Adel Jabbar (sociologist and essayist)
Quello che sta succedendo nel mondo arabo e in particolare in Tunisia e in Egitto, come in Yemen, Giordania, in Algeria, sta a dimostrare che è terminato un periodo nel quale quasi tutti i paesi arabi hanno convissuto con la paura. Hanno convissuto con la repressione, spesso feroce, con sistemi assolutamente autoritari, dittatoriali, dispotici, con una componente di corruzione molto evidente, con dei regimi che hanno escluso per anni buona parte della popolazione dalla partecipazione alla vita pubblica e politica, non solo impaurendo ma anche impoverendo. In conseguenza di tutto questo le manifestazioni di oggi sono caratterizzate da due elementi: da una parte la rivendicazione della libertà e dall'altra parte the demand for social justice and especially the demand for dignity.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall nell''89 the Arab world is left out of any dialectic of change, the events of today show that the climate of fear and terror is over and we face launching a new trial. What are the stages, goals, interpretations of public life is to be seen, but while these events give a very clear signal: the populations of Arab countries are no longer willing to bear or economic conditions or political conditions in which they lived years.
I use an image making clearer the conditions under which these people found themselves, namely that of a triangle, which has worked all these years of repression and as a fence of absolute despotism. A triangle composed, first, a wave of religious fundamentalism that was devoid of a design and clarity of a true interpretation of the needs and demands of the population, the other side by a system of secular governments, willing, familistic and often corrupt, as the third side then the interference of foreign powers that have supported the schemes, which will certainly support played a key role in facilitating the work of decades for long authoritarian and violent cliques. The foreign powers that have supported these schemes often remained silent about the violations of basic rights of the people.
Today, all these elements that have supported the regimes of the area are in crisis before that happened, the grassroots movements that have rebelled against their condition. Whether it is in Egyptian and Tunisian opposition parties said the official opposition, but often less than -decoration have been bypassed, but the opposition itself, the real one, the one that has lived for decades in una situazione di repressione quasi totale, è stata scavalcata da queste forze popolari che ora stanno rivendicando - pagando anche un alto prezzo- un accesso alla partecipazione politica e un nuovo ruolo dello stato come garante delle esigenze di larga parte della popolazione.
Quel triangolo su cui si basavano questi regimi è ora in frantumi: sia i regimi, sia gli stessi movimenti integralisti, sia le potenze straniere si trovano in forte difficoltà di fronte agli avvenimenti attuali. C'é da dire che questi movimenti non nascono dal nulla, non nascono come mera sollevazione spontanea per rivendicare il pane; stiamo parlando di popoli che have a long history, have a conscience and a sense of itself as many other peoples in the world, especially with a history of struggle for liberation from the yoke of colonial power. In some periods people have moved in terms of revolt, rebellion, though, being unarmed people without outside help, have often been suppressed in the blood. Many of the activists were tortured, imprisoned, exiled, but now it seems that the fear and repression are not sufficient to stem this flow of "revolutionary" claims of calling for the end of unpopular regimes, corruption, rot, to achieve social justice , freedom and dignity, showing an awareness policy very mature.
I think the crucial components of insecurity and lack of freedom of the citizens. Feeling persecuted (even at home) as a human person, has had a significant and important. Let us remember also that if in the '60s and 'these 70 states have had an economic path that has guaranteed income redistribution and the creation of a minimum of Welfare, now this has failed, many state-owned were privatized in fact, in many cases, bought up, "familizzate" by relatives of those who ran power, which in the eyes of the people is absolute dominance.
In repressive regimes so there are even places where people can meet, and often there are no spaces or references to the civil society organizations. This is why tools like Twitter, facebook, cell phones, text messages have become subsidies to exchange information, to know what is happening in different places, in different situations. Today, the electronic connections are very strong terms, are connections that bridge the gaps and even people away from places of power are able to connect, access information, acquire knowledge.
decades also seeing the evolution of a global civil society which is an exchange of languages, themes such as justice, freedom. In recent decades, these processes have become more rapid. The Al Jazeera television has become such a virtual place where people can participate in a series of containers recognize cultural and political rights, there are continuously played debates on sensitive and delicate that they appear completely different points of view. In the case of what happened in Tunisia, in fact, by mid-December, AJ has been censored when the regime has understood the importance of the capabilities of this television to follow the riots in different parts of the country, where the Tunisians are informed of their events and demonstrations of support from other Arab populations. During a broadcast a Tunisian national interviewed said that 70% of what has happened, the success of the revolt was made possible thanks to AJ , but not because AJ fostered or maintained, but because evidence, he showed that that occurred, while state television hid everything.
The dates of 14 and 25 January 2011 will be etched in the depth imagination of the Arab nations. Populations for many years are waiting to surrender to shake off a horrible heap of failures and defeats on all floors especially the perpetuation of Palestinian suffering and the plight delI'Iraq.
This revolution was born from below, without any external support, unlike of "color revolutions" supported by foreign powers. Events are non-functional power to any project large, medium or small, are manifestations of civil disobedience, unarmed, nonviolent and then this refutes the fact that anni si va sostenendo in Europa, che la società musulmana si identifica con la violenza. La seconda questione è che con queste manifestazioni non ci si muove per questioni religiose, per difendere chissà quale astratta sacralità, ma per difendere la dignità di quei cittadini. Sono manifestazioni povere, non hanno neanche molti striscioni, sono manifestazioni dove si scrivono cartelli a mano, dove le parole d'ordine sono la libertà, la dignità, la democrazia, no al dispotismo (Istibdad), no alla corruzione (Fasad). La forza di queste manifestazioni è che sono sostenute da esponenti dei ceti medi, dagli operai , dai contadini, by women, by men, the elderly and the young . They are popular movements, not particularly ideologicizzati.
These movements do not arise, as they say in Europe's political jargon, because we are the vanguards who foment, they drive. The avant-garde if there will be born from these movements, will be out of the people who actually participated. We must not overlook the presence of a certain political realities with roots, because these events are not born from nothing, we were in the past protests, riots and demands that represent references significant for activists today.
addition to the political forces in favor of a radical change there are groups that have many links with old and new colonial powers, there are characters that can be recycled, can claim a liberal language, can do openings of a certain kind, very moderate, with adjustments for front, but are awaiting the opportunity to enter the game and monitor its effects. Certain that the outside powers will try to find strategies to prevent, abort, crush, to the best of cases, finding a compromise for adjustments timidly liberal politically and economically. But I do not think that is sufficient to answer the needs of a society where about 60% of population is young, with very high levels of education, high expectations, other than their parents. It has to do with a new very large segment of the population that feels completely excluded, so the adjustments will not hold up long facade, but we will need radical reforms at both politically and economically, because people is tired of living in unacceptable conditions and accept servility as a recipe to go to a new progress.
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