The civil unrest in Arab world is escalating, as confrontations continue to escalate into violent crashes in Yemen and Bahrain. And not forget to mention that Libya is already in full fledge civil war with thousands of casualties.
I’m not sure if the situations in those countries are bad enough that the uprisings are justifiable to begin with. Personally I think it has a lot do with the strained and discriminative relationship of Shi’a and Sunni, the two major denominations of Islam. But I’m not going to dwell further as I’m not any expert with that.
A perfectly peaceful large-scale demonstration rarely happens; there bound to be trouble makers among the crowd. The media will often show how the armed forces are beating people around, but rarely footages of “civilians” throwing bricks and gasoline bombs towards the armed forces as if it’s a right thing to do.
It’s easy to sympathise the civilians in these situations, and rightly so as the victims are often peaceful demonstrators instead of the troublemakers. But sometimes I wonder if there’s any other options beside a brutal crack down, when things are reaching stalemate between the government/monarchy and the public.
Imagine what would happen to China today if they didn’t forcefully end the 1989 Tiananmen protest. Recent history seems to suggest that a successful revolution doesn’t always guarantee a better future, although it would probably requires decades before the outcome becomes apparent.
It’s becoming difficult to tell what’s right or wrong amidst the chaos. I just hope that the bloodshed could be minimised, though it seems unlikely.
[Update] Libya has declared an immediate ceasefire in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution. Seems like there’s hope for the Arabians after all. The cease fire is a complete failure, it’s back to war again, with more parties involved.