Surviving Capitalism (Not) : In Egypt, anarchists carry the revolution forward

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

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

In Egypt, anarchists carry the revolution forward

Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from Reflections on a Revolution.

Now that the Muslim Brotherhood has effectively halted the revolution’s “long march through the institutions”, and now that opposition parties have amply demonstrated their woeful inability to pose a credible counterweight to the forces of fundamentalism, many young Egyptians have simply lost their faith in the ability of representative institutions to realize the revolution’s demands for bread, freedom and social justice. In this era of shattered illusions, many of these young revolutionaries find that anarchism – with its radical emphasis on direct democracy, horizontal self-organization and mutual aid – provides the only hopeful alternative to further tyranny.

This is another excellent posting from Roos. His analysis is well supported by links to very interesting sources. The video entitled "The Rise of the 'Golden Dawn" in Greece" did not work on my computer, so I clicked on the video's "YouTube" insignia to watch it directly on YouTube. I highly recommend this 12:54m video to give you a flavor for what life is like when the One Percent ruling class becomes desperate by employing fascist hoodlums to terrorize people.