[News] Egypt's Elections Under Military Rule: Join Our Resistance to the Counter-Revolution

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Egypt's Elections Under Military Rule:
Join Our Resistance to the Counter-Revolution

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/egypt010612.html
6/1/12
by Comrades from Cairo

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.


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Contact the Comrades from Cairo at 
<<mailto:comradesfromcairo at gmail.com>comradesfromcairo at gmail.com>



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