CheckMate!

The beautiful game of chess is all about mind, patience and intelligence, a rare combination required to outwit the opponents. While staying in I.I.T., I used to play it with my neighbours and then often with the computers too. Now these days I cannot say about my intelligence equation but my patience level is worrisome, but whatever is left is totally dedicated to my work. I do not blame my patience; at times it has to go through vigorous litmus test and now it is tattering. I cannot concentrate through a whole game anymore. The game is all about knocking down the opponents King, but it is not that easy because your opponent is also equally equipped. Looking around the world and specially Middle East and North Africa, we will find full of power crazy rulers and dictators. Even some countries that practice communism, government never allows their citizens the basic freedom. It was then Soviet Union along with some of its East European counterparts and as well as China, throttles their citizens and prohibited them from expressing their views. Leave alone the Mussolini or Hitler, they too are having competition from some of these modern day dictators.

After Brezhnev, the last ruler of Soviet Union from cold war era, the famous iron curtain fell apart and exposed a very ugly scenario. Behind the nuclear arsenals, space project and all those science technologies the truth that was hiding was hunger, poverty and prostitution. With emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet Union went to the path of splitvile before any civil war could break out. Today even economy looks well but it is Vladimir Putin all the way, iron curtain no more exists so you can even glimpse shirtless Putin flexing his muscles.

Romania then a communist country, from 1967 until 1989, ruled by the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. He was not lucky like some other dictators and his end was pathetic. After widespread demonstrations against his dictatorship and the communist rule, he made an unsuccessful attempt to flee with his equally powerful wife Elena. They were captured and tried secretly and were executed within twenty-four hours.

Idli Amin, the name itself is scary, one visualize all sorts of gory things, torture, blood and score of dead bodies. He fled to Libya and then to Saudi Arabia, where the word democracy is not even available in the dictionary, word human rights buried deep down in the Arabian Sea and rights for Women, just forget it..

War with Israel in 1969 were combined effort from Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq, it was supported by then USSR. Arabs lost that war within six days. Conflict between Arabs and Israelis continues until today. In 1979, the then President of Egypt Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in Camp David, it was not liked by the Egyptians including the families I used to know. He was assassinated on October 6, 1981. Since then Egypt is ruled by Hosni Mubarak, glued to the chair for last thirty years.

During mid eighties, in Asia, Philippine showed the courage to drive away the dictator Ferdinand Marcos along with his glamorous wife Imelda Marcos, more famous for her collection of shoes and other expensive accessories.

Most of the Middle East states and countries along with other gulf states are blessed with its own natural gas and oil reserves. Since 1960 onwards, all these states flourished due to natural reserves. A dictator or rulers and their successor are ruling most of these states. Saudi Arabia, always maintain strict rule and prohibit everyone from getting their basic freedom that includes expressing their views. Ruling family and their thousands of princes can practice anything from drinking and others but it cannot applied to their own citizens and immigrants. You follow it or perish in jail, often flogged or even killed. Recently in Britain concerning a Saudi Prince, who killed his domestic help, he caught doing all sorts of thing that strictly not allowed in Saudi Arabia, of-course in paper.

Look at the whole of Middle East stories will be the same. In Kuwait it is al-Sabah,  in Bahrain, al-Khalifa, Qatar it is al-Thani, al-Nnahyan from Abu Dhabi, Asad of Syria, Hussein of Jordan, Qadaffi of Lybia, all riding the same boat. Dubai is little exception due to the education level in the ruling family but still it is al-Maktoum family and not a single country over there can dreams for going the way to the democracy.

Saddam Hussein, another dictator was not lucky because he was too arrogant and never had a good relation with his neighbours. It was not only USA, it was because his neighbour’s willingness saw his downfall. For USA, habit of poking its nose to each and everything made the world too dangerous to live on.

Our neighbouring state always believes in governance in uniform. First, it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown by Yahya Khan and then Nawaz Sharif by Pervez Musharraf and then... wait and watch.

Are things going to change for those power greed rulers? People of a tiny Arabian country showed courage and the way for others, hats off to Tunisia and its peoples. They had the courage to boot out their ruler Ben Ali. His counterpart Qaddafi was very sorry for him, he most probably is yet to get the signal and yet Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali got a very safe home, obviously in Saudi Arabia.

There are many such countries like Zimbabwe, Yemen, Honduras, Somalia, Myanmar, Algeria etc., a free world is a distant dream unless people show courage like Tunisian.

The encouraging things happening just before I can post this piece, Egyptian too came out on road to demonstrate against the Mubarak regime and well as some trouble is brewing in Lebanon too. It is not religion, be it Christian, Muslim, Jews, Hindus or others all deserve their basic freedom; no one have the right to snatch it away. Freedom, it is a very beautiful thing.

!!!The adhesive companies should take some clue from this dictators, the way they glued to the power generation after generation.!!!