Those middle class activists who think that Egyptians will now return to work to labour under a military regime – Wael Ghonim, the Google employee incessantly puffed by the Anglophone media as the ‘leader’ of this revolution, ‘trusts’ the army and urges people to go back to work – are about to be disabused and disillusioned. The protesters in Tahrir today are chanting that they want a civil, not a military government. The workers are still on strike. The steel mills, the sugar factories, public transport… they are not going to return to work just because the army now says it’s in control. In the last week, the hard cutting edge of this revolution was the working class, and those whose revolutionary agenda did not include the interests of the working class are likely to find themselves left behind by events very soon.
Meanwhile, with celebrations erupting in Gaza, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, all over the Middle East (and, I might add, in London), the struggle in Algeria is continuing today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSxMZu_7AT8
Algeria, today. 35,000 police massed against protesters. From the comments on YouTube
I fell victim to the Algerian police thirty years ago! I left Algeria to never return! Never looked back, when I saw this video I realised that nothing has changed, maybe never will, the police are thugs, they love beating up their fellow Algerians, it’s a way of life, not for me, I have been free for 30years now, believe freedom is sweet, very sweet, once you taste it you don’t want to go back to the dark ages, my fellow Algerians, Réveillez vous! wake up, this is your chance, don’t waste it.
This is homegrown unrest. It’s not manipulated or driven by any outside power. The match was lit in Tunisia. The sympathetic detonations are happening across the Middle East. The bravery of the protesters is inspiring. It’s not like here where if you get arrested at a protest you might spend a night in jail before being bailed out on your OR then getting a $100 fine.These protesters face beatings, electrodes on sensitive parts of their bodies, and quite possibly death. Yet they fight for freedom. This is unprecedented, extraordinary, and will shake the planet. Good.