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| ANALYSIS - Arab uprisings overturn cliches on democracy Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:41 AM PST CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab uprisings against unpopular Western-backed rulers have undercut the arguments of some Western intellectuals about passive populations who are not prepared to fight for democracy.
During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, neoconservative cheerleaders for war who had direct access to Western policymakers said force was the only way to take down Arab dictators. A minority of Arab intellectuals agreed with them. Many writers, especially in the United States, suggested there were characteristics peculiar to the region that could explain why Arabs had not been touched by the democratic wave that toppled East European regimes two decades ago. Often they cited Islam, or implied there was something wrong in the Arab psyche. Those who suggested more of a focus on U.S. policies and backing for unpopular regimes have had less access to mainstream media and policy makers. Bernard Lewis, one of the intellectual giants of this trend, wrote in 2005 that "creating a democratic political and social order in Iraq or elsewhere in the region will not be easy", as if "creating" democracy required American tutelage. The uprisings that removed Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14 and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak four weeks later have shown the people are capable of doing it themselves, even when up against huge odds. Scholars and opposition figures, who all opposed the Iraq war, said the uprisings, which have so far sparked street action in Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Iran, also exposed the ulterior motives behind U.S. backing for police states. "The West must change its mistaken belief that we are not fit for democracy and freedom. Now is the time for Western powers to recognize the desires of the Arab people and to remove their support of their despotic allies," said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident based in Washington. "Tunisians and Egyptians have proven Western powers and analysts wrong about the Arabs desire for freedom," he said. Western countries long saw rulers such as Mubarak and Ben Ali as strongmen able to deliver on Western foreign policy needs while cracking down on convenient Islamist threats such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia. Israel has reacted with great alarm to the fall of a trusted ally like Mubarak. He spent much time in his final days in office on the phone to U.S. and Israeli officials who fear the rise of popular forces, Islamist or secular, in a democratic Egypt would take a different line on regional issues. Egypt under Mubarak never veered from the script of a 1979 peace treaty with Israel engineered by his predecessor Anwar Sadat and backed by military top brass despite popular anger. He imposed a blockade of the Gaza Strip, drawing the opprobrium of many ordinary Arabs, because like Israel and the United States he did not like Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and its links to Egypt's own Islamist trend. "The explosion of Arab popular anger everywhere flies against U.S. policy interests," said As'ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese politics professor in the United States. "In other words, the U.S. needed to believe that Arabs are fatalistic and quiescent ... to rationalise the American embrace of most Arab tyrannies." MAJOR FEAT Turfing out unpopular rulers was no small feat. It required a mass movement to cross a barrier of fear created by an elaborate network of often ruthless security agencies developed under a system like that of Mubarak, who played up the Islamist threat to ensure U.S. support for his rule. "People in the West don't realise how brutal the regimes we have in the Arab world are," said Muhammad al-Zekri, a Bahraini anthropologist. While the uprisings took policy makers by surprise, they were in fact several years in the making. In Egypt Kefaya, or Enough, movement began mobilising Egyptians in 2005 against the prospect of a future presidential bid by Mubarak's son Gamal, a leading light in Mubarak's National Democratic Party. In 2008, labour strikes broke out in north Egypt and became more frequent since then. Activists spoke on state television about how they studied police tactics in controlling street protests in the past in order to outfox them when the revolt erupted on Jan. 25. Within four days the police had lost control and the army was sent in. When Tunisians brought down Ben Ali, it was the spark that lit a fire waiting to happen in Egypt. None of this was the work of populations prepared to acquiesce in injustice. NEW GENERATION Mounir Khelifa, a Tunisian literature professor who advised the education ministry, says the uprisings were made possible by the emergence of a generation who grew up during the information technology revolution and were not prepared to accept government arguments any more on why full rights should be put in abeyance. Both the Internet and Arab satellite television undercut the propaganda of state media, encouraged people develop a consensus on their rights as citizens and facilitated mobilisation. Like their Western allies, Egypt and Tunisia underestimated their own people and thought the old means of control -- media, police, ruling party -- would continue to stifle them. "There was obliviousness to a broad class of young educated people out there who were accessing information from all over the world," Khelifa said. "Even the school curriculums talked about a lot of things that Ben Ali was not providing, such as freedom of opinion and fair elections," he said. In Egypt, 40 percent of the population of over 80 million are under 30, disconnected from the mindset of an 82-year-old former air pilot who in his final speeches repeatedly referred to himself as their father. (Editing by Samia Nakhoul) Copyright © 2011 Reuters | ||
| Anti-government protests spread across Yemen Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:41 AM PST SANAA (Reuters) - Protests against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh spread across Yemen on Wednesday with hundreds of people taking to the streets of Sanaa, Aden and Taiz.
