Archive for February 2011
“The people want to change the sectarian structure”: Lebanon
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 28, 2011
“The people want to change the sectarian structure”: Lebanon
Lebanon is not its Capital Beirut
It is no longer replacing a dictator here and an absolute monarch there: The youth in Lebanon want to change the sectarian political and social structure.
It is no longer replacing a feudal leader here or a warlord there: The youth in Lebanon want to change the archaic and medieval system in Lebanon that used and abused the Lebanese since independence in 1943.
It is no longer substituting a sectarian political party in this government with another one in the Parliament: The youth in Lebanon want to step forward vigorously into the modern age.
Long and uninterrupted waves of protests and uprising are invading the streets of this dormant lake of the “Arab” world. It has been two months that raging and determined upheavals have been buffeting the lax and antiquated “Arab” regimes.
The youth in Lebanon have been calling for mass demonstrations to rebuilding a governing system based on citizenship vital rights for equality, fairness, and justice to all; regardless of religious affiliation, feudal mentality, genders differentiation in the public service jobs and the voting rights under a fair and equitable representation of all classes and strata in society.
The youth in Lebanon are calling to march for a modern Lebanon and the youth have been delivering under heavy rain.
This time around, it is no longer sectarian and feudal political parties calling for mass demonstrations for a political sectarian gain, for a feudal equilibrium political sharing gimmick, for oligarchic domination of one sect or one foreign influence policy.
If the old guards of the political system want to maintain a sectarian structure, the youth want nothing to do with it.
If the old guards of clerics, feudal, and comprador monopolist merchants are very satisfied with an archaic system, the youth in Lebanon want this structure down and done with.
This is a genuine uprising of a new Lebanon, tired and exhausted, buffeted for 6 decades by comfortably established sectarian and feudal “leaders’.
The old system has been relegating the Lebanese to medieval ages. Do we have 19 recognized sects? So what! Do we have to be governed by the religious clerics backing feudal leaders and overseas princes and emirs?
No, the youth in Lebanon don’t have to abide by the ridiculous dictates of dinosaurs of older times.
I suggest that this determined movement be organized in every town and village.
It is not necessary to have mass gathering in the Capital Beirut: A few supporters for secular reforms everywhere in Lebanon, marching with banners and calling for discussion on the ways to instituting such a society is far more effective to dislodge a rooted system.
Lebanon is not its Capital: The movement has to be disseminated in rural and far distant districts that constitute the backbone of the current decrepit political system.
Lebanon has been plagued by sectarian regimes since its inception. If we cannot surmount this calamity now, should we wait another half a century on feasibility study?
This is as good a time as any other periods to raising our head as viable citizens and not chattel, to be bought and sold by feudal and religious clerics.
Youth in Lebanon are trying to displace the sectarian and feudal political parties and reclaiming the streets. A modern Lebanon is on the rise: Archaic power composition has got to make room for new blood and determination.
Free! Working 12 hours a day: Not Earning a dime
Estimates are that over 3 billion people are surviving on less than$2 a day. So far, I have been living with not a dime in my pocket for an entire year. I work 12 hours a day and not earning a dime; with a twist: I am “enjoying ” free board and lodging by an implicit contract drawn by me.
I lived for 20 years in the USA and received the highest academic diplomas, and worked on most minimum wage jobs, before and after graduation: I had to survive in a society where I had no community support for proper introduction and references.
I returned to Lebanon in 2000, before the 9/11/2001 attack on the Twin Towers, and felt glad to be away from a climate where “Arab”-looking individuals were subjugated to many kinds of humiliations, indignities, and increased covert restrictions and discrimination.
I have been living with my elderly parents ever since. It is a gradual process: They were old but still functional. I could go on with a normal life-style and not having to deal with daily chores, like house maintenance, cleaning, vacuuming, washing dishes…
It was a gradual process: My folks got steadily older as I felt I was getting there too. Gradually but steadily, I had to come to the rescue: First, you are asked to handle physical tasks that the folks can no longer do; then, the varieties of tasks increase into other kinds of skills and capabilities.
