'Something in the soul...'

Egyptians are overthrowing an Islamist regime, once again defying lazy stereotypes about the region

AS USUAL, A GREAT PIECE!

 Hani Shukrallah , Tuesday 2 Jul 2013

"Egypt is making world history; in particular, world revolutionary history. Already, it is firmly up there with the two axiomatic revolutions of the modern world, the French and Russian revolutions. The popular upsurge on 30 June has been described as the biggest demonstration in the history of mankind; we would be hard pressed as well to site other examples of two major revolutionary upsurges in the space of two and a half years, overthrowing two regimes (and make no bones about it, the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt is over and done with), meanwhile putting somewhere between 30-40 percent of the nation’s adult population on the streets in a single day.


Simply, there is no historical precedent for any of this. Let alone that even in the grimmest of times during the past two and a half years, under the military/Muslim Brotherhood alliance, under the Muslim Brotherhood/Military alliance, and under the Muslim Brotherhood’s frenzied power grab, popular resistance did not cease for a single day. And it was thus that the first wave of the Egyptian revolution slipped – just like waves are known to do – into the second.
Also, for the first time in modern political history, a popular revolution is in the process of overthrowing an Islamist regime.....

All of which makes it doubly imperative for the revolutionary and democratic forces in the country to be fully aware of their place in history, and for God’s sake to not let the trees blind them to the wonderous magical forest that lies just beyond.......

Yet, ours’ was not an “orange revolution” of the kind so favoured by global capitalism; if it has any colour at all, it is the deep red of the blood of our martyrs, no less than as a reflection of the centrality of the social at its very heart. Egypt’s revolutionary banner back in Jan. 2011, as it is today proclaims: Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, and Human Dignity.”.......

I’ve spent the best part of the last thirty years critiquing this predominant paradigm, at a stage of our history which I had come to describe as the “Arabs’ age of ugly choices.” Today, on 2 July 2013, having just returned from Tahrir, it is with joyous glee that I thumb my nose at the literally thousands of pundits, academics, commentators, politicos and post-modern fashionistas, even as I, most humbly, bow to the indomitable spirit and love of freedom of my people: thank you Egyptians."