From Taksim to Tahrir, from
Bulgaria to Brazil, we fight the same struggle against oppressive state
structures that benefit only a tiny wealthy elite.
Open letter by the Egyptian activist collective ‘Comrades from Cairo’
To you at whose side we struggle,
June
30 will mark a new stage of rebellion for us, building on what started
on January 25 and 28, 2011. This time we rebel against the reign of the
Muslim Brotherhood that has brought only more of the same forms of
economic exploitation, police violence, torture and killings.
References
to the coming of “democracy” have no relevance when there is no
possibility of living a decent life with any signs of dignity and decent
livelihood. Claims of legitimacy through an electoral process distract
from the reality that in Egypt our struggle continues because we face
the perpetuation of an oppressive regime that has changed its face but
maintains the same logic of repression, austerity and police brutality.
The authorities maintain the same lack of any accountability towards the
public, and positions of power translate into opportunities to increase
personal power and wealth.
June 30
renews the Revolution’s scream: “The People Want the Fall of the
System”. We seek a future governed neither by the petty authoritarianism
and crony capitalism of the Brotherhood nor a military apparatus which
maintains a stranglehold over political and economic life nor a return
to the old structures of the Mubarak era.
Though the ranks of protesters
that will take to the streets on June 30 are not united around this
call, it must be ours — it must be our stance because we will not accept
a return to the bloody periods of the past.
Though
our networks are still weak we draw hope and inspiration from recent
uprisings especially across Turkey and Brazil. Each is born out of
different political and economic realities, but we have all been ruled
by tight circles whose desire for more has perpetuated a lack of vision
of any good for people.
We are inspired by the horizontal organization
of the Free Fare Movement founded in Bahía, Brazil in 2003 and the
public assemblies spreading throughout Turkey.
In
Egypt, the Brotherhood only adds a religious veneer to the process,
while the logic of a localized neo-liberalism crushes the people.
In
Turkey a strategy of aggressive private-sector growth, likewise
translates into authoritarian rule, the same logic of police brutality
as the primary weapon to oppress opposition and any attempts to envision
alternatives.
In Brazil a government rooted in a revolutionary
legitimacy has proven that its past is only a mask it wears while it
partners with the same capitalist order in exploiting people and nature
alike.
These recent struggles share
in the fight of much older constant battles of the Kurds and the
indigenous peoples of Latin America. For decades, the Turkish and
Brazilian governments have tried but failed to wipe out these movements’
struggle for life.
Their resistance to state repression was the
precursor to the new wave of protests that have spread across Turkey and
Brazil. We see an urgency in recognizing the depth in each other’s
struggles and seek out forms of rebellion to spread into new spaces,
neighborhoods and communities.
Our
struggles share a potential to oppose the global regime of nation
states. In crisis as in prosperity, the state — in Egypt under the rule
of Mubarak, the Military Junta or the Muslim Brotherhood — continues to
dispossess and disenfranchise in order to preserve and expand the wealth
and privilege of those in power.
None
of us are fighting in isolation.
We face common enemies from Bahrain,
Brazil and Bosnia, Chile, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Tunisia,
Sudan, the Western Sahara and Egypt. And the list goes on. Everywhere
they call us thugs, vandals, looters and terrorists.
We are fighting
more than economic exploitation, naked police violence or an
illegitimate legal system. It is not rights or reformed citizenship that
we fight for.
We oppose the
nation-state as a centralized tool of repression, that enables a local
elite to suck the life out of us and global powers to retain their
dominion over our everyday lives. The two work in unison with bullets
and broadcasts and everything in between.
We are not advocating to unify
or equate our various battles, but it is the same structure of
authority and power that we have to fight, dismantle, and bring down.
Together, our struggle is stronger.
We want the downfall of the System.
Comrades from Cairo
