The winds of change that have been blowing ferociously across North Africa and the Middle East during the last month, and have swept the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt out of power, are currently battering Libya with hurricane force threatening to topple President Gaddafi, ending his 42-year tyrannical rule.
Once again young people are in the vanguard of a mass-based revolution. Days of rage fuelled by the drive for democracy and thirst for freedom are proving unstoppable. In over 50 years as a student of world politics, no two mantras have been more potent than “time for a change” and “it is an idea whose time has come”. Both have resonated powerfully across the region.
Gaddafi, like Mubarak, ruled with an iron hand seemingly oblivious to emerging global trends and more recently closer at home. The end now seems imminent for Gaddafi.
Also like Mubarak, he too seemed driven by nepotism and had designated one of his sons as his dynastic successor, while stashing away abroad with their assistance billions of dollars of oil wealth in a country where the vast majority are deeply mired in poverty. Where money is no problem, it was not surprising to hear that two of his sons had back-to-back birthday bashes in St Barts, paying Maria Carey and Beyoncé US$1 million each to perform.
It was bizarre to hear Gaddafi blaming “international terrorism”, Osama bin Laden and young people high on hallucinatory drugs and alcohol for the current contagion to which he is responding with ruthless genocidal atrocities.
Bin Laden has never been slow through the years to claim credit for any uprising in the Middle East. Egypt has been one of his favourite targets and indeed his No. 2 man was an Egyptian. His silence since the fall of Mubarak must make one wonder if he is still alive.
One of the most disturbing features of the Libyan uprising has been the fact that Gaddafi has imported mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa to protect his power base. In a BBC report an eyewitness, when asked who were the people slaughtering Libyans in cold blood, said simply: “They are not Libyans. They are black African mercenaries brought in by Gaddafi.”
One of the significant differences between the uprisings in Egypt and Libya is that whereas the Egyptian armed forces acted with restraint and some even took off their uniforms and joined the rebels’ revolt, in Libya the armed forces and mercenaries have not failed to use their firepower to protect the despotic Gaddafi.
In a significant departure from normal diplomatic protocols, Libyan diplomats in London and New York have come out fiercely against Gaddafi. Indeed, one of the fiercest critics against the Gaddafi regime was the deputy ambassador at the United Nations whose mission was in the forefront of calls for the Security Council to convene to discuss the situation.
During the Egyptian turmoil the suave Egyptian ambassador in Washington was all over the United States television networks speaking in measured and loyal tones and putting the best construction on what President Mubarak was saying and doing.
Just two years ago when Gaddafi announced that he was no longer interested in pursuing a nuclear option for Libya, opened the door to United States companies investing in oil exploration and agreed to pay billions of dollars to the families of over 300 people killed in the Pan Am flight that crashed over Lockerbie, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warmly welcomed one of Gaddafi’s sons at an official function in Washington and spoke highly of the “new valued relationship”.
As the days of rage continue by the population long oppressed and battling valiantly to claw their way out of poverty towards a new democracy, one cannot help but reflect that this new American friendship had shut its eyes to the continuing denial of human rights in a brutal dictatorship devoid of any semblance of democratic governance, and is now outraged at present events. Such are the vagaries of pragmatic capitalist real politic.
These are the harsh realities of international politics. One immediate result of the collapse of the Mubarak regime has been that for the first time in 32 years, two Iranian ships have sailed through the Suez Canal just a few miles north of Israel. This, like all of the other recent events in North Africa and the Middle East, is nought for the comfort of the Jewish state.
Immediate reaction to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya is serious self-examination in other autocratic Middle East states. In two United States lynchpin countries – Saudi Arabia, where the octogenarian king and crown prince are in poor health, and Jordan, where the king has recently returned home after three months away on sick leave – billion-dollar packages are being hastily put together to hopefully palliate their population and preempt challenges to their rule. So too in Bahrain and Yemen.
Across the Arab world, change is an idea whose time has come. Fanned by rage and rebellion and led by young people with world views dedicated to empowering their masses, decadent feudal dynasties and oligarchies are sensing that the time for change is at hand and palliatives are short-term balms not permanent solutions.
Meanwhile, the world watches with dreaded anticipation the critical movement of production and oil prices.
