The tyrant has fallen! As I write
these lines, Hosni Mubarak has resigned. This is a great victory, not
just for the people of Egypt, but for the workers of the entire world.
After 18 days of continuous revolutionary mobilizations, with 300 dead
and thousands injured, Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year tyranny is no more.
The tyrant has fallen! As I write
these lines, Hosni Mubarak has resigned. This is a great victory, not
just for the people of Egypt, but for the workers of the entire world.
After 18 days of continuous revolutionary mobilizations, with 300 dead
and thousands injured, Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year tyranny is no more.
This
is the result of the marvellous movement of the masses, which has faced
the guns and batons of the police and courageously resisted every
attack by the forces of reaction. It is the culmination of two weeks of
revolutionary struggle that has been an inspiration to us all.
Yesterday the mass of demonstrators thought that they had won. But
the past 24 hours convinced the masses that all the negotiations and
compromises were leading nowhere. That explains why today more people
than ever turned out to protest as the idea that nothing short of a
popular insurrection would lead to the overthrow of a hated and despised
autocrat. Last night, before Mubarak spoke on television, one
demonstrator on Tahrir Square told the BBC: “I will remain here until he
goes. If he does not go, tomorrow will be a very rough day for
Mubarak.” Tomorrow has now arrived.
Already at dawn thousands of people were converging on Tahrir Square,
ready for a decisive confrontation with the regime. Events have moved
with lightening speed. The movement was becoming radicalized by the
hour. Protesters were "more emboldened by the day and more determined by
the day", Ahmad Salah, an Egyptian activist, told Al Jazeera. "This is a
growing movement, it’s not shrinking." Political prisoners are being
released from the jails. But there are still an unknown number of people
missing, including activists thought to be detained during the recent
unrest. Human rights groups have alleged that the Egyptian army has been
involved in illegally detaining and sometimes torturing protesters.
The mood today became angry and defiant. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin
in Cairo reported yesterday that in the northeastern town of Port Said
at least five government buildings, including the governor’s office and
the office for public housing, were set alight in two continuous days of
riots. People have been blocking roads, there have been clashes, and
huge numbers of people poured into Liberation Square. Nobody knows the
real numbers involved today but the demonstrators have been out all over
Egypt in their millions.
In the provinces things went even further than in Cairo. In Suez,
where the movement has been particularly radical, and where the
casualties have been especially numerous, the people occupied all
official buildings. In Asyut, where tens of thousands have been out on
the streets, they have taken over the headquarters of the ruling party
and other official buildings.
In El Arish in northern Sinai, where tens of thousands demonstrated, a
crowd of about one thousand youths broke away from the demonstration
and engaged in gun battles with the police, attacking police stations
with Molotov cocktails.
In Alexandria a crowd of at least 200,000 people gathered outside the
Ras-el-Tin palace and fraternized with the sailors who distributed food
to the protesters. Damietta, a city situated where the Nile meets the
sea, has a population of around one million. Of these, 150,000 were on
the streets today, surrounding the police stations and besieging
government buildings. Similar reports are coming from all over Egypt.
was fury on the streets against the lying propaganda of the media. Last
night on the BBC Newsnight programme the deputy editor of the official
organ of the regime Al Ahram apologized to the people and
promised to print truthful reports of the demonstrations: “The people
are angry with us,” he admitted: “I have even received telephone calls
threatening to burn the building down.”
In Cairo the protesters surrounded the central television station
which was protected by paratroops. But the attitude of the troops has
been friendly and fraternization was taking place. Acoording to one
eyewitness, a paratrooper Major, was seen smiling and shaking hands with
protesters, who tell the officer: “paratroopers are OK. But we don’t
want the Presidential Guards. He smiles back. All the soldiers on the
other side of the fencing around the television building look
sympathetic towards the protesters. It is a very emotional scene.”
There were constant rumours about a march on the President’s palace.
Several hundred demonstrators left Tahrir Square in Cairo to march all
the way to the palace last night – some 15 kilometers from the square.
The palace was being defended by the army and the elite Presidential
Guard. Some commentators speculated that, while the army would not fire
on them, the Guard might do so, in which case there could have been a
confrontation between the army and the Guard.
