Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Welcome to this exclusive interview and I am Namo Abdulla.
As we speak Egypt is in[UNKNOWN] hundreds of thousands of people are in streets in
Cairo and the cities. I'm calling on their Autocratic leader
and Government to step down. What does this mean to the Middle East
and the, and the world? What are the International impacts of
Egypt Revolution? Also to discuss this issue I am joined by
Nasim Barwadia prominent Kurda politican in her field .
She was the first woman minister in Iraq's post Saddam Hussein Government.
She's also given lectures in prominent American Universities, such as Harvard
and Georgetown. Miss Barwadia, I want to start out with a
question. What makes millions of Egyptians come on
to the streets in Cairo and other cities and call on their Autocratic President
Hosni Mubarak, who's been in power for 30 years to step down?
>> Same reason why the people of Iraq
overthrow dictatorship. definitely there is no future for
dictatorship. after 30 years people are fed up and they
saw an opportunity, and this was going to happen anyway because the wave of
democracy is, is not going to be stopped. The people now are much more aware, much
more connected and, and ambitious and, and the youth is leading this movement.
60% of the Middle East population are youth.
And those youth are not going to accept what their fathers accepted.
So that was going to happen any day, and except the speed of it happening is
really enlightening. I mean and, and it's really promising.
>> American prominent scholar Samuel
Huntington says Islam is incompatible with democracy.
He says countries where Islam is the dominant religion cannot boost democracy.
Don't you see, Ms.Barwadia, a blow being dealt at Huntington's theory, as we see
hundreds and thousands of people are calling for democracy in the Arab World.
>> There is a lot of voices that spoke
against that theory, And, and many of them are foreigners not
Islamic and, and even before the current wave of democratization in, in the Arab
world, even when Huntington came up with this theory, at that moment there, there
was a lot of contradiction because you have big Islamic nations like Indonesia,
Malaysia. And these are bigger than any Islamic
country in the, in the Middle East. They were democratic.
you have many successful democratic stories within Islamic countries.
And you have dictatorship in other religions too.
So Huntington was right there, had some issues.
We, we have issues with his theory. And I think the current wave is, is
proving. There are.
>> Is this a fourth wave of
democratizations?
>> Definitely we're having a fourth wave.
>> Yeah.
>> I was teaching that in my class in George Washington about the fourth wave of
democracy.
>> Will 2011 be the year of the collapse of the status quo in the Middle East?
>> Well, it's already encouraging many
people to do, and it's already pushing a lot of those leaders to rethink their
future. just today, this morning, we heard the
Yemeni president is saying he's not seeking re-election and he's not going to
let his son also. So, definitely there is an effect.
There is a message, a new message from the mass to the leaders, and leaders are
rethinking their messages. Some of them are going to be smart and
just move peacefully, and I think that's what's happening in Egypt.
Within two days, look at the message, how it changed, by the president, Hosni
Mubarak. He changed his messages and his demands.
Now, yesterday night he's only saying, I will only stay for a few months to allow
the peaceful transfer. Two days before, he was saying this is
violence, this is interference and that should stop.
So, it's already affecting and I think it's a good thing for their countries.
I just hope it can happen with less violence and I hope that, those nation
can really sit and, and allow for their democracy to happen from below.
Well, I think Yemen is blowing. There is a lot of countries around Iraq
that needs to happen. Syria is a country that needs to also go
through changes. you have Gulf countries that also have
some challenges of democracy and have some dissent voices.
And Jordan is going through also a regime change, I mean government change and
probably Algeria. And Sudan is definitely going through a
very good change through peaceful mean of referendum with the separation of the
south. What will happen in the north is also
something to be seen.
>> Nasim Barwadia, former Iraq Kurdish minister, thank you so much for your
comments. It you were to be had any comments or
suggestions, please send them to english@rudaw.net.
For now, bye-bye