Arab Spring
April 17, 2011, 1:33 pm
by Lalin Fernando
‘There remained historical ambition, insubstantial as a motive itself. I had dreamed at City School in Oxford, of hustling into form, while I lived, the new Asia which time was inexorably bringing upon us. Mecca was to lead to Damascus; Damascus to Anatolia, and afterwards to Bagdad; and there was Yemen. Fantasies, these will seem, to such as are able to call my beginning an ordinary effort’. (T E Lawrence-Seven Pillars of Wisdom-1926)
A stirring and stunning upheaval in the Arab states is taking place from the Maghreb to the Gulf. United by race, religion, geography and history they who had defeated the armies of the Roman Empire at the great battles of Yarmouk (AD 636), and then the Crusaders, set up a magnificent civilisation that conquered a quarter of Europe. This time they have risen again with the same courage they were famed for but not against an invader or a foreign enemy and mostly without weapons.
The fight is revealingly not against their 20th century foe, the Jews (Israelis) who the Arabs and Turks protected from the Christians for many centuries or for religion. This is an Arab storm attempting to sweep away repression and corruption of many tyrants and almost all other rulers in the Middle East. Some of them however have been benevolent but have not been spared. It is a revolution that few would have ever believed could happen as the Arabs were so inured to being treated like supplicants if not mendicants by their own rulers who cunningly exploited their ignorance and fear for far too long before granting some measure of freedom and relief.
In SL those who squirmed when the LTTE was defeated, came up with their spontaneous but inane comparisons as usual. They became dumb when they saw not only Presidents but some Majestic rulers were also being quarantined. They had mistaken the desert for the sand. Here was a truly mass movement yearning for the freedom of millions of subjugated people across the Middle East. It challenged and exposed their rulers and shattered many myths as well as some despotic rulers ‘for life’. If they succeed, its impact may compare with the French and Russian revolutions. Arabs will no longer be taken for granted by their rulers and their designing if not rapacious Western collaborators who have exploited if not plundered them for very nearly a hundred years.
No one doubts that the West wants only to safeguard their strategic interests and friends and suck Arab oil. However will a more merciful and compassionate system of governance replace the avenging interpretation of religion, governance, law and justice and greed in the Middle East? Will this storm help to resolve the long running and bloody Palestinian problem which makes Arab blood boil and distresses almost the whole world? Will the poor Asian workers who with their sweat, blood and tears helped massively to develop their infrastructure but were treated more like slaves, serfs, chattel and even animals have redress and recognition and a little kindness after nearly 50 years of hard labour?
The Arabs are fighting today for freedom against their own repressive, merciless, corrupt, greedy, bullying, selfish and arrogant rulers who have held their subjects in thrall for a hundred years under western protection. The words of the martyr Abdul Karim al Kileli nearly 90 years ago in the fight against Turkish rule who said ‘for your freedom we are fighting, for your independence we are dying’ may ring true again. The reasons are very nearly the same as they were then; that they were ‘suppressed and deprived of constitutional remedy, under pressure of a common misery and peril’.
Sadly the Arab rulers, who took over, despite lauding Muslim traditions and brotherhood in public, had inherited and continued the least admirable of Turkish methods of governance. Witnessing the dramatic changes taking place, the West ignoring vagrancy laws, is now invoking R2Pee all over the Middle East and Africa with a reckless bloody vengeance. They target only those who stand in their way like Libya and possibly Syria despite lessons learned in Iraq. The others are their pets.
Arabs would have liked to be known for their good manners, courtesy, generosity, sense of humour, honour, courage and integrity. Yet in their countries, for the citizens and third world workers employed there, constant fear is the all pervading and ever prevailing reality. The fate of SL’s 17 year old girl child Rizwan who is under sentence of death by beheading, sums up the inhuman and retributive nature of Arab justice although it now appears that the Saudi King has finally seen its possible weaknesses and faults and has tried to reform the system. It also exposed the gross manipulation and exploitation of very poor third world workers.
