It is not a secret to anyone that Arab ways are quite different to the occidental behaviour. Also, their concept of emancipation is far from being similar to ours. We also know that what has been happening between last days of 2010 and what's gone of the 2011 seems to be a hurricaine charged with winds of freedom for the Middle East nations. The revolutions hitting North Africa and Western Asia are perfect examples of these words.
The key that opened the doors of anarchy in the Arab countries has a name: Mohammad Bouazizi.
He was a tunisian fruit-seller who, being only 26 years young, drowned in despair and helplessness for having to face unemployment coming from corruption in his home country, decided to take extreme actions in order to be listened, burning himself to death. That scene was the big opening to the massive antigovernment protest in Tunisia that made President Ben Ali leave the country and get exiled in Saudi Arabia.
After that, the world witnessed how an 18-day revolution against Mubarak also succeeded. The most marvelous fact about these demonstrations were that the huge celebrations in Cairo and Alexandria were filled with cartels with the written words "Thanks Tunisia!".
Consequently, Lybia, Morocco, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Barein and even Iran, joined the list of the societies that are pretty much fed up of the injustice, corruption, authoritarianism and that decided to warm the streets with political slogans, whistles, cries and of course... Fire.
Although Middle East culture shows a very different way to be noticed in political instances, it's important to know that for them, pride is an important issue. So they are used to some (unusual for us) dangerous ways of raising their voices.
Here is an interesting fact about independence and revolutions: if you look up at the independence dates of Latin American countries, you will notice that they are all very close. Communities tend to copy each other's political models according to their proximity.
According to Elisabeth Noelle Neumann and her theory of "the spiral of silence" written in her book "Public Opinion - Our Social Skin", the common human being waits until someone else expresses an opinion, and then, he will express his own. That for me is exactly what happened in Tunisia with Bouazizi, being him the first to radically protest. After that, the Arab countries starting having what looks like a political, economical and social metamorphosis.
While most people point foreing interests in the Middle East, I think that in spite of lots of other external (and internal) causes, what made things explode in the Arab world was the spiral of silence broken by Mohammad Bouazizi.
The key that opened the doors of anarchy in the Arab countries has a name: Mohammad Bouazizi.
He was a tunisian fruit-seller who, being only 26 years young, drowned in despair and helplessness for having to face unemployment coming from corruption in his home country, decided to take extreme actions in order to be listened, burning himself to death. That scene was the big opening to the massive antigovernment protest in Tunisia that made President Ben Ali leave the country and get exiled in Saudi Arabia.
After that, the world witnessed how an 18-day revolution against Mubarak also succeeded. The most marvelous fact about these demonstrations were that the huge celebrations in Cairo and Alexandria were filled with cartels with the written words "Thanks Tunisia!".
Consequently, Lybia, Morocco, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Barein and even Iran, joined the list of the societies that are pretty much fed up of the injustice, corruption, authoritarianism and that decided to warm the streets with political slogans, whistles, cries and of course... Fire.
Although Middle East culture shows a very different way to be noticed in political instances, it's important to know that for them, pride is an important issue. So they are used to some (unusual for us) dangerous ways of raising their voices.
Here is an interesting fact about independence and revolutions: if you look up at the independence dates of Latin American countries, you will notice that they are all very close. Communities tend to copy each other's political models according to their proximity.
According to Elisabeth Noelle Neumann and her theory of "the spiral of silence" written in her book "Public Opinion - Our Social Skin", the common human being waits until someone else expresses an opinion, and then, he will express his own. That for me is exactly what happened in Tunisia with Bouazizi, being him the first to radically protest. After that, the Arab countries starting having what looks like a political, economical and social metamorphosis.
While most people point foreing interests in the Middle East, I think that in spite of lots of other external (and internal) causes, what made things explode in the Arab world was the spiral of silence broken by Mohammad Bouazizi.
Glad to be the first one to break the spiral of silence in your comment box. Gotta say loved the article. Well thought and written. Western and Eastern cultures have more in common than what we normally think. The social restrains build up our external behaviours and that´s what makes us apparently different; but the truth is that in our innermost essense we all crave for the same desire of freedom (given one´s freedom it is not necessarily percieved as the others) because after all it is in our nature...the human nature.
ResponderEliminarExcelente articulo, muy bueno. Espero no te moleste que escriba en español, si es así, entonces la próxima vez lo hago !!
ResponderEliminar