Kifaya: “Enough” in Arabic
Thanks to RCP for the tip. From gulfnews.com an essay by Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former NY Times Middle East correspondent.
Key quote, according to:
“…advocate and sociologist Dr Saad Al Din Ebrahim, [kifaya, Arabic for enough] is fast becoming a mantra for millions of Arabs wanting to seize their own destiny.
Certainly the slogan has surfaced in banners carried into those street demonstrations, but more important it has now found its way on television shows, read in opinion columns by Arab pundits and certainly advocated by millions of Arabs in the privacy of their homes from Casablanca to Riyadh.
Could this one word be a harbinger of a muscular popular Arab revolt such as the movement that guided millions of people in Eastern Europe in shedding their tired old despotic regimes after the fall of the Soviet Union?
I covered the looming Arab revolt in a column dated December 15, 2004.
“Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt.
However, generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas won’t be leading the revolution. This time, Arab moderates and liberal reformers — the Middle East’s genuine rebels — are the insurgent vanguard.
Put a circle around Jan. 9. That’s the day Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president. In the desperate, divided and terrorized Palestinian statelet, electoral politics (ballots) are replacing pistol politics (bullets). That is a revolution — a worldview-shattering, history-creating revolution.
Draw another circle around Jan. 30. That’s Iraq’s first election day. Underline the two weeks prior to Jan. 30. That will be a savage fortnight in which terror campaigns and political campaigns collide. Democratic candidates will be assassinated and polling stations will be blown to bits, as Saddamite and Al Qaeda reactionaries — the Middle East’s ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist — attempt to force an oppressed people to submit one more time to the yoke of fear.
But they are going to fail…
UPDATE: Note to commenter 3: Don’t get too cynical and too crabbed, especially if you live in a democracy protected by American troops. Anyone who’s seen war doesn’t get cocky, and your comment indicates you haven’t seen war. Read the post on Hezbollah declaring civil war (scroll up). If you think Lebanon’s Hezbollah is something other than a terrorist organization funded by Syria and Iran, then…you’re not only dead wrong, you are on the wrong side. And you will have to live with that choice. These are times when choices make a difference.
What happens when you hold a revolution and the “revolutionaries” don’t show. Hopefully a sucessful revolution unlike some of the previous revolutions. Actually this is weird, I am supporting revolution and my leftest friends are agog.
Comment by David — 3/8/2005 @ 6:49 pm
I remember your post from Dec. Only I thought that the mideast would explode in anti-democratic violence, mainly terrorism egged on by governments who have no interest in seeing democracy spread. This revolt is much nicer. I’m happy to be wrong.
Comment by reactionary guttersnipe — 3/8/2005 @ 7:11 pm
And I believe that March 7, 2005 was the apex of this movement. Now that 400,000 Lebanese have demonstrated for the other side, its a kick in the ass of reality so don’t get too cocky yet.
Comment by Adam — 3/8/2005 @ 7:36 pm
Let’s accept the fact that a heavily armed and entrenched group like Hez can turn out plenty of people when they use hatever means of persuasion are at hand. Saddam turned out those types of demos too, and so do the Mullahs next door. But noone is holding a gun at the backs of the anti-Syrian demos, in fact, they are taunting the gun toters, just like the Iraqi voters did a few weks ago. If you are not moved somewhere deep inside by the sight of that much courage, by such a desire for freedom that possible death becomes only a minor factor, to be brushed aside, then something has died inside you, and the angels will weep for you. There is a certain poverty of soul for which sophistication and cynicism cannot quite substitute.
Comment by veryretired — 3/8/2005 @ 8:22 pm
The Iraqis paid in blood for their freedom and own it outright in fee simple. Lebanon has suffered enough. I hope they can do it more easily, but they will do it.
Comment by Mitch — 3/8/2005 @ 9:32 pm
Actually, the “counter-demonstration” by Hizbollah ditto-heads doesn’t seem very impressive. 500,000 people is not hard to muster if you have the carrot and stick instruments regularly used by Syria and its allies. Rent-a-crowds are an everyday fact of life for dictators like Bashir Assad.
Comment by JonathanR. — 3/9/2005 @ 12:06 am
Isn’t the fact that Hezbollah resorted to using a large crowd instead of suicide bombers a step in the right direction?
Comment by Bruce Chang — 3/9/2005 @ 1:27 am
While Hezbollah is using a large (rent-a-?) crowd instead of bombers is telling. But what is even more telling is the fact that they are using a crowd at all. They have ceded the point that what the people want matters.
Comment by Blanknoone — 3/9/2005 @ 8:02 am
I keep seeing that 500K number bandied around, but crowd size estimates are notoriously unreliable. Where does that number come from, and did whoever put it in circulation have an interest in this demonstration seeming larger than it was?
Comment by R C Dean — 3/9/2005 @ 12:55 pm
On that 500K number: Al Jazeera pegs it at 1.5 million, so half a million is probably about right.
Comment by JM Hanes — 3/9/2005 @ 3:09 pm
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Trackback by Paula Bateman — 7/20/2005 @ 10:01 am
bravooooooo i am with u i am agirl with in 19 years old we want to chang our country
Comment by dina — 9/3/2005 @ 5:08 pm