Chemical blame game over Syria disguises the real issues

In the aftermath of parliament’s rebuff to prime minister Cameron’s proposed attack on Syria, Barack Obama has been forced to acknowledge the mass opposition to military action.

The legacy of recent debacles in Iraq, Afghanistan and the intervention in Libya continue to haunt large numbers of people, including top military brass.

It is evident that externally-backed regime change in these countries has achieved no benefits, either for their populations or for ordinary citizens in the United States or Britain.

Obama's hesitation about striking Syria is as much to do with popular distaste for war after more than a decade of body bags from Iraq and Afghanistan as it is to do with the timing of G20 summit that takes place in Moscow later this week.

Of course, Cameron and Obama hope to give their tarnished democratic credentials a polish by subordinating themselves to the decisions of elected bodies – parliament and the US Congress.

But meanwhile, the pro-attack faction in parliament – including the vociferous former Lib-Dem leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown - is marshalling forces for a possible second vote. US secretary of state John Kerry is declaring that Obama has the authority to act without Congressional approval.

Much energy is being spent trying to pin down responsibility for the chemical attack in Damascus. Shocking images are published and the US claims to have proof that the regime is responsible.

But the issue of chemical weapons – the “red line that must not be crossed” as Obama put it – is actually a secondary issue to the fundamental question: do the major powers have the “right” to attack Syria?

The debate over who is using the chemical weapons – the Assad regime or those fighting against it – begs the real question: is military intervention

a solution to the misery of the Syrian people? And is it justified in any case?

And does opposition to bombing Assad’s military installations imply support for him?

Absolutely not in response to every question!

The all-important distinction is between the Assad and the Syrian people who have courageously opposed his noxious regime for decades, even while the US, Britain et al were wheeler dealing with Damascus in their power games.

What about the all-important the right to self-determination of the Syrian people themselves? It is as if they don’t exist except as victims whom we must pity.

But a large part of the disposed and poor Syrian people rose up against Assad in the Arab spring of 2011, which undermined autocratic regimes, from Tunisia to Egypt. (How many people know, for example, that in July 2011, the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page had over 218,000 followers?)

Of course, their hope that the Assad regime would fall quickly was mistaken. It is backed by Russia (which has a naval base in the country). Moscow has been supplied arms to Syria for decades.

Although Tehran would seem to have little in common with the secular Syrian regime, it too has supported Assad, sending him money to pay for Russian hardware, because his opponents are predominantly Sunni Muslims by contrast with the Shia Muslims in Iran.

Underneath the conflict in Syria is a class division in which the state oppresses its people. These divisions are now masked over by the sectarian religious divide, spurred on and armed by Saudi Arabia, the US and Britain and elements of Al Qaeda on the one side, with Iran and Russia on the other. 

The democratic and social aspirations of Syrians, whatever their religious or non-religious allegiances, like those of Egyptians are totally ignored by most media and commentators.

In the meantime, we say an unconditional “No” to any attacks on Syria. This does not mean giving succour to the Assad regime. As Irfan Ahmad has pointed out, in the Arab states, as elsewhere, the urgent need is to encourage and develop a democratic secular alternative.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Demand for social justice spurs Egypt's new street revolt

Events in Egypt are spiralling out of control of the Muslim Brotherhood government that replaced Hosni Mubarak’s regime. But behind the anti-Morsi movement in Egypt is something much bigger and deeper – the unfinished Arab revolution.

With the new government lacking legitimacy in the eyes of large swathes of the population, the street has defied the state of emergency and 30-day curfew in the cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez declared by president Mohamed Morsi last night.

The measure, which gives police sweeping powers of arrest, shows that nothing is settled since the Tahrir Square revolution of 25 January 2011. The high point of  of the Arab Spring inspired movements as far flung as New York and Wisconsin, London and Tel Aviv but has unfinished business.

