Algeria: Youth revolt shakes authoritarian order

Chawki Salhi
International Viewpoint
February 2011

After a week, the riotous fires burnt out, leaving a feeling of bitterness, a taste of ashes. But the national scope of the revolts and the virtually total paralysis that resulted shook the existing authoritarian order and opened the possibility of qualitative changes in the political situation.

Beginning on January 5 in Algiers (Fouka, Staoueli, Bab el Oued), Oran and Djelfa, the youth revolts extended to hundreds of neighbourhoods in every region of the country. There were neither slogans, nor demands nor structures. We are not talking about massive popular demonstrations which degenerated into looting. More often it was small groups of youths who emerged from peripheral neighbourhoods to take over central arteries that they closed down with burning tyres, looting vehicles and violently confronting the police. Once the square was taken the surrounding shops were looted. Haunted by several decades of riots, the authorities immediately withdrew the numerous police officers spread across the town under the pretext of the anti-terrorist struggle and entrusted the defence of the essential centres to the anti-riot brigades. While awaiting reconquest operations, the street was abandoned to the rioters. Public or private establishments were attacked, town hall, hotels, telephone agencies, schools, professional training centres. Public edifices were besieged, like the commissariat in Bab el Oued, while in the same neighbourhood the showrooms of Renault and Dacia and their inaccessible cars were looted. Public or private banking agencies the post offices were the privileged targets with the manifest intention of taking the money they held. The looters also targeted jewellery shops, sports stores, expensive cars, without sparing ordinary traders and modest passers by who were robbed without consideration. This disordered violence, which did not spare the poor, led to an end for the initially unanimous popular sympathy. High school students and the less precarious youth sectors lost their sense of solidarity and instead organised the self-defence of their areas against looters.

In explaining the events some analysts evoked struggles within the ruling clans and the military, while others attributed the movement to speculators, importers or wholesalers, accused of having activated their informal networks of distributors to oppose the pressure of the administration that demanded they pay tax. In fact these manipulations, if they exist, are anecdotal. The situation lends itself to explosion, it has exploded. The initial revolts are similar to the sporadic riots that have taken place for years. Their privileged actors are the same precarious youth. Concretely, the events of January 4 and 5 were very localised. The resonance of the private press gave them a national impact. Spokespersons of the resentment of the business world and the international capitalist community against protectionist impulses, the private press generously covered every protest. And it is all the better for our struggles. From the first incidents, at Bab el Oued and Oran, the dailies devoted their front pages to images of urban desolation with headlines like “The riots of the end”, “Troubled night in Bab el Oued”, “Riots: the conflagration".

The movement has retrospectively been given a simultaneous nature that did not exist. When the movement ended in the neighbourhoods of January 5, it had hardly begun in the towns of the East and the Kabyle Soummam. What existed on the contrary was a general anger of modest people against high prices at the beginning of the year. And these increases were no more than unexpected collateral damage stemming from the government’s attempt to reduce the informal sector of the economy. In Algeria, you can buy a car or even a villa of a million Euros in cash. From the end of March 2011, a ban on cash payments for sums above 500,000 dinars or 5,000 euros (three years of minimum wage) was planned. With a view to this ban, the producers asked their wholesale distributors to produce tax documents so as to draw up invoices. That meant leaving the informal sector, paying taxes, indeed social security contributions! Faced with this intolerable state aggression against freedom of trade and the exploitation of employees, the wholesalers ceased their deliveries of goods. The result was shortages, speculation, and immediate increases in the prices of basic food products.

The adolescents and young people in revolt are not concerned by the daily purchases of their parents who reject this intolerable pressure on their wallets. They are, rather, involved in small informal business. They share the generalised popular anger in relation to prices, but what concerns them more directly is the progressive dismantling of the informal markets that occupy the big shopping streets. Like the young Bouazizi who set fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, they are deprived of decent employment, forced to occupy a street corner to sell cigarettes or various smuggled Chinese products avoiding tax. Like the young Harraguas who flee their country on improvised boats to participate in the wage slavery of Spanish agriculture or minor precarious jobs in France, they express their unhappiness in a blocked society. The lack of housing leads to the cramming of families and perpetuates an anachronistic patriarchy and a strict moral rigor. Without housing or stable income, marriage is late. This sharpens despair in a country that Europe is recolonising, a country whose productive enterprises are being destroyed along with jobs in the name of the logic of the market, a country that is invaded by the triumphant values of the West.

Popular anger

This general revolt is the expected outcome of a popular anger which for some months has been directed against Andelaziz Bouteflika and his regime, associated with the emergence of insolent wealth which offends an egalitarian populist culture, a regime complicit in affairs of corruption, at astronomical amounts, which have been on the front pages of the big dailies. In the midst of an Algerian-French diplomatic crisis, the construction of a 1,200 km highway, the glory of Bouteflika’s programme, was attributed to the Chinese by Mr Pierre Falcon, airplane manufacture and dealer in French weapons, himself responsible for redistributing the commission of 20% on the amount of 11 billion dollars. And so one discovers on this occasion a Franco-African network at the heart of a regime originating from the war of liberation. In a gilded neighbourhood in upper Algiers, where a square metre of land to build on can fetch 5.000 euros, Bouteflika offered 760 ha at a symbolic dinar per square metre to an Emirates group. The privileges accorded to the Gulf magnates are regularly denounced by the press and the elites, who lean rather in the direction of France. These gifts are explained by the President’s affinities with his Emirate hosts during his period of exile. The national oil company Sonatrach has been robbed by its managers through overvalued privately negotiated contracts. This had already happened before, to the profit of BRC, a subsidiary linked to former US vice president Dick Cheney. There lies one of the reasons for the firmness of US-Algerian relations.

These press revelations and the subsequent legal cases sometimes lead to derisory sanctions against members of the higher echelons, rather of the second level, whereas the hand of class justice strikes hard against the desperate youth who revolt to obtain a tarmac road, a link to the distribution network for potable water or gas, to protest against a distribution of social housing deemed to be unjust or to demand a job. There are also prison sentences against illegal emigrants, these harraguas who risk their lives on improvised boats. The crackdown on informal traders and the prosecution of small traders avoiding tax led to popular resentment. The multinationals are exempted from tax by way of encouragement and all the private industrial and commercial enterprises more or less escape tax obligations, which finally only concern declared wage earners and the enterprises of the public sector.

Paradoxically, the rehousing of the inhabitants of the shanty towns is also a source of discontent. Countries that distribute thousands of housing units to poor people are pretty rare. But Algerians are not completely resigned to class society. The emergence of the bourgeoisie is very recent. The right to housing was conquered at independence in the confused occupation of the towns deserted by French settlers. The Bouteflika regime, which is responsible for the most aggressive neoliberal advances, continues in some respects to follow a populist approach based in its history. Thousands of housing units have been distributed, though it is a drop of water in the ocean of needs. The housing offered is not enough to hold a whole family, the new arrivals in the shanty town are not affected and the overpopulated urban neighbourhoods resent an operation which ignores them, because the priority is to absorb the shacks which surround the towns. Corruption is also present. In a situation of penury, what is more predictable than favouritism and corruption?

Retreats of the regime

It was the symbolic struggle around housing at Diar Echems in the heart of Algiers whose violence convinced the regime to renounce its policy of tough action on the streets and the crushing of strikes. The confrontations at Diar Echems, in October 2009, coincided with the revolt of the El Ançar neighbourhood in the western city of Oran against the pollution of a quarry. At the same time, rail workers launched a lightning strike that disorganised the economy and threatened a total paralysis. The regime then decided on a policy of conciliation. The rail workers received a pay increase. The inhabitants of Diar Echems were promised early rehousing. From battle to battle the government has made concessions. The big dailies denounce the “riot bonus” of the government which promises hundreds of thousands of social housing units instead of letting the market regulate things. Despite severe legislation and legal persecution of the actors of the social movement, the government has always ended up giving way to each strike movement. Thus the big movements of teachers and doctors and their autonomous unions in struggle since 2003 have won various provisional victories with a fairly big increase effective of January 2008 in the context of a general revalorisation of the public service. But the small wage earners, who are the majority, have not much progress. There is a will to re-establish the hierarchy of wages skewed by several decades of uniform increases, to valorise the “middle layers” according to the IMF recommendations to better stabilise society. But these increases, obtained under the blows of strikes and so on are not enough to give to the higher wage earners an income comparable to that of their equivalents in neighbouring countries. The counterpart to these wage concessions is a new status of the civil service which introduces casualisation, the precarity of civil servants in short-term contracts bringing about a massive regression.

The strikes in the economic sector have had a considerable subjective impact. They have allowed an initial small wage catch up, after 15 years of a freeze on wages. Rail workers, after several wildcat strikes, have achieved an increase of more than 50%. Actions in the steel complex at Annaba, on the rail, in the truck factory in Rouiba and the surrounding industrial zone, and in the port of Algiers have mobilised less workers than the big national strikes in the civil service, but their struggles have caught the imagination of all employees and they function as a vanguard. They took place after a decade of demoralisation and rampant dismantling of public enterprises. The new politics of struggle against imports rehabilitates national production and fills order books. We have gone from a situation punctuated by voluntary redundancies and the compression of the workforce to massive hirings.

The struggles extend beyond the local trade union leaderships and above all the national leadership of the UGTA which since the general strike of 2003 against privatisation has sunk into an ever more indecent servility. But these strikes take place always in the context of a UGTA that is curiously back in the saddle despite an avowed discredit. Of around sixty existing unions, the UGTA federation is the only generalist one. The more representative autonomous unions concern specific corporations in the public service: high school teachers, university lecturers, doctors and so on. Another reason for this survival and hegemony of the UGTA is a relationship of forces that is still unfavourable to the workers. In a public sector officially condemned to disappear, the room for negotiation is non-existent, the capacity for strike blackmail is reduced to nothing. Halt production? That is precisely what the IMF wants. In these disastrous conditions the UGTA, the complacent partner of the authorities, functions as an umbrella union. The prestige of the autonomous unions is immense despite the rapid bureaucratisation of most of them, but the reality of the trade union struggle remains for many the attempt to regain control of the UGTA. It is a question of the relationship of forces.

The private sector super-exploits in disastrous conditions the majority of the country’s wage earners. In 2007, the official figures indicated 78% of workers in private enterprises were undeclared. These are legal enterprises that appear to pay their taxes. But the informal enterprises escape any control and statistics whereas they employ a considerable part of the workforce. Labour law no longer exists. One can increase the minimum wage, discuss pensions, review trade union legislation, but that does not concern the overwhelming majority of workers. Thus there is no question of trade union law and the right to strike. The struggles in the private sector are rare and brutal. In a situation of scarcity of jobs, recalcitrant workers can be immediately replaced. Some big strikes have nonetheless taken place in the private sector, at the Tonic group (packaging), on the sites of the Chinese enterprises building the highway, where the Algerian workers denounce slavery and the Chinese workers demand simply to be paid. And there was of course the symbolic strike at the formerly state owned steel complex sold to Arcelor Mittal in Annaba. The workers succeeded in dislodging the union mafia in the service of the multinational. The new team uncovered various rackets and revealed the derisory performances of the world steel giant which did not equal the production of the complex under public management. But above all they defeated the plans to reduce the workforce and forced a wage increase. What allowed this victory was the massive workers’ mobilisation but also the perspective of the renationalisation of the complex in the new economic course of the region.

Limits of authoritarianism and liberties

Teachers on a national general strike have demanded retirement after 25 years at work and a wage increase of 100%, which they are not far from having obtained. The announcement two years ago of the suppression of the optional pension at age 50 led to an immediate revolt of the industrial zone of Rouiba, near Algiers, and a mobilisation of oil workers. It was all the same decided a year ago and still has not been applied. A moratorium is spoken of, for fear of social explosion. Those who riot for rehousing reject the new and free units offered to them. The suppression of free medicine in 2002 was immediately postponed after the riots of Ain Fakroun. It should be applied in the next few months, though the January riots will have deepened the thinking of the authorities about that. University lecturers have demanded and obtain better wages but also their priority right to social housing. Our comrade Daniel Bensaïd, visiting Algeria a few months before his death, compared this situation to that of Mexico which also has social gains inherited from a past revolutionary situation, gains which the neoliberal steamroller is trying to erase.

For others concerns are linked to neoliberal globalisation. The massive unemployment of youth is a consequence of the dismantling of the public sector and the unfettered opening up that delivers the market to the disloyal competition of the products of wage slavery in China or the subsidised exports of the European Union. The Draconian fall in purchasing power stems from the division by twenty of the value of the dinar successively since the structural adjustment plan of 1994. But although wages have been the lowest in the Mediterranean basin, the workforce is not disciplined enough, not submissive. Investors only come for the oil rent or the telephone company profits. Capitalist exploitation is profitable in Algeria, but apparently much less so than in China.

Another aspect to stress is that of the relative liberties that remain under this authoritarian regime whose repression and arbitrariness we regularly denounce. The revolts of October 1988 imposed a democratic opening, political and media pluralism, the freedom to demonstrate, legality of strike actions. From the beginning, successive governments have sought to hinder popular freedoms and tolerate only salon activities and electoral meetings. But popular lassitude, after the bloody decade that appeared as the fruit of the opening, has allowed the regime to take firm control. Bouteflika professes publicly his allergy to pluralism and dreams of a US-style two party system. Associations, unions, parties are refused approval. Activities are rarely authorised expect in electoral periods when the parties, prevented from building themselves, appear derisory. Electoral law hardens the conditions. And Bouteflika is comforted by the discredit of the parties, all of them, and by their corruption. But October 1988 is not totally forgotten, far from it. It is not restrictions that limit popular expression so much as popular disenchantment with respect to democracy and the discrediting of politics.
Bouteflika’s patriotic turn

Bouteflika’s first term, from 1999 to 2003, was one of professions of ultra neoliberal faith but his promises to his imperialist tutors have not materialised. His projects were hindered by the resistance of the civil and military state bureaucracy, and the irritation of the private employers faced with the preference given to multinationals. Above all the hostility of the trade union apparatus to neoliberalism allowed a significant mobilisation. Popular resistance obliged Bouteflika to reconsider his projects. Oil strikes blocked the hydrocarbons law. The popular movement in Kabylie imposed a return to big state projects to the disgust of the orthodox neoliberals. The revolt of Ain Fekroun in the Aurès postponed the suppression of free medicine, the national strike by UGTA forced back total privatisation, the autonomous unions of teacher, doctors, challenged the wage freeze.

