When Democracy is autocratic!

Those of us of Arab, North and East African origins knew that although rising against tyranny, AKA the Arab Spring is a democratic right; it was also a dangerous business that might bring with it serious consequences to the region.

As far back as the fifties and all the way up to the seventies – throughout the height of the Cold War – when Russia was the mighty USSR many countries in the area turned Red. They became socialist states and even communist with the support and the blessing of Russia. It was fashionable, and for some it was even liberating socially, technologically and economically.

I grew up surrounded by the new found socialism that forced everyone to become equal without educating them of the difference or giving them a choice. Where Russian appliances were the staple of every household and those people who did not drive an old reconditioned Hillman (left from colonial times) drove a new red Moscovitch . Thank God my family owned an old Volkswagen and we used German appliances from when I was a baby – you’ve got to give it to German engineering because some of those appliances still work today!

Not only the Sudan, but the whole region was quietly moving to the left – some following the trend and making the most of Russian aid while others joined in protest to America’s support of Israel. Obviously that did not sit well with the west, specially the US – which meant any opposition for the ongoing trend could count fully on the support of the west, specially the USA.

Historically the oldest and most organized political group in the area is the Muslim Brotherhood . So they were the best prepared to receive any aid or support to buck the trend and they did. Known Muslimbrothers and their families had full scholarships to US universities, Green Cards to move their families to the US and before long an underground movement to overturn regimes across the territory was born, and you guessed it, all with the blessing and full support of the US – not too dissimilar to Afghanistan circa 1970s!

Mind you, this is the same group that later gave birth to Al Qaida, Al- Shabaab Al-Mujahideen and most all anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, anti-west movements in Africa and the Middle East.

That is why supporting the Arab Spring as noble as it is in sentiment and humanity was seen by many as a case of ‘cut your nose to spite your face’! It is also why moderate Arabs look in with bewilderment to what is happening in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia ….

Which makes many Middle East observers wonder, who, the political analysts and the security people in the west speak to and where do they get their intelligence from!???

Now we learn a High Egyptian court ruled to dissolve a democratically elected parliament because the outcome is not what everyone likes ….

Who’d thought it!