The uprising that ousted Mubarak took place under the slogan “bread, freedom, social justice”. None of these demands have been met. The Egyptian economy is in free fall, with the currency rapidly losing value. One in four of the 15-29 age group is officially out of work, with real numbers much higher. The government is heavily in debt. A loan being negotiated from the International Monetary Fund will come with draconian conditions that will lead to food price increases (already cancelled once by Morsi).

During Friday’s anniversary celebrations, protesters demanded the establishment of a minimum wage and the suspension of the new constitution being forced through by the Muslim Brotherhood government. The shout “irhal, irhal!” – “leave, leave!” was directed at Morsi. 

After a Cairo judge sentenced to death 21 football supporters who were accused of killing local fans during football riots last year, demonstrators in Port Said directed their anger against Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government and the police.

They chanted “Down with Brotherhood rule!, and "Down, down Morsi, down down the regime that killed and tortured us!" as they carried the coffins of their dead through the streets of Port Said. It is widely believed that the violence at the 2012 football match was in fact orchestrated by the police or Mubarak supporters. Many died in street clashes.

As Egyptians and others around the world reflect on the second anniversary of the 25 January 2011, many are asking what was achieved and whether or not it can be defined as a revolution. In a group of articles called The Revolution Will Not Be Celebrated, the Jadaliyya website editors conclude that the conflict between the people of Egypt and the Morsi regime can only deepen.

The real danger, they write, comes from those who maintain that “the revolution ended with Mubarak’s departure and that what followed was ‘politics as usual’.” January 25 is reduced, they say, “to an event of the past... and not a living phenomenon and an ongoing struggle that has ways to go”.

It is not simply a battle against “the wielders of power”, Jadaliyya writes. Partisans of the revolution in Egypt “face a serious battle against the hegemonic narrative that the days of the revolution are over and that the country has re-entered a state of normalcy in which contentious political action is no longer deemed socially or legally acceptable.”

The notion that opposition to Mubarak was confined to Cairo is disproved. Amro Alim’s amazing photo essay shows how street art in Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, reflected the mass movement against the regime.

Many are beginning to realise that protests are insufficient and that other courses of action are needed. Members of the Ultra football club took direct action on Saturday, occupying Cairo’s metro and Sixth of October bridge. Another group, the Black Bloc militants, have also appeared on the streets.

With its powerful history and huge population, Egypt occupies a pivotal position within the Arab world. The renewed revolutionary fervour in the country – coinciding with deep unrest in Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Libya – points to the fact that there are no solutions within the old capitalist framework built by Mubarak. Social justice will require a social revolution.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Divide and rule in Greece and Egypt

The sigh of relief expressed by the financial markets and the major capitalist governments over the outcome of the Greek election reveals how desperate the ruling elites are for any “good news”, however ephemeral it proves to be.

The crisis of the euro is now centred on Spain, the fifth largest economy in Europe, which now faces sovereign bankruptcy as well as debt-ridden banks. And next in line is Italy.

Whatever the right-wing New Democracy-led government cobbles together, the fact is that the Greek economy has been smashed, working people can take no more austerity measures and basic supplies like medicine are drying up.

So nothing is different this morning, except that Syriza, which wanted to renegotiate the draconian bail-out terms, did not win. The Brussels bureaucracy and German chancellor Merkel were terrified that an “unreliable” left coalition might come to power in Greece, just as the euro is in its deepest ever crisis.

But it remains a narrow victory for the New Democracy, Greece’s conservative party, which garnered only 3% more of the vote than the Syriza left coalition. Party leader Antonis Samaras is now in negotiations to form a coalition with the Pasok pseudo-Socialist Party, which received 12%, in an attempt to increase his majority – in advance of either party’s agreement to the talks.

Real fear spread in the commanding heights of Europe after the May 6 general election in Greece when the Syriza party, lead by Alexis Tsipras, appeared out of nowhere to gain some 17% of the vote. Syriza’s share of the vote has risen to 27%, thus bucking the notion that European voters cannot be enthusiastic about a left radical party.

