Social Intifada

I suddenly realised it has been a year since the Libyan Brother leader,  King of Kings(crowned by a group of traditional African leaders in 2008) Gaddafi was killed, variously either today, or on August 23rd. Horrible end to one of Africa's great leaders or meanest dictators, depending on what one's politics were.

He once said, 'Americans are good people. They have no aggressions against us and they like us as we like them. They must know I don't hate them. I love them.… I hear it is a complex society inside. Many Americans don't know about the outside world. The majority have no concern and no information about other people. They could not even find Africa on a map........' A lot of truth in that!

Of course he also said that he found similarities between himself and Lincoln! Which somehow seems to indicate delusions of grandeur.

Far more interesting than dead dictators is whether Libyans are doing better now or were better off previously. The Arab spring has given the world innumerable photo ops, one female Nobel laureate at least in Tawakkol Karman(Peace 2011) and the chance to feel that people are still able to fight against oppressive governments. It has not dried up completely yet either. Struggles continue in Morocco, Syria, Jordan and a few others including Saudi Arabia. Even a cynic like me feels happy about al-Bashir of Sudan agreeing to not seek re-election in 2015, although it will possibly give him time to double the 9 billion he has already stolen according to Wikileaks.

It still remains to be seen which way things go. The only thing we can probably be certain of is change itself and the fact that unlike the Gulf wars which seemed to rely on CNN, the Arab spring is an Intifada or 'shaking off' by social media. The Wikileaking of US government emails and the massive mobilising of opinion and protesters thanks to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter drove the protests to the extent that social media usage doubled in the Arab region during the height of the movements. This also indicated the discontent among young people. Ranging from Saudi women fighting for the right to be allowed to drive cars to Omanis challenging existing methods of finding employment, the movement has been an amalgamation of many things for many people. Overseas, it even led to the Occupy movements in Wall Street and several other cities both across North America and Europe.

In the meantime, I doubt if any one in Libya had ever dreamed of a day when Gaddafi would be dragged from a hiding place, dusty and bloodied, looking at his captors for signs of the mercy he was rarely known to display himself. Let us hope the momentum is maintained and social media continues to carry the message to all parts of the world. Ironically the oppressive governments have also been embracing Twitter, Facebook and Youtube in what at least one of the countries, Syria, has named its Electronic Army, one that is in line with its chemical and biological warfare capabilities and its hopes of becoming a regional power broker. This makes it harder for people outside these countries to judge the truth behind what they may be reading on various sites.But that is still better than the repression of the years before 2009.