When the dictator of Tunisia fled the country, the crowd cheered. They had pulled off a relatively bloodless coup. The will of the people seemed unstoppable. The Egyptian people ran into a little bit more resistance, but they still ran old Hosni Mubarak out of town. He’s in Sharm el Sheikh,
Smarter than the average autocrat
which is a beautiful resort with palm trees and beaches, but he’s facing lawsuits up the wazoo, and it’s pretty clear nobody is going to ask him back. Muammar Gaddafi, seeing how shabbily his fellow kleptocrats were being treated, decided “Fuck this shit” and decided to make a fight for it.
I’m pretty sure that in the end, that will prove to have been the incorrect decision. However, I predicted Gaddafi would be dead by the end of April, and I called the Tony Weiner case wrong twice. So, I’m not so confident in my own predictions lately, but I can’t see this ending well for Gaddafi. There are too many people who are too invested in seeing him dead.
Anyway, the King of Morocco is trying something a lot more people should try. He decided to talk about it, to try to work out a deal. Direct election of a president instead of a prime minister appointed by the king, an agreement not to throw people in prison just because he doesn’t like them any more, Berber as a recognized language – all pretty democratic and modern sounding stuff, I believe he may have even given a shout out to equal rights for women.
He insists that they keep calling him King, though. Some activists don’t trust him and have said they’ll carry on protesting, others have said eh, we’re tired of protesting, we’ll give the old tyrant a shot, sounds like a reasonable deal.
In any event, I’d say his prospects are considerably brighter than Gadaffi’s.
www.gurukalehuru.com 