Egypt fallout: "Will Saudi Arabia be Next?"

There is the thinking along conventional lines that if Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fall, then so must Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The jury is out on Bahrain, although it does not look good for the Sunni monarchy. But Saudi Arabia? There is no question the Saudi government is a little more than nervous about the Shi'a-led protests in Bahrain. It is impossible to predict what the end result means to the Kingdom, but there is the odor of hope in the western media that Saudi Arabia will fall with the endless coverage of "Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?"

This leads me to wonder whether foreign policy analysts and so-called Middle East experts are being deliberately obtuse about Saudi Arabia's future. Since when do 465 people signing a Facebook Saudi "Day of Rage" page constitute a brewing revolution in a country of 16 million Saudis? It appears that most of the petitioners are non-Saudis with more than a few living outside the Kingdom. I am all for the democratic reforms they demand. However, will a thousand or even 465 people stage a demonstration in Riyadh on March 11 or March 20, or whatever day they decide, to vent their rage? Maybe, but the support from most Saudis is likely to be from the comfort of their homes while watching them on Al Jeezera.

Much is made of the couple dozen Saudi women staging a demonstration in Riyadh demanding the release of their men from custody because they have been charged with no crimes. Several dozen expatriate workers demonstrated in Makkah because they have not been paid. Legitimate grievances, sure. But are these public demonstrations out of the ordinary? No. Has anyone seen Saudi tribes gather in the desert for a meeting with an emir over water issues? I would not want to be on the receiving end of a finger wagging from a Bedouin tribal leader with an entire village standing behind him.

The west's argument that Saudi Arabia is poised to erupt in revolution is found in the reports about King Abdullah allocating an estimated $36 billion in social benefits to Saudis. The benefits will provide home loans, funding for NGOs, 15 percent fixed raises for government employees, scholarship money for Saudis studying abroad at their own expense and unemployment benefits.

News outlets ranging from Investment Watch to the Washington Post and the New York Times assert the money is simply to stave off protests with a Band-Aid. One BBC commentator likened the benefits to "bribery" to keep Saudis quiet.

One must wonder where these news organizations have been for the past five years. The Saudi government has been issuing these types of social welfare benefits annually since King Abdullah became the Kingdom's leader in 2005. Each year, usually in December, the Saudi government allocates massive funds to help Saudis keep pace with inflation, build more schools and universities, and send Saudis abroad for a western education. This year's announcement of providing unemployment benefits is not only new, but historic. Yet it is consistent with previous fund distribution schemes since 2005. This year's allocation occurred in February and not December because the King has been in Morocco for medical treatment.

It is convenient, if not lazy, to place the social benefits package in the context of the regional uprisings, but a look into the archives of any Saudi newspaper tells the story of consistent annual fund allocations for similar programs.

The Saudi government has been on a reform binge for five years, but its sometimes lethargic pace has little to do with the will of the government, but with some Saudis who have their own agenda. They have only their interests in mind, and government transparency and efforts to end corruption threaten those interests.

The true discontent among many Saudis is the lack of accountability for the rampant government corruption and the lack of transparency in how the government goes about its business. It botched the follow up to the 2005 municipal elections by not holding further voting, but I am not sure the average Saudi's interests truly lie in local elections.

There is no question now that Saudi Arabia needs to pick up the pace of reform. It cannot allow special interest groups in various government ministries to continue dragging their feet to implement programs ordered by the king. But the simplistic thinking that the Saudi government unleashed this huge sum of money to keep the Facebook revolutionaries at bay is laughable.

Sabria Jawhar in the Huffington Post. More Here.

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain.... : Will it lead to amalgamation of the Middle East into ONE NATION?

Revolutions are often exported; but sometimes imported too. As they know no national or international boundary they travel thick and fast.

The recent upsurge in the Arab world is something very unique. It is both a mixture of export and import. From Tunisia in the west to Bahrain in the east the revolutionary fervor has swept over half a dozen countries, with more coming under its spell. Though it is Tunisia, which took the lead and Egypt apparently imported from the former yet the truth is that it is the latter which is the epicenter of all the great political earthquake in the entire region. Egypt has the oldest, most organized, anti-West and anti-Israel, pro-people party called the Muslim Brotherhood with Islam as its ideology. This party was formed in 1928 and had branches in several countries. Since Egypt is the fountainhead of revolution it is attracting much more global attention.

Europe in late 18th and 19th centuries also witnessed such series of huge changes. The 1789 French Revolution was followed by two more series of big upheavals in 1830-31 and 1848. In those years a number of monarchs were overthrown but many such revolts ended in bloodbath.

Though it is England, which took the first step in the direction of democracy the credit for exporting the idea goes more to France. This notwithstanding the fact that the first French Revolution of 1789 achieved little and it was back to square minus one after 1792-93 when thousands of people were massacred in Reign of Terror. This dance macabre paved the way for the take over of Brigadier General Napoleon in 1798, who later declared himself as Emperor in 1804. As an Emperor he brought about some reforms, but by 1815 it was all over as he lost in the Battle of Waterloo and France was thrown back to history.

