Every Revolution Has Its Road

I was reading about the terrible, terrible tragedy in Egypt last night and today - 74 dead at a soccer match - and the ensuing mass protests and national explosion of anger. And I was struck by how the battle is unfolding in Egypt, the way that the military dictatorship maneuvers and shifts as it tries to undermine the revolution. Even more, I was impressed at how spectacularly and immediately this brutal ruse, this strategy of tension meant to make the people wish for the return of the recently lifted emergency laws, failed completely. There can be hardly anyone in Egypt who doesn't believe that this was a deliberate policy meant to punish the Ultras, who are widely seen as key element of the fighting forces of the revolution.

The massacre of the Al Ahly Ultras took place on the anniversary of the Battle of the Camel, which was an example of this same strategy in play but during the days prior to the overthrow of Mubarak. As the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt noted in a leaflet released immediately following this week's massacre, this was a warning and a reminder from the military that they can still mobilize killers, just as they did during that battle. Of course, the military lost the Battle of the Camela and their thugs were routed. This time the Ultras were trapped inside a stadium, separated from the mass of revolutionaries amongst whom they have played such a prominent role. The Ultras could be punished for their high profile defence of the revolution and uncompromising opposition to the military junta.

Of course, it is already clear that this attack on the revolution has blown up in the faces of the military as tens of thousands have mobilized and attacked the hated Ministry of the Interior in Cairo and more symbols of the military throughout Egypt. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, held in such high esteem in the days following the fall of Mubarak, has by now almost completely used up its prestige amongst the Egyptian people. Their tactics, tested and tried over years and years of dictatorship are outdated and transparent now that the Egyptian people are mobilized and thinking critically about who and how their nation will be governed. The old ways no longer work. And that's a good thing.

But this event also made me think about how every revolution is an interaction of the general and the specific. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin wrote that a revolution occurs when the ruling class is split and can no longer rule in the old way and the oppressed and exploited will no longer accept being ruled in the old way. That is a general rule that has a certain obvious - but worth stating - truth to it. However, the way that it unfolds is specific to every revolution, rooted in the particular historical experience of each nation, region and so on.

So, we see with Egypt there was a long period of gestation for the revolution, ten years or more, in which the forces and ideological groundwork was laid for the revolution by the movement in solidarity with the Second Palestinian Intifada and the movement against the war in Iraq in 2003. This anti-imperialist ferment found its counterpart in the growing resistance to capitalist austerity inside of the workplaces, with growing strike waves and the first hint of unions independent of those controlled by the state. And, finally, the meeting point of these two oppositional movements occurred in the democracy movement, typified by the Kefaya (Enough) movement in the first decade of this century. This long gestation meant that the ground work was laid at both ends of the class spectrum - at the top there was a sense that the dictatorship was stifling capitalist development and creating instability. At the bottom there was a growing sense of confidence that the regime could be taken on and even that concessions could be won.

In Syria, on the other hand, that process of "gestation" only really began a year ago with the first protests against Assad's regime. Of course there have been struggles and uprisings in the past - most notoriously the uprising in Hama in 1982 that led to a massacre of somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 people. There are opposition movements and parties as well. But the brutal suppression in Hama led to decades of quiet relative to Egypt where there was no comparable massacre (though there was certainly repression, torture and even extra-judicial killings). There is also an important component that is a side effect of the pressure of imperialism and Zionism on Syria. Syria is a "pariah state", which doesn't tell us anything about its character - democratic, liberal, or authoritarian - only that it doesn't bend its knee with suitable rapidity to American whims and Israeli bullying. That pressure - just as in Cuba, Iran or other countries that have historically resisted US imperialism - creates pressure for a "union of necessity" amongst progressive and nationalist forces. The present movement has to therefore achieve the first condition of Lenin's formula - the undermining of the unity of the ruling class - as well as uniting the broadest section of the population against the dictatorship of Assad, undermining the idea of there being any union of necessity with the Assad regime in order to resist imperialism. It seems that this is beginning to take place and even to gather steam as the incredibly brave Syrian people continue to broaden and deepen their revolution in the face of regime brutality. It is likely, then, that when Assad finally goes out the revolution will begin in an entirely different place, with much deeper networks of revolutionary mobilization than in Egypt (though the exact character of those networks, their connection to the workplaces, their political program for the democratic development of the nation, etc. remains to be seen).

