The turmoil in Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain is long overdue, and should not be too surprising. The Arab world (for want of a better term) has been left behind in all respects: sciientific and social progress, technological change, economic improvement, and political development have stagnated in the region for years. And the population knows it.
Repression, often in the name of religion, has deprived the region of most of the benefits that should have accrued from being the collective possessors of one of the world's most valuable resources - oil. Some have estimated that as much as a trillion dollars has been wasted on armaments, another trillion on frivolous projects (like growing grain in the Saudi desert), and a third trillion stashed away by avariciouis ruling elites.
It is clear that the lot of the average person in the region (Israel excepted) has not materially improved over the past fifty years. What has changed, however, is the ease with which the man in the street can have access to information, and how he can use that information to compare his lot in life to his compatriots in other countries.
Revolution born of desperation, as we are seeing in Libya, cannot be easily repressed with savagery. There seem to be parallels between the popular movements that have appeared throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and the French Revolution, which began with peasants asking for food, and ultimately changed most of Europe. Most strikingly, these movements are popular, and do not seem to be motivated as much by religious fervour as a desire for change. While it is much too soon to forecast the outcomes of events in the region, we do live in interesting times, and a new, perhaps better, Middle East might emerge.
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