Long live the revolt of the proletarian youth!

Tunisia, too, has suffered from the economic crisis of recent years. And it is on the backs of the proletarian masses, as in all countries, developed or not, that the consequences fall. Statistics show that Tunisia is the country with the highest per capita income in Africa, but while they also state that unemployment is officially 14% (for a population of 10 million inhabitants), it is actually closer to 30%, besides vast underemployment, which particularly affects young people. The regime is supported by European imperialism, because with its pervasive repression it offers them a source of labor which is cheap and tightly controlled by police. The recent rise in consumer prices is the background which triggered violent protests from cities in the south which have spread throughout the country and to the capital, Tunis.
On December 17, in the town of Sidi Bouzid, because he did not have a licence, police confiscated the cart of a young 26-year computer science graduate who had not succeeded in finding a position and who was forced to work as a street vendor to survive. Despair at the loss of his only means of living and support to his family, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the local government buildings – finally expiring only on Jan 5. Hundreds of outraged people took to the streets and fought the cops with stones and Molotov cocktails. The police responded by firing live ammunition at the demonstrators!
Three weeks after the protests began there are more than 60 dead, hundreds injured, and over a hundred arrests. The government of President Zine Ben Ali, firmly installed in power with his camarilla for 23 years adds bestial repression to the endemic poverty, unemployment, and hunger. It is only after weeks of repression – not only ignored by Tunisian propaganda organs, but also by the European media – that Ben Ali has sacked the interior minister, released some of the jailed and promised the creation of 300,000 jobs. But this is just a maneuver to calm the growing anger and no one believes these promises, the protests continue, as does the bloody repression and the advancing revolt has spread to Tunis, the capital.
Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine, Thala Regueb, Feriana, Menassa, Ariana, Mezl Bouzayane, etc..: These are not tourist places where European tourists will spend a cheap holiday; they are the cities where the Tunisian police commit multiple murders to defend the rapacious and corrupt power of Ben Ali!
The proletarian protest, a new “revolt of bread”, has not ended and has crossed the border to engulf Tunisia, the richest country in the Maghreb through its oil and gas. As in most cities in Tunisia; Algeria – including Algiers has been the scene of violent protests of young proletarians as a result of sharp increases in the prices of essential commodities, while unemployment is rapidly increasing. Again the youth have rebelled against a society that, despite the huge inflows of money obtained by the export of oil products, gives them no prospects, against a society that does not guarantee even the survival of its wage slaves!
The police firing on the workers – protesting, sometimes violently, against the economic and physical abuse to which they are constantly subjected – is the clearest expression of the class domination of the bourgeoisie over the whole society and the proletariat in particular. It also demonstrates that in this bourgeois society where capitalism dictates the conditions of life and death of masses, the only social force that has the power to stand up to this lethal force and finally destroy it, is the proletarian class .
The silence with which the media of the great “advanced” and “democratic” countries of Europe and America have tried to hide the violence and repression which these regimes use to rule their country, is the sign of the fear of contagion – even in European countries where proletarian populations of immigrant origin may serve to channel the transmission of revolt. Is it coincidence that Alliot-Marie, French Minister of Interior, has publicly proposed to his counterparts in Algeria and Tunisia that they make use of French “savoir-faire” in law enforcement?
[link to www.pcint.org]