Polemic and Bigul organised talk by Suzanne Adely on 'Revolution and Counter-Revolution'

30^th July, 2013, Delhi. ‘Polemic’ and ‘Bigul Mazdoor Dasta’ jointly organized a talk ‘Revolution and Counter- Revolution’ in Egypt, by noted American Labour activist and Anti-imperialist and Palestine Solidarity activist, Suzanne Adely at Hindi Bhawan today. Ms. Adely is also an Arab American community organizer and has been observing the Arab spring from close quarters. The talk focused mainly on the social and political movements which had been brewing in the Arab World, and especially Egypt since early 2011. In her one hour long address, Ms. Adely not only highlighted the positives that these movements generated but also pointed out the limitations and challenges they faced. She also gave a brief analysis of the various workers groups that had been and still are active in the Egyptian movement. However, being largely spontaneous and lacking an organized leadership and well thought-out strategy, these movements are fast losing their steam. The recent crackdown on Morsi supporters by the military was also discussed. Ms. Adely talked about the role US imperialism has been playing to suppress all the progressive movements taking place everywhere in the world. She also discussed how the ruling class of Egypt is just not dependent on US for its technology and capital investment but tactically allies with other imperialist forces also. The talk was followed by a question-answer session in which the audiences participated enthusiastically. Ms. Adely who is also active in worker’s struggles taking place in India, answered all the questions patiently. Abhinav Sinha asked whether there are any revolutionary groups active in political landscape of Egypt which can actually lead the struggle to which she replied negatively. Ajay Swami from Bigul Mazdoor Dasta asked Suzanne about her experience in Maruti Suzuki workers' struggle as she has seen the movement from rise to its current state where it is on path of decline. She said that there are powerful interests in the workers struggle in India and that it was good that there are lot of critical debates on Maruti struggle. She said she can not be very precise as she has is an outsider and has the role of international solidarity activist. Mithilesh of ‘Polemic’ conducted the programme which was started with a  revolutionary song "Paul Robson" by Nazim Hikmet.