Syriza is a coalition of 13 groups including democratic socialists, euro-communists, Marxists and greens. It is, however, pro-European Union as well as in favour of staying in the euro and simply wanted to ease the burden on the Greek people.

Tapping into the suffering caused by the harsh terms of the bailout, Tsipras has won over public sector workers many of whom have received no wages for months, unemployed young people and Greeks of many political complexions who feel they have nothing to lose by taking a chance.  

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the military has effectively seized power as the country awaits the result of the presidential election. It has issued a declaration granting itself sweeping powers. The document by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf) says new general elections cannot be held until a permanent constitution is drawn up. It also gives the Scaf legislative control.

On the eve of the elections, under the influence of pro-Mubarak judges, Egypt’s Constitutional Court, dissolved parliament. Emergency laws were then revived, which give the military free rein to arrest civilians without reference to the courts.

It is a pre-emptive coup d’état by Egypt’s “deep state” – the military-economic establishment – has moved to forcibly end the dual power situation that has prevailed in Egypt since Mubarak’s overthrow by a mass uprising last year.

The two candidates in the election both stood for reaction. On the one side, the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Mursi, on the other, the continuation of  Mubarak's “deep state” through prime minister Ahmed Shafiq. So in the absence of a real choice. In both rounds, voters opted for the candidate who would best counteract the contender they do not want. In other words, “the lesser of two evils”.

Have we seen the exercise of the people’s will in either of these elections?  In Greece, even though 55% of voters opposed the pro bail-out parties, the country now has a pro bail-out government! In Egypt, the army is determined to retain control – whatever the outcome of the presidential election while dissolving parliament altogether.

Elections have made no difference in either country to decide who truly holds power. The elections were in fact a form of democracy denied, with serving to polarise and divide society and allow the elites to stay in power – a form of “divide and rule”.  The conclusion?  If there ever was a time to create new forms of democratic expression such as people’s assemblies, it is now.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

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Egypt's military provokes sectarian clashes

Tensions between Christians and Muslims are being stoked up by Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in the run-up to parliamentary elections in November and January. Senior army figures are determined to cling to power whichever way they can.

The number of casualties after a police-army crackdown on Coptic Christians last night has risen to at least 24 killed and hundreds injured on the streets of Cairo. The ruling military council imposed a curfew as protesters snatched weapons from police and hurled stones at them.

Provocateurs were clearly at work, as plainclothes thugs with protection from the police and military attacked the mainly Coptic demonstrators. A peaceful protest-sit down at the state television building in the centre of Cairo was quelled by ferocious and co-ordinated assault.

Anger had been simmering in southern Egypt ever since the Marinab Coptic Christian church in Aswan was demolished on 30 September. Coptic Christians are the largest religious minority in the Middle East and make up around 9% of Egypt’s population of over 80 million people.

The attacks on Egypt’s native Christians are a reversion to the blatant religious discrimination practised by the ousted Mubarak regime. The 25 January Youth Coalition has called for unity between Muslims and Christians, and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party has attacked the military council. But the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party has blamed both Coptic protesters and the military.

Prime minister, Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s first post-revolution Prime Minister, has written on his cabinet’s Facebook page that “invisible hands are plotting to partition Egypt” with "attempts to spark chaos and strife among the homeland sons," in an attempt to defuse tension. Sharaf has called an emergency meeting with the “ministerial crisis management committee” for today.

Protesters marched on Egyptian state television in the Maspiro district of Cairo when it only reported police casualties but said nothing about the ferocious attack on the protesters. Three news producers on state TV had denounced their own channel’s bias, and accused them of “sectarian incitement”. As clashed continued around Tahrir Square, a prominent Coptic activist, Naguib Gobrail was reported a injured. Thugs were seen throwing rocks at protesters.

Eye witnesses saw armoured vehicles driving straight through crowds of protesters. In one place 15 people were crushed. The bodies taken to Coptic Maspiro and Abbasseya had injuries showing they had been killed by massive force. Security forces followed the wounded to hospitals and prevented journalists and relatives from entering.

Al-Hurra television’s Cairo office was stormed by military police searching for Coptic demonstrators and to prevent the channel airing its news programme last night. (Al-Hurra is a US Congress-funded satellite network which broadcasts in 22 Middle East countries). The offices of private TV25 television channel were also attacked and closed down by police, who demanded that journalists show their ID cards to see if they were Christian. Solidarity protests took place in four other regions, including Alexandria.

As the Guardian’s Jack Shenker writes from Egypt: “Egypt's beleaguered Coptic community, who have known from the early days of the anti-Mubarak uprising that those seeking to protect the status quo would try their hardest to sow social instability as a precursor for rolling back revolutionary gains – and that with a current of genuine communal distrust often bubbling away below the surface, sectarian tension would be the easiest of targets.”

When a political regime is in crisis, provoking religious and ethnic clashes is par for the course, as history has shown time and again. The state-sponsored attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians confirms that the Egypt’s political revolution is in danger.

The issues of unemployment, poverty and discrimination that drove the January revolution forward remain. They cannot be tackled while the discredited army leadership, which was in Mubarak’s pay and owns large chunks of the economy, remains in control.

The ousting of Mubarak must be continued by people’s assemblies taking action to oust his remaining cronies and the military council for good.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Climate activists change course

There will be no Camp for Climate Action this year, and leading activists say this is in recognition of the world’s changing economic and political landscape.

After a lengthy meeting of camp activists, a consensus was reached and a statement issued which says:

“The near-collapse of the financial system; droughts in the Amazon, floods in Pakistan; a new government in the UK; a violent programme of unprecedented cuts; food prices rising and real incomes eroding; revolutions across the Middle East… This is all very different from 2005 when the Camp for Climate Action first met to spark radical action on the greatest threat to humanity, climate change.”

Climate Camp mobilisations, as well as the protests by students last year, have shown that there is nothing passive or deferential about young people in Britain. Their actions have put the trade union leaders to shame, exposing them as weak-kneed in the face of injustice.

Visiting the camp over the years, you could chart the deepening of people’s understanding of the source of the climate crisis. Year by year, people moved away from the idea that ordinary human beings and their consumerism are to blame, to a recognition that it is the capitalist economic system of production itself that is the root of the problem.

As the Camp’s statement says: “As the financial crisis unfolded we moved to directly targeting the root cause of airport expansion and coal-fired power stations: our economic system.” The 2009 camp was the high point, with a huge sign at the entrance on London’s Blackheath stating “Capitalism IS crisis”.

But at Blackheath, the question arose – can we overthrow the corporations DIRECTLY by targeting them with protests; or can we only create change that is truly transformative by bringing down the governments and STATES which maintain their rule of the transnationals that have gone about destroying the planet’s eco-systems?

Climate Camp answered that question with more of the same, culminating with the occupation of the RBS bank’s headquarters in Edinburgh. This protest simply did not rise to the political challenge people in Britain were now facing, with the election of a Coalition government hell-bent on imposing the cost of the crisis on the mass of ordinary people.

This is a government that, far from curbing the role of the corporations in response to the climate crisis, is extending their reach. Ministers took part in the Cancun conference’s decision to abandon any attempts to sign a replacement treaty for Kyoto. Privatisation and cost-cutting will drive down standards in the name of profit.

The Climate Camp’s statement continues: “This is a unique opportunity to work together with others to create a more co-ordinated, dynamic and stronger movement against climate change and its root causes. Now is a chance to team up with the anti-cuts and anti-austerity movements and play a crucial role in the revolutionary times ahead. Anything but co-ordinated action is doomed to fail.”

The revolutionary times are, in fact, here and now. The new generation that is leading the revolutionary upsurge in North Africa and the Middle East are driven by the impact of the global crisis, including climate change that has contributed to soaring food prices.

Climate campaigners championed People’s Assemblies during the protests at Copenhagen in 2009 . Hopefully, climate camp activists will now join the movement to establish a network of People’s Assemblies throughout Britain. Then we will not only challenge the power of the state to impose cuts, and the corporations that are wrecking the eco-system, but actually go on to build a sustainable alternative to capitalism’s destructive growth addiction.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

'You Go - We Stay' fits the bill everywhere

The Egyptian revolution continues its unfinished business. Before but especially since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, a situation of dual power prevails in a country where eight million people – a tenth of the whole population – took part in the mass uprising that broke the back of the dictatorship.

The sweeping out of not only the despised Mubarak, but his entire regime, including the five million in the security apparatus and the military top brass, is in progress, but is still to be completed.

The military has announced that it is dissolving parliament which was stuffed full of Mubarak’s cronies and suspending a constitution that banned political activity, thus conceding some of the principal demands put forward by those who occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo.

But groups such as, amongst others, the Coalition of the Youths of Egypt’s Revolution, the Revolutionary Youth Council and Revolutionary Command Council are insisting on further changes. They remain wary about the army – which propped up Mubarak – being in charge until promised elections are to be held in six months’ time.

Leading activist Khaled Abdelkader Ouda, while welcoming the army’s initial steps, said a council of trustees would be announced on Friday, the date when organisers want millions on the street to celebrate Mubarak’s removal. The council is being set up to guard "the people's revolution".

In the 48 hours run-up to Mubarak’s ousting, organised workers began to move and go on strike around the country. Transport workers in Cairo walked out on Thursday and some 24,000 textile workers struck in the town of Mahalla al-Kubra. Over the weekend, workers at the National Bank of Egypt struck, demanding the resignation of the bank's directors and restructuring of the wages.

Other groups taking action include oil workers, public transport workers and environment ministry civil servants. But while the mass movement is flexing its muscles, the army is reportedly preparing to ban strikes and other actions in a challenge to the popular will.

Egyptians were first inspired by the success of their fellow north Africans in Tunisia, who saw off President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Like the Tunisian masses, they were motivated first by economic demands – an end to unemployment and poverty. This then turned into a political struggle – led and coordinated by young people making full use of the internet and social networking to defy and bypass state media censorship.

The focus is presently on a political revolution: the departure of the regime, its cronies and state apparatus. People want the dissolution of parliament to be followed by a new constitution and untainted forms of representation and democracy for all sections and political organisations in Egyptian society.

But the economic demands of the Egyptian revolution must still be formulated and achieved. They include the right to employment, good working conditions, a living wage and free trade unions. Attaining these means taking on those who own and control the banks, major industries and installations, such as the Suez canal. Elections to a new Parliament alone cannot fulfil these aspirations.

The calm determination of the Egyptian masses over the past 18 days, their courage in the face of state terror, their inventive and witty slogans such as “Day of Departure”, “No You Can’t”, “You Go - We Stay”, their insistence on remaining in Tahrir Square, has demonstrated unequivocally that when masses of people act together they become an unstoppable force.

So far the movement has been characterised by a skilful combination of face-to-face communication together with social media (sometimes used for deliberate deception), secrecy and strategic maneuvering has succeeded in outwitting the security apparatus.

The outcome of the Egyptian revolution now depends on the development of a leadership that can unite the networks of young people in the cities together with industrial workers for the purpose of a social revolution.

The demands of the movement must be broadened and deepened to articulate the economic and social needs of the Egyptian masses. This means liberating Egypt’s resources from the capitalist classes, one third of which are in the hands of the military.

