Civil Society: Peoples’ Movements or “DOLLAR CHASING DEMOCRACY VENDORS”?

By Kalinga Seneviratne

The year 2011 was marked by the birth of the ‘Arab Spring’ where the long­repressed Arab masses, and youth in particular, rose up against aging dictators. At last it seems that freedom and democracy will dawn in the Arab world, but, when these uprisings moved to Libya and now to Syria, big question marks have come up whether these are really peoples’ movements or are they manipulated from outside with sinister motives?

The Anglo­American media – such as the BBC, CNN and a host of others including Al Jazeera (the English channel mainly staffed by Anglo­American journalists anyway) – have manipulated news feeds to cheer lead some “uprisings” such as in Libya and Syria, while quickly forgetting others such as in Bahrain and ramblings in Saudi Arabia. Thus, one wonders whether we are seeing a new era of colonialism through manipulated global news feeds instead of gunboats, where local civil society groups A Syrian man walks amid destruction in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. AFP are becoming “democracy vendors” chasing the “donor” funds.

When youth uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt got rid of long­serving pro­Western dictators it seemed as if the youth of the Arab world were finally rising against dictators who had served Western capitalism well but not their own people. But, when the revolution spread to Libya and the haste at which the controversial ‘Responsibility To Protect ‘ (R2P) formula – for long espoused by the International Crisis Group led by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans – was adopted by the EU and the U.S. to create a no­fly zone in Libya under the pretext of protecting civilians in Benghazi from a possible assault by pro­Gaddafi Forces, the Western powers’ manipulation of the Arab Spring uprisings soon became blatantly clear.

Once China and Russia were pressured into abstaining from vetoing the ‘no­fly zone’ resolution at the UN Security Council the path was paved for regime change. The NATO bombing campaign in Libya against civilian population centres under Gaddafi rule, made a mockery of the R2P formula. As many critics inside and outside the West have pointed out these NATO bombing campaigns and the way Gaddafi and his son were killed amounted to war crimes.