
As Mubarak Pledges To Finish Term, Egyptian Protesters Stay in Streets Demanding Immediate End to Regime: Democracy Now! Reports Live from Cairo
... Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports live just blocks from Tahrir Square in Cairo where supposed pro-Mubarak crowds are descending on the peaceful demonstrators. He interviews University of California-Davis Professor Nora Radwan about the current situation in Egypt. “The emotional response of the people on the street is that we did not come here to negotiate with him. We came here to ask him one thing, which is to step down," Radwan said. "The Egyptians understand that there is no guarantee that Mubarak and his government can deliver any constitutional reform or any meaningful change in Egypt."
Violent clashes broke out just before our broadcast when supporters of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak attacked anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Reports are that more than 100 people have been injured. “The entire square is surrounded by thugs, and apparently there are more coming on the way,” reports Egyptian activist Nazly Hussein. "I have seen people come out injured… I saw people carried into the medical center injured." We get live reports from Hussein and ... Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who are both in Cairo.
Voices of the Egyptian Revolution: Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Speaks with Demonstrators in Tahrir Square at "March of Millions"
In a display of defiance unimaginable just weeks ago, millions of Egyptians marched on Tuesday across the nation against the Mubarak regime. ... Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Hany Massoud file this video report from Tahrir Square capturing the voices of the uprising. “Finally I feel it’s my country. It’s not the country of the police. It’s not the country of the governing elites or ruling elites,” one protester said. “I’m really proud to be an Egyptian today.”
As Mubarak Pledges To Finish Term, Egyptian Protesters Stay in Streets Demanding Immediate End to Regime: Democracy Now! Reports Live from Cairo
... Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports live just blocks from Tahrir Square in Cairo where supposed pro-Mubarak crowds are descending on the peaceful demonstrators. He interviews University of California-Davis Professor Nora Radwan about the current situation in Egypt. “The emotional response of the people on the street is that we did not come here to negotiate with him. We came here to ask him one thing, which is to step down," Radwan said. "The Egyptians understand that there is no guarantee that Mubarak and his government can deliver any constitutional reform or any meaningful change in Egypt."
CrimethInc: Egypt Today, Tomorrow the World
Egypt Today, Tomorrow the World
CrimethInc
What is happening—first in Tunisia and now in Egypt—is the beginning of the wave of full-scale revolutions that will inevitably follow the global financial crisis of 2008. Taking place in the wake of the failed “War on Terror,” these revolutions combine the latent force of massive numbers of unemployed youth with the dynamism of modern communication networks. They signal the conclusion of the decade of counter-revolution that followed September 11, 2001. Although they continue the exploration of new technologies and decentralized forms of organization initiated by the anti-globalization movement, the form and scale of these new revolutions is unprecedented. Largely anonymous groups are using the ubiquitous World Wide Web to spark leaderless rebellions against the pharaohs of the global empire of capital.
The self-styled rulers of the world are truly at a loss as to how to understand the new social and technological forces at play; the aging dictator Mubarak is a perfect example of this, but he is hardly the only one of his kind. One can almost smell the fear, not only amongst the despots of China and Saudi Arabia but also the supposed leaders of representative democracies. The contortions the US government has been going through are the most grotesque of all; it isn’t lost on the Egyptian people that the bullets striking down their comrades came from the USA. Egypt receives $1.3 billion dollars of military aid from the US every year. The suppression of “democracy” in the Middle East has been a deliberate policy of the US government: they know popular sentiment would never support their agenda as the military enforcement of global capitalism.
The best efforts of Mubarak’s dying regime to put its fingers in the ears of the world have not silenced the people on the streets of Cairo. Even blocking cell phones and trying to turn off the entire Internet have proved futile. For generations, Arabs and Africans have been silenced, represented by various colonial governments and portrayed as “primitive” and “terrorist” in Europe and the US. Now the people of Egypt are speaking in thunderous unison for freedom—not for political Islam, as demagogues from Iran to Israel would have the world believe. In doing so, they are realizing the ideals to which the US government pays only hypocritical lip service.
