As I sat avidly watching the news about the almost farcical landing of Tunisian Leader Ben Ali into Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after he was forced out , I thought of my family friends there and the millions of Tunisians fighting for freedom. This unstoppable rise of a small nation of 10 million people has come as a shock . But who began this call to arms? No che guevera or malcolm x for the hapless youth of Tunisia. No, their standard bearer was someone far less well known, yet his actions have reverberated across the world.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a Tunisian graduate who had been unable to find meaningful employment, resorted to selling vegetables on the street to support himself and his family. The police confiscated his products and slapped him around. Later the same day, Bouazizi tried to lodge a complaint with authorities, to no avail. He then acquired a can of gasoline, doused himself in front of a local government building, and set himself alight. His death set off weeks of massive street protests and eventually leading to the downfall of Ben Ali, who had been president of the country since seizing power in 1987. Nobody thought Tunisia would have been the state to rise up . And yet it is Tunisia that has revolted, not Egypt or Saudi Arabia and rioting has spread to Algeria. It gives me comfort to think that, although Tunisians have suffered over the past few weeks, the spines of Mubarak of Egypt and Faisal of Saudi Arabia are rightfully tingling.
Bouazizi follows in the footsteps of Thích Quảng Đức, the Vietnamese monk who burned himself to death in Saigon in 11 1963. Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's administration. His actions lead to increased international pressure and eventually lead to the downfall of regime. In both instances these acts are the desperate actions of a repressed and desperate people and sadly, we have seen this before, across the world. As unrest over political authoritarianism and economic inflation cripple the Arab World, I for one hope these uprisings spread and that nations with western friendly dictatorships (who the media funnily enough don't comment mutch on) succumb to the will of the people. Too often in the arab world, the resources of the people are tied up in dynastic families whose plutocracies rule with an iron first. Ofcourse politics is a complicated arena and it is not easy to tell whether real change will take place in the middle east as a result of recent events. Will the movements be supressed as we have seen in the past? Will America's puppets survive to supress their unhappy people and will this further radicalise them? Or will we see emancipation take place wherin states independent of imperialist masters begin to help their people prosper? Most likely the liberation of the majority of the arab nations will take longer (especially if the US has anything to do with it). Certainly the Palestinian's face a far stronger and more resolved opponent.
The actions of these two desperate men strengthen my conviction that we must highlight and vociferously combat injustice wherever we see it, even if it is easier to live a comfortable apathetic existence like alot of our fellow students at this university. Ofcourse this is nothing new or innovative, just my personal train of thought that I thought I would share. There is an afinity and kinship in the various protests and struggles happening around the world, whether it be students in britain, workers in greece or the unemployed in Tunisia- if these efforts can be coordinated perhaps we can see greater progressive change in our liftime, for everyone, not just the rich in the west, but for the people around the world for whom free market capaitalism hasn't produced prosperity and political rights.
The usual empty platitudes of concern have begun to stream slowly from Euope but the old colonial nations of Europe won't decide the outcome of these revolts. They are a scream of rage from a people without a future. These people are educated , yet theyre spirit is being stifled by repressive governments who cannot mobilise their people due to corruption, inefficiency and economic systems still crippled by the imperialism of the past (in the case of this palestinians by a colonial apartheid regime). The youth of the maghreb and the wider Arab street have risen and the world is watching. Their emancipation has never been of greater significance than now.
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