It is not just a matter of cleaning once room. Actually, since I arrived from the USA, I fought off my mother from rearranging my room, closets, washing the curtains, re-hanging curtains, getting accustomed to the newer locations of my personal belonging…
I had volunteered to wash the dishes but was kicked out of the kitchen…I was relegated to driving my folks around, visiting relatives, health check-ups, buying a dozen of medicines, paying the bills of the phone (no modern facilities to sending checks)…
I had to take care of a garden, plowing, planting, gathering, watering (no water in the 7-month dry season and we have to purchase truckloads of water…)
I ended up taking care of the chicken, a number that grew to over a hundred, buy chicken feed, vitamins, medicines for the chicken, bartering eggs for meat and other stuff, collect dead chickens (mauled and eaten by other chicken, rats… ), wear special clothes in the downpours and stepping in mud, dirt, just to satisfy the well-being of chicken…
The funny part is when I decided to sell all the fowls and was surprised to facing an uprising on my hands: They wanted the fowls around. No one would even contribute to the expense of the ever costly feed or even help feeding and cleaning the chicken “quarters”.
It is not just a matter of cleaning once room. I ended up feeding the cats, the dogs, search the supermarkets for leftover meat for the animals (they are not even house pets). The vegetarian members of the extended family refuse to bring in leftover meat for the pets and refuse to take care feeding the pets…
It is not just a matter of cleaning once room. Mother’s arthritis ailments worsened and I had to hang cloths to dry, wash dishes, mop the floors, vacuum the carpets, cut tough vegetables, press the lemon…
It is not just a matter of cleaning once room. It is no longer carrying the gas “bonbons” for cooking, the filtered water Jeri cans, climbing ladders to fetch objects… I am the household care taker, but mother insists on cooking and doing a few chores when she feels a little better in the morning: She feels worse when she does not contribute in the house work: She has got to work, like men have to leave the house to “work” and be out of the “skirts”.
Personally engaging in the daily chores gives the correct perspective to what living is: Washing the dishes, mopping the floor, doing laundry, tending the garden…Running away to work as excuse to avoiding doing house chores, and learning what it takes to get life going is a sure sign of unhappiness and non satisfaction, later on in life.
How can we appreciate life and improve our potentials if we refuse to face life’s exigencies of constant maintenance every day? We are necessarily meditating as we participate in daily chores: a reminder for humility and missed potentials.
I disagree with regimentation for meditation of apprentices in temples. They wake up early morning before sun rises. Before breakfast, they clean completely their residence: They tidy and dust rooms, hallway and garden, and even mop the floor, everyday no matter what. They take time to do these chores casually, serenely, not in a hurry.
They cook breakfast for everybody and completely clean the kitchen before they start meditation, study and excise. Of course afternoon is similar. They don’t drink alcohol, caffeine, or smoke cigarettes. They are supposedly doing only things good for their minds. They follow strictly their daily schedule for many years in order to taming “each negative egos” to get permission to advancing to next levels? I don’t know.
I agree that to do everyday basic daily tasks (clean-up…) is very important to cleansing our minds each day. Each day the mind is refreshed by the action of cleaning and cleansing. I cannot agree that the purpose of living is simply doing the daily chores: We have natural rights to enjoy life; we have natural passions that need to be satisfied.
The hell with regimentation if it must enslave me for years in order to satisfy the “master’s” view or opinion of how life should be lived, and what we should do every day. Learn and then find your own way: It shouldn’t take so many years to discover your passions and act upon them: Just get on doing and acting.
There are chores for the morning; chores for the afternoon; and chores for the evening. There are times for learning, reading, studying, writing, publishing, earning a living, and meditation. You don’t want to reach old age before you realize that all these “levels for perfection” are a string of falsehoods.
There is this whole world to discover, people to listen to, to discuss with, to change your ideas and perspectives on life and nature. You don’t need to be confined in a place, a method, a way of life to learn and improve yourself and find joy, satisfaction, and happiness.
You don’t want to reach old age before you realize that all these “levels for perfection” were initiation to slavery habits, of restricting the potentials of your mind, and futile constraints on your vital natural rights.
I work 14 hrs a day, everyday, rain or shine, official working day and holidays. Besides my long list of daily chores I read, write, and publish everyday, rain or shine… I love to contribute extending tribute to the hard-working people in all domain of life, culture, and knowledge.
I work 14 hrs a day: Earning not a nickel. I paint the windows, doors, and walls: Earning not a nickel. I do the glass windows: Earning not a nickel. Am I working? Is what I am doing kind of working? Should I be earning some kind of money to say: “I have a job. I am working hard”?
