'Mubarakism rejected by new protests'
Sat Jul 9, 2011 4:47PM
Interview with Peter Rushton, a historian and political observer in London
The Egyptian people have restored the revolutionary momentum by renewing protests against “Mubarakism” and demand for a real revolution, a political analyst says.
Press TV interviewed Peter Rushton, a historian and political observer in London, to share his view on the recent protest in Egypt.
Press TV: How significant is what we are seeing today in Egypt as once again the Egyptians have returned to the streets in mass?
Rushtun: I think it is significant for two reasons. First of all the revolutionary momentum that is now being resorted on the streets, a momentum that the military elite, that the supreme council that we heard about a few moments ago, had hope to dissipate simply by removing former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, cutting off the head of the corrupt system, by removing the symbol of corruption while leaving the reality of the regime still in place.
They hoped that they could have dissipated the momentum of the revolution, that they could restore business as usual. It's clear from today that business as usual of Mubarakism without Mubarak is not going to be allowed to continue without the revolutionaries stepping forward and renewing their campaign.
The other thing that I think is immensely significant is that broad range of different political stand points and different cultural stand points are represented in this opposition. The opposition is not allowing itself to be divided by very experienced and very well trained state machinery, that with the American encouragement, with the encouragement of various outside forces who wanted to divide the opposition as they had wanted to divert the opposition by removing Mubarak, they would want to divide the opposition into its various component parts. The opposition has not played that game. It has been prepared to renew its revolutionary momentum, and also to maintain its revolutionary unity. Those are the two key things that we are seeing so far today.
Press TV: Do you think that the council that is in place can actually be reformed, or do you think that all the eminence of the former regime, even if there is a new name for it, that they would all have to go and start off from scratch, with the pressure that the people are putting now on the regime? Do you think it's is going to be enough pressure to get the reform that they want? Or do you think that the whole system has to be scrapped and started from zero?
Rushtun: Well, judging from their actions so far, the supreme council has not lived up to the hopes of those who, whether naively or optimistically, hoped that just by removing Mubarak some of these senior officers could be trusted, that what they have shown so far is that they can't be trusted to even pursue elementary justice for those who were killed, for those who were injured, for those who were subjected to the most appalling violations of the human rights so far the last few months. They have not even done the most basic things to restore the sense of justice.
So, simply judging from their actions so far, it would seem clear for most of the people that supreme council can have no role to play in a future democratic and just Egypt. If they wish to have a role in that, then it is quite simple, they can demonstrate that they are entitled to be trusted, that they can demonstrate by their actions, on the one hand, pursuing even handed justice, and on the other hand, by pursing a truly independent foreign policy for Egypt.
You see one of the things that I have been most worried about in the last few weeks is people like John McCain and [Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman turning up in Egypt, the people who represent the very worst of neo-conservatives.
Press TV: What does it mean to you when you see someone like McCain, like Lieberman on the ground there? What do you think they are trying to do? And what direction do they want to take Egypt?
Rushtun: Well, it implies to me that they can do business as usual, that Lieberman and McCain have been converted after a political lifetime of support for the most extreme forms of imperial neoconservative foreign policy, support for the most extreme versions of the Zionist politics in Palestine. Of course, their main concern is Egypt's attitude to Gaza. They are going to want to restore the type of Mubarak policy that tightens the strangle hold on Gaza, and that allowed for Egypt to operate as the major base for Zionist allied imperial forces throughout the region.
That's what they are there to do; they are not there to be part of some move towards justice, some move towards a genuine post-Mubarak policy. They want business as usual. Their presences of the policies of the supreme council have been very bad news, so far.
Press TV: How far has this revolution gone, do you think, and how far does it have to go? How much of a change has taken place at all in these five months in your perspective?
Rushton: Well, you see the Rafa business as you say is really typical of what has been going on, that we have seen symbolic change, but it needs the symbolic change not too much in the way of real change.
Let's not underestimate some of the importance of this symbolic change. The fact that this revolutionary momentum on the streets without being crushed by tanks of the tyrant Mubarak, because many people have feared that Mubarak simply seeks to crush them with immense bloodshed, that is what people feared a few months ago, the revolutionary succeed in facing the tyrant at that point.
The question is now whether they can succeed in pushing the momentum further and achieving real change. Now that means not only real change at the Rafa crossing, it not only means real change in terms of justice and in terms of people being brought to account for their actions with those people, who were the servants of Mubarak's corrupt regime, but perhaps most importantly of all, it means addressing the debts that Mubarak built up over the decades. Because as things stand at the moment, it seems as though the elite in Egypt are quite happy to continue to allow the Egyptian people to have to pay the price for their own repression, for the infringement of human rights, for the degradation of Egypt foreign policy, for the turning of Egypt into a puppet of foreign interests ... if that wasn't bad enough, future Egyptian generation, the current generation, and future generations are being burdened by the debt that Mubarak's government built up with westerns banks.
And one of the revolutionaries that I am assure they are will do, as to carry the moment of the revolution forward, and the first act of a genuinely independent Egypt, would be to address that issue of debt to western institutions, to say not only do we wish to sweep aside the oppressive regime that we suffered under for so many decades, but we also wish to repudiate the debt burden that that regime built up, we are not going to pay the price for a our own repression.
REZ/PKH
