International Socialism #155 out now

The latest issue of International Socialism is out now, with analysis of the glorious general election of 2017 in Britain and also an interview with a French activist regarding 'the meaning of Macron'.  Other topics discussed include Podemos in Spain, the Russian Revolution at its centenary, and the state of the class struggle in Egypt and China - check out the full contents list anyway and consider subscribing if you do not currently... 

Middle East Solidarity Day School 2016

Middle East Solidarity Day School 2016

Speakers include: Omar Barghouti, Ala’a Shehabi, Sameh Naguib, Joseph Daher, Adam Hanieh, Muzna al-Na’ib, Anne Alexander and others

This dayschool will provide an essential guide for activists and trade unionists who want to understand more about how ordinary people across the Middle East continue to resist military intervention and dictatorship in their day-to-day struggles for justice and dignity. Join the debate with leading activists from Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria who offer analysis of the region which cuts through the picture of confusion and despair in the mainstream media. We will also hear hidden stories of courage and resilience which continue to inspire, five years after the revolutions which shook the region and beyond.

Sessions on:

• Palestine and the struggle for justice
• Counter-revolution, military intervention and crisis in Syria
• Egypt: strategies for resistance
• Sectarian polarisation in the Gulf

Djam Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG

£5 unwaged / £10 waged
Organised by Middle East Solidarity magazine with support from SOAS Unison, Egypt Solidarity Initiative, MENA Solidarity and Bahrain Watch

Conference: The Arab Uprisings Four Years On

The Arab Uprisings Four Years On
A conference organised by MENA Solidarity, Egypt Solidarity Initiative and BahrainWatch
6-9pm Friday 13 February – 10-5pm Saturday 14 February
School of African & Oriental Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG 
£5 student or unwaged / £10 waged

Four years after uprisings swept the Middle East millions of people still struggle for freedom and social justice. In 2011 dictators fell and new movements emerged in countries from North Africa to the Gulf. Their demands won support worldwide and inspired a host of campaigns for radical change.

Challenged by the prospect of democracy, regimes have since attempted counter-revolution. Some have used extreme violence; some have encouraged sectarian division or attempted to co-opt and control organisations of the mass movement. Activists across the Middle East nonetheless continue to work for change.

This conference addresses achievements of the revolutions and the challenges that now confront them:

• what can we learn about struggles from below and the responses of the state?
• have attempts at counter-revolution been successful?
• how are activist networks sustained – and how can we support them?

The conference will draw on experiences in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Morocco – and other countries in which activists have attempted to launch movements for change. It will consider the centrality of Palestine for movements across the region – and the impact of the uprisings within Palestine. Speakers will include activists from the front line, with assessments from academics, human rights experts and media analysts.

Speakers include: Ali Abdulemam – Gilbert Achcar – Anne Alexander – Miriyam Aouragh – Joseph Daher – Kamil Mahdi – Nadine Marroushi – Sameh Naguib – Ala’a Shehabi and others.

Sessions include:

• Revolution and counter-revolution: the people and the state
• Neo-liberalism and struggles for change
• Sectarianism
• Gender matters: women and the movements
• The workers’ movement and social justice
• Democratic agendas
• Solidarity and regional links
• Palestine and the struggle for liberation in the Arab world

New Book: Bread, Freedom, Social Justice

Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers and the Egyptian Revolution

By Anne Alexander and Mostafa Bassiouny

Published on 9 October by Zed books.

