The Arab awakening is a clear signal that the Muslim world took the path of peaceful protest.
EDMONTON, AB, CANADA: Thomas Friedman’s opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune of May 4 after Bin Laden’s assassination, commented that the Arab awakening had no traces of bin Laden’s ideology. He wrote: “He lived long enough to see Arabs from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen to Syria rise up peacefully to gain the dignity, justice and self-rule that bin Laden claimed could be obtained only by murderous violence and a return to puritanical Islam”. The Arab awakening is a clear signal that the Muslim world did not respond to Salafi/jihadist extremism, but took the path of peaceful protest to undo authoritarian rule.
That said, if the Americans are proud of what has happened in the Arab world, they should let the ordinary citizens of Pakistan rise against militarism and corruption and thus enable real democracy to be instituted in the country.
Wasimul Haque
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2011.
