By Sarah Price
Guest Writer
The Independent Monitor, March 2011
The January 2011 uprising in Tunisia and removal of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali opened the door to citizen self-empowerment across the Middle East. But before the eruptions of the current revolts in Libya, Iraq, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen, Egypt led the way with its example of peaceful protests winning over violent government reactions.
Protests in support of the Egyptian people spread quickly across the world, largely being organized the same way: not by organized religious or idealogical groups, but by individuals, drawing people of all backgrounds together for a united cause, utilizing the fastest and most widespread forms of global communication: Facebook and Twitter.
Organizers of the February 5 protest at the Federal Building on Wilshire Blvd, Mohamed Kolkela, Amr Elshennawy, and Tamer Abdelrahim live in Los Angeles, but are all native Egyptians, and unaffiliated with any group, used the same methods to bring several hundred people together to voice their support.
Kolkela is from Mahalla El Kobra and has been in the United States for nine years.
“We can’t guarantee the result,” he said. “The people’s movement is the important part. They know they will lose their lives. They have no problem with that. If [Mubarak] stays, it will be chaos. When you kill the hope, you can’t get it back.”
Supporter Mazen Al Moukdad is from Syria, and has lived in the US for 32 years, and knew that the toppling of Mubarak was imminent and unavoidable.
“It’s a matter of time,” he said. “The revolution is going peacefully. The people organizing the protest have no desire for bloodshed. They speak for 85 million Egyptians. They will do whatever it takes. This corruption has been happening for 30 years. My prediction is he will be out by next Friday (February 11 – the day Mubarak did step down). I had a good feeling this was coming. It was a matter of time.”
He added that family and friends in Syria had suggested that there were similar stirrings happening there, and that there were issues beyond the obvious oppression in Egypt that needed to be addressed.
“There are more Egyptian doctors in the US than in Egypt,” he said. “It’s draining the resources, when you create intellectuals and they leave the country. But they had no option but to leave. [Mubarak] doesn’t care. That’s the problem.”
Addressing the crowd, Sarah Knopp, an American supporter from the International Socialist Organization, said, “We have a responsibility to get the boot of our government off the necks of the oppressed people around the world. We don’t just want [Mubarak] to go, we want him to give the money back to the Egyptian people, that he stole from them.”
Within hours of his resignation, the Swiss government moved to freeze any funds and assets in their banks that may belong to him or his family.
“Thank you to the Egyptian people,” Knopp said, “for setting the example of peace to the rest of the world.”
Unfortunately, the peaceful protests in Bahrain and Libya, in particular, have been met with extreme violence from police and military units. Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi, proclaiming that he is not going anywhere, has asserted his authority by claiming he would crush those opposing him, and has followed through on his threat by using warplanes and helicopters to fire on his own people. Soldiers who have refused to kill the protesters have been killed themselves.
In Bahrain, authorities unleashed a brutal attack on sleeping protesters in Manama’s Pearl Square, using live rounds and tear-gas canisters, killing two and injuring more than four dozen, including children.
In Sana’a, Yemen, protesters demanding the immediate resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh have been energized by the attacks on them, making them more resolute to remove Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years, and had previously announced that he would not run again when his term ended in 2013. On February 23, seven members of parliament resigned in protest of the government’s violence against the demonstrators.
Currently in Iraq, protesters are taking to the streets in cities across the country to protest the lack of leadership and action, and continued corruption in the government. They want this parliament thrown out and an actual democratic election to follow – one with leaders they can hold accountable, and whom they can believe have their best interests at heart. Several large protests are planned, despite numerous deaths and injuries at previous protests.
In Iran, despite government-voiced support for the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, days after Mubarak’s ousting, protesters in Tehran’s Enghelab (Revolution) Square were fired upon by police, and motorcycle police were reported to be chasing protesters through the streets. Later, the announcement of further protests caused the government to shut down phone service. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had even taken credit for the peaceful protests in Egypt, claiming the Egyptians were taking their inspiration from the 2009 demonstrations in Tehran. Demonstrators at that time were protesting what they believed was a corrupted election, leaving him in power. The activists were met with violence during the demonstrations and even imprisonment and torture after they had left, as police would go into their homes to arrest them.
This year’s widespread protests have been compared to the Eastern European revolutions of 1989/90, but it remains to be seen where these uprisings will lead. Despite the seeming victories of the activism in Tunisia and Egypt, and the resoluteness of the protesters across the Middle East, there is an aftermath that has to be dealt with – holding elections whose outcomes citizens feel they can trust; building an economy based on a new form of government; and electing a government that can help a country hold its own in a changing national landscape and foreign policy. But for those who are putting themselves in the way of danger or even death to make a change, these new problems are far more desirable than one more day with the old ones.
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