"ISLAMIC SPRING"

As i write this article the whole muslim world including Pakistan is burning over the Anti-islamic movie called innocence of Muslims made by some small time director based in US.I have seen the movie and beleive me its a piece of garbage worthy to be ignored.However i am not doing a review of this film in this article the critical question which worries me is secular societies of Arab countries (where the revolutionary arab spring transformed the nature of state) becoming more intolerant,more conservative and more radical day by day.Has the Arab spring transformed into a Islamic Spring.?

It started with Tunisia where secular yet oppressive dictatorship of Ben Ali was overthrown by the people.However the champion of the protest movement was a party with deeply entreched islamic roots called Ennahda which had links with Muslim Brotherhood and was inspired by Egyptian thinker Syed Qutb,s philosophy of Islamism.After the outser of Ben Ali elections were held in which Ennahda won 89 seats out of 217 and got over 40% votes.The results was suprising because Tunisian society was always considered as the most secular and westernized in the Whole Magreb region.Thus ennahda getting support from such a large section of tunisians was unexpected.One reason for this massive support might be because ennahda was always persucated first by Habib Bourgoiba The architect of Secular Tunisia and later by Ben Ali Thus the people who were oppressed by the Regime of Former Dictators showed there support for there arch-enemy which was Islamist Parties.With Ennahda in power the Salafist and other hardliners (who were previously controlled by Ben Ali) are becoming stronger and stronger.They have become threat to all liberal Tunisians only 9 days back on the eve of Anti Islam movie protest the salafist stormed inside the US embassy and burned the gym and lootec The american school nearby.The liberals complain that moderate Islamist govt is soft on the hardliners.In the birthplace of Arab spring sidi bouzid the activities of Salafist are increasing day by day as they are trying to close all the bars,promoting non-western clothes and forcing women to wear headscarf.
Now lets move on to Egypt the most powerful country of the middle-east.In egypt Hosni mubarak secular govt was overthrown after the people inspired by there neighbour tunisians started there protest movement against the dictator.Tahrir Square become the symbol of resistence against tyranny worldwide.Subsequently Mubarak was replaced by Army generals council however in recent elections Candidate backed by Muslim Brotherhood Mohd Morsey won the presedential elections before that the parliamentary elections were also won by the Muslim brotherhood.With the outsed of Mubarak Egypt is burning with clashes between the copts and sunnis and liberals and islamist.The coptic Christians are repeatedly harrassed by Islamic radical groups since the fall of Mubarak.Overall today you will see more vieled women in cairo and there is increasing seperation of sexes in public places.Riots have become so common in Egypt that hardly international media pays much importance to it.

Now lets move to 2 countries where the west have played an important role in promoting the islamists for there narrow geo-political benefits.First case is of Libya where The NATO Countries funded the protesting islamists with arms,ammuniation and money to overthrow there age old foe Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.The man who transformed an berber Poor Maghreb republic into the richest African state and kept an ethinically diverse country (divided into no of tribes) united was slaughtered and his blood strain body was put to public display by the so called champions of democratic and new libya.
The idea of NATO countries was simple to fuel a protest in libya by providing the opposition anti libyan islamist and other groups with sophisticated arms and money.The islamist groups were always kept under control during gaddafi,s reign through persucationary techniques thus gaddafi was always a hated figure among the hardliners.When the govt responds against the violent protestors with guns and planes and thus few people will be killed.Term it as genocide at international forum and thus make this genocide an excuse to interefere in the civil war to remove the old foe and capture the whole oil reserves of libya to satisfy its oil needs.
Post gaddafi Libya thanks to the west is not being ruled by a govt it is being ruled by sunni armed militias.Libya today is split into disparate miltia zones.The rebels stronghold of Benghazi,Misrata and Zintan have become free of the control of Tripoli and NTC govt.The latest example of this lawlessness and anarchy was seen on 11th september 2012 when a rocket propelled grenade attack created fire inside the US consulate in benghazi and killed the US Ambassador and 3 other Americans.

Now lets move into the Syria where thankfully the arab spring hasn,t taken place till yet however the radicalization of syrian society is complete Thanks to the freinds and champions of Democracy and human rights i.e west.
Syrian State Was ruled by baath party since 1970 and the nature of state both under Hafez al assad and bashar al assad was inherently secular.Seperation of mosque and state was clear in Syria.Thus syria was considered as a model for other gulf Monarchies where religion and clergy still played a dominant role.Thus these gulf states are in forefront in removing the unislamic and what they say as heretic govt of Assad.Syria being mostly ruled by Alawites an offshoot of Shia Islam(who were mostly secular and westernized), Christians and Druze.However more than 70% population is sunni.
Under the influence of Arab spring some opposition groups started protesting against assad,s secular but repressive regime.However it was a low intensity protest until the mercenaries from chechenya,kurdistan and other places entered syria and the protestors were given full backing by USA,France,Saudi Arabia,qatar And turkey.These all countries have the common aim of isolating defiant iran by supporting regime change in Syria because shia Assad is the closest ally of Iran.For this the west and gulf countries are even willing to tolerate and promote the hardliner sunni islamic groups who were previously supressed by baath regime.
Today the rebel groups are fighting for an Islamic state they want Syria to become next Saudi Arabia where the minorities will be marginalized.For this purpose they are getting full support from Islamic theoracracy like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Secular turkey led by Moderate Islamist Eragon Tayyip.
Every day we are reading about masscares in Syria however unfortunately the world Media dominated by the west is only showing stories of govt killing the civilians they are not showing the atrocities committed by Sunni opposition rebels against Alawites and Christians.
Syria is the last bastion of Secularism in the middle-east if Assad falls it will be the end of secularism in The arab world.It has been a ironic that United states have always maintained good relations with the hardliner leadership of the gulf like the saudis but they have always discouraged secularist movements and leaders in the Arab world whether it was Nasser or Saddam or Assad because all these Secular leaders motivated by arab nationalism wanted a independent foreign policy and non-interference in the affairs of there state which the western powers specially US resisted given there quest for oil.

ROLE OF WEST
The role of NATO powers in promoting islamist groups in Libya and Syria is the well understood fact.However i just can,t understand the unpragmatic Foreign policy of US.I mean US had already done a horrible mistake in the past in Afghanistan which continues to haunt it today but it hasn,t learn from it and it continues to do the same mistake in Syria for short-term narrow gains.In afghanistan it created a monster in 1980,s when it gave advanced weopans to the religiously bigoted mujahideen to counter communism.Thus it transformed a secular Afghanistan into a hot-bed of religious intolerance and orthodoxy.However later those same mujahideens to which uncle Sam gave so many dollars formed Al-qaida and started targeting and attacking Its former masters.In syria US is doing it to isolate Iran and end its regional hegemony however it does not understand that it is again giving support to Same kind of monsters who will eventually bite US in long run

Thus looking at these series of events we can eventually conclude that the spring of democratic aspirations of Arab masses has been hijacked by the extremists and Islamists and we can rightly say that it was not actually Arab spring which took place last year but rather it was Islamic Spring which hit the Arab countries as in most of the countries Secular Dictatorships are replaced by Islamic Govt and societies have become more conservative and radical than it was previously..

I want to end my Article with a quote by the founder of Secular modern Turkey Mustafa kemal Ataturk.“Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight.