The events of the past couple of days are the latest step in a sequence of events by which the military can consolidate its hold on power, aim towards the death of the revolution and a return to a military/police state.

The authoritarian regime of the Muslim Brotherhood had to go. But what has replaced it is the true face of the military in Egypt – no less authoritarian, no less fascist and for sure more difficult to depose.

The massacre carried out by the army against pro-Morsi supporters in Nadha Square and Raba’a has left around 500 killed and up to 3000 injured (Ministry of Health figures- the reality is likely much higher). It was a pre-orchestrated act of state terrorism. It’s aim is to divide the people and push the Muslim Brotherhood to create more militia’s to revenge and protect themselves. This in turn will enable the army to label all Islamists as terrorists and produce an “internal enemy” in the country which will allow the army to keep the military regime in an ongoing state of emergency.

They go after the Muslim Brotherhood today, but they will come after anyone who dares to criticize them tomorrow. Already the army has declared a state of emergency for one month, giving the police and military exceptional powers, and a curfew has been declared in many provinces for the same amount of time from 7pm to 6am. This gives the army a free hand to crack down on dissent. It is a return to the days before the revolution, where emergency law had been in place since 1967 and it provided the framework for wide-spread repression and denial of freedoms.


The character of the new regime is clear. Just a few days ago 18 new governors were appointed, the majority of which hail from the ranks of the army/police or even remnants of the Mubarak regime. There has also been an ongoing attack on workers who continue to strike for their rights (such as the recent army attack and arrest of steel workers on strike in Suez). The military regime is also hunting for revolutionary activists, journalists have been beaten and arrested, foreigners have been threatened against being witness to events. Both local and global media has told half truths and built narratives supportive of a political agenda. The counter-revolution is in full flow and it knows how to break the unity of the people in its effort to divide and conquer.

In the past two days there has been a rise in sectarian reprisals, with up to 50 churches and christian institutions attacked. The army and police were not seen protecting these buildings of the Christian community. It is in the interest of both army and the Muslim Brotherhood to stoke tensions and create fear and hatred in the people. They will fight for their control of the State as people’s blood fills the streets.

We condemn the massacres at Raba’a and Nadha Square, the attacks on workers, activists and journalists, the manipulation of the people by those who vie to power, and sectarian attacks. For the revolution to continue the people must remain united in their opposition to the abuses and tyranny of power, against whoever it is directed.

Down with the military and Al-Sissi!
Down with the remnants of the Mubarak regime and business elite!
Down with the State and all power to autonomous communities!
Long live the Egyptian revolution!

The post Tahrir-ICN anarchist group statement on events in Egypt / August 2013 appeared first on Void Network.

Void Network presents here, in Arabic and in English, an open letter from participants in black bloc actions in the United States to participants in the Egyptian black bloc, aimed at initiating a dialogue beyond the exchange of youtube videos. This is of interest to everyone around the world struggling for liberation, so please print and distribute widely:




pamphlet in English:
http://cloudfront.crimethinc.com/pdfs/egyptblackbloc_english_imposed.pdf

pamphlet in Arabic:
http://cloudfront.crimethinc.com/pdfs/egyptblackbloc_arabic_imposed.pdf


The emergence of the black bloc in Egypt at this time should not surprise us as much as it surprises pacifists and authoritarians. The struggles of the 21st century will not be limited to nonviolent civil disobedience, nor to reformism; they are bound to involve open conflict with the state. Moreover, they will be increasingly international in scope and character. Whenever anyone anywhere around the world stands up for herself or himself—however awkwardly, however humbly—it sets a precedent for the next generation of resistance. Let’s rise to the occasion.


The criticisms of the black bloc in Egypt are all too familiar. Those who have more privilege and power than you accuse you of being spoiled rich kids. Those who are not willing to run the same risks accuse you of cowardice. Those who have different goals than you complain that you are not strategic. Those for whom democracy means the amplification of their own voices insist that you should submit to majority rule in order to silence you. Those who depend on foreign military aid, who bow to foreign political pressure in selling out the people of Egypt, accuse you of importing foreign tactics. You are blamed for the violence of the police, when the police are always precisely as violent as they have to be to maintain their supremacy, and their ongoing violence is only visible because you resist it. Above all, authorities of all kinds do everything they can to isolate you from others who might resist.