I read and hear young people, having a job or jobless, experiencing depressed mood swing: They work on shortening the depression and anxiety periods by changing habits (food varieties, sleep periods, exercise periods…). I don’t feel depressed: I learned what makes me happy and what gives me joy.
As long as I have a book handy, I am as “happy as happy can be”: All books are interesting and I mine gems from even the lousiest of books. As long as there are documentaries and fine movies, I am happy and discover plenty of topics to critique and relay the news to others via by blog.
I work 14 hrs a day and earning not a single nickel, but I don’t get sick as I used to, when I worked on lousy jobs for companies in return for lousy money. I paid my dues to society and have nothing to prove. I am healthy, alert, and happy ironing out my views on life and the universe.
Posted this week (Feb. 25)
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 27, 2011
- The people don’t fear “subversive” universities: Education systems to be reformed
- Qualitative shift in “Arab” mass uprising: Iraqis refuse foreign appointed governments!
- “Knowledge products”? Why not “technical salesmen engineers”?
- “Friday of Wrath”: Save Libya. No to UN mandated power after Qadhafi!
- Do you like gate-keepers? What is university?
- Misogeny “expert opinions” or just tough luck experiences?
- Causes and catalysts of current “Arab” mass upheavals
- River Congo to light up Africa: Any investors?
- What use is of art? What is the origin of art?
- Do I care what happens after death? Yes and no
The people don’t fear “subversive” universities: Education systems to be reformed
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 26, 2011
The scientific communities, especially natural sciences in physics, chemistry, biology…understand the “paradigm shift” process: There are periods where new approaches, theories, and concepts supplant conventional views to nature and the universe. The scientific community, represented by associations and syndicates, normally resist vigorously to changes but they come around when faced with new facts, observations, data, advanced equipments for measuring and observing nature and processes…
The people want that paradigm shift process be given an opportunity to be applied to human sciences such as sociology, psychology, politics, finance, economics, organizational theory, community communication, mankind evolution, religion development, … The people don’t fear that universities be transformed to becoming hotbeds of subversive concepts, research, theories, and approaches to knowing how society could be reformed, changed, improve…
The people want to know in what ways representation and communication of communities be equitable, fair, and compatible to vital natural laws for individuals and for the interest, development, and security of the community. The people don’t fear what it costs for human rights and dignity be preserved, struggled for, conquered, and reclaimed…
The people want that universities contribute to an atmosphere of free expression, liberty of opinion, of challenging opposing themes and attitudes, confronting rooted ideologies and existing models of power and privilege domination…
Creative works constantly defy dominant lines of thinking. As it is counter productive to graduate for the sole purpose of slightly improving existing products and systems, or barely redesigning what is being used and handled then, the people demand that graduates be well-rounded in varieties of fields of knowledge, especially in human sciences and artistic domains.
Modern youth is no longer interested in the history of monarchs, lords, and privileged elite classes (ancient and current) and the false stories for the causes of their wars… Modern youth wants to know how the people managed to accede to power, how constitutional political systems were instituted, reformed, evolved and were retained…
Iraqis refuse foreign appointed governments: Qualitative shift in “Arab” mass uprising?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 26, 2011
The US troops have got to accelerate the withdrawal from Iraq: Iraqis are mass demonstrating in all provinces refusing the foreign appointed governments. The Iraqis, Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Arabs, Kurds…want no more to be subjugated to the masquerade of foreign formed government and hegemony.
After more than two decades of embargoes, preemptive occupation of their lands…; after two decades that resulted in the death of three millions out of famine, curable diseases, collateral damages, foreign induced and encouraged terrorist attacks, decimating mostly the toddlers and children, the youth in Iraq woke up to the Arab people taking matters in their hands against dictators, absolute monarchs, one-party regimes, mostly submitted to foreign policies and political pressures.
The modern youth in Iraq are shouting: “we have suffered enough for half a century and we can no longer go on with daily cheap death, infamy, humiliation, and indignities: All our calamities have to stop NOW.”
Iraqis are taking to the streets (women, children, elder people, youth…) and marching in every province. Mayors are abdicating in respect to the awakened national unity spirit and the demands for drastic reforms and daily subsistence.
