Film screening of THE SQUARE: The People Demand the Downfall of the Regime

6pm Sunday January 15, 2017
film screening of THE SQUARE: The People Demand the Downfall of the Regime
Revolution Books 2444 Durant Ave, Berkeley 94704

The documentary film The Square, by the filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, brings us inside the mass uprisings in Egypt. The Square is an immersive experience, transporting the viewer deeply into the intense emotional drama and personal stories behind the news. It is the inspirational story of young people claiming their rights, struggling through multiple forces, in the fight to create a society of conscience. As 2011 dawned, President Hosni Mubarak had ruled Egypt for decades and seemed to be immovably implanted in power. But Mubarak was forced to leave office and actually arrested after being confronted by massive demonstrations that braved very severe repression, focused in the main square in Cairo, along with opposition from all sectors of society manifesting in different ways. From the time of the first demonstrations to the removal of Mubarak took less than a month.

No two societies or periods of time, of course, are exactly alike, and history is not made by analogy—but the events in Eqypt of 2011 when, quite suddenly thousands and thousands of people flooded into Tahrir Square day after day and refused to leave, are a parallel that must be learned from and ACTED ON.

Question: How could Trump-Pence actually be prevented from ruling?

Answer: By the intersection of two things: first, massive protest and resistance from tens of millions of ordinary people, daring and determined to actually prevent this fascist regime from taking over and implementing its program, beginning more or less immediately and growing to a crescendo in the next few weeks, and through that creating “a crisis of rule”; and second, coupled with this, attempts by different factions in the established power structure that have real differences with Trump-Pence to solve the crisis by preventing them from taking the reins of power.