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In their wake, weak, pliable and vulnerable regimes presiding over what can best be described as failed states, reign. It’s a serious indictment on the Western superpowers that the revolutions which they championed in the vain hope that they would yield their brand of democracy, have instead reaped violence, anarchy, mayhem and total disorder in such countries as Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia and now Syria.
In Egypt, the new Islamist president Mohammed Morsi is struggling to hold together a country torn apart by competing forces with the military and judiciary challenging his authority. On Sunday, he ordered the dissolved People’s Assembly (Lower House of Parliament) to resume work in a presidential decree but this was nullified by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court on Monday, which asserted that its 14 June ruling in which it ruled the People’s Assembly null and void, was definitive, binding and could not be challenged.
The powerful military council, which took over power on 11 February last year after the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak, is backing the Supreme Court ruling. The military, which handed power to Morsi on 30 June after ruling the country for 16 months, delivered a thinly veiled warning to the president, saying it would continue to support the country’s “legitimacy, constitution and law” — language that means it will not stand by and watch the rulings of the country’s top court ignored or breached.
At the same time, the Supreme Constitutional Court sent out a clear signal that it will not bow to Morsi’s wish, saying in a statement after an emergency meeting on Monday that its 14 June ruling to invalidate the Islamist-dominated parliament was final and binding. The new Egyptian leader therefore finds himself hamstrung, weak and severely undermined by the military generals who wield the real power and a judiciary intent on protecting its interests.
The dispute over the fate of parliament has divided the nation just as Egyptians were looking forward to a semblance of stability after the tumult of the 17 months since the ouster of long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has seen a dramatic surge in crime, deadly street protests, a faltering economy and seemingly non-stop strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations.
Yesterday, the Muslim Brotherhood — Mr Morsi’s power base, which has the biggest bloc of seats in parliament — said it would “participate in a million-man march in support of the president’s decision and reinstating parliament”. The country is in a gridlock, trapped in a constitutional and political crisis. In Libya parliamentary elections were held at the weekend but chaos and disorder persist.
Former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, whose coalition is widely believed to have won the poll, has called for national unity between political parties saying political factions must work together to restore order, which the state was too weak to enforce.
To illustrate the lack of order, a Libyan militia commander on Monday said two local journalists from Misrata’s local TV station were being held in a town known for its support of deposed ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
The dispute is part of the overall lack of security in Libya, where rival militias and armed groups control various parts of the country in the absence of a strong central government and army. In Syria, a 16-month-old conflict shows no signs of abetting with more than 17 000 people reported killed.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told a German broadcaster on Monday that the United States was part of the conflict. “They offer the umbrella and political support to those gangs to destabilise Syria,” he said.
Previous regimes in Egypt and Libya and the current one in Syria had their own brands of democracy and there was relative law and order in their countries and the state was functional. The prevailing total breakdown in the rule of law points to a failed revolution. It shows you cannot impose your kind of democracy on a people with their own peculiar ethos and way of life.
Zimbabwe and the rest of the African continent can therefore learn a lot from the failed Spring Uprisings. What is coming out prominently is the hidden hand behind the so-called revolutions. While Western powers such as the US and Britain, can sponsor an uprising to access resources in a country, they are not overly concerned about the chaos that ensues as long as they have achieved their mission.
In Libya for instance, the chaos and anarchy offers a convenient cover for the plunder of the country’s vast oil resources by multinational companies. Zimbabweans can therefore draw useful lessons from the plight of their Arab brothers and sisters. Powerful Western nations will only sponsor proxy movements and political parties to achieve their desired ends.
In the Middle East, the primary driver is oil and in Zimbabwe’s case it is the means of production — the land and all the minerals found therein.
Online Reporter