When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, he probably didn’t imagine his funeral pyre would force Zine El Abdine Ben Ali from the Tunisian presidential palace in tropical Sidi Bou Said to the sands of Saudi Arabia.
While this thawura – revolution – is rapidly expanding across the Arab world, we would be remiss if we ignored it’s worldwide implications. Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran have all caught fire – some more than others – but, if I can borrow John McCain’s phrase, this contagion can’t be stopped (just look at China).
Libyan autocrat Moammar Gaddafi is right now deploying tanks, fighter jets, and southern African mercenaries against his own people in a bid to keep control of a country. The East has at least nominal independence, the Tuoareg have taken a city in the southwest, and the country’s political center in the west is wracked by revolutionary masses demanding change. Many are fleeing west to Tunis and east to Egypt, and many expatriots are being rescued by their governments: Turkish ships are enroute to save 25,000 of its citizens, the State Department is recommending Americans board a ferry bound for Europe, and President Benjamin Netanyahu is accepting 300 Palestinians’ right to return to the occupied territories.
The excesses of Gaddafi and his brood have been blamed for part of the mess. After the Jasmine and 25 January revoltions in Tunisia and Egypt might have been the last straw – but it could’ve been the billions Gaddafi’s son spent to hire Beyonce and Usher for a private party. When people are poor, frustrated by their marginalization, and cognizant of extreme waste just around the corner in palaces and jets, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia proves the time is right for revolution.
Now instead of focusing solely on the dawwal Arabiya – Arab world – let’s look at the one country with the most to lose if Gaddafi is made a martyr, slips from power, or dies while oggling his voluptous Ukrainian nurse or bodyguards.
Italy harvests 20 percent of Libya’s vast, lucrative oil fields, according to STRATFOR. They need 60 billion barrells a year – and the state-owned Central Italian Energy (ENI) gets 11 billion of this from Libya’s reserves.
“ENI’s relationship with Libya reflects Rome’s, which has had influence in what is currently Libya literally since the time of the Roman Empire. ENI has had boots on the ground in the North African state since the dawn of its energy industry in 1959 and has never scaled back its operations. Even in the dark days of Libya’s ostracism from the West in the 1980s, when American firms left due to Gadhafi’s backing of various militant factions and U.N. and U.S. sanctions were levied after Libyan agents downed Pam Am Flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people, ENI drilled on. As such, ENI produces some 250,000 bpd in Libya, which accounts for 15 percent of the Italian firm’s global output. It is also the major power behind the country’s moderate piped natural gas exports.”
ENI recently announced it would shut off it’s Libya pipelines and provide it’s customers from sources in the North Sea, Russia and Algeria.
Italian President Silvio Berlusconi was nailed by Wikileaks in the Guardian newspaper alleging he was “profiting personally and handsomely” from back-room energy deals with ENI and Russian judo-experts. The connection between ENI and the president’s office speaks to an industrial cornerstone of Italy’s political leadership, as much as Berlusconi’s “slavish” courtship of Gaddafi.
When I am meeting Italians and they criticize Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Reagan, Iraq, Afghanistan or Obama, it was always a safe bet to mutter Berlusconi. Usually a quick fascista followed and politics was left behind. My friend Valerio spoke to me a few times about Il Cavaliere Berlusconi – or The Knight – and his iron-fisted control of Italy’s media, while my friend Kouichi Shirayangi wrote in the North Africa Journal about his iron-first reaching Tunisia during Ben Ali’s reign.
The question for me is: will the Jasmine Revolution spread to Rome? Does Berlusconi’s power resemble the autocracies of Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali?
For one, they are all old: Berlusconi and Ben Ali were born three weeks apart in 1936, Gaddafi is 68 and Mubarak is 72. Two, they dominated the press. Three, they presided over incredibly disparate socities as incredibly rich men – Berlusconi is worth $9 billion, Gaddafi $5.5 billion, Ben Ali $6.8, and Mubarak’s family has somewhere between $40-70 billion.
Like Gaddafi, Italy’s leader is constantly embroiled in scandal. He’s used to it, but now Burlesconi is hurting from revelations of an underage tryst. The investigation is in full swing, but he seems unfazed.
“It’s better to like beautiful girls than be gay,” he said at a motorcycle show following a question about the 17-year old Moroccan girl he’d befriend.
Under investigation, with political opposition heavy, and potentially facing economic withdrawl from Libyan crude, could this popular call for democracy along the southern and eastern Mediterranean infect Milan, Rome, Naples, Genoa, and Turin?
Could the Jasmine Revolution have lessons for all nations - and spark la rivoluzione Italiana?
If Gaddafi can go down despite horrendous violence – why not The Knight?
