Egypt, Tunisia inspire struggles worldwide

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On Feb. 11 the masses of Egypt succeeded in driving Hosni Mubarak from office. After repeated mobilization of millions in Cairo and elsewhere, they had begun to march on state institutions in the capital (as had already happened in Suez and Alexandria). To forestall a split in the army, the military hierarchy pushed out Mubarak and declared themselves in control.

The masses celebrated with delirious joy the fall of the dictator, as did their compatriots and allies abroad. They proceeded immediately to mobilize to get rid of the Mubarak-appointed cabinet ministers and to demand from the military the fulfillment of their still unsatisfied program for freedom and social justice.

Workers in Egypt and in Tunisia are using the new space afforded them to continue to demand meaningful political change and to strike for their own economic needs, at company and industry level as well as nationwide.

Tunisians have continued to demonstrate and strike, forcing all the ministers of the ruling party, including the prime minister, to resign one by one in the weeks since Ben-Ali fled.

Alhem Belhadj, a Tunisian revolutionary socialist and member of the Ligue de la Gauche Ouvriere (Left Workers’ League, LGO), which is part of the Jan. 14 Front uniting various left-wing groups, told Green Left Weekly that after the revolution, the police and militia of the former ruling party sought to destabilize the situation and create panic. So people organized themselves for self-defense: “Now we have Committees to Defend the Revolution. In a lot of regions, trade-union regional and local committees have emerged.”

The post-Ben Ali regime, said Belhadj, “can’t organize a constituent assembly. They can’t provide social justice. So we are asking people to organize themselves to do these tasks. The LGO is sponsoring a conference of revolutionary organizations of the Arab region in Tunis in late March.

In Egypt, the masses forced the resignation of Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister appointed by Mubarak. Western ruling classes and their media see hope in the new Egyptian regime for a “corruption-free” capitalism—ignoring the fact that the billions appropriated by Egypt’s ruling class in recent years, as in the U.S., was traceable to the normal functioning of capitalism, in this case under conditions of a declining capitalist system ridden with crisis, in which speculative capital became the favored means of enrichment in the absence of opportunities for investment in manufacturing and services. (See Timothy Mitchell’s article for MERIP on this topic.)

The masses, in contrast, are demanding the renationalization of industries given away by Mubarak and his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Already in 2009, workers on strike—such as at the Tanta Flax and Oil Company—were raising the need for workers’ control to ensure that nationalization was not just a cover, as it had been in the past, for siphoning off revenue to the country’s ruling class, both private investors and military businessmen.

The military hierarchy at first threatened to break strikes, but sensing their weakness, switched quickly to pleading with workers to stay on the job. Workers on strike since Mubarak’s fall have often called for their comrades in other plants to form or revive Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which were set up during the uprising to protect workplaces and neighborhoods against attacks by Mubarak’s forces.

The new independent union federation issued a statement a week after Mubarak’s fall that listed a series of demands—political, economic, and social—that would take forward this process of permanent revolution (see their statement below).

Bulletins by the Bureau of the Fourth International (FI) have echoed these demands, calling for rank-and-file committees to carry forward the struggle against the remnants of the old regime through a radical program of political and social demands.

To finish not just with ousted dictator Ben Ali but with his whole system, said the FI, “will require opening a process of free elections for a Constituent Assembly. This process must be based on the organization of committees, councils, coordination and popular councils that have emerged from the process if it is not to be confiscated by a new oligarchic regime.

“In this process, the anti-capitalists will defend the key demands of a program breaking with imperialism and capitalist logic. … This is the program of a democratic government that would be at the service of the workers and the (Left) Egyptians celebrate on army tank after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, Feb. 11.

population.” To gain space to do so, “the Tunisian and Egyptian people must be able to count on the whole of the international labor movement, [and] on all the global justice movement.”

The FI noted that the dynamic of these revolutions “will inevitably encourage the mobilizations of migrant communities from the Arab region, who are overexploited and oppressed in the advanced capitalist countries”—e.g., France and elsewhere in Europe, and in the United States, where FBI, grand jury, and Homeland Security repression of Palestinians, Yemenis, and other Arab and Muslim communities is rising.

The FI also pointed to the inspirational impact the Arab revolution would have on young workers in the imperialist core. We’ve seen this already in Wisconsin, but it is just as relevant for youth in Europe wondering what additional steps are necessary after repeated general strikes have yet to yield concrete gains.

The FI also spoke to the duty of workers in imperialist countries to support the right of new regimes in the Arab world to cancel debts owed to imperialist banks, the restitution of the goods and financial assets of the dictators, protection of the national sovereignty of the people against the pressures of international capitalism, etc. To achieve this, direct links with unions and other organizations in the Arab world must be established.

The confrontation with the military in Egypt and Tunisia has only been postponed, not avoided. To the extent that workers’ self-organization flourishes and unifies before that final confrontation, the loss of life can be drastically minimized, especially since organized workers can win over the vast bulk of the soldiers. For this process to proceed, however, the creation of mass revolutionary parties with such a strategic perspective is essential. n