The first third of 2011 brought a great global and popular stirring – a burgeoning springtime of peoples blooming in technical advance of spring. The most dramatic, regime-toppling revolts have taken place in Tunisia and Egypt, where millions poured into the streets to end the reign of long-term U.S.-backed dictators. A wave of popular resistance has spread, 1848-style, to other states (Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran Saudi Arabia, Libya, and, most recently, Syria) across the Middle Eastern and North African arc of despotism, giving the lie to what Tariq Ali calls “the absurd [Western] notion that Arabs or Muslims were hostile to [and incapable of -P.S.] democracy.” ….read further.
