by Massimiliano Fanni Canelles
On 17 December 2010, Mohamed Bou Azizi, a young graduate Tunisian adapted itself to live, like walking abusive, set himself on fire to protest against the police, who had confiscated the goods. Since then, the flame of the popular revolt has spread to all the Arab states. Two revolutions are consumed in Egypt and Tunisia, while others are in full swing in Libya and Yemen. Syria, Algeria and Jordan are in excitement, while in North Africa and the Middle East have indicated several groups of young people who demonstrated against the ruling regimes. In all objections, it is very significant the factor in Islamic, sometimes it placing himself directly to the leadership of the protest. Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood, in Tunisia the Movement of Islamic Renaissance, in Jordan the Islamic Action Front, in Yemen the National Coalition for the Reform and in Algeria the Islamic Salvation Front. In Syria result active in the clandestine movement the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Morocco the Justice and Development Party. The Islamic faith certainly exercise a powerful influence in daily life of all the region, but the reason that has mobilized the streets was not, however, only the religious. The population, tired of being left in poverty, has shown in a spontaneous way, and in spite of the huge security measures implemented by the police, has caught the surprise to the authorities, parties and opposition movements. Even social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook, and the news received via Wikileaks, resulted significant factors, but not decisive: in Egypt, Mubarak has obscured the Internet (and, subsequently, the sms) without obtaining the expected success; Libya, a country with an underdeveloped internet (350,000 surfers in a population of six million inhabitants) and in Yemen, which has even lower numbers, however, resulted the countries most involved in popular revolts. It is therefore probable that the Tam Tam has slipped from the media web to another communication channel. Building on the desire for change and the frustration of civil society, the satellite television stations, the Arabic-language, have played a more important role. They have shown the bad economic policies, social inequality, corruption and, especially, have raised the standard of living compared with western North Africa. Not only that. Also the role of the armed forces was even more decisive to the Internet, especially in Egypt and Tunisia. The military has chosen to side with the insurgents and forced to leave their dictators. It was the army that has secured Tahrir Square, the symbolic place of the revolution, by which the people have been shouting his opposition to the regime. Now, big questions are posed by the absence of leadership. Are concrete fears of infiltration by Al Qaeda, the Islamist theocracies, energy policies of regimes voted to blackmail against us and determined to push authentic human tides to on our coasts. The United Europe appear divide, unable to express a strategy appropriate to the historic significance of the Arab Spring and unprepared to handle the humanitarian crisis taking place in Italy. The international diplomacy is therefore called to make careful discussion because, inevitably, changes in the geography of North Africa will influence the tension in the territories occupied by Israel and the expansionist ambitions of Tehran.
Translated by Martina Delser
