Monday, January 31, 2011
Historian: The First Wave of the Arab Liberation Movement Was Against Colonial Domination; The Second is for More Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights
Historian and professor of Islamic studies at the University of London's Birkbeck College, Basheer Nafi, puts the Egyptian protests in the following context:
My feeling is that we are witnessing a second wave of the Arab liberation movement ... In the first wave, the Arabs liberated themselves from colonial powers and foreign domination. I think now, the very heart of the Arab world, the backbone of the Arab world, is leading the move towards freedom and democracy and human rights.
If he is right, the background of Egypt's new Vice President - Omar Suleiman - as Egypt's torturer-in-chief (for both domestic torture and extraordinary rendition), is probably not going to satisfy the protesters. Or - as Wired succinctly puts it:
Torturers, Jailers, Spies Lead Egypt’s ‘New’ Government.
If he's right, the authoritarian regimes not only in Tunisia and Egypt, but also in Saudi Arabia, Iran and in other Middle Eastern countries must be terrified. Indeed, even China appears to be censoring news of the Egyptian protests, for fear that it would encourage protests in its own less-than-democratic country.
And if he's right, the entire approach of the U.S. and Israel is on the wrong side of history.
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The U.S. and Israeli governments don't want Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen to go through this process right now, because they're invested in other directions, and can't be sure that the new governments will be as favorable to their interests as they are right now.
ReplyDeleteBut as a teacher, I find that my students are thrilled with the Egyptian push for democracy. Yesterday we discussed the nature of totalitarian governments, and my students could not imagine a) why anyone would want to live in a country like that, and b) why people under such a government would not revolt.
Government leadership may not want the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak to fall, but ordinary Americans — particularly young people — appear to be thrilled with the Egyptian people's demand for democracy.