We saw the Arab revolutions coming

By Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's Director General

(extract & comment):

"On February 11, the day Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt, Al Jazeera faced a welcome dilemma: Scenes of elation were playing out not just in Cairo but throughout the region, and even with our vast network of journalists, we found it difficult to be everywhere at once. From North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, Arabs were celebrating the reclamation of their self-confidence, dignity and hope.

The popular revolutions now sweeping the region are long overdue. Yet in some ways, they could not have come before now. These are uprisings whose sons and daughters are well educated and idealistic enough to envision a better future, yet realistic enough to work for it without falling into despair. These revolutions are led by the Internet generation, for whom equality of voice and influence is the norm. Their leaders' influence is the product of their own effort, determination and skill, unconstrained by rigid ideologies and extremism.

It is now clear to all that the modern, post-colonial Arab state has failed miserably, even in what it believed it was best at: Maintaining security and stability. Over the decades, Arab interior ministers and police chiefs devoted enormous resources and expertise to monitoring and spying on their own people. Yet now, the security machineries in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have disintegrated in short order, while the rest of the authoritarian and repressive regimes in the region can see the writing on the wall.

These revolutions have exposed not just the failure of traditional politicians but also the moral, political and economic bankruptcy of the old Arab elites. Those elites not only attempted to control their own people, but also sought to shape and taint the views of news media in the region and across the world."

This article first appeared in The Washington Post then Al Jazeera's website.

Comment:

"...while the rest of the authoritarian and repressive regimes in the region can see the writing on the wall"

In Syria, the government has attempted to buy time and pre-empt street protests by bribing millions of government employees (including in particular the security services) with massive pay rises that can only result in higher inflation and worsening conditions for the rest of the population.

The regime certainly does see the writing on the wall but believes it can nip any rebellion in the bud and outsmart the population. Over the last 40 years, it has been successful by systematically eliminating opponents and applying the Chinese model of alternating between strong repression and milder repression. The result has been a hollowing out of the nation of basic ingredients for real economic, technological and cultural progress. Revolution will eventually come but unfortunately it will be bloodier, uglier and more protracted than the Libyan one.

The Libyan womaniser & megalomaniac goes trigger happy

Young Arabs have a lot to thank Tim Berners-Lee and Julian Assange for.

No longer will self-appointed psychopaths like Gaddafi, who has held on to power for 42 years, be able to prevent desparate Arab youths from taking control of their own lives. The Internet has brought information democracy into their own bedrooms and images of how other, less fortunate but healthier, societies live and breathe.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely and oil-funded absolute power gives birth to delusional megalomaniacs. Only God knows how much pain and suffering a pathetic man like Gaddafi, and tens of thousands of brain-washed and trigger-happy militias, can inflict on a defenceless civilian population.

Despots never learn from history nor do they believe that their subjects could possibly stop worshiping and glorifying them. Aleady more than 100 in Baida and Benghazi are dead and hundreds are injured. More tragedies will undoubtedly follow.

The best thing the Libyan people can do for their leader now is to drive him deep into the Sahara desert and leave him there with a tent and 42 goats.

Mubarak out but tyranny lives on

Mubarak's days are numbered. Whether he personally authorised the regime's thugs to attack protesters in Tahrir Square yesterday is neither here or there. He will be booted out by the people and the Americans, but there is no regime change in Egypt.

The army is firmly in charge and its current chiefs all have very strong and deep-rooted links with the US, especially Vice President Omar Sulaiman (72) and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense (74). The army will have to give some ground to the opposition groups in coming months but there will be no change of policy towards the US or Israel.

Ordinary Egyptians are unlikely to gain much from the fall of Mubarak. Food and fuel prices may be cut and the unemployed may receive some handouts in coming months but political and economic power will remain concentrated in the hands of army and business elite loyal to the US. The army will no doubt yield to opposition demands for a degree of power sharing, to include the Muslim Brotherhood, but will do so only to appease the masses and hypoctritical Western governments with deep pockets.

Real change in Egypt will be painfully slow for the majority. Rebuilding democratic institutions and accountable state machiney takes at least two generations. The army will continue to play on peoples' fears of instability and external threats and wield huge influence over the political system.

Without an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Middle East cannot easily shake off the tyranny of autocracy and theocracy. Egypt's and Syria's regimes thrive on it while desparate Muslim youths sacrifice their lives thinking they can make the world better for their parents and brothers and sisters but succeed only in sowing fear in the minds of the middle classes and Western powers. The spotaneous explosion of anger on the streets of Tunis and Cairo shows that at least young Arabs are not walking zombies and that there is nothing to fear except fear itself. Hopefully this will translate into real, albeit slow, change in the right direction for the region.