The Square is a captivating documentary on the fate of the so-called “Arab Spring” within Egypt, focusing on the January 11 demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and their protracted aftermath. It follows events through the eyes and reactions of six main characters from a variety of backgrounds, all of whom are strongly involved in the revolution, and all of whom are highly intelligent, passionate, articulate, and extremely likable. The pacing and content of the film is very well-judged, and the various events are for the most part explained well. It contains a lot of great live footage from the protests. It’s a very pleasing film to watch, and a very interesting one.

Where I think The Square really succeeds is in showing the intense and significant sociopolitical bonding of average working people in Egypt – their conversations, their aspirations, their driving commitment to forcing change to happen – all of which made possible the uprising and the overthrow of the brutal, hated Mubarak (who was strongly backed by the United States for decades, and to the bitter end.) It’s valuable as a contrast to the sad political climate in America, where working people are ignorant, impotent and completely isolated from each other, their quality of life nose-diving and their rights disappearing as they furiously distract themselves with alcohol, drugs, Xbox, professional sports, and watching depictions of the super-rich on TV. For this reason alone, Americans should see The Square, just to experience what a politicized citizenry actually looks like and sounds like.

But The Square does has a few shortcomings that are worth mentioning. It makes the revolution look a bit like a middle-class party, obscuring the fact that it was very much an uprising of the downtrodden working class, an uprising which flowered only after years of courageous, violent struggle for workers rights within Egypt. Mubarak didn’t step down just because some folks showed up in Tahrir Square with signs, chanting slogans! There had been years of massive strikes and social upheaval, always brutally repressed. It was good old-fashioned class struggle which brought together so many diverse groups (including Catholics and Muslims setting aside their differences) to force change in Egypt. This does not come across in the film.

The protagonists of the documentary muse that the revolution made a critical error in abandoning Tahrir Square after Mubarak stepped down, which left the military of his still empowered regime free to crush the protesters. In actuality I think their mistake was far deeper: they were destroyed by not having constructed a political party that actually represented the working class, instead relying on “protest activism” to try to force the privileged layers of society to make changes counter to their own interests (always a dubious strategy). Actually, one of the protagonists briefly alludes to this in the film, complaining that there is no point in holding elections until there is someone to actually elect. And he was right, but of course they needed to be thinking about this years before, so they were ready to take control when their moment arrived.

When elections are called (partly to neutralize the dissenting population), The Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, and here again the documentary misses key elements of the story. In the eyes of the documentary’s main characters, The Muslim Brotherhood betrayed the revolution for their own nutty religious aims. This is very true, and they certainly are a bunch of religious whack-jobs. But it’s important to note that they are also a completely bourgeois political force: fully backing American imperial interests in the Middle East, immediately inviting in the IMF to further rape the Egyptian working class, and continuing the suppression of the revolutionaries.

The Muslim Brotherhood was able to “betray the revolution” and come into power because Washington allowed and encouraged this to happen. America does not have a problem with nutty Islamic regimes (we like Saudi Arabia just fine, for example). What we have a problem with is countries that want to take their destinies into their own hands, rather than follow our orders and submit to our economic depredations. Which brings us to the implicit and devastating message of The Square: It’s almost impossibly hard to change any society for the benefit of the poor working majority, because any society’s privileged sectors will be backed by the unassailable world-wide network of power and privilege. The obvious question is: where is the world-wide network of average working people? Of course this is a distinctly unsexy question in this day and age.

The Square is already out of date. After the Egyptian military took power back from the Muslim Brotherhood by a coup d’etat, they rammed through a new constitution (through an openly fraudulent, nationwide “ratification”) that basically establishes a permanent military dictatorship. Since this sham ratification, the military has stepped up the torture and murder of the dissenting population. And the United States, the “world’s policeman”, has absolutely no problem with any of this. The hopes and dreams of the lovely, passionate young people featured in the documentary resonate even more tragically with knowledge of what went on to happen.

I strongly encourage everyone to see The Square, and ponder the thrill, disappointment, and challenges of trying to make the world a better place.