Zowel Arabieren als westerlingen houden corrupte regimes in stand [Archief]

IbnRushd

02-02-10, 22:43

Zowel Arabieren als westerlingen houden corrupte regimes in stand

RAMALLAH, 2 februari 2010 (IPS) - Als Afrikaanse, Latijns-Amerikaanse en Aziatische dictaturen democratischer kunnen worden, waarom lukt dat in het Midden-Oosten dan niet? Het ligt aan de corrupte leiders, zegt het Westen. Het ligt aan de westerse steun, zeggen Arabieren. Het probleem is dat ze beide gelijk hebben.

Wapendeals met Saoedische prinsen, geld voor Egyptische machthebbers – de dictaturen kunnen alleen maar in het zadel blijven door de volledige steun die ze krijgen van Europa en de VS. Het is dus hypocriet om over democratisering te praten, zeggen veel Arabieren. Kijk naar Gaza. Hamas kreeg ooit zelfs steun uit Israël, als tegenwicht tegen de PLO, maar sinds de militante beweging door middel van vrije verkiezingen aan de macht kwam, wordt het door het Westen geboycot.

Korte termijn

"Het Westen weet heel goed dat de Arabische regimes die het steunt, ondemocratisch zijn en mensenrechten schenden", zegt Samir Awad van de universiteit in Birzeit, in de buurt van Ramallah. "Maar westerse regeringen zijn niet geïnteresseerd in de lange termijn. Ze willen het probleem indammen, omdat ze weten dat hun termijn kort is en dat ze het beter naar hun opvolgers kunnen doorschuiven."

Bovendien komt het geopolitiek gezien heel goed uit om trouwe, plooibare regimes aan de macht te hebben. Er is in de regio veel olie en gas te vinden. Daarnaast is er een oprechte angst voor islamitische fundamentalisten die de macht kunnen grijpen en alle vrijheden nog verder kunnen beknotten.

Politieke wil

Toch is het te makkelijk om alle schuld op het Westen te schuiven, vindt Awad. De Arabische regeringen en de elite hebben zelf niet de politieke wil om te veranderen. "Het Westen zou ze echt niet uithongeren als ze democratischer zouden worden. Dat is in veel landen in Latijns-Amerika en Afrika ook niet gebeurd."

Professor Moshe Maoz van de Hebreeuwse Universiteit in Jeruzalem is het daarmee eens. "De angst van Amerika voor fundamentalistische regimes is legitiem. Bovendien gaan de Arabieren zelf niet de straat op tegen hun regering. Ze zijn meer bezorgd om basisvoorzieningen, zoals banen en voedsel." En daarom strooit bijvoorbeeld de Egyptische regering met voedselsubsidies en overheidsbaantjes.

Voor hervorming is wel steun nodig van het Westen, zegt Awad. Dat kan door eisen te stellen aan de ontwikkelingshulp, en door democratisch gekozen islamitische regeringen een kans te geven. "In Indonesië, Turkije en Senegal kan het ook. Het zou logisch zijn om meer gematigde islamitische regeringen een kans te geven om zichzelf te bewijzen." Als zij toch dictaturen zouden worden, zou dit vanzelf hun publieke legitimiteit ondermijnen, aldus de Palestijnse academicus.

Auteur: Mel Frykberg

Bron: mo.be

ronald

03-02-10, 00:40

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2318.htm

The following are excerpts from a TV debate on the topic of Arab rulers and peoples, between Muhammed Al-Khodhari, director of the Centre for New Security Studies, and Moncef Al-Marzouki, a Paris-based Tunisian human rights activist. The debate aired on Al-Jazeera TV on December 1, 2009.

Muhammad Al-Khodhari: Within Five Years, the Arab Peoples Will Bow Down to the Ruler's Chauffeur, or His Barber

Al-Jazeera TV, December 1, 2009:

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "The Arab peoples have gone from being subservient to and humiliated by a totalitarian, tyrannical ruler, to being subservient to and humiliated by the ruler's son. As a strategic analyst, I believe that within five years, these peoples will bow down to the ruler's chauffeur. I swear that within a decade, they will cheer the ruler's barber, and obey his orders."

Interviewer: "Dear God."

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "Yes. These peoples..."

Interviewer: "It might be the ruler's chef, you can never know."

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "These dead peoples, which know no shame, and which have become addicted to slavery, conceal all the signs of their humiliation, death, and submission, and shield themselves with the Palestinian cause, and the living, courageous, and heroic Palestinian people. However, I believe that if the Arab peoples turned their backs on the Palestinian cause... The heroic Palestinians must not seek the help of slaves..."

