April 5, 2011
Dear Friends and Comrades,
For the last two months I have tried to do my part to support the legitimate struggle for justice and freedom waged by the Egyptian people against their oppressors.
By shifting the use of this personal blog to writing and reproducing critical news and analysis about the Egyptian uprising since its onset, I hoped to humbly serve both, the struggle there, as well as those here in solidarity with that struggle. After all, information is power, or so they say (I think power is power and the rest academic bullshit, but that's a different story.)
I am not discontinuing the reports, but I do not see the present situation in Egypt warranting the use of this space exclusively for Egypt related postings right now as it has been over the last two months.
I believe a phase in the struggle has ended and we are now in a period of preparations for phase two...In the meantime, I need to get back to using this space for what I had originally intended it for, i.e. the shameless peddling of my quasi-literary efforts over the years. There are still several folders of yellowing scribblings left I need to subject you to, but rest assure that as the struggle in Egypt continues, so will my solidarity work here providing you with critical news and analysis from a revolutionary perspective.
End of Phase One of the Egyptian Uprising- Brief Analysis
The machine set in motion to impose the farce of cosmetic and mainly symbolic political reforms under the military junta's control have, for the time being, appeased a vast majority of the Egyptian population and serve to marginalize the remaining defiant voices of true resistance. I believe that much is irrefutable.
It didn't take very long for key sectors of the popular uprising to call it quits after Mubarak's symbolic removal and to accept the subsequent inconsequential concessions granted by the new/old military rulers, thus legitimizing their usurpation of power. The mass demobilization caused by this shameful capitulation, which some called a victory, not only lost the uprising control of the streets, but also allowed for the isolation and brutal persecution of those pockets of resistance which had begun (and still continue) to construct a more anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist vision of the struggle, and to take the fight to the next level.
The initially tacit betrayal by key moderate sectors of the movement against the struggle and demands of those seeking a much deeper and immediate shift in Egypt's power paradigm, soon degenerated into active public condemnation and opposition. This not only served to split the movement and the Egyptian people further, but it also served the military junta's own intentions to isolate, discredit and criminalize any ongoing organized resistance to their charade. The moderate forces quick compromise with the junta's illicit authority, coupled with their embracing of the regime's narrative that the present process is indeed the most effective and stable long-term conduit for delivery of the people's demands, was a death blow to the uprising's promise of real and immediate radical changes.
I find this pathetic capitulation to be more of a commentary on the inherent weaknesses of the still much celebrated and hyped "spontaneous", "facebook generation", "non-ideology driven" popular uprising, than about anything to do with the true capacity of resistance of the Egyptian working class. This uprising lacked real comprehensive and unifying revolutionary foundations and vision from the beginning. It was thus politically doomed and unsustainable as an agent of immediate and cohesive revolutionary change from the get-go. In my opinion, still useful as a historic stepping stone onto a new and more sophisticated long term phase of resistance, but it never was a revolution in the traditional political sense of The Word.There has been no such revolution in Egypt yet.
Is there in existence a significant force of revolutionary leftists in Egypt that are organized, united and committed to the necessary radical shift in that country's economic and political policies? I wish I could answer this with an honest and unequivocal yes, but I can't really do that. All that my study and evaluation of the present conditions enable me to say with any certainty, is that authentic leftist tendencies were indeed there during the uprising and are now apparently continuing to coalesce and self-organize. I say apparently, because unlike other uprisings of similar magnitude in recent years with which I have worked in solidarity, like in the case of the Zapatistas in Mexico, the Egyptian radical left is at a totally different stage of development. It continues to emerge through this period of resistance in a very piece meal fashion, attempting to make a quick transition for a modus operandi developed for underground activities during decades of persecution and clandestine status to that of open mass organizing movement building conduits. Presently, these forces are lacking the logistical means in the course of decades of repression to be able to say much to the outside world and/or engage in international solidarity efforts, therefore public information about their victories or organizing initiatives is incredibly difficult to obtain.
When trying to understand the role, or lack thereof, of the revolutionary left in the recent struggles, again it must be made clear that after 30 years of brutal persecution and oppression the revolutionary left was not, on January 25th 2011, in an organizational position to assume a leadership role. Without the revolutionary left's traditional organizational capacity and ability to organize and mobilize the masses and offer them a critical anti-capitalist analysis to energize them, the mass movement building task was left in the hands of a group of mainly politically naive and disorganized middle class youth who quickly sank into disarray the moment clear ideology and analysis was needed to pick up where spontaneous mass insurrection leaves off....
I believe this became a significant factor in the compromising direction that the uprising took and the poor staying power that it showed to see the fight through. A list of reform demands are not a substitute for a unifying revolutionary ideology with a clear social, political and economic analysis and agenda.
It is clear that the type of struggle waged and leadership shown in this recent uprising did not have the capacity to pull off a total overthrow of the regime and/or take on US-Zionist power agents in Egypt head on. It did manage to ignite an awakening of the Egyptian people's sense of capacity and potential to challenge power though, and it is in the development of this awakening that I believe Egypt's future lies over the next few years.
The present political and economic system, even with electoral politics in full circus swing and more mass-appeasing reforms getting instituted, will remain incapable of truly addressing the key challenges facing the Egyptian people, particularly those of its working and peasant classes. The reforms, specially those aimed at broadening political participation, will, as planned, open up the political playing field to previously excluded sectors of the bourgeois intelligentsia, but these will go on to represent their own class interests, not lock horns with neoliberalism or US Imperialism in any significant fashion on behalf of the oppressed.
In my opinion, it will then become a question of how effective will the true revolutionary political tendencies in Egypt be in gaining ground over the next few years among the Egyptian masses. Will there be a class struggle informed mass movement born out of the lessons of the January 25 uprising? Will these forces manage to coalesce into a significant political force capable of leading the masses and challenging the entrenched plutocracy as well as the emerging moderate and revisionist political forces that keep attempting to co-opt their struggle?
I don't think anyone can, at this conjuncture of history answer these questions with any certainty. Even those workers risking their lives and still organizing in the streets of Alexandria, might not know how the full onslaught of constantly shifting global and national conditions will affect their writing of Egyptian revolutionary history over the next few years. The science of revolutionary change, as all others, remains a developing discipline.
All we know for sure is that the struggle for justice will go on as it has throughout history. Now more than ever, this struggle will have to be focused on the collapse of an economic system and global order which has brought us to the brink of ecological collapse and is condemning the majority of the world's population to live in dire and desperate conditions while the few benefit from the destruction, exploitation and marginalization. The radical shift is no longer a mere struggle between political orientations, but a question of the struggle against self-destruction and for the survival for the whole of humanity. For this reason alone, the Egyptian people can not go back but only forward. La lucha sigue hasta la victoria...
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