In a previous article, said that the events that are shaking the Arab world today are as relevant as those that shook the world in 1989 [1]. Not only are there parallels to be made by the breadth and depth of discontent in a vast geographical area, are as well, because this whirlwind of popular fury puts into question a particular geopolitical architecture believed strong as steel. In this case these hoary dictatorships fired, promoted and installed by the U.S. strategic interests (and its junior partners, the EU) in an area of \u200b\u200bcritical concern for oil. In 1989 the political consequences of these demonstrations were deep and lasting, the fall of "real socialism" not only meant the fall of a few unpleasant bureaucratic dictatorships, but, due to the relative weakness of a truly libertarian and revolutionary left, represented the fall of a set of values \u200b\u200band political horizons, incorrectly, was associated with the Soviet bloc, and the overwhelming passage of neoliberalism as an economic system, politics, values and ideological unquestionable.
was the end of the story, as quite a few sleepless apologists of the "New World Order." But he continued to write history as it dramatically demonstrated the anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999. And as we continued to demonstrate the cycle of open fighting between 2000 and 2005 in South America, which questioned the pillars of the model, and put the people, oppressed and exploited classes as protagonists of history.
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events in the Arab world who have broken their breath during the past two months, shaking the New World Order in its strongest link, in dictatorships held for decades by the "free world" to ensure the uninterrupted flow of oil and to maintain a standing military force Really large area of \u200b\u200beconomic and geostrategic importance for the empire. These movements occur in the heart of global capitalism, where there is the flow of oil that keeps the trade international industry going. It happens in countries all close allies of Washington, hence the anti-imperialist content of these demonstrations (even the dictator of Libya, Gadaffi, had become a close associate of the U.S. and EU in the era of the "War Terrorism "). All countries corroded by serious internal contradictions, where famine coexists with macroecónimico growth and opulence of the golden family. But something else, is that while that challenge and shake the political foundations of the system. The so-called "democracy" provoked a sharp global political debate about the political content of a term as flexible as "democracy." Especially because it is not the same when they talk of "democracy" liberals in ties in the halls of institutions of power, when this word is on the lips of the common people mobilized in the streets.
Two opposing concepts of democracy
The specter of the mob taking a leading role in politics is the worst nightmare of the ruling class that identifies "democracy" to the maintenance of economic and legal structure to underpin its exclusive privileges. It is no coincidence, therefore, that since the corporate media, while formally supporting the need for democracy in countries Arabs ("forgetting" its traditional support for regional autocracies), made quite a few warnings against the excesses of democracy "against" populism "against the" demagoguery "with calls for" stability "and" order. " In "El Mercurio" (11 February), for example, David Gallagher writes a typical note: "You can not govern a country from the street, despite the hype, home to some intellectuals, direct democracy and participatory end. " Lawsuits like this have been delivered wholesale throughout the state media.
Interestingly the reference to the government from the street because it shows the limits of formal democracy, bourgeois. Clarify some concepts that he uses: when he speaks of the street, what it does is identify the people. When he says that democracy can not be in "extreme" participatory means that the working class (the "end" as opposed to the class he represents) should be excluded from the democratic game. Precisely because their concept of democracy, we must exclude the poor, workers, direct involvement in their affairs, is that they must necessarily assume an air of "seriousness" and "respectability" in order to disguise the interest class behind this vision.
The Uruguayan Raúl Zibechi, writing about the Arab uprising, hits the heart of the matter when he says:
"The system is showing very well that you can live with any state authority, even the most" radical "or" anti ", but not can tolerate people on the street, the riot, the ongoing rebellion. Let's say people on the street is the spanner in the accumulation of capital, so one of the first "action" taken by the military after Mubarak withdrew to rest, the population was required to leave the street and return to work. "[2]
Street is the place par excellence where it expresses the power of below. It is the symbolic space where they fight their battle to the death with the above. This is where experimenting with alternative ways of handling the "res publica" of public affairs. The popular sectors, when they burst onto the stage of history by the protests, at all times been established, in the full exercise of direct democracy outside its own institutions and in opposition to official institutions, the State. This is so since the French Revolution, when in 1792 the proletariat formed the first district of Paris and popular features that served emerging bodies of direct democracy, on which supported the Jacobin bourgeoisie in its struggle against the old regime, and then co-opted, distorted and ultimately crush them.
Democracy always has limits and the bourgeoisie knows this: the problem is who sets those limits. In classical Greece, the birthplace of the concept, democratic rights were only privileged "citizens", a minority of the population living off the labor of enslaved majority. In Western democracies, for a long time, democracy was denied to the colonies that fed the local workers metropolis without property or education. In Israel, the "only democracy in the Middle East" as stated in the known cliché, the Palestinians are completely excluded from the honey of democracy. In the U.S. itself, the most "democratic" world (as themselves), while choosing a black president, one of every four African American men languishing in U.S. prison complex ubiquitous, many of them sentenced to death. The others live in the vast majority in ghettos, while the two-party system works like a charm for the military-industrial elite. Take for example any Western democracy, those so-called "representative": make a simple survey of the social class and gender to represent the majority of parliamentarians. The result overwhelming will of men of the capitalist class. Entrepreneurs are a tiny minority of society, but almost all parliamentarians are. Will also see that oppressed ethnic or national groups are also underrepresented. Who then is representative democracy? The capitalists, the rich, the powerful. All electoral and institutional gear is shielded to popular participation and a mechanism per thousand cheaters.
