Rewrite your theories of revolution

Or, rather, throw them into the waste-paper basket. It should have been done after 1989, when a wave of ardent democratic sentiment swept away through entirely peaceful means (barring the dubious case of Rumania) the monstrous regimes of Stalinist brutishness. Or come to think of it, the operation should have commenced prior to that, when the tide of democracy upended the militarist tyrannies of Latin America in a manner emphatically opposite to that advocated by the Guevarists, whose gun-toting folklore actually provided the political rationale for the dictatorships and prolonged their rule. Chile even exited the bloodiest tyranny of them all by striking a deal with the tyrant that left him in control of a significant portion of power. This was not betrayal of any ideal, but a rational choice that actually furthered the interests of social justice and political freedom in the nation. And more recently we have been witnessing a radical leftist as president of Brazil inaugurating a massive process of renovation of the market economy, which drastically enlarged its social base and put the country at the forefront of economic growth and innovation.

These signal developments were however obscured by the murderous rampage of Bush's neo-cons in Iraq, who hijacked the concept of democracy as a smoke-screen for their sinister power grabs in the Middle East. This in turn provided the excuse for the sundry neo-communists in the West to privilege an ideological discourse concerning the evils of "globalization", a trick that aimed at justifying a political drive for class revolution, precisely of that same kind which had sucked the blood and marrow of the peoples of Eastern Europe for decades.

This "new" radicalism tried of course to decorate and obscure its theoretic antediluvianism by fancy Heideggerian and Lacanian verbiage -which ensured its capture of numerous academic departments especially in the US. But just as a lustful bond cannot be really hidden behind coy gestures, the political primitivism of these sophisticates comes forcefully through their mumbo-jumbo. And I suppose that we must be grateful to the crowned idiot of the aforesaid crowd, namely Slavoj Zizek, for at least being forthright about the mysticism of violence as an end-in-itself that lies at the heart of this "left fascism" (his term).

A couple of days ago he was ranting and gesticulating in his usual manner on Al Jazeera, praising the Egyptian people for their drive for democracy, a concept he despises and he has done his utmost to discredit in his dishonest ejaculations. But of course this is just about par for a person who has made quite a profitable profession out of blatant self-contradiction. In the same appearance he also had the temerity of blasting the institutions of international legality -he was scathing about Unesco (!!!!), the UN etc.-, shamelessly forgetting that the heroic throngs that were demonstrating as he was speaking were actually putting their lives on the line for the very ideals embodied in that (ineffectual, if you wish) international order. In fact one of their leaders was an eminent exponent thereof! Zisek's hypocritical praise of the Egyptians was actually an intolerable insult.

So now we have been blessed with the people of Egypt, who with their unbelievable maturity, spirit of sacrifice and ideology of togetherness have jolted us into renewed recognition of the essentials of humanity, thus putting to shame those false prophets of narcissist chiliasm. The Egyptian revolution was thoroughly, deeply, resoundingly, militantly non-violent, democratic, idealistic and universalist in its values -precisely all those things that Zizek and his ilk have made a career of mocking (let's not forget incidentally that he has called Gandhi more violent than Hitler and at other times Hitler not violent enough). It was precisely on account of this universalism that it was able to unite an entire people, beyond all divisions of class, education and creed. And this craving for basic human decency emerged spontaneously from the bottom of society.It flowered among the poor and the downtrodden and the persecuted, providing the torrential dynamism of their outburst. But it also penetrated the middle classes and the educated strata, drenching even the armed forces with the light of its moral vision.

Revolutions are not a street-theater of violence instigated and led by conspiratorial elites claiming to have divined the "deep truth" of history even against the collective consciousness and will of the masses that they claim to lead as by right. Egypt has killed once and for all this evil and murderous notion, which however still mesmerizes in the West certain privileged and pampered members of the very ruling classes that they make a show of opposing. Of course, this idea has been dead for a long time; but it has been rearing its vampire head again and again (not least among certain benighted groups in my own country). So, it is not useless to drive a stake through its heart every now and then. The wretched of the earth yearn for freedom under equal laws and for social equality and openness, and are no longer to be bought by the "visions" and the histrionics of various authoritarian personalities.

What the Egyptian people expect now is a democratic order of entrenched rights and social protection and an open field of social achievement for all. It is by no means certain that they are going to get it. The ancien regime is still powerfully rooted. But the promise and the prospect and the expectation is there, what with their new-found moral self-confidence and the whole world cheering them on.

And one last thing. The critical role that the new social media have played in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions is another proof of how outright blind and false has been this relentless invective against technology that we have been hearing for decades coming from these high-priests of Heideggerian, mystical leftism. If any decisive proof was needed that globalization, if understood in the completeness of its tendencies and dimensions, is not a dark and satanic force bulldozing under the just aspirations of the working masses, but actually an enlargement of human consciousness enabling the most far-flung networks of struggle and aspiration for justice and freedom, the events of the past month have been precisely such a proof. Wikileaks can also be added as a case in point. But, after all this is a diagnosis already made by Marx over a century and a half ago.

There will be many attempts in the coming days to hijack the meaning of the Egyptian revolution. The Islamists in Gaza and even in Iran are already making this effort. But I am hopeful that the Egyptians themselves will be the best guardians of its genuine significance, given the fact that in their exhilarating revolt of the past few days they gave no quarter whatsoever to such tendencies. The chagrin of Khadaffi, who even after the tyrant's ignominious flight dared to call Ben Ali "the legitimate ruler" of Tunisia, as well as the despicable reaction of Chaves' Venezuela, calling the Egyptian revolution a "CIA plot" to control the future of the world's peoples, are revealing signs that the waves of history unleashed on the banks of the Nile are threatening to drown all those defending systems of exploitation and unfreedom under the pretense of a fake "anti-imperialism".

The ideals of humanity are, thank God, irresistibly imperialistic.