Here in Madison, Wisconsin, where protesters have occupied the State Capitol Building to stop the pending bill that would eliminate workers’ right to collective bargaining, echoes of Cairo are everywhere. Protesters here were elated by the photo of an Egyptian engineer named Muhammad Saladin Nusair holding a sign in Tahrir Square saying “Egypt Supports Wisconsin Workers—One World, One Pain.” The signs by protesters in Madison include “Welcome to Wiscairo”, “From Egypt to Wisconsin: We Rise Up”, and “Government Walker: Our Mubarak.” The banner I brought directly from Tahrir Square saying “Solidarity with Egyptian Workers” has been hanging from the balcony of the Capitol alongside solidarity messages from around the country.
My travels from Cairo to Madison seem like one seamless web. After camping out with the students and workers in the Capitol Building, I gave an early morning seminar on what it was like to be an eyewitness to the Egyptian revolution, and the struggles that are taking place right now in places like Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. Folks told me all day how inspiring it was to hear about the uprisings in the Arab world.
Our first attempt to buy flowers for the demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square was thwarted by a crazed-looking guy with a gun in one hand and a homemade spear in another (pruning shears taped to a broomstick, to be exact). Three of us, all Americans, were in a taxi driving to the flower market when this fellow stopped our car at gunpoint. His hand on the trigger, he forced us to pull over. Soon we were surrounded by a dozen pro-Mubarak thugs who started yelling in Arabic and broken English that foreigners like us were causing all the trouble in Egypt.
I was in the middle of buying some mints from a street vendor on Cairo’s Talat Harb Street—right off Tahrir Square--when the rocks started flying. I had given a 20-cent coin to the vendor. He gave me one pack of mints, and all hell broke loose.
“Run, run,” people yelled at me. I saw a group of men running down the street, carrying a man whose face was streaming with blood. Then I saw the pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with rocks, metal pipes, whips. “Run, Run,” the Egyptians on the street told me. I ran for shelter as fast as I could.
Tonight our CODEPINK delegation in Cairo returned to Tahrir Square after the terrible events of this afternoon, when Mubarak's thugs busted up their peaceful protest with rocks, sticks and molotov cocktails. Hundreds have been wounded--their hands, legs, arms wrapped in bloody bandages. Despite the beatings, thousands of people are still camped out in the square--absolutely determined to stay there until Mubarak goes.
Now is the time that the Egyptian people need our solidarity. Don't let there be one more "Made in the USA" teargas canister hurled at these people. Don't let there be one more U.S. bullet or U.S. weapon aimed at them.
I have spent nearly ten years of my life speaking, writing, protesting, organizing, even singing and dancing for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I could quote statistics:
* 20% of Americans who die from suicide each year are veterans.
* More than 4,000 troops have died in these wars.
* There is documentation of more than 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq -- a country we were told we were liberating.
* The cost of these wars now totals more than $1 billion for North Dakota taxpayers alone.
These statistics are not new information. The cry for peace is not a new movement. It occurs to me this morning that I have nothing new to add. So I'll tell you what others have said.
"I used to call them the spoiled brats of the internet," one Cairo woman confessed. "Now I kiss their feet," she said, referring to young men who broke the Egyptians long record of endurance under a dictatorial regime. Today, the seventh day of the revolt against President Mubarak and for democracy in Egypt, 2 million people are said protesting in Cairo. Some have estimated 8 million nationwide; that's 10% of the population and that, technically speaking, is a revolution.
Monday, February 21, 2011
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