Tunisia’s president Zine al-Abidine ben Ali fled his country tonight after weeks of mass protests targeting the country’s unemployment, the ruling family corruption and police repression. Ben Ali came to power 23 years ago and is reportedly en route to Paris.
UPDATE: Former president Ben Ali has gone to exile in Saudi Arabia.
Photos: Top: Holly Pickett for The New York Times. Middle: Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images / NYTimes. Bottom: Christophe Ena/Associated Press / NYTimes
9 comments:
You could say the same for the Iranian people during the last Ashura! Where is the traitor Mousavi?
lets not consider everyone a traitor.
MKO were traitors, the Murdere of that Physic prof last year was a traitor.... but Mousavi is not one, he is simply a very bitter loser.
Dont be so generous with the word traitor.
Respect the differences of opinions and trust the Iranians inside Iran to know what they are doing.
I mean that not as a critic but a friendly advice.
Tunis is a small fish, Egypt is important, they have to collapse, then Irans geo-political fortunes will rise.
Bless Iran and all Iranians across the globe.
Illuminati
Another arrogant out of touch puppet kicked-out. Egypt is next. These western supported criminals who have looted their people and trampled on human rights have failed to realize that the world has changed and murdering their citizens for Zionism does not have any currency anymore. Congratualtions to the people of Tunisia, hopefully they can get a better government than the corrupt string of Francophone puppet dictators trying to "westernize" a 99% Muslim nation like the pathetic Pahlavi clowns in Iran did. Iranian revolution should have been a weather wane for all despots in the region. The Mullahs and Dr. Ahmanidejad's Abadgaran may not be perfect but they have managed Iran quite astutely and turned it into a major power with economic stability and INDEPENDENCE.
Tunisia: a 'wake-up call' for corrupt Arab despots led by the House of Saud, Jordan's Abdullah and ageing Husni Mubarek of restless Egypt.
Underlying factors giving rise to the movement: Unemployment, ruling family corruption and police repression. Don't they sound familiar? Corruption, repression and hunger breed popular anger and mass movements can topple the governments. And not so much the "geo-politics" of the situation.
Professor Mirandi of the University of Tehran on Arab dictatorships: "The center can not hold."
However, it is the western support for these brabaric puppet corrupt regimes that has created a ticking volcano in the Islamic world, particularly, as the US manipulation is hard to hide in the era of internet and mass communication. The Iranian situation festered from 1953 (Dr. Mossadegh's overthrow) till the repressive SAVAK police state created by CIA/MOSSAD in the 70's could not hold public anger at human rights abuses and overt US interference in Iranian affairs. The increasing repression at home and 60,000 Iranian students in the US alone and rising eduactional rates at home and political awareness caused the Islamic Revolution. The clergy filled the political void as all other institutions crumbled and the left from Tudeh to the MKO was too marginalized and fractured to really take on the mosque and come up with a viable political model.
The Arab regimes in particular are neither Islamic (Islam forbids Monarchy) or democratic in nature, but fuedal barbaric families left over by their colonial masters, the Brits and the French, later supplanted by the ignorant ugly Americans who have created a total mess by a murderous militarization of the region. The Arab world is very young, lacks any political or social discourse and has been a victim of Zionist/Western humiliation for two centures. The unemployed, hungry and increasing desperate Arab and Muslim youth are really fed as they see corrupt regimes propped up by US supported respressive military and police states. The US and west itself in now increasingly bankrupt and turning into paranoid respressive totalitarian state. The coming implosion in the restless Muslim world will be hard to contain unless the US and its Zionist lapdog backdown from their short-sighted arrogance and hubris. China's rise barely took a generation, the coming change in Middle-East will take shorter and will be more violent as global geo-strategic power shifts to Asia and China. The main despots in the Persian Gulf petro-pimpdoms, the rotten House of Saud, the Jordanian midget on CIA payroll and the senile Egyptian geriatric Mubarek should indeed be very worried. The Shah's grand parade ground military on paper had over 540,000 men backed up by Chieftans, Scorpians and the best the west had to offer, but Oveissi and Khosrowdad's arrogant and suicidal bloodbath at Jaleh Square changed the political dynamics in a day. Soldiers in general (unless they are depraved Pakistani Punjabi mercenaries or imported Zionist savages)are loath to kill fellow countrymen, especially unarmed destitute civilians. The collapse of discipline in the Tunisian army was not an exception but the rule in street politics. Eventaully, using live ammo on civilians breaks down unit cohesion and officers corps elan under stress.
The Middle-East is in for sustained turmoil as the insane US policies come home to roost and the sands of time shift the power structures dating back to an imperialist era. BTW, Ben Ali has found an appropriate hovel in the rotten house of Saud, just like Idi Amin and other despots.
As long as their is instability in the ME, Iran can sleep at night.
I was in Tunis a couple of years aback, and was surprised to see how its people liked Iranians and in some shops I saw Ahmadinejads pictures cut out of newspaper articles.
This movement is still not religous and the longer it takes the chances rise of it becoming religous.The potentials are there.
hope it pours over to Egypt, was there a couple years aback too, and I was struck with their lack of culture and education.
Very much like Iran prior to the revolution.
Egypt must boil over, its inevitable and even if the Mobarak dummy should live to become 199 years old.
Dariush London
Post a Comment