On the 17th of December, Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old man trying to support his family by selling fruits and vegetables in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, burnt himself because the police forcedly confiscated his cart. This incident started the riots against the government. However, it is also claimed that the main reason was the Wikileaks documents that were published which caused unrest as the public had now information on how the governors had become richer and richer whereas the public has to live on a dollar a day. Experts in political science believe that this has had a domino effect on the other countries like Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Iran, Yemen, Bahreyn, Sudan and Oman. With the help of the networking, like Facebook and Twitter, people have realized that dictatorial governments have made a lot of money and have left their people alone with little money. After the riots are over in Tunisia, according to one New York Times report, women are getting ready to have more say in the ruling of the country. This is a change for a new world.
The countries which have been stressed under the government’s regime now know that they have been abused and misused. They have woken up from their sleep and now they know what is going on with them and with their governments. They have found out that some of their leaders have huge amounts of money in their bank accounts and some had become so powerful that they felt ‘at-home’ to nonchalantly cut the internet connections of millions as they owned the communication companies. Some realized that their leaders are making a lot of money because of their oil. Some realized that they are unemployed but other countries’ workers have built construction sites and make money. All of these make the people of the region understand that new regimes and new institutions are necessary. US president Obama has been calling the leaders to stop the ruthless killing of their own civilians just because these leaders do not want to leave their power, their income.
Public opinion in a democracy, is extremely important and from now on “one man’’ powers will not be active in the area. The East has been “undervalued” by the West but now their people know that they cannot live under this situation. They have shown it to the whole world that they will not take it.
The whole world has been influenced by the unrest. The oil prices have gone up by 20% and the Stock Exchange Market has gone through huge changes. The whole world is watching and is affected negatively. However, it is also evident that the US is making a lot of money during this Arab Spring phase as for a long time they had been advocating for economical oil prices and now have the chance to earn money from their own oil reserves on their own soil, such as Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Not only have the people in the region, who have experienced the unrest, but the rest of the world has realized these facts because the role of the region is important to everyone. Personally, I do not care about the implications of the area for oil prices etc. When I watched Kaddafi giving his speech, I was shocked and could not believe that he was killing his own people. This is not acceptable on simple human terms. The new world should be created where everybody has the same share of the income of their own country’s products. They should not be abused or ruled by other powerful countries.
