Salute the people’s victory! Long live the Egyptian revolution!

Message from the International Action Center

The International Action Center joins with the people of Egypt and the world in celebrating the stunning triumph of people's power and mass action in Egypt.

The greatest analysts of human society described real revolutions as “festivals of the masses.” We see then that the 18 days that overturned the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship is one of the greatest revolutions in the history of humanity. Never before have so many in such a condensed period of time become the actors and writers of their own history. We congratulate the people of Egypt for their tremendous victory over a tyrant who for 30 years had the support of the “great powers” of the European Union and especially of the United States until the final moments of his reign.

We salute the Tunisian people too who threw out the Ben Ali dictatorship and launched this new chapter of world history. We salute the Egyptian youths who called for the Jan. 25 protests. We salute the women and men who defended with their bodies the encampment at Tahrir Square against the counterattack of the most reactionary forces on Feb. 2-4. We salute the textile, petroleum and workers, the teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers, the Suez Canal employees, all workers whose strikes in the last days brought a new element of strength to a glorious revolution. We salute those who took the offensive and attacked the headquarters of the police and the ruling party. We salute the soldiers in Tahrir Square and the sailors of Alexandria who fraternized with the demonstrators. We salute especially the more than 300 martyrs of this revolution.

The imperialist governments of the U.S. and Europe that now rush to hide their 30 years of support for the dictatorship are now asking: “What next?” They fear the revolution will spread across North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and will help liberate embattled Palestine from the Zionist occupation. They fear the Egyptian success will inspire workers in the imperialist countries to struggle harder and make political demands. We in the IAC are confident that the Egyptian people will soon give an answer. Our own experience with the Egyptian community in the United States can show why we are so optimistic.

In the past weeks we have worked hand-in-hand with progressive Egyptians assisting in organizing solidarity demonstrations. For today, Feb. 12, we helped plan an emergency demonstration in Washington, D.C., that yesterday’s victory replaced by a series of local celebrations. We saw that the energy, the willingness to sacrifice, the ingenuity and flexibility of the Egyptians here, liberated by the strength of the revolution at home, made it clear that the Egyptians will create the institutions needed to overcome the obstacles to establishing real national liberation and people’s democracy.

We conclude with a message directed at progressive people inside the United States. We recognize the hypocrisy of the U.S. government in its current show of solidarity with a revolution that they don’t dare dismiss or rebuke publicly. We know that they are plotting many ways of intervening and reversing the gains of the revolution. And we must pledge to do what we can to prevent Washington from intervening in any way against the people of Egypt and the entire region.

MUBARAK HAS STEPPED DOWN,
AND HUMANITY HAS STEPPED FORWARD!
THE MARCH TO FREEDOM WILL NOT STOP!

Long live the Egyptian revolution!

From IAC organizers and activists, Feb. 12, 2011