Cairo: "We want the downfall of the System!"

 

“We want the downfall of the System!”

That was the message from radicals on the streets of Cairo this week as the Morsi regime tottered towards today's collapse.

From Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro, from Santiago to Manama, the battle against neoliberalism is one and the same.

Nobody expects it to be easily won – there will always be yet another phoney saviour lined up in the political wings to ensure it’s “business as usual” in the corridors of power.

But the numbers and the anger on the streets all over the world in the last few weeks will have had the elite shaking in their boots in fear of what is to come. People power on this scale is something they can neither control nor ignore, as Morsi found out to his cost.

In an online statement this week, some “Comrades from Cairo” outlined how the neoliberal agenda is the common factor among the regimes currently facing popular uprisings.

They explained: “In Egypt, the Brotherhood only adds a religious veneer to the process, while the logic of a localized neo-liberalism crushes the people.

“In Turkey a strategy of aggressive private-sector growth, likewise translates into authoritarian rule, the same logic of police brutality as the primary weapon to oppress opposition and any attempts to envision alternatives.

“In Brazil a government rooted in a revolutionary legitimacy has proven that its past is only a mask it wears while it partners with the same capitalist order in exploiting people and nature alike.

“These recent struggles share in the fight of much older constant battles of the Kurds and the indigenous peoples of Latin America. For decades, the Turkish and Brazilian governments have tried but failed to wipe out these movements’ struggle for life.

“Their resistance to state repression was the precursor to the new wave of protests that have spread across Turkey and Brazil. We see an urgency in recognizing the depth in each other’s struggles and seek out forms of rebellion to spread into new spaces, neighborhoods and communities.

“Our struggles share a potential to oppose the global regime of nation states. In crisis as in prosperity, the state — in Egypt under the rule of Mubarak, the Military Junta or the Muslim Brotherhood — continues to dispossess and disenfranchise in order to preserve and expand the wealth and privilege of those in power.

“None of us are fighting in isolation. We face common enemies from Bahrain, Brazil and Bosnia, Chile, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Tunisia, Sudan, the Western Sahara and Egypt. And the list goes on.

“Everywhere they call us thugs, vandals, looters and terrorists. We are fighting more than economic exploitation, naked police violence or an illegitimate legal system. It is not rights or reformed citizenship that we fight for.

“We oppose the nation-state as a centralized tool of repression, that enables a local elite to suck the life out of us and global powers to retain their dominion over our everyday lives.

“The two work in unison with bullets and broadcasts and everything in between. We are not advocating to unify or equate our various battles, but it is the same structure of authority and power that we have to fight, dismantle, and bring down. Together, our struggle is stronger.

“We want the downfall of the System.”

Black Bloc take to the streets of Cairo

AN EGYPTIAN anarchist movement has emerged on the streets with a wave of firebombings and street fights.

The new wave of revolt is also sweeping through other Arab countries, with anarchist groups in Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and elsewhere.

Anarchists have been present in Egypt before, during, and after the revolution, but until today, they have yet to organize a mass grouping under the banner of anarchism, explains blogger Ryan Harvey.

The Ultras of Egypt’s football clubs have for years been associated with anarchist ideas and actions, and they are widely credited with having initiated the level militancy that brought down the Mubarak government in February of 2011.

This week anarchism left the graffitied walls, small conversations, and online forums of Egypt, and came to life in Cairo, declaring itself a new force in the ongoing social revolution sparked two years ago with multiple firebombings against Muslim Brotherhood offices. Later, the government shut down the “Black Blocairo” and “Egyptian Black Bloc” Facebook pages, but they were soon re-launched.

“Wait for our next attacks as we respond to the closing of our official page…” they posted in a statement posted online (translated below).

On Thursday the black bloc made its first mass-appearance in Tahrir Square, and, shortly after, firebombed the Shura Council (Egyptian Parliament), tore down a section of the protest-barrier walls leading from Tahrir Square, and, with others, engaged in fighting against security forces.

