For decades the world has seen American gun boat diplomacy unseat popular governments that appeared unfriendly to U.S. business or whose ideology was inconsistent with beliefs American elites possessed. From South and Central America to Iraq America only considered democratic those regimes that were installed by American forces or whose rules toed the line of American foreign policy and economic philosophy. The nations of the Middle East were kept in check by the claim that their popular movements were communist or socialist in ideology or were radical religious in nature. Today, since the uprising in Tunisia a new breath of life is blowing across Africa and into Asia, that breath is not anti-American, but its voice thus far seems independent of American ideology.
Whether the outcome will look like the past or a new form of government is yet to be seen, but reports out of Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen show that people are organizing autonomous local units in self preservation, neighbor by neighborhood. It is significant that U.S. and European news agencies have nearly blocked out coverage of much of the action with the exception of CNN. Fox News ran local programming most of the past week ignoring the events.
One might imaging that Murdock and Murphy who own the largest American and much of the foreign news are not excited about popular revolt.
They are happy to confuse and disorient the Democrats in America with the Tea Party, but they fear a revolution that would threaten their wealth and power. Nevertheless, other broadcasters have also been strangely silent. Stories out this last week found that al-Jazeera toned down its reportage of events in Egypt reflecting fears of surrounding states of the disorder spreading (http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sid20110129_29112_263/Hints%20of%20Qatari%20fears%20from%20al-Jazeer
a). The most comprehensive news has come out of Libya (http://www.afrol.com/articles/37161) with reports today on Alexandria being completely in the hands of the people and a temporary agreement of police and towns people working to maintain order.
Afrol News also reports (http://www.afrol.com/articles/37164) on rumors that President Mubarak has already left the country after opposition leaders began calling for his arrest for ordering police to fire live ammunition on protesters. They also carry another story that looters have been identified as part of a plan Mubarak's advisors put into place to counter the protests (http://www.afrol.com/articles/37170).
It is interesting that the right wing Neocons who so pushed American style democracy have been absent from the news, while we could expect that Obama would be supportive of Mubarak or vague. Unfortunately, no one could have predicted the gaff produced by Vice President Biden when he stated that Mubarak was not a dictator and expressed his support. One wonders where Biden has been these 30 years?
Niccolo Caldararo, Ph.D.
Dept. of Anthropology
San Francisco State University