But according to the reports, instead of shooting the protesters
down, the Army were serving breakfast. CNN reported that the soldiers
and the crowd were cheering each other. In a gesture pregnant with
meaning, the tanks turned their guns away from the demonstrators, who
responded with wild cheering. A soldier climbed out of a tank and hung
an Egyptian flag on the barrel of its gun.
Manoeuvres at the top
To put these developments in context: the first indication that
something was going on at the top was when on Thursday 10, the
military’s supreme council met, in the absence of its commander in
chief, Hosni Mubarak, and announced on state TV its "support of the
legitimate demands of the people". In reality, the real decisions were
made, not by the army council but on the streets and in the factories.
After weeks of sitting on the fence, the officer caste has been knocked
off its perch by the actions of the working class and the revolutionary
people.
The council was in permanent session "to explore what measures and
arrangements could be made to safeguard the nation, its achievements and
the ambitions of its great people". AFP quoted an army source as
saying: "We are awaiting orders that will make the people happy." By
3.34 pm euphoria had gripped the crowd in Tahrir Square. People were
cheering loudly, and once again calling for the fall of the Mubarak
regime and: "the army and the people stand together, the army and the
people stand united".
General Hassan al-Roueini, the military commander for the Cairo area,
told thousands of protesters in central Tahrir Square: "All your
demands will be met today."Since the first demand was the disappearance
of Mubarak, people naturally assumed that the President had been
deposed.
A senior field commander who preferred to remain anonymous told Ahram Online
that the Supreme Council had taken over authority in the country, “for
an interim period”, the duration of which was to be determined later.
Asked about what such a step might mean for the president, the
vice-president and the prime minister, the armed forces commander said
"these are people who have no power over the of the armed forces."
A senior member of Egypt’s governing party told the BBC he "hoped"
that President Hosni Mubarak would transfer power to Vice-President Omar
Suleiman. However, there were already some indications that Mubarak was
not willing to go quietly. One hour later contradictory messages were
circulating. Reuters quoted Egypt’s information minister, Anas el-Fekky
as saying: “The president is still in power and he is not stepping down.
The president is not stepping down and everything you heard in the
media is a rumour.” It was said that Mubarak was “still in negotiations
over whether to hand power to Suleiman”. An Egyptian official told the
Reuters: "It is not decided yet … It is still in negotiation.”
But what was there to negotiate?
Mubarak’s little surprise
President Hosni Mubarak had a little surprise prepared. His decision
not to resign evidently came as a rude shock both to the Egyptian
military chiefs and to Washington. CIA Director Leon Panetta had spoken
earlier as if his resignation were a done deal and a resolution to the
crisis was guaranteed. Other sources in Cairo spoke in the same sense.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean President Obama, with his
customary sense of an actor’s rhetoric, spoke of an “historic moment”
that was being prepared “before our eyes”.
Once again the old man tricked them all. Mubarak was pursuing his own
agenda. Many asked what his motivation could be. He was under intense
pressure from all sides to step down quickly. The Americans were
terrified that if he did not go soon the situation, which was already
getting out of control, would get much worse. Instead of merely changing
a few faces at the top, the direct intervention of the masses would
sweep everything away; the whole regime would go, and with it the last
vestiges of US influence in Egypt.
The problem was that he was also hearing other voices. The Saudi
monarchy, even more corrupt, rotten and reactionary than the Mubarak
regime, is terrified and realise that now their friend in Cairo has
gone, they could be next. They have been offering large sums of money to
Egypt, but on condition that at all costs Mubarak should stay. The
Israelis are equally terrified of the consequences of losing their
faithful Egyptian ally, the man who enabled them to sell the so-called
Peace Plan – that vicious piece of deception – to the world. They were
anxiously pleading with everybody to cease criticising the Egyptian
President.
But the most influential voices were the ones in the President’s
head. They were telling him that he was great, that he was good, that he
knew better than anybody what was best for Egypt. Like the Absolute
Monarchs of old, he regards himself as above all laws, parliaments,
parties and generals. He considered himself the embodiment of the Nation
and the supreme judge of the People’s Will. As he spoke in calm and
measured tones last night, his face as inexpressive and stony as the
funeral mask of a Pharaoh, one got the impression of a man who had lost
all touch with reality.