The revolutionary and community councils and militant workers must appeal to the army rank-and-file, who have until now remained largely neutral, to join the revolution and remove Mubarak’s generals. These organisations can become the basis of a new democratic state to replace the existing, corrupt and big business state.

In this way Egypt can show the way, not only to the hundreds of thousands already stirring on the streets of Algeria, Yemen and Jordan, but to workers throughout the world who are fighting the impact of the world economic recession. 'You Go - We Stay' should be our common refrain.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Egypt’s unfinished revolution

The future of the Middle East is being fought out in Cairo's Tahrir Square. The Egyptian people’s determined struggle for economic and political freedom against a regime of dictators and torturers goes on.

Their 14-day struggle is fuelling the flames of revolt throughout the Arab world, from Gaza and the West Bank where Hamas and the Palestine Authority have banned protests, to Yemen and Jordan.

So, is the drama being played out in Egypt and reverberating throughout the Arab world, a true revolution? The answer must be an unequivocal Yes.

Not only in Cairo but throughout the country, millions have been involved in demonstrations and, equally crucial, in organising barricades to enforce security and stop provocations by Mubarak and his secret police.

Does the revolution need to go further to truly succeed in its aims of bringing political and economic freedom to the majority of Egyptians? The answer is also a decisive Yes.

The Egyptian ruling classes backed by an equivocating United States, want to preserve Egyptian capitalism. They are playing a war of attrition, hoping that the “silent majority” will tire of disruption and will remain neutral or even back the ruling elite with or without Mubarak at their head.

The keys to real power remain in the hands of the regime. It controls the rubber stamp parliament, the television and official media and the army. Those occupying Tahrir Square are only too aware that the army is the decisive factor in Egyptian politics.

They have climbed up on the tanks and greeted the soldiers as their allies. At present protesters are sleeping and camping under the tanks. They see the army as their protection against Mubarak’s thugs. After all it was the army under Abdel Nasser who overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in the 1952 revolution. But the history of revolutions – and of Egypt itself – shows that this is a perilous path. In no way can the army, even though it consists mostly of conscripted workers, be relied upon to support those demanding the end of not only Mubarak but his entire state apparatus, including the hundreds of thousands of secret police, spies and torturers. The army has done very well under Mubarak. Last year the Egyptian armed forces received over $1.3 billion from his US backers.

Over the weekend, Vice President Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s intelligence chief, met with opposition leaders and is likely to announce that a new constitution is being drafted. Amongst the 50 people who took part in the discussions were members of the hitherto-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Many have suffered imprisonment and torture at the hands of Mubarak’s army of spies and torturers and had only just been freed last week. But the Brotherhood originally refused to support the anti-government demonstrations and is only now trying to regain its credibility.

Egypt’s uprising is indeed virtually leaderless. A new generation who have known nothing but Mubarak’s repressive regime broke unexpectedly onto the world stage. Initially inspired by the revolutionary events in Tunisia, young people have organised through Facebook, following the call of Asmaa Mahfouz and Ahmed Maher in the April 6 Youth Movement, which campaigned for the Million March on February 1. Many, including the newly-formed Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, are rightly demanding the dissolution of the current parliament, 97% of whose seats are controlled by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

The Egyptian revolution had to break free of its old leadership elites to challenge the dictatorship. The urgent need is for the spontaneous movements, including the community-run barricades, to develop a strategy for economic and political power through people’s assemblies.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Eygpt's uprising shakes Washington

The prospect of a renewed period of linked revolutionary struggles not seen since the 1989 anti-Stalinist movements in Europe, is taking shape in North Africa. Events are shaking not just regimes like Mubarak’s in Egypt but the calculations of Washington and London too.

The major powers have relied heavily on authoritarian governments in the Middle East, fundamentalist as in Saudi Arabia as well as secular as those in Damascus and Cairo, to sustain their own interests in the region. These centre on maintaining the flow of oil and sustaining Israel, regardless of its treatment of the Palestinians.

