Solidarity vigil held for Egyptian protestors
Article published: Monday, February 7th 2011
Over one hundred people rallied outside the BBC building on Manchester’s Oxford Road last Friday evening in solidarity with the pro-democracy demonstrations against the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Photo: Richard Searle
Supporters chanted “in our thousands, in our millions, we are now all Egyptians” and “down with Hosni Mubarak, down with dictator.” Many waved Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan flags in a reflection of the international significance of the Egyptian uprising, which is one of a slew of protests against dictatorships across the Middle East sparked by Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself alight in protest against harassment and humiliation by corrupt government officials.
Amira Taha, who helped organise the vigil, told MULE why people at the rally wished to show their support for the Egyptians who have taken to the streets since January 25 and forced the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) to the brink of losing power. “If Mubarak goes it will empower the whole Arab world. We have no fear anymore. Freedom is a state of mind and we have lost our fear. At long last we have recovered our dignity,” she explained.
Taha described the admiration felt by those present for the Egyptian demonstrators, who in cities such as Cairo and Alexandria have withstood violent attacks from the authorities and pro-Mubarak demonstrators (some of whom were later discovered to be carrying police ID). “It’s incredible. They’ve been great – we’re so scared for them but they have such energy,” she said.
Her sentiments were echoed by others outside the BBC, with many in attendance being from a number of Middle Eastern countries from Libya to Lebanon. The names of various autocratic governments across the region including Sudan, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Iran and Libya were called out by the crowd, who shouted “you’re next” in warning.
Unrest is not new to Egypt. Neoliberal policies implemented as part of International Monetary Fund ‘structural adjustment programmes’ of privatisations and tax cuts for the rich have been met with over 1.5 million workers going on strike since 2004, with a general strike held in 2008. Far from being the tool of Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood, many within this movement are connected to the United Nations and humanitarian groups. Opposition figurehead Muhammed El Baradei, tipped as one possible democratic leader, is the former director of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Directory. Another example is the feminist human rights campaigner Dr. Aida Seif Al-Dawla, founder of the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, who is currently one of four nominees for the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Photo: Richard Searle
Despite this the US has decided to back former chief of secret police, an organisation documented as perpetrating torture, Omar Suleiman, who took part in the ‘extraodinary rendition’ programme, as vice president in charge of managing a transition. In Hilary Clinton’s words this is in order to prevent “forces” who would “derail or overtake the process to pursue their own specific agenda”. In private US officials take a less concerned view of the Muslim Brotherhood, with then-ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone in 2005 wearily informing FBI Director Robert Mueller that Egyptian authorities “have a long history of threatening us with the MB bogeyman.”
While the final outcome is still unpredictable and various interest groups manoeuvre for control behind the scenes the scale and scope of this popular uprising has caught many observers, apparantly including the US government, unawares. One possible reason could be complacency; in June 20009 senior NDP insider Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal Dessouki was still secretly advising a US state department asking whether the sham elections of 2010 and 2011 would lead to violence that “widespread politically motivated unrest” was not part of the “Egyptian mentality.”
Neverthless the protestors remain in Cairo’s Tahrir square, refusing to budge until Mubarak does. “It’s no longer about bread and butter issues. It’s about freedom and dignity”, was Taha’s opinion.
Richard Goulding
More: Manchester, News
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