The Egyptian people have done it. A
revolution from below, developed without a fully prepared plan and
without a formal leadership, has succeeded in forcing the ouster of
Mubarak. Even though it was a genuinely spontaneous uprising, the people
developed leadership and organization in the course of the struggle
itself.
This great uprising by the people of Egypt
has shaken the existing global order of imperialism. After all of their
sacrifice, millions of Egyptians today are celebrating. All great
revolutions become a festival of those who have endured oppression. Each
participant knows that the revolution is the deepest expression of the
power of the people.
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.
All revolutions reveal as a dominant and
characteristic feature the extraordinary intervention of the masses of
people into the historical process. In normal times, it is politicians,
heads of state, military leaders, the media, religious figures—all the
representatives of the old order—who conduct the business of society,
while the masses of people are excluded from the political arena.
By their direct intervention in the
historical process through the medium of revolution, however, the people
create the foundation for a new social and political regime.
We in the United States and everywhere stand
in solidarity with the Egyptian people in the moment of their victory,
as we do with the Tunisian people and all those struggling against other
U.S.-backed dictatorships across the Middle East. This still unfolding
revolution will serve as a school for revolution and social change
throughout the globe.
