The revolution is being televised from Egypt
By Jason Joseph

“The revolution is real,” said John Rose. The revolution is real and it is being televised, tweeted, Facebooked. The revolution is real and it happening in Egypt now.

What makes a revolution though?

Rose is a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in England. He attends the Cairo conference, and has done so for years now, and has met the actual people, the activists who have set this revolution into motion. According to Rose – and Trotsky’s principles – the definition of a revolution is: “when the masses are remembered by history”. Egypt and its masses will be remembered by history for the part they played in the revolution that was ignited in Tunisia and is now sweeping the Arab world.

The revolution may be seen as both social and political. Political because there has been a definite shift in political power and governance of the country with the Egyptian people making Hosni Mubarak abdicate his dictatorial presidency. Also it is most definitely social because the people, the masses, got involved and demanded this change. This is what made this revolution not only a political one, but also social one. Rose pointed out that the financial crunch of 2008 was a serious precursor to this revolution. “It operates on two levels,” said Rose, “Egypt became the poster boy, the main experiment for what we now know as neo-liberalism: the neo-liberalist experiment.” And from that point the country was tightly state-controlled, said Rose. The Egyptians have had enough. They demanded change and they took it, they revolted. And, as Rose said, what makes this revolution real is that it is both social and political.

“The revolution is real,” says Rose. And it is being televised and the masses will go down in history for affecting change!