--- On Thu, 1/27/11, Mark Scott <mark1scot...@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Mark Scott <mark1scot...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Tunisian Workers and Youth Rise Up
To: marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu
Date: Thursday, January 27, 2011, 6:20 AM
Regional rebellions worry imperialists and their clients
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jan 26, 2011 4:53 PM
Jan. 24 — Tunisia’s workers and youth have continued mass demonstrations and
strikes aimed at removing the neocolonial regime and replacing it with a
representative government of national unity.
The teachers’ union, which is affiliated with the General Union of Tunisian
Workers (UGTT), struck on Jan. 24. That same day the government sought to
reopen schools closed since Jan. 10 following more than three weeks of mass
demonstrations, strikes and rebellions. These struggles forced the
Western-backed former president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, into exile and
prevented his RCD party from forming a successor coalition regime.
As teachers struck, other demonstrators fought running battles with the police,
hurling stones and smashing windows at the Ministry of Finance building in the
capital.
The teachers’ main demand was to abolish the existing regime, which is still
dominated by the discredited and repressive party of the former president. In
defiance of the RCD-led government’s curfew, demonstrators set up outside Prime
Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi’s offices, saying they will not leave until the
current regime resigns.
“We will stay here until the government resigns and runs away like Ben Ali,” a
student named Othemene told the French press agency (Jan. 24). Small business
owners have largely remained sympathetic to the strike or afraid to open up and
challenge the protesters.
In efforts to assuage the masses, the new government detained some leading
figures who were cronies of former President Ben Ali. State television reported
on Jan. 24 that a political adviser, Abdelaziz bin Dhia, and former interior
minister and leader of the upper parliamentary house Abdallah Qallal — as well
as the head of a private media network — were placed under house arrest for
attempting to hamper political reforms. These reforms are still minimal.
The United States and France have been cautious in their statements. U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned Ghannouchi and told him that the
Obama administration was encouraged by moves to bring about an inclusive
government in Tunisia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his
government’s willingness to extend financial emergency aid to the regime in
Tunisia, a former colony. Both imperialist powers had backed Ben Ali until the
end.
Liberation Caravan travels to capital
Hundreds of Tunisians from the southern city of Menzel Bouzaiane marched 30
miles, then boarded buses to Tunis, the capital, where they joined protesters
on Jan. 23 outside the prime ministry. They tore down a barbed wire barricade
and then “completely overwhelmed” the security forces outside Ghannouchi’s
office. (Al-Jazeera, Jan. 23)
“They’re chanting the same slogan that has echoed across the country — Down
with the regime, down with the former party, down with the interim president
and with the prime minister. They’re saying that the fight will continue for as
long as it takes, until they see a radical change in Tunisia.” (Al-Jazeera,
Jan. 23)
Ghannouchi has promised to leave politics and has publicly resigned from his
leadership position in the ruling RCD party, but he has announced no specific
date for national elections.
Some leading banned political parties have issued statements rejecting the
RCD’s attempt to maintain power through the appointment of selected ministers
without any fundamental change in the division of power inside the state.
The exiled leader of the al-Nahda or Renaissance Party, Rachid al-Ghannouchi
(not related to the prime minister), who is still banned from Tunisia, said
that his organization “is a moderate Islamic movement, a democratic movement
based on democratic ideals in ... Islamic culture. Some people pull Khomeini’s
robe over me, while I am no Khomeini nor a Shia.” (Al-Jazeera, Jan. 23)
The al-Nahda party called for a “Constitutional Council which represents all
political tendencies and civil society institutions such as trade unions, the
Association of Lawyers, and representative bodies of unemployed graduates who
played an important role in the revolution, with the aim of building a
democratic constitution for a parliamentary system that distributes and
decentralizes power on the widest scale possible and puts an end to the corrupt
era of one party and its pharaonic leader.” (Monthly Review, Jan. 19)
The RCD government has also announced the release of some 1,800 political
prisoners, although some members of the Muslim Brotherhood may still be jailed.
(Al-Jazeera, Jan. 20)
Also on Jan. 20, demonstrators attacked the ruling RCD headquarters with a
large steel cable that ripped down the name of the organization from the
building. The crowd carried placards reading, “We are no longer afraid of you,
traitors” and “RCD out!”
During the first few weeks of the uprising, security forces, especially from
the 130,000-strong police organization, shot down scores of protestors. The
army, which only numbers 45,000 troops, has been more restrained in their
approach to the unrest. On Jan. 20 outside the RCD headquarters, an army
captain told the crowd, “I am with you. We are not going to shoot you.”
(Al-Jazeera, Jan. 20)
Other political parties have issued statements calling for the resignation of
the RCD.
The Communist Workers’ Party (PCOT) noted, “All forces which played an
effective and crucial role in toppling the dictator, whether political, trade
unionist, human rights, or cultural, whatever organized or otherwise, are,
alongside the masses, to be involved in drawing Tunisia’s future and cannot be
represented by any other figure or body in any negotiations or communications
with the government.” (Monthly Review, Jan. 19)
At the same time, the Congress for the Republic party criticized the political
maneuvering of the RCD government, calling it “an attempt to abort the
revolution and return to the very same old state on the basis of the laws and
constitution of dictatorship, and to take us back to the same state, but with a
new façade.” (Monthly Review, Jan. 19)
Impact on the region
Demonstrations have also continued in neighboring Algeria, where similar
conditions of high unemployment and rising food prices have sparked anger. On
Jan. 22, police clashed with protestors in Algiers, where multiple casualties
were reported. (Deutsche Welle, Jan. 22)
In Aden and in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, students at the university held
demonstrations on Jan. 22 and 23 calling for the resignation of the U.S.-backed
regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Jan. 23 thousands of students
entered the streets in protest against the arrest of Tawakul Karman, a woman
student leader and a member of the Islah Party, who has called for support of
the Tunisia uprising. (Al-Jazeera, Jan. 23)
In Egypt, a coalition of opposition groups including the Karama, the April 6th
Movement, the National Association for Change, the Popular Democratic Movement
for Change, the Justice and Freedom Youth Movement and the Revolutionary
Socialists, called for national demonstrations against the U.S.-backed regime
of Hosni Mubarak on Jan. 25. (Al Ahram, Jan. 24)
Egypt, which is the second largest recipient of U.S. aid next to Israel, is
reported to have between 5,000 and 10,000 political prisoners. The regime of
Mubarak has violently suppressed mass protests and strikes over the last
several years.
What role for anti-imperialists in the U.S.
These developments in North Africa and throughout the Middle East region have
prompted the concerns of U.S. and French imperialism. These states usually
defend their foreign policy concerns in terms of a so-called “war on terrorism”
against “Islamic fundamentalism.”
The secular character of these latest demonstrations, rebellions and uprisings
makes them more easily understood by progressive forces inside the Western
states.
The economic crisis of capitalism — its failure to provide jobs, food and
services — is worldwide. The demands put forward by the workers and youth in
Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen and Egypt have significance for the proletariat and the
oppressed nations inside the U.S.
Coalitions opposing the U.S. imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan
should extend their support to the popular uprisings in North Africa and the
Middle East. Workers and the oppressed inside the U.S. and other Western
capitalist states can learn from the efforts of their counterparts in these
regions.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution
of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this
notice is preserved.
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