"What
unexpected consequences will follow events that have earned, simultaneously,
the salute of Obama, Fidel and Ahmadinejad, of the European Union and
Palestinian Hamas, Google executives and the old hippies of Paris in 1968, of
Islamophobic intellectuals and fiery Lebanese warriors from Hezbullah?"
Luis Cardoza y
Aragón, a Guatemalan poet, used to say that poetry is the only concrete evidence
of human existence. In that sense, every revolution has a poetic spark at its heart:
Russia (1917), China (1949), Cuba (1959), Nicaragua (1959). When the will of
the people prevails, dreams and conscience are united in action.
Believing that "nothing
can arrest the march of the people," I have for many years been trying to
unravel the tangled cultural and political web of the so-called "Arab
world." From such books as Edward Said'sOrientalism,
I learned to distance myself from trendy points of view, such as those that attempt
to explain Mexico from the vantage point of Princeton or Paris.
The analytical axis of this
is the belligerent profile of Israel, a neocolonial enclave that appeared on
the map simultaneously with the battles for liberation by the peoples of the Maghreb and the Middle East.
Do we have a "pre-revolutionary"
situation in Egypt? Anarchists
oppose an "authoritarian" solution; socialists celebrate the
democratic flavor of the uprising; communists consider whether
conditions "are ripe"; Trotskyites agitate for "the
program"; nationalists invoke the dignity of past glories; liberals and
conservatives review the pages of The Leopard; and the
religious dream of an "Islamic rebirth.”
With whom do I side? I'm going
with the young, who are eternally trying to "assault the heavens." According
to the passionate expression of Marx, who extolled the uprising of the Paris Commune against
their government: "The attempt of our heroic comrades ... ready to storm
the heavens,” (Letter to Leon Kugelman, London, April 12, 1871).
He goes on: "If you look
in the last chapter of my The
Eighteenth Brumaire[about the coup that brought Napoleon to power],
you'll see that for the next attempt at a French Revolution, I propose not to
let the bureaucratic-military machine pass from one set of hands to another, as
has happened up to now, but to 'demolish' it. And this is precisely the
precondition of any real popular revolution.”
Libyan
Dictator Muammar Qaddafi addresses Libyans on the birthday of
the Prophet
Muhammad, Feb 13. In his address, he blamed Arab leaders
and the
West for popular uprisings that have spread across Arab lands.
These words of a Western
thinker aren't half bad when applied to the most Westernized Islamic country. Because
the Egyptian army is not exhausted like the Russian military at the end of the First World War, nor is
it similar to the army that took power in China, or the anti-feudal one that
toppled [Egypt's] King Faruk
I. It hasn't been defeated like the armies of Cuba and Nicaragua, nor has
it been demoralized like the Argentine Army after the Falklands War.
I confess to being perplexed.
What unexpected consequences will follow events that have earned,
simultaneously, the salute of Obama, Fidel and Ahmadinejad, of the European
Union and Palestinian Hamas, Google executives and the old hippies of Paris in
1968, of Islamophobic intellectuals and fiery Lebanese warriors of Hezbullah?
I could visualize the causes
of the crisis in Yemen and Algeria, as well as the silent repression that prevailed
in Egypt - that cornerstone of global capitalism. Yet I had never imagined that
after the Empire's 1979 Iran fiasco, its military client number two would bite
the dust after just over 15 days.
Hunger plus poverty =
revolution? Could it be that the Internet and mobile phones guarantee the
triumph of insurrection? In Iran (2009) they didn't amount to much. And I doubt
that Mubarak was less repressive than the ayatollahs. Well ... maybe what I've
just said is due to my refusal to have 700 friends on Facebook.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
I'm ready to admit that the
reflexes slow with age - and that doesn't worry me. If in my youth I scoffed at
the ideological prattle of certain comrades, it would mean forgetting the
phrase of Jose Martí
who prodded them on: “If we dream, the youth will respect us; with the naked
truth, they will crumble and degrade.”
I'll underline in red: the
fall of the dysfunctional and anachronistic tyranny of Mubarak energized Egypt's
heroic and frustrated youth. Now is everybody happy? Well... not everybody,
since the Arab monarchies and autocracies, the fascists of the Tea Party and
the oily Palestinian National Authority aren't happy. Much less Israel.
These analogies hardly allow us
to predict potential developments. In any case, in 1953, the people of Egypt
entrusted the revolutionary process to a group of nationalist military leaders.
And in 1979, the powerful, pro-imperialist army of the Shah of Iran was
paralyzed by a pacific political movement, which carried a no-less potent
religious identity.
In Cairo it was different. Suspicious
of “providential leaders,” ideologies, parties and political movements, Egypt's
youth pacifically toppled the tyrant. But then they delegated the process of
“transitioning to democracy” to General Mohamed Tantawi, head
of the Army and Pentagon favorite.
In conclusion: either I'm
getting old, or it no longer matters who benefits or is harmed by an
insurrection. If being with those at the bottom of the social ladder is “the
only compass in the midst of chaos,” let the infinite mercy of Allah help the
people of Egypt.
