putting our ideals into practise

For many trying to change the world is something which may take many different forms to different people. I am of the belief that we should try to live as close to our ideals as we can. In today’s world long before some unspecified date when the revolution will come. For me this means living by our ideals on a daily basis including our attitudes towards sexism, racism and all forms of discrimination these are not issues we cannot put off until after the revolution. Solidarity is a concept talked about allots within those who wish to change society in a revolutionary socialist way but what do we mean by this? To quote from an anarchist FAQ. "To practice solidarity means that we recognise, as in the slogan of Industrial Workers of the World, that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Solidarity, therefore, is the means to protect individuality and liberty and so is an expression of self-interest. As Alfie Kohn points out: “When we think about co-operation... we tend to associate the concept with fuzzy-minded idealism... This may result from confusing co-operation with altruism... Structural co-operation defies the usual egoism/altruism dichotomy. It sets things up so that by helping you I am helping myself at the same time. Even if my motive initially may have been selfish, our fates now are linked. We sink or swim together. Co-operation is a shrewd and highly successful strategy — a pragmatic choice that gets things done at work and at school even more effectively than competition does... There is also good evidence that co-operation is more conductive to psychological health and to liking one another.” [No Contest: The Case against Competition, p. 7] And, within a hierarchical society, solidarity is important not only because of the satisfaction it gives us, but also because it is necessary to resist those in power. Malatesta’s words are relevant here: “the oppressed masses who have never completely resigned themselves to oppress and poverty, and who ... show themselves thirsting for justice, freedom and wellbeing, are beginning to understand that they will not be able to achieve their emancipation except by union and solidarity with all the oppressed, with the exploited everywhere in the world.” [Anarchy, p. 33] By standing together, we can increase our strength and get what we want. Eventually, by organising into groups, we can start to manage our own collective affairs together and so replace the boss once and for all. “Unions will... multiply the individual’s means and secure his assailed property.” [Max Stirner, the Ego and Its Own, p. 258] By acting in solidarity, we can also replace the current system with one more to our liking: “in union there is strength.” [Alexander Berkman, What is Anarchism? p. 74] Solidarity is thus the means by which we can obtain and ensure our own freedom. We agree to work together so that we will not have to work for another. By agreeing to share with each other we increase our options so that we may enjoy more, not less. Mutual aid is in my self-interest — that is, I see that it is to my advantage to reach agreements with others based on mutual respect and social equality; for if I dominate someone, this means that the conditions exist which allow domination, and so in all probability I too will be dominated in turn. As Max Stirner saw, solidarity is the means by which we ensure that our liberty is strengthened and defended from those in power who want to rule us: “Do you yourself count for nothing then?” he asks. “Are you bound to let anyone do anything he wants to you? Defend yourself and no one will touch you. If millions of people are behind you, supporting you, then you are a formidable force and you will win without difficulty.” [Quoted in Luigi Galleani’s The End of Anarchism? p. 79 — different translation in The Ego and Its Own, p. 197] Solidarity, therefore, is important to anarchists because it is the means by which liberty can be created and defended against power. Solidarity is strength and a product of our nature as social beings. However, solidarity should not be confused with “herdism,” which implies passively following a leader. In order to be effective, solidarity must be created by free people, co-operating together as equals. The “big WE” is not solidarity, although the desire for “herdism” is a product of our need for solidarity and union. It is a “solidarity” corrupted by hierarchical society, in which people are conditioned to blindly obey leaders. " "Anarchists have long argued that people can only free themselves by their own actions. The various methods anarchists suggest to aid this process will be discussed in section J (“What Do Anarchists Do?”) and will not be discussed here. However, these methods all involve people organising themselves, setting their own agendas, and acting in ways that empower them and eliminate their dependence on leaders to do things for them. Anarchism is based on people “acting for themselves” (performing what anarchists call “direct action” — see section J.2 for details). Direct action has an empowering and liberating effect on those involved in it. Self-activity is the means by which the creativity, initiative, imagination and critical thought of those subjected to authority can be developed. It is the means by which society can be changed. Society, while shaping all individuals, is also created by them, through their actions, thoughts, and ideals. Challenging institutions that limit one’s freedom is mentally liberating, as it sets in motion the process of questioning authoritarian relationships in general. This process gives us insight into how society works, changing our ideas and creating new ideals. To quote Emma Goldman again: “True emancipation begins... in woman’s soul.” And in a man’s too, we might add. It is only here that we can “begin [our] inner