The Socialist Renewal Current in Egypt have issued the following statement arguing that repression has only turned people more defiant and determined, and they urge solidarity with the Arab revolutions.

Arab people are breaking the chains of tyranny, poverty and corruption. We will not surrender. Leaders of the world compete and prevaricate to safeguard the interests of great powers. As for Arab rulers, they struggle to work under the umbrella of the US, the dominant world power. In return, they are left free-handed to accumulate astounding fortunes and take whatever oppressive measures against their people, who suffer from poverty, unemployment and deteriorating living conditions.

Despite its empty rhetoric regarding democracy, accountability and the rule of law, the international community turns a blind eye to state terrorism and corruption by the region’s dictatorships. After decades of boiling resentment and discontent, Arab people are
now breaking the chains of fear.

For the first in the region – and perhaps in the whole world – we see millions of people moving together in pursuit of freedom and justice. After the masses of Tunisia and Egypt managed to overthrow their despotic rulers, the flame of revolution has burnt in much of the Arab world, and we hear demonstrators chanting “the people want to bring down regime” in one country after another.

Regimes used all sorts of oppression at hand to force the people to surrender. Thought it was all to no avail. In a case after another, regimes applied the same recipe: using teargas and rubber bullets against unarmed protestors; withdrawing the police and releasing criminals from prisons to terrify people and loot their property; firing live ammunition into the crowds.

The Libyan regime went further to use mercenaries to fight the people, while the Egyptian one used camels and horses in the fight. Yet brutality is turning people more determined to win the battle. We could see this in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Kuwait, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan and Yemen.

The future of the region – and perhaps the whole world – depends on the outcome of the fight between Arab people and their despotic, corrupted and reactionary regimes. Our support to Arab revolutions is the way for a brighter future for our children. Long live Arab revolutions.

Socialist Renewal Current
20th February 2011