The re-election of Bouteflika in 2004, against Ali Benflis, the candidate of the FLN and the head of the army, gave him the necessary legitimacy to go further. The law on hydrocarbons was voted through. He privileged outrageously foreign companies allowed to benefit from concessions. An indecent programme of total privatisation was adopted. Then Bouteflika fell ill. The regime positioned itself for succession struggles but a physically weakened Bouteflika continued to dominate all areas. In June 2006, a new tone appeared, more concerned to preserve the national interests, the law on hydrocarbons was frozen before being amended to favour the national company. In 2008, the price per barrel collapsed, while imports which had tripled over a few years consumed all the oil income. Privatisation appears at a stalemate. Supplementary finance laws have involved Draconian measures to re-establish balances. Taxes and administrative measures reduce imports, while foreign enterprises are obliged to find a majority Algerian partner. This is the background which explains the change of tone of the Western governments despite the attraction of 150 billion dollars of public investment and juicy contracts. It is this which is at stake in the battle to give a political direction to the popular discontent, the workers’ strikes and the youth revolts.

-Chawki Salhi is spokesman of the Algerian Socialist Workers Party (PST), an organisation of the revolutionary left whose activists are particularly active within the popular committees.

Read more...

Egypt's Joy: Toppling the Autocrat

Tariq Ali
CounterPunch
February 11-13, 2011

A joyous night in Cairo. What bliss to be alive, to be an Egyptian and an Arab. In Tahrir Square they're chanting, "Egypt is free" and "We won!"

The removal of Mubarak alone (and getting the bulk of his $40bn loot back for the national treasury), without any other reforms, would itself be experienced in the region and in Egypt as a huge political triumph. It will set new forces into motion. A nation that has witnessed miracles of mass mobilisations and a huge rise in popular political consciousness will not be easy to crush, as Tunisia demonstrates.


Arab history, despite appearances, is not static. Soon after the Israeli victory of 1967 that marked the defeat of secular Arab nationalism, one of the great Arab poets, Nizar Qabbani wrote:

Arab children,
Corn ears of the future,
You will break our chains.
Kill the opium in our heads,
Kill the illusions.
Arab children,
Don't read about our suffocated generation,
We are a hopeless case,
As worthless as a water-melon rind.
Don't read about us,
Don't ape us,
Don't accept us,
Don't accept our ideas,
We are a nation of crooks and jugglers.
Arab children,
Spring rain,
Corn ears of the future,
You are the generation that will overcome defeat.

How happy he would have been to seen his prophecy being fulfilled.

The new wave of mass opposition has happened at a time where there are no radical nationalist parties in the Arab world, and this has dictated the tactics: huge assemblies in symbolic spaces posing an immediate challenge to authority – as if to say, we are showing our strength, we don't want to test it because we neither organised for that nor are we prepared, but if you mow us down remember the world is watching.

This dependence on global public opinion is moving, but is also a sign of weakness. Had Obama and the Pentagon ordered the Egyptian army to clear the square – however high the cost – the generals would probably have obeyed orders, but it would have been an extremely risky operation for them, if not for Obama. It could have split the high command from ordinary soldiers and junior officers, many of whose relatives and families are demonstrating and many of whom know and feel that the masses are on the right side. That would have meant a revolutionary upheaval of a sort that neither Washington nor the Muslim Brotherhood – the party of cold calculation – desired.

The show of popular strength was enough to get rid of the current dictator. He'd only go if the US decided to take him away. After much wobbling, they did. They had no other serious option left. The victory, however, belongs to the Egyptian people whose unending courage and sacrifices made all this possible.

And so it ended badly for Mubarak and his old henchman. Having unleashed security thugs only a fortnight ago, Vice-President Suleiman's failure to dislodge the demonstrators from the square was one more nail in the coffin. The rising tide of the Egyptian masses with workers coming out on strike , judges demonstrating on the streets, and the threat of even larger crowds next week, made it impossible for Washington to hang on to Mubarak and his cronies. The man Hillary Clinton had referred to as a loyal friend, indeed "family", was dumped. The US decided to cut its losses and authorised the military intervention.

Omar Suleiman, an old western favourite, was selected as vice-president by Washington, endorsed by the EU, to supervise an "orderly transition". Suleiman was always viewed by the people as a brutal and corrupt torturer, a man who not only gives orders, but participates in the process. A WikiLeaks document had a former US ambassador praising him for not being "squeamish". The new vice president had warned the protesting crowds last Tuesday that if they did not demobilise themselves voluntarily, the army was standing by: a coup might be the only option left. It was, but against the dictator they had backed for 30 years. It was the only way to stabilise the country. There could be no return to "normality".

The age of political reason is returning to the Arab world. The people are fed up of being colonised and bullied. Meanwhile, the political temperature is rising in Jordan, Algeria and Yemen.

Tariq Ali’s latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad’ is published by Verso.

Read more...

Whither Egypt? - Interview with Gilbert Achcar

Farooq Sulehria
International Viewpoint
February 2011

To help explain the thrilling developments in Egypt, Farooq Sulehnia interviewed leading Arab scholar-activist Gilbert Achcar on February 4.

Do you think that Mubarak’s pledge on February 1st not to contest the next election represented a victory for the movement, or was it just a trick to calm down the masses as on the very next day demonstrators in Al-Tahrir Square were brutally attacked by pro-Mubarak forces?

The Egyptian popular anti-regime uprising reached a first peak on February 1st, prodding Mubarak to announce concessions in the evening. It was an acknowledgement of the force of the popular protest and a clear retreat on the autocrat’s part, coming on top of the announcement of the government’s willingness to negotiate with the opposition. These were significant concessions indeed coming from such an authoritarian regime, and a testimony to the importance of the popular mobilisation. Mubarak even pledged to speed up ongoing judicial actions against fraud perpetrated during the previous parliamentary elections.


He made it clear, however, that he was not willing to go beyond that. With the army firmly on his side, he was trying to appease the mass movement, as well as the Western powers that were urging him to reform the political system. Short of resignation, he granted some of the key demands that the Egyptian protest movement had formulated initially, when it launched its campaign on January 25. However, the movement has radicalized since that day to a point where anything short of Mubarak’s resignation won’t be enough to satisfy it, with many in the movement even demanding that he gets tried in court.

