Democracy and change

In the last 3 months we have seen in the news changes in Tunisia, Egypt and revolts in Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, Morocco and Algeria. What is amazing about all this upheaval is that contrary to what most news media in the West would assume, it is not about Islam, but about democracy, economic opportunity, respect and human rights and the basic right to live your life in peace without fear of some crazy dictator who thinks he can stay in power for ever and then have his family continue to rule after his death with the help of the police and army.  The youth of all those countries are the majority, are under 30 years of age, they are tired, they want a future like any young person anywhere. What we take for granted they do not have.  Little is understood of how anyone can live in such a country with constant repression and fear. We have the luxury to say whatever we want, we live in a system of law and order, checks and balances, where politicians are accountable and can be voted out of office. But they live in total fear of the dictator and the police, where you are at the mercy of the arbitrary.

However it is interesting to note how for commercial interests many Western countries are very reluctant to support any popular upraising in the Maghreb, the Middle-East or anywhere else. Better for politicians to protect commercial interests of a few companies lobbying Western Governments than stand-up for what we preach about democracy. It is almost as if democracy is only for certain people in the developed world and not for others who live in the developing world.

ARTE, the French-German television network which broadcasts in Europe had a very good news report on those events, sometimes graphic and disturbing, but it did give you a very good understanding of the violence dictators are willing to unleash on their own people just to remain in power at all cost. In the last few days, Libya's Ghadaffi has been using cluster bombs to attack civilian targets. Such weapons are totally forbidden in numerous international treaties and to use them against civilians is a major crime against humanity and a war crime. Needless to say that his doing this now has basically condemn him to the rank of evil dictator, if anyone believed that he could be salvageable as a politician. In Syria, President Assad says he regrets all the deaths of civilian demonstrators, he is the one ordering the troops to shoot on his own countrymen, his father did the same thing before him.

All of them invoke the fact that if they should step down, chaos and trouble will ensue. What a lot of nonsense, also to scare people, the dictators like to point the finger at the boogeyman, Al Quaeda or Islamist elements, the Egyptian Brotherhood, they are behind all this unrest. One has to be a simpleton or very poorly informed to believe such lies from men who have been in power for more than 30 years and are basically incompetent and corrupt. The source of all their troubles is exactly the misrule of their regimes.

Difficult for us to understand such political systems where one man rules by decree with the help of a puppet parliament. But nothing last forever and the youth of all those countries are tired of the same old songs and now they have a real chance to change it all for the better. We should do all we can to support this Arab Spring and put greedy commercial interests aside. After all are we not the ones always ready to give lessons in democracy and human rights.

a little people?

In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, there is a scene where Sharif Hussein Bin Ali who has rebelled against the rule of the Ottoman Turks in 1916 and becomes the ruler of the Hejaz (now in Saudi Arabia) says to Colonel Lawrence, do the British think of us as a little people? Sharif Hussein sensed that he was a only one of the many pieces of the puzzle in the Great Game being played by European powers in the Middle-East as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling. The europeans believed that the Arabs having been ruled by the Turks for 500 years would not mind being ruled now by Europe, mostly Britain and France. That analysis proved in the 20th century to be completely wrong.

Sharif Hussien bin Ali, Emir of Mecca, King of the Arabs (1853-1931)

Looking at what has been happening in around the Arab world in the last month and how many western governments and China have shuffled their feet and looked at ways of salvaging their contracts on oil and trade, one  thinks of that question of Sharif Hussein.

The proposals being made now by Washington to have sanctions against Libya or a no fly zone, can they really make a difference when the regime as lost control of the country? Ghaddafi is isolated mostly in Tripoli with his body guards and a few loyal soldiers. What would sanctions achieve now?  Would they not punish the very people who rebelled against him. Ghaddafi today has nothing to loose, he can be as murderous as he wants, it really does not matter to him or to his future. People who talk about a trial and punishment are out of touch, what difference would it actually make when you look at all the cruelties he has inflicted on his people and the world.  What is also interesting is how many politicians now are caught in the glare,  yes they accepted gifts from Ghaddafi and yes in return they said nice things about him, he was suppose to have changed and wanted to mend his ways. His son Seif al Islam was the reformer and nice guy. Now after 3 speeches on Libyan TV this is all blown away. Was Tony Blair that naive or just venal? He was certainly not the only politician to forget and forgive.

If the Lybian saga continues for more than just a few days until Ghaddafi and his family and cronies are gone, we risk another failed State. However the Arabs will never again believe our speeches on Democracy and Human Rights after the way in which we did not respond to their revolt and grasp for freedom. No one in the Western World will be able to claim that we showed the way. They did it themselves and in many cases with their bare hands. If one was to answer Sharif Hussein bin Ali, I would say to him, no the Arabs are not a little people, they have struggled for a long time against difficult odds but never lost sight of their goal to rule themselves without our help.