regeneration, [cutting] loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions and customs.” [Op. Cit., p. 167] But this process must be self-directed, for as Max Stirner notes, “the man who is set free is nothing but a freed man... a dog dragging a piece of chain with him.” [The Ego and Its Own, p. 168] By changing the world, even in a small way, we change ourselves. In an interview during the Spanish Revolution, the Spanish anarchist militant Durutti said, “We have a new world in our hearts.” Only self-activity and self-liberation allows us to create such a vision and gives us the confidence to try to actualise it in the real world. Anarchists, however, do not think that self-liberation must wait for the future, after the “glorious revolution.” The personal is political, and given the nature of society, how we act in the here and now will influence the future of our society and our lives. Therefore, even in pre-anarchist society anarchists try to create, as Bakunin puts it, “not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself.” We can do so by creating alternative social relationships and organisations, acting as free people in a non-free society. Only by our actions in the here and now can we lay the foundation for a free society. Moreover, this process of self-liberation goes on all the time: “Subordinates of all kinds exercise their capacity for critical self-reflection every day — that is why masters are thwarted, frustrated and, sometimes, overthrown. But unless masters are overthrown, unless subordinates engage in political activity, no amount of critical reflection will end their subjection and bring them freedom.” [Carole Pateman, the Sexual Contract, p. 205] Anarchists aim to encourage these tendencies in everyday life to reject, resist and thwart authority and bring them to their logical conclusion — a society of free individuals, co-operating as equals in free, self-managed associations. Without this process of critical self-reflection, resistance and self-liberation a free society is impossible. Thus, for anarchists, anarchism comes from the natural resistance of subordinated people striving to act as free individuals within a hierarchical world. This process of resistance is called by many anarchists the “class struggle” (as it is working class people who are generally the most subordinated group within society) or, more generally, “social struggle.” It is this everyday resistance to authority (in all its forms) and the desire for freedom which is the key to the anarchist revolution. It is for this reason that “anarchists emphasise over and over that the class struggle provides the only means for the workers [and other oppressed groups] to achieve control over their destiny.” [Marie-Louise Berneri, Neither East Nor West, p. 32] Revolution is a process, not an event, and every “spontaneous revolutionary action” usually results from and is based upon the patient work of many years of organisation and education by people with “utopian” ideas. The process of “creating the new world in the shell of the old” (to use another I.W.W. expression), by building alternative institutions and relationships, is but one component of what must be a long tradition of revolutionary commitment and militancy. As Malatesta made clear, “to encourage popular organisations of all kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should therefore be an integral part of our programme... anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves... , we want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their development and advance as they advance.” [Op. Cit., p. 90] "Unless a process of self-emancipation occurs, a free society is impossible. Only when individuals free themselves, both materially (by abolishing the state and capitalism) and intellectually (by freeing themselves of submissive attitudes towards authority), can a free society be possible. We should not forget that capitalist and state power, to a great extent, is power over the minds of those subject to them (backed up, of course, with sizeable force if the mental domination fails and people start rebelling and resisting). In effect, a spiritual power as the ideas of the ruling class dominates society and permeate the minds of the oppressed. As long as this holds, the working class will acquiesce to authority, oppression and exploitation as the normal condition of life. Minds submissive to the doctrines and positions of their masters cannot hope to win freedom, to revolt and fight. Thus the oppressed must overcome the mental domination of the existing system before they can throw off its yoke (and, anarchists argue, direct action is the means of doing both — see sections J.2 and J.4). Capitalism and statism must be beaten spiritually and theoretically before it is beaten materially (many anarchists call this mental liberation “class consciousness” — see section B.7.4). And self-liberation through struggle against oppression is the only way this can be done. Thus anarchists encourage (to use Kropotkin’s term) “the spirit of revolt.” Self-liberation is a product of struggle, of self-organisation, solidarity and direct action. Direct action is the means of creating anarchists, free people, and so “Anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers’ organisations which carry on the direct struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector, — the State.” This is because “[s]much a struggle ... better than any indirect means, permits the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present conditions of work, while it opens his [or her] eyes to the evil that is done by Capitalism and the State that supports it, and wakes up his [or her] thoughts concerning the possibility of organising consumption, production and exchange without the intervention of the capitalist and the state,” that is, see the possibility of a free society. Kropotkin, like many