The turmoil in the Arab world that does not show any signs of abetting embody an attempt to reverse the tide of history that will eventually fail, said the columnist Hussein Al Rawashda, in the Jordanian daily Addustour.
“Regimes that have exhausted their purposes and outlived their expiry dates can’t possibly go on killing and oppressing their peoples. Similarly, people that have awoken can’t submit and obey forever,” he said.
Recent events in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Algeria seem to dissipate any hope for a better future for Arabs. The violent reactions popular protests have elicited from obsolete and democratically-challenged regimes have left people with two options: to accept their reality and continue to live in injustice, poverty and under the illusion of stability, or to contemplate a future in the shadows of extremism, terrorism, instability and chaos, the writer suggested.
There seems to be a drive to convince citizens of the Arab world to settle for their inevitable fate and dispel any dreams or hopes for a change. It is as if Arabs, unlike all other people, aren’t entitled to freedom and democracy. Should they, in a moment of insanity, consider rebellion, they would meet with a grim fate, as witnessed in Syria, Libya, Egypt and elsewhere.
“The most recent message to Arab citizens came from Algeria. The players that designed the country’s trajectory since the 1990s insisted that Algerians’ fate be preordained. Images of President Bouteflika in a wheelchair casting his vote for a fourth term summarises the logic of Arab regimes. We find ourselves in a new phase where democracy is no more than a referendum and where revolutions are nothing but lies,” the writer observed.
The disappointing outcome of revolutions and democratic processes isn’t limited to Algeria. Libya in North Africa also presents a case of a failed post-revolution situation. The democratic elections following the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime brought to the surface the deep tribal and political schisms in the Libyan social fabric. Extremist groups and militias have wreaked havoc in the newly liberated country.
Recent reports confirmed that Libya is the most insecure country in the world these days. In an opinion article in the Sharjah-based Al Khaleej newspaper, the columnist Faisal Jalloul wrote: “The political inflexibility and the security issues in Libya are multifaceted, mainly because all the powers that rose against the former Libyan regime were in agreement over the need to bring down Qaddafi, but they disagreed on everything else. It was only normal that they should find themselves butting heads once the Qaddafi era was over.”
The Muslim Brotherhood that acceded to power in Libya’s first post-revolution democratic elections failed to hold the keys to the political game in the country. They lacked the necessary means to preserve the country’s unity and, in the midst of the chaos, the government’s armed forces seem to be a weak party.
Hence, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that senior officials that are supposedly responsible for the country’s security were assaulted, as was the case with the former prime minister, Ali Zaidan. The security situation is also reflected in the abduction of foreign diplomats, including that of the Jordanian ambassador to Libya, who had been kidnapped last week in Tripoli, observed the Dubai-based daily Al Bayan in an editorial.
“Since Qaddafi’s fall in 2011, diplomatic missions in Libya have been the targets of repeated assaults,” the paper said.
In January last year, armed militants kidnapped five Egyptian diplomats and released them two days later. Last March, a member of the Tunisian Embassy’s staff in Tripoli was abducted and his fate remains unknown.
“The state’s inability to enforce the law signals dark days ahead where chaos will become law in Libya,” Al Bayan added.
What is more alarming is that the perpetrators don’t make much effort to conceal themselves. They are armed extremist groups that operate in the open. They are well-known to security agencies that won’t restrain them.
Government officials in Libya must share the blame for the disarray that threatens to tear Libya apart. “They have yet to admit that they are overwhelmed,” said the paper.
Libya’s military, political and economic difficulties are growing at an alarming rate, and so is an extremist Islamist force that may prove to be the biggest and most dangerous the world has ever seen after Afghanistan, warned Jalloul.
rmakarem@thenational.ae
