A False Dawn and a Long Dark Night in West Asia

That the sudden spurt of democratic spirit on a street of Tunis in Tunisia as a result of a rather bizarre incident of self-immolation of an IT trained fruit-seller youth who was publicly slapped by a woman police and its spread to the whole country compelled its President Zein-al -Abdeen Ben Ali ending his twentythree-year- long autocracy seemed too strange to believe. But it happened in the full gaze of the whole world. Not only that this new urge for democracy ended the highly corrupt rule of a tinpot dictator who with the family of his wife, Leila, plundered the poor country for more than two decades. It gave birth to a new democracy movement in the region.

There was something dramatic about the exit of this hated dictator and his greedy and profiteering wife to signal such a splendorous victory to the inspiring political development in Tunisia. The role the Qatar-based Arab news channel, Al-Jazeera, played was so electrifying that the movement soon spread to neighbouring Egypt, the most populous Arab country of the region where another straw dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was in control of an autocracy propped up with US money and arms and its proxy, Israel. The democratic movement in Egypt by then had got a high-profile leadership of the Nobel Prize winner and recently retired Chief of the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei and the organisational support the long suppressed Muslim Brother-hood, branded by Mubarak as an extremist organisation.

The eighteen-day-long non-violent, generally peaceful demonstrations, beginning on January 25, on the streets of Cairo and other cities and towns of Egypt and the massing of thousands of agitators on the Tahrir Square of Cairo ended in yet another victory in the Maghreb (Islamic west). President Hosni Mubarak, after the failure of a few attempts at cosmetic reforms and vague promises, reluctantly stepped down, and the country’s rule was taken over by a Supreme Military Council headed by the lately appointed Defence Minister, Tantawi. Infected with this new democratic spirit peoples in other Arab countries of the region ruled by kings, sheiks, emirs, sultans and other potentates started demanding responsible democratic rule with varying degrees of voice decibel and physical vigour. In Yemen, where yet another tinpot dictator was in power for more than four decades, the man now relented a little and agreed to hand over power and step down after his present presidential term is over. But the agitators for democratic rule are insisting on his immediate, unconditional exit. In oil-rich Bahrain, which is home to the US Fifth Fleet, the people and the ruler are engaged in a sea-saw confrontation for the last several weeks with no satisfactory solution so far.

The streets of other Arab countries are also seething with discontent, and all the rulers are in more or less conciliatory mood as they very well know the people are strong and unrelenting and in a fearless spirit with apparently no possible support from outside for them this time. And these already long and popular movements for democracy are surging in a big way in all these countries of West Asia. No tangible change to democratic rule has taken place in any one of them so far except promises of democratic reforms and change by all these autocrats who are under siege of various intensity. The real danger comes, as Alex Toqueville has rightly remarked, when a dictator tries to reform his long sustained autocratic system. Take, for example, Egypt where the victory of the people is indeed resounding. But constitutional reforms have been promised by the newly appointed Military Council the shape of which is yet to be known and all are in the dark as to the future political set-up that might emerge. The very same strong arm of Mubarak, with which he controlled his highly cruel, oppressive autocratic rule for such a long time, is very unlikely to offer the people a full democratic system on a silver platter soon.

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NOW when this new movement for democracy reached the oil-rich Libya whose ruler, Col Muammar Gaddafi, is painted as “a devil” by the West and its media, it has taken suddenly a violent and hate-filled turn and is becoming a regular full-scale war, tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing the country fearing a catastrophic conflagration. Suddenly weather low reached agitation host, the whole western media started a blitzkrieg of propaganda against not only Gaddafi but also the members of his family including his son who had taken a doctorate degree from the renowned London School of Economics (LSE). The allegation of plagiarism in preparing the doctoral thesis brought against him was roundly repudiated by one of his examiners and former Director of the LSE, Lord Meghnad, Desai, a member of Britian’s Upper House. However the hunt for Gaddafi has only just begun and a fate not different from that of Saddam Hussain is awaiting him in this new turmoil and eventual full scale war.

Now the politically discerning world has begun to see the not-so-hidden hand of Western imperialism and its watchdog in the region, Israel, behind the whole sudden inexplicable start of the movement, its quick spread, its sudden change in Libya into a near regular war not only to depose Gaddafi but also to eliminate him. President Chavez of Venezuela, another oil- rich country of South America, was the first to see the hidden hand of the US and Zionist imperialism in the new developments in West Asia. The real plan was to engulf their real enemy number one in the region, Iran, in this movement and pull down the present regime of Ahmedinejad, and thus create a new set-up in the whole region safe for Israel and secure for their oil and other interests. The US is prepared to sacrifice a few of its old stooges like Mubarak of Egypt for this total shake-up of the region for a more safe and secure politico-military environ-ment. They seem to have come to the conclusion that as long as Iran with its theo-democratic set-up continues in the region, America’s strategic interests would not be completely safe.

Free and fair elections under full-fledged democracy in the region might bring into power organisations like Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbolla in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. They are not religious extremists but radical nationalists who want freedom to shape their destinies in their own way without external political intervention and economic exploitation. These sentiments were there for long but these were repeatedly thwarted by British, American and European imperialisms in the past with their cruel exploitative policies by imposing upon them rulers of unscrupulous and ambitious fortune seeking political and armymen like Mubarak, Ben Ali, Saleh and others.

The present ruler of Libya, Col Gaddafi, is a man of paradoxes with growing hunger for absolute power and political delusions of greatness and he has long outlived his use. The people of Libya are capable of throwing him out of power in this new wave of democratic movement surging across the region. But the US, Britain and European imperialisms have bared their imperialistic teeth in the matter to hijack this democratic movement, particularly in Libya, to their advantage, as it is an oil-rich country. This has struck fear in the minds of the people there—from reports of demonstrations the attention of the people has been diverted from the restoration of democracy movement to anti- national agitations. The recent communal clashes in Egypt and developments in Libya are the handiwork of the imperialists of the region.

Dr N.A. Karim is a former Professor of English and erstwhile Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.