02/03/2012

Tunisia:

A year after the revolutionary overthrow of the autocracy of Ben Ali

Despite parliamentary deviations and traps, the revolution resists ant tries to keep stand up in the unity of employed and unemployed workers

The global economic crisis has beaten very hard in Tunisia, a country that became the spark that set fired the revolutionary up rise all throughout North Africa and Middle East.
The newspapers announce that times of economic and politic stagnation and uncertainties are coming, which for the possibilist-men is normal in a revolutionary and post-revolutionary context but, if it continuous or even gets worse, it does not seem to be optimistic" (...) "with an economy heavily dependent on foreign trade, both in terms of exports and emigration and tourism, Tunisia has lost more than 30% of tourists compared with 2010 stagnated at 4.5 million passengers in 2011, and this is hard for a country where tourism has been representing 7% of GDP. The contraction of foreign trade has also affected the Tunisian economy as their major customers and suppliers have problems, both Europeans - France, Italy, Germany and Spain - as, in the Maghreb, Libya. From there many Tunisians who made ​​their living there since ancient times have also returned in the context of civil war and the subsequent uncertainties, In a year currency’s reserves have dropped 20% and, turning back to the strikes, the iconic "Gafsa Phosphates" takes a year paralyzed  "(...)" Strikes are becoming more frequent and the prices increase unstoppable, leading to a growing "social unrest".

This "problem" just began to be in the agenda of the fraudulent "Constituent Assembly" (where Enahda party won the elections with 41% of the votes, a fact that cannot be estimated yet since the army -four months later! – is still guarding the ballot boxes, what will they hide?)

The point of greatest concern the Marsuki’s Government, the President of the fraudulent  "Constituent Assembly"  Yafaar and  all the "elected deputies" is how to "solve" the problem of unemployment and the terrible economic crisis of the country. "Solving" in the sense of seeing how they crush the revolution and physically defeat hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers, which together with the occupied workers continue taking factories, blocking roads and paralyzing production in vast areas of the country.

Beyond the parliamentary deviation imposed to the revolution, and as the bourgeois press and analysts announce in the industrial area of inner Tunisia, the warm heart of the revolution, are still in the unified struggle of employed and unemployed workers, holding a strong alliance within the labor movement as a clear example of unity that must be taken into the worldwide proletariat’s hands.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period”. "(...)" The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of humanity"(" Transition Program "). These words are very important today for the future of the Tunisian revolution, they were written in 1938 by Trotskyst revolutionary militants who founded the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution to fight for the working class seizes the power.

On the contrary, the reformist left, the World Social Forum, the social-imperialist parties of Europe and the renegades of Trotskyism worldwide, went to Tunisia to rise that the solution was a constituent assembly. There you are!. The same as Ben Ali, it gives neither bread, nor national independence, nor land.
What are they saying, these group of reformers, friends and big capital allies? Dissolving Constitutional Assembly and set up organizations of the working class and the struggling masses to seize the power? Never. They called for the Constitutional Assembly to expropriate the revolution and dissolve the self-determination and direct democracy organisms the masses set up for the revolutionary struggle.

The UGTT bureaucracy, supported by the Stalinist traitors and the renegades of Trotskyism, still recognizes the fraudulent constituent assembly against the workers and the people. You have to break with the bourgeoisie!, with  its constituent assembly and the murderer and starving government, lackey of imperialism, follower of the autocracy of Ben Ali! That's the only way to continue the struggle for socialist revolution and for bread in Tunisia and throughout North Africa and Middle East!

It is clear the government is not interested in giving jobs to their slaves. There isn’t any dollar to invest in production. The money promised by the big imperialist powers with its ruined financially states, as well as the UN and the European Union was pure demagogy and deception to get the masses into the trap of elections. The Tunisian left parties, like the PCOT supported by the NPA of France and others “anti capitalist” groups also deceive the masses because during the electoral camping they went to the proletarian neighborhoods to promote the lie of the “honey” of “bourgeois democracy”, when the 85 % of Tunisians gave their backs to the constituent elections (they were held in October 2011),   
We say it again there isn’t any “dinar” for production. Tunisian food industry is in the red since a big amount of this production was exported to Libya where the TNC and the NATO blackmail the militias and the revolutionary masses with the food in the middle of starvation and misery. In that sense, the Marxist definition, that they are links of a chain of revolutions that will triumph as a single and unique revolution throughout North Africa and Middle East, is accurate. 
In the international division of labor Tunisia is a tourist place on the Mediterranean. Tunisian coasts by history and geography enjoy a pristine beauty that is the panacea of the whole bourgeoisie. Capital is coward, and it goes only where it can get profits. The Minister of Tourism, Fakhfakh, along with Alain Juppé, French Foreign Minister, are making an "agreement”; rapid investments in tourism that gives immediate gains to the imperialist pirates and Tunisian bourgeoisie, whether secular or Islamic.  And what about the rest"?  "Let it collapse!" they answer.

