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

St Paul's Occupation makes its mark

As the tent city Occupation outside St Paul’s, supported by sister occupations at Finsbury Square and the Bank of Ideas, approaches its 100th day, it’s time to celebrate its achievements.

The Occupation has defied countless predictions of its demise, enabling thousands of people to manifest a collective will and powerful determination to challenge the existing order of things at many levels.

The state with its many arms has acted against those who, inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and other global occupations – in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Sol Square - headed to the City of London’s Paternoster Square on October 15, 2011.

When the original intention to occupy Paternoster Square, where the London stock exchange is located, was thwarted by the laws of private property, the Occupation was forced on to the space outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The then canon, Rev Giles Fraser told the police to leave and gave the occupation permission to remain on the church’s property. Under pressure from the St Paul’s hierarchy, Fraser resigned his post.

Undaunted, St Paul’s activists have confronted the City of London police; the legal system which defends private property; misleading reportage by the London Evening Standard and Daily Mail in particular; hostility from sections of the Church of England hierarchy; and last but not least the antithesis of democracy in the shape of the City of London Corporation, which won its court action against the Occupation last week.

The Occupation has had to deal with the welfare problems that are rampant in society at large: ill health, substance abuse, mental instability, and homelessness. Many at St Paul’s courageously decided to try to help those suffering from these problems as best they could, a heavy task which at times threatened to overwhelm the action.

The greatest achievement of the Occupy movement is its struggle to liberate and colonise physical space – a highly political question in a London where public property has virtually vanished under the impact of corporate assimilation of the commons. Countless thousands who have walked past Tent City or had contact through other means have seen their preconceptions melt away when they have spoken directly to the occupiers or sat in on discussions. Inspired by the Occupation and the daily general assemblies and offshoot working groups and talks and discussions at Tent City University, the movement has built up a massive “virtual” presence. The Occupy website, its many Facebook and Twitter platforms are only the tip of an internet iceberg.

The publication of a hard copy and online newspaper, The Occupation Times, has formed a record of what has happened. The current edition includes a crucial discussion under the heading of “Revolution or Reform”. The working group offshoots have involved people from the Occupation itself as well as countless others who have take part in debates. These continue to function to develop concepts to take the movement forward.

Inspired by the US and Spanish occupations, the form of organisation has put into practice concepts of consensus democracy and “leaderlessness”. There have been many problems and criticisms associated with organising in this way. But these remain secondary to the undoubted need to find a really 21st century way of unleashing the democratic energies of those who have been hitherto excluded from decision-making processes.

The Occupation is a physical and mental learning process for all those who seek to change society. It has embodied and embraced a huge range of ideological tendencies. A World to Win has participated, with others, in raising the crucial questions of the need to transcend the cruelly limited and restrictive nature of capitalist democracy and the profit-driven economy which is in such turmoil and crisis. Facilitating these kinds of debates is one of the Occupation’s key achievements.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

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

Egypt's military regime is challenged

The 25th of January revolution in Egypt that swept Mubarak from power after 30 years vented simmering social, political and economic pressures which had been building for a long while.

Revolutionaries are keen to shed the old “puppet state” stigma from the days of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime received more than $50bn from the US during his three decades in power.

Egyptian finance officials are scrambling to find internal fixes so that foreign aid isn’t necessary to cover a reported $28.5bn deficit. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of the population rejects foreign aid, especially from the US, even as the country struggles to recover.

A Gallup poll found that 75% of Egyptians oppose US aid to political groups, and 68% think the US will try to exert direct influence over Egypt’s political future. In the last week, the military council that runs the country rejected the caretaker government’s proposed budget largely because of its dependence on aid from the US and other foreign donors.

Egypt also retreated this month from seeking loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after activists complained that such arrangements compromise the country’s sovereignty. Instead, a new package of help for housing and small firms has been agreed with the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign aid typically comes with conditions about how such money is spent, which many Egyptians interpret as making the country beholden to Western interests. The IMF’s offer over the weekend of a $3bn loan to Egypt came with veiled conditions that suggest “it expects the country to alter its subsidies system and adhere closely to free-market principles despite previous claims that IMF assistance is unconditional,” according to a Cairo newspaper.

