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Counterpunch Weekend Edition
February 11 - 13, 2011
Egypt's Joy
Toppling the Autocrat
By TARIQ ALI
A joyous night in Cairo. What bliss to be alive, to be an Egyptian
and an Arab. In Tahrir Square they're chanting, "Egypt is free"
and "We won!"
The removal of Mubarak alone (and getting the bulk of his $40bn
loot back for the national treasury), without any other reforms,
would itself be experienced in the region and in Egypt as a huge
political triumph. It will set new forces into motion. A nation
that has witnessed miracles of mass mobilisations and a huge rise
in popular political consciousness will not be easy to crush, as
Tunisia demonstrates.
Arab history, despite appearances, is not static. Soon after the
Israeli victory of 1967 that marked the defeat of secular Arab
nationalism, one of the great Arab poets, Nizar Qabbani wrote:
Arab children,
Corn ears of the future,
You will break our chains.
Kill the opium in our heads,
Kill the illusions.
Arab children,
Don't read about our suffocated generation,
We are a hopeless case,
As worthless as a water-melon rind.
Don't read about us,
Don't ape us,
Don't accept us,
Don't accept our ideas,
We are a nation of crooks and jugglers.
Arab children,
Spring rain,
Corn ears of the future,
You are the generation that will overcome defeat.
How happy he would have been to seen his prophecy being fulfilled.
The new wave of mass opposition has happened at a time where there
are no radical nationalist parties in the Arab world, and this has
dictated the tactics: huge assemblies in symbolic spaces posing an
immediate challenge to authority – as if to say, we are showing
our strength, we don't want to test it because we neither
organised for that nor are we prepared, but if you mow us down
remember the world is watching.
This dependence on global public opinion is moving, but is also a
sign of weakness. Had Obama and the Pentagon ordered the Egyptian
army to clear the square – however high the cost – the generals
would probably have obeyed orders, but it would have been an
extremely risky operation for them, if not for Obama. It could
have split the high command from ordinary soldiers and junior
officers, many of whose relatives and families are demonstrating
and many of whom know and feel that the masses are on the right
side. That would have meant a revolutionary upheaval of a sort
that neither Washington nor the Muslim Brotherhood – the party of
cold calculation – desired.
The show of popular strength was enough to get rid of the current
dictator. He'd only go if the US decided to take him away. After
much wobbling, they did. They had no other serious option left.
The victory, however, belongs to the Egyptian people whose
unending courage and sacrifices made all this possible.
And so it ended badly for Mubarak and his old henchman. Having
unleashed security thugs only a fortnight ago, Vice-President
Suleiman's failure to dislodge the demonstrators from the square
was one more nail in the coffin. The rising tide of the Egyptian
masses with workers coming out on strike , judges demonstrating on
the streets, and the threat of even larger crowds next week, made
it impossible for Washington to hang on to Mubarak and his
cronies. The man Hillary Clinton had referred to as a loyal
friend, indeed "family", was dumped. The US decided to cut its
losses and authorised the military intervention.
Omar Suleiman, an old western favourite, was selected as
vice-president by Washington, endorsed by the EU, to supervise an
"orderly transition". Suleiman was always viewed by the people as
a brutal and corrupt torturer, a man who not only gives orders,
but participates in the process. A WikiLeaks document had a former
US ambassador praising him for not being "squeamish". The new vice
president had warned the protesting crowds last Tuesday that if
they did not demobilise themselves voluntarily, the army was
standing by: a coup might be the only option left. It was, but
against the dictator they had backed for 30 years. It was the only
way to stabilise the country. There could be no return to "normality".
The age of political reason is returning to the Arab world. The
people are fed up of being colonised and bullied. Meanwhile, the
political temperature is rising in Jordan, Algeria and Yemen.
Tariq Ali’s latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home,
War Abroad’ is published by Verso.
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