On regime change in Arab speaking world

All eyes are on the Middle East and North Africa where a series of demonstrations have had a domino effect, toppling regimes the people say have been oppressive and dictatorial. Some of the protests have triggered the violent response of security forces, causing thousands of civilian deaths and injuries.

Protesters in Tunisia were the first to take to the streets. Encouraged by their success in getting President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to resign, young people in Egypt poured into the squares, demanding the same from President Hosni Mubarak.

VR asked Lebanese Maronite Archbisop Paul Sayah of Haifa and the Holy Land what he makes of the region’s current turmoil.

“Everybody is watching the situation and hoping that this movement in Tunisia and Egypt – what looked like an innocent, spontaneous movement by mainly young people seeking freedom and social equality and basic rights – will not degenerate into a new regime which is oppressive in a different way.

“Iran, when the Shah was brought down, for a little while there was hope (that he would be followed by) a democratic set-up. But all of a sudden, the Mullahs took over and (today) we are where we are in Iran. Will the same thing happen in Egypt? I don’t know. I don’t think so. My hunch is it will not, at least in the immediate future, because the young people have generated such a current of human longing for freedom and this real change cannot happen under another autocratic fundamentalist regime.”
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