Workers Solidarity Movement

During the upsurge of protest in Egypt ahead of the elections, protests that demanded that the miltary step down and the 12,000 political prisoners be released the WSM signed the following international solidarity statement initiated by the Egyptian Libertarian Socialist Movement on Anarkismo.net.

The statement signed by 23 organisations in 20 countries was also published in [العربية] [Català] [Castellano] [Français] [Ελληνικά] [Italiano] and [Danish].

International Libertarian Statement of Solidarity with the Egyptian popular Struggle

On the weekend 19-20th a new wave of mass protest all over Egypt broke out because of the systematic violence of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) against the Egyptian masses. People are tired of its dictatorial behaviour, the use of extreme force against protesters, the military trials that in 10 months have ended up with 12,000 comrades rotting in jail, their censorship, the torture, kidnappings and selective murder of activists. People are tired of the military council hijacking the banners of our revolution to continue the same old dictatorship through other means. People are tired of the sectarianism they promote to divert us from our real fight for justice, equality and freedom.

Imperialism has dictated an "orderly transition" to democracy in Egypt. The military have shown themselves obedient in implementing this design. The people in Egypt demand an end to dictatorship and the uprooting of all the remnants of the hated Mubarak regime. People in Egypt want to feel, at last, that they have a country run by themselves for themselves.

The anarchists in Egypt, and the international solidarity movement with the libertarian revolutionaries, wholeheartedly support the just struggle of the Egyptian people to continue their revolution and deplore the massacre of protesters that shows that the SCAF is no different to Mubarak.

Unlike other sectors that hold illusions about bourgeois democracy, we believe that democracy and the State are irreconcilable. Real democracy was put into practice by the Egyptian people when they formed their popular committees and ran their own communities, their own towns, their own affairs from the bottom up. We call to strengthen these popular committees, we call to decentralise the country, to make every single political position recallable by the committees if they fail the popular mandate.

We also believe that the yearning for democracy is incompatible with the capitalist system, based on the elite control of the economy and the means of life, which condemn 25,000 human beings each day in the world to die of hunger. Real democracy is only possible when all of society democratically runs the economy and the industry of a nation. This requires collective ownership of land and companies and self-management by the workers and peasants themselves. If the few control the wealth of the world, the few will keep having power over the majority. The free market is a more subtle form of dictatorship.

Therefore, we call for the trade unions and the workers to take a leading role in the current struggle, to occupy their workplaces, to turn them into workers' cooperatives and to prepare for the full self-management of the Egyptian economy.

The crisis of Egypt will not be solved with half-hearted solutions. We need the commitment of the youth, of the women, of the working class in order to uproot the sources of tyranny and violence in our country - the capitalist system and the State. Let us all unite under the banner of the struggle against military rule, but let us defend a revolutionary, libertarian option for the Egyptian masses.

25 November 2011
Libertarian Socialist Movement (Egypt)
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (Switzerland)
Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)
Workers Solidarity Alliance (USA)
Confederación Sindical Solidaridad Obrera (Spain)
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre (Colombia)
Centro de Investigación Libertaria y Educación Popular (Colombia)
Instituto de Ciencias Económicas y de la Autogestión (Spain)
Federación Comunista Libertaria (Chile)
Revista Política y Sociedad (Chile)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia
Common Struggle - Libertarian Communist Federation (USA)
Unión Socialista Libertaria (Peru)
Common Cause (Canada)
Confederación General del Trabajo (Spain)
Coordination des Groupe Anarchistes (France)
Libertære Socialister (Denmark)
Motmakt (Norway)
Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (USA)
Union Communiste Libertaire (Canada)
Alternative Libertaire (France)