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Ben Ali and Mubarak have for some time been ousted although Gaddafi, after unleashing numerous savage dogs of war against many of his own people, looks less likely to suffer the same fate.  The involvement of European and North American military and political elite, has ensured Gaddaffi of more support than he might otherwise have expected. The populations of Syria, Yemen and Bahrain are just a little further down the queue of hitherto patient sufferers of western supported dictators. Nevertheless, the coalition of popular forces, in the Arab world which mobilised themselves to oust these nepotistic despots will, sooner or later,  face the serious question of what they want and how they want to proceed.

To a large extent the issue they are united upon – to be rid of their political elites – was a broad agreement on what they didn’t want. Millions clearly did not want authoritarian regimes backed by sufficient western supplied and trained military and police forces to ensure their stranglehold on wealth and power was permanent. However, when these (and other) regimes have departed the question will inevitably arise as to what socio-economic and political system is to be put in its place.  The same system but with different figureheads in power or a completely different one.

A core of the aspirations which the youth initiators of the original rebellions and anti-regime uprisings, were for well-paid jobs, decent housing, reasonable food costs, satisfactory welfare provision, universally available, and uncorrupted public services. These are aspirations which strike a chord with more than just the poorly paid and unemployed. They resonated with many sectors of the population. To get rid of the dictators, a united and resilient uprising was necessary. However,  will further huge street demonstrations be sufficient to deliver the core aspirations of all citizens? I doubt it. Under the present economic system, two huge problems are likely to stand full square in their way. First; the uncertainty which follows from a popular uprising or from a radical change to any political regime. Second; the present global economic and financial crisis of capitalism.

1. The developing national situations.

It is obvious that any popular uprising to a greater or lesser extent, dislocates the normal functioning of the societies, in which they take place. Where the political regime is challenged, this dislocation introduces a degree of economic uncertainty in the minds of those who have previously amassed wealth under it. They will not only try to remove more of their wealth from the country involved, but will also be reluctant to risk any of it in further investment. Until they consider their existing personal wealth is secure and that sufficient profits can be reliably expected they will mark time or seek investment opportunities elsewhere. This fact alone will ensure that under the present system of  capital dominated  economic activity there will be no immediate progress toward meeting the aspirations of the majority of the population for good jobs, housing, food, and reliable public services.

Indeed, within post-uprising countries, there will undoubtedly be a protracted regression and a certain downturn in economic activity. Thus any formal pro-capitalist political structure which emerges in order to replace the overturned regime will be unable to meet any universal economic demands placed upon it. It will simply not have the resources available to it under the present system of private capital initiated economic activity. Any sought after inter-governmental, World Bank or IMF loans, as when they are pursued in other countries, will also be tied to conditions which will fundamentally undermine such aspirations for the majority of citizens.

The participants of each uprising, if they are to persist in their quest for decent human standards of living will, therefore, be forced to take matters in their own hands. They will need to seriously question, the whole economic and financial system as well as the political. Just as in Egypt, during the mass confrontation, people created jobs for themselves by efficiently directing traffic, forming street protection groups, setting up checkpoints to eliminate weapons and cleaning the pavements in Tahrir Square, people emerging from dictatorships will need to rely on their own self-activity.

Under the brutal onslaught of Gaddafi’s fascistic mercenaries, the people of Libya had initially to rely upon themselves for defence, co-ordination and the orderly seizing of control in their cities. The later decision of a clique of anti-Gaddafi forces to invite the politicians in Europe and the US to support them, weakened and has prolonged their struggle, rather than strengthened it.  Put simply, people in such post-uprising and revolutionary circumstances, need to rely upon their own initiatives and those of people in the same circumstances.  In fact to start up production and consumption, interupted by any form of crisis, they just need the collective power to pay themselves for such activities and the many others which are required as the situation unfolds. However, that collective power needs to be created.

For more on the possible process of developing self-activity after an uprising see section 3 below. Meanwhile each country emerging from under the control of dictatorial regimes will find themselves unavoidably connected to the global economy, which is itself in deep crisis.

