Sadly, the Arab Spring is turning into a “cold winter” wherein choices are getting limited.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: When Mohammed Bouazizi put himself on fire in December 2010, no one ever thought that death of a street vendor in Tunisia would change the Middle East for decades to come. Since then, one after the other brutal dictators fell from grace and were replaced by some form of democracy. But the vacuum created by dictators through the banning of political activities and strangling the media during their tenures has exposed these newly-born democracies to the danger of being hijacked by religious extremists. We have seen this happening in several countries wherein religious forces, which got strengthened while working underground during the rule of the dictators, were able to attain power, leaving the general public and liberals to wonder about their state of affairs.
Sadly, the Arab Spring is turning into a “cold winter” wherein choices are getting limited — ruling secular dictators versus the awaiting religious dictators.
A brutal act caught on camera exposed the elements which are benefitting from the struggle of the common people. This video clip shows a Syrian rebel commander biting the heart of a dead Syrian soldier. Obviously, the Syrian opposition has vowed to take action against this person; however, we all know it will be an eye-wash to silence the media and human rights activists.
Don’t we need to see the long-term impact of today’s policies? The American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 is perhaps the last round of the vicious cycle they started in the 1980s by aligning with Afghans against the USSR.
No one wishes to support dictators glued to their thrones for decades, but is there any other solution, other than providing space to al Qaeda and its off-shoot sectarian groups? We need to stop disfiguring the Middle East by blindly supporting the Arab Spring. A policy blunder made today is going to haunt us for decades to come — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Iraq of today are a few shining examples of the myopic policies of the past.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, May 19th, 2013.
