During the day it was becoming clear that the regime was crumbing fast. Protesters in Benghazi succeeded in taking over a Garrison in the town centre after troops defected. Then a number of ambassadors and diplomats also defected, and despite what had been terrible violence inflicted by the forces of Gaddafi's State, and attempts to use the control over the media to prevent citizens knowing what was going on, the protests spread to other Libyan towns and cities, and then eventually to Tripoli itself.
Reports tonight say that the police and armed forces have disappeared off the streets, and the army are reported to have confirmed that Gaddafi has gone.
Meanwhile, in Bahrain, pressure from the US, and EU seems to have persuaded the Royal Family to pull the troops off the streets there, and to open negotiations. However, it seems possibly too late.
Every day the number of countries being pulled into the whirlpoor grows. Tonight, Aljazeera is also reporting that in Oman, the State has increased the Minimum Wage by more than 40%!. Protests are also taking place in Morocco.
Care needs to be taken in lumping all of these protests together, however, in Bahrain, for example, the struggle could be complicated by the fact that the ruling group are Sunni, and the majority of the protesters are Shia. In addition, it is clear that in Egypt, for example, the recent economic development has created a sizeable Middle Class, and large numbers of workers. These both form the basis of the establishment of bourgeois democracy, and the latter provide the basis of effective organisation and mobilisation, particularly given their economic muscle, and potential for armed resistance. It is not clear that in a number of the other economies that this is the case, as they continue to be highly reliant on Oil, rather than having extensive economic development.
2 comments:
Egypt has jobs and a strong middle class????? You're kidding right?
No I'm not kidding. I think you are allowing your racist prejudices about "lazy Arabs", and lack of intelligence and so on to show through. Perhaps, you would be better not displaying such "lazy" characteristics yourself, and instead just check Wikipedia or the many other simple to check sources for the strength of Egyptian economic growth over recent years, the size of its labour force, and industry, and the number of people going to University.
Or you might simply want to turn on the TV and observe that the thousands of people who were out in Tahrir Square were predominantly youngle middle class people, graduates using social media, and so on, or to check the TV and many Left Internet sites now discussing the many strikes in various industries that you do not seem to think exist!
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