Labour should stand with the Egyptian people

By Darrell Goodliffe

Its been a bit concerning to see the lack of coverage of events in Tunisia and more recently Egypt on the traditional Labour blogsphere. However, to be entirely fair this is something of a reflection of the lack of coverage in the mainstream media. Twitter seems to come into its own at times like this.

The whole Middle East seems to be aflame with democratic revolt and it seems to have largely passed us by. This is not merely an academic question or one of people taking an interest in different things. How we respond and feel about these matters will directly condition the responses of our political leaders and especially in the case of Egypt this could be crucial. I expect Western leaders to be significantly less happy should the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak be toppled than they bothered to pretend to be in response to recent events in Tunisia.

Put bluntly, most Western politicians are more than happy for regimes they consider ‘friendly’ to be left intact no matter the damage they do to their people because they feel they can control them. Conversely, they fear the will of the people being exercised which is pretty much the attitude they have domestically too; it’s just packaged better over here.

However, if Mubarak falls literally anything becomes possible. It’s not surprising that the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, is moving quickly to try and get his own house in order:

“Abdullah II insisted on the need to move forward with clear and transparent programmes of political and economic reform, which will allow the kingdom to overcome the economic challenges, and assure Jordan and Jordanians the decent future they deserve,” the royal palace cited the king as saying in a meeting.

Abdullah is clearly no fool. He knows his own regime is potentially under threat as are all the petty despotisms in the Middle East. I welcome this and think that the Labour Party and labour movement should do the same thing. The spread of democracy throughout the region may well be accompanied by some turmoil but then the advance of democracy usually is and its naïve in the extreme to pretend otherwise. I think we should view the calls of the likes of William Hague for ‘peace’ with grave suspicion. Of course, we all like the idea of peace but does Hague mean that the Egyptian people should make their ‘peace’ with dictatorship? In this case for ‘peace’ could easily be substituted for acquiescence.

Hague seems to will the ends but not the means and that makes him something of a hypocrite. Sometimes, especially under dictatorial conditions, people have no choice but to assert their rights through the use of force and that this is a legitimate and indeed democratic response to the position of their government which has no democratic legitimacy or right to use force against them. Maybe Mr Hague and Mr Cameron fantasise that they could inflict 29 years of their special brand of economic lunacy and market-fuelled tyranny on Britain but were they to try I am pretty sure many people would be on the streets and I would be one of them.In fact, I am taking to the streets this weekend and given all of this I have nothing but admiration for the brave and courageous actions of the Egyptian people and the people across the Middle East who are waking up and demanding they be set free.

Labour at its best has a proud tradition of international solidarity. Let now be the moment we show that to the world and oppose the naysayers like Hague at home and offer those in struggle abroad our full support.