A series of revolts in 1831 and 1848 led to the downfall of many tyrants and paved the way for Unification of Germany and Italy. However, the real democracy, which the West boasts about, is only a 20th century phenomenon, when women too got voting rights. Incidentally France, which takes credit for the growth of democratic idea, gave voting right to women in 1945, that is, after the Allied power rescued it from the four year of German occupation on August 26, 1944.

Even the United States gave voting right to all the citizens, including the entire Black population, a few decades back. Yet the West talks too much about exporting this so-called democratic-liberalism even before implementing it in to on itself.

After the liberal democratic idea it was the turn of the Communism to take the world by storm. But a close scrutiny of Communist history would suggest something else. Though it spread far and wide it failed to bring about a series of revolution in the world as it is happening now or in Europe earlier in the history. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 no other country came under its influence. In contrast it led to the birth of anti-Communist Fascist and Nazi regimes in Italy and Germany.

Communism expanded only after the end of World War-II in 1945 when Soviet army occupied several East European countries and thrust its own regime on them. China was the first big country, where Communist Revolution took place on October 1, 1949, that is 32 years after Russia. This was followed a decade later by Cuba while Vietnam and Cambodia fought their way to become Communist countries in 1975. Communist North Korea is actually the result of three years of Korean War (1950-53) in which South got support of the United States and allies while North Korea of China.

The current series of revolts in Arab countries is likely to disturb the West and Israel more than any other countries. Unlike Europe, only one language is spoken in the entire stretch of about 22 countries. They are followers of the same religion, Islam, and almost same sect too. Suddenly the importance of Muslim Brotherhood as one single largest entity has emerged. Except Bahrain, where the majority is Shia and ruler Sunni, all the other Arab countries are predominantly Sunni. Yet these Sunni revolutionaries are getting the moral support from Shia Iran, which is perhaps the most worrying development for the West and Israel. 

Earlier European kingdoms were also predominantly Christian but there was strong sectarian divide. Almost all of them spoke different languages with nationalistic feeling very strong. Colonialism further contributed to its growth. The wave of nationalism led to the two World Wars, which caused the death of between five and six crore people the world over.

So while democratic revolutions in Europe created more differences among the European nations the changes in the Arab world tend to bridge the gap among the population spread over two continents––Africa and Asia. Any such development is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the West, which is now trying its level best to deal with the emerging situation.

A century ago Britain and France started the process of disintegrating the Ottoman Empire, which got completed in 1922. Over a hundred years later the process has started reversing. No western or Israeli intelligence agencies perhaps ever predicted that in matter of weeks things would turn upside down.

Soroor Ahmed in Newzfirst. More Here

The Arab world will not be the same again...!

The upheaval in the Arab World these days is the second attempt within half a century to bring down the treacherous Sykes-Picot regime imposed on the region after the First World War. It was a secret Anglo-French treaty to usurp, divide and rule the region. During the same period Britain had promised freedom to the Arabs, through the Sharif of Mecca, if they joined its war effort against the Ottoman State. The same power had promised Arab Palestine to the Jews if they too helped it out during that war.

As a result of that war, not only was the Ottoman Empire dismantled, caliphate finally extinguished, Arabs betrayed and enslaved, and Jews rewarded, but also a cruel dependency regime was imposed on the divided Arab World where ruthless local satraps presided over police states with full support of London and Paris. After the Second World War, the masters changed. Now Washington was the qibla of these local nawabs. Russians too enjoyed a small period in the sun during the 1950s and 1960s. The Arab defeat in 1967 slowly drove away the Russians and Washington became the sole beneficiary and benefactor of these regimes especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

West had in 1948 succeeded in implanting “Israel” at the meeting point of the eastern and western flanks of the Arab World, thereby cutting it into two disjointed parts. A clear Western policy was devised to keep the tiny Israel more powerful than all the Arab countries together. Denial of arms and nuclear power to the Arabs was a basic constituent of this western policy while Israel was allowed to acquire an arsenal of unprecedented proportions complete with nuclear power and nuclear warheads pointed towards all major Arab countries.

When Egypt tried in the mid-1950s to rebel against this arms embargo, it was threatened, humiliated and finally taught a lesson in June 1967. Slowly, Arab satraps accepted Israel too which had all-along dreamt of emerging as the major power of the Middle East and tried this most disastrously in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon. That fiasco may have put paid to the power of Fateh but it also led to the emergence of new powers like Hamas and Hizbullah which emerged and evolved firmly outside the satrap-master equation prevailing in the region.

Arab people had earlier, during the 1950s, tried to change this equation. “Revolutions” erupted in Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan etc., but somehow the local armies were able to replace the old satraps.

The current revolution which started in Tunisia and soon spread to Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Iraq, Algeria, Bahrain and Mauritania etc., is the second popular attempt to dislodge and break free of the Sykes-Picot shackles. Apart from Washington (and West), the only big loser today is a trembling Israel whose long labour to become the sole imperial power of the Middle East suddenly has come to a naught. The revolution is still unfinished. Washington seems to be maneuvering to replace the old faces with new ones. But a lot of water has flowed down the Nile and Euphrates these past decades. Arabs are no longer an illiterate and innocent lot. Once the current upheaval settles down, the Middle East will not be the same again.

Zafarul Islam Khan in The Milli Gazette. More Here.