These statements and actions are in preparation for tomorrow’s second anniversary of the revolution, and for what some are calling “a whole new level” or protest in Egypt.

Anarchism and the black bloc concept has grown in recent months across Egypt, Stemming from various anarchist grouping/circles that coalesced during the revolutionary period. A massive distrust among the youth of all political parties, a sharp critique of the role of religion within governance, and the inspiration of anarchist resistance around the world (largely symbolized by the late-2008 revolt in Greece) have helped it catalyze.

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Below is the statement of Black Blocairo in regards to the removal of their websites, their firebombing attacks against government offices, and their calls for revolt:

“Yesterday and after we finished our event, we met some of the revolutionary movements and we decided to unite together in our next attacks, hence we did our first two attacks, as we told you yesterday:

1- Setting fire to Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) online office.

2- Setting fire in the Ikhwan office in Al-Manial street in Cairo.

 And we announced our revolution since today in Al-Tahrir Square untill Egypt and it’s people get their rights back! Life, Freedom and social justice!

Black Blocairo, The Hooligans

Wait for our next attacks as we respond to the closing of our official page…”

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EGYPTIAN ANARCHIST LINKS:

Revolution Black Bloc (Egyptian anarchist page)

Black Blocairo (Black Blocairo’s new page)

Black Bloc Egypt

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OTHER ARAB ANARCHIST LINKS:

Anarchists of Arabs  (Arab anarchist page)

Moroccan Black Bloc

 Anarchists in Lebanon

Tunisian Anarchist Movement

Tunisian Anarchist Organization

Tunisian Anarchist

Syrian Anarcha Feminist Movement

Syrian Anarchists

Tahrir ICN (English European solidarity page)

British cop behind Bahrain clamp-down

BRITISH hypocrisy over the Middle East and democracy has been further exposed by events in Bahrain, where protests were this week crushed by cops with tear gas, stun grenades and helicopters.

Not only has the UK been arming the repressive Bahraini state, as The Guardian has reported, but a retired top British cop has also been flown out to mastermind the clamp-down.

John Yates, the former assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, who resigned last year during the phone hacking scandal, is purportedly 'reforming' the Bahraini force.

But he told The Daily Telegraph in the run-up to the February 14 anniversary protests: “The concept of reasonable reaction to provocation has been reinforced.

“Unless they face extraordinary provocation like last year, it will be about allowing people to gather and containment. It’s about learning techniques from other places like kettling – that would work really well around here.”

And his verdict on the movement for democracy in the authoritarian pro-Western Gulf state? “This isn’t organised protests, its just vandalism, rioting on the streets. Acts of wanton damage that are destroying the economy.”

Meanwhile, Britain continues to support armed insurrection in Syria, where the regime is not backed by the UK and USA.

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USA faces increasing global opposition

NEW geopolitical faultlines are being exposed by the civil war which has broken out in Syria.

The USA and its client states such as France and the UK are being thwarted in their support for regime change by an emerging global anti-American alliance.

While the rights and wrongs of what is happening on the ground remain unclear for outside observers, particularly those torn between sympathy for revolutionary movements and mistrust of western motives, the international political battle is taking place on a different level.

The issue there is how long the USA can retain the global hegemony of which it has boasted since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

It is significant in itself that two superpowers, Russia and China, came together to veto the controversial UN resolution on Syria.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday denounced the indecent and hysterical reaction of the West after the vote.

He said this was intended to conceal the fact that there are several sources of violence in Syria - western powers are understood to be arming rebel groups, as they did in Libya.

And it is also noteworthy that ALBA, the eight-nation bloc of Latin American and Caribbean countries, has also joined the dispute, condemning foreign efforts aimed at destabilizing Syria.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinajad recently toured Latin America, where he is forging closer ties.

And it was Iran's PressTV that reported the latest statement from ALBA, which consists of Bolivia, Cuba,  Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and  Dominica.

This said: "The heads of state and government of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) reiterate their condemnation of the systematic policy of interference and destabilization in the brother Arab Republic of Syria which (the policy) intends to impose by force on the Syrian people a change in rulers.”

