The following glossary looks at the true meaning of the U.S.
government and media buzzwords that have been constantly deployed to describe the
people’s revolt in Egypt. These terms, which often play into anti-Arab
stereotypes, are meant to confuse people inside the United States, make them
fear protest movement and blunt their solidarity with Egypt’s evolving
revolution.
1) “chaos”:
This term is meant to invoke fear and anxiety about what is happening in Egypt,
as if the events were driven by blind rage. In reality, the masses of Egyptian
people are overwhelmingly united in their demand for the ouster of Mubarak.
This is not “chaos,” but a focused movement.
2) “mob justice”: Because the Egyptian police were temporarily called
off of the streets, the people have spontaneously created neighborhood patrols
to provide security for their communities. CNN calls this “mob justice,” but
these organizations are nascent forms of people’s power, independent of Mubarak’s
repressive state apparatus. Ruling classes worldwide instinctively hate such
forms of organization, because they believe they should have the sole monopoly
on force. Precisely for this reason, poor and working people should embrace
them. The U.S. corporate media is currently repeating Mubarak’s lie that the
police are being redeployed only to counter crime and looting. In fact, their
primary function is to instill fear in the population.
3) “riot”: Like the term above, this suggests that the Egyptian people
are pathologically destroying their own country. Protesters have spontaneously organized
to protect the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo and other sites while taking
to the streets to voice their political demands. What is happening in Egypt is
not an aimless, dangerous “riot”—it is a courageous and inspiring revolution.
4) “violent protests”: This term obscures who is perpetrating the
violence at the protests. It is the peaceful protesters who have overwhelmingly
been the victims of violence, not the Egyptian police or soldiers. To the
extent that the protests begin to engage in insurrectionary offensives, it will
be the Egyptian state that should be held responsible. By making peaceful
revolution impossible, they make violent revolution inevitable.
5) “restraint on all sides”: This favorite term of Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton puts an equal sign between the dictatorship that is violently
repressing its people, and the people who seek to overthrow that dictatorship.
6) “peaceful transition to real
democracy”: This phrase, thrown about in every
U.S. government statement about Egypt, sounds innocent. In reality, U.S.
officials want to prevent a real revolution from taking place. They fear that a
genuine people’s government, hostile to U.S. imperialism and Israel, could
replace Mubarak if he were ousted by the people. That is what is behind their
recommendation that Mubarak announce elections nine months from now in which he
would not run. They hope that this will cause the movement to subside and give
them time to funnel money and diplomatic support to their favored candidate.
7) “opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei”: With Mubarak potentially on
his way out, the U.S. corporate media has presented Mohamed ElBaradei as a moderate
reform leader who can become the next president. He undoubtedly has support
from a section of Egypt’s middle and upper classes, and appears to have won the
backing of the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. But ElBaradei has played
no leadership role in the rebellion, and is not widely popular among poor and
working people. ElBaradei has pitched himself as someone who can end “this
complete chaos.” That alone makes him attractive to the British and U.S.
governments, who fear the rebellion could spread to Yemen, Jordan and Saudi
Arabia. By describing him only in glowing terms, the corporate media is
prepping the public to view him as the most “sensible” candidate for Egypt.
8)
“American interests”: There
is no such thing as a common set of “American interests” that we all share.
This term instructs poor and working people to believe in a falsehood: that we
have the same interests as our ruling class. The Pentagon, Wall Street, and
U.S. imperialist policymakers are all afraid of the Egyptian revolution because
they stand to lose from it. But we have the opposite interests: ours lie with
the Egyptian people and their movement for democracy, jobs and economic
security. The language of “American interests” was used constantly to justify
the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, but they have only served the interests of a
tiny elite few: Fortune 500 companies and defense contractors. (Other similar
buzzwords include “geopolitical risks” and “national security.”)
