Reply #42: When Dictators Shoot Back

[pinboy3niner]

Source: Newsweek

Gaddafi and Assad are unyielding and murderous. Has the Arab Spring turned into an Arab Hell?

Tahar Ben Jelloun


Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad agree on at least one point: Spring must be eliminated; the year should have just three seasons. The demand for dignity and freedom by those willing to die for those values—that is what they cannot bear, and strive to curb ruthlessly. Gaddafi and Assad are the same kind of people as Saddam Hussein. Like him, they can’t tolerate opposition, and answer it with weapons. Like him, they cling to their positions, which they occupy without legitimacy. Like him, they count on tribalism to fortify their power. Like him, they are afraid of justice. Like him, they are convinced they are right.


Because of these two men, what has been called the Arab Spring is in the process of clouding over and becoming more like an Arab hell.

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These revolts are not revolutions. They have been spontaneous, without leaders, without ideology, without any political party. They have been driven by a yearning to stop living in submission, to stop being denied human dignity. These obstinate rebellions will stop only with the departure of those who practice—and symbolize—repression, theft, corruption, and the exercise of absolute power.

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As for Libya, Gaddafi has no future. The day his mercenaries grow weary, he will fall. All negotiations for surrender have failed (South African President Jacob Zuma felt that the mediation of the African Union was “undermined” by NATO raids). There have been 10,000 deaths since the beginning of the uprising.


What does that matter, Gaddafi says to himself. He will leave Libya only by divine will, he has reportedly said. But divine will did not tell him to massacre his own people. That is why the U.N. Security Council voted on its “no-fly zone” resolution and why NATO intervenes daily. You don’t know Gaddafi if you think he’ll give in to international pressure and take the path of a negotiated exile. His pathology didn’t just appear today. He is a hunted man who does not understand that his people are clamoring mightily for his departure. He is convinced he is in the right, that he is a victim of the West and of elements of Al Qaeda. When you have been in power for 42 years, you forget what’s real; you think normality is whatever you decide it is. At no time has Gaddafi thought he is a dictator, even if he blithely confuses the immense resources of his country with his own wealth. He is not crazy; he is sick, and has been for a long time. As Philippe Gros, a researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, stated recently in Le Monde: “Unlike Milosevic, Gaddafi has nothing to negotiate other than his departure, which makes his abdication more uncertain.”

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Tahar Ben Jelloun is today's most significant Francophone Moroccan novelist and poet. His work straddles Arab cultures throughout the world, chronicling hopes and impasses, whether through the eyes of desperate immigrants (in his book Leaving Tangiers) or political prisoners (This Blinding Absence of Light).


http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/24/has-arab-spring-become-arab-hell.html