The Revolutions Sweeping The Arab World Indicate A Tectonic Shift In Global Balance Of People Power

[Turborama]

History's shifting sands
The revolutions sweeping the Arab world indicate a tectonic shift in the global balance of people power.

Mark LeVine Last Modified: Feb 26 2011 12:58 GMT
(Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden.)



Protesters in Egypt offered words of support to union workers in the US state of Wisconsin
(GALLO/GETTY)

For decades, even centuries, the peoples of the Arab world have been told by Europeans and, later, Americans that their societies were stagnant and backward. According to Lord Cromer, author of the 1908 pseudo-history Modern Egypt, their progress was "arrested" by the very fact of their being Muslim, by virtue of which their minds were as "strange" to that of a modern Western man "as would be the mind of an inhabitant of Saturn".

The only hope of reshaping their minds towards a more earthly disposition was to accept Western tutelage, supervision, and even rule "until such time as they re able to stand alone," in the words of the League of Nations' Mandate. Whether it was Napoleon claiming fraternité with Egyptians in fin-de-18e-siècle Cairo or George W. Bush claiming similar amity with Iraqis two centuries later, the message, and the means of delivering it, have been consistent.

Ever since Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, the great Egyptian chronicler of the French invasion of Egypt, brilliantly dissected Napoleon's epistle to Egyptians, the peoples of the Middle East have seen through the Western protestations of benevolence and altruism to the naked self-interest that has always laid at the heart of great power politics. But the hypocrisy behind Western policies never stopped millions of people across the region from admiring and fighting for the ideals of freedom, progress and democracy they promised.

Even with the rise of a swaggeringly belligerent American foreign policy after September 11 on the one hand, and of China as a viable economic alternative to US global dominance on the other, the US' melting pot democracy and seemingly endless potential for renewal and growth offered a model for the future.

Trading Places

But something has changed...

Full article: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201122518445333563.html

[tabatha]

1. Yes, I was thinking about this the other day.

I am thinking that Middle East will surge ahead in cooperation, and set an example.

[high density]

2. To me in the USA, it feels like we're quickly going backwards in regards to people power

The income inequality between the insanely rich and everybody else widens.

The Supreme Court says money is speech.

The politicians in DC say we need more tax cuts for the rich ("jobs" and all that), and by the way, let's cut all these programs that people need to live. The Republicans destroy our economy using a variety of methods and then tell us we need to end unions to fix it.

Now the rich and their media have effectively pit the right-wing middle class against the rest of the middle class. Instead of being pissed off at the rich elites who've shipped jobs overseas and robbed the country over the past few decades, the right-winger focuses his anger on the union guy earning $55k a year with a good health plan.

People power it's not.

[Turborama]

4. That's essentially what he says

In the rest of the article...

But Americans - the people as much as their leaders - are so busy dismantling the social, political and economic foundations of their former greatness that they are unable to see how much they have become like the stereotype of the traditional Middle Eastern society that for so long was used to justify, alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) supporting authoritarian leaders or imposing foreign rule.

=snip=

The top one per cent of Americans, who now earn more than the bottom 50 per cent of the country combined, could not have scripted it any better if they had tried. They have achieved a feat that Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and their fellow cleptocrats could only envy (the poorest 20 per cent of the population in Tunisia and Egypt actually earn a larger share of national income than does their counterpart in the US).

=snip=

It now seems clear that hoping for the Obama administration to support real democracy in the Middle East is probably too much to ask, since it cannot even support full democracy and economic and social rights for the majority of people at home. More and more, the US feels not just increasingly "irrelevant" on the world stage, as many commentators have described its waning position in the Middle East, but like a giant ship heading for an iceberg while the passengers and crew argue about how to arrange the deck chairs.

Luckily, inspiration has arrived, albeit from what to a 'Western' eye seems like the unlikeliest of sources. The question is: Can the US have a Tahrir moment, or as the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun would have predicted, has it entered the irreversible downward spiral that is the fate of all great civilizations once they lose the social purpose and solidarity that helped make them great in the first place?

