This might not be relevant anymore, but I just want to know what are your thoughts and opinion about the Arab Spring?

Personally I have a historian’s view of history; I look at society in terms of generations and centuries. So to me revolutions are never something to celebrate; they are just a violent expression of changes that would happen with or without them. As an example, if the American Revolution had never happened, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and the United States would still have acquired its independence sooner or later.

The Arab Spring is just an expression of changes happening in the Middle East especially due to the spread of university education and Internet usage. Western powers love revolutions and use their intelligence agencies to support them and take them in the direction they want since it means they can install new governments that are more friendly to their interests. So for a nation, revolution is a plunge in the dark that makes the nation extremely vulnerable to foreign powers.

Revolution or upheaval never leads to some magical new government that solves the problems of the past. It leads to a reshuffling of the elite while the old problems remain just as before. Things slowly change as society changes with or without revolution.

So for me the Arab Spring is nothing to celebrate. It is just fireworks that represents the slow process of change that has been taking place decade by decade. While some are disheartened by the “failure” of the Arab Spring, personally I have no such feelings toward it. I am optimistic about the future of the Middle East since change is taking place. I don’t care about the fireworks, but about the structural changes taking place deep within society.