There is something unedifying about a president that won’t leave. Who clings to power like a spurned lover refusing to see he is no longer loved. President Mubarak is extraordinarily luck in having a people who want him to go in peace, they are not crying for retribution, they are just saying go go go.
Its really quiet funny, if that is the right word to see other arab leaders frantically changing governments, reducing taxes, promising change, poltical and economic reforms, promising not to seek re-election, not put their kids in power
. Well why why were all these changes not implemented before? Its not as if the Arab population was not crying out for it.
Lets take corruption or let me be gentler . Lets say you want a phone line in Cairo, in theory it straightforward. In practice you need ‘wasta’ someone who knows someone who knows someone who can do it. Otherwise you will spend weeks being sent from one line to another one building to another being asked for just one more paper. Along the way people want a little ‘sugar’.
It is just that corruption has become a way of life, of survival for ordinary people, for luxury for the elite.
One question that has always puzzled me and I have had no answers is the Palestinian Authority. How come do all these Abu’s who we are told have devoted their life to the Palestinian cause become so wealthy on government salaries? How come they can build these lovely houses in Ramallah on what is a modest salary? What businesses are they in that generate so much apparent wealth? How come all the big relatively speaking contracts or agencies are held in the families of the leadership? This is not exclusive to the PA or Egypt.
It is part of the system in the whole Arab world
Lets talk about the lack of the rule of law. Why did it have to take demonstrations and thirty years before it became on the agenda? How can you govern for so long and not have this most basic but fundamental right for anyone, any state? Its absurd for these leaders to now say oops we are now going to implement this?
What about poltical reforms? It’s too little too late to now proclaim that the process under the present leaders is going to take place. That I rubbish and we all know that.
These are just platitudes so that they can stay in power longer and the repercussion if they do stay will be horrendous for all the voices that spoke out.
What about abuses of human rights? Why was nothing done before? And these abuses are not exclusive to Egypt. Look at the labour laws or rather the lack of them in the UAE. Hundreds of workers from primarily Asian countries work in abysmal condition for a pittance. It does not stop there. Woe betide anyone who falls foul of a local as there is absolutely no protection from the legal system.
And all this is actually supported by the USA as they like other Western countries take the view that oil and geographically strategic importance takes precedence over small things like rule of law, poltical reforms, and civil rights, human right. So what if ‘some’ people suffer.
Lets be clear here its is for the West much easier to work with corrupt leaders as they can be ‘malleable’ and for years Western governments have refused to hear the voices from the street and have turned in truth a blind eye to the daily inequities that go on. Yet and this is what is so so frustrating. What people in the Arab world want is very much what we have in the West, Freedom of choice, to choose who we elect. Civil , poltical and social rights, the rule of law, Governments that are accountable to us.
Finally and its Miaow but it is interesting to see how many former leaders and prominent politicians rush to the Gulf when their public tenure ends. If it were not so sad it would be hilarious. Miaow……
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