Pro-democracy activists say the long-time annual US aid package of up to $2bn – $1.3bn of it for the military – ensured that Mubarak’s authoritarian regime upheld the unpopular peace treaty with Israel and kept the Suez Canal open to facilitate American military operations in Iraq and the region. The joint US-Israel-Egypt enterprise that allowed tariff-free exports to the US must also be under threat.

The Muslim Brotherhoood's newly established Freedom and Justice Party is planning to focus on replacing Egypt's use of financial instruments such as derivatives and futures, with the three-decade old Islamic system operates by sharing profit or loss between the bank and its clients, instead of interest, which is forbidden.

John Sandwick, an Islamic finance adviser in Switzerland, believes that introducing more Islamic finance would not necessarily solve the country's economic problems. "Shari’ah is a method of doing business that doesn't stop speculative frenzies and impractical or unethical behaviour, as we've seen all too clearly," he said.

Nothing is settled, as blogger Jesse McLaren, who has followed the Egyptian revolution, notes: “Despite the removal of Mubarak, his regime is still intact: the emergency laws and military trials of civilians are still in effect; police cracked down on demonstrators on Nakba Day and beat a bus driver to death in June.”

Workers are demanding a minimum wage of 1,200 Egyptian pounds ($200) a month. Women demonstrated in Tahrir on International Women's Day for government-funded child care, an end to discrimination in hiring and promotions, and an end to sexual harassment and violence against women. Peasants have began reclaiming the land.

“But these demands challenge the military regime and the corporations that support them, which persists despite Mubarak's overthrow. As a striking doctor said, ‘Every percentage point for increasing health care will come from the budget of the Ministry of Interior and other parts of the oppressive machine.’ The same economic crisis that contributed to the revolution is driving a deeper wedge between political reforms gained and the social and economic demands that have yet to be met,” McLaren rightly points out

The outcome of the political struggle will determine whether the country continues as a subordinate part of the web of finance and trade relations that unite the global capitalist economy or whether the popular revolt finds a leadership that sets out on a new path to not-for-profit social ownership.

Gerry Gold

Economics editor

Egyptians storm their Bastille

The storming of the headquarters of Egypt’s secret police over the weekend, while soldiers stood by, is another remarkable episode in the country’s unfolding revolution. Once the feared and hated symbol of the torture and abuse, the building was seized by thousands of protesters.

Emboldened by the removal of Mubarak-appointed prime minister Ahmed Shafiq – he was fired by way of the armed forces Facebook page – protesters gathered outside the Amn al-Dowla secret police HQ on Saturday evening because they feared documents were being shredded.

Similar actions took place in Alexandria and other cities. The agency, which ran a huge network of informants, was notorious for its use of torture. Many of those who took part in the storming were former victims. This time they entered the massive compound in a celebratory mood. Although there were no prisoners left, there was plenty of evidence.

Egyptians took their photos sitting in the chair of the agency’s hated director, General Hassan Abdel Rahman. They also pored through folders of documents, lists, photos, maps, and videotapes. Some were able to find their own files. On Sunday, Egyptians were already posting photos of the documents online, some to a Facebook group called Amn Dawla (State Security) Leaks, whose logo is an adaptation of the Wikileaks logo.

A number of “documents will soon be declassified, showing some senior Egyptian officials' connections with the country's security organisation in the repression of people and protesters,” said Ahmed al-Dowma, a member of Egypt's Youths Coalition of Revolution Rage,

Meanwhile, Habib El Adly, Mubarak’s long-time interior minister, loathed and feared in equal measure appeared in court on Saturday, charged with money laundering. From a cage in the courtroom, he pleaded not guilty. And hundreds of Egyptians are marching to the country's border with the Gaza Strip to demand that it be opened. Egypt has imposed a blockade on Gaza since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007.

The initiative to open the Gaza border is the brainchild of the Tahrir4Gaza campaign. Ahmed El-Assy, the main campaign organizer, said: “The Mubarak regime collaborated with Israel to keep the Palestinians weak, but now he's been overthrown, so there's no need to maintain the status quo.”

