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Five causes of Arab insurgency

Ignacio Ramonet

What are the causes of the wind of freedom, from Morocco to Bahrain, via Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, blowing over the Arab world? Reasons why these simultaneous yearning for democracy are expressed now? to these two questions, the answers are varied: historical, political, economic, and social climate.

1. Historical. Since the end of World War and the implosion of the Ottoman Empire, the interest of Western powers in the Arab world (Middle East and North Africa) has had two major incentives: to control the oil and ensure a Jewish national home. After the Second World War and the universal trauma of the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, in 1948, had its counterpart came to power in several Arab states freed from colonialism, Zionist forces (as opposed to the existence of Israel) : type "military nationalist" in Egypt and Yemen, or character "Arab socialist" in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Algeria.

lost three wars against Israel (1956, 1967 and 1973) led to Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with the Jewish state and alignment with United States-controlled and in the context of the Cold War, all the oil kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula and the Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco. Thus, Washington and its Western allies kept their two main objectives: control of oil and the security of Israel. In return, they protected the permanence of vicious tyrants (Hassan II, General Mubarak, General Ben Ali, the Saudi king Faisal, Fahd and Abdullah, etc.) And sacrificed any democratic aspirations of societies.

2. Policy. In States alleged "Arab socialism" (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Algeria), under the convenient pretext of "anti-imperialist struggle" and "hunting Communists" were also established one-party dictatorships, ruled with iron hand anthology despots (Saddam Hussein, Al Assad father and son, and Muammar al-Gaddafi, the most insane of them.) Dictatorships that guaranteed, moreover, the supply of hydrocarbons from Western powers and not actual threat to Israel (when Iraq seemed to do was destroyed). Thus, on Arab citizens dropped a slab of silence and terror.

The waves of democratization taking place in the world. Disappeared in the 1970's, dictatorships in Portugal, Spain and Greece. In 1983, Turkey. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and the "real socialism" in Eastern Europe. Latin American military dictatorships fell in 1990. Meanwhile, a few kilometers from the European Union, with the complicity of Western powers (including Spain), the Arab world remained autocratic state of glaciation.

By not afford any form of critical expression, the protest was located in the only venue not banned, the mosque. And about the only book not objectionable, the Koran. This was to strengthen the Islamists. The most reactionary was released by Saudi Arabia with strong support from Washington who saw in it an argument to support the Arab peoples in the "submission" (meaning of the word 'Islam'). But it also emerged, especially after the "Islamic revolution" of 1979 in Iran, political Islam found in the verses of the Koran to seek justice arguments social and expose corruption, nepotism and tyranny.

Thus were born several more radical branches, ready to seize power by violence and holy war. " Thus was spawned Al Qaeda ... After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Western powers, with the complicity of "friendly dictatorship", they added a new reason to keep under tight control in Arab societies: the fear of Islam. Instead of understanding that this was the consequence of the lack of freedom and the absence of social justice, added more injustice, more despotic, more repression ...

3. Economic. Several Arab states suffered the impact of global crisis started in 2008. Many workers in these countries, immigrants in Europe, lost their jobs. The volume of remittances sent to families declined. The tourism industry withered. Oil prices (increasing in recent weeks because of the popular uprising in Libya) declined. Simultaneously, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, programs of privatization of public services, drastic reductions in state budgets, reducing the number of Officials ... To severe adjustment plans that worse, if possible, the lives of the poor and especially the situation threatened to undermine the urban middle classes (those with just access to your computer, mobile and social networks) throwing to poverty.

4. Climate. In this context, the already explosive, occurred last summer, an ecological disaster in a remote region of the Arab world. But the planet is one. For weeks, Russia, a major grain exporters in the world, experienced the worst heat wave and fire in its history. One-third of their wheat crop was destroyed. Moscow suspended the export of cereals (which are also used to feed livestock) whose prices rose by 45% immediately. This increase had an impact on food: bread, meat, milk, chicken ... Provoking, since December 2010, the largest increase in food prices since 1990. In the Arab world, a major importing regions such products, the protests against the high cost of living have multiplied ...

5. Social. Add to the above: a very young population and a monumental levels of unemployment. An inability to migrate because Europe has shielded its borders and established agreements for blatantly Arab autocracies take care of the dirty work to contain illegal migrants. Grabbing the best seats to the cliques of the most archaic dictatorships on the planet ...

was missing a spark to ignite the prairie. There were two. Both in Tunisia. First, on 17 December, the auto-fire immolación by Buazizi Mohamed, a fruit peddler, as a sign of condemnation of tyranny. And second, passed on by mobile phones, social networks (Facebook, Twitter), e-mail and channel Al-Jazeera, the revelations of WikiLeaks on the concrete reality of shameless mafia system established by the Ben Ali Trabelsi clan.

The role of social networks has been fundamental. Have allowed to cross the wall of fear: knowing in advance that tens of thousands of people are going to appear one day and one hour D H is a guarantee that one does not solo exposing isolated protest the repression of the system. Tunisian success of this strategy would swarm to convulse the entire Arab world.

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