Category: Uncategorized

So You Say You Want an Arab Revolution?

For those of you who are still keeping score on the Arab Spring, it’s Democracy 2 – Dictators 1 — and  everybody else undecided.

In Tunisia, the Jasmine Revolution is still being propelled by daily protests.  The caretaker government is keeping the country together – so far – and elections should be held this summer.  The main problem is that the gulf between the urban European north and the rural Arab south is widening.  This has actually created a political vacuum.  At this point, the Islamists haven’t made any significant gains, but, unfortunately, nobody else has, either.  There are still serious threats to this fragile process, but now that the world’s eyes are turned elsewhere, the Tunisians have a good chance of settling their own affairs and moving slowly — but directly — to democratic reform.

In Egypt, the people have voted overwhelmingly in favour of constitutional change; presidential and parliamentary elections could come as early as September.  The military, who are the real bosses, are busy trying to figure out how to keep the process going without turning power over to the mob (read Moslem Brotherhood.)  Meanwhile, some old scores are being seriously settled, and that violence may continue.  However, the pro-democracy people are working hard to form an urban coalition beyond Mubarak’s old regime — without much success.  The most immediate and serious problem in Egypt is the tourist industry has collapsed.  The result is huge unemployment numbers and no hard currency coming into the economy.  This alone could kill democracy long before it ever gets to the ballot box.

In Bahrain, as predicted, the minute the Western media turned its back, the king called in the troops (in this case, the Saudis — so there was no fear of the military changing sides) and the street battle was over within hours.  The protesters were driven out of Pearl Square, with some loss of life.  The country is now under martial law.  Everybody on both sides is keeping a low profile, and any talk of political reform is strictly forbidden – now and in the future.

In literally every other country in the region there is some sort of political unrest — including the most unlikely of places: Syria and Iran.  In Damascus, the relatively recent protests have been met by a government response that has escalated from whistles and batons to teargas and bullets in less than a week.  In Tehran, and across Iran, the nights are still haunted by anonymous voices echoing “Allah Akbar” into the darkness, in a two-year-old protest against that country’s corrupt elections.  In Yemen, President Saleh denies he ordered the military to open fire on protesters, but dozens were killed, and the bullets had to come from somewhere.  In Jordan, the protests are still peaceful but they’re continuous — and the crowds are getting bigger.   In Morocco, the people remain in the streets as King Mohammed VI has both promised reform and threatened a crackdown.  Time may be running out on both these royal houses.  And this brings us to our old buddy, Muammar, and the situation in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi has been a pain in the ass on this planet ever since he seized power in Libya in 1969.  He has thrown bags of money at every terrorist group he could get his mitts on.  He financed IRA bombs in Britain, Red Brigade kidnappings in Italy and had his hand in just about every other terrorist attack in Europe for the last 30 years.  He has provided weapons and training to every psycho who came calling — from Abu Nidal to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.  At one time or another he’s managed to piss off just about everybody — except maybe the Pope and the Dalai Lama (and that’s only because they have to forgive him.)  He’s been kicking sand in the face of every Western country for decades, and there isn’t one of us who hasn’t been waiting for a chance to slap the crap out of the guy.  Last Friday, March 18th, the United Nations flicked on the green light.  The Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorizes a “No Fly Zone” over Libya.  In our eagerness to get a few licks in before anybody can change their mind, I don’t think we gave much thought to the consequences of our actions.  We just attacked him.

For those of you who haven’t got the time to read the entire U.N. Resolution, let me summarize it for you.  Basically, it says this: “We, the undersigned, are going to rain fire and hell on anything in Libya that moves faster than a donkey cart, so stay off the roads and out of the sky.  After that, we’re going to hang around forever, taking a bunch guff from both sides, while the situation deteriorates into chaos.  Even though we have overwhelming military superiority, we don’t have the political will to fix things, once and for all.  Eventually, we’re going to get tired and bored and go home for a while.  In a couple more years, we’ll come back — with boots on the ground — to try and correct our original mistakes.  At that point, a lot of young people are going to die.  If anybody has any illusions about this situation, take a look at Iraq, circa 1991, when another U.N. coalition wasted an opportunity to get rid of a dictator because a U.N. resolution didn’t authorize it.”