But imperialism and its agents know that the indomitable Tunisian working class will not back down. So, as soon as Marsuki came to power he extended the state of emergency until March 30. The army is deployed in 70% of the territory in the country, where they have full power to suppress any protest movement of the exploited people.

The army, in a pact with the Islamic bourgeoisie and the whole Tunisian bourgeoisie (all favored by 24 years of dictatorship of the overthrown Ben Ali and his DRC), is now the custody of all buildings and major banks, escorting as well the entire production and large crops of wheat, dates and olives so that   the starving masses (30% unemployed) won’t go to look for their food where food is.
However, the military reports accounting for tens of struggles, strikes, occupations and pickets, alarmed the bourgeoisie. Although the army replaces the defeated and humiliated Tunisian police, the exploited masses resist. In emblematic cities they make the bourgeoisie and the bosses crazy. In Sidi Buzid (central part of the country) all transport of phosphate is blocked. In Gabes (southeast of the capital) dozens of factories are paralyzed, including the powerful Tunisian Chemical Group factory. In Gafsa (mining area) production stopped a year ago.
The inner Tunisia is still standing. The destiny of workers and poor people Tunisia is to succeed joining the masses of Libya, Egypt and Syria. All these countries by multiple economic ties are completely intertwined. Imperialism and the
lackey bourgeoisie use this stratification for their business and profits, the exploited masses and the working class must use it to weld their ranks and advance towards the unfinished and pending tasks of the revolution.
                                                                
Tunisian food industry is the solution to solve the hunger of the exploited masses of Tunisia and Libya. The armament of Libyan masses and their militias are the forces to split the Army, to crush the officer caste and defeat the pro-imperialist government of Marsuki and Yafaar.
The European working class must redouble its combat. It must fight like the masses of North Africa and Middle East if it wants to stop the attack of Sarkozy, Rajoy, Merkel and the others imperialist pirates. The revolution into the imperialist Europe will be a sure way to the victory of the revolution in North Africa and Middle East.

Days ago, the largest steelmaker in Libya, which was closed, was reopened by the militants and workers who have it under their control in Misarrata. To make it work engineers are needed. These are in Tunisia, where they sacrificed their lives because they couldn’t even sell vegetables at a stall in the central market in that country.

In the high culture of Tunisian workers, in the brave combat of their workers, in the offensive and shocks of the revolution in Egypt, are the forces and the workers to make Libya work, its oil, food and steel industry, under workers and their militias’ control.
The era of national revolutions has ended! In North Africa a unique socialist workers' revolution must succeed!

The European working class must prevent its social imperialist leaderships from continuing  going to North Africa and Middle East to spill water on the fire of revolution. It is necessary to set up workers’ committees and all working organizations fighting committees of European and North American working class to guarantee arms, food for the workers of Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, yemen and for the martyred Palestinian masses! We must stop sending arms and supplies to the murderer occupying armies of the native bourgeoisie agent of the imperialist powers!

The May Day, the working class of Oakland is calling for a general strike in the U.S. The European working class and its workers’ vanguard of Greece, Italy, Spain and the Russian workers that start fighting, must transform it into its own demand and their own struggle. For the working class in the imperialist powers and in the colonies and semi-colonies live, imperialism must die!

Out the constituent assemblies of NATO, Obama, Sarkozy and other imperialist butchers!

In Tunisia, FOR A NATIONAL CONGRESS OF DELEGATES OF FACTORY COMITEES, UNEMPLOYED COMMITTEES, SOLDIERS COMMITTEES AND UNIONS TAKEN FROM THE HANDS OF THE BUREAUCRACY!

Down with the bureaucracy of the UGTT! Out the collaborationist leaderships from the fighting masses organizations!

For a revolutionary leadership of the UGTT to coordinate the factory committees and unemployed committees! Only one struggle with his brothers and sisters in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Middle East!  
To have bread, work and national independence: Expropriation without compensation and under workers control of all the factories, banks and properties of imperialism and the lackey bourgeoisie! We must crush the officer caste, take power and expropriate the lackey bourgeoisie and imperialism! It is necessary to prepare a successful insurrection to impose a revolutionary government of the working class and the struggling masses, based on self-determination organisms, direct democracy and exploited masses armament!

We have to fight like in Libya and join all the exploited people in the region!  
For the destruction of the fascist Zionist state of Israel!
For only one revolution on both sides of Mediterranean!
For a Federation of Socialist Worker Republics of North Africa and Middle East!

Julián Juárez from the IEC of the FLTI