There is a further sense in which the revolution in each country - following certain general principles, such as the important role of the working class in order for the revolution to achieve its goals - has a specificity. Every revolution has key turning points, key battles. These are moments of contingency and even historical accident. A religious or cultural celebration can become for reasons that are hard to fathom - certainly from the outside - focal points for advances and retreats of the revolution. In Egypt the anniversary of the revolution marked a huge re-awakening of the revolutionary forces as people took stock of where they were after a year of the revolutionary process and decided that they weren't far enough. And the elections, which in other revolutions without the depth of the Egyptian, have been the moment of the eclipsing of popular mobilization and its shift to the realm of "professional" politics, in Egypt became instead a test of the depth of the revolution's transformation of the country. Rather than accepting the parliamentary terms of debate, the opening of parliament became an opportunity to raise the demands of the revolution and insist that the elected representative implement it. It also increased the pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood to pick sides in the revolutionary struggle, leading to further fragmentation as the leadership tries to dampen expectations without being seen as total sell-outs (which is the growing perception).

This present massacre and battle is another example of a contingent specificity. It requires the particular popularity of football that exists in Egypt, along with the existence of a politicized fan base, in the form of the Ultras, et al. The choice by the military leadership to pursue a big defeat against the Ultras and the response of the broader masses to that massacre is specific. I am no fan of sports and, in general, I think that most spectator sports plays a reactionary role, instilling notions of thuggish competition with opposing teams and cultivating notions of imaginary unity between classes over trivial commonalities, such as place of residence. But that role is frequently challenged and undermined by the masses themselves, such as with the Ultras, or even in Canada, with the Richard Riot of 1955 by Montreal Canadiens fans, which was an expression of the growing demand by francophone Quebecoises for their national and linguistic rights. It was, in many ways, a prelude to the Quiet Revolution of the early 60s and, later, the rise of the PQ and the explosion of strikes and radicalization in Quebec.

These sorts of contingencies and "accidents" are one of the reasons why revolutions and rising class conflict are hard for rulers to manage. Once the pandora's box of struggle has been opened, it often takes many years to put it back, requiring a series of battles, none of which will be decisive but each of which could reverse all of the gains of the ruling class. They never know when they will make a fateful misstep and launch the struggle to a higher level - as opposed to creating more passivity and acceptance. It creates a growing sense of "walking on eggshells" that also increase the tension and uncertainty inside the ruling class. When anything can blow up in your face there is inevitably bickering about what to do. And such bickering can increase the confidence of those at the bottom to impose their own solution.

To bring it back to Egypt, the failure of the football massacre to generate a pro-policing response or to cow the Ultras and their allies could easily lead to a further fracturing of the state machinery. Already the state governor in Port Said (where the game and massacre took place) has been forced to resign, along with the head of security and the entire board of the football association. Everyone, even the Muslim Brotherhood see this event as an intentional act of vengeance against the Ultras. If SCAF were intending to test the resolve of the revolutionaries, they have gotten their answer. My guess is that it wasn't the one they were hoping for.

Syrian Revolution: Caught Between Repression & Imperialism

The first and foremost thing that must be said is that the people of Syria, who have resisted an utterly vicious military repression of their aspirations for nearly a year, are some of the bravest people on the planet. Day after day the government of the Assad dynasty find new levels of depravity in their attempt to brutalize and torture the democratic aspirations of their population into submission. We are witnessing both the heights and the depths to which human nature can sink.

