The Battle of Tahrir Square

January 31st – A Mubarak graffiti – Photo: RamyRaoofThis
pogrom was presented to world public opinion as a spontaneous response
by ordinary citizens who have had enough of the disorder. It was
described in the media as a clash between two rival political movements.
On both sides tens of thousands of young men fought, and both sides
sang the national anthem and waved Egyptian flags. It was described as
“chaos” and a “battle of Egyptians with Egyptians”.

But there was a fundamental difference. On the one side stand the
representatives of the workers and youth, of the democrats and
progressive intelligentsia, that is, of all the living forces of Egypt.
On the other side of the barricades stand the representatives of a
reactionary and corrupt regime, the oligarchy and the bureaucracy, the
gangsters and torturers. One side is fighting for the future, hope and
freedom. The other side is fighting to defend a shameful and barbaric
past.

The “dangerous class”

January 29th – Police live ammunition confiscated by protesters – Photo: 3arabwyThere
was nothing spontaneous about this vicious and bloody encounter. It was
highly organised and well planned, a final desperate effort to prop up
the Mubarak dictatorship. Huge posters of Mubarak were distributed by
officers of the National Democratic Party and held in the air by men
carrying cudgels and police batons. The indiscriminate use of tear gas
by the latter was further proof (if any were needed) that these
pro-government “demonstrators” were in fact policemen out of uniform.

Of course, the police did not act alone. They emptied the prisons of
common criminals, who they armed and organised, and they used their
contacts in the criminal underworld to mobilise thousands of other young
men from the slums of Cairo to do the fighting for them. These are the
lumpenproletariat, the “dark forces” of which Marx and Engels wrote in
the Communist Manifesto:

“The ‘dangerous class’, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum,
that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old
society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a
proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far
more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.”

That is exactly what we are seeing on the streets of Cairo. Fisk bears witness to this:

“The problem is that the Mubarak men included some of the very same
thugs I saw then, when they were working with armed security police to
baton and assault the demonstrators. One of them, a yellow-shirted youth
with tousled hair and bright red eyes – I don’t know what he was on –
carried the very same wicked steel stick he had been using on Friday.
Once more, the defenders of Mubarak were back. They even sang the same
old refrain – constantly reworked to take account of the local
dictator’s name – ‘With our blood, with our soul, we dedicate ourselves
to you’."

This brutal attack was Hosni Mubarak’s real reply to the demand of
the Egyptian people for democracy. An army of thugs recruited from the
jails and slums and bussed into the capital from every part of Egypt
descended on the capital. Here was a motley coalition of the most
ignorant, venal and retrograde elements in society. The men on horseback
and camels who galloped into the Square were, it seems, recruited from
the wretches who earn a living hiring their animals to tourists near the
pyramids.

Fisk writes: “As far away as Giza, the NDP had rounded up the men who
controlled voting at elections and sent them hollering their support as
they marched along a stinking drainage ditch. Not far away, even a
camel-owner was enjoined to say that ‘if you don’t know Mubarak, you
don’t know Allah’ – which was, to put it mildly, a bit much.”

Armed with cudgels, iron bars, knives, rocks and Molotov cocktails
they attempted to storm the Square. The counter-revolutionaries appeared
on the roofs of neighbouring apartments from where they threw slabs of
concrete and Molotov cocktails on people below.

By the end of the day there were reports of five deaths in Cairo. In the end there will be many more.

The army

January 31st – Graffiti on tank: "The will of the Egyptian people is above you Mubarak" – Photo: 3arabawyMany
are asking: what of the army? The army encouraged the protesters by
calling their demands legitimate and promising not to fire on them. But
it has remained inactive when they have been attacked. In other words
the army has acted in collusion with the counter-revolutionaries. They
opened the barriers to allow the thugs free entry into the Square, then
sat back and did nothing.

Hundreds of those protesting in the square wore bandages and other
signs of being hurt, while the army looked on. Robert Fisk writes: “The
Egyptian Third Army, famous in legend and song for crossing the Suez
Canal in 1973, couldn’t – or wouldn’t – even cross Tahrir Square to help
the wounded.” Such treacherous “neutrality” amounts to support for the
counter-revolutionaries.

Mohamed al-Samadi, a doctor who had been treating people complained
the troops were not helping. "When we come here, they search us for
weapons, and then they let armed thugs come and attack us," he said. But
he remained defiant: "We refuse to go. We can’t let Mubarak stay eight
months."

Many observers have found this conduct of the army strange. But there
is nothing strange about it. Lenin long ago explained that the state is
armed bodies of men in defence of property.

