The Middle East’s revolutionaries turn out not to be all sweetness and light

The various revolutions popping up, like boils, in the Middle East (or “North Africa”, as the BBC likes to call it) seem to be going much the way this magazine predicted a bunch of weeks ago. The liberal, freedom-lovin’ ordinary people of Egypt, for example, have now begun their persecution of the Christian minority, setting churches on fire and trying to kill them. There’s been the usual spate of Islamic sexual persecution in Tunisia, directed at any woman not wearing the regulation sackcloth and ashes. I have seen no evidence that the rebels in Libya are Jeffersonian democrats, either. Which is not to say they should be denied their freedom, these maniacs – simply that we ought to distance ourselves a little from them.

I still have in my mind a report on the Radio Four programme From Our Own Correspondent by a reporter cheering the victory of the “popular, grass roots, reforming” Taleban in Afghanistan – this followed, of course, years of western support for the semi-housetrained savages in their battles to usurp Soviet control. You may remember Sandy Gall wearing a sodding tea towel as he provided free PR for the Mujahadeen. We supported the uprising against the Soviet regime partly on the hopeless principle that my enemy’s enemy must be my friend (something we did with Saddam during the war against Iran, remember) and also I suppose because we objected in principle to any country being occupied by a bullying neighbour. The Soviet rule in Kabul was, its fair to say, not entirely democratic, as we might understand the term. But it provided the Afghans with its least corrupt and violent regime in a millennia, and the highest standard of living for women before or since.