Arab Unrest

Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, Iran, Morocco, Yemen, Oman, Kuwait, Algeria and Djibouti have all been reported to have been hit with unrest, in this wildfire revolution in the Arab world. Some countries are giving up relatively peacefully (Tunisia, Egypt), while others are cracking down violently (Iran, Libya). I figured it's about time someone brought this up. What do you all see as the causes for this, and do you think good will come of this or bad?

Whenever there's revolution, there's potential for another, even more malevolent dictator to be installed, or for true democratic change, so it's hard to say what will come of this all.

media's calling them pro democratic, when they're really just anti government.

it was eygypt that started it all. now everyone over theres trying to tear down their oppressive governments, which is cool. I'm anti-oppression. It'll be interesting to see how the US will deal with these countries in the future. We always talk about how we want freedom for all but really we want freedom for those when its convenient for us.

Price of oil is going to skyrocket.

I'm amazed we didn't discuss this before.

It would've made some cool talking shit.

pintsogin wrote:

it was eygypt that started it all.

Tunisia

Yeah it all started when a Tunisian street salesman set himself on fire after some bitch was nasty to him. I hope she got fired or something

I barely heard about Tunisia over here.

I hate when there are big stories and the news over here doesn't really talk about them, and only freaks out about the "major" stories like Egypt.

To summarize Tunisia:

Ben Ali was the boss there. He gave his family everything they wanted, while the people of his country were running out of food and other supplies. Especially his wifes family (the Trabelsi family) were being dicks to the people of Tunisia and then some guy set himself on fire and all hell broke loose. The people rebelled and got Ben Ali and the Trabelsi family out of the country.

Tunisia? was that as successful as Egypt? when i came back from S America all eyes were on Egypt. didnt hear about that

The Tunisian government toppled pretty much immediately, which I think is why the news focused so much on Egypt.

The Egyptians started to rebel after the Tunisian government fell, but now there's no government whatsoever in Tunisia. Basically, they have the same problems as before, but without anyone who can do anything about it. Tunisian refugees are building little boats to get to Italy.

do you think the Italians will take the refugees?

I think they will. France have been for weeks now, right?

I should probably read more news.

Oh wait...

http://euobserver.com/?aid=31797

yeah i didnt think so. i always hear about Europe becoming more and more anti-immigrant... especially France

Whenever this stuff started in Egypt my geography professor was talking about how this looked like the start of a trend and maybe it would spread to other arab countries, and I was like, "pfft probably not," and I was wrong.

I agree with pints, I think it will be interesting to see how our relationships in the middle east change because of this.

The Libyan government is attacking the protesters with airplanes.

That's what I came here to say. Fucking disgusting.

Apparently two pilots defected because their orders were to bomb the crowd. Gaddafi is out of the country, too, right?

Don't know, but some religious guy named Yusuf Al Qaradawi has said Ghadhaffi should be killed.

-edit-

And he's going to give a speech, so I don't think he left.

He left the capital. I can't believe the things his son said, that they were willing to go to civil war to protect their power and the likes.

I kinda hope North Korea's people are getting ideas.

Aaron wrote:

I kinda hope North Korea's people are getting ideas.

China is next.

Yeah I was thinking they wouldn't be told, but with Kim Jong-il you can never tell.

Why China, Tim? I see what you mean but why there specifically?