Sunday 27 February 2011

Make Way, the Arabs are coming


We humans are a curious bunch and it is this curiosity that allowed us to document our every endeavor. Every now and then events happen which we deem monumental to our existence, choosing their final resting place to be among the pages of our cherished history books.

At times the world seems to move in the same cycle, uttering the same words and displaying the same images year after year.

This is not one of those times.

This is a time when intense events are unfolding at a speed that has flung the Arab world spiraling out of its hamster wheel.

The Arab nation had been abused and forced to keep this corrupt wheel turning for far too long. For decades it lay comatose and suddenly its eyes opened. Its people have been pushed to limits that no human should have to endure, limits that made death seem a better option than the world they live in.  Basic human rights have become a luxury that only a few could boast about. Even dreams of a better life were murdered by the realities of government corruption that seeped to the very core of their societies. The only dream that is packaged and sold to ambitious folks around the world is the American one, an Arab version does not exist.

Political debates and arguments are now taking place in every living room and coffee shop around the Middle East. Some proud of the revolutions snow-balling through the Arab world, others hesitant, fearful of embracing them, programmed to believe that no good can come from any Arab decision. The discussions are always political, yet if we peel away the layers of criticism and attempts at the rationalization of events, we will see that this revolution is not about politics at all. It is about the citizens of countries that without them would seize to exist. It is about the every day people who make the world go around.

This revolution started with a single spark that ignited Mohamed Bouazizi’s body in the middle of a dusty Tunisian street. Bouazizi was not a politician. He never dreamed of his death as being a tool in any political agenda’s toolbox. He did not imagine that the burns on a street vendor’s body could raise the prices of oil or impact the economy. He was just a young man who wasn’t even allowed to dream of a better tomorrow.

What shocked the world was that the people who related to Bouazizi’s desperation came out in the millions. Millions of people chose to face death rather than go back to their hopeless lives. They chose to walk bare-chested under a sky raining bullets rather than endure the blatant disregard of their humanity. They were willing to make that sacrifice because they knew that the road to freedom is soaked in gallons of blood yet the destination is worth every drop.

They are being sniped from the rooftops, driven over by cars, bombed from fighter jets, and massacred by the very images that hung framed over their desks as they worked day in and day out. Presidents who when tested have excelled at failing. Living in complete denial until the very end, holding on to the last splinter of the chair that once kept them high above the rest. Refusing to bow down to the wishes of the world, deaf to the cries of rejection and willing to sacrifice more innocent souls for their egos to remain intact. Thirty years are not enough, forty years, still not enough, for power is a beast that grows within man feeding on everything in its path.

This contagious revolution will eventually find its way to our history books as being the era when the Arab political face was reconstructed by its people. When political alliances were revealed to be nothing but false promises and misplaced trust. When tyrants fell in slow-motion as the world watched. This time will be remembered as the moment when the idea of an Arab dream was conceived. 



This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 27th Feb, 2011.


Friday 18 February 2011

Egypt spoke, the world listened

On January 25th, 2011, we heard that a group of young Egyptians have started a protest against their government. Slowly but surely and along the duration of the day more and more people found their feelings resonating in the voices of these youngsters. By the end of that fateful day the protest had morphed into an escalating revolution from which the Egyptian people never looked back.

As the world witnessed the bravery of every man, woman and child in the now world-famous Tahrir Square we were unconsciously attending a lesson in life taught to us by the people of Egypt. We watched attentively and listened carefully to every news piece or image we could get our hands on. And when it was all over and our eyes welled up at the sheer joy emanating from the centre of Cairo on February 11th, 2011, the world learned the greatest lesson in modern history.

The political world learned that its ship could in fact be steered by the people. Aspiring dictators learned to keep looking over their shoulders. Current dictators learned that their delusions of grandeur are indeed just that. Citizens of every nation learned that peaceful protests could indeed be fruitful. The world learned that there is power in numbers. And the lesson we are indebted to Egypt for, our future generations learned that in the face of oppression silence is never golden.

Egypt has always been the school where Arab nations went in search of knowledge and inspiration. Today and in only eighteen days Egypt schooled the entire modern world on the true meaning of freedom and solidarity. Egypt will continue to give as long as it speaks with the voice of its courageous people who will continue to inspire as they keep fighting for a better tomorrow. 

This comment was published in Panorama magazine on 18th February, 2011.

A young man turned war reporter asks…

A young man turned war reporter asks; why should he continue to bare witness to the atrocities  around him when half the world refuses to li...