Moreover, all the regime’s key institutions are now denounced by the movement as illegitimate––the executive as well as the legislative, i.e. the parliament. As a result, part of the opposition is demanding that the head of the constitutional court be appointed as interim president, to preside over the election of a constituent assembly. Others even want a national committee of opposition forces to supervise the transition. Of course, these demands constitute a radical democratic perspective. In order to impose such a thorough change, the mass movement would need to break or destabilise the regime’s backbone, that is the Egyptian army.

Do you mean that the Egyptian army is backing Mubarak?

Egypt––even more than comparable countries such as Pakistan or Turkey––is in essence a military dictatorship with a civilian façade that is itself stuffed with men originating in the military. The problem is that most of the Egyptian opposition, starting with the Muslim Brotherhood, have been sowing illusions about the army and its purported "neutrality," if not "benevolence." They have been depicting the army as an honest broker, while the truth is that the army as an institution is not "neutral" at all. If it has not been used yet to repress the movement, it is only because Mubarak and the general staff did not see it appropriate to resort to such a move, probably because they fear that the soldiers would be reluctant to carry out a repression. That is why the regime resorted instead to orchestrating counter-demonstrations and attacks by thugs on the protest movement. The regime tried to set up a semblance of civil strife, showing Egypt as torn apart between two camps, thus creating a justification for the army’s intervention as the "arbiter" of the situation.

If the regime managed to mobilise a significant counter-movement and provoke clashes on a larger scale, the army could step in, saying: "Game over, everybody must go home now," while promising that the pledges made by Mubarak would be implemented. Like many observers, I feared these last two days that this stratagem might succeed in weakening the protest movement, but the huge mobilization of today’s "day of departure" is reassuring. The army will need to make further and more significant concessions to the popular uprising.

When you talk of the opposition, what forces does it include? Of course, we hear about the Muslim Brotherhood and El Baradei. Are there are other players too like left wing forces, trade unions, etc?

The Egyptian opposition includes a vast array of forces. There are parties like the Wafd, which are legal parties and constitute what may be called the liberal opposition. Then there is a grey zone occupied by the Muslim Brotherhood. It does not have a legal status but is tolerated by the regime. Its whole structure is visible; it is not an underground force. The Muslim Brotherhood is certainly, and by far, the largest force in the opposition. When Mubarak’s regime, under US pressure, granted some space to the opposition in the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood––running as "independents"––managed to get 88 MPs, i.e. 20 percent of the parliamentary seats, despite all obstacles. In the last elections held last November and December, after the Mubarak regime had decided to close down the limited space that it had opened in 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood almost vanished from parliament, losing all its seats but one.

Among the forces on the left, the largest is the Tagammu party, which enjoys a legal status and has 5 MPs. It refers to the Nasserite legacy. Communists have been prominent within its ranks. It is basically a reformist left party, which is not considered a threat to the regime. On the contrary, it has been quite compliant with it on several occasions. There are also leftwing Nasserite and radical left groups in Egypt––small but vibrant, and very much involved in the mass movement.

Then there are "civil society" movements, like Kefaya, a coalition of activists from various opposition forces initiated in solidarity with the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000. It opposed the invasion of Iraq later on, and became famous afterwards as a democratic campaign movement against Mubarak’s regime. From 2006 to 2009, Egypt saw the unfolding of a wave of industrial actions, including a few impressively massive workers strikes. There are no independent workers unions in Egypt, with one or two very recent exceptions born as a result of the social radicalisation. The bulk of the working class does not have the benefit of autonomous representation and organization. An attempt at convening a general strike on April 6, 2008 in solidarity with the workers led to the creation of the April 6 Youth Movement. Associations like this one and Kefaya are campaign-focused groups, not political parties, and they include people of different political affiliations along with unaffiliated activists.

When Mohamed El Baradei returned to Egypt in 2009 after his third term at the head of the IAEA, his personal prestige enhanced by the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, a liberal and left coalition gathered around him, with the Muslim Brotherhood adopting a lukewarm reserved position. Many in the opposition saw El Baradei as a powerful candidate enjoying international reputation and connections, and constituting therefore a credible presidential candidate against Mubarak or his son. El Baradei thus became a rallying figure for a large section of the opposition, regrouping political forces as well as personalities. They formed the National Association for Change.

This whole array of forces is very much involved in the present uprising. However, the overwhelming majority of the people on the streets are without any sort of political affiliation. It is a huge mass outpouring of resentment at living under a despotic regime, fed by worsening economic conditions, as prices of basic necessities, like food, fuel, and electricity, have been sharply on the rise amid staggering joblessness. This is the case not only in Egypt but in most of the region as well, and that is why the fire of revolt that started in Tunisia spread so quickly to many Arab countries.

Is El Baradei genuinely popular, or is he in some way the Mir-Hossein Mousavi of the Egyptian movement, trying to change some faces while preserving the regime?

I would disagree with this characterisation of Mousavi in the first place. To be sure, Mir-Hossein Mousavi did not want to "change the regime" if one mean by that a social revolution. But there was definitely a clash between authoritarian social forces, spearheaded by the Pasdaran and represented by Ahmedinejad, and others coalesced around a liberal reformist perspective represented by Mousavi. It was indeed a clash about the kind of "regime" in the sense of the pattern of political rule.

Mohamed El Baradei is a genuine liberal who wishes his country to move from the present dictatorship to a liberal democratic regime, with free elections and political freedoms. If such a vast array of political forces is willing to cooperate with him, it is because they see in him the most credible liberal alternative to the existing regime, a man who does not command an organised constituency of his own, and is therefore an appropriate figurehead for a democratic change.

Going back to your analogy, you can’t compare him with Mousavi who was a member of the Iranian regime, one of the men who led the 1979 Islamic revolution. Mousavi had his own followers in Iran, before he emerged as the leader of the 2009 mass protest movement. In Egypt, El Baradei cannot play, and does not pretend to play a similar role. He is supported by a vast array of forces, but none of them see him as its leader.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s initial reserved attitude towards El Baradei is partly related to the fact that he does not have a religious bent and is too secular for their taste. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood had cultivated an ambiguous relationship with the regime over the years. Had they fully backed El Baradei, they would have narrowed their margin of negotiation with the Mubarak regime, with which they have been bargaining for quite a long time. The regime conceded a lot to them in the socio-cultural sphere, increasing Islamic censorship in the cultural field being but one example. That was the easiest thing the regime could do to appease the Brotherhood. As a result, Egypt made huge steps backward from the secularisation that was consolidated under Gamal Abdul-Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to secure a democratic change that would grant them the possibility to take part in free elections, both parliamentary and presidential. The model they aspire to reproduce in Egypt is that of Turkey, where the democratisation process was controlled by the military with the army remaining a key pillar of the political system. This process nonetheless created a space which allowed the AKP, an Islamic conservative party, to win elections. They are not bent on overthrowing the state, hence their courting of the military and their care to avoid any gesture that could antagonize the army. They adhere to a strategy of gradual conquest of power: they are gradualists, not radicals.

The Western media are hinting at the fact that democracy in the Middle East would lead to an Islamic fundamentalist takeover. We have seen the triumphal return of Rached Ghannouchi to Tunisia after long years in exile. The Muslim Brotherhood is likely to win fair elections in Egypt. What is your comment on that?

