Tag: egypt

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Communiqués

Building a Powerful Left in the U.S: Show #3

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source: http://buildingapowerfulleft.org

This show is debuting on a day, February 2nd, 2011, when a historic uprising is taking place in Egypt and across North Africa, as people are rising up against autocratic regimes in the region – regimes, it is important to note, that have been supported by the dominant global superpower, the United States.

But what sparked these uprisings at this time?  In large part, it’s been the increase in economic insecurity that stemmed from a global economic crisis, itself sparked by the collapse of the housing market in the United States and the attendant financial crisis.  But even more fundamentally, the bubble that was the US housing market of the last decade was propping up an economic system in deep trouble – unable to deliver a standard of living for American households and many around the world, on the order of the prosperity that was established in the United States and elsewhere in the post-World War II economic boom.  In recent decades, the only way that even the appearance of such prosperity could be maintained was through the generation of bubbles like the US housing market.

From the late 1970s onward, the  economic regime promoted most memorably by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was the “TINA” model.  “TINA” stands for “There Is No Alternative” – but to organize the economy around so-called “free markets,” and clearly to the benefit of private capital and the wealthy. It is a model that around the world has been called the Washington Consensus, or Neoliberalism.  But now, in the United States and across the globe, this economic regime is in clear crisis, seemingly unable to deliver even the illusion of prosperity any more.

On today’s show, we hone in on the economic crisis.  In obvious ways, the fact of the crisis provides ample opportunity and opening for the revival of the Left here in the United States and across the world – and yet, this has not the case.  And in particular,  there seems to be a dearth of ideas being put forward by the Left as how to respond to the economic crisis.

Is this so? Is there really such a dearth?  Or is it that they simply aren’t getting a hearing in the mainstream media?

Today we’ll hear from economists Robert Brenner, L. Randall Ray, Richard Wolff, and Dean Baker.

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Communiqués

The Problem of the Baltagayyah

The most recent story in this lamentable chain of media reports is that of “protestors” in Alexandria turning on one another — internecine  violence tainting otherwise peaceful, festive demonstrations of the Egyptian people. This story is, of course, patently untrue. To see the enormity of this falsehood and the many others like it (e.g. “protests turn to looting”) one truly has to understand the reach and extent of the Egyptian security services, particularly the notorious Baltagayyah. Loosely translated to “thugs”, Blatagayyah are more than just your run of the mill voyous. The word has a special relevance for just about everyone in Egypt: that of the paid paramilitaries of the Egyptian state. There are a lot of these fuckers, and they are the prime agents provocateurs of the Egyptian state. Conspiratorial stories of security services actually perpetrating looting, attacking peaceful protestors, or destroying property, too often turn out to be true. Many have been apprehended by ordinary citizens who have discovered state security IDs on them (they appear to have been ordered to carry such IDs in case they are stopped by the army).

Let’s get this straight, this is not the worry about a few bad seeds on the murky fringes of the para-state. The Mubarak regime has maintained a concerted policy of introducing plainclothes thugs into protest situations, sometimes armed with weapons, but always with the impunity to violently quash even the slightest dissent (and the presence of these baltagayyah is inevitably in addition to the obscene amount of uniformed security officers the government will usually deploy to any demonstration, no matter how small).  It’s not always certain whether these thugs are full time employees of the regime or simply bored individuals with a penchant for violence and a hankering for a few extra bucks and a chicken sandwich in exchange for a day’s work of beating the hell out of some demonstrators. What is certain is that rarely does any political protest or demonstration go down in Cairo without a healthy dose of baltagayyah violence.

As far as the current protests in Egypt are concerned, we’ve seen them setting fire to cars, destroying small businesses, terrorizing protestors and ordinary citizens alike and looting neighborhoods. All this while disguised as “ordinary Egyptians.” This has been enough to confuse and distort much of the international reporting of protest events. What must be understood is that the baltagayyah are sowing fear and violence to deliberately frighten and terrorize ordinary people. They work by making Egyptians and the outside world question who is perpetrating this violence, but this gruesome charade must be known and publicized because the only result of such fear and doubt is further violence against demonstrators.

source: The Problem of the Baltagayyah | http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=251

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Communiqués

The Three Hundred Stooges (and the Yellow Journalists)

One would have to be a fresh-off-the-boat international correspondent to be fooled by the pitiful attempts to stage “pro-Mubarak protests” on the streets of Egypt today.  Egyptians know these people too well. It’s always the same middle-aged men with death in their eyes. Most of them dress casual; not too shabby, but nothing fancy either, for their Interior Ministry paychecks are nothing to brag about. If any of them ever believed in what they were doing then the look in their eyes shows that such illusions have long vanished. They always arrive in coordinated groups just in the nick of time to stage a “pro-government protest” wherever an actual protest has been planned. They are often armed with sticks, and sometimes stones, and their usual role is to beat people with impunity.

