Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Arab revolutions: “natural allies in a common struggle”

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

Monday, September 5, 2011

Arab revolutions: “natural allies in a common struggle”

Click here to access article from Klasse! (Netherlands)

The article argues that the Arab Spring uprisings must be seen as an integral part of resistance to neo-liberal policies that are having catastrophic effects on working people throughout the world. Therefore, Arabs must be seen as allies and we working people in the West must join with them in casting off the common oppressor of international capitalism.

...Mohammad-Reza Shalgooni argues that the situation in the Middle East is comparable to revolutionary Russia in 1917, about which Lenin said that because there the contradictions of capitalism were most critical, it had become "the weak link in the imperialist chain". If this is true, the Arab uprising is of such great historical and global proportion, that the success of the Arab uprisings, and solidarity from our parts towards it, might determine the future of capitalism far beyond the region itself.