Close up: Modern fiefdoms By Salama A Salama For the past two weeks, stories that came out of the Arab world upstaged the presidential elections in the US, the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and about everything else. Thanks to the kind of people who run our countries, even when you'd think we'd reached rock bottom there is always more depths into which to stoop. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation has pressed charges against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir in connection with genocide in Darfur. The Arab League, recognising the gravity of such a move, was shocked into a position of self-defence. But the Sudanese president remained defiant. He scoffed at the ICC findings, accusing the West of conspiring to bring down his government and undermine a peace agreement near at hand. The Sudanese government promised to stand tough all the way. Although minor in comparison, another incident had a similar ring. Hannibal, the fourth son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Gaddafi's wife, who were both staying in a luxury hotel in Switzerland, apparently beat up two of their domestic servants, a Moroccan and a Tunisian. They were taken into custody for two nights then bailed. The Libyan authorities are not taking the affront lying down. The truth is that Arab leaders and their sons have no use for the law. The mere thought that the law might apply to them like everyone else is one they find utterly distasteful. Now Libya has closed down Swiss companies, reduced the number of flights to Switzerland, discontinued issuing visas to Swiss nationals, and promised to discontinue oil supplies to Switzerland. The Swiss must apologise, the Libyan regime says. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, the second caliph, once told a sibling, "When have you made people into slaves, whereas they were born free?" It's a phrase we love to quote and then contradict. In this part of the world it is customary for the elite to live above the law. Call it a government of salvation. Call them revolutionary committees. They're all the same. When it comes to the needs of the people, our leaders take all the time in the world. But when it comes to their own needs, they turn them into matters of national policy. It's all about defending the ruler, his sons, his relatives and his clan. Why is that? Because we live under regimes that see their nations as mediaeval fiefdoms, places that they run for their own comfort and glory. Disturbances in Darfur were kept out of the news for years until they got completely out of hand. It was only when the atrocities became public knowledge that we were asked to intercede -- by which time the choices had become rather narrow. Now the upholding of justice seems to come at a heavy price for Sudan, perhaps even partition. Now that Al-Bashir and his government have placed themselves between a rock and a hard place we're supposed to help. And we've run out of ideas. The same thing goes for Hannibal. Are we supposed to get mad at the Swiss for not allowing him to beat up his domestic servants to his heart's content? Or are we supposed to stand by the Libyans while they foam at the mouth and call Switzerland names. Can't we for once have a choice we can live with? Here is what the problem is. Liberation movements in Arab and most African countries have run amok and turned against everything they once claimed to believe in. They have become a source of misery and backwardness for their nations and a peril to freedom and democracy across the world.