For that reason I have absolutely no sympathy with those who attempt to excuse the actions of the regime on the grounds of supposed anti-imperialism. This is a vicious and bloody police state that is fighting for its life, not some progressive bastion - any more than was Libya - it deserves to have no tears shed for it.

That doesn't imply, however, that it isn't a complex situation. Sadly, the Syrian regime is not the only vicious and anti-democratic regime in the world. The United States comes to mind. After all, they arm the thoroughly backward, religiously justified police state of the Saudi  monarchy. They benefit from the sectarian and repressive Bahraini monarchy next door. They have financed the Egyptian military's repressive apparatus since the 1970s. And that doesn't even include the millions of people whose deaths can be directly and indirectly laid at the feet of the US government (that's right, I wrote millions - Iraq, Indonesia in 1965, El Salvador, Chile, the Philippines, et al). And a number of equally (or more) vicious, anti-democratic regimes have their fingers in the Syrian pie in a way that is no so very different from Libya.

As I've noted more than once, the Arab revolutions in the first instance threw the USA and its allies in Europe and the Middle East, on the back foot. Their core clients were thrown onto the backfoot and for a moment it looked like the USA would even lose Bahrain, home to the extremely strategic 5th Fleet. But counter-revolution, like rust, never sleeps and, as Mao said, in crisis there is opportunity. With the uprising in Libya, the Americans, Europeans and the Gulf Cooperation Council - which composes Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait and was fresh from crushing the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain - moved to intervene in the Arab revolution. The idea was clearly two or threefold. 1) Steer the revolution in a "moderate", pro-capitalist and pro-western (cough, cough, Israel) direction. 2) Eliminate regimes that were not fully in the pocket of the Americans and the Saudis/GCC. And 3) do some damage to the ambitions and strategic interests of other imperialist powers, in particular China and Russia.

Libya may have been the first stop on this traveling road show but it most certainly isn't the last. And now Syria is becoming the next target and battleground for inter-imperialist rivalry. This is, of course, very dangerous for the region and the Syrian people. None of the big players give a damn about democracy or self-determination. The Russians spent more than a decade slaughtering Chechens who were foolish enough to think that they deserved independence because it's a democratic right - not to mention the Russian government's penchant for internal repression and fixing elections. The Chinese? Tiananmen Square, anyone? Actually, China makes no pretence about having any support for democratic rights - the Chinese people "aren't ready" for democracy. Turkey has, of course, also made noises of support for the anti-Assad movement in Syria but their concerns for democracy can't be taken seriously either, with their continued denial of the rights of their Kurdish population, including a recent deadly bombing raid on Kurd civilians - and a counter-insurgency in the 90s that destroyed something like 40,000 villages.

The involvement of these opposing players with their regional ambitions - I haven't even discussed Iran, which remains in the crosshairs of the west - is making the struggle for democracy more difficult. It is making it more, not less, likely that Syria will descend into civil war. For those of us who live in the Europe and North America, our first responsibility is to oppose all attempts by our governments to intervene in the Syrian conflict. They are not here or anywhere interested in the human and democratic rights of the population.

Within Syria itself the scene on the ground is very complicated. There is much talk in the press about divisions within the opposition but how much that is reflected on the ground inside Syria is unclear and how much of it is a cynical attempt to get the more radical and grassroots Local Coordination Committees to line-up with the pro-imperialist, emigre-based Syrian National Council (SNC) is unclear. The existence of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) also further complicates matters. On the one hand its existence is a positive sign of the disintegration of the Syrian state's repressive apparatus. On the other it risks becoming a substitute for a mass movement and causing a descent into civil war, which will be much more convenient for the imperialists of each side to back. It doesn't help that the FSA leadership has itself lined up with the SNC. Like in Libya, the FSA could easily end up acting as the foot soldiers for a NATO military operation.

