This Arab Life by Amal Ghandour

Author:Amal Ghandour [Ghandour, Amal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2023-07-03T19:05:45+00:00

❖❖❖❖

When Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself, and Tunisia’s Ben Ali’s rule soon after burned with him, I rummaged around for that speck of hopefulness that I had mothballed deep in my psyche. I found it, wiped it clean of grime and dust, and carried it with me everywhere I went. By 2014, I had to wrap it up tight again and tuck it away along with the rest of my aspirations. Until further notice.

When Ben Ali fell, we demurred. Isn’t Tunisia far away? Out of range? Much of what we have in abundance, it doesn’t; much of what it has in abundance, we don’t. A relatively small army averse to politics; a feisty labor movement; an assertive secularism, an accommodating Islamism. But, really, what did any of us know? Besides, Husni Mubarak, barely a few days after Ben Ali went down, reminded us that we had all been properly immunized. There was no risk of an Arab contagion. Tunisia was alone and lonely. A one-off.

When Mubarak fell soon after, I cannot give the exact count to a man and woman—nobody can—but I’ll be goddamned if not millions of us collectively muttered to ourselves, “We can actually get rid of these people?” We could almost taste and smell the rot; it had sat soiled and fetid on us for so long. But it wasn’t the stillness of the swamp. For years, we had seen and felt the slow burn of fury, ceaseless and riveting. Labor strikes, bread riots, episodic revolts, and demonstrations were erupting like rashes and outbreaks on the surface of the body politic like boils on human skin. But heads rolling? With such speed? So, by the time Bashar Assad experienced the Syrian people’s own version of “leave,” it was open season. The skeptics were suddenly quiet. You never saw so many caveats dangle from once-cocky opinions.

For three years, much seemed possible, even achievable. Political space was opening up in ways previously unimaginable. For all the smothering of decades past, and for all the scheming of the security apparatus and Islamists as the revolts gathered momentum, a different kind of politics was asserting itself. Progressive, young, post-Islamist, it appeared surprisingly audacious and nimble. It was glaringly unorganized, inexperienced, factional, and didn’t quite know how to strive after what it wanted, but it certainly could mobilize, agitate, inspire, and it deployed social media like an arsenal. Independent labor unions and political parties were forming; agitation on factory floors, in squares, neighborhoods, and alleyways was growing bolder and louder; journalism was regaining its vitality.

It’s understandable, then, that even the most cynical in our midst—and I gladly own up as one—thought something might just be giving way, that Arab despotism was weaker than it seemed and that outside powers might retreat long enough to let the uprisings breathe. It was the speed of the tyrants’ falls that deceived. We thought if it were that easy to make them wobble or bring them down, surely their regimes would collapse before long.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.