Give credit where it’s due: American influence in revolts Wednesday, 16 March 2011 01:24

Traditionalists accuse their national political regimes for their allegiance to America. They claim that this allegiance is changing their school curricula, westernizing their children, opening up their societies, modernizing their traditions, and liberating their women. Making these claims, traditionalists do not realize that these very tools are what have created awareness amongst our youth and ignited the rebels within them.

Everyone believed that the Western influence was in favour of the regime staying in power. While that is true, as reforms are Washington’s conditions for the regimes to meet its satisfaction and continue their mandates, Western influence was never in the regimes’ favor at the grassroots level. After all, since when were awareness and democracy in favor of the rulers?  As we have seen, these have become weapons of the people.

Urbanization, modern means of communication, and accessing Western culture and heritage does not result in alienating one’s own values. Dealing with the West is not equated to succumbing to slavery and colonialism. All of those illusions went up in smoke after the end of the Cold War between the two largest blocs in the world, and it was revealed that both sides were deluded with power and conspiracy theories.

We have noticed that Washington’s support for a regime is disrupted when its people speak out against it. That’s when Washington lifts up its hand from the regime and extends it instead to the people to provide them leverage toward their rights. There are traces of decomposed regimes that are under threat by Washington in particular, and are now taking reliable steps for reform in the region, hand in hand with national saviors of liberty.

It is time for people in the developing world to wake up and smell the corruption. Their wealth is being wasted and stolen by a handful of ruling elite. All the while, failure and despair clench tight claws on their lands and threaten developing countries to emerge. The risk that they face now is terrorism, which refuses to disappear, and continues to grow only because of poverty, unemployment, ignorance, and alarming underdevelopment that is palpable in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran in particular.

Freedom in the Arab world from oppression of injustice is a result of intermingling with the free world and tasting its values. With it come the expectations and demands for raising the standard of living, improving education, and bridging the gap between the free world and a region so neglecting of human rights and dignity.

A young group of Al-Hisbah (extremist) members broke into a book exhibition in a neighboring country and verbally attacked the Minister of Information. They accused him of insulting their religion and society through his public statements, promoting books that collide with their beliefs, hosting writers whose attitudes are misaligned with Al-Hisbah’s, and giving freedom of movement to what they deemed to be immodest reporters to cover the event.

What those religious youth objected to is a reality for today’s youth. Just like those who took charge of the direction their nation’s are headed, they seek ownership of their destinies. The same act conducted by Al-Hisbah is described by other young people as closed-minded, rigid, extreme, and backwards. What Washington fears and calls on governments to overcome is what some people consider protection from westernization and confirms the alienation their respective governments want but claim the opposite to cajole America.

All I am saying is that what some people deem to be against their religion, values, and identity may be the tool that validates people’s freedoms and establishes democracy and justice. If Washington is a champion of freedom and democracy amongst modern young people who see no harm in its practices, then it succeeded in subduing rulers and forcing them to accept the winds of reform. Not only that but it explicitly ordered and threatened rulers to immediately change, respect human rights, and give their people freedom. Such freedoms include that of assembly and demonstration, expression, and, of course, religion, in order not to ostracize or suppress other communities and give them the right to worship.

If we look a little bit more closely, we’ll find these are also the principles of Islam and its calling. The name of religion is not to be used to handcuff people and bring them to their knees to accept the status quo. It is not for imprisoning, oppressing, plundering, and forcing them to continue their miserable, destitute lives under the guise of protection from the impact of America and the West.

We must come to distinguish between hating America for exploiting us, colonizing us, and occupying our territory, and recognizing that America  is forcing rulers to accept democracy and reform, and break out of the shackles of underdevelopment, which foster misconceptions that harm individuals rather than liberating them.

We must learn when to condemn and when to hate, and differentiate between time of war and time of peace.

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