[OccupyComms] Fwd: [Squares] Cairo Open Letter & Antartida Open Letter

[Mark Barrett]

Manuel tried posting this but it bounced to Occupy London + Democracy
Village lists. Hence forward.
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Manuel manuel at whiteflag.info

Some considerations about our movement Arab Spring, Occupy, 15M:

1.      We all are very concerned about what is going on in Syria. Ceasefire
has ended, horrible crimes will go on.
It seems that the opposition to Assad regime put together again the
interests of Al Qaeda and the CIA because the regime there is a close ally
to Russia. Russia has there the only military base outside its territory.
2.      We see also what is going on in Egypt as an outcome of the Arab
Spring. Elections have taken place and the two candidates for presidency
are: one, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the other one the heir of
the former president Mubarak and also a general. I remember you that the
Muslim Brotherhood were outlawed when they killed the previous President
Anwar El Sadat after he signed peace with Israel. Then they were supposed
the authors of a number of tourists and Christian Copts killings in the
nineties.
3.      We have seen what has happened in Libya as a result of the Arab
Spring.
4.      We have seen also what has happened in Bahrain as a result of the
Arab Spring too. There the mostly Shia demonstrators claiming against the
Sunni power were quelled by Saudi troops trained by UK. In Bahrain, as
opposite to Syria, is the EEUU who docks its fleet for the Pacific there.

Our movement, 15M, Occupy, Arab Spring, here and there, everywhere claims
for more democracy and against capitalism.

Democracy, first of all, is a system successfully created in Greece upon
slavery. And the same goes for Rome.  Modern democracy is stable only in
rich countries, where also immigrants without rights occupy the lowest part
of society.

In not so rich countries, democracy leads to religious parties taking power,
as in the whole Arab world. In the nineties, when the FIS, Islamic Front of
Salvation, won in Algeria by more than 90%, the West supported a military
coup.

In other countries, not so rich countries, democracy leads to semi
dictatorial systems or populist regimes as in Latin America and maybe in
Russia, Asia and Africa.
Indeed, if democracy is “free” enough, poor people will use state power,
through a party, to redistribute country wealth even if they need to
expropriate from the rich people. This might be also our movement case
claiming against capitalism….(I know pretty well that succor those in need
is urgent....and I am for it too) but I do not think it is a way OUT.

This is life….No need to add that “democracy is the lesser evil, etc.” Or,
what we have is not "real democracy". I am talking about facing our problem
(human related), not about making politics (state related). And in the same
way, am using intelligence here, not ideology..

Therefore “more” democracy might have some sense, but it is not the way out,
nor it is fighting against capitalism because this is also the way to see
things from inside of our state but disregarding the state context which has
to compete (As China's case, a communist country, show us).
We have to open our eyes as human, Egyptians, Germans, Americans, Syrians,
Chinese, Spanish, Brazilians…. we are all the same because what is important
is to be human, no nationals, as we can understand each other, work together
and we can put ourselves in other people shoes –this is the key to a
solution, our common sense. Common sense valid not for the 99% (it actually
goes to 50% & 50%, especially if -state- violence is used) but for the 100%.

Let’s face reality now. I am not especially familiar with Syria domestic
problems, but I understand it that way: Every country has internal problems,
divisions. That division might be a question of races, faiths, beliefs,
clans, tribes, classes or just, what it is never missed rich and poor
people. And of course, one of those parts (to be more stable the rich) is in
power, while the others are in the “opposition” (usually as a result of a
previous war) and therefore submitted to state power (force) controlled by
the first one. I think in Syria a number of factors, I guess mainly the
invasion to Iraq and other related developments, has facilitated border
leaking and illegal weapons have been successfully introduced in the
country, because in every state only the state is allowed to have them. This
is all. There is not much to talk about who is right or who is wrong or to
talk about justice (all that is ideology again). The thing is that there is
already a FRONT there, same as happened in Libya and this is also a safe
haven for foreign intervention/help. (Not so safe as Russia is there to
check maybe, or not as safe as it was in Libya´s case)

Now, what is the cause of human disaster? The cause of human disaster is
that we live grouped in armed units called states, and we have to be this
way to exist in front of the other states (there is not democracy there were
an army requires a hierarchy. This is what is going on in Egypt now) This
means that a part has to control on the army, other forces and is in power,
while the other parts have to submit because for a country or armed unit to
exist among the 200 armed units in the world it has do so, as other
countries are also organized this way to compete or exist.

Only if we see it, we can look and find a way OUT of this misery. And this
way out is a call for the human community, which is achieved through global
common and total disarmament (process), as armies are against each other,
together it will be easy to disarm. In this way, humans will live and to
work together as EQUALS because hierarchy is no longer needed. While we
still need each other as we cannot survive each one on our own.

This is: we are free, no violence nobody is enforcing nobody, but it does
not mean chaos, but on the contrary, unity, human community, because we all
actually live spiritually and materially together.

(I have tried to tell you many times that if we are not living spiritually
and materially together already is because we are prevented by the simple
existence of the weapon in nature which has conditioned our agenda or
history generating the armed units as our way of organizing. I insist once
more; think about a weapon as experiencing its existence –not as an idea)

I hope our movement can play the role as cell and light of the human
community and I am calling for you to work on that purpose.

Best wishes.
Manuel




-----Original Message-----
From: squares-bounces at lists.takethesquare.net
[mailto:squares-bounces at lists.takethesquare.net] On Behalf Of
marknbarrett at googlemail.com
Sent: viernes, 01 de junio de 2012 23:44
To: peoplesassemblies at googlegroups.com; occupylondon;
squares at lists.takethesquare.net; democracyvillage at googlegroups.com
Subject: [Squares] Cairo Open Letter

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

Sent from phone
_______________________________________________

n-1 working group:
https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international/

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Apathy is Dead !
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