The Chinese proverb goes “May you live in interesting times“, well, this must certainly top the millennia charts as far as the Middle East is concerned, the last bastion of totalitarian monarchist rule is coming to an end. Sooner than they think.
A day after its release, a U.N. report that implicated senior Syrian officials in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri escalated pressure on the already beleaguered government here and ignited renewed demands that Lebanon’s pro-Syrian president step down.
The publication of the report on the deaths of Hariri and 22 other people in a car bombing in Beirut on Feb. 14 unleashed a reaction seldom seen in the Middle East. The 54-page document was read in its entirety on al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network; other stations broadcast hours of coverage Friday on the report and its fallout. To many people here, its publication marked a turning point in Middle East politics, signaling a looming confrontation with an uncertain outcome.
And this is the proof. No longer will the world be just a remote and an uninterested observer of events in the Middle East, but be an active public player as well. Their actions however should be quite plain by now: we have a despot on trial for his life, and another is teetering on the edge because this time they can’t just flick it off as they have done by changing the constitution to accommodate a reduction in the required president’s age! The world is now watching, and it is holding these despots to book and there ain’t nothing they can do about it. No amount of spin-doctoring is going to save their hides.
The clear message then is this: fess up and shape up. Get your democracies going or we’re gonna come and trample all over your ass.
Why now? Because the world’s powers have finally come to the realisation that without giving peoples the voice in running their own countries democratically, there is a very probable chance that they will just turn to violence and mayhem that might well be unleashed at their own doorsteps.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrring.. the sounds of alarm clocks are resounding all over this decrepit piece of real estate. Is the Middle East awake now?
Comments
Another nail in the coffin
Well said, Brother Mahmood.
My view is that this is one instance of globalization driven by technology. Just as laying a rail line across the US forced every town in America to synchronize their clocks, modern technology is forcing every nation to synchronize its cultures into a more amiable form, at least into forms that are not dedicated to interacting through violence. Technology allows the most dysfunctional elements of the Middle East to do harm to America but it also enables us to strike back with considerable speed and force. It also allows all of us to communicate more readily, which allows the truth to spread with alarming speed. It cannot be bottled up anymore. All that is bad news for the worst governments.
Steve
Another nail in the coffin
Mamhoud….I don’t know. If you turn over the internet to the UN I think the free exchange of ideas will be in serious trouble. Look at China. I think they flag and censor the word ‘freedom’ even.
thinker
Re: Another nail in the coffin
ehm, where did I even come close to saying that? I would totally agree with you though that the UN should not touch the internet nor regulate it, it’s doing quite well by itself so far.
Another nail in the coffin
“May you live in interesting times”
Mahmood, it is not a proverb, it is a curse.
Tony Tindale
Another nail in the coffin
Ehm….You didn’t say it. It just struck me as I have been worried about regulation of the internet in the Middle East lately…the blocking of so many sites in certain countries. It struck me as I thought of the fact that China blocks the word ‘democracy’ too. I don’t want the Middle East to get like that.
I shouldn’t have rained on your parade. I am thrilled to hear that you think this has had a big impact. That is wonderful.
thinker
Re: Another nail in the coffin
Ah ok, we’re on the same page now! 🙂
Re: Another nail in the coffin
hey Tony welcome back!
I’m sure it could be read as you say, but I’d rather have that than live in static situations. More fun having the changing and interesting times.
Another nail in the coffin
I have been called crazy for pointing out that if EVERY government on this planet is a democracy, it will reduce warfare and all it’s attendent evils to almost zero. But it has to start somewhere, why not the cradle of civilization?
Steve, I like the RR anology. I think there should be a 12 lane expressway built across Asia. From France to Korea. Let humans and their ideas, habits, loves and hates inter-mingle freely.
“The world does not need a new framework of treaties, least of all a world government, but the freedom to prosper as nations on a planet in which everything except oppression is permitted. For it is self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that the only excuse for government is to secure these rights and that these words can be translated into every living tongue.”
-wretchard
“You all can go to hell. I’m going to Texas.”
-Davy Crockett
‘If ejection is required, it is advisable to vacate the area you just bombed’
US Air Force Training manual
Another nail in the coffin
[quote] No longer will the world be just a remote and an uninterested observer of events in the Middle East, but be an active public player as well. … The world is now watching, and it is holding these despots to book [/quote]
This is long overdue. The world community, rather the part that considers itself civilized, should not be tolerating governments that abuse their people – anywhere in the world. All oppressive governments should be given no voting power at the UN. Better yet they should just get thrown out.
Aliandra
Another nail in the coffin
Remember when MacArthor was supreme un commander?
People are so fucking stupid… look at Korea, the south has the worlds 10th largest economy the north… eating bark and bitter herbs with concentration camps.
Now Iran’s mullahs are my personal enemy and there is talk of preemptive bunker blasting attacks on their nuke factories. It is our God given right to help our human relatives, and the stupid fuckers mentioned above can go to hell, to paraphrase Davie Crocket, I’m going to Iran, to help the Persians. I can start in Toronto where the mullah’s agents are living and throw red paint on their houses. However I’d like to throw 6mm lead from my Remington, alas Canada is a peace loving country and this is frowned upon.
I read a letter from a Persian to the President of the United States the other day and in it was mentioned the fact that many years ago the Persian King Cyrus freed the slaves from Babylon and let them return to Israel to build the second Abby or what ever they call them, and the Persians were asking if the favor could be returned by the Jewish people to help throw out the false mullahs who woodyupthepie for Iran.
Now how to draw out the mullah’s agents? I was wondering if the airline pilot I know about who has terminal cancer might be interested in borrowing one of those Iranian cargo jets and we could make a preemptive visit to that nuke factory in Iran…. it’s a legitimate target that poses a direct threat to my personal life and as I read my constitution there is a section that permits me to defend my life at the cost of the aggressor’s life. This should be alright with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism or are they hypocrites?
Augurwell
aegisi@sympatico.ca