[sabrina 1]

7. Not yet, but it's beginning! We are a bit behind admittedly

but first people needed to be educated as to what is going on. Wisconsin has helped in that regard and people's eyes are beginning to open.

I can imagine now a revolt against the ruling class as more and more people learn what exactly has been going on.

Not so long ago we did not know anything about people like the Koch Brothers. We learned a little about how these rich corps work in the background, like Richar Melon Scaiffe eg, to undermine our democracy. But most people did not realize it until very recently and that knowledge is making people very, very angry.

[Turborama]

9. I hope you're right.

I really love your optimism. It's very refreshing and sorely needed.

:hi:

[sabrina 1]

19. I hope so too. But if the momentum keeps up that we are seeing

in Wisconsin, and spreads to other parts of the country, I believe things will begin to change.

I honestly did not see this happening. I am totally surprised that it did not fizzle out after a few demonstrations once peole's salaries were threatened.

But it seems that finally people are beginning to realize that to cave in because of such threats, rather than ignore them and keep their eyes on the bigger picture, is the best way to handle these bullies.

A few years ago, this would have ended after a few attempts to try to reason with Scott 'Hosni' Walker, something that is totally impossible anyhow.

Lol, maybe I am too optimistic Turborama, but this is so unusual in the America we have come to know. And it does give me hope that finally, people are waking up from their long sleep and beginning to expose the corruption behind our politicians.

[high density]

11. I hope so

The corporate media have a lot of people bamboozled at the moment and focusing on the wrong problems.

[sabrina 1]

18. Yes, the media is in league with the corporations.

But, fortunately most people who care about the facts, don't rely on the corporate media anymore. Especially young people who get their news online and sadly, from the Comedy Channel.

So the influence of the Corporate media is fading away, not fast enough obviously, but it will probably speed up as more people actually do become more informed and spread the word among their friends and family members :-)

[Kurovski]

3. .

"...the US looks ideologically stagnant and even backwards, filled with irrational people and political and economic elites incapable of conceiving of changes that are so obvious to the rest of the world."

[Kurovski]

5. Kick for an excellent, excellent article

that I'm continuing to read, but had to take time out to kick this thread again.

[Turborama]

6. Thanks for the kick. I thought it was as well.

I think Levine is one of the best contemporary writers about these topics.

Having said that, if you look around in this section of their site you can see that Al Jazeera English do have a good stable of other writers worth reading: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/

[Kurovski]

8. Thank you, Turborama. (nt)

[Turborama]

10. My pleasure, Kurovski

I'm really glad you found it as good a read as I did. Hope you can find more in there you like, too.

Thanks for the thanks. :hi:

[OneGrassRoot]

12. Huge K&R, with gratitude :) n/t

[fascisthunter]

13. Dr. Ravi Batra called it on Thom Hartmann's show

a long time ago.

[Desertrose]

14. Excellent article...thank you!!

I'd say it's about time the power shifted!

[rucky]

15. This is so spot-on.

The shifting of sands could leave the US in the dust. It's up to us, now.

[pinboy3niner]

16. "But something has changed..."

VERY good article.

K&R! :thumbsup:

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

17. IL Sen. Dick Durbin: I want to practice those values!

Senator Dick Durbin nailed it yesterday at the Wisconsin Solidarity Rally in Chicago.

@ 3:20

"All across the world, now, people are gathering as we have gathered today, calling for change. These are people in the nations far from that have never tasted democracy. And what we say to them is, come share our values! (crowd noise makes next statement indecipherable) But! I don't want to just preach those values in Libya and Egypt and across the Arab world, I want to practice those values! (crowd noise makes next statement indecipherable)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7-yZjcwdFo

:kick: :dem: :kick: :dem: :kick:

[Kurovski]

20. +1

But wtf with the yakyakyak of a couple in the crowd. Couldn't they save their Oscar chat for later and listen to him. It's fuckin' rude.

[Kurovski]

21. Kick, and I apologize for

using the "F" word. It doesn't work in that sentence.