| 
Recent Stories
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
Click Here for More
Stories.
Burn Your Sweatshop Clothes!
Buy Union Made Apparel!
|
March
25, 2003
What Democracy Looks Like
The Streets
of Cairo
By GARY LEUPP
“Show
me what democracy looks like!” begins a chant
often heard at recent U.S. antiwar demonstrations. “This is what
democracy looks like!” comes the reply. People in the streets,
marching, fired up with righteous rage, determination to stop the imperialist
juggernaut and faith in the possibility of a better world. This is what
we are now seeing, too, in the Arab world.
The neocons steering
the Bush administration have emphasized their intention to promote “freedom
and democracy” in the Arab world. Maybe they’re succeeding,
but not as they intend. Their criminal assault on Iraq is serendipitously
driving the Arab masses into political life, the genuine politics of
the street, heated debate, and the empowerment that grows out of confrontation
with power. Peaceful rallies meet with cordons of baton-wielding police,
tear gas, water cannons, bullets and mass arrests. The people respond
by directing their fury, not only at U.S. imperialism, but the pro-U.S.
governments that seek to deny them the democracy of street protest.
The democracy that might start to look like revolution.
The corporate media
has provided some minimal reportage on these demonstrations, which have
occurred throughout the Arab world, from Rabat and Casablanca to Beirut
and Amman. Rarely in citing the numbers do they note that in most parts
of the Arab world such demonstrations are illegal and that those who
participate are often putting their lives on the line; nor that the
U.S. government wants them to be illegal, and applies pressure on Arab
governments it subsidizes (notably Egypt) to continue to suppress anti-U.S.
dissent.
The biggest demonstrations
(aside from those in Baghdad) have taken place in Sana’a, Damascus,
Cairo, Khartoum, Casablanca, Rabat, Manama and Beirut. They’ve
occurred in countries aligned with the U.S., such as Egypt and Morocco,
and those dubbed “terror-sponsoring” by the U.S. (Syria,
Sudan). But the most significant, arguably, have taken place in Cairo.
This metropolis of 17 million is the cultural capital of the Arab world,
and the capital of Egypt, which dependent on $ 2 billion in U.S. aid
every year, is a classic case-study of a client state. What happens
in Cairo may determine whether the Arab antiwar movement will deal serious
blows to imperialism and its loyal (if often nervous) satraps, or succumb
to the fascist repression those satraps must deploy in order to retain
the good will of their masters.
Western “analysts”
in the service of imperialism, who are concerned with order and stability
rather than democracy, seem smugly assured that the satraps will prevail.
A senior Western diplomat with 20 years of Middle East experience told
Reuters, “I do not think [the demonstrations] could threaten the
regimes, because the security forces remain firmly in control, and are
behaving in a very controlled manner.” Recent events in Cairo
(and in Sfax, Sana’a and elsewhere) challenge that assessment.
Following the historic
international conference in the city December 18-19, sponsored by the
Popular Egyptian Campaign Against U.S. Aggression on Iraq (a gathering
that had been banned by the Mubarak regime), small demonstrations took
place in Cairo, meeting with brutal repression, but culminating in a
massive rally of about 140,000 in and around Cairo Stadium February
27. The latter event was permitted; those since have been met with repression.
On March 20, the day following the all-out assault on Iraq, about 500
(ranging from communists to members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood)
met in Tahrir Square. Police erected barricades to prevent other demonstrators
from joining them; and while the police swung at some heads, the protesters
broke through. The rally grew to 2000, as the crowd chanted their opposition
to the attack on Iraq but also the Egyptian leadership. “Down
with Arab leaders!” “Leave, leave Mubarak!” Thus began
a twelve-hour occupation of the square.
Later, according
to Nadia Abou el-Magd of the Associated Press, 1000 demonstrators, mostly
students from the American University in Cairo, hurled stones and metal
barricades against riot police as they attempted to march on the U.S.
embassy, protected by high cement walls. “We want the flag down,”
a 21 year old student told the press. “We don’t want America
here at all.” 150 broke away from the march to block traffic near
the Egyptian Museum, demanding revolution. They were bloodied and dispersed
by police. Some returned a second time to the U.S. embassy, meeting
police whom they pelted with stones. Meanwhile in Zagazig, 10,000 university
students protested the war, as did thousands of their peers nationwide,
from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south.
“Today's demonstration(s)
in Tahrir square, garden city, boulaq and downtown Cairo were wonderful,”
wrote a student named Amira on Thursday. “I heard many people
say they’re very ‘proud’ to be Egyptians and even
more proud that Cairo witnessed the strongest and most powerful demonstrations
against the war in the Arab world. Everyone who participated today deserves
to feel this way. Never in my life did I see that many demonstrators
in Tahrir, blocking the square, traffic and taking control. Despite
the violence of the riot police, I think we all experienced what we’re
capable of, which is a lot.”
Another wrote: “Many
I’ve met, young and old, had the same comment, coming from an
old song written by Salah Jahin, they told me, El Sharei Lena---the
street is ours. Even one young woman commented: ‘I never understood
what that meant, now I do.’ The street was ours, and were not
finished yet, the days ahead are crucial, we can make Tahrir Intifada
our own Seattle, and out of it comes a movement the can challenge those
rulers and there falling regimes.”
Our own Seattle!
I feel some rare stirring of pride in being American.
On Friday, the Cairo
protests continued. 5,000 students gathered at Al-Azhar University.
“Oh Arab army! Where are you?” they chanted, appealing to
Arab states to engage U.S. forces attacking Iraq. After prayers at Azhar
Mosque, 50,000 protesters clashed with police before proceeding to Tahrir
Square. It was sealed off, so they assembled it, facing tear gas, attack
dogs and fire engines used as water cannons, two of which, by one account,
were appropriated by the demonstrators and torched. Police and hired
thugs attacked; protestors told Middle East Times that 80 were arrested.
These included the international activist Nada Kassas. Hamdein el-Sabahi,
a member of parliament, was bloodied, a Nasserist Party member’s
arm was broken; he was arrested Sunday, presumably because of his involvement
in the demo. An al-Jazeera correspondent filming the police riot was
attacked and her camera and handbag stolen.
According to AP,
35 demonstrators and 8 police were injured. Meanwhile, police and agents
of Mabaheth Amn El-Dawla (State Security Investigation or SSI) raided
the offices of the Lawyers Syndicate, beating and arresting tens who
were hauled away in vans. (For photos, see http://www.alshaab.com/altahreer.htm
and http://www.alshaab.com/Azhar%20Entefada.htm)
On Saturday, according to the Saudi daily Arab News, “In Egypt…thousands
of students staged anti-war rallies at universities…amid tight
police security. But unlike the past two days, there were no initial
reports of violence or clashes with police.” CNN reported that
15,000 students demonstrated at four universities.
Of these events
Amira wrote, “But despite everything, most people I met are not
antagonized. They’re angry and they’re not willing to allow
the government to suppress the people that way. And for those who might
be intimidated by reading this---don't be. They can’t do this
every day and if we keep the momentum, we’ll win.”
Shoukran, brothers
and sisters in Cairo. The whole world is watching, hoping for your victory.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Yesterday's Features
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links / |