Washington has turned a blind eye to systematic repression while hypocritically prattling on about “democratic values”. Now that the people themselves in Tunisia and Egypt have taken matters into their own hands in defiant uprisings, the United States and others are urging caution!

Clearly, to talk about democracy is one thing, but to actually fight for it is not acceptable.

The position was summed up by Tony Blair, the New Labour prime minister who introduced the world to “regime change” with the joint US-British illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Middle East “peace envoy”, told the BBC’s Today programme that Egypt
should "evolve and modernise",

He added: “The question is how they evolve and modernise, but do so with stability. The danger is if you open up a vacuum anything can happen. As Hillary Clinton [Obama’s secretary of state] was saying yesterday, the important thing is to engage in this process of modernisation, and improving systems of government, but do it in a way that keeps the order and stability of the country together."

Fortunately, there are moments in history when the thoughts of people like Blair and Clinton count for little and express only their nervousness at the appearance of the masses on the streets.

A new generations is simply not prepared to put up with mass unemployment, rising prices, political corruption and authoritarian rule. Men like Mubarak can no longer – unjustifiably – claim the mantle of previous leaders like Nasser who led the fight against colonial rule and nationalised the Suez canal.

Nor are the people of Egypt buying into the regime’s propaganda that it’s either us or the fundamentalists. That kind of scaremongering is reminiscent of the old Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe who justified their authoritarian regimes by warning of the imperialist enemy at the gates. Fat good it did them in the end.

Blair is right in one sense. No one knows where a revolutionary process will end up. Egypt, with its population of more than 80 million, is key. The struggle of the 1950s for national independence roused the nation’s workers and rural poor. Many lay down their lives to thwart the 1956 invasion by Britain and France.

With the dire intervention of Moscow, the revolutionary movement degenerated and the country became a pawn in the struggle between the major powers. Today, Stalinism is no more and America’s power and influence is clearly waning. The opportunity arises to launch a new stage of a revolution that was distorted and halted by Sadat and then Mubarak.

This time, the aim has to be a transfer of political and economic power into the hands of the masses themselves, with the objective of ending private ownership of industry and land and creating a renewed democracy based on popular people’s assembles. Driving the upsurge in North Africa is the world crisis of capitalism. The same crisis is having a deep impact in Britain, with growing unemployment, exorbitant fuel costs and inflation. We should take our inspiration from those on the streets of Cairo, Suez and Tunis.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

The biggest prison camp in the world

The deportation of Respect MP George Galloway from Egypt today is only the latest in a series of anti-Palestinian actions by the country’s president, Hosni Mubarak which have helped Israel enforce a blockade of Gaza.

Mubarak’s despotic regime is as hostile to the Hamas administration in Gaza as the Israelis are. Some opposition figures in Egypt even go so far as to claim that Mubarak gave the Israelis the green light to launch their murderous attack on Gaza at the end of 2008, which claimed 1,500 lives and led to accusations of war crimes. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni was in Cairo shortly before the air strikes and ground invasion were launched and opposition MPs say Mubarak gave his blessing to the assault.

Galloway was in Egypt as part of an international delegation of the Gaza Freedom March. This originally planned to arrive in Gaza on 29 December 2009 to join a march against the Israeli blockade together with residents of Gaza two days later. Instead, most of its delegates remained in Cairo, having been blocked from going to the Rafah border by the Egyptian government, and instead marched against the Egyptian blockade on Gaza.

An aid convoy bringing medical and other supplies was also held up and the Egyptian authorities attacked people trying to cross into Gaza. Earlier this week, Gazans threw stones at Egyptian soldiers in protest at the delay and one was killed. The convoy finally made it into Gaza yesterday.

The 1.5 million people of Gaza have lacked vital medicine and food supplies for over a year following the Israeli assault. Tunnels used to smuggle supplies in from Egypt have been sealed up by the Mubarak regime. Just before Christmas, international aid groups in a report condemned world governments for betraying the people of Gaza by doing nothing to lift the blockade.

