Click on the poster below to check out the website of the Palestinian Popular Conference in the US, scheduled to take place in Chicago, 8 - 10 August 2008…

Laila Hotait, San Francisco…

By John Molyneux…

In every society in the world today women are socially subordinate to men. Obviously the degree of this differs from place to place, but the basic pattern is universal: the majority of top positions in business, the state and the professions are occupied by men; men, on average, own a lot more wealth and have higher earnings than women; women are subject to significant and disproportionate amounts of physical violence and sexual assault; women perform the bulk of housework and childcare, which restricts their ability to participate equally in the wider society.
What explains this state of affairs? The conservative explanation, which fundamentally remains dominant in the world, despite lip service to equality, is at the same time a justification of male domination. It is that this is the natural order of things, and therefore always has been the case and always will be the case. The very crudest versions of this explanation focus on physical differences, on alleged male superiority in physical strength, but more common is the claim that men are genetically, or in some other way, psychologically programmed to be active, aggressive, competitive and dominant, while women are programmed to be passive, and subordinate.
The main alternative i.e. the most widely known and held, to this conservative human nature view, is what is generally known as ‘patriarchy’ theory. Patriarchy theory aims and claims to be not a justification but a critique of male supremacy, and, in some form or other, is subscribed to by many, indeed probably a majority of, feminists round the world today.
There are two main problems with patriarchy theory. The first is its numerous different versions, and extreme vagueness and shapelessness, which make it very difficult to pin down. (It should be noted that in some areas of life, especially the academic world, this indeterminacy constitutes a definite advantage.) The second is that in so far as it is possible to identify in patriarchy theory certain specific propositions, they turn out to be remarkably similar to the conservative explanation – simply putting a minus sign where the conservative view put a plus.

Click on Eirc Drooker’s cartoon below to continue reading the blog posting…

Tunnel at the Rose Garden, Berkeley…

The Mahalla labor leaders are to be interrogated Tuesday by the Prosecutor, after a complaint was submitted from the Ghazl el-Mahalla company - acting at the behest of SS Police - accusing them of “agitating workers to strike”..
The five names included in the interrogation are of the Leading Textile Workers’ League activists Gihad Taman, Wael Habib, Gamal Abu el-Esa’ad as well as the two detained workers Kamal el-Fayoumi and Kareem el-Beheiri… It’s unclear, whether Kamal and Kareem who are currently on a hungerstrike in Bourg el-Arab Prison will be transferred to Mahalla for the interrogation or not..
In other news, Mohamed Maree, Buck’s translator, was re-categorized by the Prison authorities as a “political (not criminal) detainee,” and moved to the same cell where the Mahalla 3 are kept… Here’s a report by Sarah Carr…

Three former employees of the Ghazl El-Mahalla spinning factory have launched a second, open-ended, hunger strike in protest against their detention.
Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Tareq Amin and Karim El-Beheiry were arrested separately on April 6.
All three were involved in the organization of a strike in the factory planned for the same day, which collapsed following worker disunity and intimidation by security bodies.
Violence subsequently erupted in the Delta town after security bodies clashed with residents protesting increasing food prices.
The three men are currently being held in Alexandria’s Borg El-Arab prison.
In a letter sent to the head of the Judges’ Club last week, the men announced that they are on hunger strike, and called for a public prosecution office investigation into why they are being held without charge over a month after their arrest.
El-Fayyoumy, Amin and El-Beheiry were dismissed from their employment in the factory shortly after their arrest
Lawyer Ahmed Ezzat visited the men on Saturday with three other lawyers from a group formed to assist individuals detained in connection with the events of April 6.
He told Daily News Egypt that the three men have decided to launch a second, open-ended, hunger strike to protest their illegal detention and summary dismissal from the factory.
“Sacking workers involved in labor organizing is a common tool used by the authorities in order to make it impossible for them to pursue these activities without a source of income,” Ezzat explained.
Mohamed Marei, a translator who was arrested in Mahalla with American national James Buck on April 10, is also being held in Borg El-Arab prison without charge.
Buck was released the day after the Mahalla public prosecution office ordered that both men be released.
Ezzat says that Marei has been moved to a different prison wing.
“Prison authorities have finally agreed to requests that he be held with political prisoners rather than convicted criminals and he has been moved,” Ezzat told Daily News Egypt.
Under Egyptian law political detainees are meant to be separated from those convicted of ordinary criminal offenses.

