Am I surprised by the recent events in Egypt and Tunisia? I don’t think any Arab is. It was always a question of when not if? There comes a point when you simply say ‘enough’. Enough. ‘I am not going to be humiliated any more.’
‘ I am not going to beg for work ‘.
I am not going to prostate myself anymore to a leader that has stripped away my being’.
These are just some of the sentiments that have been bubbling away in the heart of the Middle East. and not just for days but for years and years. The enormous frustrations that many Arab feel is clearly being demonstrated out in the streets of Cairo. All the Arabs I know, friends, family colleagues are glued to the news or on the phone trying to reach family and friends in Cairo
On my last visit to Cairo at the tail end of the volcanic ash disruption last year. I landed, late tired just needing to sleep. I went through immigration. Purpose of your visit? Stay. Arab father? Yes. Oops wrong answer. To cut a long story short I was escorted to security and merely told that my name was on the computer. Why? What for? I never figured out. I only mention this to illustrate what it is like for Arabs to be in an Arab country led by an autocratic regime even with a UK citizenship.
It is much worse for the Egyptians. I can recount you endless stories of the daily frustrations encountered by Cairenes unable to get jobs, unable to support their families and bluntly put fed up with Western democracies like Britain supporting highly corrupt regimes on the basis that the alternative would be much worse…..
It’s a myth that has been so embedded into the Western psyche that the alternative would be catastrophic that in many ways we chose to turn a blind eye.
We took the tours not knowing or ignoring that an ordinary Egyptian national would be barred from certain seaside tourist areas in order to avoid any potential ‘terrorist’ attack. We focused on shark attacks at the red sea but not the attacks from a brutal highly corrupt regime towards its own people.
The reality for many Arabs under dinosaur leaders is a daily grind of survival. Add to this suppression, a frustration of being powerless to do anything and the result was going to be explosion. There is so much frustration on the streets in Arab capitals directed at the lack of any recognition towards them as people.
Arab leaders rarely accord dignity to their citizens. Anyone with a modicum of power will invariably abuse it as have seen with Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian who was humiliated by a police officer, slapped and denied a permit t sell a few paltry produce to support his family. Took the desperate measure of burning himself.
Corruption for the elite is part of the job perk and while this may not matter so much in the oil rich countries, it has a profound and deep impact on nations with less disposable income. Most of the Arab world is run by rulers who regard the nations wealth as theirs and their offspring’s.
President Mubarak’s family wealth like the deposed Tunisian President is massive. It is extremely diffcult to attempt to do business there without a powerful ally. It’s taken as read that any business venture of any substance would require the partner of someone powerful generally in the ruling elite.
I recall when my late father was in hospital at the Red Crescent in Cairo. Desperately ill he had just recived some treatment when Egyptian security barged in. Heavily armed they lifted my father off. In my feeble attempt to protect him I tried to put myself between the perpetrators and my father. I just got beaten up. My mother and I were locked in the room. When we finally managed to get out our car tyres had been slashed. When I personally spoke too the then Foreign Minister of Egypt. His response this can't be happening. This is Egypt.
Well it was happening and it did happen. Very quickly the Arab leaders colluded in ensuring our story was not heard as they have in the past stopped other stories. It is in their intrest to keep the lid on as otherwise a big can of worms will be opened. And sadly the West colludes in this. People like our family are a nuisance to them. We ask too many questions that ‘compromise’ their ‘special’ relationship.
This happens frequently, there is no rule of law, accountability. Most of the present leaders of the Arab regime know that the West may mouth and request rule of law, democracy, human rights etc, but in truth nothing has been done. We in the West need to ask our governments to stop protecting and supporting these regimes. The people of Egypt are not chanting Anti West slogans but they are asking us to listen.
Security, stability will only be durable when there are democratic regimes that uphold the rule of law and accountability.
Maybe just maybe this time the voices will be heard and as Chancellor Angela Markel said "you can't divide your principles and say my principles are valid for some countries, where you can speak your mind and vote freely, but in other countries these principles don't hold at all’.
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