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

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Third phase of the Egyptian Revolution: Is this the path to war?

Click here to access article by Horace G. Campbell from Pambazuka News.
The Egyptian army's ousting of the democratically-elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in a military coup on July 3, 2013, marked a new phase of the revolution. This new phase has gripped the attention of humanity as the differing paths become clear. Will the popular progressive forces of workers, grassroots women, students, cultural workers, journalists and the secular elements of religious tolerance be able to build a new form of politics to break the power of the military and entrenched social and economic forces? Or, will the military along with their external allies and bankrollers in the United States and Saudi Arabia thrust the society into civil war?
In his analysis of the phases of the ongoing Egyptian revolution, he sees future pitfalls that can only be avoided by an indispensable revolutionary consciousness.
In this analysis, we draw from the lessons of the previous two phases of the revolution and seek to learn the positive lessons for a protracted struggle for the development of a truly revolutionary consciousness to set in motion a process of structural transformation.