That’s it — in a nutshell.  Without a lot of serious help, which includes ground troops, the rebels simply aren’t strong enough to topple Gaddafi, and he isn’t going anywhere voluntarily.  On the same page, do we even know who these rebels are?  For a people’s army of barbers and shopkeepers, they certainly seem to know what they’re doing militarily.  Who’s running the show in Benghazi?  And finally, how are we going to know when this is over?

So, again, if you’re keeping score, it’s Democracy – 2 Dictators – 1.  And the U.N. has dropped the ball in Libya, so we’ll all be going in to a long and bloody unnecessary overtime.

Looking for a Few Good (old flabby) Men

Somewhere around the time our civilization crawled out of the Dark Ages, it was decided that the world should be run by Old Flabby Men.  This was a major step up from Vicious Barbarian Bastards who had been the norm since the fall of the Roman Empire, 500 years before.  The chief advantage of Old Flabby Men (OFMs) was they realized the world had a future, so it wasn’t a good idea to go around wrecking things all the time.  They’d been around long enough to understand that, with a little thought and planning, the world could become a better place.  This cut down on the rape and pillage by about half and confined wholesale slaughter to times of war.  It wasn’t an ideal system, but it stopped gangs of marauding men from stealing everybody’s  turnips every Tuesday, and ordinary people had a chance to do a few things other than starve to death.  Roads and schools were built, people bought homes and raised children (who actually survived infancy) and civilization advanced.

So, for the last 1,000 years, OFMs have made the rules, and, in general everybody else has done as they were told.  For example, when OFMs decided Canada needed a railroad, people got busy, imported boatloads of labour from Ireland and China, and built one.  Things like the mountains, the rivers, and the Precambrian Shield didn’t really hold us up for too long because everybody agreed that a railroad was a good thing.  Actually, it was quite an accomplishment.  We still call it The Canadian Dream.  To their credit, OFMs have done a number of these sorts of things around the world over the centuries — to everybody’s benefit. 

The problem with OFMs, however, is they form an exclusive club.  It’s very hard to get in, and most people aren’t allowed.  In order to join, you have to show up early (when you’re still lean and mean) and you have to toil away for years and years at an idiot job until you, too, become old and flabby.   At this point, if you’re lucky, you get to call the shots.  If not – oh, well!  Of course, any club has the disagreeable habit of forgetting why they’re there in the first place.  They start to worry too much about maintaining their membership and don’t remember their overall purpose.  The OFM club is no exception.  Every so often, they need to reinvent themselves.  Again, this isn’t an ideal system, but it works.  Just as an aside, in the 21st century women have joined the ranks of OFMs, but they can’t be called either old or flabby because that’s not very nice.

Anyway, over the centuries, the exclusive nature of the OFM club has always set a few people’s teeth on edge.  They tend to talk a lot of bull about social injustice, or redistributing wealth, or human rights.  They give off the quaint idea that we don’t really need OFMs and offer any number of alternatives.  This all sounds good, but, in reality, they’re offering unworkable solutions to a non-problem, and they just want to have a crack at making the rules themselves.   Essentially they want to join the club – usually as president.  Every once in a while, this brave talk boils over, the unruly mob gets involved and somebody has a revolution.  The OFMs are dragged from their offices, palaces or counting houses and given the chop.  What follows is a brief return to Vicious Barbarian Bastards.  Ordinary people are, once again, at the mercy of any number of armed thugs, legal or otherwise, who metaphorically start stealing everybody’s turnips.  Civilization falls into disrepair; this is inevitable.  For example, the French Revolution had its Reign of Terror, the Chinese Revolution, its Hundred Flowers Movement; and nobody knows how many people Stalin killed in just one of his many Five Year Plans.  Eventually, saner heads prevail, and the revolutionaries start looking like Old Flabby Men.  They move into the offices, palaces and counting houses recently vacated by the last bunch, and things gradually get back to normal.  This scenario was illustrated by George Orwell, in a cool book called Animal Farm.  And we are about to see it ourselves — up close and personal — in places like Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli.  With any luck at all, the new crop of OFMs will keep a few more of their promises than the last crowd did.  They will recognize that it’s a whole lot better for all of us if they regenerate themselves through the ballot box, not the bayonet.  This saves civilization from stumbling through nasty periods of Vicious Barbarian Bastards — where nothing gets done and we’re all in danger of getting dragged down into anarchy and chaos.

