Cries for Egyptian freedom are being heard around the world, and various world leaders have given their 2 cents. Some of the most perplexing comments have been made by Canadian and American politicians of late. Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed solidarity with the Egyptian people just before going into a meeting with an unelected Moroccan monarch. In the U.S., speech has been equally wishy-washy with Joe Biden proclaiming that Egyptian honcho Hosni Mubarak is not a dictator and Barack Obama playing both sides of the fence.
Hosni Mubarak believes that might can topple dissent and is confused that young people no longer buy into his cult of personality. We in the West may have gotten along with Mubarak's regime, but it is far from a democratic governmental system. Some are trying to scare folks into not supporting the people, by bringing in images of Pakistan and Iran's military overthrows. The truth is that the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings are not the work of Islamic militants, but a youth that refuses to be enslaved. In Tunisia, Jews stood with the opposition and today Christians protected praying Muslims in Egypt.
Young, strong, intelligent people who pursue freedom and equality do scare autocrats and monarchs. You can bet that Syria and Jordan are watching, petrified that their discriminatory and totalitarian governments could be next to fall. The West doesn't care whether or not any of these nations seek democracy, so long as the dictators are allies. It is actually to the benefit of the West for Arab League countries to continue to oppress the common man. Such actions make countries predictable and keep the global commodity prices low. But what is absent from all of the speeches by elites is fairness.
It is unfair to think that the rights we have should not be the rights of every man. Stephen Harper started off in an Imperial Oil mailroom to become Prime Minister of one of the World's freest nations by age 46. His story is like that of so many others on a continent filled with the exceptional kids of immigrants, farmers, and barbers. And to state that the kids of other people shouldn't be allowed to dream just because you like their dictator smacks of callousness and elitism.
We must support people who want the same things we take for granted; we must unambiguously lend our voices to a rising call for freedom. If it is the will of the people to remove each one of these despots, we should offer no refuge to fleeing absolutists. We, the free, must continue to demand emancipation of good global citizens and punishment of those who murder purely because of protest. We must demand that States Of Emergency for reasons of protest are no longer honoured because they cause arbitrary detentions and human rights abuses. In addition, we must appeal to US and Egyptian embassies to remind them that the usage of tear gas or ammunition provided via aid is a violation of the Leahy Law and other conventions on fair aid use.
Egyptian Embassies in the US
...as for me, democratic movement in Egypt has no core. on the contrary, Muslim Brotherhood has a very strong core to make things using present situation. it's scary i think.
ReplyDeleteMubarak is a pharaoh of course, yeah itz 21 century but he is the Pharaoh and he just CAN'T LEAVE.
Turmoil.
i was there few years ago, egyptians are very simple, peaceful, naive ...what i see on news today is very strange, unexpected :(