CAIRO: The Popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (PCDR) have held their first general conference on Friday at Tahrir square. The conference convened under the slogan ‘Social justice, freedom and trials of the corrupt.' Most of the Popular Committees that were present today are a product of cooperation in the neighborhoods that started during the revolution. Citizens worked together in order to guarantee the safety and quality of life in the neighbourhood. The PCDR is only a faction of the countless grass-roots initiatives for cooperation in neighborhoods. However, Friday's conference was the first official step to collect the local experiences on a national level. While the initiatives enjoy growing support in the neighborhoods, the participation of Friday's conference remained relatively low, with many of the people on the square not being informed about the purpose of the demonstration. Magdy Abdelhady, a business student from Cairo explains: “I did not know about the Popular Committees, I have just come to hear people's thoughts and ideas in order to enrich my understanding.” He is skeptical of further protests on Tahrir: “the time for further protests has passed, we don't need these Committees, the army and the police will take care of our security now.” While Abdelhady stresses that the army does not restrict political freedoms, reports of activists and Human Rights groups such as Amnesty International are illustrating the contrary. The continuance of torture being used against peaceful protestors as well as the persistence of socio-economic problems illustrate that the demands of the revolution are still far from being achieved. This seems to raise the question how to organize the Egyptian citizens on order to attain the demands of the revolution. The core idea of the Popular Committees is that the thousands of people that have become involved in these grassroots initiatives could function as a powerful force in order to order to promote democratization and social justice. Haitham Mohamedeen, a lawyer from Cairo and one of the organizers of the conference told Bikya Masr: “The idea for of Popular Committees is to bring the spirit of Tahrir back to the neighborhoods and to organize the youth that is not involved in any party politics.” The Committees address issues such as corruption in local governments, discrimination of poor neighborhoods or stigmatization of unemployed people. On Friday's conference, two new initiatives were launched. Representatives declared the establishment of a general union for the unemployed and, responding to the unrest in Qena, a campaign to choose governors by elections rather than by appointment. The organizers of Friday's conference are ambitious. Khaled Abdel Shaheed, an active member of the organizational committee explained: “Our ultimate aim is for there to be social monitoring in the coming period for all branches of the government and all institutions as a guarantee of the revolution's consummation.” BM
