A wave of protests has spread around the Arab countries. The political earthquake that began in Tunis has shaken the stability of the Arab world. The self-immolation of a young unemployed university graduate, in protest at having his vegetables stall confiscated, ignited the protests. The latent anger provoked the sympathy and solidarity of thousands concerning his fate, which turned into a raging river. Unbridled suppression of the protests by the police state failed. Instead, the protests spread to other cities and eventually other countries as well. From Morocco to Oman, from Algeria to Syria, from Libya to Egypt, the ground under the feet of the protesters shuddered; currently, the heart of the Arab world, Egypt, has become the centre of this movement.

The revolt by the wage slaves, the hungry and oppressed, and the downtrodden in Arab society, in the form of heroic, their street battles, has been enthusiastically celebrated by their class brothers and sisters around the world. Protesting en masse against this messy and upside-down world and wishing for another world are indeed gloriously inspiring to other wage slaves and hungry people around the world.

These protests are the consequences of the crisis of capitalism. The fact is that capitalism is in one of its deepest crises in history and the working class is paying the price for this crisis. The standard of living of the working class around the world, from Greece to England, from Iran to Tunisia, from Egypt to the US, has been attacked by the bourgeoisie on a daily basis. However, the important issue here is that the consequences of the crisis play a much more destructive role in the surrounding countries of capitalism than in the metropolitan ones.

Before addressing the areas where the protests formed, let us briefly look at the state of inflation and unemployment in these countries, as well as describe the hellish conditions of the working class and other social groups that live in these countries. Note that these are official statistics; the reality could be twice as bad:

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com (03 February 2011)

“Arab Countries Have Highest Unemployment Rate in the World” is the title of a report that the ANSA news agency released in Dubai on 26 January 2011. According to same agency:

“The Middle East is the region with the highest rate of unemployment in the world, confirmed the International Labour Organization (ILO), which reports that unemployment in the region is 10.3% compared to 6.2% on average globally. The situation presented in ‘Global Employment Trends 2011’ is even more dramatic when looking at the young segment of the population up to the age of 25, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be 40%. The data published by the UN agency raised a further alarm for a region that has already been observing popular insurrection and protests with cries for ‘more bread, more work’ in recent weeks.”

The above statistics says more than other facts. These protests are neither organized by a dark religious current nor the left of capital or even by the democratic wing of capital; rather, they are quite spontaneously organized by the masses. Being spontaneous protests, the Akhavan al Muslimin was obliged to admit that: “The Akhavan al Muslimin regards the revolution as the Egyptian People’s Revolution not an Islamic Revolution asserting that the Egyptian People’s Revolution includes Muslims, Christians, from all types and political background.” The main reasons for these protests are double-digit inflation, severe unemployment, extreme poverty, workers’ empty tables, hunger, homelessness, a stressful life, daily oppression and brutal exploitation: in short, they are the protests of people who have nothing to lose. The calls for bread, house, freedom … by the demonstrators dominated their slogans. Indeed, on one occasion, “bread” was the symbol of protest appeared on flags. These huge mass of workers involved in the protests on the streets were ordinary people, not a social class.

The protests by the young generation, because they have not even been given any opportunity to enter into the capitalist wage system, show that they know that they have no future in this upside-down world of capitalism. At the same time, the participation of students in the protests shows that they see themselves as the next potential proletariat who are already rebelling against their future.

In this regard, the media brought Mohamed ElBaradei to the middle of the stage, and even went so far as to claim he would lead the protests. His diplomatic career began in 1964 in the Ministry of External Affairs and, from 1974 to 1978, he was a special assistant to the Foreign Minister, meaning that he is a part of this dirty system.

On the other side, the Western countries know well that Egypt is not Tunisia and are aware of the strategic role of Egypt. Millions of barrels of oil are transported from the Suez Canal to other places on a daily basis. If the canal was closed by the proletariat for only a few days, this would lead to an energy crisis in the metropolis countries of capitalism. Any simple changes in Egypt would affect the region. They know that preserving Hosni Mubarak was not advisable, which is why he needed to be replaced with another stooge. In this context, the democrats wanted to replace Omar Suleiman, Vice President and Head of the Information Ministry, quietly, instead of Mubarak: a small, but formal change to bring the protests to an end. All of the reactionary forces, from right to left, from democrats to the religious authorities, are trying to stop the protests from developing into a class struggle. The ghost of class struggle is what the bourgeoisie fears more than anything.

The left of capital plays a role, not just in Arab countries, but in other countries, by removing the potential of the working class and mass demonstrations to protest in front of democratic institutions. Although these counterrevolutionary forces were marginalized and did not involve serious protests, at the height of the street protests by the indigent masses, the shrunken diffusions of these reactionaries simply describe and reflect their efforts to maintain the wage slavery system. First, we look at part of a political statement from the so-called “Worker-Communist Party of Tunisia”:

“It is extremely urgent that the democratic forces form a national and unified body to carry out the democratic change and has the tasks to protect the gains of the revolting Tunisian people and to negotiate with the authorities to yield power to the people in a peaceful way”. [1]

This bullshit echoes the sentiments of it brother party in Egypt, the so-called “Communist Party of Egypt”, made in the following statement:

“To call for the formation of an elected constituent assembly to draft a new constitution for the country, based on the principle of the sovereignty of the nation and ensuring the devolution of power within the framework of a just democratic civil state”. [2]

The perspectives and activities of the national-leftist currents and their functions are along the lines of a very good policy calling for the West to put pressure on corrupt Arab regimes. In the absence of internationalist positions in the political milieu of these countries, such currents divert attention from people’s struggles and serve the interests of the bourgeoisie. This represents the other tasks that are facing internationalists.

The duty of internationalists is to be actively involved in class struggle through the analysis of situations and providing clear political direction to the proletariat, as well as help to advance internationalist positions in these countries and support the formation of the internationalist avant-garde, in order to create the Internationalist Communist Party, as a necessary weapon in the victory of the communist revolution.

Capitalism is the origin of all misery and adversity in the world. Our interest is not only to change the ruling class without a class struggle. The proletariat must take the initiative and impose its mark on events. It should join forces with students, young people and other sections of society, and not vice versa. If the protests do not take an independent class path and the working class does not create its own neighbourhood, factory, strike and struggle committee and other independent institutions in opposition to the bourgeoisies, and the struggle does not shift from the streets to the workplaces in all sectors, despite the great amount of zeal, the proletariat will be finally weakened and the working class will be undermined.

Bourgeois democracy is the other side of the same coin, namely, the dictatorship of the bourgeois. So, our slogan must be against wage slavery, exploitation, unemployment and inflation, and our aim must be directed at destroying the whole capitalist system. This is only possible from an internationalist perspective. Our class is the only class that can put an end to the barbarism and brutality of capitalism. All we have is our chains to lose and a world to win!

Internationalist Voice

04 February 2011

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