In Kenya, illegal demolitions of housing to make way for a railway made thousands of people homeless:
I can’t remember when it started but it’s been going on for very long and I’m tired of it. It gets tiring having your homes destroyed in the name of development. It gets very tiring.
A 1957 public information film made by the US government about Apartheid.
Poor old Nelson Mandela, not just eulogised by those who had been or would’ve been enthusiastic supporters of the Apartheid state back then, but also having to endure the humiliation of having smarmy fuckers like David Cameron and Tony Blair do so.
That day in 1990 that Mandela came out of prison, hot on the heels of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ongoing self liberation of Eastern Europe, was the greatest symbol of how much the world had changed, how powerless the old, heavily armed power structures had turned out to be in the face of the people. In the decades since we’ve seen the old guard frantically trying to and mostly succeeding to re-establish their old securities, turning Mandela and others like him from a symbol of revolution into a cuddly father figure of liberal democracy, whose success in overturning an evil regime had no consequences for our own societies. That’s why Blair and Cameron, the same kind of politican that opposed Mandela in the Apartheid era, one the leader of a party that up to his release from prison called him a terrorist, the other a war criminal now feel able to praise Mandela without shame.
Zambia had elections recently, in which the ruling party, having been in office since independence more or less, was trounced by the opposition, who used a novel way to deal with bribery by telling their supporters to take the bribes but still vote for them, just don’t tell anybody:
Certain things are ubiquitous during elections, and often the most evocative of the mood are party slogans. One slogan more than any other has dominated Zambia’s 2011 elections, the PF’s ‘Don’t Kubeba!’, or ‘Don’t Tell!’. It lies at the heart of the PF’s seemingly successful campaign to negate the benefits of incumbency enjoyed by the MMD. It appeared on posters, on the lips of cadres and at rallies. Dandy Krazy’s ‘Donch Kubeba’ [J1] (with appropriate shushing dance move) has been one of the most popular tunes heard out and about during the last two months. In essence, it encouraged voters to take the chitenge, maize meal, oil, or even bribes offered by the government, even attend the rallies, but not feel they couldn’t vote against them anyway. As a way of upholding the secrecy of the ballot, and running a campaign against an opponent with resources far in excess of your own, it is a risky, but clever strategy. Indeed, the EU Observer Mission stated that unequal access to resources meant a “level playing field†was distinctly lacking during campaigning. Despite this, it appears “Dont Kubeba!†paid off.
Clever.
Clashes continue in the streets of the Tunisian capital, denouncing the new “unity” government that includes many figures from the ousted Ben Ali regime.
The revolution in Tunesia is not over yet, as the above picture shows. In the west we only tuned in when it hit the climax and we’re already starting to tune out again now that the situation has been declared to be resolved. Ben Ali has been made into a scapegoat, with his erstwhile supporters and collaborators attempting to keep their own power and skins through this government of national unity, while placating the protesters with gestures like the release of political prisoners. These are steps in the right direction, but the fundamental problems of the country are not resolved by them. The same people who oppressed it are still largely in power, still think that they can calm down the protests with small concessions, that once things have calmed down they can go back to dividing the country’s wealth amongst themselves. The protestors know this and hence stay out on the streets, unwilling for now to be placated this way.
Meanwhile French capital sees the fall of Ben Ali as an opportunity to penetrate Tunesia further, as also reported in Ahram Online. But for that to be the case, the revolution and protests need to end soon. some sort of compromise, like this national government between the old regime and its opposition needs to be reached. In situations like this, when the common enemy, Ben Ali, has been vanquished, but the structures of the old regime are still in place and able to act to defend themselves, is when revolutions get derailed, as inherent class differences come to the fore.
The protests didn’t just call for greater political freedoms after all, but also more basic economic freedoms. What’s on offer now from the old regime is greater political freedom, a somewhat more representative government and a place at the table for the old elite and middle class opposition to Ben Ali and his party, the the Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique (RCD). And with the chief kleptocrat gone, there are also economic spoils to be had for those opposition leaders willing to help shore up the old elite. And at the same time there’s foreign pressure, from France as Tunesia’s largest trading partner, but also from other “western democraties” to get the unrest dealt with quickly and get things back to normal.
Which leaves the ordinary men and women of Tunesia out in the cold, their economic and political grievances so far unheard. How they will respond to these attempts to freeze the revolt is uncertain. It’s likely that their answer will be largely determined by class: the petit bourgeoisie, small shop owners, traders and the like, will likely want the unrest to end sooner rather than later, even if this largely means a return to the status quo, just sans Ben Ali. For the working classes and working poor, this return will be more difficult and much less desirable. The protests got started when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. He had been unable to find meaningful employment, resorted to selling fruits and vegetables on the street in Sidi Bouzid to support himself and his family and then the police took his fruit cart from him, denying him his last means of existence. That was enough for him to set himself alight and that was the spark (no pun intented) that started the revolution. For people like Bouazizi anything that allows the RCP to remain in government, that doesn’t stop the cronyism and the plundering of the nation’s economy by the political elites, is a defeat. That’s why the protests continue: they need to win to survive or face the same slow death again, only with a slightly nicer government in power.