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.”

Massive protests for Palestinian freedom

PROTESTS have been held all over the world to mark Al Quds Day, an annual event suppporting Palestians suffering under Israeli occupation and oppressed people everywhere.

Rallies have taken place in Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, USA, Europe, as well as Gaza and the West Bank in occupied Palestine.

Reports Press TV: "In defiance of a government ban on Quds Day rallies in Bahrain, protesters have taken to the streets (above) to mark the international event and have set fire to the Israeli flag.

"Witnesses say hundreds of Bahrainis took to the streets in the capital, Manama, and several villages to protest against the government ban on the anti-Israeli rally and show solidarity with Palestinians.

"Protesters set fire to the Israeli flag and called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine."

In another report, it says: "Tens of thousands of Egyptians have staged a massive anti-Israel protest, demanding an end to the peace-accord between Cairo and Tel Aviv.

"Following the Friday Prayers, protesters and activists gathered in several cities and Cairo's Liberation Square to stage a million-man demonstration.

"Egyptians called for the expulsion of the Israeli envoy and chanted anti-Israeli slogans."

Al-Quds Day is named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem and its environs, the Holy Land. Yawm Al-Quds or Al-Quds Day is a day of solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians in their struggle against the Zionist-Apartheid system of Israel. Al-Quds Day also extends beyond Palestine to support all oppressed people in their struggles across the world. All over the world seminars, rallies and marches are held on this day, the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadhan in order to pledge solidarity with those seeking peace through justice.

Anti-capitalists hit targets in Bristol

ANTI-CAPITALISTS have hit a number of targets in Whiteladies Road, Bristol - in protest at the Israeli attack on the Gaz flotilla and ongoing global injustice.

Said a post on UK Indymedia on Tuesday: "Last night, a group of individuals decided to turn their anger into action - striking a number of targets on Whiteladies Road.

"The list is this:

"HSBC bank, windows smashed with hammers, red paint thrown inside

"Morgan Beddoe estate agent, every window smashed in reach and damage to door

"Conservative Party office just off Whiteladies Road, window smashed

"Territorial Army, windscreens smashed on their civilian vehicles in the car park.

"These attacks responded to the recent murders on the aid boat at the hands of the Israeli armed forces which has hit such huge news recently (perhaps because some victims this time are white children of the Western middle classes, as opposed to the routine deaths that pass unmarked by the media on a daily basis in Palestine and for that matter everywhere else) - but this is also our own trajectory in the over-due counter-offensive against the colonisation of our lives by capitalism right here.

"Solidarity is best when it serves to extend your own struggle in compliment of anothers.

"This action was simple, required little planning and no expertise, hit our enemies directly and was more uplifting than any containted demonstration we have witnessed in recent time.

"For many the choice of targets may speak for itself - banks being well known locally in their recent glut of reccession and repossession, besides being an integral part of the systematic economic exploitation that this world is currently based on, and of course HSBC specifically bank-rollers of the Israeli state's regime of terror.

"Estate agents, fronting the gentrification and driving those who cannot afford their dream further out in the age-old class war.

"Politicians, whatever their claims and colors, claim power over us all to repress, rule and further their own corrupt aims.

"Armed forces, to back them up whenever they chose to extend their influence or crush dissent.

"Let us not forget the prisoners of the Gaza demonstrations of January 2009, incarcerated for bringing militant popular struggle back on the agenda in the anti-occupation movement.

"Let us not forget all the prisoners, from Greece to the U.S.A, who realised that attack is the best way out of this social prison and took action accordingly.

"For a world without money, private property, politics and occupation."

'Wear black and rise up!'

WEAR black, take to the streets and rise up in memory of the men, women and children killed in the Israeli onslaught in Gaza a year ago.

That's the message from anti-militarist direct action group Smash EDO! as it launches details of its next big protest on Monday January 18.

Its activists have been campaigning for several years against a factory in Brighton, Sussex, UK, which supplies weapons parts to the military machine, including the Israelis.

Said the group this week on its website: "For three weeks in January 2009, the bombs rained down on Gaza. At the end of Israel's brutal bombing campaign and ground offensive over 1400 Palestinians had been murdered, including 314 children.

"Here in Brighton EDO MBM/ITT manufacture some of the weapons components that devastated so many lives. All over the world thousands of people watched appalled at the carnage on the streets of Gaza. Thousands marched and raged at the destruction of peoples' homes and lives. On January 18th 2010, the anniversary of the final day of Operation Cast Lead, we will come together to remember the people of Gaza.

"We will not allow those who supported their pain and profited from their suffering to go unchallenged. We will not let this genocide be forgotten. On the first anniversary after their deaths, we will rise up. We will take to the streets. We will remember...

"Assemble at 1pm, wear black...

"More details, including the meeting place, will be published here closer to the date."