Revolution Finally Comes to the Arab World
By Dr Ghulam M. Haniff
St Cloud, Minnesota
For the first time in the history of the Arabs, people are doing something innovative, something novel, and that is, they are standing up to their tyrannical rulers. It has taken them six hundred years to do so. Fear against the crazy man Qaddafi of Libya, the wily Bashar Al-Asad of Syria, and double-dealing Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has disappeared.
Now they know for a fact that every Arab ruler is a crook, blindly stealing public funds. The ordinary citizen of every Arab country knows that their rulers go night-clubbing while in Europe and visit brothels and casinos routinely.
Time Magazine reported some time ago that the former King Fahd of Saudi Arabia dropped one million dollars in one evening at the Monaco casinos. Soon afterwards he gave himself the title "the Custodian of two Holy Mosques and Two Holy Cities." For that he was revered by countless millions in the Muslim World.
Every Arab leader is a combination of Saddam Hussein, and his cruelties, as well as Muammar Qaddafi, and his craziness. They never tire of bombings and killings in order to stay on their thrones forever.
In his final days Saddam Hussein was on the run, traveling by night, hiding in a spider-hole before getting caught. Qaddafi is doing the same thing, moving from tent to tent.
Sins of dictatorship are catching up with the three Abdullahs ( Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco) and Hamad Al-Khalifa of Bahrain. They want to make the uprisings into a Shi'a-Sunni battle, and further tarnish the name of Islam. Their strategy is to create factions in Islam, to promote the looting of the national treasury and to make their illegitimacy into legitimate power.
Unfortunately, the kings and princes are seen as "exemplary Islamic leaders" by the ignorant masses of the entire Muslim World, particularly in South Asia. In parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan the sheikhs are held in awe.
Colonel Qaddafi vowed the slaughter of the people of Benghazi "without pity and would show no mercy" until the bombs fell from the sky. Now his talk of bravado is for naught, as he hides in a different tent each night, and uses the civilians to shield himself.
The killings of their subjects will continue, perhaps for a long time, until the billions squirreled away in foreign banks are exhausted. The royal family of Bahrain, it is rumored, will soon find themselves in London and perhaps, other rulers as well. Their sidekicks are busily looking around for "green cards" to make the one way trip to America.
The oil revenue could have given the Arab World first class universities and a technological economy beyond anyone's imagination. But the greed of the rulers came in the way to hold them back like no others since the time of Mu'awiya.
No wonder the Muslims continue to hug the bottom in socio-economic achievements while China, India, Thailand and other Asian nations gallop ahead setting one record after another.
When the Third World was planning its move forward rulers like Saddam, Hosni and Muammar, and others, were cultivating their dynasties. Some Arab monarchies are still doing that as the world collapses around them. Saddam and his sons were given the treatment that many revolutionaries wished for, and others are likely to get that as well.
The time for the autocratic rulers is gone forever. A nation belongs to the people who live in those stretches of land and try to make them productive. It is for them to decide the future course of those sovereign lands.
The royalties of the Gulf enjoyed the Arabian Nights life-style and many still do. But the time has come for them to pay their dues. The state treasuries will soon be taken away from them by their people. (However, they have locked away enough to suffice for two lifetimes).
The demand for "representative governments" is becoming ever more powerful. They can never be kept quiet by the weapons so generously supplied by the West. The fear created for generations has vanished. People have finally stood up on their feet and are ready to wage jihad for their freedom.
According to the Greek philosopher, Plato (427-347 BC), "the people always have some champion who they set over themselves and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." People are now learning from their colossal mistakes of yesteryear. No more protectors.
The tyrant who imposes himself by the force of arms is going to come up for a hard fall just like Hosni Mubarak and Zine Ali.