January 29th – Demonstrators climb upon tanks in Tahrir square – Photo: 3arabwyIt
is very likely that there are divisions within the army. The top
generals have a vested interest in preserving the status quo. They are
an integral part of the regime and have got their share of the loot. The
ordinary soldiers will be under the pressure of the masses but are also
subject to army discipline. The middle layers of the officers will be
divided: some more inclined to the status quo, but others sympathetic to
the protesters.

The majority of the troops are bewildered and do not understand what
is happening. Fisk cites the following incident: “And there was the
soldier on an armoured personnel carrier who let the stones of both
sides fly past him until he jumped on to the road among Mubarak’s
enemies, putting his arms around them, tears coursing down his face”.

January 29th – Tahrir square – Photo: 3arabwyIn
launching a counter-offensive, Mubarak is pursuing a very risky
strategy. Undoubtedly he is being encouraged to stand firm by the Saudis
and other reactionary Arab regimes, terrified of “contagion” from a
successful revolution in Egypt. But these actions will put the Egyptian
army under unbearable pressure. How far the inner cohesion of the army
can resist these pressures is an open question.

The strategy of the counter-revolution

The result is a complicated equation that can only be resolved by the
struggle of living forces. That is why the battle for possession of
Tahrir Square was so important. If the counter-revolutionary forces had
prevailed, it would have marked a turning point in the whole process.
Victory for the counter-revolutionaries would have had a demoralising
effect because of the symbolic importance of the Square.

Egyptian Vice-President Omar Suleiman on Wednesday urged the
demonstrators in Tahrir Square to “leave and observe a curfew to restore
calm”. He said the start of dialogue with the reformists and opposition
depended on an end to street protests. But once the masses are off the
streets the regime will be in no hurry to talk to anyone.

Once the revolutionaries have lost the initiative, it would be
relatively easy to suffocate revolutionary trends in the army and
restore discipline. The next step would have been to clear the streets
of the capital inch by inch, one by one, driving the Revolution back.
“Order” would be restored. The shops and banks would reopen on Sunday,
giving an impression of “business as usual”. Gradually, the momentum of
the movement would be lost and people would sink back into the daily
routine.

The police would reappear on the streets and arrests would be made.
They would include a few criminal elements but would be overwhelmingly
anti-Mubarak supporters, starting with the key activists. This would
serve to terrorise the “moderate opposition”, who would be forced to
accept whatever minor crumbs the regime offered them or go into exile.
Mubarak would remain in his palace. The counter-revolution would be in
the saddle. But all these plans have been upset by the bravery and
determination of the rebels.

Taken by surprise and initially outnumbered by the
counter-revolutionaries, they fought back. The army allowed Mubarak’s men
to enter the Square (it was clearly pre-arranged). They started to
throw stones and attack the protesters. But the latter refused to be
intimidated and began breaking stones to hurl them back.

Bravery of revolutionaries

February 2nd – Demonstrators Guarding an Entrance to Tahrir Square – Photo: RamyRaoofAs
the news spread thousands of Egyptians came to the Square. As Fisk
writes, they “swarmed towards each other like Roman fighters, they
simply overwhelmed the parachute units ‘guarding’ the square, climbing
over their tanks and armoured vehicles and then using them for cover.”

Mubarak’s supporters almost crossed the entire square but in the end
were driven out by the courage of the rebels. Robert Fisk was with
Mubarak’s supporters as they charged into Tahrir Square and provides a
very graphic image of what happened:

“The sky was filled with rocks – I am talking of stones six inches in
diameter, which hit the ground like mortar shells. On this side of the
‘line’, of course, they were coming from Mubarak’s opponents. They
cracked and split apart and spat against the walls around us. At which
point, the NDP men turned and ran in panic as the President’s opponents
surged forward. I just stood with my back against the window of a closed
travel agency – I do remember a poster for a romantic weekend in Luxor
and ‘the fabled valley of the tombs’.

“[…] Of course, it would be an exaggeration to say that stones
cloaked the sky, but at times there were a hundred rocks soaring through
the sky. They wrecked an entire army truck, smashing its sides,
crushing its windows. The stones came out of side roads off Champollion
Street and on Talaat Harb. The men were sweating, headbands in red,
roaring their hatred. Many held white cloth to wounds. Some were carried
past me, sloshing blood all over the road.”

Fisk continues:

“I saw young women in scarves and long skirts on their knees,
breaking up the paving stones as rocks fell around them – fought back
with an immense courage which later turned into a kind of terrible
cruelty.

“Some dragged Mubarak’s security men across the square, beating them
until blood broke from their heads and splashed down their clothes.”

