Victory to the People

The Egyptian people have made a revolution that will change the course of history. Hosni Mubarak was one of the world’s most brutal dictators and was backed to the hilt by the US and all the western powers.

But the millions who took the streets, who occupied Tahrir Square and who faced bullets and tear gas day after day proved one thing. They proved that when the mass of ordinary people organise collectively they can defy even the most entrenched and repressive state machine.

The people that waged this courageous struggle have proved in practice what socialists always argue, that ordinary people have the potential power to take control of our own lives. When they do old ideas, prejudices and taboos are thrown up into the air. In Tahrir Square divisions of gender and religion were challenged in the heat of a united struggle.

This revolution is not over, there is still so much to fight for. Workers came onto the stage in the final decisive moments of the revolution. Now is the time for those struggles to press on with demands for economic justice as well as political freedoms.

The organised working class has immense power. If the people can bring down Mubarak they can challenge a system where

40 percent of the population of Egypt live on less than $2 a day.

If the revolution deepens and spreads it can shape an utterly new society in Egypt. They have within their grasp the possibility to build a society based on the needs of the mass of the population not the profits of the elites and multinational companies.

The Egyptian revolution can also be a beacon for the struggle of oppressed and exploited all over the globe.

The cheers that rang out through the working class areas, the slums and favelas on every continent at the news of Mubarak’s downfall can be turned into a confidence to fight.

We could be witnessing the opening scene of a new era of revolutions in the 21st century. Revolutions that can go beyond bringing down the worst of the tyrants and dictators and start to challenge the very system of capitalism itself.

What Egypt shows is that the world does not have to be the way it is.

What Egypt shows is that we do not have to accept a world where millions die for lack of food or clean water, where the very future of the planet is threatened by rampant competition.

What Egypt shows is thirty years of dictatorship and crushing repression can be thrown off in weeks.

After this week the possibility of fighting for a socialist society seems more than an impossible dream. Instead it seems the logical next step.

Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.