I would turn the whole question around. I would say that it is the lack of democracy that led religious fundamentalist forces to occupy such a space. Repression and the lack of political freedoms reduced considerably the possibility for left-wing, working-class and feminist movements to develop in an environment of worsening social injustice and economic degradation. In such conditions, the easiest venue for the expression of mass protest turns out to be the one that uses the most readily and openly available channels. That’s how the opposition got dominated by forces adhering to religious ideologies and programmes.

We aspire to a society where such forces are free to defend their views, but in an open and democratic ideological competition between all political currents. In order for Middle Eastern societies to get back on the track of political secularisation, back to the popular critical distrust of the political exploitation of religion that prevailed in the 1950s and 1960s, they need to acquire the kind of political education that can be achieved only through a long-term practise of democracy.

Having said this, the role of religious parties is different in different countries. True, Rached Ghannouchi has been welcomed by a few thousand people on his arrival at Tunis airport. But his Nahda movement has much less influence in Tunisia than the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Of course, this is in part because Al-Nahda suffered from harsh repression since the 1990s. But it is also because the Tunisian society is less prone than the Egyptian to religious fundamentalist ideas, due to its higher degree of Westernisation and education, and the country’s history.

But there is no doubt that Islamic parties have become the major forces in the opposition to existing regimes over the whole region. It will take a protracted democratic experience to change the direction of winds from that which has been prevailing for more than three decades. The alternative is the Algerian scenario where an electoral process was blocked by the army by way of a military coup in 1992, leading to a devastating civil war for which Algeria is still paying the price.

The amazing surge of democratic aspirations among Arab peoples of these last few weeks is very encouraging indeed. Neither in Tunisia, nor in Egypt or anywhere else, were popular protests waged for religious programs, or even led principally by religious forces. These are democratic movements, displaying a strong longing for democracy. Polls have been showing for many years that democracy as a value is rated very highly in Middle Eastern countries, contrary to common "Orientalist" prejudices about the cultural "incompatibility" of Muslim countries with democracy. The ongoing events prove one more time that any population deprived of freedom will eventually stand up for democracy, whatever "cultural sphere" it belongs to.

Whoever runs and wins future free elections in the Middle East will have to face a society where the demand for democracy has become very strong indeed. It will be quite difficult for any party––whatever its programme––to hijack these aspirations. I am not saying that it will be impossible. But one major outcome of the ongoing events is that popular aspirations to democracy have been hugely boosted. They create ideal conditions for the left to rebuild itself as an alternative.

-Farooq Sulehria is a prominent radical journalist and a leading member of Labour Party Pakistan. He is the author of the LPP’s booklet, ’Rise of Political Islam’, and translator into Urdu of ’Clash of Fundamentalisms’ by Tariq Ali.

-Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and teaches political science at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. His best-selling book ’The Clash of Barbarisms’ came out in a second expanded edition in 2006, alongside a book of his dialogues with Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, ’Perilous Power’. He is co-author of ’The 33-Day War: Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and It’s Consequences’. His most recent book is The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2010.

Read more...

A European strategy for the left?

Michel Husson
International Viewpoint
January 2011

Michel Husson offers a contribution to the debate on how the European left should respond to the economic crisis and argues that leaving the euro is not currently an option for countries which use it.

The global effects of the crisis have been made even worse by what is happening in Europe. For thirty years the contradictions of capitalism have been overcome with the help of an enormous accumulation of phantom rights to surplus value. The crisis has threatened to destroy them. The bourgeois governments have decided to preserve them claiming that we have to save the banks. They have taken on the banks’ debts and asked for virtually nothing in return. Yet it would have been possible to make this rescue conditional on some assurances. They could have banned speculative financial instruments and closed the tax loopholes. They could even have insisted that they take responsibility for some of the public debt that this rescue increased so dramatically.


We are now in the second phase. Having shifted the debt from the private sector to the public the working class has to be made to pay. This shock therapy is delivered through austerity plans which are all broadly similar – a cut in socially useful spending and hiking up the most unfair taxes. There is no alternative to this form of social violence other than making the shareholders and creditors pay. That is clear and everyone understands it.

The collapse of a ruling class plan

But the European working class is also being asked to pay for the collapse of the ruling class project for Europe. The ruling class thought that it had found a good system with the single currency, the budgetary stability pact (“Stability and Growth Pact”), and the total deregulation of finance and the movement of capital . By creating a competition between social models and wage earners squeezing wages became the only means of regulating inter-capitalist competition and intensifying the inequalities that benefitted only a very narrow stratum of people in society.

However this model put the cart before the horse and wasn’t viable. It presupposed that the European economies were more homogeneous than they actually are. Differences between countries increased due to their place in the global market and their sensitivity to the euro exchange rate. Inflation rates didn’t converge and interest rates favoured property bubbles and so on. All the contradictions of a curtailed programme of European integration which the Euro liberals are discovering today existed before the crisis. But these are blowing apart under speculative attacks against the sovereign debts of the most exposed countries.

Underneath the abstract concept of “financial markets” there are mainly European financial institutions which speculate using capital which states lend to them at very low interest rates. This speculation is only possible due to the states’ policy of non-intervention and we should understand it as a pressure applied to consenting governments to stabilise budgets on the back of the people of Europe and to defend the banks’ interests.

Two immediate tasks

From the point of view of the working class it’s obvious what has to be done: we have to resist the austerity offensive and refuse to pay the debt which is nothing but the debt from the banking crisis. The alternative plan on which this resistance must be based demands another way of sharing society’s wealth. This is a coherent demand. It is in fact against the squeezing of wages, in other words the appropriation of an increasing portion of surplus value by capital.

The alternative requires a real fiscal reform which takes back the gifts which for years have been given to businesses and the rich. It also implies the cancellation of the debt. The debt and the interests of the majority of the population are completely incompatible. There can be no progressive outcome to the crisis which does not put the debt in question, either by defaulting on it or restructuring it. In any case some countries will probably default and it’s therefore important to anticipate this situation and say how it should be managed.

Leaving the euro?

The offensive, which the peoples of Europe are facing, is undeniably made worse by the European straightjacket. For example the European Central Bank, unlike the Federal Reserve in the United States, cannot monetise public debt by buying treasury bonds. Would leaving the euro allow the straightjacket to be loosened? That is what some on the left like Costas Lapavitsas and his colleagues are suggesting for Greece as an immediate step. He proposes that it is done immediately without waiting for the left to unite to change the euro zone, something he thinks is impossible.

This idea is put forward elsewhere in Europe and is met with an immediate objection that even though Britain is not part of the euro zone it has not been protected from the climate of austerity. It is also easy to understand why the far right, such as the Front National in France wants to leave the euro. By contrast it is hard to see what could be the merits of such a slogan for the radical left. If a liberal government were forced to take such a measure by the pressure of events it is clear that it would be the pretext for an even more severe austerity than the one we have experienced up to now. Moreover it would not allow us to establish a new balance of forces, which is more favourable to the working class. That is the lesson that one can draw for all the past experiences.

