We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began

by Stephen Lendman from OpEd News

The author goes a bit too far with his cynicism regarding the Egyptian uprising and removal of Mubarak. He seems to think that "Washington" is all powerful and can always control events. For example:
Euphoria also characterized most US media reports. Notably, however, unless Washington plans war or wants foreign adversaries denigrated, rarely ever are overseas events covered, especially uprisings against purported allies. Yet, for days, Egypt's was main-featured on television and in print, including unheard of anti-regime views, meaning official Washington supported them against an out-of-favor leader.
He disregards all the evidence that US ruling circles supported Mubarak until it was clear after a few weeks that he didn't have control of the situation. 

The uprising was totally spontaneous, all the ingredients were in place--economic hardships, fear of police authorities, extreme wealth and poverty, rigged elections, etc. This exists elsewhere in the world and especially in the Middle East. What other places lack is a well organized revolutionary core, the April 6th Youth Movement, which was able to take the social explosion ignited by the events in Tunisia a few weeks before and channeled the energy into a successful overthrow of the Mubarak regime and, at least temporarily, his US sponsored and trained military. Mainstream US media and the ruling class political operatives really didn't know what to make of this uprising. Read this, this, and this.

This confusion and the fact that these events were so huge made it impossible for them to manage the news coverage. You can be sure, now, that they will increasingly try frame the news to fit their interests in containing this popular uprising that threatens the Empire's rule over the Middle East.

On the other hand, Lendman with good reason knows that the revolution is not finished, and this is an important point to remember. It was a popular coup, but one that was brilliantly carried off against a favored US puppet and succeeded. This was no "colored revolution" engineered largely by the CIA as we have seen previously. Whether "Washington" can contain this firestorm of genuine democratic aspirations not only in Egypt, but in the Middle East, is not clear, and they, most of all, know it. They have been profoundly shaken by the events in Egypt.