anarchists, pointed to the Syndicalist and Trade Union movements as a means of developing libertarian ideas within existing society (although he, like most anarchists, did not limit anarchist activity exclusively to them). Indeed, any movement which “permit[s] the working men [and women] to realise their solidarity and to feel the community of their interests ... prepare[s] the way for these conceptions” of communist-anarchism, i.e. the overcoming the spiritual domination of existing society within the minds of the oppressed. [Evolution and Environment, p. 83 and p. 85] For anarchists, in the words of a Scottish Anarchist militant, the “history of human progress [is] seen as the history of rebellion and disobedience, with the individual debased by subservience to authority in its many forms and able to retain his/her dignity only through rebellion and disobedience.” [Robert Lynn, Not a Life Story, Just a Leaf from It, p. 77] This is why anarchists stress self-liberation (and self-organisation, self-management and self-activity). Little wonder Bakunin considered “rebellion” as one of the “three fundamental principles [which] constitute the essential conditions of all human development, collective or individual, in history.” [God and the State, p. 12] This is simply because individuals and groups cannot be freed by others, only by themselves. Such rebellion (self-liberation) is the only means by which existing society becomes more libertarian and an anarchist society a possibility. " An excellent piece by Phil Dickens over at Propety is theft puts it really well too "If, in the end, we want a self-managed society, this has to come from a self-organised movement. You cannot get it from a heavily stage-managed, top-down “democratic centralism” wherein The Party becomes the vanguard or revolutionary leadership of the working class. To believe that “a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat” will tend towards true communism, and that the state will “wither away” is nothing short of delusion. Rather, our means must reflect our aims. Just as building a top-down revolutionary movement sets the stage for tyranny, so a movement without hierarchy is the necessary starting point for a society without hierarchy. As the Solidarity Federation explain in the leaflet what is anarcho-syndicalism? (PDF); The role of anarcho-syndicalist networks and unions is not to try and recruit every worker, but to advocate and organise mass meetings of all workers involved in each struggle so that the workers involved retain control. Within these mass meetings anarcho-syndicalists argue for the principles of solidarity, direct action and self-organisation. In this way anarcho-syndicalism is completely different to trade unionism, which seeks to represent our economic interests and the so-called ‘workers parties’ which seek to represent our political interests. Instead, anarcho-syndicalism unites the political and the economic and opposes representation in favour of self-organisation. By organising this way, we learn to act for ourselves, exercising our power without being led by union officials or political vanguards. These calls into question the way society is organised and prefiguring the world we want to create, without bosses or rulers: libertarian communism. And it is not just our organisations which should reflect this horizontal structure, but the spaces we occupy as well. FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT; ALT=" Anarcho-syndicalists promote solidarity, direct action, and bottom-up organisation precisely because we believe that a free society can only be born of a libertarian revolutionary movement On the smallest scale, this would apply to radical social centers; Then and now social centre volunteers come from a range of backgrounds: community activism, animal rights, anti-war, climate-change, feminism, anarchism and more. We don’t agree about everything, nor do we need to, but what unites us is a shared desire for: ‘A fair, free and sustainable society – without hierarchy, discrimination or the exploitation of people, animals and the planet for profit.’ Creating the social centre as an autonomous, non-hierarchical, do-it-yourself space is part of trying to realise this. We don’t claim to or seek to represent anyone. Instead we look to provide resources for people to work for themselves, to increase their own self-confidence and to improve their own lives. More broadly, we can put the same principle to work in our actions. An occupied workplace can become an example of anarchism in action, the management structure replaced with cooperation, consensus decision-making, and solidarity and mutual aid both internally and with activists on the outside. This applies whether the aim is to take over the workplace for the workers, or simply to force concessions out of the bosses. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about a community union, a squat, a social centre, an occupied workplace, or a national federation. What matters is that the way you have organised reflects the way you want to see society organised. And if you’re an anarcho-syndicalist, that means on the basis of “solidarity, direct action, and self-organisation.” There is no over-arching blueprint or formula for anarcho-syndicalism, either in the present or in a post-revolutionary world. Instead, we have a set of key principles, developed and strengthened through practice. We are not conducting an intellectual or philosophical exercise, and so practice is – ultimately – what counts. Just as our principles today are born of the practice of the past, so our practice today is what defines where we end up in the future. We truly are building the new world in the shell of the old one." With thanks to Phil Dickens over at Property is theft http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/building-the-new-world-within-the-shell-of-the-old/

