Demonstrations Continue

Over the past week, democratic revolutions in Libya, Yemen, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, have intensified.

The tragedy is that only two Arab states, Tunisia and Egypt, get to fulfill their revolutions, the rest failing. The main reason for this failure is that the protesters wanted to effect, in each case, a coup d'etat.

When the authorities moved against them, the demonstrators increased their demands. Democrats in Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Algeria, and Morocco shifted from demands for constitutional change, to the resignation of the head-of-state, his ministers and advisers, and all police and army chiefs.

Egypt and Tunisia are going through this process: the government people are out, the secret police taken apart, with a new one to take its place. The Tunisians also have taken apart their mukhabarat.

As we write, forces loyal to Saif Al Qaddafi are preparing to break into Benghazi. Qaddafi's jets are overhead, his gunboats lurking off the coasts, and his army has been able to move tanks, APCs and trucks along the coast road from Tripoli and from Sirt. The world says, basically, 'curtains...' And curtains do fall.

Yes, genocide usually happens in the dark, with no publicity. As Qaddafi's goons go house to house, pulling out anyone who looks suspicious, we need keep in mind those many hundreds imprisoned in Qaddafi's underground prisons. The prisons do not have enough space, so they cram four-to-five protesters into a cell too small for a single person.

Yemen is on the ropes. Demonstrations as large as one hundred thousand, remain camped out at the university. These protests spread, so we note demonstrators in the Tihama and Hadramaut. President Saleh has offered to step down in 2013, but the protesters want him out now.

One reason protesters' demands are increasing, is that the back of the rally is coming to the front. Popular demonstrations have a front, made up by ordinary educated secular democrats, and a back, composed on manipulators and secret operatives. When stymied, the back go the front and the front to the back of the crow.

The Bahraini protesters kept emphasizing at the beginning that the cause had nothing to do with Shi'a-Sunni differences and disparities. The government under Hamid Al Khalifa offers to talk and listen, but inside parliament. This only angered the protesters. Now they want the removal of the Al Khalifa family. Saudi Arabia sent a thousand officers across to the causeway to Bahrain (March 14). As soon as they were seen in Manama, they were attacked by protesters. Several protesters were killed. One policeman is also said to have died.

In Gaza we note that democrats protesting peacefully we violently attacked by HAMAS toughs, and broken up, dispersed. The next day, HAMAS leaders seem to welcome combining with the PA to create a new government of unity.

The collapse of the Libya democratic resistance, is still too gruesome to think about. The Europeans will not fight for their energy, so I do not expect a war.

-John Paul Maynard, Middle East specialist


For longer studies about Islam, Islamic land-use and -ownership, and national economies, please log on to: http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com