To the Egyptian Black Bloc
from “black bloc anarchists” in the US

You strike the note—it sounds in us.

It is an honor to address you on account of your courage in the struggle still unfolding in Egypt.

For a decade and a half, we have participated in black bloc actions in the US and elsewhere around the world. Of course, we do not represent anyone or anything; the black bloc is a tactic, not a group—that is what makes it so frightening to our rulers. But on the basis of our experience with this tactic, we would like to share some of our perspectives in hopes of establishing a more explicit intercontinental dialogue.

We have already been in a kind of dialogue with you, exchanging signals of revolt across the ocean. We’ve circulated reports of your struggle here, and now we are seeing photos and videos of our actions appear in youtube collages from Egypt. But we want more dialogue than youtube collages allow. We want to be able to discuss strategy as well as tactics, and goals as well as strategy.

First and foremost: you are not alone. You are part of a struggle against oppressive power that is taking place all over the world. The same economy that is plundering Egypt wrecks our lives and land here in the US; the same networks of armed force that tear-gas you in Cairo maintain “order” in New York City. If we are to win anything in this struggle, we can only do so internationally.

It is embarrassing that it took us so long to address you in Arabic—that shows how unprepared we are for the opportunities history is offering. But that may change quickly in the coming years. It will have to.

We have gained our experience with black bloc tactics under what you might call adverse conditions—as a small minority acting against a stable power structure, without much support from the rest of society. The black bloc evolved in that context, and it is interesting to see it appear in a situation of more generalized revolt.

Indeed, the longevity of the black bloc surprises everyone; over and over it has been pronounced dead, yet it keeps coming back. This is because, like Anonymous, it expresses the spirit of our times. In an era when tremendous disparities are maintained by surveillance and policing, any meaningful movement is bound to involve anonymity and clashes with the authorities.

The black bloc is important because it gives that anonymity and antagonism a political content: it ties specific struggles against oppression to the possibility of a generalized struggle against all oppressive power. It is a coup to “brand” anonymous collective confrontation with the authorities as anarchist—this means that everyone who stands up for himself against the authorities must ask, sooner or later, what his relationship to others’ struggles is.

It is fitting that the black bloc emerged in Egypt on the two-year anniversary of an uprising that only replaced one tyranny with another. The problems caused by capitalism and government cannot be solved by a mere change of regimes. It will take a struggle from the ground up—the emergence of social formations that can defend themselves against government and capitalism. This is not a matter of addressing demands to those in power, and it is not something that can be won simply by attacking presidential palaces. It requires us to oppose the structures of domination everywhere they appear, shifting our strategy from mere protest to the assertion of another way of life.

The criticisms of the black bloc in Egypt are all too familiar to us—we have watched reactionaries read from this same script since 1999. You are blamed for the violence of the police, when the police are always precisely as violent as they have to be to maintain their supremacy, and their ongoing violence is only visible because you resist it. Those who have more privilege and power than you accuse you of being spoiled rich kids. Those who are not willing to run the same risks accuse you of cowardice. Those who have different goals than you complain that you are not strategic. Those for whom democracy means the amplification of their own voices insist that you should submit to majority rule in order to silence you. Those who depend on foreign military aid, who bow to foreign political pressure in selling out the people of Egypt, accuse you of importing foreign tactics. Above all, authorities of all kinds do everything they can to isolate you from others who might resist.

Indeed, in our experience, this is the greatest risk in using the black bloc tactic: in giving an identity to anonymity and struggle, it offers the authorities an opportunity to make an “other” out of us, to quarantine our revolt and our ideas. It is a mistake to view ourselves as separate from the rest of society. The black bloc is powerful and dangerous only so long as it remains a space of revolt that anyone can flow into—the tip of the iceberg of something much broader. Our rulers do not fear anarchists—they fear that anarchist values and practices will spread.

It is important not to impose a dichotomy between being honest about our goals and participating in movements larger than us. On one hand, we must be clear that we reject all forms of domination; if we do not, everyone will have to learn again and again how little police and the poverty they impose change from one government to the next. This is why we should not hide our values under the same vague banner of “democracy” that disguises others’ hunger for power: doing so only legitimizes the structures that will be used against us later. But at the same time, we have to maintain the openness that enables tactics and ideas to circulate. Anarchism is not an identity, it has no meaning in isolation; it is a relationship that must spread.

