By: Dr. Habib Siddiqui Iviews* - 2/22/2011  Many in the western world are surprised to see the lack of support for the democracy movement in the Middle East from their respective governments. One writer wrote, "It is doubly shameful that Europe's citizens have also held back, that western capitals have seen no mass demonstrations, no shows of solidarity with the people in the Arab world - the people who are, after all, our neighbors." The Muslim world, however, is not surprised by the less than lukewarm support, or more correctly their overt silence or covert opposition, to the change for democracy from the western governments. To many keen observers like me, the profound and almost prophetic statement of the late Shaykh Fadhlallah of Lebanon still rings bell and fills the gap in our understanding of the western attitude. He said some 30 years ago that when the West spoke about democracy, freedom, equality, human rights, etc. all these higher values were for them, and the people in the East, esp. those in the Muslim world, never counted in that equation. Bush and many of the bigots can promote Natan Sharansky's book, but just like the author himself -- a despicable hypocrite (which I must add), when push comes to shove all their real ugly selves are unmasked. That is why, all the Israeli leaders and their so-called democratic voices wanted to see a prolongation of the hated undemocratic Mubarak regime. And regrettably so did all our western leaders. In his recent essay on Egypt, while advocating a consistent policy from the West Sharansky still does not like to see a repeat of the 2006 election in Gaza. This kind of pre-condition, more like the call from the western leaders in the dying days of the fallen regime for a smooth transition of the government duties to Mubarak's hand-picked successor - approved by the CIA and the Mossad -- without untying knots of the dictatorship is surely not conducive to democracy. This is the same selfish mindset that destroyed any chance of seeding true democracy in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. Instead of giving the nascent democracy a chance to take roots, the West and Israel tried to unseat Hamas by every means possible, including starvation of the people of Gaza. They, of course, enlisted Egypt's Mubarak to become a partner in that crime. As long as Mubarak was in the helm of affairs, looking out for the joint American-EU-Israeli interest, democracy, let alone regime change in Egypt, was not part of their vocabulary. When the fall of Mubarak did really happen, some of these hypocrites tried to welcome the change, just like president Obama, because not doing so would look so bizarre. But then conspiracy against the Muslim world, let alone the Egyptian people, still goes on behind the curtain of those policy makers on the Middle East. They want to ensure that the greatest opposition to the regime for all these past 60 years, i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood, doesn't come to power. Even the latter's promise not to put its presidential candidate in the next election is not sufficient to allay their suspicion. For all these years, the pro-western puppets ruling the vast territories of the Arab world were able to successfully exploit the bogeyman of this Islamic threat to justify their dictatorial ways and even extract concessions. So the stability of these regimes, including that of Asad's Syria, fit well into the regional strategy of their masters. Asad, more like Gaddafi of Libya, were treated more like irritants than any real threats to western hegemony and interest. Even the Zionist regime would rather see the continuation of these autocratic regimes than democratic ones emerging with the support of the people. They would rather live next door to a toothless and paw-less tiger than a concerned human being who tries to correct their wrong deeds. It is these hypocritical governments that fear people and their potential power to change the paradigm that had served their interest so well all these years. As I have noted many times before, hypocrisy has always been the major component of western values, esp. how their governments perform. They were loud in talking, and never cared about walking the talk, especially on matters that affected the Muslim world. The rules and standards were different and self-serving. The interest of the ordinary people was not there. Bahrain is now bleeding with spontaneous protests. The island nation is home to American Navy's Fifth Fleet. It is ruled by an unpopular monarch King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, a Sunni minority government against a Shiite majority in the strategic island state in the Persian Gulf. He has been a puppet ruler to preserve western interest all these years. Just two months ago in a town-hall-style meeting in Bahrain, Secretary of State Clinton got a pointed question from a member of Bahrain's Parliament: was the United States letting Bahrain off the hook for a string of arrests of lawyers and human rights activists? In her reply she said, "I see the glass as half full," pointing to Bahrain's recent elections. "I think the changes that are happening in Bahrain are much greater than what I see in many other countries in the region and beyond." Well, there we have it again just like we heard about Egypt before the fall of Mubarak. On Saturday thousands of joyous Bahrainis retook a major square in the heart of Manama, the island nation's capital, in a dramatic turn of events two days after security forces ousted demonstrators from the spot in a deadly attack that killed nearly half a dozen unarmed protesters while they were sleeping at night. Now the ruling family wants to open a dialogue with the citizens. ***** Dr Habib Siddiqui has authored nine books. His book: "Democracy, Politics and Terrorism - America's Quest for Security in the Age of Insecurity" is available at Amazon.com. |
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