Protests in The Middle East

"[The average man] is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." ~ H.L. Mencken

A few weeks ago Tunisia erupted in protest. The people finally got fed up with their dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and he had to resign. Now the Egyptian people are fed up with their dictator Hosni Mubarak's 29 year rule.

These protests in Muslim countries are not about religion. They are about freedom and economics. The protesters are protesting against the tyrants that the U.S. has aided and abetted for decades. Will other tyrants, friends of the U.S., like the Saud family that has ruled and plundered Saudi Arabia for decades, be next to abdicate? Will the The House of Al Sabah in Kuwait no longer be able to collect billions in oil revenue that belong to the people?

I wrote this on October 23, 2006. “Time and technology will fight radical Islam better than the U.S. Military will. The radicals of Islam are not afraid of our army. They are afraid of the words in our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights.”

The Internet and cell phones are making the flow of information easier in the Middle East and this technology is making it easier for Arabs all over the world to rebel against tyrannical rule, including rule by Caliphs and Imams.

Of course there have been revolutions in the past when the current technology was unavailable. Many of those revolutions were coup d’etats, one autocracy trying to overthrow another. It was not about a revolution of ideas on how government should operate, as was the American revolution of 1776. The current technology however has leaders around the world feeling very out of control because millions of people are exchanging ideas through the Internet. With the Internet the leaders no longer control the flow of information and therefore cannot control the ideas of the people. Egypt has shut down the Internet in Egypt, but how long can a country survive in the modern era without the Internet?

President Obama said with a straight face, "All governments must maintain power through consent, not coercion." I wonder if President Obama realizes how much coercion the U.S. government uses on its citizens. The U.S. government uses coercion on its citizens to collect taxes, some of which has been used to prop up despots in the Middle East. At least Obama said what all governments are about, which is POWER.

President Obama is/was reluctant to criticize one of his allies, even if the ally is a despot. It seems the U.S. foreign policy is hypocritical. It says it wants to democratize the Middle East, yet it supports dictators. I think the U.S. officials are hypocritical in words only. In their hearts the U.S. officials yearn, with envy, for the power dictators have.

I believe the people who are revolting against tyranny in the Middle East have withdrawn their consent. It was Etienne de la Boetie in his “The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” in 1549 who said that people cannot be ruled by tyrants unless the people volunteer to be ruled. The people in the Middle East are no longer volunteering to be ruled by tyrants. What has happened in Tunisia and Egypt shows that there was no need for the invasion of Iraq and the use of force by the United States to overthrow a tyrant.

The Arabs serving under tyrants should take the advice of Etienne de la Boetie and carry out a passive resistance to their autocratic governments. The people should go on a passive withdrawal of enthusiasm, a WOE program. Without the people’s work and cooperation the autocrats will have to move aside, peacefully.

The people in the west who feared an Islamic takeover of the world were hysterical over nothing. Each younger generation of Muslims will want more freedom from the Imams as the younger generations exchange ideas over the Internet. These modern ideas are not just exchanged locally, they are ideas that cross geographical borders in seconds.

Once the Arabs in the Middle East develop a form of representative government will they be free? People will always vote to try and live at the expense of others. People will always vote to live with the most pleasure and the least pain. They prefer a life of excitement and violence over a life of peace and serenity. In a representative government there are powerful lobbies, as in the U.S., which looks out for their interest at the expense of others. Life is about power. So is government, whether it is a democratic republic or an autocratic government. Will the Internet be able to expose all of these restrictions to real and complete liberty? I believe it will be an important part, but human nature will never accept complete liberty because it requires too much individual responsibility. Maybe someday, when we are bio engineered to live without fear and desire, to live like a vegetable that does not want to kill its own kind instead of like the human animal that does, then, and only then will we know complete liberty.

“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.” -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Charles Tolleson, Mr. Passive