All these bogus alienations by subversive foreign powers (US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt of Mubarak…), setting Iraqis against one another along religious and sectarian divides, along “national” or language divides, along political party dissensions of Baath, communists, religious denominations…all these faked dissensions have no currency any longer to be traded with.
The ways Maliki PM has been disregarding the plight of the Iraqis and viewing with contempt the wrath, boiling for months within Iraqi youth, are tolling the bell of foreign appointed institutions and government.
The Iraqi Kurds want nothing to do with Kurdish one-party rules of provinces: away with decades of decadence, massacres, oligarchy, robbing of State treasury…under bogus excuses of ethnic and language differences.
The Shias and Sunnis are revolting together in mass protests everywhere and demanding reforms and more application and focus on the people daily needs for survival.
World, make room for a new modern “Arab” awakening. Obscurantist and extremist Islamists are out from power. Modern youth, Arabs, Kurds, Berbers, Moslems, Christians, northern African, Near Eastern, Gulf States… are in and winning their future hands down.
“Knowledge products”? Why not “technical salesmen engineers”?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 25, 2011
How many graduates you know whose jobs are selling products? For example, water coolers, water purifiers, air conditioning systems, solar panels, heating “systems”…insurance products, recreation services…The irony is that all these graduates never received salesmanship courses or training! “Hi. I am an engineer; I am more believable if I say that my product is better than the competitors…” As if this engineer was given the opportunity to analyse and study competitive products!
How many graduates you know who actually do design products, workstations, safer systems, healthier environment…the main purpose for studying engineering? How many redesign better systems for safer and healthier usage and applications? How many learned to develop a scientific reasoning for designing experiments?
I don’t mind that specific universities or educational institutions are designed as financial holding companies to producing “student products” for targeted industrial companies with special specifications and criteria. What I mind is that these educational institutions declare frankly and “transparently” their mission of producing practical knowledge for unchallenged students geared toward earning quick money.
What I mind is that a few university declare that their mission is forming well-rounded knowledge, encouraging creative thinking, supporting unconventional projects, backing non-conformist research topics, going all along students determination for non-conservative approaches and design alternatives…
What I mind is that certain universities declare their independence from missions orders dictated by multinational enterprises and actually sticking to their declared policies of refusing any funding with strings attached…
What I mind is that a few educational institutions unconditionally admit all the downtrodden, the workers, the lower middle class students with no pre-sorting tests of any kinds. Just let those possessing the passion for knowledge to get in, experience a climate of free expression, liberty of opinion, communicating with other class groups, ethnic diversity… Discovering the kind of passions for fields of knowledge they were not exposed to and had no opportunity to come across in these life-divide social and political systems…
“Friday of Wrath”: Save Libya. No to UN mandated power after Qadhafi!
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 25, 2011
“Friday of Wrath” is back; consistently every Friday and Saturday. Millions of citizens in dozen of Arab States are chanting for change and reforms of dictatorship, absolute monarchies, and One-Party regimes.
In Tunisia and Egypt, the mass demonstrators are reminding the temporary “care-takers” of the governments of promised reforms, to be resumed in quick pace. In Yemen and Bahrein the mass demonstrators are adamant: “Down to the rulers”. In Iraq, Algeria, Jordan, and Morocco “We need reforms NOW; we want constitutional monarchy, republican democracy, and government not appointed by the US occupying forces.”
In Libya, Qadhafi and his African mercenaries are retreating and entire provinces are free from the domination of a clown and 9 savage sons and daughters for 42 years. The danger is that the superpowers are concocting a devilish scheme of a UN mandated power on Libya after Qadhafi: Oil production, stupid, and at “reasonable prices”. Remember Lebanon? For 6 years, Lebanon has been under UN mandated power via the International Court for the assassination of Rafiq Hariri PM; a court mainly politically oriented to destabilize the Lebanese community.
Are consistent verbal threats convincing? What are the latest Hillary’s posturing guiding revolutionary masses in the Arab World?
I feel very upset when I hear and read editorials proclaiming the entire mass upheavals in the Arab World are masterminded by the US Administration. Since when did the US felt comfortable with peaceful mass demonstrations anywhere in the world? Show me a single peaceful mass protest in the US when the National Guard was not dispatched in a hurry? Since when the US supported democratic transformations in the Middle East or anywhere in the world?
Since when has any former colonial power supported peaceful mass upheavals in their former colonies, now and when they had mandated power over their colonies?