At present the movement seems to have, against tremendous odds, retained its mass, popular character with strikes, sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience and popular mobilization. It is, in many ways, now a game of wills - who can withstand the pressure exerted by the other longer. The Syrian state is a "deep state", which, like many other dictatorships in the region, has utilized clientelism, sectarianism, tribal and ethnic rivalries to sustain its power base. Undermining those deeply embedded relations of clientelism and fear was never going to happen overnight and was unlikely to ever happen without bloodshed, given the vicious nature of the regime. But the momentum seems to be in the direction of the disintegration of the Syrian regime, as the movement has now firmly taken hold in the capital, Damascus. What the movement needs most at the moment, it seems, is time to finish the job free of the meddling of outside interlocutors whose interests are anything but democracy and justice.

Shafia Becomes An Excuse For Anti-Muslim Racism

Of course the horror of the multiple murders of three young girls and their mother by the father, son and second wife ought to be condemned. It ought to be the focus for a public discussion about the plight of women who are too often the focus for familial violence.

But that is not what is happening with this trial. Instead the trial is being used to blame immigrants in general and Muslims in particular for violence against women and children. It's posed as "honour" killings, using a symbology that has already been constructed as distinctly foreign and Islamic.

However, while it is certainly the truth that some murderers of women will use Islam to justify their acts, others will use whatever ideology is at hand - Christianity, male supremacy - or none at all. Violence against women is a social, not an Islamic, problem. By deflecting the blame onto the "Muslim community" not only is it deepening the idea that somehow Muslims are preternaturally more likely to harm and oppress women but also that it is a problem confined to that community. The rest of us can rest safe and feel no need to look more deeply at the root causes of violence.

Yet, what is certain is that Robert Picton, who systematically slaughtered dozens of sex trade workers from the streets of Vancouver was not a Muslim. Nor was Paul Bernardo, who raped and murdered numbers of women.

More mundanely, as the statistics demonstrate, large numbers of women across the country face abuse at the hands of spouses as a matter of course. In 1997-98 there 90,792 admitted to the 413 battered women's shelters across Canada. In 2001 69 men were accused of killing their wife or ex-wife. And there were 183 family related homicides in 2001. While the ethnicity and religion of the victims and culprits is not available in these statistics, it is almost certain that the vast majority of family killings were of white, Christian men killing white, Christian women.

And, yet, there is no call for the "Christian community" to wake up and deal with the issue of Christian violence. Even after we have seen repeatedly the scandal of Catholic priests sexually abusing children there was no outrage about the complacency of the Catholic community. There is, in fact, a double standard rooted in racism and the justification necessary for the ongoing war in Afghanistan and for beating the war drums about Iran and, previously, Iraq.

Instead of blaming Muslims for this heinous crime, the conversation ought to be about eliminating the real source of oppression of women. It ought to be about addressing lack of funding for social services that make women dependent upon men - like lack of daycare or attacks on women's right to abortion. It ought to address the fact that women are still paid less than men, which is a concrete manifestation of the belief that women are of less value than men. The list could go on.

But, of course, that won't happen. The federal, provincial and municipal governments are all on an austerity binge and, inevitably, the people who suffer the most are those who are already vulnerable - women, immigrants, the poor. Then, when the insurmountable pressure of cuts and demonization leads to acts of interpersonal violence or eliminates escape routes for women, the demonization is simply further ramped up. It means that the tragedy of these murders will not end with the deaths of four women - it will be doubled and trebled by ignorance and misdirection.

Shafia trial a wake-up call for Canadian Muslims - The Globe and Mail:

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Did NATO's Libyan "Liberation" Blow-Up In Their Faces

During NATO's bombing campaign to dominate and destroy the Libyan revolution liberate Libya last year, I wrote that their real interests lie with intervening into the Arab Spring in such a way as to bend it towards European and American ends. The other driving motivation behind the intervention was to counter China's growing hegemony on the African continent.

