“Jasmine Revolution”
Symbol of peace: Flowers placed on the barrel of a tank
in very much calmer protests than in recent days in Tunisia

'The Protester' - Time Person of the Year 2011

'The Protester' - Time Person of the Year 2011
Mannoubia Bouazizi, the mother of Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi. "Mohammed suffered a lot. He worked hard. but when he set fire to himself, it wasn’t about his scales being confiscated. It was about his dignity." (Peter Hapak for TIME)

1 - TUNISIA Democratic Change / Freedom of Speech (In Transition)


How eyepatches became a symbol of Egypt's revolution - Graffiti depicting a high ranking army officer with an eye patch Photograph: Nasser Nasser/ASSOCIATED PRESS

2 - EGYPT Democratic Change / Freedom of Speech (In Transition)


''17 February Revolution"

3 - LIBYA Democratic Change / Freedom of Speech (In Transition)

5 - SYRIA Democratic Change / Freedom of Speech (In Transition)

"25 January Youth Revolution"
Muslim and Christian shoulder-to-shoulder in Tahrir Square
"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -
(Subjects: Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" (without a manager hierarchy) managed Businesses, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)
"The End of History" – Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)
(Subjects:Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Muhammad, Jesus, God, Jews, Arabs, EU, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Africa, South America, Global Unity,..... etc.) (Text version)

"If an Arab and a Jew can look at one another and see the Akashic lineage and see the one family, there is hope. If they can see that their differences no longer require that they kill one another, then there is a beginning of a change in history. And that's what is happening now. All of humanity, no matter what the spiritual belief, has been guilty of falling into the historic trap of separating instead of unifying. Now it's starting to change. There's a shift happening."


“ … Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013.

They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader ..."



African Union (AU)

African Union (AU)
African Heads of State pose for a group photo ahead of the start of the 28th African Union summit in Addis Ababa on January 30, 2017 (AFP Photo/ Zacharias ABUBEKER)

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela
Few words can describe Nelson Mandela, so we let him speak for himself. Happy birthday, Madiba.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Bahrainis cannot be subdued for ever

The Saudi intervention has sectarianised the conflict even more, and thus may well have sealed the Bahrain regime's fate

guardian.co.uk, Brian Whitaker, Thursday 17 March 2011


Saudi Arabian troops arrive in Bahrain to prop up the monarchy against
widening demonstrations. Photograph: Ammar Rasool/APAimages/Rex Features

While much of the world has been preoccupied with questions about a no-fly zone over Libya, Arab Gulf states have been busy establishing what might be called a "no-protest zone" in the Arabian peninsula.

Last week Saudi Arabia took an uncompromising stand against demonstrations on its own territory, declaring them both illegal and un-Islamic. Then, on Monday, it sent troops into Bahrain to assist the regime in quelling protesters there. The Saudis justified their action under a security agreement dating back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and known as Peninsula Shield.

This agreement, which involves the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar), resulted in the creation of a joint military force intended to protect its members against external threats. As a communique from the GCC interior ministers put it in 1982: "Any aggression on a member state is aggression against the other states, and facing aggression is considered a joint responsibility."

The statement added: "Interference from any entity in the internal affairs of one of the member states is interference in the internal affairs of all the nations of the council."

There was no suggestion at the time that Peninsula Shield forces would be used to protect unrepresentative Gulf regimes from "aggression" or "interference" by their own citizens – and yet this is what has now happened.

Although Saudi Arabia's Peninsula Shield forces appear not to have directly attacked demonstrators in Bahrain – they are supposedly there to protect key parts of the infrastructure – their presence at the very least facilitates the suppression by relieving Bahraini forces of other duties.

Trying to justify this under the terms of Peninsula Shield is certainly ironic, considering that interference in the internal affairs of member states is one of the things the force was set up to guard against, but it becomes a little easier if the Bahraini protesters are characterised as agents of a common enemy: Iran. That can only be achieved by treating the protests as fundamentally sectarian – Shia versus Sunni rather than people versus government.

Religious differences clearly play a big part in Bahrain. After all, the kingdom has a Shia majority ruled by a Sunni minority. Shia Muslims account for most of the protesters, partly because they are the majority and also because they have more to complain about. But, as Bahraini commentator Tahiyya Lulu has pointed out in a couple of recent articles, the pro-reform demonstrators cover a wide spectrum that transcends the sectarian divide.

The effect of the Saudi intervention is to sectarianise the conflict more than it need have been and, in effect, to prevent any accommodation between the rulers of Bahrain and the protesters.

"We're not going in [to Bahrain] to shoot people, we're going in to keep a system in place," a Saudi official was quoted as saying in the Washington Post. An official from the UAE put it even more bluntly: "We and the Saudis will not accept a Shi'ite government in Bahrain."

In other words, as far as the GCC countries are concerned, democracy or majority rule can never be allowed there.

This is unbelievably short-sighted. The majority of Bahrain's population cannot be kept marginalised for ever, and the sooner change gets under way the better it will be for everyone. Instead, the regime is being pushed into an intransigent stance which, in the longer term, may well seal its fate.

The Saudis, meanwhile, continue to store up trouble for themselves in their treatment of the Shia communities back home.

Unsurprisingly, the US has been less critical of all this than it has been in relation to Gaddafi's behaviour in Libya, though on Wednesday secretary of state Hillary Clinton came out with her strongest comments so far, saying that Bahrain is on "the wrong track".

"With the Gulf countries, we've made it very clear that there cannot be a security answer to what are legitimate political questions," she said.

As always, the US continues to fret about stability among its allies but increasingly it seems to be recognising – unlike Gulf rulers themselves – that radical change is inevitable and that the wisest course is not to stand in its way but to try to minimise the turmoil when it happens.


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