Today, the common condition from Egypt to Tunisia is approaching universal unemployment—especially among the younger generations, which comprise the vast majority of population. This is increasingly the case in the United States and Europe as well. Unemployment is no accident, but the inevitable result of the last thirty years of capitalism. Capitalism reached its internal limits at the end of the 1970s; now the factories of every industry produce ever more commodities, while increasing automation renders workers less and less necessary. The only way to make profits off these commodities is to eliminate workers or pay them next to nothing. To discipline the skyrocketing unemployed population and prevent revolt, the police wage a never-ending war on the population. We live in a world overflowing with cheap shit, in which human life is the cheapest of all.
In these conditions, people have nothing to left to lose. Nothing, that is, but their dignity—and it turns out they will not surrender that. It was precisely this innermost core of dignity that led Mohammed Bouazizi to light himself on fire rather than face humiliation at the hands of the police, who in seizing his fruit-selling cart took away the only way he could feed his family. The blaze lit by Mohammed Bouazizi has spread, carried by other unemployed people who thereby transform themselves from abject beggars into world-historical heroes. The people of Egypt are not only burning police cars, they are organizing popular committees to clean the police and other trash off the street, and the streets of Cairo have never felt safer.
It is not surprising that a wave of revolutions should begin now. Not since the days of pharaohs and monarchs has the world been controlled by as senseless a force as the global financial market. As capitalists became less and less able to produce profit from industrial production over the past decades, they had to invent means of profiting based on expected future returns. But in a world of increasingly cheap commodities and poor consumers, how could capitalists keep people buying stuff and still make a profit? They had to invent a way for consumers to continue buying even when they weren’t paid living wages: thus the invention of mass debt. When the sale of real goods can no longer produce profit, profits must be made on increasingly fantastic expected future returns—in other words, on finance.
Yet like any house of cards, debt cannot be built up forever. Eventually, someone wants to be paid back—and so the entire house of cards collapsed under its own weight in 2008. The financial crisis signals a deeper metaphysical crisis of our present order: capitalism is unable to provide for the real material needs of the global population. The high poverty rates in Egypt are not simply the result of mismanagement by Mubarak, but the inevitable consequence of the contradictions of our era.
Their eyes hopelessly clouded by their own ideology and lack of vision, heads of state can only stand dumb and surprised as the crisis goes on and on. They lamely hope to re-start the financial markets through “austerity” or “green” capitalism, refusing to consider systemic change despite the fact that the system cannot even deliver jobs and affordable commodities to people—much less a good life. Just as it took an era of revolution to overthrow the divine right of kings, it will take new revolutions to overthrow the divine right of things: the power of financial capital and its puppet dictators.
Revolutions are never brought about by technology, but rather by the collective action of human beings who radically transform their relationships with each other and the world they share. However, one cannot deny what an important role the World Wide Web has played in Egypt and Tunisia. Especially among cybernetically skilled and predominantly unemployed youth, it enabled people to call for and participate in mass mobilizations without any need of leaders. The demonstrations in Egypt on January 25 were called for by a Facebook page called “We Are All Khaled Said,” named for a victim of police brutality much like Alexis Grigoropoulos in Greece. The page itself was set up by the anonymous “El-Shaheed”—that is, “martyr” in Arabic. Meanwhile, youth throughout the world are mobilizing as Anonymous; in the battle over Wikileaks and more recently in actions against the Tunisian government, Anonymous has showed itself to be a potent new international with an awakening political maturity beyond the message boards of 4chan. Demonstrators’ ability to communicate with large numbers of people and react immediately to events via mobile phones, Twitter, and Facebook is swiftly making previous forms of Leftist and industrial-based political organization obsolete, along with other hierarchical formations such as political Islam.
