Backward Arabs Or Navel Gazing Empire Loyalists?
By Trevor Selvam
17 February, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Once again, the Media in the West is at its narcissistic best. In the over-dramatized “breaking news” style of analysis (to war drums in the background), they are imagining that “the backward Arabs” have finally come on board and are demanding “western style democracy”. “This is good for them. About time,” they say. From Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. It’s a “revival, a much needed reform”, say some evangelist proselytizers.
Once again the Media in the West believe that this is a revolt against the old caliphate mentality, against brutal, medieval dictators, against baksheesh and corruption. As if pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, Enron book keeping, AIG-Lehman bailouts, pharma and defence lobbying, pork-barreling, the CDS-CDO inspired 2008 meltdown, the Wall Street mega billion toxic flips were Arab contributions to the world of international scammery!
Once again the Media and their sponsors and owners, Rupert Murdoch, GE Capital and Time Warner, are spreading the fib that this is a cry for democracy, for “modernity”, for the freeways of the “free world.”
Once again, the Media in the West are craning over each other worrying about Israel’s southern flank when Israel itself has not been particularly or demonstrably concerned.
Once again the Media in the West are wrong and incalculably out of touch.
For a media that in the space of 14 days, unquestioningly rebroadcasted the White House dictum of describing Mubarak as a “stable ally, “ “not a dictator”, “ a good friend” and then devolved into talking about a “stable transition”, “an immediate transition” and finally “the people have spoken”---what can one expect? Talk about having your pants and skirts down to your ankles!
Once again, the careful, discerning eyes of the media failed to realize that there were Shias and Sunnis demonstrating together, most of the time united, secularist Egyptians and Tunisians, protecting each other and not having separate agendas. Once again, they failed to realize that Arab men and women, hijabed or in gelabyas, in jeans or cargos, old and young, workers, lawyers, engineers and teachers, locked arms and marched in protest. Once again they failed to realize that every stream of society participated in dignified, controlled protests and it was not only Blackberry and I-phone toting FaceBookers demanding a western mall-rat lifestyle!
In fact what they failed to realize was that this was really MORE of a revolt against the twenty or more years of the post Berlin wall era of pompous neo-liberalism, that spawned joblessness, hunger, environmental cataclysms---it was a revolt against tin-pot dictators aided and abetted by Washington DC who siphoned off the wealth of nations, food chains that disappeared, wars that were started on spurious grounds and police states who upheld the West’s cynical notions of stability, while protecting their geo-political strategies.
But this is good. Because every generation must see a sea-change flip of belief systems and false ideals. And that time has come, when the real monsters have exposed themselves. From the neo-liberalist trumpeters and evangelist proselytes of the tea-party variety and the fundamentalist extremists preaching suicide martyrdom, to the horrendously asinine sharia-ists in caves, they are all together in one conclave unaware and unconscious that there is a new wave of Arabs who are sick and tired of non-secular nonsense, unintelligent and backward incantations to obscure edicts and the abject failure of the Reagan-Clinton-Bush-Obama notion of a New World Order. This is a rebellion against the baloney that the West has passed off as “success”. It is a revolt against the hyperbolic triumphalism that free trade, globalization, de-regulation, structural “reform” has been promoting for too long.
It is a revolt against the Empire and not just against its chattel. It is also a revolt against those who have compromised too long about the Palestinian nation. This brings me to Israel. Israel is not at all concerned about Gaza or its own Southern extremity. It has the Palestinian Authority well trained to deal with all that. Peace Treaty? Israel really could not care two hoots. As a nation that survives on borrowed shekels from Washington DC and whose isolation in the world is increasing daily, Israel knows very well that it has to make a few idle threats about bombing Iran, attacking Lebanon and right away it will get more US, UK and French aid and support covertly. Israel relies on covert-ism as foreign policy.
So Arabs have spoken. The world is listening. The media in the West is navel gazing.
Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.