Accounts of the Arab Spring often focus on the role of youth coalitions, the use of social media, and the tactics of the Tahrir Square occupation. This authoritative and original book argues that collective action by organised workers played a fundamental role in the Egyptian revolution, which erupted after years of strikes and social protests. 
Drawing on the authors' decade-long experience of reporting on and researching the Egyptian labour movement, the book provides the first in-depth account of the emergence of independent trade unions and workers' militancy during Mubarak's last years in power, and and their destabilising impact on the post-revolutionary regimes.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From the Republic of Tahrir to the Republic of Fear? Theorising revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt 2011-2014
1.From Nasserism to Neoliberalism: a new amalgam of state and private capital
2.The changing structure of the Egyptian working class in the neoliberal era
3.Strikes, protests and the development of a revolutionary crisis
4. Organisation in the workplace before the revolution: the Nasserist model in crisis
5. From strike committee to independent union
6.The revolution’s social soul: workers and the January Revolution
7. Workers’ organisations since the revolution
8.The crisis of representation: workers and elections
9. Tathir: the struggle to cleanse the state
Conclusion: Beyond ‘the Republic of Dreams’: revolutionary organisation, democracy and the question of the state

Book Launch: 28 October @ Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Russell Square, WC1HOXG

With Gilbert Achcar, Alain Gresh, Mostafa Bassiouny and Anne Alexander

There will be a collection held at this book launch for Bassem Chit, the Lebanese revolutionary socialist who tragically passed away a few days ago.  This is from one of Chit's last articles, How did the sectarian nightmare come true in Iraq and Syria?, discussing the likely consequences of Obama and Cameron's new war:

The US is on the defensive and trying to protect its own interests in Iraq. An intervention will inflame the situation and prolong the conflict.  The Islamic State exists because of a lack of revolutionary politics. A movement from below which fends off the regime and fills the vacuum the Islamic State is currently filling could win people away from it. You can point to Isis as being part of the counter-revolutionary forces which criminalise revolution. The line of struggle against both the regime and against these reactionaries becomes clearer. But when imperialists intervene it gives structures like Isis more favourable conditions.It galvanises regional rivalries which allows the further spreading of factional conflicts. This fragments the masses and besieges the working class in a war-driven economy. And it limits the possibility of building political movements and mass mobilisations which offer the only real alternative against these sectarian forces.

Egypt Solidarity Initiative

Egypt Solidarity Initiative is an important international iniative against state repression in Egypt - they have a workshop on revolution, resistance and repression in London tomorrow.

Solidarity with Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt: Freedom for Haitham Mohamedain

We condemn the arrest and detention of Haitham Mohamedain by the Egyptian army on 5th September in Suez. Haitham is a well known labour lawyer and revolutionary activist who has represented hundreds of workers arrested on picket lines or facing court hearings as a result of victimisation by their bosses or assaults by the police. 
Just two weeks ago he was in Suez defending steel workers whose strike for higher wages was broken up by the Army. As a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialists, Haitham has also been one of only a small number of revolutionary activists prepared to publicly condemn the brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by the Army in recent weeks, including the killing of hundreds of protesters on 14th August. 
We call for Haitham’s immediate release and the withdrawal of any charges against him.
 Add your name to this solidarity statement and read more about the case here

Edited to add: Protest works -  Haitham has been released!

Statement from the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists on the Cairo massacre

Down with military rule! Down with Al-Sisi, the leader of the counter-revolution!

The bloody dissolution of the sit-ins in Al-Nahda Square and Raba'a al-Adawiyya is nothing but a massacre—prepared in advance. It aims to liquidate the Muslim Brotherhood. But, it is also part of a plan to liquidate the Egyptian Revolution and restore the military-police state of the Mubarak regime.

The Revolutionary Socialists did not defend the regime of Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood for a single day. We were always in the front ranks of the opposition to that criminal, failed regime which betrayed the goals of the Egyptian Revolution. It even protected the pillars of the Mubarak regime and its security apparatus, armed forces and corrupt businessmen. We strongly participated in the revolutionary wave of 30 June.

Neither did we defend for a single day the sit-ins by the Brotherhood and their attempts to return Mursi to power. But we have to put the events of today in their context, which is the use of the military to smash up workers' strikes. We also see the appointment of new provincial governors—largely drawn from the ranks of the remnants of the old regime, the police and military generals. Then there are the policies of General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi's government. It has adopted a road-map clearly hostile to the goals and demands of the Egyptian revolution, which are freedom, dignity and social justice.

