North Africa - a lesson for the west

While the situation in North Africa and Arabia is in some ways a celebration of people lust for freedom, it is also a very stark history lesson.

The West (Europe and America) and Russia have each conspired with locals and each other to prop-up despotic and tryannical regimes, and have only come to the side of freedom when they realised that continuing to back "their man" would find themselves on the loosing side.

If the major democracies of the planet are to maintain any influence, then it has to be in how we support nascent democracies in other countries. If our politicians can trust citizens of their own countries to make a democratic choice, then we have to trust the citizens of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and many others to make their democratic choices, and not seek to influence their choices.

We can through talk and dialogue look to influence the policies and implementation of those policies (discouraging conflict, foster peace and tolerance), but never again should we be seen to prop up despots and dictators.

The democratic governments of the world should use this week of upheaval to contact every remaining dictator and tyrrant, and gently encourage them all to embrace democracy.