Today these state security thugs (Baltagayyah) were ordered to appear on cue to cheer Mubarak’s pre-recorded speech on the streets of Alexandria, Suez and Cairo. In Alexandria they attacked the crowds who had amassed in Mahatit Masr Square with stones, and the crowd fought back. To break up the fight two army tanks drove between the groups and fired shots in the air. The “pro-Mubrarak protestors”, outnumbered and fearful of the army, withdrew. We have not yet had confirmation, but it appears that something similar occurred in Suez.

However, contrary to reports in the international media, the goon squad never got to Tahrir square in Cairo today. The estimated three hundred of them, many arriving on motorcycles, were no match for the thousands who had remained in the square following this morning’s two million strong rally. Nonetheless they tried to access the square twice, once coming from Talat Harb, just as the speech began, and once from Qasr El Ainy street. Both times they were successfully stopped by blockades of soldiers and citizens.

Meanwhile Mubarak’s speech, which people watched on a giant screen that had been set up in the square, was greeted with fury by the crowds, who hurled projectiles at the dictator’s face. In addition people from all around the neighborhood who had seen the speech on TV came flooding back to the square in earnest, chanting “leave, leave” and “get out”. Mubarak’s desperate attempt at derailing the movement by tempting people with his future retirement has only hardened the resolve of protestors and reinforced the numbers who are camping out here. People now say they are refusing to leave until the whole government resigns.

source: The Three Hundred Stooges (and the Yellow Journalists) | http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=244

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Communiqués

From Tahrir Square

Nobody in Egypt has ever seen so many people in one place. The idea of marching seems to have been dropped as all the streets around the square are packed full of people. The atmosphere is generally joyous, but with intermittent cries of mourning for the dead of the past week.

— phoned in from Tahrir square, 5:15pm

source: From Tahrir Square | http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/?p=241

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Communiqués

occupy everything: cairo

After violent clashes with police, thousands of protesters announced they would stage an open-ended sit-in in Cairo’s centrally-located Tahrir Square until their demands for political and economic reform were met.

Activist and protestor Amar Ali Hassan told Al-Masry Al-Youm from Tahrir Square that Tuesday’s demonstrations were bigger than the initial protests that had eventually led to the recent Tunisian uprising. He pointed to signs that the situation in Egypt could eventually lead to a similar scenario.

Hassan described Tuesday’s protests as “historic,” saying they had been unlike any others witnessed in Egypt. “And that gives me hope,” he said.

“When people see what happened today, more will join the protests–especially now that Egypt has become a tinderbox waiting for a match to set it alight,” Hassan added.

Hassan also asserted that Tuesday’s protests had eliminated any chance of a presidential bid by Gamal Mubarak, son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He added that the number of protesters had “exceeded all expectations,” saying that the massive protests “could force the regime to either apply drastic changes or leave.”

A group of activists from the 6 April reform movement, which initially called for Tuesday’s “Day of Anger,” erected a tent in the middle of Tahrir Square to show their intention to stay put until their demands were met.

Adel Abou Zeid, a member of the liberal opposition Ghad Party, is among those who plan to spend the night in Tahrir Square. Abou Zeid said he had long suffered from a sense of injustice, saying that he had “finally found a way of making my voice heard.”

“I have been crushed for thirty years–I can handle a one- or two-month sit-in,” he said. “I will stay here until Mubarak leaves. The Tunisians are no better than us!”

Mohsen, another protester, likewise said he would not leave Tahrir Square until protesters’ demands were met. He went on to urge all Egyptian citizens to participate in the demonstrations.

“We want everybody in Egypt to come out onto the streets,” he said. “The regime doesn’t have 80 million police officers to stop us.”

Heavy clashes had erupted earlier between protesters and police that had lasted for several hours, leading to injuries on both sides as protesters tried to reach the parliament building in downtown Cairo.

Security forces chased protesters down nearby Kasr al-Einy Street with police trucks, frequently blasting them with water cannons and tear gas. Protesters responded by attacking the trucks and throwing rocks at police.

Similar clashes broke out in Tahrir Square as protesters and police pelted one another with rocks. During the clashes, several protesters were snatched from the crowd and detained by police