In the United States, anarchists have erred on both sides of this dichotomy. Often, we have served as shock troops and free labor for liberal causes, taking great risks to advance their agendas while failing to act on our own analysis. We hoped this would connect us to the rest of society, but connections that depend on us hiding our values are meaningless.

Other times, anarchists have acted as though we could accomplish our goals on our own, winding up in a private grudge match with the state that everyone else assumed had nothing to do with them. Certainly, we can’t wait for mass consensus to begin our project of revolt; we can only find others in revolt by rising up ourselves—but the point is to find others. Over and over, we’ve thought our own dreams too wild to propose, only to see other people enacting them spontaneously. In fact, the time is ripe for us to advance our proposals: capitalism is in crisis around the world, and soon billions will have to choose between totalitarianism and the kind of freedom no government can provide.

If it is true that the state cannot solve our problems, all who wish to wield its authority will discredit themselves once they assume power. The sooner all the Muslim Brotherhoods of the world associate themselves with the state the better: this will clarify things for those who do not yet understand why anyone would be an anarchist. When the opposition parties join the rulers in telling everyone to get out of the street and the streets remain full, this suggests that people are catching on. In this situation, anarchists could help turn regime change into social revolution, a full-scale transformation of everyday life.

The US government needs Egypt to have a government with whom to coordinate the resource extraction necessary for global capitalism. The black bloc scares them because it is not legible in their conception of politics—it offers no one to negotiate with. They want to bring all the political parties into “dialogue” in order to map everything in their structures of power; we want to take the struggle out of the hands of political parties entirely, establishing dialogue among people rather than with parties or governments. We seek to spread struggles in which we communicate with and inspire others directly, as you have inspired us.

We will continue this dialogue in the most meaningful way we can—by continuing to challenge the power structures here in the United States, which underpin those in Egypt and elsewhere around the world. But if any of you can send us reports from your struggles, or translate materials between English and Arabic, we would be glad to hear from you. May we meet in the streets of a stateless world.

contact: rollingthunder @ crimethinc.com

Further Reading

10 Points on the Black Bloc [Video]
Introduction to the Black Bloc
Black Bloc Safety and Fashion Guide
Debate about Black Bloc Tactics

The post Letter to the Egyptian Black Bloc from U.S.A. anarchists appeared first on Void Network.

“A beautiful storm has come, but not yet the beautiful destruction”. The cyclone of intifada continues to destroy the Egyptian state, “I am boycotting because I believe it is a circus,” said rebel-blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy, “You cannot have clean elections while the police force which has not been purged is in charge of securing the ballot boxes. You have to settle the battle in the streets, then you settle it in the ballot boxes. We have to win our occupation in Tahrir Square first.”
The street opens itself to the community-in-motion as a parallel space against the state from which the emergent counter-power reproduces new ways of thinking and acting.
The battle of Tahrir is diffused throughout society this last year. Escaping reification into the political apparatus of capture, it exists as a Popular Power in the Streets. Over the last week it has manifest as violent insurrection in the district surrounding Tahrir Square, the Muhammad Mahoud meidan, where I stayed months ago:
“The people in Muhammad Mahmoud are decidedly not revolutionaries, they are vandals,” a police captain insisted. When in Rome, do as the Vandals.
From the revolution to civil war- no longer revolutionaries but a new form of life escaping from the structures of civilization. “It’s a way of life. You don’t just become one. You aren’t converted. You have to be an Ultra from within,” said Ahmed, a Cairo native and Ultra member who only agreed to an interview if his real name and appearance were not revealed.  The Ultras are “anti-media,” according to Ahmed. He said they prefer to keep their identities secret.
‘Ultra’. Who the fuck are these guys. “The Ultras have stood at the forefront of recent clashes with security forces. In many cases, they were armed with rocks, petrol bombs and firecrackers.” A fraternal organization of mad bombers.
“The Ultras are here. I know that because they’re the only ones facing the CSF (police) with force while singing their hymns,” protester Mosa’ab Elshamy wrote on Twitter on the first day of last weeks clashes. It is part of the Ultras code to remain anonymous to non-members. Dressed in a uniform of skinny jeans, neck scarves and hooded sweatshirts pulled tight over their heads, the Ultras in Tahrir could go unnoticed.
They are here now. Stepping out from the blaze of their flares. Constitutive of the ongoing occupation, their camp is set apart by hastily sketched graffiti on the tents that proclaims their beliefs for those who know the code.
“A-C-A-B,” Ahmed said, reading aloud the red etchings on the outside of his tent. “All cops are bastards,” he explained. According to Ahmed, the abbreviation is a motto for Ultras clubs around the world.  Ultra clubs, and the rest of us.
According to the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer:
“Established in 2007, the ultras — modelled on Italy’s autonomous, often violent fan clubs – have since proven their metal in past confrontations with the Egyptian police, who charge that criminals and terrorists populate their ranks.

