The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka will hold a public meeting in Jaffna on “Mass uprisings in the Middle East and Permanent Revolution.”

Countries across the Middle East and North Africa have been convulsed by social upheaval. On May 27, hundreds of thousands of workers and youth demonstrated in major Egyptian cities calling for a “second revolution” against the military junta that took power after Mubarak's ouster on February 11. The demonstrations made clear that protesters identify the military government as an open threat to the revolution.

Free Trade Zone workers in Sri Lanka recently ignored their unions and held mass protests against the planned pension scheme. The government reacted by deploying the army that was built up in the course of the protracted civil war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Workers have protested in the United States and European countries such as Greece and Portugal against austerity measures. Together these struggles mark the beginning of a new epoch of revolutionary upheaval internationally.

The events in the Middle East, as well as the bitter lessons of the civil war in Sri Lanka, confirm the validity of Leon Trotsky’s perspective of Permanent Revolution, which explains that the fight for democracy can be realised only through the taking of power by the working class as part of the socialist revolution.

The SEP meeting will discuss the vital political lessons of the Middle East uprisings and the necessity of a revolutionary perspective based upon the Theory of Permanent Revolution. We invite workers, youth, intellectuals and WSWS readers to attend.

Date and time: Sunday June 19, 3 p.m.

Venue: Cooperative Hall, Jaffna.

Lecturer: Nanda Wickremasinghe, SEP Political Committee member