In his column (American’s man in Cairo, 02/14/2011) Neill Mohammad excuses all sorts of historic crimes of United States imperialism around the globe in order to put forward his own advice that the U.S. continue its imperialist policies, but without looking so much like an empire. In light of the Egyptian revolution, the U.S. must, according to Mohammad, do what it can to soften its image in the eyes of workers and youth under its thumb around the world.
Aside from asserting the need for a new “man in Cairo” other than the hand-picked torturer-in-chief Omar Suleiman, Mohammad doesn’t offer any concrete solutions as to how Egyptian workers and youth can achieve full democracy and complete the revolution which has only begun.
Law scholar Dr. Mohamad ElBaradei is someone being feted by the U.S. and the media as a better “man in Cairo.” However, ElBaradei would only serve as the new face of U.S. imperialism in Egypt, culminating in equally or more brutal policies than his predecessor, much as President Barack Obama did in replacing the discredited George Bush. According to Mohammad, “containment” should continue, but presumably be called something different, like “change you can believe in.”
What is actually required, as David North, a speaker at the recent International Students for Social Equality public meeting on the revolution in Egypt, outlined is that “false promises of the representatives of the capitalist class” like ElBaradei “be ruthlessly exposed,” that “independent organs of workers’ power, which can become the basis for the transfer of power to the working class be created” and the understanding that “the realization of the workers’ essential democratic demands is inseparable from the implementation of socialist policies.”
Perhaps these are what Mohammad would like to contain.
Mitch Marcus
LSA sophomore