Gaza has become the largest prison camp in the world, not that you would know that from the conspiracy of silence from London to Washington, where the concern is to break Hamas whatever the cost to the Palestinian people. It’s just as well that rapper/poet/playwright Lowkey’s track “Long Live Palestine” is doing so well in alerting people to what’s happening.

Almost 1,500 delegates from 43 countries converged on Cairo in December believing they had permission to go through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing into Gaza. But under pressure from the Israelis the border was closed on December 29. The very same day Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Mubarak held talks in Cairo. It was a cosy affair. Netanyahu said he was "very encouraged" by the meeting, while Cairo said it had been "very positive". Earlier that week, the Israelis announced a new programme of settlement building in the West Bank.

A series of protests by delegates were broken up by the authorities although the Syndicate of Journalists invited the marchers to join their members at their trade union headquarters for a rally. Delegates also convened an ad hoc convention to ratify the "Cairo Declaration". An international working committee drafted a document setting out a plan of action for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli regime.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians are constructing a steel wall deep into the earth at the Rafah border, making it even harder to get in or out of Gaza.


Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Mubarak's 'war on terror'

Under the guise of combatting terrorism, Egypt’s People’s Assembly is today rubber-stamping a vote on constitutional amendments designed to turn the country into a police state. Yesterday 100 MPs walked out of parliament as voting was due to take place. But people in Egypt could not see the protest because television cameras were banned. On Saturday demonstrators confronted riot police and plainclothes agents in Cairo’s central Tahir Square.

President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power for 25 years, is notorious for his suppression of political dissent, including the detention of bloggers, who have joined numerous other prisoners held under "emergency laws".

Muslim Brotherhood MPs boycotted the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Peoples Assembly and joined with the Wafd Party, the leftist Tagammu Party, the Nasserist Karama movement and independent MPs to oppose the constitutional changes.The amendments are to be put to a popular referendum in April. The government claims that a third of Egypt’s 78 million people will vote. But in the view of leading bloggers, the turn-out could be as low as 2 per cent. But no one is in doubt of the outcome. The constitutional changes will weaken the role of judges in monitoring elections and give police greater powers of arrest and wide authority to monitor private communications. Those branded as “terrorists” lose the right to trial before a judge and will be tried by military tribunals. At present the label of terrorism is applied even to modern Islamist politicians including the Muslim Brotherhood and others.

Even before this latest move by the Mubarak regime, Egypt’s Association for the Assistance of Prisoners has said that human rights conditions in Eygpt are even worse than those documented in a US Bureau of Democracy Report published on March 6, which documented torture and killings in police stations.

The MB operates openly despite being banned since 1954, but last week over 80 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were detained after the group said it was boycotting the parliamentary vote on the amendments.Mubarak’s government will use what has been described as a “constitutional coup” to stop the Muslim Brotherhood before it makes electoral gains. President Mubarak wants a smooth transfer of power to his son Gamal and the increasing popularity of the MB stands in his way. Members of the Brotherhood running as independents hold nearly one-fifth of the 454-seat lower house of parliament.

Amongst those at the Cairo demonstration on Saturday were members of the Kifayah (Enough!) movement. One Kifayah leader said: “These are not constitutional amendments, it’s a constitutional coup. The aim is to block the remaining channels of democratic participation and resistance, and the ability of the judiciary to address wrongs in the system. The government’s aim is to gain complete control of elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to becoming Egypt’s largest opposition was aided and abetted initially by British imperialism in its campaign against Nasser’s revolutionary movement. Subsequently it worked with Sadat, Mubarak and the CIA to destroy sorely needed secular and socialist alternatives. Mubarak’s latest lurch to dictatorship shows that he is playing with fire and will only strengthen the hand of reactionary religious movements.

Corinna Lotz, AWTW Secretary