2. The present global economic crisis.

The current economic and financial system, dominated as it is by capital, is itself in severe and protracted crisis. It is a crisis initially caused by the relative over-production of commodities and capital in its earlier cyclical upturn phase. During that earlier period the accumulation of profits were so great that huge amounts were directed into the speculative financial sectors of the global economy. At the same time within industry and commerce, far more commodities and services were being produced, than could eventually be sold at a profit. The result has been that many capitalist firms, throughout the world, have rationalised,  moved production to low-wage economies, or gone out of business and made their employees redundant. This process has produced high levels of unemployment and poverty in all countries of the world.

In addition the previous noted high levels of profit in the form of surplus capital, emanating from the industrial sector, has progressively entered the financial sectors of the capitalist economy and created speculative bubbles in many areas, particularly housing, ‘futures’ markets and government loans.  Large-scale, everyday production by ordinary people, created the huge financial surpluses and now the  huge financial surpluses in the hands of a oligarchic  minority, threaten everyday production and consumption for the majority. With rising unemployment (and thus reduced tax income from its unemployed citizens), pro-capitalist government politicians have looked to private investors (ie those staffing the same financial sectors noted above) to borrow sufficient funds for their activities. Such borrowing requires loan repayment plus interest and thus governments, having put themselves into debt, (often to fund wars and amass sophisticated military equipment) choose now to squeeze the repayments out of the general population in one way or another.

Those who will suffer under the various austerity squeezes are the blue-collar and white-collar workers of their respective countries. But of course, privileged sectors of the middle-classes, professionals and small businesses, are also effected by this global downturn together with the large-scale unemployment. A severe economic and financial crisis drags the majority of the population into its turbulent convulsions and the present one is not over yet. More financial collapses and economic downturns will follow the ones of 2008 and the current protracted one. These crises, including the present debt-crisis are systemic. Only some of the super-rich (and their political representatives) are able to shield themselves from the privations created by a severe crisis and by speculation or swindling they can even benefit from it. In the so-called advanced countries, the post-second-world-war conditions obtained by the working people of Europe and North America, the same ones desired by those in the middle-east and North Africa, are being steadily taken away.

3. An alternative way to meet post-regime aspirations.

It is obvious that normal politics did not remove the dictators and ruling elites of the middle-east and North Africa. Indeed formal politics were the means of the subjection of ordinary citizens. The formal liberal-democratic politic regimes of Europe and North America sold arms to the dictators, trained their armies and police forces in forceful civilian control techniques and feted the dictators at banquets and conferences. Liberal-democratic economics and politics has demonstrated that it can be served by a variety of models of control; puppet regimes, dictatorial or superficially democratic. Now, having witnessed their dictatorial puppets being ousted, the liberal-democratic political elite in Europe and North America are already encouraging replacement by pro-capitalist liberal-democratic political regimes. Western liberal-democratic elites are content with such allegedly ‘democratic’ regimes, because these can be manipulated and influenced, by power and money. Ensconced in various political parties these new elites will quickly establish oligarchies and progressively attract substantial financial contributions in order to pay for media propaganda calculated to maintain or return them to power.

It has been argued, in the previous section, that under the present economic system, any such ‘democratic’ replacements will not be able to deliver what most people want. So what could be an alternative way forward? If one examines the series of successful and unsuccessful uprisings and revolutions in recorded history, two substantial factors quickly emerge. First, after sufficient numbers have actively backed the popular uprising the rank and file of the armed forces have had to become neutralised and then attracted to the aims of the popular uprising. It should be recognised in this regard, that rank and file soldiers are often discontent with their pay and conditions as well as the role they are often required to play. Second, the popular masses themselves need to establish popular assemblies in which to discuss and debate the important issues which arise and agree actions in pursuit of their aims and objectives. Historically, these inclusive assemblies have been more successful if they are established at local, regional and national levels and if they include at least, (as many as possible) of the sectors that took part in the original uprising – including representatives of all the working classes.

These two factors, the appeal to the army ranks and the general workers and peoples assemblies, function best when brought together. For this reason, the rank and file soldiers have generally been encouraged and actively invited to send rank and file representatives to the popular assemblies to discuss their conditions and the role they should play in the changed circumstances. In this way the armed forces have an alternative source of authority to that of their military hierarchy and at the same time have a stake in the progress of the socio-economic transformation. In this way they can come to see themselves as the people’s army and not the elite’s.