For a left government leaving the euro would be a major strategic error. The new currency would be devalued as that is, after all, the desired objective. But that would immediately open up a space, which the financial markets would immediately use to begin a speculative offensive. It would trigger a cycle of devaluation, inflation and austerity. On top of that, the debt, which until that point had been denominated in euros or in dollars would suddenly increase as a result of this devaluation. Every left government which decided to take measures in favour of the working class would certainly be put under enormous pressure by international capitalism. But from a tactical point of view it would be better in this test of strength to use membership in the euro zone as a source of conflict.

It is basically true that the European project based on the single currency is not coherent and is incomplete. It removes a variable of adjustment, the exchange rate, from the set of different prices and salaries inside the euro zone. The countries in the periphery thus have the choice between the German path of freezing wages or suffering a reduction in competitivity and loss of markets. This situation leads to a sort of impasse and there are no solutions that can be applied straight away: going backwards would throw Europe in a crisis which would hit the most fragile countries hardest.; and beginning a new European project seems out of reach at the moment.

If the euro zone explodes the most fragile economies would be destabilised by speculative attacks. Not even Germany would have anything to gain because its currency would appreciate in value uncontrollably and the country would undergo what the Unites States is today trying to impose on several countries with its monetary policy.[ii]

Other solutions exist which need a complete recasting of the European Union: a budget which is financed by a common tax on capital and which finances harmonisation funds and investments which are both socially and ecologically useful and richer countries help poorer ones with their public debt. But again this outcome is not possible in the short term, not through lack of alternative plans but because implementing them requires a radical change in the balance of forces at the European level.

What should we do at a very difficult moment like this? The struggle against the austerity plans and refusing to pay the debt are the launch pad for a counter offensive. We then have to make sure that the resistance is strengthened by arguing for an alternative project and work out a programme which offers both “practical” answers as well as a general explanation of the class content of the crisis.[iii]

The specific task of the radical, internationalist left is to link the social struggles happening in each country with arguing for a different kind of Europe. What are the ruling classes doing? They are facing up to the policies they have to follow because they are defending interests which are still largely nationally based and contradictory. Yet as soon as they have to impose austerity measures on their own working classes they present a solid united front.

There are better things to do than emphasise the very real differences that exist between the countries. What’s at stake is having an internationalist point of view on the crisis in Europe. The only way of really opposing the rise of the far right is by suggesting other targets than the usual scapegoats. We can affirm a real international solidarity with the peoples who are suffering most due to the crisis by demanding that the debts are shared equally across Europe. Thus we have to oppose an alternative project for Europe to that of the European bourgeoisie which is dragging every country backwards socially. How is it possible not to understand that our mobilisations, which are faced with coordination of the ruling class at a European level, need to be based on a coordinated project of our own? While it is true that struggles happen in a national framework they would be strengthened by a perspective like this instead of being weakened or led down nationalist dead ends. The students who demonstrated in London chanting “all in this together, all in this together” are a symbol of this living hope.

For a European Strategy

The task is as difficult as the period which the crisis has opened. However the radical left must not get locked into the impossible choice and start the risky adventure of leaving the euro and a utopian idea of currency harmonisation. We could easily work on some intermediate targets which challenge the European institutions. For example:
 

• The states of the European Union should borrow directly from the European Central Bank (ECB) at very low rates of interest and private sector banks should be obliged to take over a a certain proportion of the public debt. 
• A default mechanism should be put in place, which allows public sector debt to be written off in proportion to tax breaks for the rich and money spent on bank bailouts.
• Budgetary stabilisation has to be reformed by a fiscal reform which taxes movements of capital, financial transactions, dividends, large fortunes, high salaries and incomes from capital at a standard rate across Europe.

We have to understand that these objectives are neither further or closer away than an “exit from the euro” which would be beneficial to working people. It would definitely be absurd to wait for a simultaneous and co-ordinated exit by every European country. The only strategic hypothesis that one can then conceive of must take as its starting point the experience of a social transformation which starts in one country. The government of the country in questions takes measures, for example imposing a tax on capital. If it is thinking clearly it will anticipate the retaliation for which it will be the target and will impose controls on capital. By taking this fiscal reform measure it is openly in conflict with the rules of the European game. It has no interest in unilaterally leaving the euro. This would be an enormous strategic mistake since the new currency would immediately come under attack with the aim of pulling down the economy of the “rebel” country.

We have to give up on the idea that there are “technical” shortcuts, assume that conflict is inevitable and build a favourable balance of forces of which the European dimension is a part. One point of support for that is the ability to damage capitalist interests. The country, which starts, could restructure the debt, nationalise foreign capital etc, or threaten to do it. The “left” governments of Papandreou in Greece or Zapatero in Spain have not even dreamed of doing this.

The main point of support comes from taking the measures cooperatively. This is completely different from classic protectionism, which basically always tries to gain ground by nibbling at parts of the global market. Every progressive measure on the other hand is effective to the extent that it is shared across a number of countries. We should therefore be talking about a strategy, which is based on the following idea: we are willing to tax capital and we will take the necessary steps to protect ourselves. But we are also hoping for these measures, which we propose, to be implemented across Europe.

We can sum up by saying that rather than seeing them in opposition to each other we have to think hard about the link between breaking the neoliberal European project and our project of creating a new Europe.

[ii] Michael Hudson, “US Quantitative Easing Is Fracturing the Global Economy”, http://gesd.free.fr/hudsonqi.pdf [iii] Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) Portugal: “On the crisis and how to overcome it”, May 23rd 2010, http://gesd.free.fr/bloco510.pdf

-Michel Husson is an economist, in charge of employment at the Institut de recherches economiques et sociales (IRES) in Paris. He is member of the Fondation Copernic, a left-wing think tank, and of the Scientific Council of ATTAC. He has just published Un pur capitalisme, Lausanne 2008, Éditions Page Deux. You can consult his writings on http://hussonet.free.fr.

Read more...

In Tunisia and Egypt the revolutions are underway

Statement by the Bureau of the Fourth International
Fourth International
International Viewpoint
January 2011

“The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business - kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena,(...). The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.”

Leon Trotsky, Preface to History of the Russian Revolution

The situation as with any revolution is changing from hour to hour. Any evaluation will undoubtedly be overtaken by events within a few hours or days. But already we can say that the Tunisia and Egyptian people are writing the first pages of the revolutions of the 21st century. They are sending shock waves throughout the Arab world, from Algiers to Ramallah, from Amman to Sana’a in Yemen. These revolutions result, within the particular historical conditions of this society, from the crisis that is shaking the world capitalist system. The “poverty riots” are combined with an immense mobilisation for democracy. The effects of the world economic crisis combined with the oppressive dictatorships, are making these countries the weak links in imperialist domination in the current situation. They are creating the conditions for the opening of processes of social and democratic revolution.