The people of Egypt, however, reacted to Mubarak’s speech, among
other things, with a kind of black humour which often disguises a
serious message. Here is an example: “The Interior Minister asks Hosni
Mubarak to write a Farewell Letter to the Egyptian people. Mubarak
replies: Why? Where are they going?"
The crowds who gathered in Tahrir Square with Egyptian flags, waiting
impatiently for news of his resignation, listened in shocked disbelief
as he repeated the same old platitudes. He sympathised with the youth of
Egypt, he regretted past mistakes, he wept for the blood of the martyrs
and promised to punish those responsible for their deaths (at this
point the Father of the People did not even blush), he promised a new
and better life. But he did not resign.
Shock then turned into anger – a cold fury gripped the masses, a fury
even more intense because of the high hopes that had been aroused by
the earlier rumours. All the plans of the Egyptian military were
suddenly in ruins. Instead of a “managed transition” Egypt was once
again plunged into a revolutionary maelstrom.
Key role of strike movement
The decisive element in the revolutionary equation, that eventually
forced Mubarak out, was the intervention of the working class. This is
the answer to all those “clever” ladies and gentlemen who argued that
the workers were not revolutionary or even that the working class did
not exist. In the past few days across the country, workers and unions
have been joining the protests. Nationwide strikes gave a new and
irresistible momentum to the mass demonstrations in Cairo and other
cities.
All over Egypt the workers moved into action with more than 20
strikes in the railroads and also in textile industry, among nurses and
doctors, in a hospital, in both government-owned and also privately
owned factories. The numbers are in the region of tens of thousands and
have been growing all the time. On Wednesday there was a spate of
strikes in Kafr El-Zaiat, Menoufeia and the Suez Canal zone. The CTUWS reported
that in the textile town of Mahalla, more than 1,500 strikers blocked
roads and that more than 2,000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical
company in Quesna went on strike.
In Giza, hundreds of young women and men held a protest in front of
the Giza governorate’s office, demanding housing. In Assiut 7,000 Asyut
University employees protested, expressing their anger at not working
under proper contracts, and low wages. The protesters demanded that they
be given the same rights as the permanent employees. Another 200
employees of the Assiut Petrol Company continued their protest from
yesterday in front of the company’s headquarters, where they had spent
the night. The protesters said that they would refuse to move until they
are given proper contracts.
In the governorate of Qena, 200 employees of Siyanco went on strike
for the day, demanding that financial guidelines be implemented, with
equality for all. Thousands of oil workers also went on strike and
protested in different parts of the country. In Ismailia, employees of
the Suez Canal University, Petrotrade and the general hospitals demanded
better work conditions and proper contracts. In Aswan in the south of
Egypt, 300 employees of the Development and Agricultural Credit Bank
protested against corruption.
Egypt Telecom, one of the country’s largest telecommunications
companies also saw widespread protests in front of its various
headquarters throughout the country over the last two days. The workers
are calling for proper contracts and better wages. In Cairo, 700
Mukattam Hospital employees, including doctors and nurses, held a
protest demanding better wages and proper labour contracts.
The doctors and nurses have been striking and demonstrating. In Ain
Shams hospital, 1000 employees protested demanding better wages and
proper contracts and health insurance for hospital staff. Even the
actors have been protesting against their union, demanding the
resignation of its head, Ashraf Zaki and that the general prosecutor
launches an investigation of corruption.
Yesterday (Thursday) thousands of medical students, doctors dressed
in white coats and lawyers in their black robes, marched in central
Cairo and were hailed by pro-democracy protesters as they entered Tahrir
Square. It is well named. This is indeed Liberation Square. They
were joined by artists and public transport workers, including bus
drivers, all of whom had joined the strikes. The movement is growing.
Many of these strikes are of an economic nature. Of course! The
working class is pressing its immediate demands. That is to say, they
see the Revolution as a means of fighting not just for formal democracy
but for better wages, for better working conditions – for a better life.
They are fighting for their own class demands. And this struggle will
not cease just because Hosni Mubarak is no longer sitting in the
Presidential Palace.
But these are also political strikes. Mubarak has gone, but the
workers have been demanding that the unjust system upon which he rested
must also go. The workers are raising the question of democracy in the
factories and in the unions. The official government union federation,
the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (the only legal union), supported
Mubarak. But they have disappeared. The strikers are demanding the
removal of the old leadership. On January 30 a new federation was
established, the Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions (FETU), across many
cities, both private and public sector.
