The parade of unrest in Middle East and North African countries, most ruled by despots, non-democratic royal families or military power-grabbers who hung on to become presidents for life, should remind all of us that people will be enslaved and denied their human and civil rights for just so long. Finally, they rebel, even if it means civil war, death, or capture and torture.
It seems that only the dictators have not learned this fundamental lesson. They seem to think that the unrest that brought them to power was a one-shot event that will never recur. They have the conviction that they were meant to rule and in ruling, to inflict any and all sorts of inhuman pain, suffering and servitude on their fellow citizens. How wrong they are.
History is written with the blood of people - Asians, Africans. Europeans, Americans - who finally rose up against despotism. To forget his truth is to be caught up by one’s own faulty memory.
The people of the Arab world will prevail. They will win. The will be ruled as they themselves choose, based on their best perception of how free people should govern and be governed. Anyone who stands in the path of this historic tide will be swept aside.
Abraham Lincoln said it best :
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
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