The Egyptian revolution is shaking not only the region but inspiring struggles as far away as Wisconsin. A mass movement led by a new generation of professionals and workers has destroyed an autocratic regime and set about the creation of a new society. At this point, the army is playing a Bonapartist role, sitting uneasily between the country’s ruling classes and ordinary people.

Clearly, the rank-and-file of the armed forces is determined not to intervene through force. But the top ranks, who attained their positions through Mubarak, are another question. Many became rich through holding their rank, as the army has close connections to the ruling families and landowners.

The Egyptian revolution is at the democratic stage, cleaning out apparatus of repression that lasted for over 30 years. Since Mubarak's fall, a core group of eight to 16 leaders from various groups has coordinated Friday demonstrations aimed at keeping the army on track toward free and fair elections. They call themselves the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth.

For it to become a social revolution, a leadership is needed that will campaign for policies of democratic ownership and control of the country’s resources. Elections to a new parliament will in themselves not answer the questions of unemployment, inflation and poverty which are driven by the global crisis of capitalism.

Tahrir Square has become a kind of a People’s Assembly, where demands are formulated and struggled for. That’s where the new prime minister was compelled to make his first appearance. A network of popular committees created along the model of Tahrir could become the basis for a truly revolutionary transformation not only of Egyptian society but countries in every continent.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

How Cairo connects to Wisconsin and Britain

As people battle tanks and security forces in Bahrain, Libya, Iran and Yemen, and hundreds of thousands gather once more in Tahrir Square in Cairo to “protect the revolution”, you might wonder how this connects with struggles in Britain, the United States and other major capitalist countries.

While it seems that the upsurge in North Africa and the Middle East is mostly about the demand for political freedom and democratic rights – things we are said to “enjoy” already in this and other countries – this is too limited a view. The connections are more direct and just as explosive in their potential.

As we pointed out yesterday, the prolonged world recession which now includes rampant food inflation, falling living standards and mass unemployment in countries like Egypt and Yemen, is a key determining factor in the street revolts. Since Mubarak was overthrown a week ago, a wave of strikes over pay and conditions has gripped Egypt. The economic and the political are now joined together.

The global crisis has undoubtedly weakened the political standing of United States and its ability to influence events. This is sensed by protesters everywhere. Washington lagged well behind events in Egypt and although its Fifth Fleet sails out of Bahrain, the masses there clearly don’t give a damn either.

Now the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. Anti-cuts campaigns proliferate in Britain and some unions are preparing strikes against the Coalition over jobs and pensions. The middle classes are on the move over library closures and the threatened government sell-off of forests.

With a million young people on the dole and record numbers working part-time, the number of working households close or to or below the breadline is increasing daily. Channel 4 News found dozens of US-style charities are handing out food parcels in Britain’s cities.

The latest estimate is that 53% of working age households in poverty have at least one working adult. “What the foodbank experience suggests is that these individuals are finding they plummet into crisis situations suddenly and more frequently,” the report said.

One woman who has been forced to use the foodbanks in Salisbury said: "Because I've always worked, I never expected to be in that position where I would be so grateful for somebody else giving us some food."

In the United States, where there are 10 million out of work, there is a growing revolt against attempts to make workers pay the entire price for the crisis, nowhere more so than in Wisconsin

This week, 30,000 public employees overwhelmed the state capital in an action against plans to strip them of benefits and collective bargaining rights. The Republican Governor failed to get a quorum for his bill when Democratic senators made themselves scarce. Similar attacks on the public sector are taking place across the country as budget deficits mount up.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Obama administration is preparing to end the Federal government’s involvement in social housing. The plan is to hand over the mortgage banks founded by Roosevelt in the 1930s to the very same banks responsible for the crash of 2008.

What we experience in Britain and the US more sharply than ever before is a form of dictatorship just as oppressive as the one overthrown in Egypt and under attack elsewhere. It is the dictatorship of the banks and the corporations, whose political front is provided by the likes of Obama, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, when asked what he thought about Western “civilisation”: “I think it would be a good idea.” The real lesson from Egypt, Tunisia and other revolts is that we should get ready for our own Tahrir Square if we are to achieve a democracy of ownership and control that strips big business of its hold over us.

Paul Feldman
Communications 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