Rocking the Casbah

I know that it has been about a week or so since I made any posts, but the stress of my current financial situation as muddle my thoughts somewhat and distracted me. That being said I have found something that has recently sparked my interest.

It seems as though the unrest in Tunisia has been spreading across the Arab world. Protests have been going on in Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen and most importantly, Egypt. It seems as though that Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak is not as popular as his 88.6 percent tally in the last Presidential Election would indicate. Perhaps the fact that he has been in power for nearly thirty years and has a habit of cooking election results would have something to do with it.

It is not all that much of a secret that the Arab world is hardly a bastion of Democracy. Nearly all of the leaders there are either corrupt dictators or decadent absolute monarchs. The closets things to democracy in the entire region are Lebanon, where the natural state of being is a hair width away from sectarian civil war and Iraq, which, while better than what it was just four years ago is still not the most stable place in the world. Many of the problems in the Arab world are in m opinion based on this lack of freedom.  The oppressive nature of many Arab governments along with their tendency to horde all of their country’s wealth ha lead to widespread poverty and despair.  In order to deflect attention away from themselves Arab leaders have long used numerous scapegoats, the US, the West in general, Israel, local minorities. The list is endless really. Though I shall admit, many of those above groups would not make such effect scapegoats if they were not at least somewhat culpable. This has also lead to the popularity of religious extremists. The Irony is this last being that a lot of the radical Islamist movements were started by the elite of Saudi Arabia as a way of spreading their country’s influence in the Muslim World as well as to keep at bay one of their main rivals, Iran.

Fortunately so far, there is not sign of the Islamists in any of the protests.  This is simply about a desire for freedom from tyranny. Hopefully when the smoke clears, it shall be that start of a new beginning for the Arab world. One where they can finally put the past behind them