by Dyab Abou Jahjah
Revolution is not a process of overthrowing a regime and replacing its administrative tools with others. That is a small part of the revolutionary process but it does not define it. Revolution is, above all, about replacing a set of concepts and values with new ones. Whereas cultural and social evolution of human society is a process of slow and cumulative transformation of cognitive and material norms, revolution is a qualitative leap that burns phases of development and transfers society from one era to another in a very short time. This type of transformation does not happen without destroying some societal constructs and radically changing some others. It is a painful process that proceeds according to a complex dialectic between destruction and rebuilding, tension and stability until a new stable reality is born, based on both material and structural achievements and gains.
دياب أبو جهجه
الثورة ليست عملية انقلاب على منظومة حكم و استبدال اليات ادارة بآليات اخرى. ان ذلك جزء بسيط من العملية الثورية و لكنه لا يختزلها. الثورة هي قبل كل شيء انقلاب على مفاهيم و قيم و استبدالها بمفاهيم و قيم جديدة. و اذا كان التطور الثقافي و الاجتماعي هو عبارة عن تحول بطيء و تراكمي للمفاهيم المعرفية و القيمية في المجتمعات البشرية يؤدي الى تغيرها مع الوقت, فان الثورة هي قفزة نوعية تحرق المراحل و تنقل المجتمع من طور الى طور في زمن قياسي. هكذا عملية لا تحصل من دون تحطيم بعض الاطر و تغيير اطر اخرى تغييرا جذريا. انها عملية مؤلمة و تسير وفق جدلية معقدة بين الهدم و البناء و بين التوتر و الاستقرار حتى تتمخض عنها حالة مستقرة جديدة مبنية على مكتسبات قيمية و هيكلية على حد سواء. و الثورة العربية العظمى, ثورة 2011 , ليست استثناء على ما تقدم و قد افرزت و هي تفرز كل يوم مفاهيم و قيم جديدة.
I will always hold high regard of Chavez and Castro but they are making a huge and fatal mistake and so are you. You know me for years, and you know how anti-imperialist I am, at least trust us, trust our people. The revolt in Libya is popular and not ran by the filthy opposition that we know are there and are stooges of Empire. Our people in Libya are revolting, Arab nationalists, Islamists, Socialists but above all regular Lybians are revolting, this is not a velvet revolution the level of sacrifice is huge, you are insulting the blood of thousands of martyrs by standing behind the butcher…. This is is heartbreaking…
what happens in Libya is a direct result of Tunisia and Egypt, Lybia is squeezed by a genuine Arab revolutionary fever… It might even happen in Syria and we will support it too despite all the positive aspects of the regime there, because if it is massive and genuine, it is good, and liberating. Empire will always try to turn any event to its favor, but the people won’t allow that to happen! and remember Gadafi is for years now a stooge of Empire. The Americans want to move in because they are afraid for the oil and for a possible Alqaeda new safe haven. Gadafi is inviting them in but talking all the time about that Al Qaeda is behind the revolt, a total absurd claim. This revolt is genuine and popular, and this man is a butcher and he is crazy. Sure he payed some Sam rockets for the IRA in his far forsaken revolutionary past, and that is great, but would that make you blind to his pro imperialist make-over the last decade? or to the fact that his son is even close to the Zionists or at least to the fact that he is butchering his people….
Dear friends, trust our people and its revolutionary instinct. the Arab street don’t get things wrong , it is always anti-imperialist, and the Arab street is standing as one man, behind the revolution.
Power to the libian people,
Long Live the pan-Arab revolution
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Dyab Abou Jahjah
This is the day…. We say that again for the third time, and this time we learned enough to add that everything is possible. Some lessons can be drawn though:
1- The revolution in Egypt will not stop and will not lose momentum as long as Mubarak remains in Power. At the contrary, the fact that the old dictator is determined to remain on the chair is radicalizing the revolution. It might be driving out some segments of the soft upper middle class but it is driving in larger masses of the low middle class.
2- The army is now divided. According to a well informed source, The council of command of the army is supporting the revolution, but the Air Force and the republican guard are supporting the regime and threatened to use force. The answer of Sami Annan was to move the fourth armored brigade from Dahshour to Cairo to support the second and eight brigades that are besieging the republican guard and the air force basis. Brigadier general Annan needs now to see more support in the street to deliver a coup de grace against the regime.
Dyab Abou Jahjah
After some people believed that they can speak in the name of the revolution in Egypt and entered dialogue with the government, and after that it was shown to them that this revolution has no representation except the youth that launched it and the middle class that is carrying it to it end, the answer was yesterday, and it was a clear answer: The strongest momentum so far.
]]>أخواتي و أخوتي يا ثائرات مصر و ثوارها,
بعد ثورة تونس الرائعة المدوية التي هزت الوطن العربي من أقصاه الى أقصاه و أحيت فينا جميعا الأمل بأن نشهد انبلاج عصر الحرية و الكرامة, لبت مصر النداء . و عندما تتحرك مصر تشخص الأنظار و ترتجف القلوب و ترتعش الكراسي و العروش. عندما تتحرك مصر يصمت العالم و يراقب لأن مصر هي البداية و النهاية, فيها كان الأفضل و فيها عشعش الاسوء منذ عقود. مصر هي حيث يوجد المدى المطلوب للتغيير و مصر هي حيث توجد امكانات التغيير و اليات التغيير و آفاق التغيير. مصر علمتنا و نسيت و ها هي تتذكر, مصر علمتنا دروسا حفظناها عن ظهر قلب و أريد أن أكررها هنا على مسمع شباب مصر:
Dyab Abou Jahjah
The battle for Egypt, between the revolution and the United States of America, has started. Today the Envoy of Obama, CIA man Wiesner said to Reuters that the presence of Mubarak in power is necessary for the reforms. This was said on a day that started with news of an assassination attempt on Omar Suleiman few days ago that left two of his body guards dead, and an attack on the Egyptian Gas-pipeline to “Israel”. The Regime Media pulled immediately the card of foreign intervention alluding to Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah. This position was also adapted by the Egyptian liberal party Al Wafd, and to some extent by the leftists Atajamo’ party. Both Parties accepted to enter a dialogue with the regime and seem to have come to terms with it. The regime is also trying to make the whole thing now look like a confrontation between itself as a rational actor that is worried about the stability of Egypt and willing to reform itself, and the Muslim Brotherhood that is pushed to destabilize the country by foreign powers.
In the battles of yesterday and today, fought bravely by the Egyptian revolutionaries against the militias of the regime, many martyrs fell by the bullets of the thugs. Now it is clear to all that the regime is maneuvering, on the one hand offering concessions (declaring that Gamal Mubarak will not run, that some ministers and party leaders of the NDP cannot leave the country and their accounts are frozen, and that the constitution will be altered), but on the other hand continuing attacks against the people barricaded in Tahrir Square. It all shows that several agendas are at work on the regime side.
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ht a counter-revolution. The scenes today at the Tahrir Square are nothing short of a scene that we imagine from the French revolution: the people holding ground against hordes of militiamen of a dying regime. (more…)
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Dyab Abou Jahjah