So, it is no surprise that Tom Friedman of The New York Times, who probably understands the Middle East than any other American newsman, has written the definitive piece on what happens next in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death.
Friedman wrote:
“We did our part. We killed Bin Laden with a bullet. Now the Arab and Muslim people have a chance to do their part — kill Bin Ladenism with a ballot — that is, with real elections, with real constitutions, real political parties and real progressive politics.
“Yes, the bad guys have been dealt a blow across the Arab world in the last few months — not only al-Qaida, but the whole rogues’ gallery of dictators, whose soft bigotry of low expectations for their people had kept the Arab world behind. The question now, though, is: Can the forces of decency get organized, elected and start building a different Arab future? That is the most important question. Everything else is noise”
Friedman, who takes a big-picture look at the Middle East of 2011, notes that there is a certain symmetry to the demise of Osama at the same time that the “Arab Spring” is demanding peaceful change.
“These deficits (in the Muslim world),” Friedman said, “nurtured a profound sense of humiliation among Arabs at how far behind they had fallen, a profound hunger to control their own futures and a pervasive sense of injustice in their daily lives. That is what is most striking about the Arab uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia in particular. They were almost apolitical. They were not about any ideology.
“They were propelled by the most basic human longings for dignity, justice and to control one’s own life. Remember, one of the first things Egyptians did was attack their own police stations — the instruments of regime injustice. And since millions of Arabs share these longings for dignity, justice and freedom, these revolutions are not going to go away.”
Finally, Friedman sees the freedom movements as the final act of Arabs severing ties with al-Qaida and their violent ways.
“It is Arabs saying in their own way: We don’t want to be martyrs for Bin Laden or pawns for Mubarak, Assad, Gaddafi, Ben Ali and all the rest. We want to be ‘citizens.’”
You can read the entire column here.
