19 October 2011

On Egypt

Egypt is still in a revolutionary state even if the people at the top haven't really changed bar the Mubaraks. The French Revolution wasn't a revolution in 1789 yet. The country is still seeing unprecedented levels of unrest and struggle for example today the textile workers union just won some concessions from the government over allowances after threatening to strike over the issue. These little workplace victories are happening almost on a daily basis and the Military Council seem impotent at stopping them. This kind of thing just wasn't happening a year ago. Eventually there's going to be some kind of standoff, the closest thing we've had to that lately was the storming of the Israeli embassy, after which the Military Council announced a ban on all demonstrations and that it was reimplementing the Mubarak-era emergency laws (defending Israel is their first priority as usual)

Another big issue at the moment is the Telecom Egypt workers strike. Last Sunday some workers took the CEO hostage demanding he resign and they're in prison now, they need to be got out.

The students are struggling too, there was a mini-battle at Al-Mansurah University today.

No comments: