Adrian Michaels: The Middle East 2011 ... how does it compare with Eastern Europe 1989?
[Adrian Michaels is Group Foreign Editor at the Telegraph Media Group.]
How far can contagion in the Arab world go? Two weeks ago street protests forced out the Tunisian president and there were smaller protests building in one or two other Arab countries. But most commentators said there was little chance of a wave of cataclysmic upheaval spreading across the Maghreb and Levant into deeper Arabia. It would have been tempting but daft, it seemed, to think of 2011 as another 1989, the year of great revolution in eastern Europe and the break up of the Warsaw Pact.
But that was before Egypt, and outrage on the streets of Lebanon and Yemen. There have been thousands out in Oman and pledges of further rallies in Jordan. Hand-outs and concessions on food and other prices have been granted in recent weeks by nervous rulers in Libya, Morocco and Kuwait.
It would be ridiculous to think that governments, kings and despots throughout the region are not modifying their actions in response to what is happening elsewhere. Of course the situation in Arab countries is in many ways poles apart from that of Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. (Or, if you prefer, Poles apart). The proximate causes in each Arab country range from food price inflation to unemployment and sectarian unease. But there are similarities with earlier cycles of revolutions too. Who is to say where Tunisia might lead us in a year? At the start of February 1989 Poland’s government started talks with the Solidarity trade union. Just 11 months later, the Berlin Wall was already down and on Christmas Day, Romania’s hated dictator and his wife were led in front of a firing squad and filled with bullets...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
How far can contagion in the Arab world go? Two weeks ago street protests forced out the Tunisian president and there were smaller protests building in one or two other Arab countries. But most commentators said there was little chance of a wave of cataclysmic upheaval spreading across the Maghreb and Levant into deeper Arabia. It would have been tempting but daft, it seemed, to think of 2011 as another 1989, the year of great revolution in eastern Europe and the break up of the Warsaw Pact.
But that was before Egypt, and outrage on the streets of Lebanon and Yemen. There have been thousands out in Oman and pledges of further rallies in Jordan. Hand-outs and concessions on food and other prices have been granted in recent weeks by nervous rulers in Libya, Morocco and Kuwait.
It would be ridiculous to think that governments, kings and despots throughout the region are not modifying their actions in response to what is happening elsewhere. Of course the situation in Arab countries is in many ways poles apart from that of Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. (Or, if you prefer, Poles apart). The proximate causes in each Arab country range from food price inflation to unemployment and sectarian unease. But there are similarities with earlier cycles of revolutions too. Who is to say where Tunisia might lead us in a year? At the start of February 1989 Poland’s government started talks with the Solidarity trade union. Just 11 months later, the Berlin Wall was already down and on Christmas Day, Romania’s hated dictator and his wife were led in front of a firing squad and filled with bullets...