Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Arab revolution is an unstoppable force

While the world's attention is focussed on Libya, people across the Middle East are rising up against dictators

Editorial
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 March 2011

"Just six weeks after Bashar al-Assad declared that Syria was stable ("Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue," he told the Wall Street Journal), it emerges that it is anything but. When police fired on protesters in a provincial town and killed three of them, 20,000 turned out angrily for the burial of the victims. Yemen's dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is probably on his way out, after senior generals, ambassadors and some tribes deserted him in the wake of the massacre that took place on Friday. Egypt voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments which pave the way for early parliamentary elections. While the world's attention is focused on Libya, the Arab revolution is continuing, its momentum unstoppable.....

....Nor will independence from America and its dwindling collection of client regimes buy Assad insurance against some of the issues his people have with him and his family: political repression and crony capitalism......"

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