Such general assemblies, therefore, become the medium for openly discussing and influencing the direction of events for all sectors of the anti-regime forces and thus they organisationally assist in maintaining the maximum unity. The existence of such popular arenas minimises, and can also discourage, the existence of secret conclaves of secessionist political parties and their respective elites. This latter being a process, by which unnecessary divisions are rapidly inserted and manipulated in order to steer the popular revolution in directions suitable to a one-sided purpose. Popular assemblies, (or an alternatively named equivalent) also become the arena for democratically authorising actions and activities which become necessary as the situation develops. This can include the prevention of asset stripping and deliberate factory closures, the democratic control over the mass media, any necessary mass mobilisations to defend the previous gains and the sequestering of any public assets, in order to progressively set paid economic activity in motion.

If these are some of the lessons, emerging from the experiences of past uprisings and revolutions, then it would be wise for those involved to carefully consider them. Activists will need to adopt or adapt them to the new circumstances of the 21st century, with of course, any additions which are creatively improvised as circumstances allow or even dictate. Already the uprisings in North Africa and the middle-east have effected the lives of those who live in the rest of the world. Those finance capitalists who invest and speculate on the price of commodities, including the staple energy source of petroleum, are daily bidding up the costs of these essential items, which translates into higher prices, for fuel, food, clothing and other raw materials for the rest of the world.

The ultimate success of those people in the countries of the middle-east and North Africa in obtaining their aspirations, will of course, have even further implications for the rest of us. The effects upon the rest of the world will arise, not only from the inspiration transferred to ordinary people by their tenacious example, but also from other factors. Under the present unequal system, any gains for those casting off dictatorships, will cause further increased prices for the people in the rest of the liberal-democratic world.

This represents a dual set of influences which is already motivating others outside these Maghrib and Gulf countries, such as Greece and Spain, to rise up in millions against the present system. For it is a system in which European and North American billionaires and their institutionalised agents, control the amount and direction of investment in industry and commerce whilst creaming off the majority of the social wealth for themselves and in the process creating economic, financial and ecological crisis. Very soon, as the young people in Greece and Spain may have tentatively signalled, we may all be Tunisians, Egyptians, or Libyans. More of us may sooner or later have our own equivalents of Tahrir Square replete with people power and placards, announcing that not just the individual political ‘suits’ must step aside, but in its perniciously corrupt global entirety and here too – ‘the regime of the capitalist mode of production must go‘.

In the media circus this month, on the arrest and proposed trial of Ratko Mladic, an interesting phenomena has re-emerged. It seems there are two distinct categories of crimes against humanity. Those perpetrated by political and military agents of countries which are not on the ’west’s’ side and those perpetrated by those who are. Thus the crimes committed by Milosevic, Karadzic and others of the Balkan genocide brigade – no matter how long it takes – are publicly branded and referred to Criminal Tribunals at the Hague along with those of Gaddaffi and such like. On the other hand, the crimes against humanity perpetrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, or at Guantanimo Bay, Abu Grave, Gaza and elsewhere by the grandees of the ‘west’ are quietly swept under the carpet.

Those not on the west’s side typically cause ‘deliberate citizen casualties‘, whilst the ’west’s’ side only cause ‘unintended collateral damage‘. The other side engage in ‘inhumane torture‘, while the west legally obtains ‘valuable intelligence‘. Yet those of us really adhering to the principles of ’humanity’ would do well to remember that no matter how far they are into ‘denial’ the western elites are also guilty of atrocious crimes against humanity. Bush and Blair have been as much perpetrators of such crimes, as any of the rogue dictators and tin-pot generals sprinkled around the rest of the world and should also be indicted. Yet such is the double standards of the dominant liberal-democratic regimes and the servile press, these two agents of criminal destruction, along with their illicit associates, remain aloof and apparently impervious to any serious moral censure, let alone any due process of international law.

It is reminiscent of the double standards, employed in the Nuremburg trials after the second world war, in which the Nazi leadership was put on trial for the horrible crimes they perpetrated, but those committed by the allies, such as the fire-bombing of Dresden, were either ignored or rationalised away. Over sixty years later and so little has changed. The control the present western political and military elites, have over the institutions of international law, such as the United Nations and the ITC, means they can invoke international law against despotic regimes they consider hostile such as Gaddaffi’s and yet block it against despotic regimes they support such as those in Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Another interesting and revealing characteristic in the current coverage of ‘crimes against humanity‘, is the fact that only the top echelons of the politico-economic-military systems are indicted. In this way a fiction is perpetrated that the system is OK and it just suffers from some occasional ‘rogue’ actors.

