For years, Western countries, principally the USA and the UK, have been visiting Middle Eastern dictators to promote bilateral trade. The Western politicians were normally accompanied by tycoons usually in the petroleum, armaments, construction and manufacturing industries. Lucrative contracts were signed and the over the years, the natural wealth of the Middle Eastern countries was slowly siphoned off to the West.

As this was happening, large numbers of refugees from the Middle East arrived (and continue to arrive) in the West seeking safety from human rights abuses in their countries. As long as the wealth continued to flow in uninterrupted, Western governments were content to turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses by their Eastern counterparts.

The people of the Middle East have heard so many promises from the American and European powers pledging to help the populace improve their lives but all that really materialized was that the West supplied Arab dictators with arms and supplies and instructed them on how to stay in power. The despotic regimes in the Middle East returned the favour by doing the bidding of the West. Post 9-11, dozens of alleged terror suspects were renditioned to countries such Egypt and Syria for torture (illegal in the US and Canada). A classic example is Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin, who was sent back to Syria where he was tortured for over one year.

Most Arab citizens believe that their leaders are agents of USA and Israel. During demonstrations these Arabs shout: “Go back to your friends in USA and Israel!” The current uprising in Libya was not started by the educated and the intellectual elite of the country, but by the uneducated grassroots, who have known for years that their leader has betrayed them to the West.  Ordinary Arabs are taking to the streets in droves, demanding accountability, transparency and the independence to follow their own national aspirations and not the agenda of Western governments. following the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, well-known political analysts suggest that American and European domination in the region may be at an end. They may be right.

Mehboob Hajee
Surrey,  BC