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Self-immolations continue in Egypt after Tunisia revolt Mona El-Naggar January 20, 2011 http://www.smh.com.au/world/selfimmolations-continue-in-egypt-after-tunisia-revolt-20110119-19wpq.html *CAIRO: *Arab leaders appear increasingly rattled by the unfolding events in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world, where men continue to set themselves on fire. Two men tried to set themselves ablaze in Cairo on Tuesday, a day after a man burned himself in front of parliament. Also on Tuesday, a 25-year-old unemployed man died in hospital a day after he had set himself on fire in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria. Although the streets of Cairo, Algiers and other Arab cities around the region were calm, the acts of self-immolation served as a reminder that the core complaints of economic hardship and political repression that led to the Tunisian uprising, triggered by the fatal self-immolation of an unemployed graduate, resonated strongly across the Middle East. Hundreds of Tunisians rallied against their new government yesterday, a day after four ministers pulled out in protest at the continued power of the former ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD). ''Ben Ali has gone to Saudi Arabia! The government should go there too!'' more than 1000 protesters chanted in central Tunis, referring to the former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled on Friday after 23 years of iron-fisted rule. ''We want a new parliament, a new constitution, a new republic! People rise up against the Ben Ali loyalists!'' they chanted. Some waved placards reading: ''Down with the RCD!'' An opposition leader who has joined the government as regional development minister said the first cabinet meeting would be held today, but a government spokesman said the exact date was still uncertain. An opposition source said the priorities at the cabinet meeting would be to draw up a national amnesty law for victims of the former regime, and concrete moves to break up the RCD's stranglehold on organs of state. The interim president, Foued Mebazaa, and the Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, quit the RCD on Tuesday. Authorities eased the timing of a curfew that has been in place for days, but a state of emergency that bans public assemblies remained in place. There was also a looming wild card: the revival of the banned Islamist party. The government said that for now it would continue to block the return of the party's exiled founder, while he repeated that his party espouses a moderate pluralism. Many Tunisians said they were waiting to see what kind of rebirth the once flourishing but long-outlawed Islamist political party might have. In a radio interview, the Prime Minister said that the exiled leader, Rached Ghannouchi - no relation - would be banned from the country until the government passed an amnesty law lifting a conviction he was given in absentia under the Ben Ali government. The exiled leader, meanwhile, made clear that his party envisioned a society far more liberal and open than Iran or Saudi Arabia. In an interview with the *Financial Times*, Rached Ghannouchi said his party had signed a shared statement of principles with the other Tunisian opposition groups that included freedom of expression, freedom of association and women's rights. It is unclear how much backing he has. Tunisian society may be too resolutely secular for the Islamists to find much support, after two decades of efforts by Mr Ben Ali's secret police to eliminate the party. -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
