Analysis by Cam McGrath
"CAIRO, Jan 18, 2011 (IPS) - "Break my heart but don’t come near my bread," goes an old Arabic proverb. Failure to observe it has often come at a high political price.
Just ask Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who has now fled....
The disgraced despot would have done well to recall the bread riots in 1984 that left some 80 Tunisians dead and almost unhinged the government of his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba. Similar protests erupted in Egypt in 1977, Morocco in 1981 and Jordan in 1989. And it was bread riots in 1988 that eventually brought Islamists to the verge of parliamentary control in Algeria – a situation that led to a decade-long civil war.....
Bouazizi’s self-immolation on Dec. 17 sparked a conflagration that toppled the Tunisian government and now threatens to engulf much of the Arab world.
Should the region’s autocratic rulers be worried? To date, they have managed to retain power through sham elections and by neutralising and demoralising political opposition. But a bread intifadah – in which the disenfranchised masses are ready to face down bullets to secure food for their families – can be a very formidable force."
"CAIRO, Jan 18, 2011 (IPS) - "Break my heart but don’t come near my bread," goes an old Arabic proverb. Failure to observe it has often come at a high political price.
Just ask Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who has now fled....
The disgraced despot would have done well to recall the bread riots in 1984 that left some 80 Tunisians dead and almost unhinged the government of his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba. Similar protests erupted in Egypt in 1977, Morocco in 1981 and Jordan in 1989. And it was bread riots in 1988 that eventually brought Islamists to the verge of parliamentary control in Algeria – a situation that led to a decade-long civil war.....
Bouazizi’s self-immolation on Dec. 17 sparked a conflagration that toppled the Tunisian government and now threatens to engulf much of the Arab world.
Should the region’s autocratic rulers be worried? To date, they have managed to retain power through sham elections and by neutralising and demoralising political opposition. But a bread intifadah – in which the disenfranchised masses are ready to face down bullets to secure food for their families – can be a very formidable force."
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