[OccupyComms] Cairo Open Letter

[Mark Barrett]

Posted at http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2012/06/open-letter-from-cairo/
and
http://acampadabcninternacional.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/egypts-elections-under-military-rule-join-our-resistance-to-the-counter-revolution-by-comrades-from-cairo/
>
> 2012/6/1 <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
>>
>> Received at PAN this evening, am in process of getting more info on it -
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I would like to pass along an open letter sent by Comrades from Cairo,
>> which explains  the counter-revolutionary strategies at work in Egypt's
>> upcoming presidential runoff:
>>
>> Egypt’s elections under military rule: Join our resistance to the
>> counter-revolution
>>
>> To you at whose side we struggle,
>> From the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, the powers that be have
>> launched a vicious counter-revolution to contain our struggle and subsume it
>> by drowning the people’s voices in a process of meaningless, piecemeal
>> political reforms. This process aimed at deflecting the path of revolution
>> and the Egyptian people’s demands for "bread, freedom and social justice."
>>
>> Only 18 days into our revolution, and since we forced Mubarak out of
>> power, the discourse of the political classes and the infrastructure of the
>> elites, including both state and private media, continues to privilege
>> discussions of rotating Ministers, cabinet reshuffles, referendums,
>> committees, constitutions and most glaringly, parliamentary and now
>> presidential elections.
>>
>> Our choice from the very beginning was to reject in their entirety the
>> regime's attempts to drag the people’s revolution into a farcical dialogue
>> with the counter-revolution shrouded in the discourse of a "democratic
>> process" which neither promotes the demands of the revolution nor represents
>> any substantial, real democracy. Thus our revolution continues, and must
>> continue.
>>
>> Egyptians now find themselves in a vulnerable moment. Official political
>> discourse would have the world believe that the technologies of democracy
>> presently spell a choice between ‘two evils’. These are: Ahmed Shafiq, who
>> guarantees the consolidation of the outgoing regime and its return with a
>> vengeance, openly promising a criminal assault on the revolution under the
>> fascist spectres of ‘security’ and ‘stability’, and the false promise of
>> protection for religious minorities (against whom the regime systematically
>> stages assault and isolation as part of its
>> fear-mongering campaigns); and Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim
>> Brotherhood whom we are expected to imagine might ‘save’ us from the ‘old
>> regime’ through the myths of cultural renaissance - all while consolidating
>> its financial stronghold and the regional capitalist hegemony that fosters
>> and depends on it for a climate of rampant exploitation of Egypt’s people
>> and their resources. This consolidation, we are certain, will be accompanied
>> by the subsequent
>> marshalling of the military apparatus to protect the emboldened ruling
>> class of the Muslim Brotherhood from the wrath and revolt of its victims:
>> the multitude whom the leaders of the organization have historically fought
>> by condemning and outlawing our struggles for livelihood, dignity and
>> equality.
>>
>> According to election officials, most voters themselves (75%) have chosen
>> neither Shafiq nor Morsi in the first round of elections. We refuse to
>> recognize the choice of “lesser of two evils” when these evils masquerade in
>> equal measure for the same regime. We believe there is another choice. And
>> in times where perceived common sense is as far from the truth as can be, we
>> find the need to speak out once again.
>>
>> We perceive the affair of presidential elections in Egypt as an attempt by
>> the as yet prevailing military junta and its counter-revolutionary forces to
>> garner international legitimacy to cement the existing regime and deliver
>> more lethal blows to the Egyptian revolution. We ask you to join us in
>> resisting the logic of this process that seeks to further entrench the
>> counter-revolution.
>>
>> Our struggle does not exist in isolation from yours. What is revolution,
>> but the immediate and uncompromising rejection of the status quo: of
>> militarized power, exploitation, class stratification, and relentless police
>> violence—just to name
>> a few of the most basic and cancerous features of society in the present
>> moment. These structural realities are not unique to Egypt or the Egyptian
>> revolution. In both the South and the North communities resist what we are
>> meant to accept without questioning, rising up against the narrow realist
>> perspective that tells us that democracy is merely choosing the lesser of
>> ‘two evils’, and that the election of either represents a choice in
>> government rather than what it is: an affirmation of the only government
>> that exists - that of unbridled, repressive and dehumanizing
>> capitalist relations. We stand in solidarity with the masses of precarious
>> and endangered people who have chosen to defend their being from an
>> aggressive global system that is in crisis; indeed, a sputtering system
>> that, in its twilight hours, reaches for unprecedented levels of
>> surveillance, militarization and violence to quell our insurrections.
>>
>> We must make clear that despite the fact of the international political
>> establishment’s praise of the ‘democratic’ nature of the first round of the
>> Egyptian presidential elections, we strongly and categorically reject the
>> outcome of these elections for they do not represent the desires of the
>> Egyptian people that fought in the January 25th Revolution.
>>
>> Furthermore, we categorically reject the elections themselves in
>> principle, for the following reasons:
>>
>> 1- Even by the standards of the deceased and irrelevant systems of
>> representation that once
>> existed in the Global North, no ‘free and fair elections’ can take place
>> under the supervision
>> of a power-hungry military junta, vying relentlessly for continued
>> political domination and the protection of their vast economic empire, so
>> relentlessly, indeed, that no constitution exists to define the powers of
>> any presidency. How can we tolerate a military dictatorship’s supervision of
>> any political process when thousands of Egyptians continue to languish in
>> the dungeons of military prison after undergoing arbitrary arrest, campaigns
>> of systematic torture, and exceptional military tribunals.
>>
>> 2- The abuse of law in favor of the power mongering of the ruling military
>> generals: in order to run the junta's preferred candidate, former Prime
>> Minister Ahmed Shafiq, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission has
>> simply and blatantly disregarded the law of political exclusion recently
>> passed in order to ban the candidacy of any members of Mubarak’s regime from
>> running in the presidential elections.
>>
>> 3- The absurdity of unlimited power concentrated in the hands of an
>> electoral commission made up of central figures from the Mubarak era who are
>> meant to supervise a ‘democratic’ process.
>>
>> 4- The vague programs marketed by the most strongly backed candidates fly
>> in the face of the values and object of the revolution, the very reason why
>> we are even having these elections today and the cause for which over a
>> thousand martyrs gave their lives: "bread, freedom and social justice."
>> If these elections take place and are internationally recognized the
>> regime will have received the world’s stamp of approval to make void
>> everything the revolution stands for. If these elections are to pass while
>> we remain silent, we believe the coming regime will license itself to hunt
>> us down, lock us up and torture us in an attempt to quell all forms of
>> resistance to its very raison d'être.
>>
>> We continue on our revolutionary path committed to resisting military rule
>> and putting an end to military tribunals for civilians and the release of
>> all detainees in military prisons. We continue to struggle in the workplace,
>> in schools and universities and with popular committees in our
>> neighborhoods. But our fight is as much against the governments and systems
>> supporting the regime that suppresses us. We are determined to audit loan
>> agreements that did and continue to occur between international financial
>> institutions or foreign governments with a regime that
>> claims to represent us while thriving from exploiting and repressing us.
>> We call on you to join us in our struggle against the reinforcements of the
>> counter-revolution. How will you stand in solidarity with us? If we are
>> under attack, you are also under attack for our battle is a global one
>> against the forces that seek our obedience and suppression.
>>
>> We stand with the ongoing revolution, a revolution that will only be
>> realized by the strength, community and persistence of the people; not
>> through a poisonous referendum for military rule.
>>
>> Comrades from Cairo
>>
>