A preemptive 'No' to dictatorship

The No War, No Dictatorship campaign organized during the build up to war on Iraq was prudent. It conveyed a message that those people who opposed a colonial war on Iraq were also irritated by a dictatorship hiding behind a purportedly pan-Arab and socialist rhetoric.

Sponsors of the campaign missed one little detail, however. Their No to dictatorship came 34 years late after the Iraqi lunatic ruler and his fanatic gang massacred close to half a million Iraqis (including those assassinated and tortured apart from mass graves' victims).

During the greater part of Iraq's three-decade dictatorship, only a few Iraqis stood up to challenge the regime's terror. When these people expressed their opposition, they were accused of betrayal and collaboration with imperial powers.

This time, Alternative grasps the opportunity to raise its voice against another Arab dictatorship, that in Tunisia. True that Tunisia retains a more refined and humane form of the one-man-rule, still it fosters the cult of worshipping a single leader.

Dictatorship is the antonym of freedom and so it should be defined. There is no "good" dictatorship and a "bad" one. The people are entitled to run for presidential positions and to choose their own presidents. No single citizen should have the claim to a God-given rule.

In this issue, we raise our voice against Tunisia's dictatorship, before some imperial powers decide to put an end to it. If this imperial power ever comes sometime in the future, we would have washed our hands of the blood of the tyrannical regime without being accused of collaboration.