In These Times
"....As the weather warms, the Western media lens has drifted onto hotter and bloodier clashes in the Middle East and North Africa. But the May Day protests in Cairo revealed that the coalescence of labor and human rights are at the crux of the unfolding revolution and continues to serve as a barometer for monitoring the progress, or precariousness, of the transition to democracy.
It was the first free May Day celebration in Egypt in generations. As such, it embodied the postcolonial struggle for dignity and freedom more than any of the battles raging today in Muslim countries.
A few weeks ago, Egypt's transitional authorities struck a blow against the labor movement and all activists, with legislation that would make it a crime, punishable by fine or imprisonment, “for anyone who organizes a protest or an activity which may result in preventing or slowing down the work of a state institution, a general authority or a public or private workplace.”
The Center for Trade Union and Workers' Services (CTUWS), a leading Egyptian advocacy group, has together with the independent union movement issued a call for sweeping reforms....
Day by day, as activists grow wary that their revolution is getting hijacked, workers and youth are aligning their defenses and their aspirations.
Akram Ismail, an organizer with the Association of Progressive Revolutionary Youth talked to Al Masry Al Youm, “The organization of the working class is a pillar for democratic transformation and the civility of the state,” but he noted that the political arena had been enfeebled by "religious versus non-religious" disputes, devoid of class politics.....
On May Day, independent labor union leaders declared to Egypt's workers that they aimed:
to tell everybody in Egypt and abroad that the Egyptian working class has been and shall remain a living organ of the Egyptian body, and will never accept to have its right to association, and expression of the interests of the members compromised again by any means!...."
"....As the weather warms, the Western media lens has drifted onto hotter and bloodier clashes in the Middle East and North Africa. But the May Day protests in Cairo revealed that the coalescence of labor and human rights are at the crux of the unfolding revolution and continues to serve as a barometer for monitoring the progress, or precariousness, of the transition to democracy.
It was the first free May Day celebration in Egypt in generations. As such, it embodied the postcolonial struggle for dignity and freedom more than any of the battles raging today in Muslim countries.
A few weeks ago, Egypt's transitional authorities struck a blow against the labor movement and all activists, with legislation that would make it a crime, punishable by fine or imprisonment, “for anyone who organizes a protest or an activity which may result in preventing or slowing down the work of a state institution, a general authority or a public or private workplace.”
The Center for Trade Union and Workers' Services (CTUWS), a leading Egyptian advocacy group, has together with the independent union movement issued a call for sweeping reforms....
Day by day, as activists grow wary that their revolution is getting hijacked, workers and youth are aligning their defenses and their aspirations.
Akram Ismail, an organizer with the Association of Progressive Revolutionary Youth talked to Al Masry Al Youm, “The organization of the working class is a pillar for democratic transformation and the civility of the state,” but he noted that the political arena had been enfeebled by "religious versus non-religious" disputes, devoid of class politics.....
On May Day, independent labor union leaders declared to Egypt's workers that they aimed:
to tell everybody in Egypt and abroad that the Egyptian working class has been and shall remain a living organ of the Egyptian body, and will never accept to have its right to association, and expression of the interests of the members compromised again by any means!...."
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