This is the context for the brutal massacre which the army and police are committing. It is a bloody dress rehearsal for the liquidation of the Egyptian Revolution. It aims to break the revolutionary will of all Egyptians who are claiming their rights, whether workers, poor, or revolutionary youth, by creating a state of terror.

However, the reaction by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in attacking Christians and their churches, is a sectarian crime which only serves the forces of counter-revolution. The filthy attempt to create a civil war, in which Egyptian Christians will fall victims to the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood, is one in which Mubarak's state and Al-Sisi are complicit, who have never for a single day defended the Copts and their churches.

We stand firmly against Al-Sisi's massacres, and against his ugly attempt to abort the Egyptian Revolution. For today's massacre is the first step in the road towards counter-revolution. We stand with the same firmness against all assaults on Egypt's Christians and against the sectarian campaign which only serves the interests of Al-Sisi and his bloody project.

Many who described themselves as liberals and leftists have betrayed the Egyptian Revolution, led by those who took part in Al-Sisi's government. They have sold the blood of the martyrs to whitewash the military and the counter-revolution. These people have blood on their hands.

We, the Revolutionary Socialists, will never deviate for an instant from the path of the Egyptian Revolution. We will never compromise on the rights of the revolutionary martyrs and their pure blood: those who fell confronting Mubarak, those who fell confronting the Military Council, those who fell confronting Mursi's regime, and those who fall now confronting Al-Sisi and his dogs.

Down with military rule! No the return of the old regime! No to the return of the Brotherhood! All power and wealth to the people

The Revolutionary Socialists 14 August 2013

Edited to add: A link to the MENA Solidarity Network website, which is useful for updates etc

Sameh Naguib on Egypt's second revolution

We have just removed the second president in only 30 months. It is a second revolution, a mass movement of millions. The scale of the mobilisations is unprecedented.  On the ground people have gained huge confidence in their ability to change history.

This is a contradictory situation. It is formally a military coup. The army has effectively arrested the president and 77 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.  They intervened to save themselves from a new revolution.

But at the same time it is a mass popular revolt. The people forced the army to act, and the army only did so because they were worried about their own future. 

This is the second time they have done so. They are running out of choices. If Morsi was a failure then the bourgeois alternatives, such as Mohamed El Baradei, are weak.

This is not the end of democracy, nor a simple military coup. Revolution is actually an extremely democratic process. Simply voting every few years is a joke compared to this. The army is trying to cut this process off.

Major strikes were planned for tomorrow, Thursday. Bus and train workers, cement workers and Suez canal workers were all due to walk out. The protests could have developed into a general strike—the vast majority of the protesters are working class.

It’s not over...
 Read the full article by Naguib - a member of the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt - here.  Naguib is meant to be speaking at Marxism 2013, and while this would be an amazing privilege for those of us in the UK, I guess the way things are going in Egypt who can say whether this will actually happen now.  To paraphrase Lenin in The State and Revolution (a highly relevant book today given the military coup),  ''it is more pleasant and useful to go through the "experience of revolution" than to go and give speeches about it elsewhere'', and am sure Naguib is feeling the same way...