Workers prepared the ground
Let us remind ourselves that the Egyptian Revolution was prepared by
the biggest strike movement Egypt has witnessed in more than half a
century. From 2004 to 2008 over 1.7 million workers participated in more
than 1,900 strikes and other forms of protest. In the recent period
there have been 3,000 strikes, including all sectors, both government
and private. Many of them were successful, leading to wage increases.
But improved living standards were no longer enough to satisfy the
workers.
Thousands of workers of the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Company went
on strike on Thursday demanding better wages. According to the Center
for Trade Union & Workers’ Services (CTUWS), 24,000 workers took
part in the protest. The workers from the morning shift had joined their
colleagues from the night shift and gathered this morning in front of
the company’s headquarters, where they announced their strike and their
solidarity with the protesters in Tahrir Square.
The workers at government textile mills at El Mahalla el Kubra and
tens of thousands more at smaller private factories are the soul of the
Egyptian labour movement. Events in Mahalla on April 6, 2008 changed
everything. Tens of thousands of people in this city of half a million
came onto the streets. "Our slogans now are not labour union demands,"
said Mohamad Murad, a railway worker, union coordinator and leftist
politician. "Now we have more general demands for change."
The police opened fire, killing two people, and crowds rampaged
through the streets, setting fire to buildings, looting shops and
throwing bricks at the officers. Protesters tore down and stomped on a
giant portrait of Mubarak in the central square. "This uprising was the
first to break the barrier of fear all over Egypt," Murad said. "On that
Friday, the crowds controlled the city". […] No one can say that Egypt
was the same afterward." There is no question that these strikes played a
key role in breaking the fear of the rest of the people, starting with
the workers themselves. The April 6 youth movement grew out of that
movement of the workers.
The army
events already showed that the general staff was no longer interested
in saving Mubarak but rather in saving itself and the regime upon which
its power and privileges depend. Mubarak is 82 years old and in any case
would be leaving office in September. He was a spent force and the
generals knew it. Yesterday they obviously decided to ditch him. But to
their immense surprise and irritation, the old man refused to go.
In theory, the final decision was made by the army, clearly shaken by
the events of the past 24 hours. But the army itself was showing signs
of cracking under the pressure of the masses. Al Jazeera reported
yesterday of an army Major dropping his weapons and joining the
demonstrators in Tahrir Square together with his soldiers. He announced
that he was not alone but part of a group of 15 officers of different
ranks joining the revolution. Apparently it was not as isolated case.
Under these circumstances there could be no question of using the army
against the revolutionary people. This, and the massive strike wave that
has been sweeping Egypt, explains why in the end the army council
decided to ditch Mubarak.
The army may now have taken over the government in Egypt, but they do
not control the streets or the factories. Millions of Egyptians were
pouring onto the streets. The military had to act quickly or lose
control of the situation completely. But the generals had only a few
choices. The first was to do nothing, allow the crowds to grow and let
them march to the presidential palace and hope for the best. The second
choice was to try to block more demonstrators in Tahrir Square. The
third was to overthrow Mubarak.
The problem with the first option was that it would mean that the
masses and not the military, determined the course of events. The second
option would create a situation where the army might have to fire on
the protesters. But a bloody clash with the people would have lead
directly to a split in the army.
That left them with only one option, which was a coup. This should
already have been done last night so that it could have been announced
before demonstrations started to build up after Friday prayers. The
delay in acting shows that the army high command was itself divided,
paralysed and incapable of decisive action. They wanted the Boss to
disappear but at the same time they feared the consequences of his
disappearance. Maybe Mubarak sensed this and that is why he treated them
with such contempt.
The fears of the army chiefs were well grounded. Now that Mubarak has
gone a heavy weight will be lifted from the shoulders of Egyptian
society. The flood gates will be open and every section of society will
press for its demands to be satisfied. But how could a military regime
satisfy them?
“Revolution until Victory”
overthrow of Mubarak is only the first step. The Revolution has now
entered into a new phase. The fight for democracy is only the first half
of the task. The second half will be the fight against the dictatorship
of the rich: for the expropriation of the property of Mubarak and the
entire ruling clique; for the expropriation of the property of the
imperialists who backed them and kept them in power for three long
decades.
