Syrian activist nails the difference between vengeance and justice in Qadaffi’s death

Photo courtesy of newson6.com

Scanning the mostly shallow online news coverage this morning celebrating Qaddafi’s violent death, I was heartened to read David Kirkpatrick’s report from Tunisia on the front page of the NY Times. Kirkpatrick quotes a Syrian activist who points out the difference between vengeance and justice in how Qaddafi died – a distinction American and other world leaders appear to have forgotten since 9/11.

Kirkpatrick writes:

TUNIS — Like the flight of Tunisia’s dictator or the trial of Egypt’s, the capture of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Thursday afternoon captivated the Arab world, giving a renewed sense of power and possibility. But the photographs of his bloody corpse that circulated just moments later on cellphones and television screens quickly tempered that exhilaration with a reminder of the many still-unresolved conflicts that the Arab Spring has also unleashed.

“This isn’t justice,” Mustafa Haid, 32, a Syrian activist, said as he watched Al Jazeera’s broadcast in a Beirut office. Colonel Qaddafi should have been put on trial, his crimes investigated, Libya reconciled to trust in the law, he said, as though he still hoped better from the regional uprising that began with peaceful displays of national unity in Tunis and Cairo. 

Across the region, Colonel Qaddafi’s bloody end has brought home the growing awareness of the challenges that lie ahead: the balancing of vengeance against justice, impatience for jobs against the slow pace of economic recovery, fidelity to Islam against tolerance for minorities, and the need for stability against the drive to tear down of the pillars of old governments. 

Read more:

Al Qaeda tongue-tied in the face of uprisings in the Arab world

New challenges to bin Ladenism

NY Times foreign affairs correspondent Tom Friedman raises some good questions about U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the Arab world.

In this morning's op-ed, Friedman asks:

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?

He continues:

Ever since 9/11, the West has hoped for a war of ideas within the Muslim world that would feature an internal challenge to the violent radical Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That contest, though, never really materialized because the regimes we counted on to promote it found violent Muslim extremism a convenient foil, so they allowed it to persist. Moreover, these corrupt, crony capitalist Arab regimes were hardly the ideal carriers for an alternative to bin Ladenism. To the contrary, it was their abusive behavior and vicious suffocation of any kind of independent moderate centrist parties that fueled the extremism even more. 

Now the people themselves have taken down those regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and they’re rattling the ones in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman and Iran. They are not doing it for us, or to answer bin Laden. They are doing it by themselves for themselves — because they want their freedom and to control their own destinies. But in doing so they have created a hugely powerful, modernizing challenge to bin Ladenism, which is why Al Qaeda today is tongue-tied. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Read more:

Pulitzer prize-winning Friedman’s educational background gives him additional credibility on today’s topic: he received a B.A. degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University in 1975 and in 1978 he received a Master of Philosophy degree in Modern Middle East studies from Oxford.

Look out! Web tools can be used to promote human rights or to undermine human rights

Scott  Shane at the NY Times provides an in-depth look at the uprising in Egypt and how both governments and dissidents can use social media to their advantage. Shane leads off with these words:

WASHINGTON — Fear is the dictator’s traditional tool for keeping the people in check. But by cutting off Egypt’s Internet and wireless service late last week in the face of huge street protests, President Hosni Mubarak betrayed his own fear — that Facebook, Twitter, laptops and smartphones could empower his opponents, expose his weakness to the world and topple his regime.

However, the situation has become much more complex:

Tunisia’s uprising offers the latest encouragement for a comforting notion: that the same Web tools that so many Americans use to keep up with college pals and post passing thoughts have a more noble role as well, as a scourge of despotism. It was just 18 months ago, after all, that the same technologies were hailed as a factor in Iran’s Green Revolution, the stirring street protests that followed the disputed presidential election.

But since that revolt collapsed, Iran has become a cautionary tale. The Iranian police eagerly followed the electronic trails left by activists, which assisted them in making thousands of arrests in the crackdown that followed. The government even crowd-sourced its hunt for enemies, posting on the Web the photos of unidentified demonstrators and inviting Iranians to identify them.

“The Iranian government has become much more adept at using the Internet to go after activists,” said Faraz Sanei, who tracks Iran at Human Rights Watch. The Revolutionary Guard, the powerful political and economic force that protects the ayatollahs’ regime, has created an online surveillance center and is believed to be behind a “cyberarmy” of hackers that it can unleash against opponents, he said. 

Read Shane’s complete article here.

Katalusis Readers from Around the World Bring Hope for Peace

photo credits: InternationalDiscussions.com (click to enlarge)

In my Thanksgiving greeting to Katalusis readers last Thursday I mentioned that regular visitors to this web site come from all over the United States and around the world, including Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, India, and Australia.

Sitting here at my computer in the Twin Cities, it’s been a joy to check out visits to Katalusis from foreign countries and to welcome aboard those of you who have become regular visitors.

Since Thanksgiving, visitors from several countries not mentioned above have shown up to make my day. These include: Romania, Taiwan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Iran, France, Turkey, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, and China.

Each of you affirms the miracle of modern day communication and renews my hope that as we get to know one another better, we will some day experience world peace.

I hope you’ll all stop by Katalusis again soon and don’t forget to leave a comment!