Edited to add: Four Days that Shook the World - another piece by Naguib

Victory to the Egyptian Revolution

 A Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt:
Today, Sunday 30 June, comes as the third thunderous wave of the great January Revolution. Then millions of Egyptians came out demanding bread, freedom, social justice and human dignity in order to overthrow the regime of tyranny and exploitation.
Thousands of martyrs and wounded paid a price in blood for the victory of the revolution which threw down the head of the regime and his cronies.
After a year of rule by the Muslim Brotherhood, we find they have chosen to walk the same path: they are against the people and with the bosses.
They have substituted Muslim Brotherhood billionaire Khairat al-Shater for the old regime's business leader Ahmed Ezz and are seeking reconciliation with those who have pillaged Egypt for 30 years.
We have seen them go begging to the International Monetary Fund and the countries of the world. We have heard the lies of the Brotherhood's “Renaissance Project” electoral programme and seen them fall into the arms of the US and “our friend” Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Dozens of martyrs and injured have fallen at the hands of the Brotherhood. This is a failed regime, headed by a lying president who even breaks promises to his Salafist allies.
The people have decreed the downfall of this failed regime. They have withdrawn their confidence because it has betrayed the goals of the revolution, working instead for the benefit of the Brotherhood itself.
But we must learn the lessons of January.
The biggest mistake we made was to leave the streets with nothing more than promises from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which made a deal under American auspices to deliver the country to the Brotherhood in return for a safe exit for its leaders who would not be held to account.
Today we will not leave the streets until we have achieved our demands:

• The overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood’s failed regime and the withdrawal of confidence from its president Mohamed Mursi
• The formation of a revolutionary government to manage the transitional period, the first of whose priorities will be the issue of social justice and security
• The head of the revolutionary government shall be barred from candidacy in early presidential elections

After our great revolution, Egypt deserves revolutionary democracy, in order to achieve freedom, social justice and national dignity. Egyptians cannot remain forever trapped between two failed alternatives, the Brotherhood or the military whether of Mubarak or Field Marshall Tantawi.
The Revolutionary Socialists will come out with the masses and the revolutionaries in the third wave of the revolution, after the first two waves overthrew Mubarak and the Military Council, in order to get rid of this third version of the regime of tyranny and exploitation.
We call on all revolutionaries in Egypt to unite behind the goals of the January Revolution.
We call on all Egyptians who work for a wage to join a general strike in order to win the battle against the regime of tyranny and exploitation, just as strikes won our battle against Mubarak on 9 and 10 February 2011.
Glory to the martyrs – Victory to the Revolution – Shame on the murderers
All power and wealth to the people!

International Socialism # 137

Internationalism seems to be the theme of the new ISJ (full contents here), with Phil Marfleet writing on the latest stages of the Egyptian Revolution, an interview with Pete Alexander about the Marikana massacre of mineworkers in the new neo-liberal ANC led South Africa, Mike Gonzalez on politics in Latin America which once again hang in the balance given Chavez's illness, as well as other pieces including Jane Hardy on 'new divisions of labour in the global economy. There are also other treats, including Alex Callinicos's review of Neil Davidson's epic work on bourgeois revolution, a piece on how the German Left failed to stop the rise of Hitler's Nazis to power 80 years ago this month, as well as Ian Birchall on Ed Miliband's new hero, the 'One Nation' Tory Benjamin Disraeli.

Statement by the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists

You shall not pass your constitution  
The Revolutionary Socialists 4 December 2012

Continuing with policies of ignorance and stubbornness, Mohamed Morsi announced that the Constitutional Referendum will be held in less than ten days. This response to the million-strong marches which have filled the squares recalls the policies of the deposed dictator Mubarak towards the political and social movement. It appears that Morsi, who scraped an electoral victory by a mere 1 percent, is counting on the power of his organisation and the mobilisation of the Islamist forces who demonstrated in Nahdet Misr Square last Saturday. But the lessons of history show that no ruler can withstand the movement of the masses, so long as they have decided to continue to defend the gains of their revolution, and have not yet lost hope in completing more of its goals.

It seems that the severe economic crisis which the capitalist class is experiencing, combined with the efforts of Morsi and his group to win a large majority in the forthcoming parliamentary elections through the votes of the Salafists (who are behind his recent brinksmanship), has led to a polarization along a secular/religious axis, rather than pitting the poor and oppressed against the bosses, whether they are Islamists on the one hand, or liberals and old regime elements on the other.

We swear on the lives of the martyrs who shed their blood in the revolutionary squares that you will not be able to pass this constitution, which was cooked up overnight in order to antagonise the popular classes. A constitution which doesn’t specify social and economic rights, defends the detention of journalists, reopens the door to military trials of civilians, protects the interests of the military establishment, and is dedicated to the marginalization of Egypt’s oppressed women and Christians.

