In early January this year a young unemployed Tunisian set himself on fire in public and died a few days later in order to show his bitterness at his personal circumstances. It now appears that he also lit the fires of revolutionary change in his country Tunisia, and across the entire North Africa and the Middle East. It took only two days of mass protests after his death in Tunisia for the President to flee the country. Since then, a new leader and cabinet have been installed after 23 years of the rule of President Ben Ali, and still Tunisians are demanding for more changes. The signs are that the Tunisian leadership will make more and more concessions until a democratic system which allows the Tunisian people to elect their own leaders under a liberal democratic constitution is firmly in place.
The fire that was lit in Tunisia quickly spread to Algeria, Jordan and Yemen. But by far the biggest flames are those which have been burning across the ancient land of Egypt for the last two weeks in full view of a global television audience. President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power for 31 years is being popularly and spontaneously challenged by the Egyptian people. The Egyptian people have impressed the world with their resolve, courage and contempt for a leadership which has taken its permanence for granted, and had never doubted for a moment that it can perpetuate itself in power as long as it pleases.
When the people of Cairo, and then citizens from other cities in Egypt poured out into the streets, they had only one demand: that President Mubarak must step down. Millions of young people, and Egyptians of all sexes and ages overcame their fear of a regime which had used State power to repress them for three decades, and defied the leadership and its police and its army and hired supporters. Many have died since the uprising started, and thousands have been injured and detained, yet they will not abandon their occupation of public places, marches across cities, or the single demand that President Mubarak must resign now. Even when the President offered to step down in September, and attempted to introduce some changes in the ruling Party and promised that his son will not succeed him, the people stood their ground. Even in the face of threats by the military to flush them out of the city centers, with cold and hunger and the constant threat of state-sponsored violence facing them, Egyptian people are still adamant that President Mubarak must go now. Negotiations with elements of the opposition have not yielded much either, since the popular, spontaneous uprising cannot be claimed or monopolized by Mubarak’s traditional opposition. As things stand now, majority of Egyptians appear bent on seeing the immediate end of Mubarak’s rule, and he in turn appears ready to stay in power and leave only on his terms. Either the protests will die down because the people are too tired, too hungry or too weak to continue, or President Mubarak will eventually yield to the popular demand to go now. In the meantime, many regimes like Mubarak’s in Egypt are reading the writings on the wall, and will attempt to put in place cosmetic political changes, which however, will not work.
Whichever way the uprising in Egypt is resolved, it would have set the stage for an irreversible political change in the largest Arab country in the world. Mubarak’s days are numbered, whether he leaves now or in September. Egyptians will never tolerate another dictatorship and a repressive regime such as Mubarak’s. No one can be certain of what political forces will take over Egypt, but the nature of the popular uprising of the people today will suggest that whoever governs Egypt in future will have to do so with the genuine mandate of the Egyptian people.
Across the entire Arab world, politics will change radically. Arab people have been repressed for too long by leaders who are supported by the Western powers to guarantee political stability in the Middle East at the expense of real democracy for the people. Arab people have been sacrificed, and dictators, many of them barely alive, have been allowed to rule them for decades under the dubious claim that Arabs cannot operate democratic systems. The cost for guaranteed Middle East oil and security for Israel was the right of Arab people to live, like all other people, under democratic systems. Now the Western powers are unsure over what to do. Ordinary citizens have demanded that their repressive and corrupt leaders step down. Many of these leaders have built up long-standing personal and strategic relationships with the US and its allies, which has also supported them through their main structures, which is their military. Major re-thinking is going on in Western capitals over a future Middle East without aging dictators, and a nations of people free to express themselves under democratic systems.
History is being made by ordinary men and women in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Yemen. These changes will spread to Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria and many other Arab countries. There are also many non-Arab African countries where elections are routinely-rigged, or widely disputed. The lessons from these fundamental changes taking place are many; but the most profound is that leaders who take their own people for granted will pay a price, sooner or later. For us in Nigeria, what is happening in Egypt and neighboring countries is a reminder that the April elections must be absolutely credible, free and fair. This is the only guarantee that our people will not rise up in anger as we are witnessing in neighboring Arab and Middle Eastern countries. We can do this, and we must do it!
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