Democracy

Warning: this is a rather long post.

There are a lot of countries which are in uprising against their current totalitarian government to gain democracy, which is a great thing. It's something which is well worth doing - a lot of those who were in dictatorial rule were not nice to their people and definitely not big fans of human rights. Some of them still aren't - especially now that their people are in uprising and are trying to get them out of power. Take the wonderful colonel Muammar Gaddafi / Qaddafi, in Libya, for instance. He is happily murdering his own people to try and hold on to power, even though 'rebel troops' are refusing to give up and they are now fighting for Tripoli even more than before. The cities around Tripoli and in the north (the most densely populated area of Libya) are all mainly controlled by the anti-Gadaffi people. (I'm going to stick to the western spelling of it for the rest of the blog, for convenience)

Map: 

Gaddafi is definitely not a nice person, the way that he is dealing with the protesters is not a way that any person should deal with it. The things that are going on in Libya are a far cry from what happened at Egypt - only a relatively small amount of people died and it did not take a violent REVOLUTION to get rid of the person in power. Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is happening in these countries. Revolutions. Be they non violent or extremely violent.

Revolution : The overthrow of a government by those who are governed

 Princeton Wordnet

It is amazing that even after all of the years that they have been governed, these countries are still able to strike out. They are able to show the world that they aren't just going to take being governed by totalitarian dictators who disregard their human rights and who refuse to make changes to their way of governing.

A lot of the time when a totalitarian person is in power, the government is fairly backward because the person who is in power has been in power for a long time, and refuses to go with the time as they believe that their way is the best way for everyone. They should not change, but the world should change to their way of thinking. It is ironic because sometimes the people who get in charge are actually thinking ahead of their time at the start, but are so rigid with their points of view that they quickly lapse in how modern they are but instead turn out to be extremely backward.

Another reason why it is simply amazing is because it is showing that a people can still stand up against those who have been in power for decades to get them to leave. Egypt has shown that someone as powerful as Mubarak has left the country after only a relatively short period of protests and 'revolution' - although Egypt now has a very long road to go to becoming a completely democratic state.

Yet one of the most troubling things about the whole situation is that other countries are refusing to step in at the moment, even though he is bombing his own people. Something which is quite clearly wrong. The debate on whether or not the western world or even other countries in the arab world should step in is a lively one as people do not want another Afghanistan or Irak on their hands (even though this is fairly unlikely to happen either way considering that libya does not quite have a tribal ruling system such as Irak and Afghanistan have, within itself.)

The latest update on Libya when this article was posted is this:

Gaddafi forces strike at rebel control of oil export hubs in Libya's east as Arab states weigh plan to end turmoil http://reut.rs/fVYYlB

However, this also includes countries like Oman.
Oman is a relatively small country (especially when compared to Saudi Arabia which is right next to it). It is currently ruled by what is called a 'benign' dictator, the economy is relatively good and he keeps a lot of people busy with public works as he as built a lot of big buildings (included one of the world's biggest Mosques) and has transformed a lot of areas into green areas. And as Oman has a desert climate these green areas need constant care to ensure that the grass and flowers don't die.
This benign dictator is named: Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said (some interesting, if very lengthy, background reading for you: here
His father was in rule before, and during his fathers rule he has been put in prison by his father. Moreover, Oman lived in turmoil under the previous sultan - he was nasty and very strict. Not at all like Sultan Qaboos now.

The reason why this is an however is because Oman is actually a wonderful country. The way it is ruled at the moment is very similar to western countries, it just isn't completely democratic. Sultan Qaboos is very free and those who are protesting at the moment have no idea what it was like under his father - as it is our generation and those who were to young or not even born yet during his father's rain - who are currently protesting. The older generations appreciate what they have and understand how different it is already.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I completely disagree with the protesters. I understand where they are coming from. They want democracy and want to be a part of all of the turmoil that is going on in other countries (and yemen, again... which is Oman's neighbour - if you weren't aware). And democracy - for us - is not something that is unreasonable to want. We have lived with it all of our lives and very much want it for the rest of the world, but I am not entirely sure whether democracy would work a hundred percent in these countries. I can't entirely explain why I think this, but especially in Oman, they are not used to anything else and it would take a long time to get something fair and uncorrupted in place.

In that respect - corruption - I think that falsely democratic states are even worse than openly dictatorial countries. What I mean by this are countries that are riddled by corruption and problems, but still 'pretend to hold elections' but I will deal with that in a seperate post as this one is getting too long already.

At the moment there are also things going on in the ivory coast, if you're interested in this sort of thing and didn't know about it yet:

Ivorian women fatally shot at rally: At least five women killed by forces loyal to country's disputed president ... http://aje.me/gYKnwl

That's all from me for now!