The world's workers must demand: Imperialism, bail out the Egyptian people!

Mubarak has gone – now Mubarakism must go!

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 09:48 AM PST

The extraordinary and completely heroic actions of the Egyptian people have driven Mubarak from power. After thirty years of brutalism and torture, the US and Israeli backed dictator has been ousted. At a cost of hundreds of martyrs who gave their lives, after the last week's defeat of Mubarak’s thugs in two days of street fighting, after the movement began to spread to working class strikes, after a final attempt by Mubarak at defiance yesterday night, after the gigantic outpouring of the people in answer today, the dictator has been driven out.

It is before everything else a gigantic and totally inspiring victory of the Egyptian people. But they have also given a lesson to every country. If they are aroused no force can hold down tens of millions of people. Even a dictator with the total backing of the governments of the US and Europe, who did not hesitate for one second to murder and torture his people on a mass scale, can be forced out. The Egyptian people have given a lesson to every country, one that will be absorbed throughout the world, and have even wider reverberations because it could be followed live on the electronic media.

But while the overwhelming joy and celebration of the Egyptian people in their victory - echoed by every progressive person throughout the world - is totally justified, the forces that kept Mubarak in power for thirty years are this very minute organising to try to ensure that while the individual dictator is gone his regime continues. That is to maintain a regime that preserves the interests of imperialism and the members of the Egyptian ruling class who serve them, a regime to suppress the aspirations of the people of Egypt, to deprive the people of the Middle East of the benefits of the riches of the region and to support the murderous regime of Israel against the Palestinians.

The US and its allies in the British government have no intention of promoting democracy in Egypt. They supported dictatorship in Egypt for thirty years. Now they know if there are free elections in Egypt not only Mubarak but Mubarakism will be swept from power. So they will do everything to try to prevent democracy in Egypt.

The US and British imperialists are in total contact with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. They are working hand in hand with the brutal torturer ‘vice-president’ Omar Sulieman – appointed by the dictator Mubarak himself.

These imperialists will now try to spread confusion with slanders against the Arab people. These imperialists and their brutal Israeli hirelings for decades believed that what they contemptuously referred to as the ‘Arab street’ would accept any humiliation. In their own racist delusions they believed that the Arab people – unlike the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Chinese or the Vietnamese - were uniquely incapable of fighting for their rights. Egypt has ground that myth into the dust.

Another attempt to spread confusion is the so called ‘threat of Islam’. There is no ‘threat of Islam’. Islam is one of the world’s great religions. The reason political forces inspired by Islam came to the fore in the Middle East is because secular political forces, such as Fatah and various Communist Parties, capitulated to imperialism. Because they did not capitulate in the same way Islamic forces such as Hamas or Hezbollah became strong.

That dynamic occurred because imperialism is the most deadly enemy of the people not only of the Middle East but of the entire world. Compared to the real mafia of imperialism every other local dictator is simply a small scale crook. When secular forces fight imperialism they are strong. The fight of secular and Muslim forces against imperialism and its agents is the way forward. That is another great lesson of Egypt.

The celebration must be overwhelming but even after this gigantic victory the struggle will have to continue.

• US imperialism and its puppets in the Egyptian ruling class will now do everything to limit or eliminate democracy.
• The looting of Egypt’s economy by the corrupt ruling class, depriving the Egyptian people of decent living standards, is continuing.
• The criminal blockade of Gaza, carried out by Mubarak has not been ended – and Israel will intensify its efforts to suppress the Palestinians.
• The other reactionary Arab regimes in the area, above all the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, are still in place.

The Egyptian people have written a truly inspiring page in the history of humanity’s struggle for freedom. But so many struggles are still to come for them and for the rest of the world who today are so inspired by them. Rejoice and organise!