February 1st – A burnt down police van, turned into a garbage dumb, with a banner: "NDP Headquarters" – Photo: 3arabwyWhat
do you expect? When unarmed men and women are subjected to a violent
assault, are they not entitled to defend themselves by violent means?
The right to self defence is universally recognised in every civilised
nation. And if subsequently they took revenge on the paid thugs who
showed no mercy on old people, women and children, we see nothing
reprehensible in that. These monsters got what they deserved. Under the
circumstances they got off lightly.

The Egyptian revolutionaries acquitted themselves well yesterday.
They withstood the initial onslaught and fought back, bravely pushing
back the enemy all along the line. They finally won the Battle of Tahrir
Square. But there was a heavy price to pay. Five are reported dead in
Cairo and 1,500 injured, but nobody knows the true figures. And though
the revolutionary people have won an important battle, the central
question – the question of power – remains unresolved.

Hypocrisy about “violence”

The Egyptian Revolution has thrown western governments into
confusion. They did not expect these events and do not know how to
react. The latest trick is to “deplore violence” and call on all parties
to “show restraint”. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, said if the
regime sponsored violence, “that is completely unacceptable”. Similar
comments have come from Washington and London: “if the regime is responsible”, “if it can be shown that the government has organised the attacks” or “if it has done nothing to prevent it”. And so on and so forth.

Everybody knows who was behind the bloody assault on peaceful and
unarmed demonstrators. Yet Obama, Cameron and Ban Ki-moon put on a
hypocritical act, pretending they do not know who is responsible. They
place the victim on the same level as the assailant. And even if the
government of Egypt is found to be responsible, what do you propose to
do? The answer is clear: nothing at all.

Robert Gibbs, Obama’s spokesman, said on Wednesday: “If any of the
violence is instigated by the government it should stop immediately.” He
urged “restraint on all sides”. This is hypocrisy at its most
repulsive. Until yesterday the movement in Egypt was entirely peaceful.
The masses who gathered in Tahrir Square have acted in an orderly and
disciplined manner. They protected the treasures of the National Museum
from looters. They directed the traffic. They have even cleared litter
from the streets.

Yesterday these peaceful demonstrators were viciously attacked by
armed thugs, organised and directed by Mubarak’s secret police. This
vicious attack was entirely unprovoked. Imagine the following scenario: a
vicious bandit who is armed to the teeth attacks an unarmed man in the
street and tries to kill him. The victim of the unprovoked attack tries
to defend himself by kicking and punching. Then a policeman appears and
does nothing to stop the attack but issues a stern lecture advising both
unarmed victim and armed assailant to “show restraint”. What would we
say of such behaviour?

The violence is making life increasingly difficult for Mubarak’s
former friends internationally and among those Egyptians who had
accepted his pledge to step down in September. Along with the United
States, France, Germany and Britain have also urged a speedy transition.
Their minds have been concentrated by the international effects of the
events in Egypt – both economically and politically.

Oil prices have climbed on fears the unrest could spread to other
authoritarian Arab states including oil giant Saudi Arabia or interfere
with oil supplies from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through the Suez
Canal. Brent crude surpassed $103 a barrel on Thursday.

Meanwhile the revolutionary tide is flowing in all directions. On
Thursday, thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the Yemeni
capital Sanaa demanding a change in government and saying President Ali
Abdullah Saleh’s offer on Wednesday to step down in 2013 was not
enough.

For all these reasons the imperialists need stability in the Middle
East. But how are they to get it? That is the question! From the
beginning the US has been struggling to find a coherent response to
events that are changing by the day, even by the hour. In reality the
strongest power in the world has been reduced to the role of a helpless
onlooker. An article in today’s Independent by their correspondent in Washington, Rupert Cornwell, carried the interesting title: Washington’s strong words underline US impotence.

It says: “In reality, those words merely underline the helplessness
of the administration, at this point reduced to watching TV like
everyone else, and keeping its fingers crossed about how events unfold –
in Egypt most immediately but also in other friendly countries in the
region, most notably Saudi Arabia and Jordan.”

Obama does not dare call on Mubarak publicly to resign because of the
effects in these other states. He is obliged to speak in carefully
calculated code. "An orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be
peaceful and it must begin now," the US President said, hours after the
Egyptian leader had spoken on Tuesday. The operative word was supposed
to be "now". This was supposed to make clear where Obama stood.

But nobody on the streets of Cairo got the message. Even worse,
Mubarak immediately called his bluff by calling out his supporters on
the streets to attack the protesters. If anything, the latest weasel
words of Obama are more shameful and repugnant than the openly
reactionary policy of Bush. The protesters’ "passion and dignity" was
"an inspiration to people around the world", the President declared. "We
hear your voices."

Somebody said last night that even the language could not be
translated into a comprehensible Arabic. That is hardly surprising,
since it can barely be understood in English. The purpose of diplomatic
language in any case is not to convey ideas but to disguise them. The
problem Obama has is that it is very difficult simultaneously to hunt
with the hounds and run with the hare.

Every American administration has supported, armed and financed the
Mubarak regime. Obama and Clinton are no different to Bush and Reagan in
this respect. They all backed this faithful ally of America and Israel.
They were all silent about the numerous crimes of his brutal regime.
Clinton in November 2010 said: "The partnership between the United
States and Egypt is a cornerstone of stability and security in the
Middle East and beyond, and we look to Egypt for regional and global
leadership on a wide range of issues. This is a relationship rooted in
mutual respect and common interests and a history of cooperation and a
shared vision for the future."

Today Tony Blair, Bush’s chief partner in crime in Iraq, had this to say about Mubarak:

"Where you stand on him depends on whether you’ve worked with him
from the outside or on the inside. I’ve worked with him on the Middle
East peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians so this is
somebody I’m constantly in contact with and working with and on that
issue, I have to say, he’s been immensely courageous and a force for good." My emphasis, AW)

These words were spoken after the murderous attack on the
demonstrators. It shows that the record of the European governments in
the Middle East is no better than that of the USA. They are all
complicit in these crimes and their hands are equally stained with
blood.

A crafty politician, Mubarak is hoping that the White House will
tacitly put up with the crackdown in the hope that stability can somehow
be maintained in Egypt and the other states in the region. But this is a
vain hope. It would only delay the inevitable, and would enormously
increase hostility to the US in Egypt and across the region.

Granted that America’s policy makers are not particularly bright,
even the stupidest among them must dimly grasp the fact that it is not
good policy for Washington to sacrifice its long-term interests for the
sake of short term and illusory gain. Thus far, anti-American slogans
have not played a big role on the streets of Cairo. But that could
change very quickly.

No matter what happens in the next days and weeks, the Egyptian
people will never forget the crimes of Hosni Mubarak. His name will
forever be branded with infamy. And they will never forgive or forget
those western governments who to the very last provided support and aid
to the hangmen in Cairo. The very words “democracy” and “human rights”
in the mouth of Obama and his European counterparts stink of hypocrisy.

For a revolutionary programme!

While the imperialists talk of an “orderly transition” the
counter-revolutionaries are shooting down people in the streets. By
daylight there was a lull, with troops with tanks still looking on. But
by mid-morning groups of pro-Mubarak gangs were seen moving again toward
the Square with knives and sticks. Reuters reports that Mubarak
supporters opened fire on protesters, killing at least five people.

The firing began around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) while hundreds of
anti-government protesters camped out in the square. The authors of this
new crime are well known. A senior U.S. official also said on Wednesday
it was clear that "somebody loyal to Mubarak has unleashed these guys
to try to intimidate the protesters".

It is no use begging the army to intervene to stop the murders. It is
even more futile to appeal to the “international community”, that is,
to the same western governments that have been behind Mubarak and his
regime all along.

There is a power in society that is stronger than any state. That
power is the people. But it must be organised. When the police were
taken off the streets in order to cause chaos and disorder, the people
set up committees to protect their areas from criminal elements. The
same idea must now be taken up and generalised: form defence committees everywhere!

The threat from the counter-revolutionary gangs of criminals can only
be answered if the people are armed for self defence. Pacifism is no use
when confronted with armed thugs. It is necessary to arm the people! If
they attack you with sticks and stones, arm yourselves with sticks and
stones. If they attack you with Molotov cocktails arm yourselves with
Molotov cocktails. If they attack you with guns, arm yourselves with
guns.

The only way to defeat the counter-revolution is by stepping up the
mass action and carrying it to a higher level. That means organising an
all-out general strike. Deprive the regime of transport, petrol,
telephones and post, light, heat and water, and you will soon show them
that the working class is more powerful than all their armed thugs and
policemen put together.

An all-Egypt general strike would show who really has the
power in the land. In order to organise it in the most effective manner
it is imperative to set up elected committees for the defence of the
Revolution in every factory, street and village. The revolutionary
committees should link up on a local, regional and national level. This
would be the embryo of a future democratic people’s government – a real
alternative to the rotten dictatorial regime.

If there is one lesson to be drawn from the experience of the last
few weeks it is this: the people can trust nobody but themselves: trust in your own strength, your own solidarity, your own courage, your own organisation.