▶ Arab Spring Bloodied By Despots
MANAMA, Bahrain - These days, Muhammad al-Maskati is a prisoner in his apartment, his BlackBerry shut off by the government, the streets outside filled with tanks, the hospitals around town packed with the wounded.
Mr. Maskati is a 24-year-old human rights activist who not long ago felt close to achieving Egypt’s kind of peaceful revolution, through a dogged commitment to nonviolence. Then the Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain, and protesters came under attack, the full might of the state hammering at unarmed civilians.
“We thought it would work,” Mr. Maskati said, his voice soft with depression, yet edged with anger. “But now, the aggression is too much. Now it’s not about the protest anymore, it’s about self-defense.”
The Arab Spring is not necessarily over, but it has run up against dictators willing to use lethal force to preserve their power. The youth-led momentum for change stalled first in Libya, where Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi unleashed troops on his people, and then in Bahrain, where King Hamad bin Isa al- Khalifa enlisted Saudi Arabia’s help to crush demonstrations.
Bahrain’s protests were part of a transformation sweeping the Middle East, propelled by young people free of the fear that held back their parents.
At first, they seemed an unstoppable force, driven by the power of demographics - about 60 percent of the population across the Arab world is under the age of 30. They started to reshape societies where the young defer to the old, toppling old hierarchies along with governments.
The movement is still forcing change in places like Morocco and Jordan, guiding transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, and playing out in countries like Algeria and Yemen. Young people remain out front, wielding the online tools they grew up with to mobilize protests, elude surveillance and cross class lines.
This generation’s access to a life without borders through the Internet and pan-Arab television networks like Al Jazeera exposed them to other societies, fueling anger at the repressive politics and economic stagnation that deprived the region’s youth of opportunity and freedom.
What surprised many was the absence of religious discourse - and the embrace of pluralism - from a generation that was more observant than its parents and often sought solace from despotic rulers and blighted lives in an embrace of Islam.
This generation rejected traditional opposition leaders, like the toothless political parties that served dictators by providing a veneer of democratic legitimacy, or the Muslim Brotherhood, which many came to see as having been co-opted by the status quo.
Young people interviewed across the region echoed the same ideas, tactics and motivations that set off revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
In Morocco and Jordan, monarchs have already offered concessions, fueling excitement and hope.
It is a force driven by young men like Tarek al-Naimat, 26, of Jordan, who joined Facebook a few weeks ago, saying that it was a more powerful tool than the Muslim Brotherhood.
And Oussama el-Khlifi, 23, who left the Socialist Union of Popular Forces in Morocco to found a nonideological movement - initially organized on Facebook - that has already rallied unmatched numbers in the streets of Morocco and pressed the king to announce plans to modify the Constitution.
“We saw change would not happen through the parties, it would happen through the people,” Mr. Khlifi said. “We created a Facebook group called Moroccans Discuss the King, and in four or five days we had 3,000 members.”
The early victories in Tunisia and Egypt emboldened them. “I grew up in a world where we believed we could not do anything,” said Mariam Abu Adas, 32, an online activist in Jordan who helped create a company called Hiber to train young people to use social media.
“Generations believed we could do nothing,” she said, “and now, in a matter of weeks, we know that we can.”
It is a new model for the Middle East, not only because the young people are taking the lead, but because their elders have started to listen and follow.
“The youth, we were afraid of, but we have come to see the youth are moving the region,” said Mustafa Rawashdeh, a former headmaster at a school in Karak, Jordan, who was fired after trying to form a teachers’ union.
“Young people saw the winds of change and drove us.”
And then Colonel Qaddafi’s forces opened fire, followed by King Hamad’s crackdown. In Yemen, forces backing the regime also killed dozens of demonstrators.
The young activists’ idealism has been challenged by the bitter reality of repression, leaving them dispirited but resolute. It is a sobering pause, as Bahrainis tend their wounded and Libya’s opposition, with the help of airstrikes from an international coalition, pushes back against pro-Qaddafi forces.
In Yemen, though, the opposition is sticking to its peaceful tactics for now as it presses for the immediate exit of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, rejecting his offer to step down early next year.
But the future of the Arab Spring is at stake.
“I don’t believe the peaceful protests will go on,” Mr. Maskati said. “Now, it’s about resisting the aggression.”
In Morocco, Montasser Drissi, 19, said: “Our goal is a new constitution that serves the people, not the elite.”
Mr. Drissi was one of the young men who helped organize nationwide protests on February 20, launching what is now known as the February 20 movement. Its members met on Facebook and decided that like their peers in Egypt and Tunisia, they wanted to fight for change. Their goal was not to oust the monarchy, but to reduce its near absolute authority and strengthen elected institutions.
“We are young, we study, we have jobs ? we’re normal,” said Yassine Falah, 23.
“We tried hard to not politicize the thing, we used Facebook, we came together and that’s how it started. Our spontaneity is our strength.”
Back in Bahrain, Mr. Maskati continued to monitor the events in Bahrain, posting his observations each day.
When the tanks rolled in, and the police began rounding up opposition leaders, Mr. Maskati kept sending messages until his phone number was shut off. He stayed home, using his computer, issuing updates always titled Nadim Audi contributed reporting. “Urgent from Bahrain.”
Technological savvy connected but could not defend young Bahrainis from their ruler’s violence. One hid; another was beaten.
In Jordan, a company called Hiber teaches young people how to use social media.(ANDREA BRUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
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