Third world job agents and their governments especially of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka work in heartless and shameful collaboration with scheming Arabs to perpetuate this degradation. The litany of injustice that faces poor Asians workers is legion. In his book on the first Gulf War(1990) ‘Storm Command’ UK General Sir Peter de la Billiere noted; “…we hired a Filipino woman (as a maid)…who spoke reasonable English. Like all foreigners working in Saudi Arabia, she was in the clutches of a sponsor-some minor princess. Not only had she been obliged to surrender her passport in order to obtain entry visa, she also had to pay the princess 3,000 riyals a year (about UK pounds 450). Since she earned only 2,000 riyals a month this was a heavy imposition and the system put her completely in her sponsor’s power- as indeed it was intended to do”.
The plight of a much lesser paid, dark skinned South Asian woman who spoke no English or Arabic sponsored by a ordinary, little educated but sly and grasping Saudi needs little elaboration. In the employment of house maids especially, traditional Arab values, morals and religious tenets have been openly and grossly violated as often reported. Will there be any hope for a change in the Spring for them?
Bahrain has invoked the Gulf Arab Island Shield (Al Jazeera) pact to protect its ruler Hamad Issa despised by 70% of the people but supported by an army of 12,000 with about 50 aircraft in a native population of 500,000. Despite the self serving Saudi Arabian motive of sending 1,000 of its total of 75,000 army troops together with those of the UAE into Bahrain to crush the unarmed protestors by force, none of the other Arab states have sided with the other targeted rulers. The Saudi King also has a private army (SANG) of 75,000 consisting of the tribal/religious Ikhwan.
When there was a communist insurgency in Oman (1970s) Jordan and Persia sent troops to help Omani forces commanded discreetly by the British to defeat the Dhofaris in the South who were helped by their kinsmen in North Yemen. Today war planes but only of a seemingly enlightened and still unthreatened Qatar and the somewhat trembling UAE, have crossed the Mediterranean if not the Rubicon by joining the NATO led forces to enforce the No Fly Zone over Libya . Who will reap the consequences?
The last time the Arabs revolted in unison all over Arabia was against the 500 year Ottoman Turk rule nearly 90 years ago with British aid and covert action by Colonel TE Lawrence. This time Turkey, a long time member of NATO and not an ally of defeated Germany as in 1914, and also not as secular as the founder of modern Turkey Kemal Ataturk would have liked, may act as a mutually acceptable intermediary. Their hope is to bring about a ceasefire in Libya consequent to the enforcement of the UN designated ‘No fly Zone which at times appears to be a ‘free fire’ zone. It is hoped, although the signs are ominous, that the West will not repeat their betrayal of the Arabs as it did in 1917 in ousting the Turks after spilling Arab blood.
It happened before in Operation Desert Storm (1990) that relieved Kuwait which was occupied by the Iraqi army. (The Saudis say the Kuwaiti rulers ran to Saudi leaving their women behind). The Operation was a combined US/Saudi initiative. It spawned the rise of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaida that juxtaposed the arrival of ‘infidel’ armies with the diametrically opposed position of the Saudi King as the ‘Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ and the Prophet’s injunction that there be ‘no permanent presence of infidels in Arabia’ . The Shiites of Basra were sadly but not surprisingly massacred by Saddam, a Sunni, shortly after the coalition armies left Iraq. Neither the USA nor its Storm partner Saudi raised a finger to help Basra, a Shiite city. Will the world get to know if massacres follow in the Shiite East of Saudi? Libya, Yemen and Syria however did not bother to hide their criminality.
Interestingly when France and UK decided to operate militarily against Egypt in 1956 together with Israel after the strategic Suez Canal was nationalised by that incomparable Arab leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, the USA demurred. The Libyan situation today shows that a replay of that cut throat competition for dominance in this strategic area could occur again. Israel, master of exploiting the main chance, has taken care to stay off the radar just now but for how long will be the question. Much will depend on whether a people’s democracy or feared religious bigotry takes over.