To Read the Entire Essay
CrimethInc
What is happening—first in Tunisia and now in Egypt—is the beginning of the wave of full-scale revolutions that will inevitably follow the global financial crisis of 2008. Taking place in the wake of the failed “War on Terror,” these revolutions combine the latent force of massive numbers of unemployed youth with the dynamism of modern communication networks. They signal the conclusion of the decade of counter-revolution that followed September 11, 2001. Although they continue the exploration of new technologies and decentralized forms of organization initiated by the anti-globalization movement, the form and scale of these new revolutions is unprecedented. Largely anonymous groups are using the ubiquitous World Wide Web to spark leaderless rebellions against the pharaohs of the global empire of capital.
The self-styled rulers of the world are truly at a loss as to how to understand the new social and technological forces at play; the aging dictator Mubarak is a perfect example of this, but he is hardly the only one of his kind. One can almost smell the fear, not only amongst the despots of China and Saudi Arabia but also the supposed leaders of representative democracies. The contortions the US government has been going through are the most grotesque of all; it isn’t lost on the Egyptian people that the bullets striking down their comrades came from the USA. Egypt receives $1.3 billion dollars of military aid from the US every year. The suppression of “democracy” in the Middle East has been a deliberate policy of the US government: they know popular sentiment would never support their agenda as the military enforcement of global capitalism.
The best efforts of Mubarak’s dying regime to put its fingers in the ears of the world have not silenced the people on the streets of Cairo. Even blocking cell phones and trying to turn off the entire Internet have proved futile. For generations, Arabs and Africans have been silenced, represented by various colonial governments and portrayed as “primitive” and “terrorist” in Europe and the US. Now the people of Egypt are speaking in thunderous unison for freedom—not for political Islam, as demagogues from Iran to Israel would have the world believe. In doing so, they are realizing the ideals to which the US government pays only hypocritical lip service.
Today, the common condition from Egypt to Tunisia is approaching universal unemployment—especially among the younger generations, which comprise the vast majority of population. This is increasingly the case in the United States and Europe as well. Unemployment is no accident, but the inevitable result of the last thirty years of capitalism. Capitalism reached its internal limits at the end of the 1970s; now the factories of every industry produce ever more commodities, while increasing automation renders workers less and less necessary. The only way to make profits off these commodities is to eliminate workers or pay them next to nothing. To discipline the skyrocketing unemployed population and prevent revolt, the police wage a never-ending war on the population. We live in a world overflowing with cheap shit, in which human life is the cheapest of all.
In these conditions, people have nothing to left to lose. Nothing, that is, but their dignity—and it turns out they will not surrender that. It was precisely this innermost core of dignity that led Mohammed Bouazizi to light himself on fire rather than face humiliation at the hands of the police, who in seizing his fruit-selling cart took away the only way he could feed his family. The blaze lit by Mohammed Bouazizi has spread, carried by other unemployed people who thereby transform themselves from abject beggars into world-historical heroes. The people of Egypt are not only burning police cars, they are organizing popular committees to clean the police and other trash off the street, and the streets of Cairo have never felt safer.
It is not surprising that a wave of revolutions should begin now. Not since the days of pharaohs and monarchs has the world been controlled by as senseless a force as the global financial market. As capitalists became less and less able to produce profit from industrial production over the past decades, they had to invent means of profiting based on expected future returns. But in a world of increasingly cheap commodities and poor consumers, how could capitalists keep people buying stuff and still make a profit? They had to invent a way for consumers to continue buying even when they weren’t paid living wages: thus the invention of mass debt. When the sale of real goods can no longer produce profit, profits must be made on increasingly fantastic expected future returns—in other words, on finance.
Yet like any house of cards, debt cannot be built up forever. Eventually, someone wants to be paid back—and so the entire house of cards collapsed under its own weight in 2008. The financial crisis signals a deeper metaphysical crisis of our present order: capitalism is unable to provide for the real material needs of the global population. The high poverty rates in Egypt are not simply the result of mismanagement by Mubarak, but the inevitable consequence of the contradictions of our era.
