Failed Arab Spring turns to a Disastrously Long Winter

Arab Springs or foreign occupations, both are symptoms of a common Arab disease: dictatorship, our refusal to take charge of our own government, sticking our head in the sand and our need to hear the crack of the whip every now and then to assure us all is well. We seem incapable of working together and governing ourselves like mature responsible adults without the help of military strong men. The Arab Spring, I once naively thought, was supposed to sweep out the old corrupt order, the purveyors of fear and terror, and sweep to power freedom loving democrats, instead all we have done is place at risk the nation State model in the Arab world. We all helped light the fuse on this disaster. Those who have ‘democratically’ come to power, like in Egypt, or even in Iraq, did not seek to create consensus and lay the ground work for a modern State, instead they sought to replace the old dictatorship, in essence to occupy their fellow countrymen, to jump on their backs and screw them from behind. We seem to have this mindset that the fruit of revolution has to be conquest not enlightened governance. No one seems interested in talking with each other, only Ban Ki Moon seems to be the lone voice of sanity asking all parties to set aside vengeance and “give peace a chance”.

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