Tariq Ramadan: Pondering Over 2011

The Western protests echoed the uprisings in MENA. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria people have been saying no to dictators. They call for social justice, dignity and democracy—the same democracy that is now being questioned, mistrusted and more and more often betrayed in the West. This is a transnational movement, some call it “an Arab spring”, yet the awareness and the claims remain very nationalistic. Tunisians for Tunisia, Egyptians for Egypt, and so on and so forth : liberating national movements are creating this protective “us” for a while. But for a while only. Soon, in Libya, Egypt and Syria the regional and global challenges will be revealing the ultimate socioeconomic truth : to free a country is not enough ; it is nothing, in fact, if the underlying economic power relationships are not challenged, reformed or simply rejected outright. A political so-called spring can lead to a cold economic winter. The streets of the South should listen carefully to those of the North and vice-versa : their “us” needs “them”. A true liberating movement must merge the hopes of the former and the disillusionments of the latter in order to produce a realistic alternative.

2011 has revealed much. While the oppressed remain oppressed, and while the Palestinians are still forgotten, we must remain positive and full of energy. Peoples across the globe are saying “No ;” they want to be treated with dignity. They might not know how to build a better future but the first step is to stand up and to speak out. Let us hope 2011 will prove to have been a year of transition : beyond the Occupy movement, the Arab awakening, confronting the global environmental and economic crises—we can only hope peoples will understand how interconnected their fates have become. Paradoxically, in our global world, there will be no freedom and independence for one country if all countries fail to understand their mutual dependence. The South’s dreams are connected to the North’s resistant dynamics as much as the Japanese nuclear threat is related to our survival. Our world needs, beyond our scattered hopes, a new transnational ideology. Our narrow “us” needs a new global “us”, for the sake of “our” unique humanity.

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