Arabic spring in some Arabic countries was the lecture for this week. For me as a Yemeni, of course, it concerns me more than the rest because my country is one part of that spring. What I liked in this lecture was that, it wasn’t a casual lecture, but the lecture was different. It was four videos, and they were about the revolutions in Egypt and Libya, and after each one there was comments given by Dr. Hamid.
From those four videos what attracted my attention the video of the Egyptian speaker, Wael Ghonim, Google executive, and the video of wadah Khanfar, the Director General of Aljazeera. Wael Ghonim in his speech said something I still remember it until now “The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power.” In fact what he has said is totally correct not only in Egypt, but also in every country.
For example, my country Yemen contain almost 27 million, imagine that 26 million vs. few thousands, who’s going to win? definitely is the 27 million. However, the problem in Yemen and other countries is that the less percentage of awareness among the people. Personally, I’ve realized that the dictator doesn’t become a dictator in an aware environment and the first thing he does after he becomes a dictator is to spread the illiteracy and that’s why the countries that have dictators the majority of its public is illiterate.
The other video which was given by Wadah Khanfar, and from the whole speech of his I got this nice quotation “These [Arab] youth who have been inspired by universal values are idealistic enough to imagine a magnificent future and, at the same time, realistic enough to balance this kind of imagination and the process leading to it — not using violence, not trying to create chaos.” In fact, this also amazed me. Once I was sitting with my cousin in Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen, my country, and, since I live in Saudi, I asked him about the revolution in there and whether or not they were having their weapons with them, since having weapons in Yemen is allowed. He answered me, no we were not having any weapons because we decided to make it a peaceful revolution. I asked him astonishingly, how could you reach this level where Yemen people can’t sleep unless the gun besides him. He told me we have gone further, people now are different from years ago. They became aware of what is going around them. They decided and they will achieve what they had decided.
Actually, this case isn’t only in Yemen, but also in all Arabic spring countries. Finally, revolution didn’t come to change our corrupted presidents only, but also our wrong attitudes and behaviors. Now, it’s time to put my pen down to see you next week.
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