A Warning from Egypt: "Surprisingly, Protesters Have Lost" (Gallo)

Our colleague Claudio Gallo of La Stampa, who has just returned from Tahrir Square in Cairo, writes for EA:

Egypt seems to be returning slowly to normality. True, in Tahrir Square, the heart of Cairo, thousands remain to chant the slogans of Resistance, but you can breathe the air of a sad defeat. Surprisingly, protesters have lost. 

Boys returning home from Tahrir Square have disappeared, taken by officers of the Mukhabarat, the Egyptian intelligence service. The same intelligence service that was controlled by Omar Suleiman, now the Vice President who is leading so-called transition from the Mubarak regime. The dream of a democratisation of Egypt, the dream of this spontaneous insurgency is being shelved by a regime that knows how to change to remain the same. 

Putting together the region's revolutions of the last two years: Iran's Green Wave  in 2009, Tunisia yesterday, Egypt today, a lesson can be learned. Twitter and Facebook are not enough to bring down tyrants. They are extraordinary means of mobilizing the masses; however, in their power, they are still immature. They cannot (not yet, anyway) replace old politics and  parties, so discredited in present times.

What is supposed  to make a bridge between aspirations of people and political goals? Nostalgia? If there are no leaders, if there are no tactical and strategic objectives, the masses fill the squares, but then fall into astute traps laid by tyrannical establishment who have learned in decades to perpetuate themselves through the art of compromise. They know how to create tame opposition and exploit useful idiots. 

Lenin would be horrified to see the naivete of revolutionaries today. We have learned from the bloody 20th century that the "new world" of the old revolutions leads straight to the gulag or lager: the aspiration  to build a paradise on earth denies human finitude. But this idea --- that to break an unjust power you have to exploit its contradictions with concerted action --- needs to be brought into this century. 

Tahrir Square now appears as a popular fair: songs, dances, slogans, and "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love". People rise to prominence for their fiery wit, but their beautiful and interesting words, avoid any practical solution.

Please, give us the old-fashioned "What Is To Be Done". 

We have inherited a world that virtualises and dematerialised  everything, where it seems that images and dreams are the only reality. Corrupt, cunning Arab satraps know well that, beyond those fascinating and hypnotic images, there is a world of obscure  material forces that defines us  more than we would like to believe in our slogans of supposed defiance.