Interviewer: "Who do you mean by 'slaves?'"

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "Most of the Arab peoples."

Interviewer: "Slaves?"

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "Yes. If you have nothing – you have nothing to give."

[...]

Moncef Al-Marzouki: "Let me give you a simple example, my dear sir. I was a first-year medical student in France in the late 1960s, and I witnessed the May 1968 rebellion there. For a whole month, there were endless demonstrations in all the cities of France, and extremely violent confrontations between the police and...

"Not a single Frenchman was killed throughout that month, whereas in Arab countries – what happened in the Rif uprising in 1958 [in Morocco]? They sprayed them with bullets from airplanes. What happened in Hama [in Syria]? 20,000 dead. What happened in Egypt? What happened in Tunisia? They sprayed them with machine-guns. And the list goes on.

"All this is in addition to the concentration camps of Tadmor, Tazmamart, Abu Ghureib, and Abu Salim. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands who were imprisoned, who were tortured, and whose honor was violated. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people forced into exile."[...]
Moncef Al-Marzouki: "These Terrorist States Employ Unimaginable Oppression and Terrorism Against Their Own Peoples"

Moncef Al-Marzouki: "Nowhere in the world is there a law like Law 49 in Syria. This law sentences people to death merely for belonging to a political group, regardless of whether they did anything. Before coming here, I looked into the history of Nazism and of Communism, and I did not find such a law. These are terrorist states, which employ unimaginable oppression and terrorism against their own peoples. They treat their peoples as if they were flies that must be sprayed with pesticide.

[...]

"I challenge any Syrian, Tunisian, or Egyptian to calculate how many people were killed under foreign occupation in the Colonialist era, and how many were tortured or deported, and compare it to the 'domestic occupation' by the regimes. He will discover that the Syrians suffered from their domestic occupation ten times more than from Colonialism, that the Tunisians suffered from domestic occupation 10 times or 1,000 times more, and the same goes for the Moroccans, and so on. That is the situation. These peoples have become fair game for the false, oppressive, and corrupt regimes.

"Today, they live under the shadow of those regimes, which have taken over our army, our police, and our judiciary system. They have exploited the state, privatized it, and used it to violate our honor. And now you come and say that the peoples are responsible for this. Who brought these peoples to such a degree of death, subjugation, cowardice, and hypocrisy? Were they born like that? No, they weren't. They were brought to this state by the criminal, terrorist policies of the regimes. It has nothing to do with the peoples themselves.

[...]

"If we compare these wretched peoples with all the peoples that were subject to dictatorship... Did the peoples under Stalin, Hitler, or Mussolini revolt? What brought about the change in Spain? The demonstrations of the Spanish people? It came from within the regime. All the peoples living under terrorist governments – and I mean 'terrorist' in the full sense of the word – suffered the same way the Arab peoples are suffering today. If we drew comparison between our peoples and all the other peoples, we would find no difference whatsoever.

"There is another issue. There are two good things I would like to tell the Arab peoples: [One is] that they are no different from other peoples under dictatorships, and the second is that they lie when they say that you are not fighting this. Since the inception of the dictatorial Arab regimes, they have been filling up the prisons. How come? The prisons are full because there is a resistance. Since the first day of the dictatorship in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Algeria, they have been encountering problems and difficulties... Let me finish, please..."

Muhammed Al-Khodhari: "Go ahead."

Moncef Al-Marzouki: "The 1958 rebellion in Morocco and the 1984 bread riots in Tunisia – were they not popular uprisings? The many bread uprisings in Egypt – were they not popular rebellions? In Hama – wasn't that a popular uprising? All these rebellions are the most prominent aspect of the resistance, but the true resistance is measured not merely by the number of demonstrations, but by many things – by the work of NGOs, by the number of journalists in prison, and the number of peoples in exile. The resistance never ceased to exist."

[...]

"The Arab world today is in a state of rebellion. That is what people do not realize."

Interviewer: "A rebellion?"

Moncef Al-Marzouki: "Yes, an armed rebellion is taking place in several places. There was an armed rebellion in Algeria, and today, there is an armed rebellion in Yemen. There are several armed rebellions. There is civil rebellion and a popular resistance that never ceased, and assumes different forms. It is progressing step by step, and these despicable regimes are on the verge of collapse."