49 Days to Go - Read the Signs

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 49 days to go to the opening of the UN General Assembly and the vote on Palestinian statehood it remains quite amazing to me that this is the biggest news item coming out of the Middle East when so many other things are going on here that the West seems not to care about at all.

For example, according to a report in Lebanon’s Daily Star, almost 3,000 people have gone missing in Syria since the start of anti-regime protests more than four months ago. This was reported by the Avaaz non-governmental organization in a statement issued Thursday. The quote reads:

“Avaaz has today revealed the identities of 2,918 Syrians who have been arrested by Syrian security forces and whose whereabouts are now unknown,” the organization said in statement received by AFP in Nicosia. It said it was launching a campaign Thursday “to call for the release of the nearly 3,000 Syrians who have forcibly ‘disappeared’ since the peaceful uprising began on March 15th of this year.” The in-depth survey conducted by Avaaz estimates that one person is disappearing every hour. “In the past week alone there have been more than 1,000 arrests and the number of enforced disappearances has been rapidly rising on a daily basis, as the regime steps up its efforts to repress dissent in the build-up to Ramadan,” the statement said. According to the organization’s executive director, Ricken Patel, “hour by hour, peaceful protesters are plucked from crowds by Syria’s infamously brutal security forces, never to be seen again.” Avaaz said 1,634 people have died in the crackdown, 26,000 have been arrested, of whom 12,617 are still in detention."

Don’t you find it amazing in 2011 that international efforts have not been made to stop this action by the Assad government which is designed solely to ensure the continuance in power of the Alawite regime which is known to be both corrupt and brutal?

Or this item from UPI:

"Egypt, struggling to consolidate a revolution that deposed President Hosni Mubarak in February, faces what could be even worse turmoil because the country is running out of food as well as the money to buy it. Food prices are rising over 11 percent per month according to government provided statistics. At the same time, Egypt's annual urban inflation rate is also rising at the rate of 12 percent per month, underlining how key factors that triggered the popular uprising that forced Mubarak from office after 30 years remain in play. A dozen other Arab states were roiled by similar uprisings, some much less intense than Egypt's. But food prices and related economic grievances played a big part in these upheavals, unprecedented in modern Middle Eastern history."

Asia Times Online further noted that “The most populous country in the Arab world shows all the symptoms of national bankruptcy -- the kind that produced hyperinflation in several Latin American countries during the 1970s and 1980s -- with a deadly difference: Egypt imports half its wheat and the collapse of its external credit means starvation."

Finally the Jordan Times today reported the following:

"Upheaval across the Arab world is causing capital flight of up to $500 million a week, Finance Minister Mohammad Abu Hammour said on Thursday at an Arab banking conference in Rome. “There is capital flight. Five hundred million dollars a week are leaving the Arab world. Tourism is falling, foreign direct investment is falling,” Hammour said, pointing to volatility in oil prices as another negative. “Economic development is lagging. We need to guarantee job opportunities. This is a huge challenge... We need five million new jobs every year but we have only been able to generate three million jobs a year,” he said. Abu Hammour called for greater economic integration between Arab countries, greater assistance to small- and medium-sized enterprises and development of the private sector as ways to improve the economic outlook for the region. The minister was taking part in the International Arab Banking Summit organised by the Union of Arab Banks with senior bankers and central bank governors to discuss the implications of political upheaval in the region."

Amazing, is it not, what does and does not capture the headlines and the imaginations of western countries. While the issue I have been dealing with all these past months is certainly a critical one for those of us living here they have to be seen in the context of the region and its overall problems.

The biggest challenge to the world community is for our leaders to be able to see the big picture rather than zeroing in on one small section of the overall problem.

Former US President Harry Truman once said “Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.” Those words ring true today as they did then and we need to take notice of the signals before it is too late.