Arab Stagnation

Why are the Arab countries revolting now? Mainly because of their utter stagnation. They have been kept in a time warp basically since the 1950's. While western democratic countries have surged ahead with technological innovation, the Arab countries have lacked the freedom to change. This is largely a cultural phenomenon, that seems to be due to Muslim religious authorities that oppose any western or outside influences, while the rest of the world is forging ahead. Also, the tendency to authoritarian regimes in the Arab world leads to dictators who are kept in power by their armies and their secret police. Almost anywhere you go in the world, from Ukraine to Japan, from Israel to New Zealand, the youth culture is almost the same. Whether this in itself is a bad thing or not is debatable, but it shows that people given the opportunity choose what they want and its a very active, frenetic, computer-internet driven culture. It was impossible for the Arab countries to totally isolate themselves from this wave of modern western culture, and so the youth, without jobs and without hope, have finally revolted against the contrasting stagnation they see in their own countries. Also, the Arab regimes have used the conflict with Israel as a linchpin of their control, the Arab populations have been distracted from their real problems by blaming everything on the Zionists.

The revolt is a self-fulfilling process, one demonstration leads to killings by the army/police, and then the funerals lead to more demonstrations, that lead to more killings and so it escalates. In the Arab world the concept of martyrdom is strong and leads the youth to accept the need to sacrifice in order to achieve the overthrow of the repressive dictator and his regime. This worked efficiently in Tunisia and Egypt, where the dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak had been in power for 32 and 40 years respectively, and were not quite so brutal. It is taking longer in Libya, Yemen and Syria, where the dictators Gaddafi, Saleh and Assad have been in power for 41, 32 and 48 years respectively (the Assad father and son in the case of Syria) and are more ruthless in repressing dissent. It proves that repression of dissent leads to lack of initiative and innovation by the population because of fear of torture and death. Removal of the dictator and the police state can lead to the releasing of the creative abilities of the young people and can result in economic improvement. Freedom is a necessary factor for the growth of affluence.

In Syria, at least 100 people have been killed in Deraa alone since the beginning of the revolt only a week or so ago. Now the demonstrations have spread to Damascus, and the regime is quickly trying to placate the demonstrators with promises of reforms, but it is too little too late. The same is true in Yemen. But, in Libya it took the intervention of a Coalition of western forces to prevent a bloodbath by the utterly degenerate Gaddafi, who has no regard for the lives of his countrymen. It reminds one of Hitler's order to flood the subway system of Berlin where millions were sheltering during the final allied attacks on Berlin in 1945. Luckily his order was not carried out. Dictators are regarded as right-wing nationalists, but in fact they care nothing for their citizens, they care only for themselves and their regime. Let's hope that once the autocratic regimes have fallen in the Arab world, the release of the creative power of the no longer suppressed people will result not only in democracy, but also in less support for violence against minorities and imagined enemies. But, the remaining few Jews in Tunisia are fleeing due to an upsurge of violence and anti-Semitism.