BY HASAN KANBOLAT
TODAY’S ZAMAN- African leaders are like walnuts, they fall when they are ripe," is a wise saying I heard in Madagascar.
Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fell in North Africa. Now, it is Hosni Mubarak’s time in Egypt. Then, it appears, Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen will go. These three Arab leaders are like aging walnuts. For 30 years, they have been ruling their countries with iron fists (the police, the military and the intelligence). They and a small group of their relatives have been exerting control over politics and economy in their countries. They would not distribute oil or natural gas incomes to their people. They would not create employment. On the other hand, the slighted increase in world food prices would be felt directly by their people. They would not allow justice, dignity, freedom, democracy, economic and political reform. The opposition was under pressure. The people had enough of the empty promises of the political power.
In order to make sense of the change that has started in the Middle East, we need to realize that the Middle East of the 21st century is quite different from that of the 20th century.
In the Middle East of the 20th century, people were ignorant. They were not knowledgeable about the world. They were receiving only what was given to them. They were being continually saved by their saviors. The intellectuals -- writers, engineers, physicians and economists -- who were employed or oppressed in their own countries were able to find jobs in the West. A Tunisian physician could practice medicine in Belgium. An Algerian engineer could work at Renault in France. Thus, by keeping its doors open, the West could prevent from the pressure cooker called the Middle East from exploding.
In the 21st century, the peoples of the Middle East are not ignorant. The use of French in North Africa and of English in the Middle East is quite popular. The use of Spanish is on the rise due to Arabs who settled in Latin America during the Ottoman era. Russian is popular among intellectuals due to the good relations with the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. Thanks to the recent improvement in the ties between Turkey and the Middle East, Turkish is also becoming popular among Arabs. Arab youth are studying and working all over the world. Arabs watch the world via the Internet and international TV channels. They are doing business with the world. We need to see that in the 21st-century Middle East, the young people of 9/11 were not ignorant, but started to wage a war against the West after understanding Western values. The Hezbollah, which Israel faced in Lebanon, was not like the Arabs of the 20th century. They did not escape or give in. They knew how to use weapons and they are well-trained, well-organized and faithful troops.
Just as the 21st-century Middle East underwent a change, so did the 21st-century Western world. The West changed their immigration laws and closed its doors to the immigrants from the East. Middle Eastern and North African people started to face racist pressures although they were born and grew in and were citizens of Western countries. Thus, by keeping its doors closed, the West started to wait for the pressure cooker of the Middle East to explode. Intellectuals who could not migrate from the Middle East to the West were doomed to live with low wages or face unemployed and endure political pressures in their own countries. This gradually increased the rage against the political powers in the Middle East and against the West. Eventually, the threshold of fear and tedium was exceeded and the first explosion came on Sept. 11, 2001. The second explosion came with the Paris incidents of October 2005. The third explosion was in Tunisia in January 2011 and then in Egypt.
The young generations of the 21st century quickly get bored with everything and consume everything speedily; they don’t like long lasting political powers. This new trend in the world is becoming stronger among young Arab people who use virtual -- legal or illegal -- organization methods made available by the Internet. People can pour into the streets thanks to the Internet. Thus, the Arab world is gaining a more dynamic structure.
The people and youth of the 21st-century Middle East demand a better life. However, the poor and educated Arab middle class youth lack any ideological background or organization. Revolutions -- French, Bolshevik or Iranian -- on the other hand, have ideological backgrounds and organizations. Therefore, there is the likelihood of new political powers becoming old powers or radicals in the Arab world.