It is certain that the masses will not be fooled by the claims that this constitution must be passed quickly in order to restore “stability”, particularly since the document coincides with the decision of Hisham Qandil’s government to raise electricity prices as part of a plan to liberalize the price of services, complying with the demands of the International Monetary Fund. All of this takes place with the blessing of the USA and confirms the treacherous role Qandil played in securing the truce in Gaza.

However, our rejection of Morsi’s policies will never lead us to agree with the sleight of hand now being accomplished with the formation of the National Salvation Front, which has seen Hamdeen Sabahi standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Amr Moussa, and Mohamed elBaradei alongside Sayyed el-Badawi, who did not hesitate to meet the American Ambassador in Cairo. In spite of all this, the meetings of the Front are continuing as if nothing had happened.

We call for the formation of a revolutionary front, free of the remnants of the old regime, to continue the struggle to complete the aims of the revolution to win bread, freedom and social justice.

We pledge to fight for:
the rejection of the draft constitution and the re-election of a constituent assembly which is representative of society, the minorities and the oppressed.
 the overthrow of the dictatorial Constitutional Declaration
the overthrow of Hisham Qandil’s government and the formation of a revolutionary government
a minimum wage of at least 1500 pounds a month, the imposition of a maximum wage, permanent contracts for temporary workers, an end to privatisation and the nationalisation of the monopolistic companies
complete withdrawal from the agreement with the International Monetary Fund

Glory to the martyrs – power and wealth to the people

Egyptian Presidential election - statement by Revolutionary Socialists

Fight to organise the popular forces against the slaveowners' revolt! Edited to add: John Molyneux on the Greek and Egyptian elections

The Egyptian Revolution One Year On

Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy, who is speaking at Marxism 2012
See the live blogs from Tahrir Square here and here - long live the Egyptian Revolution!

Edited to add: For some of the solidarity rallies that took place in Britain, see here while there is a meeting in London with Gigi Ibrahim, an Egyptian Revolutionary Socialist who has, among other things debated the Egyptian Revolution with Henry Kissinger on Newsnight, on Wednesday 1 February

Protest at the crackdown in Egypt

The Egyptian army and police have sent thugs using clubs and an armoured car to smash up the camp of martyrs’ families and their supporters in Tahrir Square -   please send urgent messages of solidarity and protest - victory to the Egyptian and Syrian revolutions!

Solidarity with Egypt's revolutionary journalists

Sign this statement - solidarity with Hossam el-Hamalawy and Reem Maged

International Socialism #130

The new issue of International Socialism leads with Alex Callinicos on 'The return of the Arab Revolution' with features on Tunisia and Egypt, but seems to have gone to press before the Libyan Revolution was hijacked by Western imperialism. Speaking of Libya, it seems Tony Blair has answered the question vexing some about whether the war in Libya can be seen as a 'humanitarian intervention' or not. As Blair told Danish TV,

'The thing about Libya is that potentially it is a goldmine of a country – it has got fantastic financial resources, it has got amazing tourist sites...If it opened up its economy and opened up its society and takes that route of reform once they change government, then Libya will be a phenomenally successful country but we need to be there to partner them to do that.'

Blair did however warn that some anti-Gaddafi rebels may not be totally happy about seeing their oil and natural resources asset stripped by neo-liberalism to boost the profit margins of Western multinational capital if they are victorious.

‘I know quite a lot about what makes up the different compositions of the rebel groups – some will be people we would want fully to support, others would have a somewhat different view as to how Libya develops’


Ah, the difficulties of find local allies when waging neo-colonial warfare. Still, I suppose we should be grateful to Blair for being honest for once about what this latest imperialist adventure is all about. Anyway, back to International Socialism journal - which among other things has a detailed analysis of social media and social movements by Jonny Jones, the British student movement, John Riddell on the United Front, and pieces on 'The Tories, Eton and public schools' and 'The London Crowd, 1760-2010' by Dave Renton and Keith Flett respectively, members of the London Socialist Historians Group.

