Arab Revolutions and the Hypocritical West

Arab Revolutions and the Hypocritical West

It never ceases to amaze me how hypocritical the West can be. This is no more evident than in the way it has been dealing with the freedom revolutions erupting all over the Middle East in a spontaneous, un-orchestrated effort to depose the very regimes (and the despots who preside over them), that are backed and funded by the democratic, freedom champion West.

BinAli of Tunis, Mubarak of Egypt, and soon to join them Ghaddafi of Libya and maybe Saleh of Yemen are all stooges of the West and have long acted as the channels through which it (the West) has evolved into the modern imperial and colonial leeches that siphon the life-blood of people in the region.

These dictators have declared war on their peoples long ago, severely curbing all sorts of freedoms not the least of which is the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion effectively annihilating all forms of dissent. Writers, journalists, activists, and basically anyone who opposed the regime or the ruler were arrested, tortured, exiled, their wealth confiscated, their families persecuted, and the lucky ones … died!

Western governments were not only privy to this but have always deliberately turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the cries of the people demanding reforms, accountability, and plain old justice. This can only be understood one way: the West is an active partner in the war being waged by these regimes on their people and is a co-conspirator in the plot to rob them of their national wealth, but more importantly to strip them of their basic human dignity.

People living under these democratically elected governments in the West cannot bask in the bliss of ignorance of their governments’ transgressions and exploitations in the Third World. We live in a well connected, highly networked global village where information is served fresh many times a day. Dissent in the West is not near where it should be, while the ultra conservative right is making advances everywhere ushering in a new era of demonizing those who differ or merely do not conform, which always is a prelude to all sorts of despicable evils.

The voices of wisdom and reason are being drowned by the screams demanding greater riches and tight control over the world’s dwindling resources. But the choices before the leaders of the West, though limited, are crystal clear: either learn to live together with the rest of the world on a solid foundation of peace, justice, and inalienable human rights or jump hand in hand with them into the abyss.