Revolutionaries face their greatest challenges after their revolution, and usually fail to meet them in line of their expectations. Egypt, after ousting Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, is still hanging in doldrum by military janta. Surely what is going on in the Middle East is not a minor change that will affect only local Arab states and Arab populations. Especially with huge amounts of investments and shared interests between Arab states and Western countries, their geo-political and geo-economics are not easy to reconcile.
Clearly, the reasons for the abrupt uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, are due to the economic crisis and the unbearable social injustices, the securitization of social and political issues and most of all it is due to the unprecedented level of corruption and the organized rapt of national resources by sick-autocrates.
It all started with an insignificant episode when in a small town, a Tunisian police officer slapped a computer science graduate, Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, in the town of Sidi Bouzid, ordering him to pack up his street cart, the young man snapped. Unable to find any work as a computer technician, Bouazizi sold fruit to support his seven siblings, and slap was one humiliation too many. He marched to the governor’s office and demanded an appointment, threatening to set himself alight if the official did not meet him. Turned away, Bouazizi carried out his macabre threat on Dec. 17, 2010.
With his death, 18 days later, millions of angry young Tunisians had a martyr. Their frustration had been mounting in recent years as the unwritten compact their parents’ generation had made with President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Youth unemployment, as well as inflation, had soared, and the regime had grown ever more corrupt. Bouazizi’s suicide was the tiny spark of fire which burst into the conflagration of civil unrest. The fire of four week revolt leaped from town to town until it engulfed whole Tunis. The Jasmine Revolution needed no leaders to rally the protesters or organize the demonstrations. Instead, the revolt was refueled by a steady stream of anonymous text messages, Twitter and FaceBook updates. Documents posted on WikiLeaks deepened the rage. Mobile phone videos posted online documented the government’s brutal response, including the police beatings and the shooting of some of the 100 or so protesters who died.
By the time on Jan. 14, the protests had reached the doorstep of Ben Ali for the first time in his 23 years in power. Despite the show of strength, however, Ben Ali was already mortally weakened. His 10.5 million subjects already sensed that liberation was at hand. And so it was. Within hours, Ben Ali had fled the country, left for Saudi Arabia, leaving behind a nation in turmoil.
Bouazizi’s martyrdom inspired several copycat immolations in Algeria and least one each in Mauritania and Egypt. In Algeria, where protests by jobless youths predated those in Tunisia, there were attempts to replicate the Jasmine Revolution’s use of social networks and YouTube. The rulers of Jordan, Egypt and Yemen announced measures to bring down prices of food and fuel, apparently to quell disquiet among their populations. But they were too little, too late.
This is the globalization of revolution, and these are the histories within which the Tunisian example belongs, the example that so inspired the Egyptian people. The very idea that the solitary stand of a fruit-seller could bring down the big regime was unthinkable. The agency was human, the act, political.
Since the Jasmine Revolution had been leaderless, chaos was its inevitable aftermath. Ben Ali’s chosen successor as President lasted a single day, and the one installed after him could not keep his “national unity cabinet” united for even a week. Gun battles between the military and die-hard Ben Ali loyalists continued sporadically and Islamists demanded a say in government. Relieved to be rid of their past, Tunisians were not yet sure of their future.
The fire of revolution leaped Egyptians next. Egypt was ripe and fertile for the moment. It only needed a push which they got from Tunisia. In the course of their 18 days unprecedented stand in Tahreer Square they compelled Hosni Mubarak abdicate his palace and leave Cairo on Feb.11. In the fight for power amongst Hosni Mubarak, his security forces, his Military men, and the people of Egypt during the movement, people’s power dominated. The chief of military took control of administration till new national elections are held and power is ultimately transferred to people of Egypt.
Out of the global rise of “people’s power” which is going on in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, Algeria and Oman, only Tunisia and Egypt could oust their four to five decades old regimes. But the people of Tunisia and Egypt are still far from taking sovereignty in their hand. Time will tell how far the people’s aspirations of Tunisia and Egypt are fulfilled. There is no dearth of instances where revolutions are hijacked from some sections of revolutionary group or the military and security power of the country.*** (insert such instances here)*** No doubt the people of Tunisia and Egypt got rid of their age-old authoritarian rule. At the same time there is no doubt the people are deprived of the life and comforts which they had in the past regimes and their hopes and aspirations are not yet realized. We can only speculate if their future will better sustain than their past. In the past Tunisian regime, people had per capita income from tourist industry which people of no Arab countries had; almost all Tunisians had their own houses to live in.
However, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Libya and other forthcoming Arab and North African nations and countries are struggling to get rid of their age-old regimes and their system. Their struggle for emancipation varies. For example America and the West would like to see status quo in Bahrain because success of seventy percent shia majority in Bahrain would certainly enhance the influence of Iran in the Middle East. Bahrain which is home to the US navy's 5th fleet will also be in jeopardy. Not only that Bahraini fighters are not getting any political, moral and material help from the West, as are the case with Syria and Libya, instead the Bahraini regime is getting help against the insurgents in men and material from the neighboring Saudi Arabia and the West.
Yemen is also set for an escalation after opposition groups, who have held pro-democracy marches for the past month, rejected veteran ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer of reforms. Yemen is considered as safe haven for al-Qaeda. Saudi and American interests are only safeguarded in Yemen’s status quo. Thus the geopolitical situation differs from struggling nations to nation. The only thing common in all the struggling nations and countries is their burning desire of change of autocratic rule and their obsolete systems. Obama and Clinton announced many times at many occasion that decades old sheikhdoms and rulers must know that they are much behind the age and they must have to change.
Gulf leaders are struggling to hold back an Internet-era generation of Arabs who appear less inclined to accept arguments appealing to religion and tradition to explain why ordinary citizens should be shut out of decision-making. Several Gulf rulers seem to hope more money will solve their problems. Saudi King Abdullah has vowed to distribute some $37 billion in handouts to students, the unemployed and other low-income Saudis via a series of pay bonuses and benefits announced as he returned in February after a three-month absence for medical treatment. Gulf Arab oil producers launched a $20 billion aid package on Thursday for poorer Gulf countries Bahrain and Oman. [1]
“For most of us, it's not about money, it's about having a share in our government," said Mohammed al-Mansoori, a rights activist in the United Arab Emirates. "In other places people have dignity, here, people don't."[2]
Israr Hasan
Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
April 3, 2011
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