Africa

The Egyptian Revolution: A Democracy Now! special on Mubarak’s resignation

February 11, 2011 -- Democracy Now! --  As news of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation breaks, Democracy Now! broadcasts live reaction from Tahrir Square and beyond with senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous and correspondent Anjali Kamat.

"People are holding their hands up in victory", reports Kouddous. "This will be a day that no one will ever forget." We are also joined on the phone from Cairo by Egyptian activists Mona El Seif and Salma al-Tarzi, blogger Alaa Abdel-Fattah, feminist Nawal El Saadawi, acclaimed writer Ahdaf Soueif, and Egyptian Historian Khaled Fahmy, who tells Amy Goodman, "I never really thought I would see this glorious moment in my lifetime."

By Tariq Ali

February 4, 2011 -- Counterpunch via Radical Notes -- He can’t stay any longer because the military has declared that they will not shoot their own people. This excludes a Tiananmen Square option. Were the Generals (who have so far sustained this regime) to go back on their word it would divide the army, opening up a vista of civil war. Nobody wants that at the moment, not even the Israelis who would like their American friends to keep their point man in Cairo for as long as possible. But this, too, is impossible.

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The US Navy counts on the Suez canal for rapid deployment of vessels from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.

[For background to Egypt's working-class movement see also "Egypt: Historian Joel Beinin on the role of the labour movement" and "Egypt: Workers hold key to uprising".]

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Kamal Abbas, director of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services, interviewed by Jane Slaughter

February 9, 2011 -- Labor Notes -- Though all eyes are on Cairo and its Liberation Square, few could know that Egyptian workers have been protesting and striking in huge numbers for years.

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Heavily armed police patrolled Khartoum's main streets on January 30, as demonstrations broke out throughout the city demanding the government resign.

[See also "Sudan: Why the people of the south voted for independence".]

By Kerryn Williams

February 10, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- “The situation in Egypt is different than the situation of Sudan”, government spokesperson Rabie A. Atti insisted to reporters following January 30 anti-government protests. “We don’t have one small group that controls everything. Wealth is distributed equally. We’ve given power to the states.”

February 10, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- Reporting from Cairo, Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous says thousands of workers, including doctors and lawyers, have joined the protests in Tahrir Square. The demonstrators continue to flood the streets despite government threats and just one day before what is expected to the largest day of protests to date. Click here to read the transcript.
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[For background to Egypt's working-class movement see also "Egypt: Historian Joel Beinin on the role of the labour movement" and "Egypt: Workers hold key to uprising".]

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Fahem Boukadous.

Fahem Boukadous, member of the Communist Workers Party of Tunisia, interviewed by Alma Allende, translated from the original Spanish by John Catalinotto

February 7, 2011 -- Tlaxcala -- Fahem Boukadous is a journalist who was in prison when the people of Tunisia forced the dictator Ben Ali to flee the country. A member of the Communist Workers Party (often also referred to as the Workers Communist Party) of Tunisia (PCOT), he does all he can every day so that the great opportunity opened by the revolution will not be lost.

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Protesters stand in front of grafitti calling on the US government to stay out of Egypt's affairs, February 2, 2011. Photo by Matthew Cassel

By Ali Abunimah

February 6, 2011 -- The Electronic Intifada -- The greatest danger to the Egyptian revolution and the prospects for a free and independent Egypt emanates not from the baltagiyya -- the mercenaries and thugs the regime sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and kill protesters in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities in early February -- but from Washington.

February 10, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- Egypt’s pro-democracy uprising is surging after striking workers joined in the protests nationwide. Thousands of Egyptian workers walked off the job February 9 demanding better wages and benefits. Strikes were reported in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and the Suez Canal. We speak to Stanford University Professor Joel Beinin, who, as the former director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, has closely studied the Egyptian labour movement for years. “This is huge, because there has been for the last 10 years an enormous wave of labour protests in Egypt”, Beinin says. “In the last few days what you’ve seen is tens of thousands of workers linking their economic demands to the political demand that the Mubarak regime step aside.” Click HERE for the program transcript. Intervew continues HERE.

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On Saturday, February 5, 2011, Democracy Now! aired a two-hour "Uprising in Egypt".

February 4, 2011 -- Democracy Now! -- Video report: "Battle for Tahrir: An inside look at how pro-democracy activists reclaimed Tahrir Square after attacks by Mubarak forces. Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports live from Cairo.

International Socialist Review editor Ahmed Shawki reports from Cairo on the mass demonstration that shifted the balance away from the violence unleashed by the dictatorial Mubarak regime on February 2 and 3. Click here for Shawki's first-hand account of the attack by the regime's goons.

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February 4, 2011 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Anti-Mubarak demonstrators gathered in their hundreds of thousands today, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, in Alexandria and in cities and towns across the country for a new day of mass protest against the regime.