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Those
of the young generation, people too young to remember the collapse of
Soviet-bloc and other socialist states in 1989 and 1990, are fortunate to be
living through another thrilling example of a seemingly impenetrable State
edifice reduced to impotence when faced with crowds demanding freedom, peace,
and justice.
There
is surely no greater event than this. To see it instills in us a sense of
hope that the longing for freedom that beats in the heart of every human
being can be realized in our time.
This
is why all young people should pay close attention to what is happening in
Egypt, to the protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak as well as the
pathetic response coming from his imperial partner, the US, which has given
him many billions in military and secret police aid to keep him in power.
The
US is in much the same situation today as the Soviet Union was in 1989, as a
series of socialist dominoes toppled. Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany,
Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia all experienced dramatic meltdowns, while the
Soviet regime, supportive of these systems since the end of the Second World
War, sat by helplessly and watched. Leaders made vague statements about the
need for peaceful transitions and elections, while the people on the ground
completely ignored them.
What
has sparked the uprising? There are economic considerations, of course. A
good rate of inflation in Egypt is considered to be 10%, and currency
depreciation works as a massive punishment against savings and capital
accumulation. Unemployment is high, about the same rate as the US, but is
even higher for young people who are worried about the future.
Economic
growth has been much better in the last decades thanks to economic reforms,
but this tendency (as in the old Soviet bloc) has only worked to create
rising expectations and more demands for freedom. It remains a fact that nearly
half the population lives in terrifying poverty.
The
core of the problem, it appears, relates to civil liberties and the very
old-fashioned conviction that the country is ruled by a tyrant who must go.
Mubarak tolerates no challenges to his martial-law rule. There are tens of
thousands of political prisoners in the country, and it is easy to get
arrested and tortured simply by calling the dictator names. The press is
censored, opposition groups are suppressed, and corruption runs rampant.
Mubarak’s will to power has known no bounds: he chooses all the
country’s elites based solely on personal loyalty to himself.
Mubarak
has ruled for 30 years and yes there have been elections every six years, but
these are widely seen as for show only. Opposition candidates end up
prosecuted for a variety of invented crimes. Democracy in Egypt is merely a
slogan for one-party rule. And this is striking: the main excuse for his
martial law is one that is all-too-familiar to Americans: the war on terror
(and never mind the terror dispensed by the warriors themselves).
Probably
a more substantive issue concerns the digital revolution and the opening up
of the entire world through the Internet – a species of the very thing
that the US cited as the reason for the anti-Soviet uprisings of the late
eighties and early nineties. Many young people in Egypt are as connected to
the world through social media as American teenagers, and enjoy access to the
sights and sounds of the modernity that the regime so opposes.
To
understand what is driving the protests, consider the date that they began:
National Police Day on January 25. This is the holiday created by Mubarak
only in 2009. Talk about misjudging the situation! And sure enough, the
government’s response was to jam nearly all Internet communications and
shut down all cell-phone service on the day of the planned protest. But it
didn’t work: Thanks to what is now being called "hacktivism,"
the revolution is being broadcast around the world through Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, even as Wikipedia is being updated minute by minute. And the Al
Jazeera English live feed has, as usual, put biased US media to shame.
Meanwhile,
official government voices in the US have been pathetically behind the times.
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have been refusing to describe Mubarak as a
dictator, while lamely urging a transition to an election – run by and
ruled over by the Mubarak regime. The protest leadership immediately saw that
line for what it was, and rejected it outright. It is unbearably obvious that
the US is nearly alone in more-or-less supporting Mubarak, but that is
exactly what you would expect of the imperial backer of the despot.
What
are the protesters’ demands? It is not complicated. As in 1989, the one
demand is that the dictator go. This makes complete sense and is the only
solution that accords with what is right and just. This and only this will
establish the basis for a transition to anything. What follows after that is
really something that has to be worked out by the Egyptian people, who have
had their voices muzzled for far too long, and not by the CIA.
What
the uprisings underscore is a fundamental reality that the world too often
forgets. It gets to the core of the relationship between any government and
any people, in all times and all places. The people far outnumber the
government, and for that reason, and even when the government is heavily
armed, every government must depend on some degree of consent to continue its
rule. If the whole of a people rise up and say no, the bureaucrats and even
the police are powerless. This is the great secret of government that is
mostly ignored until revolution day arrives.
More
than the anti-Soviet protests of the late 1980s, the Egyptian uprisings
reveal what might eventually come home to the empire itself. Under the right
conditions, and at the right time, there might come a time when the
consciousness will dawn right here at home. It could happen here for the same
reason it could happen anywhere.
Government
knows this, and hence its accumulation of weaponry and relentless propaganda.
The difficulty for the State comes when its will to power generates what
Thomas Jefferson called "a long train of abuses" that create a
burning desire within people to rise up and demand freedom, since, after all,
it is the right of a people, is it not, to alter and abolish the form of
government under which they are forced to live.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr
LewRockwell.com
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