Mohamed Ali Horrath: Why 14 January 2011 will go down in history
[Mohamed Ali Horrath is CEO of Britain’s Muslim television station, the Islam Channel.]
14 January 2011 will historically mark the democratisation of the Middle East. The Arabs watch Tunisia in solidarity, while every Arab dictator watches nervously at the tide of collective power of the people. Tunisia is the Poland of the Arab world and this is our 1989, the tide is turning, we will see many corrupt Presidents and dictators who abused their positions running from the people.
News agencies around the world keep stressing that the revolt came about because of food shortages; this is misleading and also undermines the pain, the indignities, the repression and torture the Tunisian people have been suffering over decades. This is the beginning of a real revolution.
The protests were sparked off by the unemployed youth who had reached a point where they had ‘nothing to lose but their chains’. It was extreme desperation that led a 26 year old unemployed university graduate to set himself on fire. This hopeless act ignited a wave of copycat suicides and street protests...
Read entire article at openDemocracy (UK)
14 January 2011 will historically mark the democratisation of the Middle East. The Arabs watch Tunisia in solidarity, while every Arab dictator watches nervously at the tide of collective power of the people. Tunisia is the Poland of the Arab world and this is our 1989, the tide is turning, we will see many corrupt Presidents and dictators who abused their positions running from the people.
News agencies around the world keep stressing that the revolt came about because of food shortages; this is misleading and also undermines the pain, the indignities, the repression and torture the Tunisian people have been suffering over decades. This is the beginning of a real revolution.
The protests were sparked off by the unemployed youth who had reached a point where they had ‘nothing to lose but their chains’. It was extreme desperation that led a 26 year old unemployed university graduate to set himself on fire. This hopeless act ignited a wave of copycat suicides and street protests...