Solidarity with Egypt

Written By: - Date published: 4:56 pm, November 22nd, 2011 - 3 comments
Categories: activism, International - Tags: , ,

A call for international solidarity with protests in Egypt

MENA Solidarity Network (Solidarity with workers in the Middle East)

The Arab Spring hangs in balance, as protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and in other cities in Egypt battle the riot police of the ruling Egyptian military junta.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters are braving tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannon and live ammunition in demonstrations against the ruling military council in Egypt.

Despite promising elections, (which are being continually put back), Mubarak’s generals are demanding that the military have power above any elected civilian authority. Meanwhile protesters are still being tried in military courts and torture by the military and police is still routine.

By late on 20 November there were an estimated 100,000 in Tahrir Square according to eyewitness accounts and thousands protesting in every major city in Egypt. Their demands are clear: the downfall of Marshal Tantawi and Mubarak’s generals. As of Sunday 5 people at least had been killed and around 1000 injured.

The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions issued a call on Saturday 19 November to its 1.4 million members in affiliated unions to join the protests in Tahrir.

Our brothers and sisters in Egypt inspired us all with their courage over the past ten months. Without them, would we have seen the Occupy movement? How would our own struggles against austerity and cuts look without the model of the Egyptian revolution, and the knowledge that ordinary people can change the world?

If the Arab Spring is crushed in Egypt…..

……the military rulers of Syria will be strengthened in their slaughter of unarmed protesters.

If the Arab Spring is crushed in Egypt…….

…….. it will be major setback for the Arab Spring throughout the Middle East!

If the Arab Spring is crushed in the Middle East……

……. this will remove a major brake on the West’s move to war against Iran.

If the Arab Spring is crushed in the Middle East, major conflagration with Iran will be inevitable, as the US and Israel’s invasion plans can only succeed with the support of compliant Western backed right wing regimes retaining power in the Middle East.

If the Arab Spring is crushed in Egypt, the movement for democracy and against tyranny and war and recession, throughout the world, will suffer a major setback.

Responding to appeals from Egyptian activists, Middle East and North Africa, Solidarity in Britain is forwarding the following call for international solidarity action to the whole world. Please respond immediately.

Tahrir has inspired a wave of movements around the world. We must not let it go down to defeat!

If you are organising a protest or a picket, particularly if you can mobilise support from the trade union movement in solidarity with the call from the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, please let us know.

Email menasolidarity@gmail.com.

MENA will list as many protests as they can.

Send pictures and they will publish them too.

3 comments on “Solidarity with Egypt ”

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  1. Deadly_NZ 1
    23 November 2011 at 12:25 am

    Just what the Americans and Europe need is a war, the bigger the better. The last time this sort of thing happened IE stock market crash, mass unemployment, etc etc was from about 1928. Yep a world war will fix it all. The rich will get richer selling planes bombs etc etc and the poor will do the dying also as usual.

  2. Afewknowthetruth 2
    23 November 2011 at 9:02 am

    Deadly.

    In the interests of historical accuracy, the crash didnl’t come till late 1929, and mass unemployment commenced a year or so later.

    However, I fully agree with your sentiment that money-lenders and corporations love wars. And it is rare for the children of elites to get caught up in any actual fighting.

    The people of Egypt are ‘screwed’ because:

    1. Egypt peaked oil oil extraction long ago and oil revenues are declining as domestic demand is increasing.

    2, Egypt is overpopulated and cannot feed itself.

    http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/egypt-riots-and-oil.php

    The Egyptian predicament is global, of course. It’s just that some places reach crisis point before others. All the evidence indicates that a die-off of around 5 billion people will occur over the coming decades,. Whether that will be via starvation, disease or war cannot be determined but it will almost certainly be a combination of all three.

    I am sure there will be those who reject this very realistic anaylisis because they will say I have not factored in ‘human ingenuity’.

    It was human ingenuity that got us into this self-made predicament, of course -well actually a combination of ingenuity and hubris. The warnings of M King Hubbert, Meadows’ Limits to Growth etc. have been reiterated a zillion times and have been ignored a zillion times.

    :http://www.publishme.co.nz/shop/theeasyway-p-684.html

    I don’t go for the ‘technology will save’ us argument. According to the recently released report we cannot even properly feed and house children in this country, let alone come up with magical solutions to the major issues of the times which have been ignored for decades.

  3. Jenny 3
    23 November 2011 at 11:30 pm

    I don’t go for the ‘technology will save’ us argument. According to the recently released report we cannot even properly feed and house children in this country, let alone come up with magical solutions to the major issues of the times which have been ignored for decades.

    Afewknowthetruth

    How about democracy will save us?

    How about fairness will save us?

    How about the empowerment of the majority will save us?