Mubarak resigns
Posted by John, February 12th, 2011 - under Egypt, Revolution.
The Egyptian revolution has won a great victory. Hosni Mubarak, the dictator for the last 30 years, has resigned.
The High Council of the Armed Forces has taken power promising a transition t0 democracy. Emergency rule will be repealed soon. The Parliament will be dissolved. There will be new elections but the timetable is unclear.
But one word of caution. The head of the Council is Defence Minister Mohamed Tantawi, a man who opposed reform.
The military could steal the victory, but given the magnificent mobilisations against Mubarak, and the taste of power millions of Egyptians have felt, the fear for the military, even if they were tempted to solidify their own power and that of their ruling class clique, would be that they reignite the revolution even more ferociously if they do retain power.
To avoid Mubarakism without Mubarak the masses will need to keep their revolution going.
The armed forces reflect the class divisions in society. The generals backed Mubarak – for 30 years! – but faced with the revolution could not guarantee the support of lower level officers and certainly not of the conscripts, most of whom supported the masses.
This is a great political victory. The lessons from it are immense.
The millions of demonstrators and strikers who made the country ungovernable have overthrown a brutal dictatorship. The seemingly solid can melt into air almost overnight.
It is a lesson that won’t be lost on the masses around the globe, nor their dictatorships. From Iran to Zimbabwe, from Jordan to Saudi Arabia, from Algeria to Jordan, let the ruling classes tremble.
Mass resistance, including by workers as workers, can win. The strikes that broke out in the last week were the final nail in the coffin for Mubarak’s dictatorship. They reinforced and lifted further the resolve of the demonstrators, and in turn accelerated the split in the Army and made the ruling elite realise they could not continue to rule in the old ways.
The anger which erupted after Mubarak’s Thursday speech telling Egyptians he would stay was the other nail. A day later and with millions on the streets, with strikes spreading, he resigned.
This revolution is both political and economic. The democratic demands are on the way to being won, although the masses will need to continue to pressure the armed forces to deliver bourgeois democracy quickly.
The revolution was never just about freedom. It was about food as well.
Nearly half the population lives below or just above the poverty line. Mubarak’s neoliberal agenda created a low wage economy and entrenched mass poverty.
The economic drivers of the revolution mean that in the long term the demands for better wages and work, for justice and jobs, for freedom and food will and must continue.
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Comments
Comment from John
Time February 12, 2011 at 8:15 am
Yes Shane. Fantastic news.
Comment from Dave
Time February 12, 2011 at 9:39 am
Fantastic news! Congratulations to the heroic people of Egypt. Hope is that they can consolidate their gains and that political revolution goes over to the social.
Comment from Seamus
Time February 12, 2011 at 10:35 am
“It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities Evey, for silence is a fragile thing…one loud noise and it’s gone. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people’s voice for generations, and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.” V for Vendetta
What inspiring news.
Comment from Ross
Time February 12, 2011 at 10:51 am
I hope the people get true democracy but I don’t trust the elites in charge of the military or the public service.Who is going to run the elections and how will they ensure truth in polling?
Comment from Calligula
Time February 12, 2011 at 2:50 pm
A tactical victory for the Egyptian people.
The strategic campaign, unfortunately, must continue.
The final peace – the establishment and maintenance of stable representative democracy will only be achieved if the pressure is sustained by world opinion.
The Egyptian Defence Force must remain convinced that its every move is under the microscope – that if it even twitches, expatriate Egyptians and their friends around the world will know, and raise Cain, the very next second.
The internet and social media will be indispensable toward managing that.
Winning battles is about knowing how and when to apply pressure for long enough to have the opponent in retreat.
The Egyptian people seemed very aware of that and of the moral advantage provided them from support around the world.
Retreat isn’t necessarily defeat (where Mobarak is now) – but if enough resources can be brought together and knowledge (intelligence) applied to keep the opponent in retreat and too destabilized to rest and regroup – then final victory is assured so long as the opponent cannot gain reinforcements.
International pressure must be maintained – even from weblogs established by quiet unassuming blokes like John Passant.
So I say – congratulations John; keep up the good work.
And all strength to the new nation of Egypt.
Comment from Wa
Time February 12, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Jo
Comment from Walter
Time February 12, 2011 at 3:33 pm
John, sorry for above – hit the wrong key. I see the Army is going to take over affairs in Egypt while they decide on democracy. I hope you are right about the people, but being a pessimist I fear we will see a benign form of military dictatorhip happening.
Comment from Calligula
Time February 12, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Economics and food?
When does a person of reasonable intellect become so reduced by malnutrition that they forget the interconnection?
Where in the world does unemployment mean starvation?
Egypt?
Maybe.
Australia?
Nah – no way.
The first time (and last time for many years) I saw a person rifling through a garbage bin and eating his findings was in King’s Cross in 1974.
Up here in God’s own country things like that just weren’t allowed to happen – leastways up until the great ‘migration from the south scam’ robbed ‘blow-ins’ of their last zac and completely overloaded welfare/charity organisations.
For the last fifteen years the social disruption and misery caused by the parasitic greed of a few has resulted in numerous down and out people dining from garbage bins and living along river banks in our tidy little towns.
And now the more lucky(?) ‘New Queenslanders’ – those ‘lucky’ enough to find employment and purchase sub-standard housing on known floodland at usurious prices are soon likely to be in the same situation.
Yep. The ‘lucky’ in Qld have ‘insurance’ of over $1000 a year that doesn’t cover flood damage.
Their compulsory insurance therefore doesn’t insure their stake in a lifelong liability.
That liability is a life-long, low deposit, housing loan on which they are mostly lucky to pay the interest.
Now the weather here has returned to normal many are beginning to realise they cannot afford to rebuild, especially when flood and cyclone will probably take them out again in a few years.
They’ve come to realise that they’ve been ‘Gypped’.
Maybe Gypped in a different way from those in Egypt but Gypped nonetheless.
I wonder when they’ll wake up and kick up a stink?
Comment from Magpie
Time February 12, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Well, that’s good news. And it does give us hope, when we need it more.
As a wise person once told me: it can never happen; not here… Until it does.
Let’s rejoice, while keeping an eye open.
Comment from Shane H
Time February 12, 2011 at 8:06 am
Well the struggle continues but hard to imagine better news on saturday morning.