For a number of years China has quietly been increasing its capital investments and trade relationships with a number of African countries. From the point of view of the African governments - more or less democratic or repressive - China's involvement has been more heartily welcome than that of Europe and North America for the simple reason that China's money, etc. comes with no (apparent) strings. No doubt this is a product of two factors. The first is that European and North American governmental policies with regards to Africa are based upon a set of vile racist and colonialist assumptions about Africa. And going along with that is a never-ending jogging for influence via proxy armies and direct interventions.

Secondly, China is the new kid on the block, or the new store on the block. And they have learned from lengthy experience that the way to break into new markets is by offering better deals than the old stores. This is the oldest trick in the export market book. Think way back to Japan's Honda cars, which were basically disposable, cheap cars way back in the 1970s. Now they are semi-luxury sedans. Ditto Hyundai from the South Koreans. And, of course, with China you can say that about everything they make. From dollar store trinkets and laughably constructed toys for kids they are now the manufacturer of choice for every high tech company in the west from Apple to HP to IBM (who sold off their PC division to China, which renamed it Lenovo and made it massively successful - oops!).

Now, transpose that method into one that is geared towards the developing world and building the influence of China as a nation that needs major raw material inputs. You begin to see their method and its success. It also makes clear the real reason why China (along with Russia) is so opposed to Syria becoming another Libya. It has nothing whatsoever to do with national self-determination and opposition to imperialism - any more than western hand-wringing and sanctions has anything to do with concern for human rights or democracy. If you don't believe me about the latter, I will only point out that the US gives $1.3 billion to the Egyptian army every year specifically to finance the security services - never mind the money and weapons that are sold or given to every dictatorship in the region. As for China's interest in self-determination - Tibet and Xinjiang provide clear and bloody refutation of any delusions in that direction.

All of that is background to the fact that NATO's intentions in Libya seem to be blowing up in their faces - a reminder that besides death and misery, the thing that war produces most of is irony. Within Libya itself, the prospective client regime is having its own difficulties living up to the hopes of NATO. Not only are elements of Gaddafi's former supporters giving it military troubles - witness the recent recapture of Bani Walid by a pro-Gaddafi militia - but even in the TNC stronghold of Benghazi there have been violent protests against the new bosses.

In the rest of Africa the knock-on effect of NATO's forceful intervention in the Libyan conflict has not been to make Africa more compliant and open to western demands. Rather, it has pushed African governments deeper into China's embrace, as evidenced by the keynote delivered at this past week's African Union summit delivered by a senior Chinese diplomat in the new AU HQ that was built with Chinese money and with the announcement that China would step into the financing void left by Gaddafi's overthrow. While this irony has a certain deliciousness to it, it also has serious and potentially bloody dangers. Europe - with its old world sense of aristocratic entitlement - and the USA - with its belligerent, cowboyish sense of entitlement - are unlikely to let the matter lie. What is more likely is that the immediate future of Africa will see an intensifications of covert and over interventions to try to regain hegemony. That, of course, is a recipe for further instability and war in Africa and greater inter-imperialist rivalry more generally.

African Union embraces generous Chinese financing - The Globe and Mail:

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Gingrich: Vote For the Kook, I Mean Crook, I Mean Astronaut

This is awesomely awesome stuff and further proof that the American political system can only be defined as being from outer space. Newt Gingrich made a campaign speech in Florida in which he promised to establish a permanent moon base - for science tourism and advanced manufacturing - within 8 years.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if it could be done theoretically speaking. I mean, they got to the moon less than ten years after Kennedy's famous speech. And America does spend about a ba-zillion dollars on coming up with ways to kill people in every corner of the planet if they don't do what America says support democracy. If they took that ba-zillion dollars and instead put it towards building the coolest, bestest space hotel in the solar system that would save a lot of lives and create a lot of jobs. Just think of all the people you'd need to work in the hotel serving lunar drinks to Newt and his buddies or in the gift shop where advanced manufacturing products like lunar keychains that beep when you clap your hands will be sold.

Newt Gingrich promises moon base by the end of his second term | World news | guardian.co.uk:

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