Demonstrations, strikes, mass meetings, self-defence committees, mobilisations by trade unions and civil associations, mobilisation of all the popular classes, “those below” and “those in the middle” who are swinging over into insurrection, “those above who can no longer rule as before”, convergence between parties from the radical opposition against the system, these are all the ingredients of a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation that is today ready to explode.

It is today the turn of Egypt to see hundreds of thousands of workers, young people and unemployed stand up against the dictatorship of Mubarak.

In Tunisia, a bloody dictatorship was cut down. It was the focus of the hatred of a whole society; the popular classes and especially of youth. The Ben Ali regime, its repression, its corruption, a system supported by all the imperialist powers, France, the USA, the European Union, had to be thrown out.

It is this same movement that is sweeping through Egypt today.

There are, of course, historical differences between the two countries. Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world. It has a decisive geostrategic place in the Middle East. The structures of the State, the institutions, and the role of the Army are different there. But it is the same basic movement that is affecting the two countries.

The Tunisian masses could longer stand an economic system - “a good pupil of the world economy” according to Mr. Strauss-Kahn - which starved them. The explosion of the prices of basic foodstuffs, unemployment of almost 30%, and hundreds of thousands of trained and qualified young people without jobs constituted fertile ground for the growth of a social revolt that, combined with a political crisis, led to a revolution.

There were dramatic price rises for all essential products, including rice, wheat and corn, between 2006 and 2008. The price of rice tripled in five years, passing from approximately $600 per ton in 2003 to more than $1800 per ton in May 2008.

The recent increase in the price of the grain is illustrated by a jump of 32% recorded during second half of 2010 in the compound index of food prices.

The big rise in prices of sugar, cereals and oilseed products took world food prices to record levels in December, exceeding those of 2008, which had started riots throughout the world.

At the same time, the IMF and the WTO are demanding the lifting of all tariff barriers and an end to all food subsidies.

The recent speculative rise in food prices encouraged a worldwide development of famine on an unprecedented scale, which is hitting a series of countries in Africa and the Arab world.

Egypt has also experienced the effects of this explosion of food prices. The economy does not create enough jobs to provide for the population’s needs. The neoliberal policies implemented since 2000 have caused an explosion of inequalities and the impoverishment of millions of families. Nearly 40% of the 80 million Egyptians continue to live on less than two dollars per day. And 90% of the unemployed are young people under 30.

The other remarkable thing is that the Egyptian national trade-union federation – led by members of the government – has partly withdrawn its support for the government in the two weeks since the Tunisian insurrection. They wanted price controls, wage rises and a system of subsidised distribution of foodstuffs; the people not being able to obtain basic necessities such as tea or oil. That the union leaders should demand this is unprecedented because they have been convinced neo-liberal supporters. That is the impact of the Tunisian events.

In Tunisia, this revolution has deep roots. The current social movement is the result of a cycle of mobilisations and movements which draw their strength from the history of the struggles of the Tunisian people and its organisations, in particular, many associations for human rights and democratic freedoms and trade unions like many sectors of the UGTT (General Union of the Tunisian Workers):

- the fight of certain personalities for freedom of expression and to travel in 1999,

- the high-school students’ movement in 2000,

- the mobilisations against the war in Iraq in 2001,

- the second Intifadah in 2002-2003,

- strikes and demonstrations in Gafsa in 2008,

- Ben Guerdane in June 2010,

- Sidi Bouzid, which at the end of 2010 opened up the way for the revolution.

It is a historical movement that started with this combination of social revolt and overthrowing a dictatorship but which today seeks to go further. It is a radical democratic revolution that has anticapitalist social demands.

Ben Ali had to flee, but the essence of his gangster system stayed in place. The force of the mobilisation has constrained the former Ben Ali supporters to leave the government gradually but, as we are writing this statement, the Prime Minister is still the Ben Ali supporter Ghannouchi.

The revolution wants to go further: “RCD out! ”, “Ghannouchi out! ”, behind these demands, it is the whole of the political system, all the institutions, all the repressive apparatus that should be eradicated. It is necessary to finish with the whole Ben Ali system, and to establish all democratic rights and freedoms: right of free expression, right to strike, right to demonstrate, pluralism of associations, trade unions and parties; abolish the presidency and install a provisional revolutionary government!

Getting rid of the dictatorship and of all operations that want to protect the power of the ruling classes means today opening a process of free elections for a constituent Assembly. This process must be based on the organisation 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 anticapitalists will defend the key demands of a programme breaking with imperialism and capitalist logic: satisfaction of the vital needs of the popular classes - bread, wages, jobs; reorganization of the economy on the basis of fundamental social needs - free and adequate public services, schools, health, women’s rights, radical land reform, socialization of the banks and key sectors of the economy, broadening social protection for unemployment, health and retirement, cancellation of the debt, national and popular sovereignty. This is the programme of a democratic government that would be at the service of the workers and the population.

At the same time, whether it is to organize the defence of the districts, to drive out RCD leaders of state administration or big companies, to reorganize the distribution of the food substances, workers and young people are organising their own assemblies and committees. The most combative sectors and most radical must support, stimulate, organize and coordinate all these self-organisation structures. They are something to build on to establish a democratic power of the popular classes.

In Egypt, at the time we are writing this statement, the country is in a state of insurrection. In spite of bloody repression, the waves of mobilisation of the people develop. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. The party office of the ruling NDP and symbols of the regime have been attacked. The hatred for the Mubarak system, the total rejection of corruption, and the demand for satisfaction of vital social demands against price rises have provoked and stimulated the mobilisation of all the popular classes. The regime is vacillating. The Army leadership supported by the USA has tried a "self-managed coup" putting Omar Suleiman, head of the secret services and pillar of the current regime, alongside Mubrak as vice-president. The army is strained. There have been scenes of fraternisation between the people and the soldiers but faced with the determination of the Egyptians the Army leadership could also choose confrontation and harsh repression. The demand of the millions in the streets is crystal clear: Mubarak must go, but it is the whole dictatorship, the whole repressive apparatus that must be brought down and a democratic process with all rights and freedoms set in place. The call for a day of mobilisation on 1st February is the next step.

In Egypt too, it is necessary to finish with dictatorship and to found a democratic process with all the rights and fundamental democratic liberties.

The current movement is the most important since the 1977 bread riots but here again it has deep roots.

For the last 30 years Mubarak has maintained a dictatorial regime, imprisoning and murdering his opponents, suppressing any independent expression of the social movement and political opposition. The electoral masquerade of November 2010, entirely controlled by the NDP which won more than 80% of the seats, is the latest example. In the last few years there have been important strike movements particularly of the textile workers of El-Mahalla, general strikes and demonstrations and protests by different social categories, big anti-imperialist mobilisations against the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004, marking the disavowal and isolation of a regime that is held up only by support of the USA and the European Union.

Egypt is, with Israel and Saudi Arabia, one of the three pillars of imperialist policy in the region. The USA, Israel and Europe will do everything they can to prevent Egypt escaping from their zone of influence and will do everything they can to oppose a revolutionary development of the protests.