By contrast, the concept of participatory or direct democracy is antithetical to the concept of representative democracy advocated by the capitalist class and their courtiers. In it, the limits are imposed by the mobilized people who in the process of fighting takes on a new awareness of their capabilities and their own existence. Direct democracy in the French Revolution, in the period 1792-1793 put limits on speculators, and consolidated ephemerally fighting against him. All the experiences of people power and direct democracy that have happened in history, have put the limit of democracy in economic exploitation. The direct participation of every member of society, the collective exercise of power, the capitalist minority drowning in the ocean of the people's interests are expressed freely and directly. It is no coincidence that direct democracy ignore the distinction between political and economic (horror of horrors for the capitalists), and tends to the socialization of property. The street is an important symbolic space. But is insufficient. A short walk, people always end up realizing that "democracy", its direct democracy, built on the fight, also includes socialization of companies, mines, land, factories, offices.
When the people take charge of their own affairs, we clearly see that there can be no equality without equality politically and economically.
Direct democracy in the People's Committees
In Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world people's committees have emerged that have demonstrated the political capacity of the working classes. Gallagher was wrong when he says that a country can not be governed from the street. In fact, for several weeks in Egypt and Tunisia the "street" was the only scenario of government.
There are numerous testimonies of how direct democracy in the People's Committees of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya through the good offices of several foreign correspondents. Here let me quote one based on "commune" of Tahrir Square in Cairo, which I think is fairly representative:
"Egyptians of all social strata have begun voluntarily to clean the streets directing traffic at noon, to coordinate patrols neighbors when the looting began, and even organize self-defense committees during sporadic clashes February 2 baltagiyya with the (thugs), fully equipped with roadblocks, checkpoints and makeshift hospitals to treat the injured (...) people have not hesitated to share and will give what they have in terms of food and drink.
Overcoming a long legacy of mutual hostility and suspicion arising from a traditional sectarianism, for all Egypt is in Tahrir square, men and women, young and old, Muslims and Christians. A lively and vigorous debate-free and meaningful, at last fills the four corners of Tahrir Square, broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the range of political views and opinions out there. Any formal adoption of proposals is decided democratically by majority vote (...)
The people in Tahrir Square, in fact, vote in a minute about whether to elect representatives to make executive decisions on behalf of the movement keys, so overwhelming and decisive, voted 'no'. "[3]
This testimony is consistent with others that have circulated about these committees, which are reminiscent of the proliferation of institutions of direct democracy in Argentina after the crisis and lifting popular December 2001. Even the conservative "The Economist (March 5-11, p.41) said, without explicitly mentioning the popular committees in Libya, but referring to the organization of the" liberated zones "that:
" In the areas controlled by rebels, the feared descent into chaos has not materialized. Despite the shortage of police, crime has not increased. The girls go on holidays students have been harassed. For almost two weeks, the owners of restaurants have been offering free tea and sandwiches to the public. To demonstrate its new sense of brotherhood, entrepreneurs collaborate sweeping the streets. "
course direct democracy has won in the street, alone, is not the panacea that magically enhance problems affecting the Arab peoples. Neither unemployment nor the irritating income inequality, and the high price of food has gone. Clashes between Christians and Muslims in Egypt this week, we show that the corrosive factions have not been entirely overcome. But direct democracy creates public spaces in which popular demands become overwhelming whirlwind in a collective leadership that seeks to promote equality and socialization.
Revolution in the Arab world beyond the end of dictatorships
While the U.S. and its puppets wave local coconut Al Qaeda to create distrust from the Western peoples to their Arab brothers in rebellion, the rebellion in the Arab reaches unsuspected vitality, which has gone far beyond the narrow demands of government turnover. The journalist Michael Jansen, in the "Irish Times" (March 4), gives us a quick look at the profound changes that move under the transitional government in Egyptian society and how the winds of change did not leave anyone indifferent:
"High school students have formed a movement to call for revision of the Egyptian education system. Women's organizations demanding equal rights and full representation in government and civil society. Journalists demand an end to restrictions on the media and the removal of directors and executives are aligned with the government under the regime of Mubarak.
Scholars, preachers and students in the archaic al-Azhar University called to free 1,000 years of government control. The turbaned revolutionaries insist that Sheikh al-Azhar, the university recotr and one of the main Sunni jurists of the world, as well as other directors, are elected by seasons rather than appointed for life (...)
