World Social Struggles Newswire Archive

The myth of Ronald Reagan's vast popularity during his actual terms as president is now all but written in stone, largely thanks to a lying corporate media. Barack Obama is a disciple, embracing Reagan's doctrines of domestic savagery and global American Manifest Destiny. The real, historical Reagan was an overtly racist politician whose “audience heard him loud and clear and knew that he meant to put and keep white people on top in America.”

"Please Do What the U.S. Won't. Prosecute Torturers."
Dozens of U.S. human rights groups will present an open letter to the Spanish public to consulates and Madrid officials on Valentine's Day. They will encourage support of Spanish courts in prosecuting U.S. officials who authorized torture.

A detailed overview of Mark Kennedy's actions between 2002-2010, in different countries. It will no doubt generate more information, so please comment or email the address included.

The continued violations of the right to freedom of association by the Mexican government must stop. The IMF, ICEM, ITF and UNI are calling on affiliates to take action from 14 to 19 February, 2011.

the "criminal Mubarak regime" - Police ..Killed General Mohamed El-Batran
 http://garizo.blogspot.com/2011/02/ciminal-mubarak-regime-police-killed.html

In 1886, Tolstoy wrote:

‘Slavery has long been abolished. It was abolished in Rome, and in America, and in Russia, but what was abolished was the word and not the thing in itself.’ (Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?, Green Classics, 1991, p.104)

In 2011, ‘the thing in itself’ is alive and well in Egypt. What an extraordinary spectacle it is - a dictatorship behaving as though an entire people were its personal property. Henchmen aside, the people have spoken, almost as one, and their demands are very clear. The blunt government response, in effect: We react as we want. If we don’t want to, we don’t have to. Why? Because we have a monopoly of violence.

Tuesday the 8th saw the biggest demonstration since last Friday in Tahrir Square. Coming one week after the ‘March of a Million’ (when there was a callout for one million to participate in the protest) some people sleeping in the square had felt a bit nervous the night before. Although the big march on 1st February was calm, the day after saw the bloodiest day yet, with the demonstators being violently attacked by pro-Mubarak forces. Yesterday proved that whatever the regime comes up with, the peoples' determination to gain their freedom will not bow under the pressure. The Tahrir protestors are not going anywhere.

The next big day will be this Friday.

View short video here

The most striking thing about Egypt’s ongoing revolution is the ecstatic expressions on the faces of the the people who are creating it. Everything that happens on Tahrir is the result of real self organisation. “There are no political parties present here, just people”, one man tells us , “we are doing everything for ourselves because we want to create something for the people”. The sense of empowerment this gives is nowhere more evident than in the busy medical centre located just outside the square. Normally a Mosque, the building is now buzzing with doctors and nurses who treat patients around the clock. At prayer time the building still fills up with worshippers who pray there, but once they are finished the work continues. All the medics are volunteers, many of whom have made significant sacrifices in order to be there. Being a doctor is one of the best paid professions in Egypt, but the three doctors on call did not hesitate to leave their jobs so that they could come here and treat the wounded.

“First Obama said Mubarak had to go straight away. Then Mubarak, cleverly, said that if he stood down the Muslim Brotherhood would gain power… Now Obama says that Mubarak must remain in power to keep ‘stability’, and Cameron follows him”
Middle aged anti-Mubarak demonstrator

“In the square there are a million people, and a million leaders, everyone has a voice”
Tahrir Square occupier

As hundreds of thousands of people demonstated in Tahrir Square a crowd gathered outside nearby Magles Al Shaab, the Egyptian parliament, standing opposite the Ministry of Health. Hundreds of people swelled to thousands as people poured in from the square. Protestors barricaded the road and set up a volunteer checkpoint to protect the demonstration against attack. The army stood and watched as people vented their anger, an act that would have been unthinkable before the revolution began sixteen days ago.

"In other words, cables revealing state corruption and injustice in places like Tunisia and anywhere else where the Internet and other access to information is restricted, can be a tremendous shock, and then a great motivator. Their contents confirm people’s worst fears. They shame. In the case of Tunisia, the writers argue, there was “a genuinely extraordinary WikiLeaks effect.”

