Hosni Mubarak – denial is more than just a river in revolutionary Egypt…

After over two weeks of protests, streetfighting, strikes and riots in Egypt today was supposed to be Mubarak’s endgame. The military announced that “all your demands would be met” and the head of Mubarak’s party the NDP said that Mubarak should go. But in his Presidential address Mubarak stubbornly refused to face reality and resign, still sticking to his crazy plan that he will stay on as President until September and then hand over power to his Vice President, CIA torturer Omar Sulieman.

The only concessions Mubarak made in the address were in relation to the Emergency Law in Egypt, proposing that 6 articles in the constitution will be changed which could lead to the repeal of this law which has kept Egypt in a state of Emergency for 30 years. This hasn’t been the only concession; in the past few days a 15% increase in public sector pay and pensions was announced, a fantastic achievement for Egyptian workers given the austerity programmes enacted across Africa and the Arab world. Maybe UNISON should adopt rioting as a tactic here?

Alongside these wage rises, Egyptian workers also have won a new free and independent Trade Union organisation which has played a crucial role in the past few days, organising strikes across Egypt – from white collar workers in Cairo to closing down the Suez Canal. Some western commentators have opposed the protests in fear that Islamic Fundamentalists will take over if Mubarak falls but the reality is that all of the demonstrations have involved Christians and Muslims united. When Muslims have prayed Christian demonstrators have protected them from the police, and in turn Muslim demonstrators have defended Christian Coptic churches. The revolution in Egypt is not based on Islamic Fundamentalism, but on the fight for democracy and against the regimes corruption and thuggery

What happens next in Egypt now is up in the air. Mubarak’s counter strategy to the protests was to simultaneously announce his handover of power in September whilst paying for thugs from the security services to attack pro-democracy forces to try and clear them from the square. This would give the regime time until September to try and crush the demonstrators.

That strategy failed and the demonstrations we have seen so far will be nothing compared to what’s going to come tomorrow. Mubarak has shown he is totally unable to act in the best interests of his own regime, he’s drunk on power and his own vanity. Arguably he has also fucked his own personal interests by destabilising the Government – given he has an alleged personal wealth of $70 billion. If true that makes him the richest man in the world, even wealthier that Mexican Telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who have approx $50 billion of personal wealth each.

What’s crucial will be the role the military plays in the next few days. The demonstrators have always looked on the army very differently from the hated police force – when the army entered the streets they were welcomed by demonstrators for example. The military also publicly declared that they would not fire on the people when they demonstrated. When Mubarak unleashed his thugs on demonstrators however, the army did not protect the demonstrators but stood aside and offered the demonstrators no defence. The army has tried to walk between the raindrops, offering definitive support to neither Mubarak or the demonstrators. The army’s leadership will be anxious to maintain their position in Egyptian society. Not only does the army receive $1.3 billion in military aid from the USA, but it also controls large sections of the Egyptian economy. The military do not want to bite the bullet with Mubarak if they can avoid it, but it remains to be seen if the soldiers will defy orders and defect to the side of the demonstrators.

Whatever happens next, the events of the past two weeks have shown that 20th century secret police forces cannot overcome 21st century forms of organising, and that the most entrenched Arab dictatorships can be brought to the brink of collapse by sheer people power – no trade union federation, Islamist or revolutionary party needs to start the process. There is not a single pro-western Arab ruler who can say today that they are entirely safe, the civil servants in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Washington, Amman and Jeddah must be shitting it – the Arab people are showing they can fight for democracy without any US forces or western NGO’s doing the job for them.