The fact that the present economic, political and military system requires a whole sub-strata of high-ranking and middle-ranking individuals who staff, the institutions, formulate briefing documents, participate in ‘think-tanks’, process the instructions and carry out the crimes, is for all intents and purposes totally ignored. It is as if the 20th and 21st century phenomena, described by Hannah Arendt as the ’banality of evil’, in which the many institutions of government, national and regional, participate actively and also passively in such crimes does not exist. Yet the crimes perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic, Karadzic, Gaddafi, Bush, Blair, Sharon etc., could not have occurred if thousands of elite individuals in the political, military and economic sectors of life had not systematically carried out their so-called ‘duties’ and enabled the crimes to be committed. In modern crimes against humanity, those who give the orders, drop the bombs, pull the triggers and attach the electrodes during torture, also need feeding, transporting, supplying with ammunition, training, entertaining, consoling and even counselling. Without, these multiple support structures, crimes against humanity would be restricted to the random acts of demented individuals and not extended to whole populations as they currently are.

In this sense, the present system of social organisation, should also be indicted, for complicity in these military perpetrated crimes as well as those economic and financial crimes it continues to perpetrate against humanity. As long as we continue to tolerate a hierarchical system of society which allows vast differences in wealth and power, in which those with the wealth and power can manipulate the system, economic, political and military crimes against humanity will continue. Not only will they continue, but they will continue to haunt the lives of even those who are not directly or indirectly involved in them.

Orchestrated and widespread crimes against humanity are a disfiguring stain on the evolutionary development of the human species and will only be removed, when the present degenerate, unequal economic and political system is radically transformed and equalised. This of course, will be a difficult task, but as with other difficult tasks it needs to be first recognised as necessary before it can be approached and accomplished in reality. In speaking out against crimes against humanity we need to speak out against those perpetrated in our name as well as those of others and at the same time speak out against the system which not only enables them to take place but elevates those into power who are prepared to perpetrate them.

The debate in the Greek Parliament over the introduction of an austerity plan conveniently obscures the international character of the problem which it attempts to deal with. The problem for Greece as with Spain, Ireland, Portugal and other countries, is the amount of toxic debt (a result of bad speculative loans) which was created over the past decade by the international banking system. This colossal toxic debt is still being passed around the global financial system in packages known as bonds and in particular, ‘credit default swaps’ (CDS’s). Those financial institutions, whose personnel created this catastrophe are fearfully ‘passing the parcel’ whilst hoping to be baled out again and again by the ordinary citizens of each country in which this speculative banking system operates.

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It has been well documented, that the large-scale struggles in the middle-east and North Africa, were actually initiated by a new generation of young people. It is clear that in the struggles that followed within Europe the younger generation also played, and continue to play, a leading role. However, this development poses an important question. Do the activist youth of the Arab Spring and those in what promises to be the European Summer or autumn, represent more than just themselves?  We know roughly what they want; jobs, decent standards of living and freedom of expression. We know they are internet savvy, disenchanted with formal politics and promote their own and others self-activity across and beyond national boundaries.  But what possible sector of modern society do they really represent?  They are clearly not a traditional, blue-collar workforce, nor do they represent an emerging middle-class of future small shopkeepers, entrepreneurs or professional civil servants. The reason is obvious. It is a fact that the scale of commodity distribution and sale has followed that of commodity production. Large supermarket orientated industries have squeezed out the small distributors of goods and increasingly of services. The whole global system has reached a stage of technological maturity which requires an educated workforce to enable its industry, commerce and state institutions to function and develop. As a consequence of this requirement, considerable past effort was directed into the provision of University and Polytechnic education and the stages necessary to gain entry to these establishments of higher and further education. Therefore the educated youth of the 21st century are a distinctive product of the advanced, and now crisis-ridden stage of capitalist development.