Do you believe multinational companies have the patience to negotiate deals with democratic institutions and end up bribing hundreds in the various echelons?
That Hillary Clinton utters: “When I say now, it means now” was not a bit convincing. Why? Because that threat and the successive ones were pronounced as people’s revolts shifted to their advantage and the battle was over. These injunctions came a bit too late in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrein, and Libya; a bit too late as the habit of dictators to be way too late in promising reforms.
Hillary showed up on the screen as Ben Ali of Tunisia was flown to Saudi Arabia; Hillary’s pronouncement on Egypt’s “revolution of the century” materialized as Mubarak sank into deep coma; Hillary got upset as Qadhafi air bombed peaceful demonstrators and declared that he hired 50,000 African mercenaries to kill his own people, even Merkel of Germany gave her opinion: “What Qadhafi said is horrible”…
How do you think all these dictators, monarchs, and oligarchies accumulated billions of dollars without the full cooperation of developed State governments, multinational enterprises, and foreign financial institutions?
A little common sense people: This behemoths of an US Administration cannot move as swiftly as mass protests moves forward. Thousands of reports and recommendations from hundreds of departments have to flow in and out before any US decision is see the light.
President Obama finally attested that these revolutions are the work of the masses and no foreign interventions participated.
No to the talking heads lucubrations claiming that the US presence in the Arab World is as overwhelming as never before; that the US is executing an alternative policy… Fact is, the US influence in the Middle East has received a heavy blow for its consistent policies of humiliating the “Arab” people in the last half century.
The latest veto of the US in the UN is the striking proof that the US is cornered and behaving as arrogant dictators who have lost all rational thinking and resuming their evil activities as if nothing drastically new is happening.
“Friday of Wrath” demonstrators, save Libya from UN mandated power, using International courts and investigations of crimes against humanity as a weapon to subjugate the people. Tunisia and Egyptian citizens, any UN mandated power on Libya will directly affect the purposes of your movement and will create problems to sidetrack and disturb your goals for drastic reforms and changes.
This is a rough brush of general public perception, details are skipped for the time being. If the picture does not agree with your perception, do correct me.
Do you know of serious and important institutions with only two doors? One door is to enter and one door to exit. Each door is guarded by autonomous administrators with exclusive rules, regulations, and criteria.
To enter the institution of “knowledge production”, the gate-keeper has to check you out thoroughly; he has to know every single detail of your existence prior to entering; the gate-keeper goes to such a length as to submit you to a battery of lie detectors; he demands that you write an essay of why you feel such an urge to visit and be admitted in the institution.
Indeed, why do you want to spend time among sadistic jailers, for many years, in a prison for knowledge? Are you sure you didn’t commit a crime that you feel the need to be subjugated to this harsh punishment?
Most probably, you fell prey to ads that told you “get higher job positions with lucrative pay” if you just manages to pass the exit door, sane, healthy, and hopeful for a better future.
The only restriction to be allowed to be handled by the maniacal professors is to pay your tuition in order to submit to their humiliating behaviors and get accustomed to indignities. Mind you, there is no honorable exit before your tuitions are fully paid.
The purpose of a university diploma is a certification to multinational companies that you passed the test of loyalty to the education system for over 23 years and that you were indoctrinated to follow orders that may go contrary to common sense moral values; basically, that you were trained to act amoral and ethics free in the harsh world of strict companies dedicated to profit, the quicker the better.
The multinational companies and public institutions are very similar in their attitude to neutral moral standards in their employees’ social aptitudes: They want first to test “what kind of metal you are” to withstand horror conditions and antagonistic conscious situations before you are judged a valuable asset.
Higher education systems are becoming the ideal gate keepers giving access to the privileged classes, the members of select clubs.
Higher education systems are real financial holding companies, offering pragmatic programs for practical applied disciplines to services and goods industries.
Higher education systems received the order: “Your mission is to pre-select potential first-rate students among the upper middle class students. You are to guarantee that the successful graduates have passed the final judgement as to their long-term aptitudes in intelligence and characters conforming to companies standards. As to lower class students, in order to be admitted in your sacrosanct temple, they have to demonstrate extraordinary “innate talents”, sort of hybrid explosive genes inheritances…
Lower middle class citizens have never been judged of possessing “convenient attitudes” to succeed academically: They are suffered in society since someone has to volunteer to die in battlefields, cruelly clubbing peaceful demonstrators, and doing menial jobs for the daily upkeep, maintenance, functioning, and running of routine chores.