Via Al-Ahram…

Above: 24 February 1968… Cairo University students take to the streets, protesting the light sentences given to the Air Force generals blamed by Nasser for the 1967 defeat, and calling for political reforms, freedom of expression, the liberation of the universities from the control of the security services… The students, in the pic, are crossing the Qasr el-Eini bridge, heading to the parliament…

Below: The radicalization was to continue… In November, 1968, mass confrontations took place in the streets of Alexandria, between the Alexandria University students joined by the citizens vs the security forces…

America’s Grand Pimp in the region, Hosni Mubarak, has done it again…

Egypt on Monday extended a controversial decades-old state of emergency by two years despite pledges to replace it by new legislation, in a move slammed by rights groups as anti-constitutional.
“Parliament has accepted during its afternoon session today the decision by the president of the republic to extend the state of emergency for two years starting from June 1, or until a new terror law is drafted, whichever comes first,” the state news agency MENA said.
“It was passed with 305 votes in favour and 103 against,” Issam al-Mokhtar, an MP with the Muslim Brotherhood, told AFP by telephone.
The state of emergency was first imposed in 1981 after the assassination by Islamists of president Anwar Sadat and has been repeatedly renewed since then despite protests from rights groups and regime opponents.
Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif pledged to “only use the law in the fight against terrorism… and to protect the security of the nation and its citizens,” MENA reported.
“The government… has only used the articles of the law strictly for the goals intended, namely the fight against terrorism,” Nazif told parliament.
Last year, Judicial and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab said the state of emergency would end in 2008, even if the new anti-terror law meant to replace it was not ready.

Umesh Raghuvanshi, journalist with Hindustan Times, Berkeley…

Here is a couple of photos, I took during Socialist Days 2007, of Ghazl el-Mahalla detainees Kamal el-Fayoumi and Kareem el-Beheiri, which I didn’t post before…

My heart and thoughts go out to Kamal, Kareem, Tarek, Maree, and all the Mahalla detainees languishing in Mubarak’s gulag…

From Al-Jazeera…

Canada’s highest court has ruled that the country violated international law in the case of Omar Khadr, the only Canadian being held at the Guantanamo Bay US detention centre in Cuba.
Khadr, has been held on terrorism charges for the past six years since he was detained at the age of 15 on claims he killed a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the country breached international human rights obligations when records of interviews conducted by Canadian authorities with Khadr were passed to the US.
The court ruled that Khadr, now 21, should have some access to the intelligence documents to aid his defence at his upcoming military tribunal.

I still don’t have details about this, but Abdel Gelil is reporting a textile strike in the state-owned Al-Amiriya Company for Spinning and Weaving…
You of course remember the bribe Nazif gave the workers last April following the Mahalla Uprising.. Back then, Mubarak’s Prime Minister decreed a 15-day bonus to all workers in the state-owned textile companies and a one-month bonus for Ghazl el-Mahalla in specific… which is totally foolish! Do you think that the workers in the other textile mills ya Nazif are gonna be satisfied with that?! Now Al-Amiriya workers are striking demanding similar treatment to Ghazl el-Mahalla, and they want a full one month bonus…
If Al-Amiriya wins, expect the domino effect to explode… Other textile mills will follow suit…

UPDATE: More details from Abdel Gelil…

Nicaraguan activist Alcira, Planning for Elders, San Francisco…