In this context it is important to recognise that such is the productivity of modern agriculture, industry and commerce, that the enormous wealth created by those working in these broad areas is sufficient to support a large mass of citizens not directly involved in these essential economic activities. In addition to supporting the wealth-saturated capitalist class and a decreasing number of middling bourgeoisie, those blue-collar workers active in supplying food, engineering, building, transport, energy, mining, communication, water, sewage and disposal products and services, also provide them for white-collar workers. Those currently engaged in education, social services, medicine, science, sports, leisure and entertainment etc., or who are trained for such disciplines, are in fact a distinctive product of 20th and 21st century capitalism. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries of capitalist development, such white-collar occupations were either absent or minimal. Now, however, they are substantial.  The result of this social process throughout the world, is the existence of large numbers of highly educated working people who, along with their blue-collar colleagues, are economically superfluous. This section of citizens is being offered no illusions as to their right to a guaranteed equitable position in their respective societies. Nor are they considered entitled to a comfortable old-age when they have expended their energies in fulfilling their duties to their fellow citizens. It has now been made clear that under the current system, the working life-time is to be extended beyond 65 for some and permanently truncated by long-term unemployment for others.
The youth activists of today are a generation of working people who should have everything they need to be fully human. They are eminently capable and worthy of being active members of a collective working community and participating in its decision-making processes, yet are being denied both these essential aspects of human life. Due to the class structure and crisis nature of the present system they have less than a minimum necessary to fulfil their potential. This contradiction, between what should be their inheritance and what they are actually granted by the system, occurs precisely at a time when there are obvious – often glaring – levels of unprecedented wealth. It is undoubtedly the case that the young activists in the middle-east, North Africa and Europe, have been educated and trained according to the previously estimated needs of the current system, but now find through no fault of their own, they are surplus to requirements.  And so according to the logic of capitalist economics, like any other commodity whose value cannot be realised, they are to be discounted or discarded completely. The same process, of technological advancement, which displaced many 20th century skilled blue-collar workers and left them to their own devices, has now had the same effect upon the skilled white-collar workers of the 21st. The present system of production and distribution for profit means that any workers whose skills cannot be used profitably are always surplus to requirements, no matter how well educated or skilled they are. But whilst non-human commodities when no longer valuable  stay where they are dumped and subsequently crumble and perish, human beings are not always so passive.

So what are the ‘active’ options for human beings faced with the prospect of economic and social exclusion? Under modern socio-economic systems people either produce collectively or they do not produce at all. The scale of production and distribution of essential goods and services is gigantic. Self-employment is only possible for a miniscule number of people under modern conditions. The means of production, distribution and consumption are as a consequence inescapably collective and international in scope. They are also presently only set in motion by the pursuit of profit and halted when profits fall.  The options therefore are few. People can emigrate – as many continue to do; they can turn to the black economy – as many also have; or they can refuse to be treated as disposable commodities and assert their humanity. They can employ their skills in questioning the distribution of wealth and challenging the system which governs this present state of affairs. It is the latter process which is increasingly embraced by the activist youth.

The newly qualified students and youth have arrived on the 21st century economic scene during a period of technological development for which the present system requires less numbers of highly skilled white-collar and blue-collar workers and this coincides with a cycle of extreme economic and financial crisis.  The young people active in the middle-east, North Africa and Europe, therefore now belong to a sphere of modern society which has taken on an almost universal character. This is precisely because they suffer from a universally induced symptom of the modern capitalist system.  For this reason, they are in a position to become the mouthpiece, the representatives of, and pole of attraction for, all oppressed and suffering humanity, as they did in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain and elsewhere. They are among those who should share in the collective benefits of all previous generations of human wealth creation and ingenuity, but they have inherited only social, economic and political exclusion. Their treatment as dispensable units of labour power is the archetypal experience of over 90% of humanity past, present and future. However, this new generation have also acquired the research skills, literacy and collective ingenuity to articulate the injustice and unsustainable character of the present system and to seriously confront it.

In their continuing struggle for decent standards of living, their current ‘uprisings’ will need to become overtly anti-capitalist and not just anti-regime. In questioning the capitalist system they will need to reach out to each other, beyond national boundaries and at the same time avoid an uncritical acceptance of the elitist and sectarian panaceas offered by previous generations of so-called ‘socialists’ and anti-capitalists. For these have failed to build anything of substance, and whilst advocating unity among working people, have failed to overcome their own petty sectarian divisions. Indeed, for many decades they have strenuously promoted such divisions. On the few occasions they have been given power, those in these particular traditions, have only replaced one set of socio-political dictators with another.

(The problem is the System.)

