Middle East
Egypt: Historian Joel Beinin on the role of the labour movement; Democracy Now! interview
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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Uprising in Egypt -- Democracy Now! Two-hour special (Feb. 5, 2011); Al Jazeera's 'Egypt Burning'
On Saturday, February 5, 2011, Democracy Now! aired a two-hour "Uprising in Egypt".
Eyewitness Egypt: Ahmed Shawki on `Day of Departure' demos -- `A tipping point has been reached'
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 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.
Fidel Castro: Mubarak's fate is sealed
By Fidel Castro
February 1, 2011 -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s fate is sealed, not even the support of the United States will be able to save his government.
The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilisation. “From the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history are looking down upon us”, Napoleon Bonaparte once said in a moment of exaltation when the revolution brought him to this extraordinary crossroads of civilisations.
After World War II, Egypt was under the brilliant governance of Abdel Nasser, who together with Jawaharlal Nehru, heir of Mahatma Gandhi; Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah; and Guniea's Ahmed Sekou Toure — African leaders who together with Sukarno, then president of the recently liberated Indonesia — created the Non-Aligned Movement of Countries and advanced the struggle for independence in the former colonies.
Egypt: Workers hold key to uprising
Pro-democracy protesters confront police in Suez.
By Jeff Kaye
January 31, 2011 -- MyFDL -- While much analysis has focused on the youth-social network driven aspects of the recent uprising in Egypt, or on diplomatic and political maneuvers that thus far have left President Mubarak in office, and given even more power to the state repressive apparatus through the appointment of intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the vice-presidency, it is the Egyptian working class that holds the future of its country in its hands.
The organised workers' movement saw its unions gutted by state privatisation and the gutting of union independence though the hated Law No. 100, which guaranteed that union representation would be strongly controlled by the state. However, recent events, particularly in strategic Suez, have shown that when the social weight of the workers is thrown into the balance, even all the machinations of Hillary Clinton’s State Department will not be able to patch together Mubarak’s state apparatus. The question then will be, what will follow it?
Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt: How 'spontaneous' are they?
“Leave you thief! Mubarak should be tried in front of an international court.” Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy/3arabawy.
By Hicham Safieddine
February 1, 2011 -- The Bullet -- Arab uprisings are taking place with the historical speed of light. I began writing this piece following the downfall of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and closed with the imminent downfall of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak. The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings are not, as some armchair pundits have called the Tunisian one, Jasmine revolutions. They are ones of bread, bullets, blood, democracy and dignity.
Egypt's uprising and its implications for Palestine (and Jordan)
Egyptians call for Mubarak's ouster, Tahrir (Liberation) Square, Cairo, January 29, 2011. Photo by Matthew Cassel.
By Ali Abunimah
January 29, 2011 -- Electronic Intifada -- We are in the middle of a political earthquake in the Arab world and the ground has still not stopped shaking. To make predictions when events are so fluid is risky, but there is no doubt that the uprising in Egypt -- however it ends -- will have a dramatic impact across the region and within Palestine.
Al Jazeera reports on the latest developments in Tahrir Square and across Egypt.
February 2, 2011 -- According to Al Jazeera, "More than a million protesters flooded into central Cairo on [February 1], turning the Egyptian capital's Tahrir, or Liberation, Square into a sea of humanity as massive protests against Hosni Mubarak swept across Middle East's most populous nation. Packed shoulder to shoulder in and around the famed square, the mass of people held aloft posters denouncing the Egyptian president, and chanted slogans 'Go Mubarak Go' and 'Leave! Leave! Leave!'
