Uprisings for dignity sweep the Islamic East

Zafar Bangash

The unthinkable has happened in Egypt. The masses have consigned Hosni Mubaak, the most brutal Middle Eastern despot, to the dustbin of history. This became possible only because people shook off the fear that had paralysed them for 30 years. They have also crossed another important landmark: they refused to be provoked by the thugs unleashed by the regime. This would have provided the regime the pretext to unleash its massive firepower and crush the uprising as happened in Algeria 20 years earlier.

Protests have now spread to other parts of the Middle East with people rising up against long-time rulers in Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Djibouti and Morocco. The response of the regimes has been equally brutal but people have not been cowed down. If earlier, people kept their heads down and their voices low against state brutality, now they are standing firm and defying the regimes’ shock troops.

Sometimes, seemingly insignificant events can assume global proportions. It was the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate (not the first in Tunisia) that sparked the uprising forcing the Tunisian dictator general Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to flee on January 14. According to reports, Ben Ali has since suffered a stroke in exile in Jeddah and is in a coma. If true, he deserves the fate but it would have been better if he were put on trial, something he denied tens of thousands of people during his brutal rule, and face the consequences for his crimes.


The uprising in Tunisia encouraged the Egyptians also to rise up, with protests quickly spreading to other countries as well. This in turn has caused immense panic in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the ailing old monarch, King Abdullah seems to have lost nerve completely. He is also upset with US President Barack Obama for “abandoning” Mubarak. Abdullah now feels the heat of the desert spreading.

But it is the change in Egypt that has great significance because the country is a leading player in the Islamic East. While influenced by the example of the intrepid Tunisians that surprised everyone, there was an Egyptian element as well involved. Last June, the Egyptian police beat to death Khalid Sa‘id, a 27-year-old internet buff. His crime? He had obtained a video of the police smoking dope that he wanted to post on the internet. He never lived to do so. There were sporadic protests against the killing but the spark was provided when Wael Ghoneim, a young Google executive opened a Facebook account in the name of Khalid Sa‘id, saying “We are all Khalid Sa‘ids”. This mobilized the Egyptian people who felt they had enough of tyranny and would not put up with any more humiliation.

Western commentators have tried to spin the uprisings in terms of people hankering for bread, lower food prices and jobs. While there is some truth to such assertions, what they have deliberately ignored is that the people’s uprising was and is for dignity and honour. They refuse to put up with the humiliations they have been subjected to for decades by their cowardly rulers that are completely subservient to the Zionists and the Americans. The people have said and continue to proclaim loudly that they are fed up with corruption, cowardice and the craven attitude of their rulers.

The rulers’ cowardice and treachery can be gleaned from the following episode. Even as Mubarak was teetering on the brink, he signed an executive order on February 8 prohibiting entry of Palestinians from Ghazzah even if they had valid visas. Similarly, hundreds of Palestinians were stranded at Cairo airport and other locations in Egypt unable to return to Ghazzah. The border was opened — but only one way into Ghazzah — on February 20 to allow the Palestinians to return home. The military regime has refused to lift the Zionist-imposed illegal siege of Ghazzah despite the Egyptian people wanting such restrictions ended. They must continue the struggle not only to demolish all pillars of the old regime completely but also break the siege of Ghazzah and reject the unjust peace imposed on them by the Americans and the Zionists if they are to achieve true dignity.

It must also be emphasized that simply getting rid of despotic rulers will not solve the problems afflicting the region, or indeed the Muslim world. There are systemic problems plaguing Muslim societies. The exploitative systems from the ground up must be uprooted, Iran-style, if people are to achieve true independence. Change will not come about at the hands of the militaries. They are instruments of oppression working to advance the US-Zionist agenda. The officer class in virtually every Muslim country — trained in the West and beholden to it, especially the Americans — is the bastion of nifaq in the local establisment. Unless the militaries are purged of the westoxicated officer class, no meaningful change can occur in the Muslim world.

Some rulers may have been driven from office, others may be running scared because their fragile state structures stand exposed but the struggle for dignity and honour is far from over. There is also the real danger that their struggles will be hijacked by vested interests — as has happened in Tunisia where the trade unions have joined the regime and betrayed the masses — and people may be left out in the cold. It will depend on the sagacity and wisdom of these leaderless movements to stay in the field until they achieve total victory. That will not come about as long as the old state structures are intact regardless of the soothing words uttered by the ruling elite and the military to respect the wishes of the people.

If the people fail to heed this elementary lesson, they would find themselves in the same sorry state that the people of Pakistan are in today after 60 years of broken promises. The struggle and the sacrifices would then all be in vain.