By Ahmad Mustapha Hassan
June 07, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 7 — The turmoil in the Middle East started off with the uprising in Tunisia to get rid of their corrupt leader, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The man, his family and cronies enriched themselves at the expense of the Tunisian people. They built palaces for themselves and cornered businesses to themselves. In the meantime the emerging youths found that with their professional degrees that they possessed, they were left unemployed.

They had to peddle wares, hawking them from makeshift sheds. Even this was forbidden and their trade was smashed by the authorities. One disappointed, dejected and helpless youth committed suicide by torching himself. The ember of revolt was thus lighted.

Tunisia has been a secular state since it achieved its independence and became a republic in 1957. The revolution that took place was not religious in character. It was secular and supported by all citizens irrespective of their religious denominations.

But as usual, Islamists who rode on the bandwagon of this revolt tried to highjack the cause and wanted to impose their beliefs in the new Tunisia. This had caused sane minded Tunisians who were the protagonists of the revolt to come out for another protest to cut off the impending disaster this religious elements would cause.

One of the banners displayed at this protest was “Politics ruin religion and religion ruins politics’. Another said, “Separation of mosque and the state!”

Tunisians value secularism and will not tolerate the imposition of religion in the affairs of government.

This was and had been the agenda of those who want to see that religion will not spoil the governance of a country. When religion is placed as the controlling factor in the governing of a state, chaos will emerge. Pakistan, Bangladesh and others which promoted Islam as being the core of their governments have seen no progress.

The bulk of government work was directed at controlling the lives of their citizens. The focus on good governance and ensuring fair and equitable progress for all never takes root. Religion had been manipulated for the benefit of the few.

The common men were cowed into following these moral regulations. But the actions of the rulers had never been made the focus of moral policing. These rulers may look and act saintly in the country but it is a different scenario when they are overseas. This hypocrisy in using religion for the benefit of the rulers will not however last. This happened because; the focus on uplifting the standard of living of the general population was set aside. In the meantime the rulers enjoyed the benefits of both worlds.

The Arabs in the Middle East had suffered far too long. The revolt is to seek justice and fairness. It was therefore not a religious revolt.

All these countries in the Middle East have never seen democracy being practiced. All came under the clutches of dictators, autocrats and religious fanatics. They are afraid of democracy as this will definitely destroy their hold on government. They had created two classes of people in their own countries – the rulers and the ruled. The people were given zero choice in the governing of their countries.

They had some semblance of democracy by having elections but rigged them to ensure they stayed on as rulers. Thus Egypt’s Hoesni Mubarak kept on winning election after election. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi totally destroyed all institutions of government. Through that he was able to stay in power for over 40 years. His sons controlled all the instruments of government.

They never believed in the aspirations of the people and thus they did not create any channels whereby they could monitor the feelings of the people. They only believed in controlling the people through force by using the police and the armed forces. To them might would thrive and they could remain in power.

Thus the whole of the Middle East has become a very combustible cauldron of an area, needing only a slight spark. That spark, of all places, burst in Tunisia, a secular state. Corruption and cronyism became the stones that rubbed one another to create the revolution..

It all boils down to economics. These dictators never ever thought of themselves as benevolent rulers but put themselves as ancient emperors who treated their subjects as slaves.

For that they would meet their fate one by one in a fiery environment which they had never thought would ever happen.

The Middle East needs true democrats to come to power if it envisages of becoming a power house and determine the course of world events in the future.

* Ahmad Mustapha Hassan is the author of “The Unmaking of Malaysia” and a former general manager of state news agency Bernama. He was also the press secretary to Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and the then-Deputy Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.