Emara | Island News

Interpreting the Revolution, (Egypt)

On the first anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, Alex Callinicos looks at how to understand the revolutionary wave—and the potential for it to go much further

The Arab revolutions have shown an astonishing tenacity. They have overthrown some dictators and shaken others. Above all, they continue.

The struggle to democratise Egyptian society goes on. And revolutionaries in Syria have shown astonishing courage and determination despite more than 5,000 deaths at the hand of the state.

The Arab revolutions—and the global economic crisis—have punctured the neoliberal era when unrestrained capitalism ran rampant and revolutions were consigned to the past.

But attempts to read the revolutions are shaped by the myths of this period of free market reaction.

One of these myths is comparatively easy to demolish. This is the idea that the overthrow of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt are the latest in a succession of “colour revolutions” that are spreading Western-style liberal capitalism throughout the world.

Taoiseach put his two big feet in it at Davos!

By Archon Saturday February 4th, 2012

(southernstar.ie)

PICTURE this totally imaginary scene: The best paid political advisors in the world recoil in horror as months of careful tutoring, spoon feeding, rote learning, programming, coaching and cramming on how to answer questions on the Irish economic crisis go down the tube, flushed into the nearest septic tank – no, not Big Phil’s tank, but the one in the picturesque Swiss town of Davos.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has just told billionaires and bankers at the World Economic Forum that ‘mad borrowing’ by foolish people caused the economic crash in Ireland, and the effect of his words on our imaginary spin-doctors has been dramatic.

Slashed growth forecast raises recession fears

Thursday, February 02, 2012 - 05:15 PM

Ireland is staring down the barrel of another recession after the Central Bank more than halved forecasts for economic growth, opposition politicians have warned.

Opposition politicians claimed a mini-budget was on the cards after the dramatic reassessment warned the economy would expand by just 0.5% in 2012 rather than previous estimates of 1.8%.

The Central Bank blamed a combination of falling demand from consumers at home and a poor export market.

The revised report on the economic outlook slashed the official predictions from October forecasting 1.8% growth in 2012, and a 2.1% prediction in the July bulletin last year.

Erratic rainfall and western financial strife mean improved crisis preparations

Niger struggles to feed itself at the best of times – these are the worst of times

Erratic rainfall and western financial strife mean improved crisis preparations are being stretched to the limit

Mark Tran in Bambeye

guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 January 2012 14.35 GMT

In the mid-morning sun, Aminatou Gado takes her place in the queue, where she faces a long wait to have her 14-month-old daughter screened for malnutrition. Having already walked three hours to get to the dusty town of Bambeye, she will probably not leave before 5pm. Inside the adobe building dozens of other women, many breastfeeding, sit on the floor amid discarded flip-flops, waiting their turn. The test involves a simple, coloured cardboard strip wrapped around the child's upper arm. If it tightens to the red band, the child is severely malnourished; yellow means moderate; and green means the child is eating enough.

"My child has fevers and colds, does not have enough to eat and I don't have enough milk," says Gado, 25, as her baby, eyes shut, sucks hard on a shrivelled breast. Gado has two other children after her twins died one month after their birth.

ACTA, Still a Threat to the Net

Amazing! Over a million signers and the lead Parliamentarian on ACTA has resigned. Now's the time to pile on the pressure and bury the treaty -- forward this email to everyone you know

Dear friends,

A new global treaty could allow corporations to police everything that we do on the Internet. Last week 3 million of us successfully pushed back the US censorship bills -- if we act now, we can get the EU Parliament to bury this new threat to all of us:

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America's attack on our Internet! -- but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.

ACTA -- a global treaty -- could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business.

Europe is deciding right now whether to sign ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering -- let's give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition -- we'll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_acta/?vl
(please copy the link into your address bar and click through from there, if you have not already signed this petition.
Ed - Ed.)

The Whistler

The Whistler
by Sommer Browning

Here I am so selfish I only remember my reaction. Each fact loosening falling away like icicles along the eaves. I once saw one so large & the earth so soft that it pierced the ground below it. I once walked through a spider web so vast, I felt its tug as I pulled through it. I once drove 30 miles at night

Egyptian Revolution: One Year On

(SWP Newsletter 26 January 2012)

Here we print two important articles about the fate of the Egyptian revolution – an interview with Ahdaf Soueif and an assessment of the revolution by Alex Callinicos.

Ahdaf Soueif interview: ‘Bread, freedom and dignity’

Writer and activist Ahdaf Soueif has reported from the front line of the Egyptian Revolution from the 18 days that brought down dictator Hosni Mubarak to today.

Ahdaf talked to Judith Orr about the struggles in Egypt, the subject of her new book, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution. In this she weaves personal memories of growing up in Cairo with a powerful account of the extraordinary events of the past year.

Your writing about the Egyptian Revolution celebrates the courage, imagination and resilience of ordinary people. Why are they your focus?

The revolution is about people bursting through the lid that has been placed on them.

It has confirmed everything I already believed. I never lost faith in the idea that the people were waiting, that under the surface their anger was simmering away.

For that I was often told that I was a romantic, that I was looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles.

Maybe that’s true. But I always thought the strategies people used to survive—the way they made a living, the jokes that they told—showed their resilience.

You have simultaneously been part of making a revolution and writing about it. Was it difficult to extract yourself from the moment in order to record it and assess its significance?

The articles, spoken pieces and short things weren’t difficult because I wrote them from within the revolution.

But writing the book was a much more sustained effort.