The use of suicide as a last attempt of rebellion against misery and repression is expanding rapidly in the Arab countries. Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and even Mauritania. Monday, 17 January a young Mauritanian set himself on fire in Nouakchott, opposite the presidential palace, to express his anger against the regime led by General Abdelaziz coup, according to reports from local media sources. The same day, in Cairo, the owner of a small restaurant has poured gasoline in front of Parliament and set fire on his body. The gesture was imitated in the morning following two other young Egyptians, immolatisi front of the building where it meets the Council of Ministers. The three, like the young Mauritanian, are hospitalized with burns spread on all parts of the body. In Algeria, already seven suicide attempts reported by Wednesday, January 12. The last case Tuesday, January 18: A woman set herself on fire in the province of Sidi Belabs (600 km south-west of Algiers) after local authorities had refused to grant a subsidy for housing. Before her two young unemployed in a region Mostaghanem (350 km west of Algiers) and the other near Tebessa (on the border with Tunisia) had tried to end their life in the same way.
The extreme gesture by Bouaziz Mohamed Sidi Bouzid December 17 last year, which gave way to the lifting of the Tunisian people to overthrow the dictator Ben Ali, seems to have an echo and a surprising spread between Arab societies and Arab -Berber region, united by the authoritarian and repressive state power and the serious socio-economic conditions which are facing. Bouaziz, unemployed twenty-six died on January 4 due to burns, has become a martyr for "jasmine revolution" and a landmark reference in both the Maghreb and in the whole Arab world. The risk of infection care schemes in the area, qualified certainly not by popular consent, but state police monitor populations for decades in which up to now remained enslaved. Various Bouteflika, Mubarak and even their Western backers (the U.S. and France), while congratulating the Tunisian people, feel more than ever threatened by the danger that the revolutionary seed will expand to other companies in the region.
Here's an article on the same topic published by the Algerian daily El Watan January 16, 2011.
Arab regimes on alert
The fall of the powerful Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after twenty-three years of absolute rule, sotto le pressioni di una autentica rivolta di popolo, mette i regimi arabi in stato di allerta. Coscienti della loro ampia impopolarità, della loro illegittimità e del risentimento covato dalla popolazione, i dirigenti arabi cercano di premunirsi contro la diffusione di uno “scenario alla tunisina”.
Pur precipitandosi a dichiarare il proprio sostegno al popolo tunisino in rivolta e ormai rivoluzionario, i regimi arabi si preparano fin da ora a neutralizzare un possibile contagio. “La rivoluzione tunisina è il primo sollevamento popolare di questo tipo che riesce a rovesciare un capo di stato in un regime arabo. Può essere una fonte di ispirazione per l’intera regione”, afferma Amir Hamzawi, ricercatore the American Foundation Carnegie Endowment. According to him, "the ingredients found in Tunisia are present throughout the area." Arab societies all live under the same terms as the Tunisian: people enslaved, suppressed opposition, denied rights, freedom confiscated, widespread corruption and widespread poverty .. This observation is valid for all the Arab regimes. From Morocco to Algeria, from Egypt to Jordan, we find these factors "detonators". Social injustice and the closing of political space are generating disgust, loathing and exasperation.
Similarities
Arab societies, who feel a state of total abandonment, are likely to pour out their anger on the streets, squares, as has been well demonstrated by the Tunisians, who lived in one of the toughest police state since the time of independence (1956 ). Now nothing is impossible. What happened in Tunisia shows that change can come from companies themselves, that no dictator can resist the will of a people united in revolt. "We hope that what happened in Tunisia could be repeated in other Arab countries, where leaders are rusting in their seats of power," says the editor of a Lebanese television station. The Tunisian experience shows that there is no more Need a democracy exported shots of bombing and invasion, an American, to free oppressed peoples.
An extraordinary ability to adapt
"The echo of this event, unprecedented in the Arab world will undoubtedly hear more than one country in the region," declared the Lebanese newspaper Annahar editorial published yesterday. Some Egyptians were united Friday in Cairo, a group of Tunisians who were celebrating in front of their embassy, \u200b\u200bthe flight of President Ben Ali, and called themselves the departure of Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981. "Egyptians ascoltate i tunisini, ora è il vostro turno!”, erano gli slogan scanditi dai manifestanti.
In Giordania migliaia di persone hanno manifestato in diverse città per protestare contro la crescita della disoccupazione e dell’inflazione, ma anche per invocare la fine del regime. In Algeria gli scontri sono cominciati ad inizio gennaio, dopo l’innalzamento dei prezzi dei prodotti di largo consumo. Ma anche se il messaggio proveniente dalla Tunisia è percepito in modo chiaro, il suo impatto a corto termine e i rischi di contagio restano difficili da valutare nell’immediato. I regimi autoritari arabi hanno dimostrato di avere una buona capacità di adattamento alle novità e ai venti di cambiamento. Alcuni esempi meritano di essere sottolineati. La rivolta algerina del 1988, assetata di diritti e di libertà, è stata dirottata ed ha permesso al sistema politico di rigenerarsi instaurando una democrazia di facciata. Anche in Siria la “primavera di Damasco” sbocciata nel 2000 è stata soffocata sul nascere. Diversamente dal regime di Ben Ali, estremamente totalitario e repressivo, in Algeria, in Marocco e in Egitto gli apparati di potere concedono piccole valvole di sfogo alla società civile e alle opposizioni. Altri invece, immersi nel petrolio come l’Arabia Saudita e la Libia, riescono a comprare il silenzio dei rispettivi popoli.
Per Claire Spencer, a capo del programma Medio Oriente e Nord Africa dell’Istituto Chatam House (London), the possibility that Algeria to follow a trend, "the Tunisian" remains a big question. It 'clear that most Arab regimes are under tension for the possibility of a contagion of revolution Tunisia. But it is difficult to say with equal certainty that a similar scenario to reproduce itself in other Arab countries. When it comes to riot in the streets, all scenarios are possible ... even darker.
(Mokrane Ait Ouarabi)
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