Classrooms are being burned by students from two clans in the post-revolution Tunisia. This is not what the Tunisians had hoped to see following the Jasmine uprising. In the “heaven” of Iraqi democracy in Kurdistan, a soft war is ongoing in the province's parliament through bottles of mineral water thrown by the deputies against each another, without there being any water to save face for the authority which flaunted its protection of freedoms in the post-Saddam Hussein stage. Now, Barzani and Talabani are accused of unleashing the hands of oppression, of muzzling the mouths and of disregarding corruption. However, the Iraqi picture is incomplete without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, i.e. the ally of Tehran, which is surprised to see the Iraqis demonstrating against him. This is at a time when the “arrogant” powers are conspiring to cut off electricity and their livelihood and while the followers are looting the state institutions as though they were spoils of war, eight years after Saddam's toppling with American cannons. Iraq did not offer the right archetype to Libya's revolutionaries, and consequently, they rejected foreign occupation to get rid of Muammar Gaddafi's regime. But are the West's leniency and the reluctance of NATO, which is using the Security Council as an umbrella for its military operations against Gaddafi's forces, not enough to corner some of the revolutionaries in Misrata and get them to surrender to the request to stage a Western intervention by land in the hope of stopping the massacres? Is the British fear from a LibyanVietnam enough to generate reassurances about the fact that NATO's land intervention will remain unlikely? Amid the back and forth, Libyan blood is flowing, while the optimism of the Colonel's regime over its “victory” is promising the extension of the suffering based on the legitimacy of “murder.” Moreover, the West – which pledged to protect the civilians and suddenly realized it had badly assessed the capabilities of the regime and its brigades – is failing to justify the war predicament or to acquit itself from the responsibility of allowing the extermination in batches. It has discovered that the only way out is through a political solution, through dialogue channels and good intentions. Therefore, the question on the table is the following: Dialogue with whom after the regime of the Jamahiriya lost its popular legitimacy? And more importantly, will it accept dialogue with the revolutionaries whom it is describing as being drug dealers and evaders of loans?! As for the old and renewed question, it is related to the reason why NATO is stalling the removal of the regime's military fangs, at least to force it to stop the killing. The problem of the legitimacies at the level of the revolutions in the “Arab spring” is only renewed in our capitals, where there are the legitimacies of constitutions, laws and authorities, as well as concerns related to conspiracies against the legitimacies of entities. In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh is resisting popular legitimacy with another constitutional one, at a time when the list of martyrs is increasingly growing. True, Yemen is not Libya. But what is also true is that everyone is taken hostage by blood and fear. Even the ruling People's Congress Party in Sana'a – which is announcing its acceptance of the transfer of power – has become the hostage of the street, just like the street has become the hostage of Ali Saleh's fright from the Ben Ali nightmare. Yemen is neither Libya nor Syria. But will the repression of the legitimacy of the street bring anything but the bitterness of “conspiracies” and the invasions of rage at a time when killing is leading everyone toward the abyss of hatred? Can there be a recognition of the dignities of the citizens while some are accused of treason or of being led by gangs and “bandits”? These are samples from the dictionary of the authorities that stooped to the level of armed groups in many Arab locations, and are still – despite all the uprisings – trying to salvage the dead skin by trading freedom with security. Behind the funerals of the martyrs, are concealed the realities of a world that has abandoned the world dozens of years ago, and has been resting on the pillows of the nationalistic battle and the threat of the great enemy. Throughout decades, the authority remained the jailor of the country and the citizens. It remained the purest and most honorable, while we were all the object of suspicions or spies. Even our hostility toward Israel and our reservations over America were no longer enough, considering that patriotism is attributed by those who hijacked the past and are hijacking the present to avoid leaving power. There is no nationalism, no “Jihadism,” no left wing and no right wing. In the spring of anger, panic is prevailing over the jailor and we are all suspects.