“We will rip freedom from the throat of Mubarak”
Young man, Tahrir Square, 07/02/2011

“We have seen our friends killed here in Tahrir Square. After that how can we leave now, before the revolution succeeds”
Man in his mid twenties, Tahrir Square – 07/02/2011

Mourning for the martyrs of Tahrir Square and of the Egyptian uprising continued yesterday. Banners bearing the images of the martyrs were hung in the square. One Bilal Salem Ayesh Mahmud, ten years old, was killed during the uprising in Rafah. Fourteen demonstrators have been killed in Tahrir Square, and over 300 have been martyred during the uprising.

During the last thirteen days rioting has erupted through downtown Cairo. The property damage caused in the rioting has been well targeted with branches of multinational corporations, government cars and buildings, police and army property and banks destroyed while local cafes, apartments and shops have been left untouched.

This week we hear two scholars on the profound roots of separation, firstly within the structure of the brain itself, secondly between individuals in modern society. Ian McGilchrist sets the scene in our first hour with The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. In our second hour we replay one of the deepest talks from earlier Unwelcome Guests episodes - The Roots and Ramifications of our Culture of Hierarchy and Control by Marvin Bram.

"Having slandered the anti-regime protest movement, Suleiman outlined a series of threadbare sops, including a pledge to form a committee comprised of “members of the judicial authority and a number of political figures” that is to spend a month considering possible constitutional and legislative amendments. Another bureau is also to consider complaints about the detention of political prisoners.
The vice president said that media and communications would be “liberalised” but stressed that the state of emergency—continuously in operation ever since Mubarak assumed power in 1981—would only be lifted “based on the security situation and an end to the threats to the security of society.”

PC Paul Adams: “I've just received complaints of you being abusive”
Activist: “What were we accused of saying?”
PC Paul Adams: “They sell fur!”

Egyptian police used the very instrument that sparked the recent anti-government rebellion, social media, to catch its youthful organizers, according to a published report.

 http://reportsfromtheegyptianuprising.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/were-not-going-anywhere-voices-from-tahrir-square-on-the-day-of-the-martyrs/

This is part of a series of post from CairoRising

CairoRising post first hand reports from an anarchist perspective from the Cairo uprising, in solidarity with the direct action of the people of Egypt against state repression.

Drawing together grassroots and alternative media coverage from the Egyptian rebellion and creating a forum for calls to global solidarity.

You can follow our reports via our blog -  http://reportsfromtheegyptianuprising.wordpress.com/ or Twitter at twitter.com/cairorising

"In that context, Obama’s words Friday have an ominous ring. He reiterated previous statements that the US government opposes the use of violence either by the government or the protesters—as though there were an equivalence between a brutal military dictatorship, armed to the teeth, and with a long record of torture and murder, and the Egyptian masses, who successfully defended themselves in Tahrir Square with their bare hands and sheer force of numbers.
If Mubarak is replaced by a caretaker regime based on the military, both the Obama administration and the American media will swing behind the new rulers, vilifying all popular opposition as “terrorism” and endorsing the bloodiest measures of state repression.
Far from representing a concession to the democratic demands of the masses, such a regime would represent a carefully constructed roadblock. It would cement the role of the Egyptian government as a servant of US imperialism, collaborator with Israel, and enemy of the Palestinian people and the oppressed masses of Egypt itself."

Original article with pictures at  http://reportsfromtheegyptianuprising.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/tahrir-square-autonomy-from-dictatorship/

This is part of a series of post from CairoRising

CairoRising post first hand reports from an anarchist perspective from the Cairo uprising, in solidarity with the direct action of the people of Egypt against state repression.

Drawing together grassroots and alternative media coverage from the Egyptian rebellion and creating a forum for calls to global solidarity.

You can follow our reports via our blog -  http://reportsfromtheegyptianuprising.wordpress.com/ or Twitter at twitter.com/cairorising

After evicting an old legalized squat (tricky and not legally by blocking the residents' lawyer off the house) there were riots in Berlin, Hamburg and Copenhagen for minimum 2 days and militant actions, gatherings and small rallies all over Germany