DETROIT — The one-year anniversary of the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak sent hundreds of thousands of Egyptians into the streets on Jan. 25, and also stopped traffic down Woodward here as demonstrators marched in solidarity.

Members of Occupy Detroit and the Arab American community joined together in a group of about 150, marching from Grand Circus Park to the McNamara Federal Building and back again in the blistering cold with police cars securing the way. 

Their message to the U.S. government: stop supporting a military dictatorship with countless millions, especially while Detroit continues to struggle and recent reports place half of all Americans at or below the poverty line.

Chants of “Down with SCAF (the Supreme Council of Armed Forces in power in Egypt)!,” and “Same tear gas, same fight, 99% unite” went up among the crowd as they waved signs to passing cars. 

“We wanted to organize an event expressing Occupy Detroit’s solidarity with the revolution and to defend the revolution from U.S. intervention,” said organizer Aaron Petkof. 

Petkof is also a journalist who recently wrote about Sterling Heights company General Dynamics’ $395 million contract to help build tanks for the Egyptian military, which has used violence against demonstrators in recent months as they’ve attempted to preserve the integrity and democratic nature of the revolution in Egypt. The company is 11 miles outside of  Detroit.

“A lot of peoples’ eyes lit up when we told them about the contract, they said ‘Wow, I can’t believe something like that could happen so close to Detroit, the poorest city in the country,'” said Petkov, who writes for SocialistWorker.org

“Why not use the money for things like houses, schools, and healthcare?” 

Majdie AlHusseini of the Wayne State Arab Student Union, another participating group, read a speech from Dr. Ola Elsaid, an Egyptian American currently back in Egypt, about the mood there. 

“One the eve of the anniversary there are mixed emotions of anger for the stalling of the revolution at the hands of the SCAF, of sadness for the memory of fallen men and women who stood up for our rights, of happiness as we watch the very first freely elected parliament taking its first wobbly steps toward a much-deserved democracy and of hope for a brighter future for the generation of young men and women who rallied to bring freedom, justice and equality to the forefront.”

She wrote of people gathering again in Tahrir Square on a rainy day at midnight, filled with determination, dedication, and hope to preserve the goals of the revolution, and said that it looked as if the entire country was gathering from all angles toward the square for yet another round of peaceful protests. She also expressed support for the friends of the revolution across the world.

Tarek Baydoun, another speaker at the rally and an attorney who works with the Arab American Political Action Committee, the ACLU of Detroit, and the ASU  Control Commission, said that the revolution sent a message to all politicians and government leaders while inspiring the Occupy Wall Street movement in America.

“The Arab American community stands with the 99 percent,” he said. “This is an issue at the fundamental level of human dignity and everyone here understands that, that the people that lead us have a privilege to do so, not a right.” 

Occupy Detroit member Kiley James said that the movement is still meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and at noon on Saturdays at the 1515 Broadway coffee shop in Detroit, and plans several actions in the future. 

He expressed gratitude to Egyptian protesters for sparking the American movement, noting the effect it had on protesters in Wisconsin against anti-union measures and in New York. 

With military spending remaining as the biggest money drain on the U.S. economy in the eyes of most of the Occupy movement and millions of other activists across the country, James said that a similar movement might eventually need to take place in America as it did during the Vietnam War. 

“I think that the Egyptian revolution was huge for a lot of people like me, and inspired Occupy Detroit and many others,” he said.

“I think it is going to have to come to that in America, we need a massive movement basically to reclaim this country for the working people, a movement against plutocracy and the obscenely unfair distribution of wealth.

“Unfortunately both major parties have been bought off by corporate interests, so we need new parties or a new movement to replace them.” 

“If it wasn’t for people standing up against dictators in the Middle East…I don’t think we’d be seeing the movements here in the United States,” Petkov said. 

Ali F. Beydoun of the ASU said that the demonstrators were able to overcome the loud noises emanating from the police cars as they marched.

“We are so loud and so resilient that they will never drown out the sound.” 

– TAAN

Photos courtesy of Samuel Molnar