Slut med overbærenhed og lave forventninger

… over for undertrykkende arabiske regimer. Efter revolutionerne i Tunesien og Egypten og deres aflæggere i Libyen, Irak, Marokko, Jordan og Bahrain må det være slut med den racistiske, overbærende forestilling om, at arabere er for “umodne” til at leve i et frit og værdigt samfund  og at det bedste, de kan håbe på, er et “moderat” diktatur.

Det gælder ikke mindst for Libyen, som Issandr El Amrani skriver i The Guardian:

Gaddafi, in power since 1969, is best known in the west for his eccentricity, from the voluptuous nurse that accompanies him everywhere to his habit of setting up a bedouin tent during state visits abroad. The focus on such personal foibles, as well as Libya’s alleged role in the Lockerbie bombing, has dominated the portrayal of the country. For most people around the world, Libya was Gaddafi.It turns out there are another 6 million Libyans, many of whom are now rebelling against the Gaddafi family, and that at least 200 have died in the last few days fighting for their freedom. Libya is the Arab world’s North Korea, a near-totalitarian nightmare and an insult to common decency. And as Pyongyang is protected by China, so Tripoli is being given cover by Tony Blair, BP and academics-turned-consultants like Anthony Giddens and Benjamin Barber. The idea is that it was best to try to help countries like Libya “reform”, even if the reforms in question tended to be mostly about making the place more business-friendly.

Men det gælder også netop “moderate” lande som Marokko – styret er i virkeligheden alt andet end “det bedste, folk har at håbe på”, og landets indbyggere har ærligt talt grund til at mene, de har fortjent bedre – også bedre end den endeløse snak om “stabilitet” fra vestlige ledere, når der i virkeligheden er brug for frihed og bedre vilkår:

For 15 years, Morocco has been considered the “best student” in an Arab class of deadenders. Next to Algeria’s traumatised society, Tunisia’s police state or Libya’s sheer hell, who could disagree? Morocco has made great strides since the 90s in terms of human rights, notably holding the Arab world’s first (if somewhat flawed) national reconciliation process and passing progressive laws on women’s rights.But for the last few years something has been increasingly rotten in the kingdom of Morocco. Advances for press freedom made in the 90s have been reversed. A political transition that had been made possible in the late 90s by a historic reconciliation between the opposition and the palace has stalled. A fragile economy has been hampered by a predatory royal holding that creates monopolies for itself.

More and more Moroccans want something akin to what they see in Britain or Spain: a constitutional monarchy where the king is head of state but does not interfere in government. Like the protests elsewhere in the region, the peaceful demonstrations that have taken place in eight cities are about dignity. Moroccans, like other Arabs, are tired of being subjects: they want to be citizens.

They would also like solidarity from the outside world, and to be seen as more than an exotic tourist destination.

Og ja, de har ærligt talt fortjent bedre. Lad os håbe, at bølgen har nået Saudi-Arabien, inden året er omme.

Link: An end to this ‘soft bigotry’ against the Arab world