The ultras key role in the rebellion extends a tradition of soccer’s close association with politics in Egypt dating back to when the then British colonial power introduced the game to the North African country in the early 20th century. “
Out of the scene and into the streets! “Before the revolution the Ultras were confined to stadiums, so people didn’t know much about them,” occupier Elshamy said.
“After the revolution a lot of perspectives changed about them and they became really popular. They were described as those courageous guys. They stayed there in the square almost through 100 hours of fighting; It’s easy to notice them because of their use of Molotov cocktails, their extreme courage and recklessness, their chants. They became a common sight.”
Says an El Ahly ultra: “You don’t change things in Egypt talking about politics. We’re not political, the government knows that and has to deal with us,”
Rabab El-Mahdi calls this “clear class confrontations”. “Since the Ultras were created, they were always targeted by state security. They are seen as a mob or as hooligans,” she continues, “So they developed skills that none of the middle class was forced to develop. Plus they come from backgrounds where such skills are needed on daily basis just as survival mechanisms.”
She added that as long as Egypt’s security apparatus remained intact, violent confrontations would continue. “The skills they developed in dealing with police came in very handy and it comes in handy every time there is a direct confrontation,”
The ultras’ experience is also reflected in the setting up of survival services for the mass of protesters camped on the square in tents behind barricades and the introduction of a rotation of labour among them.
“There were designated rock hurlers, specialists in turning over and torching vehicles for defensive purposes and a machine like quartermaster crew delivering projectiles like clockwork on a cardboard platters.”
Ultras member Ahmed is careful to explain that he and his “brothers in blood” do not attack first. “An Ultra doesn’t attack anyone, We’re a watchdog for the truth. Any unfairness that we spot, within the state or anywhere, we have to stand up for what is right.”
“We don’t have any political direction. Whenever we go to a strike or a demonstration, we do it on an individual basis. We don’t announce it. We are just here as humans. On Saturday, initially we came individually. But then we found because we have similar beliefs we went straight to the front line and there were our brothers to the left and right. The personality of an Ultra places you at the front line because you are defending a cause. There is nothing easy in life, we have to suffer and sacrifice until we achieve.”
While ultras’ Power-Knowledge helped substantially in articulating and holding the front line, the front line was made of many other youths who carried on the fight. Some were young Islamists, refusing to obey their official party line. But the majority of front line fighters came from the substantial population of young, socially excluded men from Cairo’s peripheral ‘ashwa’i [“informal”] neighbourhoods. They are sometimes called the wilad sis.
The wilad sis are young working class men who might be described as precarious workers, most are unemployed, underemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled, doing occasional jobs that change every day (though on most days, there is no “work”).  Others refuse work and subsist upon the black market. They are often marked by a particular dress code and hairstyle that often involves copious quantities of gel (the word sis alludes to the attention they often pay to their appearance).
Earlier this year I traveled through Tunisia, Cairo and in Alexandria I met, over much hash, with a group of young insurgents who identified themselves as ‘Franco Arabia’s’. They celebrated a pan- Mediterranean, as expressed in a unique style of hip-hop and aggressive migration to Italy, a proclivity towards anarchism, queer liberation and are combatively against patriarchy
Proudly they told me it was their call for a day of action against the police- who had killed one of their comrades, which helped instigate the insurrection. The day of action was organized for Jan 25^th– the national day of police, and after its announcement on face book, Tunisia exploded and the antagonisms in Alexandria and across Egypt did as well, until finally on that day, the demonstration led millions onto the streets which they violently held for weeks.
From the various field reports that I salvaged these quotes from, there is recognition of the middle class activists (as well as Islamist youths), most who expressed the understanding that without the barricades and violent resistance they would not have been able to protest. But no interviews for this montage. I will though, share this observation from Lucie Ryzova, an engaged-blogger during this last battle:
“It is in Abdeen, the streets east of Tahrir Square between Muhammad Mahmoud Street and Meidan Bab al-Luq, leading to the ministry of interior, where a battle was waged during the past week.
And a battle it was. People went there knowing what they were getting into. They went there to fight. Police threw teargas canisters and used shotguns (occasionally also live ammunition); against them was a line of young men mostly throwing stones, but also Molotov cocktails and small homemade bombs.
