Social Movements in the Middle-East 2010-2011: A Time When Leaders Fear what their Citizens might do.
Wazir Jahan Karim, February 1 2011
Previously, in the Middle-East, citizens feared what their leaders would do, if they took to the streets and complained against inequalities in income, corruption, unemployment, rising food and oil prices and discrimination against minorities. The consequences were appalling, judging from the faith of thousands of Kurds who were killed with mustard gas in Iraq in the days of Saddam or the Algerians who were shot when in 1992, they rose against the military when parliamentary elections were cancelled. When the United States and its allies did business with dictators and autocrats who had been in power for decades, they had little interest in promoting democracy, gender empowerment or social equality. They backed corrupt regimes to maintain the status quo and funded their military. The US gives 1.3 billion each year to fund the military in Egypt and pushes the United Nations to impose embargoes on nations which do not conform to globally acceptable standards of human rights or nuclear disarmament policy. But most American allies in the Middle East have committed 'crimes against humanity'-they have harmed and tortured their own citizens who have risen against despotism. So who sets these standards of 'humanity' and why is it that selling weapons and armoury to dangerous despots who might use them against their own citizens, are allowed and promoted by advanced nations which produce them?
Contradictions in American foreign policy boggle the mind. Britain and the United States fed the United Nations with information that Iraq was amassing weapons of mass destruction and in 2003, used this to invade Iraq with visions of promoting democracy and freedom. When the country was reduced to rubble, thousands of civilians were killed and contracts worth billions were signed with American corporations. There were no rumblings of breach of human rights or crimes against humanity, in the United Nations. Not entrenched in the reconstruction of Iraq was the creation of new jobs for citizens and sustainable employment.
So it is the year of the golden rabbit after all. Economists believe that everyone (who has not died in the uprisings) can still invest and there will be auto recovery of the global economy. Countries which produce gold are laughing all the way home and arm dealers are making progress in the Middle East. Democracy will rule but it takes time to put things in focus. Meanwhile business deals are in order. The Italian economy is dependent on Libya and has no plan B. Did the Italians who took Libya so brutally without democracy in mind and who now are dependent on Libya's oil and assets , ever asked Gaddafi if democracy was alive in Libya? I did realise Tony Blair had made deals with Gaddafi over the Lockerbie bombing to boost Britain's arms sales and oil concessions. Despotism, corruption, nepotism and dictatorships were okay then for Tony.
Meanwhile the Republicans have done their leg work in Tunisia and spoken to the interim government that they are here to stay and not be swayed by the earnestness of young Arabs to have a non corruptible fair and equitable Statehood. The Egyptians are running the show again and relaxing their borders at Gaza. And never underestimate Yemen, another US ally. The next regime may be less 'allaying', so deep are their hostilities for the American government. The Iranians finally got to swing down the Suez after thirty years and the Arab youth are confident and undefeatable. They have created a brave new world, unchallenged in Arab history. On the upside, things may really shape up in the year of the rabbit. We may strike gold with good old fashion democracy. And civil society, with real people uprising, demanding real change is back in fashion. This may be a good year for the optimist .
GREETINGS FOR 2010
From Wazir Jahan Karim
There have been so many issues that need more than Courts of Justice or Parliaments to resolve them, yet many do not get addressed by the right specialists or experts and run to seed in the scramble for legitimacy. The 2008-2009 economic crisis, said to be the worse since the Great Depression of the 1930's has barely been over when the rush to declare millions of dollars in bonuses for top management in Wall Street and London has taken the beleaguered public by surprise. Billions of dollars has been gained from funds obtained at zero interest by merely lending money with interest to those without access to credit. The recovery is fast for those who received the first trillion in bails outs but will be slow for those who have borrowed from the big lenders who were bailed out. In the end, there has been no change in the global financial system, despite calls for greater regulation. Threats from the government to tax bonuses have met with defiance-bankers will leave London for more liberal shores. The homeless are still without their homes, the poor poorer from unemployment and governments still saddled with the burden of providing social benefits and healthcare to those who cannot afford them. So capitalism has won its biggest battle in recent years.
Meanwhile in Malaysia, there has been reluctant dialogue over religion. A key issue is the use of the word "Allah". Can the Malay word "God" which appears in various forms in the Bible be translated in Malay (Bahasa Melayu) as "Allah"? In Sabah and Sarawak, where the majority of the population are Christians, the argument is that it is necessary, since the majority also speak and read Bahasa Melayu. In Peninsular Malaysia, where Malays are invariably Muslim, a growing argument is that, in terms of semantics, the Malay word "tuhan" should be the correct word for God, since it predates Islam and "Allah" in the Malay world. Hermeneutics experts would note that at the time when the Bible was written, the word "Allah" which carries the meaning of "one", "singular" entity devoid of anthropomorphic connections to Man or Spirit (strictly non-Trinitarian) did not exist – so "Allah" has its own hermeneutics in Islam which contradicts the notion of God, son and the holy spirit. But unfortunately, the public read views of politicians, activists and youth leaders who have presented personal viewpoints based in their own political or ethnic convictions. The result is the emergence of more stereo-types of race and identity which may divide this nation further . This is unfortunate since the government has launched the campaign of "One Malaysia" which argues that social diversity does not preclude social unity.
On a more ominous note, we are told that lions in Tanzania are teaching their young to hunt for humans and not only animals. There are less than 15,000 lions left in Tanzanian's national parks and as they are wiped out by MAN, they hunt them, so why is this news? It's the old theme of the "hunter is the hunted" and as the Ma' Betise' stated in their attempt to restore harmony in the natural world, " If a human be a human, if an animal be an animal but do not be human and animal". To the lions, humans have become animals, in the way they hunt them. This may be news for humans but not for lions.
There is a link in these three issues and the link is –if capitalism is going to wipe us out and faith has not reshaped our thinking about ourselves, then we might as well be fed to lions.
In this year of the TIGER, the tiger reigns supreme but the faith of the tiger is in our hands. What is the point in killing and exterminating animals and then using them in Zodiac signs ruled by anthropomorphic symbolism?
There are predators in all the three and it is up to us to understand the logic, wisdom and semantics which underlie the human effort to gain and profit from everything it does.
"It is better to be born a snake and grow into a dragon than to be born a dragon and be a snake." W.J. Karim (in relation to the Men of Wall Street)
"It is better to be born a tiger and to live as a tiger than to be born a human and live as a tiger." W.J. Karim ( in relation to people who cannot adapt to a multicultural society)
"If a human be ONE. If an animal be ONE. Do not be human and animal." Ma' Betise' saying. (in relation to the Tanzanians who are now being hunted by lions)
