Friedman: the “not-so-obvious forces” that fed this mass revolt

[pampango]

http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/columnists/thomas-friedman-this-is-just-the-start-of-something-huge-1095771.html

The Obama factor: Americans have never fully appreciated what a radical thing we did — in the eyes of the rest of the world — in electing an African-American with the middle name Hussein as president. The Obama factor Americans have never fully appreciated what a radical thing we did — in the eyes of the rest of the world — in electing an African-American with the middle name Hussein as president.

I’m convinced that listening to Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech — not the words, but the man — were more than a few young Arabs who were saying to themselves: “Hmmm, let’s see. He’s young. I’m young. He’s dark-skinned. I’m dark-skinned. His middle name is Hussein. My name is Hussein. His grandfather is a Muslim. My grandfather is a Muslim. He is president of the United States. And I’m an unemployed young Arab with no vote and no voice in my future.”

The Beijing Olympics: China and Egypt were both great civilizations subjected to imperialism and were both dirt poor back in the 1950s, with China even poorer than Egypt... But, today, China has built the world’s second-largest economy, and Egypt is still living on foreign aid.

Israel: The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera has a big team covering Israel today. Here are some of the stories they have been beaming into the Arab world:
• Israel’s previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had to resign because he was accused of illicitly taking envelopes stuffed with money from a Jewish-American backer.
• An Israeli court recently convicted Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav on two counts of rape, based on accusations by former employees.
When you live right next to a country that is bringing to justice its top leaders for corruption and you live in a country where many of the top leaders are corrupt, well, you notice.

The Fayyad factor: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad introduced a new form of government in the Arab world in the last three years, something I’ve dubbed “Fayyadism.” It said: Judge me on my performance, on how I deliver government services and collect the garbage and create jobs — not simply on how I “resist” the West or Israel. Every Arab could relate to this. Chinese had to give up freedom but got economic growth and decent government in return. Arabs had to give up freedom and got the Arab-Israeli conflict and unemployment in return.

[bemildred]

1. As usual, no clue at all. nt