It was a “battle for the dakhiliyya [‘the Ministry of Interior’]“, but that does not mean that any of the young men facing the police necessarily wanted or intended to take over the ministry’s building. It was a symbolic battle – or more precisely, a frighteningly real and bloody fight over a symbolic location; the fight itself was the message.
The khatt al-nar [“firing line”] belonged to particular people who went there to beat and get beaten. Throughout the first week of the Second Revolution, Tahrir Square and the battlezone to its east each had its own demographic.
Each was a different crowd, but they can only be understood as a symbiosis – a specific social alliance – as both constructed and supported each other, and they increasingly overlapped. The square, the “safe” zone, contained a truly socially mixed crowd. People from all walks of life came there, often several times a day, in support of those who decided to camp out, to help “hold” the square and support its cause.
One saw a social mix rarely seen in Egypt (though it was famously present in the First Revolution): middle-class men and women, some of them activists but most of them not; young and old, in suits, kefiyehs and jeans, alongside the galabiyas and long beards of the salafis; bareheaded women as well as munaqqabat (fully veiled women).
On the front line, by contrast (and naturally so given the nature of the battle), the demographic was predominantly (though not exclusively) young male and socially marginal.
But the frontline and the Meidan are also part of one whole. The frontline’s position is to protect the Meidan, even if it also developed into a fight for its own sake. Without the on-the-ground crowd of ultras and the wilad sis prepared to stop police violence with their own bodies, and most importantly, to hit back, the largely middle-class opposition could not have held the Meidan for long.”
Was this violent defence not also the case for Occupy Vancouver? As made clear by Zig-Zag, it was the fear of the chaos brought forth in the 2011 riots that forced the city to keep their pigs on a leash. Anyone who was present at both riot and occupation know the difference was not only the communication of destruction- but also the communication of Counter Power.
The insurrections last year that has created this global intifada, was the becoming of a new solidarity between the pro-revolutionary’s and the rioting hoodlums. Such commonality was developed over years of relationships initiated by a militant underground group in Tunisia called Takriz, (its closest translations is, ‘breaking my balls’ or ‘bollocks to that’)
Realizing the advantage in working with Ultras as opposed to the same-old leftist shit- over several seasons they developed a Web forum for Ultras from different teams, hosted by Takriz. This allowed for years of mutual agitation, so that come the rupture is was a lightning transition from riot to insurrection
The ultras were also on Egypt’s streets at first crack. On January 24, the day before thousands planned to protest the Mubarak regime, the Ultra Facebook pages sent out a message saying, “We’re not political, we’re not part of this as an organization—you as individuals are free to do whatever you want (…) This is what we’ve been preparing for.”
There were also e-mails with attachments describing how to deal with the military—”an Ultra thing from Tunisia,” remembers Kotb Hassaneen, an Alexandrian insurgent. Some of the tactics they shared, says Foetus, the codename for a member of Takriz,  “have roots in long-standing contacts with anarchist and international protest groups like Indymedia, the Antifascist Network, and CrimethInc. For example, the technique called “Black Bloc”—having protesters wear black clothing en masse for impact and anonymity, with padding and protection to reduce injuries—dates back to 1980 in Germany.”
Here, the potentiality of a becoming-together of the spirit of the Riot and the antagonisms of the Occupation remain an open chance for us- in this Global Intifada.
The cyclones of struggle blast this world apart. Although there are periods that the state of siege regains the social peace- any moment that will explode, and again the streets will fill with fire. In this epoch we cannot allow the memory of the dead to be stolen. We stand as the Mothers of the martyrs who hold vigil in the midst of street battles.
Over the last year the insurrection has not ceased in Egypt or Tunisia, overcoming the billions of dollars empire spends (Canada $20 million) on counter-insurgency- in the form on elections and ‘democratic-institution building’. This apparatus of capture is the same network of regulation we battle here.  The institutionalization of crisis is best dealt with by the methods deployed throughout the ‘Arab spring’- that is, the absolute destruction of institutions and the armed exodus from the reifying radiation left in their wake. In Tunisia and Egypt I was witness to the ‘fired’ shells of bureaucratic control. The revolted will not trade in their looted weapons (93 cop shops and over 300 military barracks sacked in Egypt alone) for the opportunity to vote. And they have not abandoned the struggle against imperial democracy.
Almost everyone I met over there, I asked, ‘what will you do when the state steals your revolution?’ The unanimous response was, ‘We will just have another one’! Last month in Sidi Bouzid, the town from where the uprising in Tunisia began, the multitude set fire to the headquarters of the winning political party, the day after the election. Such will the beautiful destruction be wrought.