Teachers , clerks, academics, lawyers, judges and public and private sector are bringing out their anger against officials, inept managers and against the incredible corruption. Tens of thousands of workers from the textile industries, the communications sector of iron and steel plants, hospitals, universities, military industry and the Suez Canal are on strike, first to support the democracy movement, after to demand wage increases and better working conditions. The workers demand the dissolution of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation government. On Wednesday, several unions established an independent association. "
The Arab revolution, like a Pandora's Box was opened all these demands and these complaints repressed for decades, but centuries. The masses have created a unique historical moment, a historical hinge that will shape the future. And the village is a surprisingly strong actor, even when a young actor with little experience. The framers of the young Arab direct democracy are preparing to make a qualitative leap in its revolution, to make medium term a formidable social revolution.
That is why both the local ruling classes and agents of the former regime, with their imperial patrons, have been the first task the containment of direct democracy through the process of "transition" of "institutionalization" of "democratic reforms" that distorted the content of these rebellions participatory and channeled to a safe and harmless "representative democracy." That is the reason for all civil-military governments of transition, being the friendly face of the counter.
The challenges ahead: winning projection and depth
U.S. know what is at stake in their backyard. The chief of U.S. Joint Chiefs, Mike Brown, admits that there have been rapid changes in the region and are trying not only to keep up with events but to influence things in the direction they want according to their interests [4]. Will be assisted in this regard by the governments of "transition" and the dictators who still cling to power, offering cosmetic reforms. But they still have an arduous task ahead, it does not seem that the Arab masses have the least notice even the slightest enthusiasm for the "American Way of Life." Furthermore, the resentment against the Yankees, a fundamental pillar of the regional tyrannies, is crucial to understand the protest in the Arab countries. Decades of complicity with Israel and cooperation with the U.S. imperial adventures in the region, undoubtedly, helped to erode the lack of legitimacy of these regimes [5]. So we've discussed the undeniable anti-imperialist content of all these demonstrations, than the dictator himself Yemeni Ali Abdullah Saleh notices. Recently, in a fit of demagoguery and hypocrisy with no name, at a conference in the capital San'a, said that all these events were nothing more than a Tel Aviv operation to destabilize the Arab world, that everything "was controlled by the House White [6]. He says he knows the deep resentment of U.S. ally in the region and is cynically exploiting-while, with the kind sponsorship of the White House was thrown into the pocket U.S. $ 300,000,000 annually by the concept of the "War on Terrorism." Nobody in the Arab world unimpressed by this clumsy demagogy, even when it seems that outside the Arab world has its effect among some sectors of the left, particularly at the events of Libya [7].
The revolution is not over in Arab countries, even in Tunisia or Egypt. We could even say that much less in those last two countries. The revolution, this giant awakening of the Arab peoples, has just begun, as evidenced by protests in recent weeks have forced the resignation of Prime Ministers of Tunisia Mohamed Ghannouchi (with five cabinet members), and Egypt, Ahmed Shafiq. Popular protest is pressing to remove all elements of the old regime and to dismantle its security apparatus, along with implementing a thousand and one popular demands.
reminds us that Argentina's experience, these periods of crisis are pretty open fluids, spare parts are common policy, and if not solidified the popular alternative, the alternative is solidified by the powerful, they can always go back to retake the field lost. What is unsustainable is the long-winded political crisis. And that is where we must remember the words of our fellow Syrian Kamalmaz Mazen, who said that "committees the people should be the basis of a new life, not just a temporary measure. "
Such committees are the foundation of the new democracy, popular, direct, participatory assemblies, men and women construct daily in the Arab revolution.
But the challenges are not minor: How to project these experiences over time for other than a sporadic episode in the struggle, but the germ of the new society? How to ripen uncoordinated and sectoral proposals in an alternative social project? The potential to deepen and radicalize the movement, as well as to project beyond the current crisis between the Arab masses. They distrust cosmetic reforms of these "transitional governments" that they know are, ultimately, levees for the masses. Only time will tell how to solve (n) (s) crisis, but what is clear is that it is resolved as (n), nothing will be as well or to the Arab people or the rest of the world .
José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
March 12, 2011
[1] http://www.anarkismo.net/article/18678
[2] http://alainet.org/active/44376
[3] http://www .socialistproject.ca/bullet/467.php # continue
[4] http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90780/91343/730....html
[5] The tumbling of the Libyan dictator, who until recently was the best of friends in the West, a role model as the former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have done so in the eyes of its people little more than a pro-American clown. Moreover, in countries which the U.S. was objectively interested in extending the protest, such as Syria and Iran, the protests have been or very weak or nonexistent. This confirms that we are talking about different dynamics.
[6] The Economist, March 5-11, 2011, p.45
[7] I quote here a very good article by Rolando Astarita that summarizes some of the debates in the Latin American left in this regard. Even when not agree with everything in it arises, is a sharp and insightful article, at least in spirit, I think it is right. "The left and Libya" http://rolandoastarita.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/la-izqu...ibia/ and a reply to his critics http://rolandoastarita.wordpress.com/2011/03/ 10/critico...ibia /
Source: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/19004
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