Incidentally, speaking of the London Crowd, it made a glorious return to the streets on March 26th at the TUC demo a couple of weeks ago. I am sorry not to have got round to blogging about that day - but it was a truly great demonstration which was a fantastic response to the myth that the organised working class movement in Britain is somehow defeated and can never rise again. My personal highlight was talking to a Tunisian socialist who had come down from Newcastle with a homemade banner which declared 'It all started with us!'

The American Marxist Christopher Phelps, now based in the UK, despaired of the way the media coverage was hijacked by 'a few hundred anarchists, many dressed in black, [who] trashed businesses and clashed with police on Oxford Street and in Trafalgar Square. The anarchists, calling themselves the black bloc, stole the headlines from the 500,000 other protesters who'd travelled from all over the UK to express the refusal of millions to accept austerity as the consequence of a crisis they did not create.' I sympathise with his despair at the way the media focussed their attention on 'a tiny violent minority', but I think that his critique of anarchists is a little on the 'vulgar Marxist' side. When I popped down to Trafalgar Square, what I saw was basically just young people trying to occupy/liberate Trafalgar Square because they were inspired by the events in Egypt's Tahrir Square. They may have thought their actions alone could help bring about revolutionary change - yet the banner I saw that summed up what I guess most of these school and college students were thinking was 'Give Us Back Our Future You Bastards' - a reference to the grotesquely high levels of youth unemployment currently in the UK and the commodification of higher education by the Con-Dems through tuition fees. If Marxists join with the Tories, Liberals, Labour leaders and the trade union bureaucracy in attacking the 'violence' of anarchists instead of the violence of the state (why doesn't Ed Miliband stop supporting the Con-Dem government casually lobbing £30,000 pound cruise missiles into Libya if he is so concerned about violence?), then Marxism is hardly going to be taken seriously as a revolutionary theory by such young kids.

The arguments about Marxism and autonomism and anarchism are not going to go away anytime soon - but the more pressing question is what next after March 26th? How can we bring down the Con-Dem Government? As my good friend Paddington - who I sadly failed to meet up with on the march itself as it was so huge - noted:

A march or demonstration that is reasonably well-attended can lull you into a false sense of security. I’ve been on plenty which, however well-organised, have hardly set the world on fire and, surrounded by people with the same unshakeable faith, I have come away feeling ever so slightly complacent. We came, we protested, we conquered, we went home with a fuzzy glow.

The fact that Saturday’s march against the Coalition’s cuts was so well-attended – and for half a million people to travel the length and breadth of the country in order to walk uncomfortably slowly in the drizzle is a really extraordinary thing – means such complacency is impossible. I did not go home with a fuzzy glow (though two and a half pints in the Shakespeare at Victoria afterwards did give me a fuzzy head). In fact, we stayed up until late worrying and deliberating about where this protest should go next – such is the massive opposition to the cuts, a general strike is an absolute minimum.

But any such conversation inevitably proceeds from opposing the cuts to opposing the whole structural framework of society. A long and sorry saga tells of how the global economy got into this current mess, but while the politicians and business people still desperately cry “business as usual,” I really think that most people who were marching on Saturday – and many people across the country and the world who did not march – were marching for a new society.

The size and energy and spirit of optimism and unity on the demonstration certainly raised the question 'who governs?' - and a general strike would indeed pose such a question directly. Agitating for such co-ordinated strike action by trade unions in the coming days, weeks and months ahead in the face of the cuts is critical - even while socialists should seize on any other sparks of resistance and manifestations of dissent going in order to try and stop the cuts going through in the meantime. Finally, when it comes to debating what a new society would look like and how to get to it, one of the very best places to have such a debate is among 'the London Crowd' that will be gathered at Marxism 2011 from 30 June - 4 July.