Egypt: protesters and army battle for streets, defend the revolution !

As a follow up to my earlier post on the recent happenings in Egypt over the weekend the CWI have put out this excellent article on recent happenings and i thought i'd share it with you here.

you can read more excellent articles like this at
www.socialistworld.net

Defend the revolution! For mass struggle to overthrow army rule!

David Johnson, Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) and Niall Mulholland, CWI

Thousands of activists fought running battles with security forces for control of Tahrir Square, Cario, last weekend, and at the start of this week. At least 33 people were killed and over 1,750 injured. There have also been big protest demonstrations in Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura and other cities. Street fighting continued last night in central Cairo, turning parts of the city into “a war zone”. Today, Monday 21 November, clashes are reported as armed state forces try to clear Cairo’s Tahrir Square of protesters.

"The military promised that they would hand over power within six months," one protester said. "Now 10 months have gone by and they still haven’t done it. We feel deceived."

On Friday 18 November, a massive demonstration took place in Tahrir Square – the biggest for several months. The majority taking part in those protests were reportedly supporters of Islamist parties. But in the evening a few hundred youth set up a new occupation on the central roundabout. The state forces launched a brutal attack against the camp early Saturday morning. This led to tens of thousands of protesters returning to the Square to defend their right to protest. “The people demand the overthrow of the regime,” was the slogan chanted, as it had been before the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, fell earlier this year. Indicating some splits at the top about how to respond to the latest street protests, Culture Minister Emad Abu Ghazi reportedly resigned in protest at the government’s handling of the demonstrators.

The Guardian newspaper (London 21/11/11) described the scene, “By Sunday morning, following 24 hours of fierce street fighting and the conquest of Tahrir by revolutionaries, the furniture of the anti-Mubarak uprising was once again wheeled into place in the capital. Civilian checkpoints dotted the square, corrugated iron sheets were torn down for barricades, and the makeshift field hospital...



“When the military attack finally came, dissolving once and for all any lingering boundaries in protesters’ minds between the army on the one hand and the hated black-clad riot police that symbolised Mubarak’s security apparatus on the other, it was brutal and ephemeral…” But “outnumbered and outfought, the soldiers fled, though not before some had been captured by protesters. Fires blazed in all directions, but Liberation Square – the plaza’s name in Arabic – had once again been liberated, although how long for, no one dares predict.

“’We’ll stay here until we die, or military rule dies,’ said 27-year-old Mahmoud Turg with a matter-of-fact intensity.”

Army clings onto power
Last weekend’s events come after growing anger at the role of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which is trying to retain its grip on power. The council, led by Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, is supposedly charged with overseeing the country’s transition to democracy after three decades of dictatorial rule under Mr Mubarak.

Elections are to be held on 28 November, but it is becoming clearer to many that the SCAF will do everything to hold onto power, whatever the human toll. Instead of repealing Egypt’s hated emergency laws, the generals have extended it, while protecting their own privileges. An estimated 12,000 people have been brought to military tribunals over the last 10 months, a higher figure than under Mubarak’s 30 years of rule.



Calls for Tantawi’s resignation were heard during the weekend’s protests. The BBC reported that the demands of the protesters “have changed over the course of the weekend”. Crowds gathered last Friday demanded the military set a date for the handover of power but now “they want the military leaders to resign immediately and hand over to a civilian administration.”

The longest continuous street protests since President Hosni Mubarak was removed in February has raised questions over whether elections due to start next week will take place.

