Only free-willed people and brave leaders survive!

By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban

27 Nov. 2006

Events intensified and accelerated last weeks, some of which were calculated and planned like the ugly massacre Israelis cold-bloodedly committed in Beit Hanoun; and others were imposed by the free will of ever-fair people like the defeat of Republicans in the midterm congresssional elections in US which resulted in the resignation of the American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld  who has tainted America's history with the shame of Abu Greib and secret prisons.

It was not the first time Israel commits crimes against Palestinians and eliminates complete families while asleep at time when another important even such as American elections takes the hour round coverage on news networks like CNN. However, it was the first time the Arab voice comes shamefully faint that rulers and media, who did not show any significant reaction, were gravely incompetent.

Ever since 9/11 attacks, Arabs' reactions, in general, has been marked with a sense of frustration, fatalism and powerlessness as if the neo-conservatives in Washington have become an invincible power and there is no hope to stand their policy or oppose it. Hence, a wide door was opened to Israel to pass, to the Pentagon and to the White House, the ill policies of invading Iraq, destroying Palestinian people and launching war on Lebanon. Although the Arabs were the big losers of this policy, their reactions never lived up to its grave consequences.

Nonetheless, as they had the high word in stopping the unfair war in Vietnam, the American people seem to move towards making another historical honor in stopping the devastating war their administration waged on Iraq.  The result of the midterm elections was the word of the American people against the wars of the  Republicans, and perhaps, if the American people had learnt earlier about the true facts of the war on Iraq, even President Bush may not have got a second presidential term. Like Spanish and Italian peoples, the American people should elect a new administration capable of cleaning the shame neo-conservatives' policies caused to honest Americans. It should be an administration who would adopt new strategies that make United States not only a military superpower but a moral power that sides with the rights and dignity of other peoples and promotes the American values of  honor, respect and togetherness.

The defeat of Republicans in the American mid-term elections was a political and moral defeat. It is a defeat to the neo-conservatives' policies, based on violence and confrontation, which turned US to a war machine against the rights and dignity of other peoples and which provided Israel with an unlimited support in its racist policy and genocide crimes against Palestinian people.

However, the true win of the Democrats depends on their future vision of the US role in the world. They should be aware that the American people, like all other peoples in the world, got tired of the recklessness of the neo-conservatives, and need a new policy based on justice and respect to the rights of other people. Thus, would the Democrats be able to restore the lost credibility of the United States and undo the humiliation neo-conservatives inflicted on the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon and would they make dialogue and partnership with other peoples the drives of their policies?

The win of the Democrats gives new evidence that people always have the upper hand in making history. The course of history tells that the true survival by the end will be for free-willed people and brave leaders who make human dignity and justice the only criteria of their rule everywhere.