Despite fabulous wealth and great power there has been no Arab monarch or President who has come anywhere close to the stature of Nasser in the last century. What happens now in Egypt however and not Saudi Arabia will determine whether the flowers of Spring will bloom or fade.
Ageing, like almost all Arab rulers, and eccentric Gaddafi, repeatedly calls Obama his ‘beloved son’ and urges him to join him to defeat Al Qaida, but he has not appeared again at ‘freedom rallies’ in the mistaken belief they were in support of him. He, after ruling for 40 years, has instead decided to wage war against his people whom he says ‘love me’. Despite NATO support for the rebels a stalemate may take place while hundreds die. The Salafis, an extreme Islamist sect (that is present in SL too) and who were at one time pro Al Qaida and the Senussi tribes loyal to the descendants of deposed late ex King Idris but otherwise opposed to the Salafis, appear to have teamed up to take on Gaddafi hoping to tip the balance.
A civil war rages in Yemen where too a Saudi incursion took place in 2009. A similar situation is developing in Syria while Bahrain has invoked the Gulf Arab Island Shield (Al Jazeera) pact to protect its hated ruler. Benevolent Sandhurst trained rulers in Oman and Jordan, showing more restraint, have had lesser protests that for now demand only that corrupt ministers be dismissed.
Arab doctors, (hopefully not including Syria’s second generation dictator Basher al Assad who practised medicine for nearly two decades in England), having taken the Hippocratic oath were compelled to sever human limbs often without anaesthesia, not as a medical necessity but as a abhorrent medieval punishment. It made a mockery of justice and humanity if not medical ethics. Although compassion and mercy are laid down in almost every shura of the Koran, it has been virtually non existent in the lexicon of the Arab rulers until recently when Saudi King Abdullah brought in sweeping reforms which galvanised the other rulers to attempt to do the same.
Almost all that is practised in the name of governance by Arab monarchs if not republican leaders is veiled in and given the sanctity of their interpretation of the Koran. Will those who hope to replace these rulers be able to break free from the shackles of extreme medieval traditions as the above have tried or be overtaken themselves by more repressive religious fundamentalists who lurk in the shadows?
Arab women mostly in Saudi were granted few civic liberties. Their position however has begun to change with the appointment of a woman as Women’s Affairs Minister as in Saudi.
It should be remembered that ‘All through history, Muslim rulers have normally combined civil and religious control except possibly in the last 40 years. This system avoided conflicts between the civil and religious authorities but it also enabled the ruler to use, against his political opponents, those punishments which the Prophet pronounced against apostates…….Mohamed used ………. against his enemies. As everything which the Apostle did must seem right, some politicians here find justification for the removal of their opponents by the same method’. (John Bagot Glubb—The Great Arab Conquests – 1926)
It may be seen that the repressive state apparatus which was the defining feature of most of the affected Arab states, and probably the foremost reason for the revolts, was given legitimacy by the rulers. This was not challenged by the citizens for fear of being branded and treated as apostates. The law did not apply equally even for the Arabs as it certainly did not for expatriates especially from Asia.
Shiite shadow
‘That the khalif of the Prophet was the lawful lord of the world , no true believer thought of doubting; but who really was the khalif of the Prophet was a question on which opinions might differ widely’ (Freeman, History of the Saracens). A Shiite shadow is falling over some parts of the Arab world from Bahrain to Eastern Saudi . It has taken root in Iraq. Shiite elements of the Arabs are in revolt to gain freedom and basic democratic rights beginning with the ascendancy of the majority. The minority Sunnis in Iraq ruled for 400 years until Saddam fell. The Sunnis have ruled in Bahrain for 200 years and provided a playground for rich Arabs mainly Saudis to help them stem the tide. They respectively constitute only about 30% of the population. Brutality appears to be their favoured response. The West does not object convincingly to much of what happens in their ‘client’ states. In Syria an Alawite Shiite minority in power for 40 years is being challenged by the majority Sunnis. A similar fall awaits its rulers.