Several opposition parties are reported to have stated they will not take part in the coming elections. Mohamed ElBaradei, a pro-capitalist opposition figure, has offered himself to lead a ‘national government of salvation’.



Scenes of demonstrators in Tahrir Square being brutally attacked by police baton charges, tear gas (made in the USA), bird shot and rubber bullets were reminiscent of the days following the January 25th demonstration. It was those demonstrations that began the 18-day movement that forced the former president, Hosni Mubarak, from power.

Over the past few months, there have been deepening and unbearable tensions between the SCAF regime and the masses seeking democratic rights and a better life. Now these deep-seated and mutually incompatible differences have burst asunder, in what many activists are calling “the Second Revolution”. Like other revolutions, the Egyptian revolution is not a single act but a process. The masses fought hard to remove Mubarak at the cost of many lives. After he was overthrown, strikes broke out in many sectors and protests continued by youth, students and other layers. For big swathes of the population, exhausted by struggle and yearning ‘stability’, they put hopes in the new regime to oversee democratic elections and a better life. But now big sections of the population have correctly concluded that the SCAF is an attempt to continue the Mubarak regime in new clothes and that a new revolutionary upsurge is needed to win real and long-lasting democratic rights and fundamental social and economic changes.

In September, there were massive strikes - national strikes of teachers and postal workers, 62,000 Cairo public transport workers - and even low-rank police officers, who were protesting against corruption and privileges of senior officers. Workers were drawing the conclusion that they could not rely on the new government and would only get improved living standards and real democratic rights by organising and taking action.

On 9 October, there were attacks on a Coptic church that led to a protest demonstration of 10,000 to Maspero, the state TV broadcasting centre. The demonstrators were attacked by troops driving armoured cars in to the crowd, killing scores of protestors. Television reports blamed the demonstrators for the violence. Continuing military trials of civilian opponents of the regime have been highlighted by the arrest of blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah for reporting the role of the military in the Maspero attack.

Meanwhile, Michael Nabil Sanad continues his hunger strike in protest at the three-year prison sentence he received in April. He had written an article accusing the new government of continuing the corruption and anti-democratic practices of Mubarak.

On 27 October, a prisoner, Essam Atta, was horribly tortured to death. The photo of his dead body was a gruesome reminder of Khaled Said, a young blogger killed by two policemen in Alexandria in 2010. The ‘We are all Khaled Said’ Facebook group was one of the movements that called the January 25th demonstration. Many had hoped that such scenes had ended with the end of Mubarak’s rule.

Over the weekend of 19/20 November, there were huge protests in the delta port of Damietta against continuing pollution from the Mopco fertiliser factory. Twenty thousand demonstrators blockaded the port and roads into the city. They were attacked by army and police, with two people killed. At the other end of the country, in Aswan, a mass rally of Nubians protested against the shooting of a Nubian boatman by a policeman.



Same methods of repression as Mubarak regime
These incidents have shown that SCAF are using the same methods of repression as the old regime. This is only to be expected, as these same senior officers served Mubarak for decades. They have massive economic interests, with large companies owned by the armed forces. They are determined to protect these interests, as well as those of the rest of the Egyptian ruling class.

This is why the CWI argued on 11 February, the day of Mubarak’s removal, that the working class and youth should have, “No trust in the military chiefs!” and needed to build an independent movement that fights for “a government of the representatives of workers, small farmers and the poor!”

The forthcoming elections are to the lower house of a parliament that will draw up a new constitution. Two thirds of the seats are elected on a local list basis, with individuals elected to the remaining seats. The election process will strengthen supporters of the old regime, many of whom are running as ‘independents’ or members of the ‘loyal opposition’ parties that Mubarak allowed to give a democratic veneer to his regime.

The government have now declared that the new parliament will not have control over the armed forces, which would continue to control their own budget and policy. After initial outcry, the SCAF ‘compromised’ and said it would be accountable to a National Council. Half would be elected from the parliament and half from SCAF, with the president as chairman. This would leave the armed forces with effective control over themselves.

While Islamists are expected to become the largest bloc in the new parliament, its supporters are divided between several parties. The biggest is the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) ‘Freedom and Justice Party’, which claims to model itself on the AKP that forms the Turkish government.