Their eyes hopelessly clouded by their own ideology and lack of vision, heads of state can only stand dumb and surprised as the crisis goes on and on. They lamely hope to re-start the financial markets through “austerity” or “green” capitalism, refusing to consider systemic change despite the fact that the system cannot even deliver jobs and affordable commodities to people—much less a good life. Just as it took an era of revolution to overthrow the divine right of kings, it will take new revolutions to overthrow the divine right of things: the power of financial capital and its puppet dictators.
Revolutions are never brought about by technology, but rather by the collective action of human beings who radically transform their relationships with each other and the world they share. However, one cannot deny what an important role the World Wide Web has played in Egypt and Tunisia. Especially among cybernetically skilled and predominantly unemployed youth, it enabled people to call for and participate in mass mobilizations without any need of leaders. The demonstrations in Egypt on January 25 were called for by a Facebook page called “We Are All Khaled Said,” named for a victim of police brutality much like Alexis Grigoropoulos in Greece. The page itself was set up by the anonymous “El-Shaheed”—that is, “martyr” in Arabic. Meanwhile, youth throughout the world are mobilizing as Anonymous; in the battle over Wikileaks and more recently in actions against the Tunisian government, Anonymous has showed itself to be a potent new international with an awakening political maturity beyond the message boards of 4chan. Demonstrators’ ability to communicate with large numbers of people and react immediately to events via mobile phones, Twitter, and Facebook is swiftly making previous forms of Leftist and industrial-based political organization obsolete, along with other hierarchical formations such as political Islam.
To Read the Entire Essay
Nicholas Kristof: The View from Tahrir
The View From Tahrir
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
The New York Times
Today President Mubarak seems to have decided to crack down on the democracy movement, using not police or army troops but rather mobs of hoodlums and thugs. I’ve been spending hours on Tahrir today, and it is absurd to think of this as simply “clashes” between two rival groups. The pro-democracy protesters are unarmed and have been peaceful at every step. But the pro-Mubarak thugs are arriving in buses and are armed — and they’re using their weapons.
In my area of Tahrir, the thugs were armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and stones. And they all had the same chants, the same slogans and the same hostility to journalists. They clearly had been organized and briefed. So the idea that this is some spontaneous outpouring of pro-Mubarak supporters, both in Cairo and in Alexandria, who happen to end up clashing with other side — that is preposterous. It’s difficult to know what is happening, and I’m only one observer, but to me these seem to be organized thugs sent in to crack heads, chase out journalists, intimidate the pro-democracy forces and perhaps create a pretext for an even harsher crackdown.
I have no idea whether this tactic will work. But the idea that President Mubarak should make the case that he is necessary for Egypt’s stability by unleashing violence and chaos on his nation’s youth — it’s a sad and shameful end to his career. And I hope that the international community will firmly denounce this kind of brutality apparently organized by the government.
To Read the rest of the commentary
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
The New York Times
Today President Mubarak seems to have decided to crack down on the democracy movement, using not police or army troops but rather mobs of hoodlums and thugs. I’ve been spending hours on Tahrir today, and it is absurd to think of this as simply “clashes” between two rival groups. The pro-democracy protesters are unarmed and have been peaceful at every step. But the pro-Mubarak thugs are arriving in buses and are armed — and they’re using their weapons.
In my area of Tahrir, the thugs were armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and stones. And they all had the same chants, the same slogans and the same hostility to journalists. They clearly had been organized and briefed. So the idea that this is some spontaneous outpouring of pro-Mubarak supporters, both in Cairo and in Alexandria, who happen to end up clashing with other side — that is preposterous. It’s difficult to know what is happening, and I’m only one observer, but to me these seem to be organized thugs sent in to crack heads, chase out journalists, intimidate the pro-democracy forces and perhaps create a pretext for an even harsher crackdown.
I have no idea whether this tactic will work. But the idea that President Mubarak should make the case that he is necessary for Egypt’s stability by unleashing violence and chaos on his nation’s youth — it’s a sad and shameful end to his career. And I hope that the international community will firmly denounce this kind of brutality apparently organized by the government.
To Read the rest of the commentary
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