actforfreedomnow
Fuck #Mubarak, Fuck the Economy and Fuck Returning to Normal or Why the demos should continue
“Let’s be done with waiting, doubts, dreams of social peace,
little compromises and naivety… Let’s put aside the great analyses that explain everything down to the most minute detail…Let’s put aside priests, bosses, revolutionary leaders, less revolutionary ones and those who aren’t revolutionary at all…
The world does not belong to us. If it has a master who is stupid enough to want it the way it is then let him have it. Let him count the ruins in the place of buildings, the graveyards in the place of cities, the mud in the place of rivers and the putrid sludge in the place of seas. The greatest conjuring trick in the world no longer enchants us.
We are certain that communities of joy will emerge from our struggle here and now. And for the first time life will triumph over death.”~ Armed Joy by Alfredo Bonanno
A mix of feelings and thoughts ran through my head today while watching Mubarak’s speech. First of all the audacity he must have to get up before Egypt and the rest of the world and talk about feeling the protester’s pain. After being responsible for the deaths of so many. Really though it was this that really stuck in my craw. In his words:
“Dear citizens, the priority right now is regaining the sense of confidence in Egyptians and a sense of trust in our economy, our reputation. Change and transfer that we have already started and that is not going to bring us any sort of step backwards.”
This talk of protecting the “economy” and restoring “confidence” reminding me of an interview I heard on NPR with an Egyptian shopkeep. This particular businessman driving a fucking car into demonstrators, because he wanted to the demonstrations to stop. And why did he want the demonstrations to stop? Because they’re hurting the economy…
The doublethink here is astounding. The Egyptian economy was FUCKED already, to put it bluntly, before the recent unrest began. In fact that was the major motivator for the demonstrations. In the words of an Egyptian I interviewed:
“Al Masry: alot of sparks led to this. These sparks however are when more than half the country are under the line of poverty. when doctors earn around 200 EGP per month which can be spent in a week if you starve yourself…when people stopped eating meat because of the rise in prices by atleast 50% every 3 months, when later the loaf of bread have become expensive for the ordinary Egyptian and now that the bread is not even enough.”
So why I ask, why in the world would anyone stop demonstrating to save the economy of all things? As if there is suddenly going to be food for the hungry if the economy is OK. As if the economy is something worth saving. Why in the hell would these people who have been pushed to their limits by hunger and starvation before the demonstrations, suddenly revert back to normal? Why indeed, when it seems it is the protests, or what has come out of the protests, that is feeding them now. Another answer from “Al Masry” on this subject:
read on: http://ghostofvanzetti.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/fuck-mubarak-fuck-the-economy-and-fuck-returning-to-normal/
