The revolutionary chants on the streets of Egypt have resonated around the world, but with a popular uprising without a clear direction and an unpopular leader refusing to concede, Egypt’s future hangs in the balance.
On Riz Khan we speak with Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about the power of popular dissent, the limits of peaceful protest and the future of Egyptian politics.
Source: Inter Press Service
Kanya D’Almeida interviews U.S. scholar and organiser JOEL KOVEL
(IPS) – As the powerful collective energy continues to surge through Dakar, veterans of the World Social Forum (WSF) are taking a moment to examine the history, trajectory and future of the alternative global movement.
Widely considered the father of the fast-growing Ecosocialist movement, Joel Kovel has played a leading role in the WSF since 2003, following the movement from Mumbai to Nairobi to Belem.
“Just listen to that roar,” urged a CNN correspondent in Egypt, as thousands of Egyptian protesters charged, fists pumped, against hundreds of armed Egyptian security forces. What a roar it was, indeed.
Source: Truthout
After a good start, the Obama administration’s response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship.
Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a “Mubarak consigliere.” The script is out of an all-too-familiar playbook: Pick this longtime chief of Egyptian intelligence who has consistently done our bidding in matters of torture, and retrofit him as a modern democratic leader. But this time the Egyptian street will not meekly go along.
People in the US are looking to South America for inspiration in occupying homes and factories.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019