As we journey further and further away from our barbaric past, it becomes increasing apparent that OFMs give us the stability we need to advance our civilization beyond thumping each other on the head at any provocation.  They offer us a grander vision, something beyond the day after tomorrow.  They also take care of the little crap like street lights so we can get on with art and science and medicine.  But mostly, they provide us with the rule of law — so we don’t have to spend our days guarding our turnips against every marauder who wants to take them away from us.  This is extremely important because it gives us the time and leisure to engage in reasonable discussions about the role of Old Flabby Men in our society.

I’m an Optimist

I’m an optimist.  Let me explain why.  Somewhere around two and half millennia ago, the Greeks (Athenians, actually) discovered this really cool thing.  They found out that Mother Nature had structured the world in such a way that everything was in balance.  They realized that if there was a hot, there was a cold.  If there was wet, there was dry; hard, soft; rough, smooth, etc. etc.   They also discovered that Mother Nature likes it that way.  Man (women weren’t included in those days) could change the balance of things, if he wanted to, but only for a little while.  The resulting imbalance never lasted very long because it made Mother Nature really angry and she would move heaven and earth (literally) to make things right again.  For example, the reason we have all this weirdo weather right now — rain, snow, wind, hurricanes, tornados, and on and on and on — is because Mother Nature is trying to get all the crap we’ve been putting into the air, out of it — so we can breathe.  It’s that simple.

The Greeks went on to apply this curious little balancing act to people.  They found out that no matter how stupid people get, there’re always one or two smart ones around to put a stop to it.  This is good to know.  It gives you faith in the human race.  It tells you that just about the time you think the Dark Forces of Ignorance are about to finally overpower common sense and you might just as well shoot yourself in the head — don’t do it.  Somebody, somewhere will look up from Dancing with America’s Funniest Home Idol, turn off the TV, and say, “Wait a minute!  That’s stupid.  Stop it!”  There’ll be a brief pause.  The Dark Forces of Ignorance will grumble around for a while, and things will get back to normal.  We’ve never actually flushed ourselves into the sewers of stupidity.  We’ve come close a couple of times, but up to this point, we’ve never actually done it.

A perfect example of this happened last week.  As you may or may not know, the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission) wanted to change the rules (or “amend” the regulations) concerning what constitutes news in this country.  You can read about it (here), but in case you don’t want to, this is the gist of it.
“This ‘amendment’ would mean that the news doesn’t necessarily have to be true anymore — as long as the broadcaster thinks it’s true.  So, as long as the media doesn’t knowingly broadcast something that is ‘false or misleading,’ they can do as they please. … The operative word here is ‘knowingly.’  What it means is that something can be reported as the truth if the journalist believes it’s true; factual corroboration is no longer necessary.”
Every Canadian knew the CTRC was being stupid.  One of the few things that separates us from our American cousins is we like our news bland, and we like it to be true.  We don’t go in for National Enquirer sensationalism; we read that for entertainment.  No, we want to know Where, When, What, Who and how many died.  We can figure out Why all by ourselves.  The problem was, not very many Canadians even knew the CRTC was about to change the rules.  The very people who are supposed to be reporting the news to Canadians weren’t doing their job.  Fortunately, though, a few Canadians did know what the CRTC was up to and made their feelings known.  The CRTC, in an uncharacteristic move, did as they were told and didn’t “amend” the regulation.  We stood on the brink of stupid and backed away because enough Canadians said, “Wait a minute!  That’s stupid.  Stop it!”

I’m an optimist.  Like the Greeks, I think Mother Nature and human nature have a lot in common.  I think there needs to be a balance in our society.  I also think we forget that sometimes and go off drinking with the Dark Forces of Ignorance.  Luckily, though, there always seems to be somebody who calls us to book on that, and after a little grumbling, we get back to normal.

I was only one of the people who complained to the CRTC.  But I knew there would be others, ‘cause I’m an optimist.