Millions of Arabs, Persians, Kurds, and Africans in dozens of cities in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, among other countries, are out on the streets now (Friday, February 25, 2011, 9:28 am EST) demanding either regime change or reform. Although the vast majority are Muslim, they include a substantial number of Christians; some are non-believers. The protesters are majority Shia in Bahrain and Iraq, majority Kurdish in northern Iraq, and majority Tawariq in Southern Libya. People who are out are not only common young people, but also political parties, tribal leaders, clansmen, professionals, women, and even children.
This is a historic Friday in the memory of the region's people, but it might be remembered as a turning point in human civilization. The organic massive expression (though chants and posters) of revultion to despotism, nepotism, factionalism, tribalism, corruption, poverty, discrimination, and cronyism directed against people's own rulers never happened before in that part of the world. To be sure, Arabs and Muslims protested before, but these movements were either against foreign rule or were localized or limited to certain regions or religious or political segments. Today all factions, clans, tribes and regions are forced to submit to popular will so as not to appear outside the mainstream. In nearly all countries demonstrators are raising their own national flags and the independence era flag of Libya, whose people are now experiencing the wrath of their falling dictator.
The powers to be are failing miserably. The strangest of all current leaders is not Qaddafi, for despite his crazed, irrational behavior he proved to be consistent. When Libyans topple him and finish cleaning up their house, they will agonize on why they have let this oppressor stay in power for so long.
But the most bizzare of all rulers are the Iraqi leaders in Baghdad and major cities in Kurdistan. Al-Maliki called the demonstrations anti-democratic and suspicious. Although he asked people in a televised address not to partake in them, people are coming out in Shia, Sunni and Kurdish areas. The security forces of the two ruling Kurdish patrons, Talibani and Barazani, are shooting at their own ethnic cohorts. The demands in Iraq do not include regime change; only an end to corruption, nepotism and the mishandling of the economy.
Iraq shows that transition to democracy is messy, but more importantly, it is about a cultural change that goes beyond the theatrics of public mobilization or the process of voting for a group of leaders. Young Iraqis are out on the streets not because they didn't vote, but because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from challenging governments whose leaders live by standards unknown to them. Until recently al-Maliki was paid $360,000 per year--a pay rate familiar only to the American advisors who helped in bringing him to power. A few weeks ago, he realized the unfairness of his pay rate and cut it in half. But by doing this he actually demonstrated to Iraqis who were unaware before, how their leader is so rich while they are becoming even poorer and less served than they were under their former dictator Saddam. Thus while other Arabs and Muslims are pressing political freedom, Iraqis have joined the revolution for economic freedom and justice.
Most people around the world are still watching Arabs and Muslims. The Western media, focused on power shifts, has underestimated the depth of the humane element of the rage of Arabs and Muslims. But it will only be time before the rest of the world wakes up to a new dawn in human civilization: People Power has finally broke out. It is no strange that the Arab masses are leading. They have been collectively passive, yet internalizing the lessons of unfair and inhumane relationships and conditions for 1350 years. It took western colonialism and post-colonial modern despotism to shock their political cultures into finally realizing that the true and harshest enemy is the one from within: the lack of human courage to connect with other human beings, including neighbors and relatives or others they used to suspect because they were different, in order to take the risk, the gamble, of facing off conditions, symbols and leaders of oppression and injustice.
Revolutions have always been hijacked. This is likely to either be fullfilled or Arab and Muslim societies will implode. But there is hope. The diverse elements that make the anti-dictatorship revolution only share values. They pick up lessons in organization and courage by watching one another, but each entity ultimately responds to its own conditions and specific ways of how to become free, equal and capable of enforcing a way of life where people live by their means, get the jobs they qualify for, enjoy the fruit of their labor or investment, and receive an equitable share of public cost and revenue.
Who is stopping them?: rulers who may preach some of these values but violate them in practice. What about the role of Islamists, tribal leaders and religious and ethnic minorities? These formations are offering values that now encourage people to go out to demand their basic rights. All these elements have realized that they can win only by allowing everyone else to win--fairly and squarely--for all are equal in the sight of God: they are all members of one human family. Whatever configuration of power to be had among them should be subservient, not oppresive, to all of them.
Yes, there will be smart and organized opportunists who will try to reach to the top on the shoulders of ordinary people. But thanks to education, the information revolution, and to rising common political culture, people will always come back to reassert their right to live under conditions of liberty and equity.
This is an event with interconnected episodes. The blood that is being spilled in the streets of Tripoli, Libya is making people outside Libya wonder why this country did not follow the same pattern of Tunisia and Egypt (whose revolts were much less bloody). The people outside Libya are reaching the conclusion that the concentration of power (which ultimately boils down to gunpower) in the hands of the few is a danger to their attempt to go to the promised land of freedom and justice if it does not submit culturally and institutionally to the grand idea of People Power. This is why the Tunisians are back to the streets in large crowds and both the Egyptians and Jordanians are raising their political demands. The Egyptians now want to depose the Mubarak era government and want Mubarak arrested and tried (This is not vengeance against an old man; it is the quest for justice in the face of revelations about the public funds he and his family members have been channeling to privat accounts in banks around the world). The Bahrainis and Jordanians (who are now demonstrating not only in the West Bank-majority Amman but also in the East Bank-majority Karak) are calling for constitutional changes that would curtail the despotic powers of their kings.
This is a long overdue transformation of the political cultures of Arab and Muslim peoples. They are not going back to old ways, they are actualizing for every member of the human family the true meaning of citizenship and political emancipation. To outsiders, elements of the unique cultures in every country and city may be apparent in the dress, prayers and foreign languages. But this is more reason to realize the universality of what is taking place. People are going out not to show their particularism; rather, they are using their particularism as a source of social energy to achieve what all people share: a stake in the configuration of power that frame their lives. In Benghazi today a local revolutionary council has been established to fuze tradition and modernity through the transcendant human spirit seeking to actualize the ultimate truth: that we, tribe members, doctors, street vendors, ethnics, religionists, intellectuals, women, and young people, are one.
This expression of People Power has clearly built on the best of human traditions of non-violence, human courage and dignity and truth-telling. This is a new wave not only for democracy but also for human civilization.
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