Other states are treading a difficult line as they try to pressure the Assad regime to rein in its assault on rebel groups, while not endorsing military intervention.

Turkey, in particular, faces a major dilemma, says commentator Ömer Taşpinar.

He writes: "My sense is that Ankara doesn’t want to own the Syrian crisis and that there is extreme reluctance to become the country where America 'outsources' the problem to.

"One can argue that this Turkish position is at the heart of the dilemma with Syria. On the one hand Turkey wants to play a regional leadership role and avoid Western military involvement.

"On the other hand, when the leader of the Western world, the United States, wants Turkey to play the role of regional leader by confronting the Syrian regime with more force, Turkey demands more American involvement and more multilateral legitimacy.

“What we saw unfold in New York at the UN Security Council is that such international legitimacy is absent. There is no international consensus for action against Damascus. What the Russian and Chinese veto made clear is that a military option nor a consensus for strongly condemning the Syrian regime exists."

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group says that toppling the Damascus regime would serve only US and Israeli interests.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said: "Overthrowing the regime in Syria is in the American and Israeli interest. They want to overthrow the regime and replace it with a moderate regime."

The mistrust of a possible 'revolution' in Syria that is more of an American-sponsored coup has also been expressed by Iraq's radical anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

He has said there is "a big difference" between what is happening in Syria and the "great revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen".

There is also the keen irony of the USA describing a Russian/Chinese veto on regime change as ‘disgusting’, while continuing to constantly veto any UN resolutions criticising Israel.

While never mentioned by western media, this has not been forgotten elsewhere.

Israel 'backing Syrian ruler against protesters'

AS PEOPLE power in Syria threatens to topple autocratic leader President Assad, Israel is hoping that he stays in power.

That's the anaylsis in an article by Edmund Sanders in the Los Angeles Times.

He writes: "Syrian President Bashar Assad's race to tamp down public unrest is stirring anxiety in Israel that is even higher than its hand-wringing over Egypt's recent regime change.

"Unlike Israel and Egypt, Israel and Syria have no peace agreement, and Syria, with a large arsenal of sophisticated weapons, is one of Israel's strongest enemies.

"Though Israel has frequently criticized Assad for cozying up to Iran, arming Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and sheltering leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, many in Israel think their country might be better off if Assad keeps the reins of power.

"Several Israeli government and military officials declined to speak in depth about Assad, fearing any comments could backfire given the strong anti-Israel sentiments in the Arab world.

"That's what happened when some Israeli officials attempted to bolster Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before he resigned Feb. 11."

Meanwhile, Assad has been claiming that conspiracies involving Israel and the USA are behind the insurrection.

Protests countinue to mount and further bloodshed is predicted over the coming days as the President clings to power.

Arab revolts herald new world era

THE people's uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt herald the start of a new era for the whole world.

That's the view of Syria-based Arab anarchist Mazen Kamalmaz, interviewed on the Anarkismo website.

He says: One thing that is very important about these demonstrations and rebellions is that they were totally spontaneous and initiated by the masses.

"It is true that different political parties joined later, but the whole struggle was to a great extent a manifestation of the autonomous action of the masses.

"That is true also for the Islamist political groups. Maybe these groups think now that any election could bring them to power, but with revolting masses in the streets this is difficult, I think that the masses will actively refuse to submit again to any repressive power, but even if this could happen, people will not accept this time to be just subjects, most of all with fresh euphoric memories of the peak of freedom they won by their own struggle.

"No power could that easily force them to submit again to any kind of repressive regime.

"Egypt is the biggest country in the Middle East and its strategic role is very important.

"It is one of the main pillars of the US Middle East policy. Even if the old regime could survive for some time or even if the new regime would be pro-American, the pressure of the masses will be always there from now on.

"In a word, the US, the main supporter of the current regime, will suffer badly due to the revolt of the Egyptian masses.

"This is the start of a new era, the masses are rising, and their freedom is at stake, the tyrannies are shaken, it is for sure the start of a new world."