The Tunisian revolution set the Arab world ablaze. It is also for a whole generation their first revolution. Everything can change today with the rising of the Egyptian people. The mobilisation will undoubtedly have repercussions through the region, in particular encouraging the Palestinians despite the shameful statement of Mahmoud Abbas.

We have to build a solidarity wall around the revolutionary processes which developing in Tunisia and Egypt, supported by active solidarity with the mobilisations throughout the Arab world. We cannot ignore the possibility of bad blows from the repressive apparatus of Ben Ali, or the threats of his friend Gaddafi. Also, if the regime decides on confrontation the Army leaders could unleash bloody repression.

Faced with the deepening of the revolutionary process, the western powers and the ruling classes will try to take back control by breaking this immense hope.

The Tunisian and Egyptian people must be able to count on the whole of the international labour movement, on all the global justice movement. In the trade unions, associations, the left parties, we must support the fights of these peoples and the revolt thundering through the Arab world.

Live the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions!

Solidarity with the fights in the Arab world!

Bureau of the Fourth International

8pm in Paris

30th of January 2011

-The Fourth International - an international organisation struggling for the socialist revolution - is composed of sections, of militants who accept and apply its principles and programme. Organised in separate national sections, they are united in a single worldwide organisation acting together on the main political questions, and discussing freely while respecting the rules of democracy.

Read more...

Tunisia: Continue the Revolution to Achieve Its Objectives

by the 14th of January Front
MRZine

No to the Continuation of Tyranny, No to Foreign Intervention

While the Tunisian masses have been continuing their sit-in in the Qasbah Government Square, and tens of thousands of Tunisians have been marching in Sfax, Tunis, Sidi Bouzid, Jendouba, Nabeul, and other parts of the country, to bring down the "national unity government," a modified government led by Mohamed Ghannouchi has been imposed on us. The imposition bears the hallmarks of the interference by US Assistant Secretary of State Feltman. This government is the continuation of the dictatorship and tyranny, refusing to hear the voice of the people; it obeys the dictates of imperialist forces of America and Europe that have subjected our country to unemployment, impoverishment, and marginalization.

Therefore, the "14th of January Front" declares the following:

1. Rejection of the "national unity government," as amended to circumvent the people's revolution and demands and aspirations.
2. Rejection of any US, European, or other tutelage on the destinies of our people and our country.
3. Call for the formation of a "provisional government" acceptable to the people, which should result from a national congress to defend the revolution, consisting of:
   

• All political parties, associations, trade unions, human rights and cultural organizations, and independent individuals who support the demands of the people's revolution and struggle to achieve them.
• Representatives of the forces created by the revolution in all areas of the country through the councils or committees or associations formed at the initiative of the masses.
• Representatives of the Tunisian associations and organizations abroad who have resisted the dictatorship and supported the revolution in Tunisia.
  

4. The mission of "the National Congress to Defend the Revolution" consists of drafting laws to
create a climate of complete freedom for the Tunisian people by repealing the laws contrary
to freedom and suspending the constitutional articles which negate freedoms and the
principle of popular sovereignty until the enactment of a new constitution.

5. The tasks of the "provisional government" are the following:

• To manage daily affairs.
• To dissolve the appointed representative bodies.
• To dismantle the ruling party and its militia, to expropriate its properties, and to bring to justice those who engaged in economic and political crimes.
• To dismantle the political police.
• To appoint interim officials of the diplomatic corps, governorates, delegations, and sectors of Tunisia to carry out the tasks of the transitional period.
• To prepare the election of a constituent assembly in an atmosphere of freedom. This assembly should represent all the vital forces in the country after agreement on the mode of representation (adopting proportional representation) that avoids exclusion.
• To hold the constituent assembly, which will draft a new civil, modern, and democratic constitution for the Republic of Tunisia that fulfills the Tunisian people's aspirations for freedom, equality, social justice, and dignity.
  

In declaring these positions, the 14th of January Front warns the "national unity government" against pursuing any repressive measure against the sit-in in Qasbah and the protesters all over the country.

The Front calls for the continuation of the mobilization, standing by the masses and uniting with all the democratic political forces of the nation as well as all the organizations, groups, associations, and independent individuals struggling to achieve the objectives of the people's revolution, in honor of the martyrs and in fidelity to their will.

Tunisia, 28 January 2011

The 14th of January Front
The original statement in Arabic is available at the Web site of the Tunisian Communist Workers Party. Cf. "Tunisia: The Founding Statement of the 14th of January Front" (MRZine, 25 January 2011)

Read more...

Tunisia: The social and democratic revolution is on the march!

Fathi Chamkhi
International Viewpoint
January 2011

The Tunisian popular masses have just made erupted onto the political scene in a spectacular fashion! They have succeeded, after 29 days of a social and democratic revolution, in driving out the dictator Ben Ali! This is a great victory!

It is a great day for us all, which we share with all those who are fighting against the world capitalist order! Above all, we have re-conquered our dignity and our pride, which for a long time had been ridiculed and dragged through the mud by the dictatorship. Now, we have a new Tunisia to build: free, democratic and social.


But right now the counter- revolution is on the march! Ben Ali has fallen from power but his regime, although destabilized and weakened, is trying to maintain itself in place. The Destourian party/state is still there, and so are its liberal capitalist economic and social policies.

This regime, which is presented as an example of a “star pupil” by the international financial institutions, this regime which bled the Tunisian popular masses for 23 years, for the benefit o f an international capital that is greedy for profits, while enriching a minority of families, grouped around the government and organized in gangster clans, must go. That is what we want!

We refuse the attempt that is under way aimed at confiscating our revolution. This operation is being presented under the formula of a “government of national unity”, with which this illegitimate regime is trying to hang on to power.

At the same time, the defeated regime has unleashed its over-armed militias, including the personal guard of Ben Ali, which are sowing terror in the big cities of the country, in particular in Tunis and its suburbs. Groups coming from the disinherited and famished masses are also taking advantage of the current chaos to help themselves in the supermarkets: in particular Carrefour and Geant. Bands of looters are positioning themselves along the principal roads of the country, making it dangerous to travel! Basic products are starting to be in short supply or are non-existent: bread, milk, medicine…

The regime, which has demobilized the police force in the cities and the National Guard in the countryside, is letting all this happen, taking advantage of the chaos to impose its own solutions. The introduction of the curfew and the deployment of the army – which lacks manpower and which has never had to face this kind of situation before - do nothing but worsen the fear, since it is during the night that the armed militias act! Everywhere, citizens are trying to organize their own defence, often in coordination with the army. Thousands of “popular citizens’ defence committees” are being set up to defend the population.

Only the establishment of a provisional government, without any representative of the Destourian regime, which will have the responsibility of preparing free and democratic elections, regulated by a new electoral code, for a constituent assembly, will be able to allow Tunisians take control of their destiny again, and to establish, in their country, an order that is just and beneficial to the mass of the population.

If the people aspire one day to live, destiny can only yield to their will!

Tunis, January 15, 2011

----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fathi Chamkhi organizes RAID (Assembly for Alternative International Development)-ATTAC and the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) in Tunisia

Read more...