What we see today is not a revolt against the ruling class, but rather a battle within this class; an attempt to redistribute the state’s power and resources.
Even though the number of strikes and industrial actions in Egypt has skyrocketed since the mid 2000s, labour's demands have mostly been local and fragmented.
Professing national pride or hiding in shame are two extremes like black and white and do not fit in a moderate and multihued world. عربي
مع عقود من السياسات النيوليبرالية ، تزايد الانقسامات الطبقية ، وهدم الساحات العامة ، قد اختفى الاحساس بالانتماء الاجتماعي في مصر ، والحاجة إلى استعادته عاملا مشتركا في التحركات الجماهيرية. 3fEnglish
With decades of neoliberal policies, growing class divisions, and the demolition of public space, social belonging has vanished. The need to reclaim it has been a common factor in Egypt's mass mobilisations. عربي
The regime has unleashed a wave of repression that it can no longer control. Power now lies in the hands of those that police local communities: Egypt’s new untouchables, the petty security officials.
Giulio Regeni's case is not only about academic freedom, but about the responsibility of EU states to protect their citizens: silence cannot be the response to his torture and murder.
Why would a country that showed itself so courageous in confronting Mubarak’s repression now be content to sacrifice its hard won gains, and accept a regime that has gone far further?
Abuses are systemic despite regime attempts to portray them as 'isolated'. People have much to fear from the police and their sense of impunity but they are not taking it quietly.
Young people's experience of revolution has not evaporated, or been eradicated by oppression. Start building a new revolutionary wave that will not fall prey to the 'Islamic vs. secular' division.
The Muslim Brotherhood, secular activists and even regime supporters have decided to shield themselves from reality, focusing on a discourse that provides them with a protective layer from the grim conditions engulfing them.
The revolutionary calls were necessary; they united otherwise mutually hostile groups, politicised the apolitical and neutralised the anti-political. But it was not exactly a rupture nor a total break with the past.