Shiite Iran is stirring things up in the Sunni Arab states even as many Iranians paradoxically have increased their efforts to have a showdown with their own repressive and schizophrenic government. Will Iran which gives North Korea a run for instability and the ultimate in brinkmanship also succumb to the revolution taking place across the Gulf that no longer bears its name?
Saudi Arabian troops grinning like village idiots for TV cameras went to the aid of the King of Bahrain, oblivious to if not relishing that they were being dragooned to murder unarmed natives of a foreign land. Saudis who must have the worlds most densely armed state, (budget US$ 39.5 bn. in 2009), have ironically never ever deployed to support Arab states in their wars with Israel (1948-1973) and in the first Gulf war except for air force sorties, fought inside its own territory. Saudi too faces revolt from its Shiites but is God fathered by the USA which in 2010 contracted to sell US$ 60 billion in arms, adding to the US$ 80 billion it sold from 1951 to 2000.The USA may not have backed the Saudi move even as it fears for its 5th Fleet based in Bahrain which controls and dominates the Arabian Gulf if the Shiites take power. If Bahrain falls to the Shiites, a political tsunami may make the Gulf Persian again.
Will the Arabs now interpret the Koran in such a way that the rulers and the ruled live their lives in a manner that the majority of citizens want and in keeping with the modern world without compromising their best traditions and proper religious beliefs or will they go back to the old cruel and fearful ways? Will the Westerners be put in their place and the natives given pride of place? If not what is to prevent these states from going backwards again, closing their faces to democracy, equal opportunities, human dignity and the changes wrought by modern ways of life and the technology that impelled them to seek change and risk their lives to achieve?
The sad fact of the matter is that, ‘particularly it is noticeable that that the idea of government by groups of men – cabinets, parliaments or committees – has no precedent at all in Arab history. Their idea of government is always one man. In theory he is chosen by the people. He must be humble, accessible, benevolent, pious and hospitable. Arrogant despots cannot be tolerated but nevertheless executive power must be vested in one man alone….. the military dictator is nearer to the time honoured Arab tradition than the is Western democracy’. (John Bagot Glubb- The Great Arab Conquests).
Thus any hope that democratic rule will follow must be treated with caution. The rulers will not give in easily as they have a huge percentage of the world’s wealth in their hands which they stand to lose otherwise. The 91-year old Saudi Defence Minister, Crown Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz, next in line to rule is called by some as the Sultan of Thieves! The new leaders cannot afford to retreat to traditional Arab systems of governance which suited a very much different age, was backward, wholly repressive and exploitative. It was the reason why they revolted and so many sacrificed their lives beginning with the youthful vegetable seller Mohamed Bonazizi in Tunisia.
Everywhere the ordinary Arabs are slowly recognising their own strength in numbers, morality, integrity and their true value. They are breaking the shackles that had kept the vast majority voiceless, deprived of a good life, in comparative poverty, illiterate and powerless to decide their own future and in mortal fear for centuries. Most of all it gives them hope they will have more joy and happiness in life and an equal share of their national wealth. Never again hopefully will they be the pawns of the Westerners who used their ‘rulers’ to keep them as second class citizens in their own countries while exploiting their nation’s booming wealth to suit themselves.
Will the Arabs be a part of the modern world or only of Egypt and Arabia? Meanwhile will the third world workers be looked after with kindness, sympathy and generosity by the new rulers? Will the Palestinian problem, now nearly one hundred years old, be resolved by democratic Arab elected rulers? How much oil will the West and its companies siphon? These are the questions for which people in the third world pray for answers.
May the Arab Spring not be swept by the poisonous Simoom or blistering Sirocco winds that sweep across Arabia but by the balmy khareef to herald a joyous Arab renaissance.
Inshallah
(The writer is a retired Major General of the Sri Lanka Army)