Lessons of Egypt for Iran

Lessons of Egypt for Iran: A Socialist Worker Forum

07 April · 18:00
School Of Oriental and African Studies, Lecture Hall G2
Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG

In January 2011 the Egyptian people took to the streets and in just 18
days successfully overthrew the dictator, Hosni Mubarak. In June 2009
a movement for change rocked the Iranian regime but failed ultimately
to remove the leadership. We ask what can Iran learn from Egypt and
how can the movement move forward from here?

With speakers:
Ali Alizadeh - Philosophy lecturer at Middlesex University and a Green
Movement activist
Alex Callinicos - Author of Imperialism & Global Political Economy and Bonfire of Illusions
An Egyptian speaker

Solidarity with Middle East and North African workers network

Following the meeting on Tuesday attended by Billy Hayes, Katy Clark MP and many trade unionists, this group has set up a website. This will have regular reports of workers' activity, and it also has six suggestions for solidarity and the founding statement of the group.

Springtime of the Arab Peoples

The refusal of the people to kiss or ignore the rod that has chastised them for so many decades has opened a new chapter in the history of the Arab nation. The absurd, if much vaunted, neocon notion that Arabs or Muslims were hostile to democracy has disappeared like parchment in fire.

...If there is a comparison to be made with Europe it is 1848, when the revolutionary upheavals left only Britain and Spain untouched – even though Queen Victoria, thinking of the Chartists, feared otherwise. Writing to her besieged nephew on the Belgian throne, she expressing sympathy but wondered whether "we will all be slain in our beds". Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown or bejewelled headgear, and has billions stored in foreign banks.

Like Europeans in 1848 the Arab people are fighting against foreign domination (82% of Egyptians, a recent opinion poll revealed, have a "negative view of the US"); against the violation of their democratic rights; against an elite blinded by its own illegitimate wealth – and in favour of economic justice. This is different from the first wave of Arab nationalism, which was concerned principally with driving the remnants of the British empire out of the region...

Tariq Ali: This is an Arab 1848

"The workers... battle-cry must be: 'The Permanent Revolution."
Karl Marx after the 1848 Revolutions

Edited to add:
Tuesday 1 March: Solidarity with workers in Middle East and North Africa: 7pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. (Holborn tube) With Billy Hayes, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Katy Clark MP, Wassim Wagdy and others.

Wednesday 2 March: Stop the War Coalition Public Meeting: Where Now for the Egyptian Revolution? Where Now for the Middle East? 7pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square London WC1R 4RL

Day School:Revolution in the 21st century

Revolution in the 21st Century
A one day special event hosted by the SWP
Sunday 13 March
11am – 4pm
@The Camden Centre, Judd St, London, WC1H 9LZ

Nearest tubes: King’s Cross and Euston
£10 waged, £5 unwaged
Please book your place today.

From Tunisia to Egypt, Libya to Bahrain mass revolts and revolutions are sweeping the Middle East. They are shattering the idea that ordinary people can’t change the world and threatening the hold of imperialism. After decades of dictatorship mass mobilisations and strikes have brought down tyrants. Who says revolution is impossible in the 21st Century!

The unfolding events raise many questions as well as offering inspirational lessons. How can the revolutionary process continue and deepen? Many people in those countries are now pushing for further change. As well as bringing down tyrants is it possible to completely transform society? And the impact is being felt far beyond the Middle East. In a time of revolution how can Marxist ideas help explain the world as well as offering a way forward.

This special one day event aims to enable discussion and debate regarding these momentous events, as well as providing analysis and a chance to discuss revolutionary theory.

Speakers will include:

Eyewitnesses and revolutionaries from Tunisia and Egypt plus
Alex Callinicos author of The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
Judith Orr, editor of Socialist Worker and eyewitness to the Egyptian Revolution, recently returned from Tahrir Square
Workshops will include:

Permanent Revolution
Palestine
Imperialism and the Middle East
Plus more . . .

Organised in association with Marxism 2011