“The Earth speaks Arabic.” The last 72 hours were purely Arab, as presidential chairs collapsed and angry popular marches were staged, threatening governments and toppling big heads to the point of rendering them very small. This confirmed that the Arab street is capable of generating change when it rebels to uphold dignity and freedom and to support justice and human rights. The Tunisian president fled for his life from an “overwhelming revolution” that restored the history of people's rebellions to defend their rights against the regimes of tyranny and oppression. In Algeria, the “one-million-martyr” nation moved in the context of the so-called food uprising due to the rise of the prices of food products, while the street is still boiling until this day. As for Jordan, it is witnessing angry popular marches demanding the resignation of Al-Rifai's government in protest against the rise of prices, raising slogans saying: “Salute the rebels in Tunisia and Algeria.” Sudan in the meantime is being divided into two states, a Northern one and a Southern one, due to the policy of an Arab leader who – for the last twenty years – has been speaking more than he has been working and changing toward what is better. As for the opposition in Lebanon, it is toppling the government of Sa'd al-Hariri while he is standing at the gates of the White House, and the interior minister in Kuwait is resigning from his post against the torturing of a simple citizen by security men. People may show patience toward injustice for a certain period of time, but they will not accept to die and turn into a “corpse” with no dignity and no rights. In this context, the world has a history with revolutions staged in favor of justice, equality and freedom, such as the American revolution in 1776, the French revolution in 1789 and the Russian revolution in 1917. In the twenty-first century, the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004 is still vivid in our memories, along with the revolution of the poor or the “marginalized” in France in 2005. This confirms that poverty, hunger and unemployment fuel the anger of the people and cause the eruption of revolutions that could topple governments, as it was seen in France during the days of King Louis XVI in what was known as the “bread revolution.” Throughout the world, there are many examples showing that when people rebel against oppression, marginalization, frustration and humiliation, they come out as victors in the face of iron fists, regardless of their strength or power in containing the anger and stopping the revolution. The protests of the Tunisians did not stop at the ports of Carthage, Sousse, Sfax, Bizerte, and Kairouan, and expanded on the popular level toward Algeria, maybe even reaching other Arab countries very soon. In the meantime, the majority of the Arab states are facing domestic problems in dealing with human rights, and are suffering major crises and threats due to the presence of governments that are ignoring the people, hijacking their rights, and ignoring their ambitions to the point where some have become “strangers” their own countries. In some Arab countries, there is poverty, unemployment, marginalization, the poor allocation of wealth, missing freedoms and violated rights due to the ruler himself or his entourage of “beneficiaries.” Modern man can now see what is happening everywhere, can be influenced by it and can participate in it. He can watch the revolutions of the people and the uprisings of cities on the screen of his mobile phone and can comment on the developments, while the modern media technologies can provide him with a full audiovisual live coverage. Arab people are no longer the way they used to be and are now reading, watching and listening and insisting on change and freedom of expression. This is what prompted free Arab movements to immediately show solidarity with the Tunisian revolution, demanding the departure of the rulers who did not serve their countries and rather rendered them the hostages of hunger, injustice, poverty and oppression with the increase of nepotism and the poor allocation of the wealth. The rulers are not governing for their own sake or that of their families, but for the sake of an entire people in whose memories the lessons, positions and mistakes are accumulating. And when they will have enough of their authority, they will rebel against it to break the chains and topple the barricades, and the ruler will find himself alone and forced to flee despite the millions – and maybe even billions – of dollars he has spent to protect his authority and his entourage, as it was done by Ben Ali and his family and before him by Saddam and his family. The Tunisian revolution will be immortalized by history and January 14, 2011 will remain engraved in the memories of all the Tunisians. It will also constitute an inspiration and a motivator for other populations, a new roadmap toward change and the regaining of the stolen rights and the crushed dignity, and a slogan for the rejection of humiliation and disgrace. The popular uprising in Tunisia revealed that when a ruler isolates himself from his people, ignores their demands, choices, needs and rights, and tries to impose his authority through an iron first, by muzzling the voices, throwing people in prison and confiscating the rights, he will fail and will be humiliated in public. However, the question that remains on the table does not revolve around whether or not the rulers will learn from the Tunisian lesson. It rather revolves around the way the rulers will relinquish their ivory towers and their entourage which is mutilating the facts, in order to grow closer to their people and meet their ambitions through bold policies of reform affecting public freedoms, balanced development, social justice, the fight against corruption and the reinstatement of the rights of the citizens to efficiently participate at the level of the key issues. This is necessary to avoid seeing the Tunisian revolution turn into a new source of inspiration for the people, thus getting them to rise in defense of their rights, lives and future and against injustice, oppression and tyranny.