Washington is watching events unfold with bated breath. Leon Panetta,
the head of the CIA said yesterday there was “a strong likelihood that
Mubarak may step down this evening, which would be significant in terms
of where the, hopefully, orderly transition in Egypt takes place.” What
the Americans understand by an “orderly transition” is a transition
controlled by the CIA. But this is not going to happen.
The situation has gone too far, the masses are aroused and will take
this victory, not as a signal to demobilize but to press for their
demands. By clinging to power to the bitter end, Mubarak radicalized the
whole situation. Any chance of a “managed transition” has been fatally
undermined. The Americans were frantically manoeuvring with the tops of
the army to replace Mubarak by Omar Suleiman. But now Suleiman has had
to go together with his master.
The people did not trust Suleiman any more than Mubarak. Let us
remember that Suleiman told the American television station ABC that
Egyptians were "not ready" for democracy. He also warned that if
protesters did not enter into dialogue with the Mubarak government, the
army could have been forced into carrying out a coup. How could such a
man be trusted with introducing democracy in Egypt? One protester said
that if Omar Suleiman takes over from Mubarak: "all that will happen is
that everyone in Tahrir will rewrite their signs, and then carry on
demonstrating".
The regime finally cracked under the hammer blows of the Revolution.
On Wednesday, Gaber Asfour, the recently appointed culture minister,
resigned from Mubarak’s cabinet “for health reasons”. Today Hossam
Badrawi, the General Secretary of the NDP, the ruling party, has just
resigned from it. Others will follow. The rats are already hurrying to
desert the sinking ship.
In the absence of any alternative, the army high command has taken
over. But despite appearances, they too are powerless. The Army Council
has taken over on the crest of a revolutionary wave. Tanks and guns are
all very well, but they cannot provide jobs for the unemployed, or feed
the hungry, or house the homeless, or reduce the high cost of food. The
army taking power under these circumstances, therefore, will want to
hand power to a civilian government as soon as possible. It may well
call elections in September or even sooner. There is no lack of
candidates for the job of president and prime minister. El Baradei is
waiting impatiently in the wings.
But none of the burning problems of Egyptian society can be solved by
a “market economy”. Egyptian society suffers from rising prices and
unemployment. There are seven million people unemployed [about 10
percent of the workforce]. 76 percent of young people have no job. Wages
are low. Most government workers (about five million people) make about
$70 a month. In the private sector, wages are about $110 a month. There
is a severe housing problem and some poor people are living in
cemeteries. Four million people are without any rights to healthcare.
They are not even recognized as part of the working force in any
contractual way.
There is a burning anger against inequality and corruption.
Independent journalists are highlighting the all-pervading corruption
that is the chief characteristic of the old regime. Billions of dollars
are missing. The Guardian published an estimate of $12 billion
for the Mubarak family alone. This has provoked fury and disgust, in a
country where 40 percent live under the poverty level. Now the Egyptian
worker will say: “I want my rights, where are our rights?” No bourgeois
government can give the workers their rights or solve any of the
fundamental problems of the Egyptian people.
The working class is now the real motor force of the Revolution.
Until recently the demands of the Revolution had been political,
centring on the fight for democratic rights. But the workers are giving
the programme a social-revolutionary character. Yesterday we published
the programme of the iron and steel workers of Helwan, an industrial
city on the banks of the Nile.
This is a very advanced programme that expresses the desire of the
workers to carry the Revolution through to the end. Yesterday in Helwan,
five military factories were on strike. Today the workers of Helwan
Military Factory number 63 were in Tahrir Square carrying a banner that
said simply "thawra hatta’l nasr" (Revolution until Victory), and they
meant it.
The Egyptian Revolution has begun but it has not finished. In order
to solve the problems of Egyptian society, it is necessary to break with
capitalism, expropriate the capitalists and imperialists and carry out
the socialist transformation of society. This is both possible and
necessary. What we have seen today shows that once the workers are
mobilized to change society, no force on earth can stop them. It is a
lesson that sooner or later will be learnt by the workers and youth of
all lands.
The people of Egypt are rejoicing and we rejoice with them. Anything
is possible now. Let our slogan be: Revolution until Victory!
- Long Live the Egyptian Revolution!
- Long Live Socialism!
- Workers of the world, unite!