d.

Links to my travel writing & chronology of insurrections in Tunisia and Egypt:
http://momentofinsurrection.wordpress.com/fragments-of-intifada-in-tunis-egypt/
http://momentofinsurrection.wordpress.com/chronolgy-of-intifada-in-tunisia-egypt/

The post “Cyclones of Struggle: From Occupation to Intifada” by the Moment of Insurrection appeared first on Void Network.

 

North Africa is in revolt. As usual, the most striking thing is how familiar everything is: the young man with the prestigious degree working at a coffee shop, the unemployment and bitterness, the protests set off by police brutality—for police are to the unemployed what bosses are to workers. These details cue us in that what is happening in Egypt is not part of another world, but very much part of our own. There are no exotic overseas revolutions in the 21st century. Make no mistake—though these events dwarf the riots in Greece and the student movement in England, they spring from the same source.

The Revolution in Egypt: 

The End of the New Pharaohs?

Ex-dictator Ben Ali flees in his private jet from crowds chanting for regime change—the hated Egyptian police stations long used for torture in the name of “anti-terrorism” are burned down—men and women armed with kitchen knives organize neighborhood self-defense against the police—the army refuses to fire on their families in the streets.

It is not surprising that a wave of revolutions should begin now. Not since the days of pharaohs and monarchs has the world been controlled by as senseless a force as the global financial market. As capitalists became less and less able to produce profit from industrial production over the past decades, they had to invent means of profiting based on expected future returns. But in a world of increasingly cheap commodities and poor consumers, how could capitalists keep people buying stuff and still make a profit? They had to invent a way for consumers to continue buying even when they weren’t paid living wages: thus the invention of mass debt. When the sale of real goods can no longer produce profit, profits must be made on increasingly fantastic expected future returns—in other words, on finance.

Yet the popular occupation of Tahir Square cannot last forever; there must come a moment when food will be produced, train lines reactivated, and the Internet turned back on. These are the real keys to the success of the insurrection and to preventing the return to capitalism, even under the mantle of representative democracy. It seems that the steps in this direction have not yet begun.

Make no mistake about it, we are entering an era of revolt. These revolts will reject and attack capitalism in their concrete practice, even if the systematic destruction of earlier revolutionary currents has left a vacuum. Hopefully the participants will realize that freedom is impossible without the destruction of capitalism and the state, and a new generation of revolutionary thought will update the concept of revolution for the dawning era. We are at a point now where it should become clear to all that we can direct our own lives—that the state is a historical fossil holding us back. As shown in Egypt, the stranglehold of the state and capitalism must be broken in the streets; over the coming decades the results of this ultimate struggle will likely decide the fate of humanity itself.

All Power to the People!

-A dissident exiled in North Africa
with assistance from the CrimethInc. Workers’ Collective

The post “Egypt Today, Tommorow the World”, an analysis from Crimethinc ex Workers Collective appeared first on Void Network.

The post “An Anarchist Report from Egypt” : a letter from a friend appeared first on Void Network.

Revolution People!Revolution!

“The People Wants to bring Down the Regime”

The post News From Egypt / a blog written during the revolt of Egypt in Cairo Now! News from riots in Egypt here and now appeared first on Void Network.