Those who support the Arab Spring revolutions – and we are a part of those – have the right to demand that the new regimes born out of this spring's womb be different from the old regimes with respect to both the dogma and the actions. They must be less subjected to the tribal, sectarian, and racial affiliations; and more in line with the present day and age since they were able to achieve their victory with the support of the present principles of democratic culture, modern values, and communication and technical capacities, in addition to the financial resources. They must be more attached to liberal values, which are no longer confined to a specific religion or country. They have rather become global values in a world that is now as open and interconnected as the wind is connected to the earth. They must be less inclined to the “culture” of revenge. Indeed, this culture belongs to the past and has nothing to do with the rulings of the fair judiciary and with the right of any defendant to defend themselves no matter what the crime is and before the issuing of a verdict. We say this while we await the results of the first elections in Tunisia following the Arab Spring; and while we read the political program announced by the President of the Libyan Interim Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil on the “liberation day.” This program imposed an identity on the new Libyan state that is being erected on the ruins of Gaddafi's republic without asking for the Libyans' opinion in this identity. There is no problem with the Islamic identity of the victorious party in Tunisia, Libya, and perhaps also Egypt. However, as those parties access power, it is their behavior vis-à-vis the different parts of society that matters. At this time as the Arabs are celebrating the fall of some tyrannical regimes, and as they proceed to the voting ballots in order to elect successors, we are afraid that we might have to weep for the fate imposed on a tyrant such as Muammar Gaddafi by the new tyrants, or the fate imposed on Saddam Hussein before that by those people who danced around his hanged body. Such scenes do not suit victors of revolutions who claim to belong to the civilization of this era. We know that there is a large extent of justified popular anger against the practices of the oppressive regimes such as the ones that prevailed during the term of Muammar Gaddafi or Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or others. We also realize that abandoning these men to the “mercy” of the street will lead to the kind of scenes that we saw. However, what about the responsibility of the people in charge of these revolutions and who have promised us a better future? Are they not scared, like us, that the promises that they have made to their people will never come true? These people have an even greater responsibility because most of them had lived – during the period of exile – in western countries. They are thus supposed to have benefitted from the experiences of these countries in respecting human beings, their rights to life in dignity, and their human nature regardless of any other consideration. My thoughts include Rached Ghannouchi, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni along with a number of the members of the Libyan Interim Council and many other Arab opposition figures. As these people are promising their countries new ruling experiences, they are supposed to be carrying some western liberalism based on the respect of the others' right to disagree and to be different. The victorious revolutions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt – which is oscillating between the past and the future – bear a major responsibility vis-à-vis the outcome of the other revolutions that are still struggling, and the victims of which are still falling in the streets with the hope of a near victory. This is because the regimes that are fighting to stay over rivers of blood feed on the slowness or incapacity of the victorious revolutions or their fall into the old ways including backwardness, racism, and the tendency of the ruler to control the ruled ones.
