Anthony Shadid......Arabic Moonbat, who hasn't a friggin clue what is going on in his own neighborhood.....
On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
Yearning for Respect, Arabs Find a Voice
By ANTHONY SHADID
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In Yemen, the chants invoked Tunisia, a continent
away. A Lebanese newspaper declared that all of the Middle East was
watching Egypt. A long-dead North African poet's most famous poem has
become the anthem of a moment the most enthusiastic call
revolutionary.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, conflict has pitted the West against the Arab
world, as war in Iraq and Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and the Bush administration's policies forged grander narratives of
"them against us." Last week, as more protests erupted in Yemen,
Jordan and Egypt and as the United States remained largely on the
sidelines, the struggle in the Middle East became firmly about "us."
For the first time in a generation, it is not religion, nor the
adventures of a single leader, nor wars with Israel that have
energized the region. Across Egypt and the Middle East, a somewhat
nostalgic notion of a common Arab identity, intersecting with a
visceral sense of what amounts to a decent life, is driving protests
that have bound the region in a sense of a shared destiny.
"The experience of Tunisia will remain the guiding light for Egypt and
may be so for people in Yemen, Sudan and the rest of the Arab world
looking for change, with a readiness to accept risk, especially given
that even the worst possibilities are better than the status quo,"
Talal Salman, the editor of Al Safir, wrote on Friday.
A chant in Egypt put it more bluntly, playing on the longstanding
chants of Islamists that "Islam is the solution." "Tunisia," they
shouted, "is the solution."
Unlike Eastern Europe, whose old order dissolved with breathtaking
speed in 1989, Arab countries are distinct in their ideologies and
governments, though they often share the same complaints of their
citizens and some degree of support by the United States. But rarely
has there been a moment when the Middle East felt so interconnected,
governments so unpopular and Arabs so overwhelmingly agreed on the
demand for change, even as some worry about the aftermath in a place
where alternatives to dictatorship have been relentlessly crushed.
The Middle East is being drawn together by economic woes and a shared
resentment that people have been denied dignity and respect. From
Saudi Arabia to Egypt and beyond, many say, there is a broad sense of
failure and frustration.
"After so many years of political stagnation, we were left with
choices between the bad and the worse," said Fadel Shallak, a Lebanese
writer and a former government minister. "Now there's something
happening in the Arab world. A collective voice is being heard again."
As a unifying force, an older Middle East had the Voice of the Arabs,
the wildly popular radio station of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's
charismatic but repressive leader from 1956 to 1970. Its mix was
oratory, propaganda and music, most memorably of Umm Kulthum, the
iconic Egyptian diva. Today it is Al Jazeera, the news network, and
though his popularity pales before the singer's, the Tunisian poet,
Abul-Qasim al-Shabi, whose work has seemed to define the protests and
their ambitions.
But even Al Jazeera has turned its gaze inward. Always provocative and
critical of the United States and Israel, it has covered the Egyptian
protests breathlessly, as it did Tunisia's, sometimes even egging the
protesters on. It is joined by Facebook and Twitter, which have
stitched together disparate places bound by a common language.
Egypt shut down Internet services in the country on Friday, in a
remarkable demonstration of how powerful those tools have become.
Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, reverted to a more
old-fashioned tactic reminiscent of the feuds Nasser had with his Arab
colleagues: he complained to the leader of Qatar, where Al Jazeera is
based. The channel, he said, was aiding those "seeking to ignite
dissent."
That is, no doubt, true. It describes, as well, Facebook and Twitter
messages, some of which have turned into a 21st-century Middle Eastern
version of agitprop.
On Facebook, a group in Jerusalem pledged support for Egypt and
Tunisia. The Arab world, it said, "is moving from darkness to light
... from dictatorship to freedom."
The changes may have deep repercussions for the United States. Mouin
Rabbani, an analyst in Jordan, said economic frustrations mirrored
resentment at governments perceived as agents of the United States and
its allies. In fact, a more democratic Arab world, given recent
polling, is likely to be much more hostile to American policy.
But the preoccupation now is internal.
"Had they been able to resolve the underlying economic issues, people
would have overlooked the corruption, the mismanagement, the
autocratic rule," said Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, a Saudi
economist, speaking from Riyadh. "But when they failed to do the bread
and butter issues, people started looking at their governments."
That may have forged an idea of common cause, where protesters in the
most remote locales take their cues from like-minded people in faraway
places.
In Tunis on Friday, a group of Tunisian protesters gathered outside
the Egyptian Embassy in solidarity. "Mubarak out!" they chanted. A
Lebanese newspaper quoted Tunisian activists offering this advice to
their Egyptian counterparts: Protest at night, wear plastic bags to
avoid electric shocks, wash your face with Coca-Cola to fend off the
effects of tear gas and try to spray black paint on the windshields of
police vehicles.
"I wish I could join them, and I wish these protests could get rid of
all these regimes," said Mona Sibai, an Egyptian woman living in
Beirut. "I feel proud."
Laith Shbillat, a veteran dissident in Jordan, said: "People want
their freedom, people want their bread. People want to stop these
lousy dictators from looting their countries. I'd follow anybody. I'd
follow Vladimir Lenin if he came and led me."
Mr. Shbillat mentioned Shabi, the poet, who died as a young man in
1934. "If one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer
their call," his most famous poem went. "And their night will then
begin to fade, and their chains break and fall."
"He's leading us from his grave," Mr. Shbillat said.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/world/middleeast/30arab.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=world
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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