To lower middle class students, graduating is like a sink hole of life insurance gimmicks: You pay consistently every month, all your life and earn irregular wages at irregular periods in order to getting nothing in return, except a lifetime of hope that you’ll retire comfortably, or more exactly, die properly and according to the clauses of the contract.
Has anyone of you cashed anything from a life insurance policy? By the time you get ready to cash a promised sum of money then, the company goes bankrupt.
Note: The topic was inspired by “Reflections on university” by Noam Chomsky
Misogeny in “expert opinions”: Or just tough luck experiences?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 23, 2011
Misogeny in “expert opinions”: Or just tough luck experiences?
Is it rare to witness happy couples? Is that opinion based on marital status, gender differences, economic factors. or family cohesion…?
There is a mathematical probability side to that statesman: Two people, of different genders, having to agree most of the time, be satisfied with life most of the time, while totally strangers to their own characters, passions, and potentials… Too many interactions to balance, comprehend, and negotiate.
There is a psychological side to it: We tend to recall bad moments and events far more frequently than the good times.
There is a social side to it: External forces are more influentials than we are ready to admit; and these external factors are very powerful and amazingly potent in consistency.
In young “love story” movies two kinds of people in the audience cry: Singles and resilient married couples. Is that statesman coming from misogyny tendency or just tough luck experiences and eye witnesses?
Why western nations and developed States prohibit polygamy? Is it a matter of logical deduction? For example, a prior law judged that it is illegal to convict a person twice for the same crime?
A patient asks his family physician: “Any recommendation for longivity?”
The Physician: “I suggest you get married”
Patient: “What are the odds that this works out”
Physician: “Don’t know. At least this idea for wishing to live longer will never cross your mind again.”
I enter a library and ask the desk attendant: “Could you orient me to the section “Man is the master of his wife?”
The attendant: “Your best bet is “fiction stories”
A woman brought me to life and I cried. Women will keep me in tears most of my life.
The wife to her husband: “Honey, a reminder. Today is our anniversary.”
Husband: “Fine. Let’s stand three minutes in silence, in mourning of that occasion”
Marriage is like selecting a dish in a restaurant and envying what friends ordered for dinner.
There are no mysteries: Causes and catalysts of current “Arab” mass upheavals
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 23, 2011
Causes and catalysts of current “Arab” mass upheavals
I like to differentiate between causes and catalytic factors (both internal and external).
I like to discriminate between delayed cold catalysts and instant hot catalysts for changes.
And I like to remind the reader that current “Arab” mass upheavals in northern Africa and the Arabic/Persian Gulf States will spread to other Arabic, Islamic, and “democratic” States with flawed and inequitable election laws and not representing all the strata of the citizens.
Restricting and implicitly favoring the rich and elite old classes in election laws are very infuriating to free citizens, even in the US and Europe.
The delayed catalysts, meaning the longer-term processes for comprehending and assimilating the resilient conditions, were generated from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The citizens (Islamic and Christian) of the Arabic States learned and were affected by the following convictions:
First, dictators are readily willing to sacrifice their people to hold on to their family and clannish powers;
Second, the verbal counter-offensives of Saddam’s regime (the “ouluge” slogan delivered by the minister of information) was no match to material and technological superiority;
Third, the sudden disintegration of the regime, as the US troops landed on Bagdad airport, demonstrated the fragility of oligarchic and dictatorial political systems;
Fourth, the violence and genocide practices of the US troops proved that western powers are still applying colonial mentality of blatant apartheid tendencies;
Fifth, as the US troops landed in Iraq, it was the woman in Iraq and all Arabic and “Islamic” States who took to the streets and demonstrated against occupation and vented out their frustration and anger. While men huddled to discuss a “wise” response to invasion of foreign troops. This phenomenon broke the taboo that women should be incarcerated in their homes and men to lead and care for the family.
Sixth, the Al Jazeera cable channel, headquartered in Qatar, played a much better role than CNN in covering the war. The embedded foreign journalists and news professionals in the US troops proved to be totally biased and unreliable news “disseminators”; pictured and comments were censured. The world watched minutes by minutes how the war unfolded and the atrocities committed.