On a placard hung in the middle of a Madrid intersection, the youth of the Spanish city in May 2011 hoisted up the above revolutionary slogan. By this one placard, they showed themselves to be clearer than most of the political parties in Europe and well in advance of them by their thinking.  All around these young activists and elsewhere throughout the world, political parties from left, right and centre, and their respective leaderships, have failed to point out this obvious truth. The fundamental problem is not with the quality or lack of it, of the political superstructure and the rotating elites managing it, but with the whole system itself. It is a system which is in deep-seated crisis in the economic, financial, social, ecological and political spheres of life. Everywhere the system is in an advanced condition of excessive resource depletion,  along with extreme social and ecological decomposition. It is not simply a case of the system contracting a mild and temporary infection. Yet the established parties and political groups of all shades, including many ‘socialists‘, have all failed to register publicly anything other than an urgent necessity to change the personnel of the ‘doctors’ in government and attempt to nurse the ‘system’ back to health. The stark reality visible all around us, is that the system is currently on a massive financial life-support regime. It is on a course of emergency economic therapy which requires increasing amounts of liquid transfusions into its decaying corpse.  The transfusions of liquidity, in the form of money, are being obtained by the IMF and other ‘financially induced’ prescriptions‘, by draining the necessary life-sustaining resources out of the mass of the population in Europe and the rest of the world. This is being done by means of increased prices and reductions in wages, salaries and public services.

Even left trade unions only seem to be able to campaign for a defence of wages, jobs and services, with little or no mention or warning to their members that the system is in terminal decay and actually needs replacing, not resuscitating.  It is as if many of them believe the system will soon recover and be in a healthy enough condition to deliver these requirements. In fact at this moment the system is fighting for its very life. The systems supporters, in positions of power and in charge of the life-support regime know this, and are prepared to bleed ordinary people to the maximum. Using all the repressive organs of the state, they intend to drain resources out of working people, no matter how many fail to survive the ‘prescribed cuts‘, in an effort to put off the final day. They have proved over many years of the systems progressive decline into terminal sickness, that they are not prepared to listen to those whom suffer under its rule or to begin to act in their interests. They will keep the system on life-support as long as possible in the hope it recovers sufficiently to keep themselves in power and wealth. Meanwhile the ‘system’ continues daily to infect the healthy tissues of the planet, by pollution, ecological destruction, nuclear proliferation, wars, financial instability and widespread poverty. We cannot expect those who benefit from the present system to inform or warn people of what is fully at stake. So whose job is it? Instead of only making reformist demands on a system in such a catatonic state, shouldn’t we on the left be arguing for the creation of an alternative system and looking forward to seeing the back of this one?  As anti-capitalists, shouldn’t we be saying publicly and loudly; if the system cannot provide (and sustain) a decent standard of living for all inhabitants of the planet, then we must change the system? Shouldn’t the slogans ‘fight the cuts’ always be alongside, such slogans as ‘the system is to blame’ and ‘lets change the system’ or ‘fight the system’?

To put it another way. When a capitalist business has squandered its income on extravagant expenditure and undertaken risky and expensive adventures, borrowed more than it should and can no longer afford its interest repayments, then bankruptcy is the only logical outcome.  Bankruptcy is declared, the enterprise is buried and the creditors get as little as is left over at the winding up.  Isn’t this exactly what has happened in all the countries of the world?  Haven’t the elite’s run our countries like a business system, instead of a society? Haven’t they spent more than their tax income on advanced military weapons and other extravagant items, including their own life-styles? Surely it is true that they have undertaken risky and expensive invasions and wars, borrowed more than they should and daily inform us they can no longer afford the interest payments. When the international credit agencies mark down countries credit rating as ‘junk‘ is this not an accurate assessment of the ’system’ and not a reflection of the working population? In fact, considered from this perspective the present capitalist system is bankrupt and should be wound up, not repeatedly bailed out as most ordinary people already think about the banks. Like other bankrupts, those previously in charge should also be held accountable. I suggest this is what we should be arguing for, calling for and working for. Everywhere the real problem is the system. For the most part, the rest are just symptoms. The only realistic solution is the systems replacement not its resuscitation as the reformists mistakenly suggest. To the slogan ‘El Problema esta el Systema’ raised by the youth of the Arab world and Spain, we should consistently add in various languages, ‘El solucion esta el Nuevo-systema‘ – the solution is a new-system.