Everyone wants a piece of the revolution

Lama Bashour

Re-published with permission from Lama's Scrapbook

Before we get into this, I'd like to clarify two things:

I am fully aware that the situation we are in is most likely the result of years and years of bad government policies and opportunistic behaviour by a select few.

I am even more aware that I will probably never make an impact in the real world, because my ideals are too extreme and frustratingly impractical.

Fortunately for me, and maybe unfortunately for you, technology has given me this platform to let my voice be heard, if only by a small number of people. I know that a lot of us are still high on the domino effect of democracy that started with Mohamed Bouazizi's desperate act of giving up on his country. Yet, we are struggling to find our own path, some of us asking for reform, others for a secular government. I am not quite sure, however, if we are just riding the wave of revolution or if there is a genuine desire (I had argued in an earlier post that I don't believe there is a real need) for change. Are we certain that we don't just want the desire to change, instead of change itself?

I look around me and all I see are individuals who are part of the system they want to change, benefiting from it and sometimes bending the rules when it suits their purpose. I see people demanding of their government economic reform, and asking it for more jobs for their followers. I see people lobbying for a secular government, claiming it's the other sect that is preventing it. I see people insisting on anti-corruption laws, and requesting a relative to make sure that their government application is processed quickly. And of course, time and time again, I see people ignoring others - in a queue, crossing the street, driving a car - as if they were not members of the same community they are seeking a better future with. I see you, because I am you.

The thing is, we can't ask for change, if we are unwilling to make it ourselves. So if any of us are serious about this revolution or whatever you want to call it, let's all take a long look at ourselves, and if we can't find anything worth improving, then we're not looking hard enough. And if what needs to be improved requires too much of a sacrifice, then we're not ready for it. And if we don't look at every single mistake, not just the ones that inconvenience us, as unacceptable, then we may never be.

You can join all the Facebook groups you want and retweet every piece of news you read, but the barrier of fear that was broken in Tunisia and Egypt is not the same as ours. Ours is much more difficult to overcome, because the enemy we fear is in us.

Egypt & Jordan: Where Strikes Fail

Picture Galley: Courtesy of http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/

In some countries, Jordan and Egypt for example, the only way to make a strike succeed is for the State to call for it. Imagine a State calling its workers and citizens to protest against the rise or prices of essential goods. It is conceivable wen the authorities decide to blame “Imperialism” for it.

In Cairo, on Sunday morning, correspondents there reported a “serious” police presence in the streets. A month ago, the relative success of the strike and the incidents of Mahalla where security forces clashed with protesters were followed by a vague of arrests against traditional and virtual activists. Security forces are catching up with creativity by arresting bloggers and facebook users who might be potentially dangerous.
Remember Esraa Abdel Fattah who has been detained for hours last month just because she was behind the facebook page calling for the 6^th of April strike. And remember how the Egyptian police arrested bloggers before even starting to arrest the hundreds of demonstrators. Bloggers in Egypt seem to be perceived as a potential threat to National Security, that’s what I understand from the official Egyptian reaction.

Apparently the preventive actions against activists are the right weapon in the hands of our local tyrants.
In Jordan, on the evening of Sunday’s strike, three members of the Jordanian Left Social Movement were arrested for distributing pamphlets calling citizens to be part of the strike that will only last till 11 a.m. One more detail left, the Jordanian authorities denied arresting anyone… Classical!
Meanwhile, correspondents in Jordan say that facebook has been a tool widely used to diffuse the call for the strike. I am sure it’s a matter of time before facebookers and bloggers in Jordan become officially a National Security threat.

The outcome of these two strikes was practically a failure related partly to intimidation, but also to a lack of a political culture practiced within healthy and democratic multiparty system.
No wonder why the ruling parties in the Arab World are generally the only ones capable of mobilizing on demand. We pay the price in Fundamental, Civil, and Political Liberties for them to stay in power in the name of stablility and security.

The choice of the 4^th of May for the Egyptian strike was not a coincidence; it was the 80^th birthday of Egyptian President Hosni Mobarak. Today he can sit back and relax, he had a happy one!

According to all the international reports, food and prices crisis is a part of a global economic crisis settling down surely with no real international solutions for it, just alarming reports. So we will have to expect more demonstrations and movements related to that matter in the near future. That will hopefully give the oppositions in Arab Countries more chances to mobilize.

Incidentally, a demonstration under the same slogan is planned in Beirut on the 7^th of may, but the Clausewitzean style might be the best way of describing it before it even happens: It will just be the continuation of the struggle between the '8^th' and '14^th of March' fronts by other means.