The western powers managed to lay waste in their preemptive wars because news media were not covering thoroughly, accurately and in timely manners what was happening. “No see, no hear, don’t know, live happy and unconditionally support the troops”
Several conclusions or “expert opinions” were drawn by the Arab peoples:
First, the Arab peoples realized without a shadow of doubt that the future is bleak, if no internal reactions are contemplated: They were experiencing direct control and hegemony of foreign powers via their long-standing dictators. Even France and Germany reverted their positions and begged Bush Jr. to share in Iraq’s spoils.
Second, the arrogant pronouncements of Bush Jr. of disseminating “democratic” institutions in the Greater Middle East region smacked as a blatant bogus: The US was content supporting all dictators, oligarchic regimes, and unconstitutional monarchies in the region.
Third, the lingering presence of US troops and the subsequent financial and manpower losses extended a lesson to the US administration that heavy physical occupation does not generate any returns on brutal “investments”.
Fourth, the Arab peoples assimilated the “expert opinion” spreading process. The dictator and his oligarchy whisper in the ears of the western power personalities that:
1. Extremist Moslems, well-organized, will take over if dictators are pressured to vacate, leaving an explosive void to western interests;
2. Arabs are incompetent in running democratic institutions and Constitutions;
3. The only Constitutions the Arab Moslems are familiar with are the caliph-type rules of omnipresent power over religion and civilian laws;
4. The Arabs are impotent and unable to adjust to modern thinking, rational behaviors, and logical way of life….
Fifth, in reactions to these calumny whispered “expert opinions” by dictators and monarchs, the western media were happy disseminating the same arguments and perceptions of the Arab Peoples, proving again their apartheid tendencies toward Arab/Islam cultures, traditions, customs…
As the US troops lingered in Iraq, the common Arabic citizen everywhere experienced harsher living conditions, blatant restrictions on freedom of expression, and constant extension of State emergency laws.
The dictators were encouraged to regard their citizens as simple chattels since it was the US that ruled and imposed its will and policies. Thus, the reigning rulers made it a habit licking Bush Jr. and his administrators’ asses and delivering on foreign orders and commands.
To make things worse, the young oligarchy succumbed to the multinational financial institutions way of making quick and easy profit, speculating on their country’s wealth and ignoring economic real development.
The gap between the highly rich and the poor classes widened extravagantly. This process took place in all the States, those that have fallen and those about to fall, whether dictators or monarchs.
Young Bouaziz of Tunisia quit school to feed his large family of sisters and brothers and sold vegetables and fruits in an “illegal” stand. Bouaziz was not a university graduate and he bribed a woman officer to let him work. A decree came from “above” forbidding bribes. Bouaziz refused to pay the bribe; the woman officer slapped him silly.
If obeying the law is ground to be slapped and humiliated then, what legitimacy remains to the power-to-be?
If apathy is rampant among the population to challenging an oligarchic regime that has been in power for over 20 years then, what else but sacrificing the body and setting fire on the body as the ultimate message of despair?
The message sunk in: Time for mass revolt “We want to change the regime: Down with Ben Ali and his entourage“.
Why the US and the European governments looked surprised and failed to react appropriately?
For one, the Bush Jr. bogus pronouncement for disseminating democracy was overdue: The US felt in a tight maneuvering situation to intervene in the revolutions: The US had first to convince its public that counter-attacking peaceful marchers in the million is proper and legitimate; and the WikiLeaks phenomena of divulging instantly State secrets cooled down the US administration from any covert involvements.
The veto of the US in the UN related to Israel colony expansion and building in East Jerusalem is to be viewed as the last veto the US will contemplate for long time that affect the interest and dignity of the Arab masses. Otherwise, the US will materially pay heavily for these foolish vetoes.
It is the best timing for the UN to rescind veto powers of the five super-States: the veto rights are becoming total liabilities to the super-States and to the confidence of the world community in the legitimacy of the UN working to the greater benefit of all mankind. The UN will find a listening ear to abolishing veto rights.
Note: Arab States that joined the Arab League of States adopted the Arabic language as the official language, even though formal Arabic is used in administrative services.
These States singed on the Arab League of States, with no clear charter, that meets once a year in one of the Arabic States; they are supposed to meet this year in Iraq and Gadhafi was to head the convention.
Adonis Diaries 