is clouded in an alcoholic haze.
What the Arabs actually want is jobs, food for their families, and a
genuine share in their own governance.
On 1/30/11, Keith In Köln <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>
> --
> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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>
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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