In the capital Sanaa, at least 800 protesters marched through the streets near Sanaa University despite police efforts to break up the demonstration. "We're no weaker than Tunisians and Egyptians, and our situation is worse than theirs," said Rafea Abdullah, a Sanaa University student, referring to the "people power" revolts that ousted the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia over the last month. Saleh, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda, has ruled the poor and fractious Arabian Peninsula State for more than 30 years. The threat of turmoil in Yemen, struggling to quash a resurgent wing of al Qaeda and keep rebellions at bay in its north and south, pushed Saleh to say he would step down in 2013 and call for a national dialogue, that the opposition accepted. But anti-government protests have continued for the past six days, despite often violent clashes with government loyalists. For graphics, click on http://r.reuters.com/nym77r Interactive factbox: http://link.reuters.com/puk87r Police in Sanaa had earlier on Wednesday been unable to block hundreds of government loyalists wielding batons and daggers from beating and chasing off protesters and journalists at the university, which has become a launchpad for protests. A Reuters journalist saw four people wounded in the melee. After locking student protesters inside the campus, police fired shots in the air to break up the loyalist groups, who were picked up by luxury cars which sped away, a Reuters reporter said. Students later left the campus to join hundreds of anti-government protesters in the streets. At least 500 people rallied in the agro-industrial city Taiz, south of Sanaa, and 500 or more protesters had gathered in the southern port town of Aden. "No more marginalisation of the people of Aden! No more corruption and oppression," chanted protesters there. Most demonstrators were from among the unemployed youth in Yemen, where the jobless rate is at least 35 percent. Of the 23 million people in Yemen, which is teetering on the brink of collapse into a failed state, 40 percent live on less than $2 a day and a third suffer chronic hunger. Jobs are scarce, corruption is rife, and the population is expanding rapidly as oil and water resources are drying up. TIPPING POINT Protests over the past week have been smaller than in preceding weeks, when tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, but demonstrators have become more strident in calling for Saleh's resignation. Analysts say protests could reach a tipping point because they are more spontaneous and youth-led, instead of run by the opposition, which works within the existing political framework and has called for reform, not for Saleh's resignation. Yemen's opposition has agreed to negotiate with Saleh, but many young student protesters are becoming frustrated. "We'll keep protesting until the regime leaves," said Murad Mohammed. "We have no future under current conditions." Analysts say any uprising in Yemen -- which neighbours Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter -- could unfold more slowly than in Egypt and Tunisia and with more bloodshed in a country where one in two people own guns. "It's an escalation, but this country is armed to the teeth. When people get fed up enough that they escalate it to sticks, the next step is probably Molotov cocktails, then weapons," said Theodore Karasik, a security analyst at the Dubai-based INEGMA group. "We're getting close to a tipping point." Elsewhere in Sanaa, dozens of journalists rallied outside the journalist union, protesting against what they said were targeted attacks against them for covering the demonstrations. In southern Aden, thousands of workers at different companies protested against what they said were poor working conditions and low pay. Scattered protests led by the unemployed were also breaking out in Aden, a Reuters correspondent said. "Protest, protest until the regime falls!" they shouted. Saleh on Sunday cancelled a trip to Washington planned for later this month, which the state news agency said was due to regional conditions. On Tuesday, Saba news reported Saleh would open his office to Yemenis who wanted to air their grievances. But in another sign dissent may grow, the leader of a northern Shi'ite rebel group Abdel Malek al-Houthi issued a statement encouraging protesters. "Yemenis should take advantage of this opportunity and create serious mobilisation ... which will be responsible for changing the reality and removing this criminal government." (Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf; Writing by Erika Solomon; Editing by Janet Lawrence) Copyright © 2011 Reuters |
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