Hipster Revolutions

So Kaddafi is hiding somewhere in a ditch,like his long-time associate Sadam. There is no counter-attack or great beckoning to a people's army to crush the rebels. Face-it Kaddafi - it's over.

In a month or two from now, you will stand trial before a people's court, and expectedly you will shout at the judge and make theatrical rendition of an Islamic Braveheart to a half-amused audience. Your prison sentence or even execution will make your friends in Damascus have even further sleepless nights. You will claim to be a martyr, but no-one will heed your call. Your legacy of 40 years of building a nation will be matched by 40 years of embarrassment for your children's children.  

At this juncture in this so-called Arab spring, it's an apt time to consider what life will be like after Kaddafi goes. But before doing that, it's even more important to understand why Kaddafi left in the first place. The answer to that has two secret ingredients: Obama and economics. 

Barak Obama's famous Cairo speech in June 2009 was a symbolic milestone and prelude to this Arab discontent. Although he said "no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point", his words sure planted the seeds of discontent in the populous. Think about it. He arrived in the middle east's largest nation to announce to the world a new order of Arab relations, taking an occasional jab at dictators opposed to democratic reforms. Love it or hate it, Mubarak no doubt felt the personal pinch of that speech.

Sprinkle a little bit of economic collapse with  contempt for relic regimes from the 20th century and vuala! you have a revolution. 

The hipster of this revolution was Tunisia. One forgets that the rioting in Tunisia kicked off over the exorbitant price of food. It's always the case. People get ticked off when the "rent is too darn high".   This was exacerbated by the famous incident of a man committing suicide in the street after his licence for his small vending cart was revoked by corrupt officials. A few weeks later, the leader of Tunisia was out. Then Egypt. Then Yemen. Then Libya, Syria and perhaps even the rest of the gang. 

We have seen this all before. In fact, the Arab spring is a play on words from the Prague spring in the eastern bloc countries. So if we have seen this all before, then where is it heading? 

This is where America can come full circle and step in. Obama supported democratic reforms in the middle east in his famous Cairo speech but now with a political vacuum in that region, proper democracy must come into play. The US must support moderate leaders behind the scenes to be the voice of the discontent that ignited the revolutions.

The era of despotic rule is so 1990's and Kaddafi, Mubarak and friends are relics of that time. What is needed now is reasonable and pragmatic leaders. The last thing we need is charismatic, strong or military-backed leaders to step up to the plate as was the case in the 1950's and 60's. 

Obama has taken a back seat in his countries' involvement in the NATO strikes on Libya but now the moment is ripe for him to encourage stable elections. America has to shake-off its fear of the words "regime change" (and all that it implies). If it fails to get involved as the dominant nation in shaping democracy in the region, then other players will step in and we will go back to the 20th centuries' retro-dictators. And I mean that not in a hipster way.