After Egypt, people power hits like a tsunami
By Moni Basu, CNN
February 15, 2011 -- Updated 1759 GMT (0159 HKT)
Click to play
Egypt's domino effect
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Protests erupted in Iran, Yemen and Bahrain this week
* The ousters of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired people, say
analysts
* It's hard to predict if other governments will fall
* But the region will never be the same, analysts agree
For all the latest developments in the Middle East, tune in to "AC360ยบ"
weeknights at 10 ET.
(CNN) -- It began with the self-immolation of an unemployed college graduate in
Tunisia. Now, newfound people power in the Middle East and North Africa is
spreading fast.
Bolstered by the toppling of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, popular uprising has now
taken root in a part of the world where it has not been a part of the
trajectory of change. On Tuesday, the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, parts
of the Muslim world were on fire, the people clamoring for change.
Fierce demonstrations erupted in Bahrain, where people have organized
themselves through social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, the same
forums used by their Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts.
Human rights activists said Bahrainis initially demanded reform, but some are
now calling for the removal of the royal family.
In Yemen, pro- and anti-government protesters clashed for a fifth day in the
capital city of Sanaa.
"This is against the Yemeni constitution, and people have the right to
peacefully protest," said human rights activist Abdel Rahman Barman.
Bahrain's king condemns protester deaths
Iranian lawmakers condemn protests
Could Iran be the next Egypt?
And, as Cairo's Tahrir Square slowly emptied, Tehran's Azadi Square swelled
with people. Both names mean freedom and despite a security crackdown, tens of
thousands of demonstrators marched in the Iranian capital Monday.
Algeria, Jordan and Syria have also been a part of the domino effect.
"We really are facing a tsunami in Arab politics," said Bruce Riedel, senior
fellow for foreign policy at Brookings' Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
"I don't think there is any country -- except the very small and very rich and
oil-rich countries like Qatar and Abu Dhabi -- that is immune," Riedel said.
"All of these countries have the potential for unrest in a way they've never
had it before."
If only Mohammed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old unemployed man who was beaten by
police and then set himself on fire, had lived to see what he began. But
Bouazizi died in January, a catalyst for the events that unfolded rapidly after
his death.
Tunisian dictator Zine El Abedine Ben Ali fell on January 14 and fled the
country. Just days later, Egyptians began massing at Tahrir Square. After 18
short days, Mubarak was gone, as abruptly as he had risen to power three
decades ago.
"The yearning for change has been there for at least a decade, if not more, but
it took the events in Tunisia and now Egypt to break the barrier of fear that
people had," Riedel said. "Fear that the army would shoot them, fear that the
army would crack down on them. What it did was it broke that barrier of fear."
The region -- where people are divided between fabulously wealthy "haves" and
desperately poor "have-nots," a region split between those who can and those
who cannot participate in government -- sits like a tinderbox, ready to explode.
"There's a common thread there," said David Pollock, senior fellow at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"Yes, they do want freedom in the sense of not national independence -- they
have that -- but freedom from oppressive internal security, authoritarian
political controls and the freedom to participate in a more democratic
government," he said.
There are also economic concerns.
"People are very upset, and in many cases I think with good reason, about
poverty and unemployment," Pollock said.
Aaron Miller, a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars, said the divide between the "cans" and the "cannots" is, in some
ways, more dangerous than the gap between rich and poor.
These are no peasant revolts, Miller said. The people on the streets include
huge numbers of under- and unemployed people, "sometimes affluent individuals
who feel humiliated and powerless."
"That's one of the driving psychological factors that powered Egypt's
uprising," Miller said.
There is also a vast generational gap that some governments may not be able to
bridge, said Ken Gude, managing director for national security at the Center
for American Progress.
"Most of these entrenched regimes throughout the region are governed by an old
elite establishment that has grown more and more out of touch with the younger
generations of its population," Gude said.
"Consequently, we're seeing -- perhaps sparked by what transpired in Egypt and
Tunisia -- a stronger push among those younger generations for greater
influence and a larger political voice in their country."
The potential for uprisings exists in those places where all the gaps are
widest, though it's impossible to predict whether other dictators or entrenched
regimes will fall as they did in Tunisia and Egypt.
Beyond the overarching commonalities, each nation faces specific challenges.
Yemen must deal with regional and tribal rivalries. Bahrain faces simmering
tension between Sunnis, who form the ruling class, and Shiites, who form a
slight majority.
Pollock said Saudi Arabia, too, could possibly see unrest, but probably on a
small scale. And in Syria, "people are just too scared, too intimidated" by
Bashar al-Assad's iron hand.
Algeria, he said, also bears watching because it shares many of Egypt's
underlying issues of high numbers of young people, unemployment, corruption and
a leadership that has been in power for a while.
Other countries, like Morocco, have been "surprisingly quiet," Pollock said.
In Morocco, the king has only been around for a decade, and Pollock said
perhaps people are still willing to give him a chance. There have also been
some "safety valves," such as a parliament.
The United Arab Emirates, Pollock said, is a wealthy nation that can afford to
take care of its citizens, if necessary, in pretty lavish style. And about 75%
of the people are guest workers from other nations "who don't have any rights
at all," Pollock said.
And then there is Iran. It's no stranger to mass demonstrations -- the Islamic
regime itself came to power through revolution.
But the regime has already shown the world that it will not hesitate to
suppress street demonstrations and the opposition there has not yet been able
to coalesce around common goals, said Karim Sajadpour, a fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
The other problem in Iran, Sajadpour said, is that the international media have
been banned from covering the demonstrations. The world cannot see what is
happening in Azadi Square as they did in Tahrir Square.
But Pollock predicted protests will continue in Iran.
"We saw yesterday that despite the most severe kind of internal repression, you
had thousands of demonstrators out on the streets, and that's the tip of the
iceberg," Pollock said. "I think this probably foreshadows a long period of
cat-and-mouse games continuing between the opposition and the regime at kind of
a simmer."
Pollock did not see another government's ouster on the horizon.
"But it's important to note that after Tunisia it took a while, it took a few
weeks for the protests to really start gathering steam in Egypt," he said.
"Right now, we're just a few days after Mubarak was finally tossed out in
Egypt. It's too soon to be very confident about where this might go next."
It's hard to say what will happen next, but almost every observer agrees that
this part of the world will never be the same.
Miller, of the Woodrow Wilson center, quoted Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" to
put events in perspective. "We're not in Kansas anymore," he said. The United
States and its allies, he added, need to understand that.
"This is a transformative event in Middle East politics," Miller said. Enough,
perhaps, to change dark perceptions of a region mired in extremism and
bloodshed.
Two powerful messages are echoing through the region, he said.
To al Qaeda, the protesters have said: Change does not have to occur through an
adherence to radical ideology or violence.
And to autocrats and dictators: "You better start looking in the mirror and
making changes or you're going to be looking in the rear view mirror," Miller
said. Those "footsteps" you hear are "coming for you."
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