Young Muslim Brotherhood members broke away in frustration at the older leadership, reflecting pressure from youth activists they had worked with following the January 25th revolution. These younger Muslim Brotherhood members were expelled from the Muslim Brotherhood and set up four new parties. Increasing numbers of conservative Islamists support a number of more hard-line Islamic Salafist parties.

The electoral support of the Islamist parties is based on their record of charitable work, filling some of the massive gaps in social support under Mubarak, as well as their record of opposition to Mubarak and perceived lack of corruption. There have been reports of these parties handing out meat and half price medicines at some election rallies. Arguments over candidates’ lists between these different parties have taken place over the past few months. With growing class conflict, some of these Islamist parties will reflect differing class interests.

Revolution hijacked
The demonstrations across Egypt this weekend show an increasing number of youth and workers understand the SCAF is intent on hijacking their revolution. The youth and workers are courageously resisting the army and police on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The movement needs to urgently create democratically-elected and run committees of mass struggle and defence against state repression. The army rank and file can be won over, with a firm and decisive appeal to join the uprising. The soldiers’ grievances about low pay, bad conditions and treatment by their senior officers need to be addressed by the mass movement, alongside calling for the right of soldiers to organise a free independent trade union, to form soldiers’ committees and the election of officers. This can help win the rank and file of the army and sections of the police to the side of the masses. Mass workers’ action, including a general strike, to overthrow Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the whole rotten, brutal regime needs to be organised alongside an offensive to moblise and organise the masses as the basis for a government formed by representatives of workers, the youth, small farmers and the poor that can take immediate action against counter-revolution and for democratic rights, immediate steps to improve living standards and break with capitalism.

The masses are instinctively opposed to a constitution approved or drawn up by the military. The CWI calls for the rapid election of a real democratic parliament, a revolutionary constituent assembly, which not only agrees rules for elections but also a programme to change the conditions of the Egyptian masses. Such a parliament can only be convened – if it is really to represent the majority of the population – under the control of democratic workplace and neighbour committees. Representatives of the workers and poor farmers should form the majority in this parliament or constituent assembly.



Real change in the interests of workers, the poor and the youth requires genuine democratic change. Democratic popular committees in workplaces and neighbourhoods can re-develop or spring up anew in the cauldron of events now taking place on the streets. Such bodies, linking up at city, regional and national level, can form the basis for a revolutionary constituent assembly and a government with a majority of workers and poor.

A workers’ and poor people’s government would introduce genuine democratic reforms, including regular elections for representatives, on average workers’ wages and subject to recall should they act against the interests of workers and the poor. It would also guarantee the right to organise independent trade unions, the right to strike and the right to organise political parties.

These are needed to struggle for decent pay and working conditions, guaranteed jobs, and also decent housing, education, pensions and healthcare. The newly formed independent trade unions need to build their own independent workers’ party to campaign for these ideas.

Such a government would nationalise all the major companies and banks under democratic workers’ control, so that the economy could be planned in the interests of the big majority of the population, instead of being run for benefit of the rich.

The struggle between revolution and counter-revolution continues as the working class strives to complete what it began on January 25th – winning full democratic, social and economic freedoms. A workers’ party putting forward a socialist programme, linked to the daily needs of millions of workers and poor, could gain mass support, and undercut the false alternative of the Muslim Brotherhood. Linking up with workers and youth across the region, such a mass movement could lead to a federation of democratic socialist states, ending poverty, corruption and oppression.

The CWI says:
•Defend the revolution: Clear out Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
•No compromise with the old remnants of the regime - No to rule by the military chiefs or the elite.
•No trust in any new ‘national unity’ regime based on the interests of the ruling class and imperialism
•For the urgent formation of democratically-elected and run committees of mass struggle and defence against state repression
•No to sectarianism – For the unity of all workers across religious lines
•Immediate lifting of the state of emergence. Immediate freeing of all political detainees and prisoners. No prosecution or victimisation of activists in the revolution
•Full political freedom. Freedom to publish and organise. Democratic control over the state media and opening up of state media to publish the views of all political trends supporting the revolution
•No restriction of the right to strike and take other industrial action. Full freedom to form trade unions and conduct trade union activity. For democratic, combative trade unions
•Formation of democratic rank and file committees in the armed forces and police
•Arrest and trial before popular courts all those involved in the SCAF regime’s repression and corruption. Confiscate the assets of the looters and corrupt.
•For the immediate elections to a revolutionary constituent assembly supervised by committees of working people, the poor and the youth
•For a government of representatives of workers, the youth, small farmers and the poor
•Nationalise the major companies and banks under democratic workers’ control, so that the economy could be planned in the interests of the big majority of the population, instead of being run for benefit of the rich

Egypt prove people power can work

So tonight we are witnessing a historic moment in Egypt with their president, dictator in many ways Hosny Mubarak has finally after 18 days of relentless and truely inspirational protests on the streets of Egypt and Cairo has finally resigned.

Joyous scenes on the streets of Egypt as this tyrant has finally been ousted.

I have to say the protesters who stayed on the streets day after day, night after night were truely inspirational.

The people of egypt have demonstrated to the world that people power is back and the middle east is trembling now of what happens next. The evil dictators in the region from Syria to Yemen and even Algeria will be panicing tonight wondering where will the next uprising happen. I feel for the Egyptian people. They have claimed their country back, back from the ruling party at the top.

For world leaders this is unsettling and unstable times and they will not like this. They will be fearful of who steps in next. Of course taht rightly so wil be down to the Egyptian people. They should decide wahth appens next. Let the people choose they have won this battle and should be rewarded with deciding their future.

I do hope democracy spreads now and the country is rebuilt in terms of a fair equal society. There is a opputunity now for real socialism to make its way into Egyptian minds. It is their choice now which route they take.

But today belongs to Egypt and its people who have found their voice and their freedom as a result. This just goes to show what can be achieved given persistancy and real people power and collective force.

Tonight iraise a glass to you Egyptians out there

here is fora happier safer and fairer Egypt.

VIVA la revolution !

Is democracy really the way forward ?

Let me start by saying i am all for democracy and think it is a good thing, but my point with this post is to ask is it right we try and inflict our version of it on other countries and continents around the world ?

We see over the last week or so in Egypt a huge uprising on the streets of Egypt fighting back against their oppressive governments. I applaud their efforts to rid themselves of a leader who has a too strong grip on the country.

But democracy this idealistic system we seem to talk like it is the holy grail of living your life. Is it compatable for everyone around the world ? Could it not be modified to allow people a greater say. As lets be honest what we call democracy is not a real democracy is it ?

The real working people of this country dont really have a say

Ok we have a vote we can cast every 5 years or so but what does that get us, a elected bureaucrat who sits in parliament telling us waht to do. If we try to lobby our MP's which i have tried before we get a set of templated waffle of what their party line is. These Mp's claim they know about the people, in reality they havent a clue. SO this lovely thing we call democracy starts to look more of a farce the deeper you look into it.

On the face of it compared to a dictatorship it is certainly a better system but as far as giving people ordinary people on the street a true voice it still fails as far as i can see. I'm not against democracy at all i just feel that this form of it suits our ruling class and the capitalist system the best and so the leaders of the world will continue to promote it as it tightens their grip on the worlds finances. So i wonder if democracy could be reformed for want of a better word. Looked into and allowing the people to have more control of the wealth of a country and the power. Rather than it being held all at the top by a elite few who we democratically elect could we not give them less power or give more power to the people as cliche as that sounds.

When America and Britain invaded Iraq to over throw Saddam Hussain it was being touted in the name of democracy, giving freedom back to the people. Although this was true to a degree it will only allow the chance for another leader of similar nature to cease power in this country. Is it not the case that some nations are not ready for democracy to be forced upon them ? Should they not come to that decision by themselves rather than western nations thinking oh your people have no say lets invade you and give you democracy without stopping to think if this is good for them or will lead to a eventual better place for people to live. Giving a country democracy when it hasnt had it before can be a risky thing and i think the west should be warey of appearing as teh policeman of the world looking out for countries and meddling in their internal business. Afterall we wouldnt like it if other countries tried to inflict a way of life on us so why do we do it to others in the name of fairness and freedom.