CONSTUTITION, by CHANCE NKUNDIMANA

              Today the image of the earth is not the same as when it was created. Violence, earthquakes, and tsunamis destroyed people’s lives; many of them fled their country due to these circumstances.  But the main reason people flee countries is war. If we’re to question some of these people who fled their country, each person will say “war makes us flee our country” they have passion to stay in their country, but dictatorship, communism, Nazism, socialism etc… won’t let them practice their freedom. Some of their family members might be kidnaped and tortured to death because they practice their freedom. Hitler said “national socialism will use its own revolution for establishing a new world order.” Germany during Hitler’s regime didn’t establish freedom because one man has the power of ruling others. If they had a constitution that gives them the rights to practice their freedom, this structure will give them the right to establish their 
freedom. “The Constitution is certainly the most influential legal document in existence today.”

what people are seeking for

Overthrowing one man rule 

Each developed country or Western power has its own written constitution that gives rights to their citizens. The only reason they are powerful countries is because they have freedom, and it prevents government from tumbling on their rights. Other countries admire the United States constitution because of how it defends people moralities. Even though there are some changes made to the amendments; it still shields the civilian rights. 

Political systems bring confusion that can affect globalization and it will have an impact on developing countries in a bad way or good way. Look at Syria today: innocent civilians are been killed, their homes are being destroyed; they are fleeing to Turkey so they can be protected under the Turkish government. Look at Iraq today; it seems the foundation of the constitution is ruling now, instead of one man ruling. The whole population is in unity. Laws must have the root that holds them together to able to function. It is not easy to start writing a constitution while other countries have their own constitution written more than two hundred years. It won’t be simple. America has  its own constitution after gaining independence from England, they did not wait for 50 years to write one; they knew a new nation must born with its own constitution. Other countries cited the United States Supreme Court’s case, not only to compare their cases but to see how the Americans judged their citizens. For example, Canada adapted the bill of rights and they interpreted it as “a living tree.” 

The revolution of a country's constitution must face the new demands that will lead them to obtain sovereignty. In America, they accepted and faced the new challenges against Britain. Political rebellion is like a pattern that holds two ropes together; if one rope is missing the other rope won’t be able to function. That means fighting for the liberty of all, the mind sets need to be united to able to defeat dictatorship or communism government. Uprising can cause a lot of mess and blood shed; sometimes a regime can be against its own people. This ensued on Libya government.

One man rule

4th Wave of Democracy? by Cole Meunier

Syrian Rebel Fighters in Aleppo

Samuel Huntington believed that democratization came in spikes over periods of time. For example the first spike came with the French and the American revolutions. For every spike to occur you must also have a fall, for instance in the 1920’s and 1930’s in Europe with fascism. You may be wondering, what does this have to do with anything, but this involves the world still today. Some would even say that a fourth spike may be happening now in the Middle East and Northern Africa, or you may have heard it as the Arab Spring.

With the Arab Spring being the fourth democratic wave and the French and American revolutions being the first means that there are two others. The second wave came post WWII with Japan, Germany and Turkey. Following this peak, Turkey fell away from democracy during a military coup in the 60’s, along with many Latin American countries. This led to the next wave of democracy in the 1970’s with Spain, Greece and Turkey back to Democracy. With a rise in democracy, it led to another reversal in the Balkans during the 1990’s. This then leads to the fourth and most current wave of democratization, with the Arab Spring.

The Arab spring started in late 2010 to the beginning of 2011. It  began due to the lack of human rights,  and abuse of dictatorships, along with many other factors. The citizens began to start protesting due to the issues. Many of the younger citizens became more internet savvy and were able to set up many protests through social media. This led to many countries filtering and censoring the internet even more than they may have already. In some cases countries such as Libya, Egypt and Syria have had full internet shutdown for periods of time to help stop the spread of the democratic ideologies. This would only make the riots even more important in the eyes of the rioters.

16 countries have witnessed large numbers of their citizens protesting, including four countries which successfully forced their leaders from power including; Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, and Libya. This then leads to a whole new problem where the people now choose the new government. Tunisia had this problem after 14 January 2011 when president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was taken from power after very large political protests. All current members of the government were ousted and banned from ever going back, regardless of whether they were later elected or not. Mohammed Ghannouchi then became the prime minister. With protests still continuing the prime minister stepped down and democratic elections were held in October. On the 23^rd of October citizens of Tunisia voted in a 217 member constituent assembly which was now in charge of creating a brand new constitution. The moderate Islamist party won the election with 37% of the vote. This now gave the Arab Spring a flagship country about what could happen with the democratic revolution. With a state like this I believe that it has influenced many others and motivated other Arab revolutions.

As was said before, Tunisia wasn’t the only country to oust its leader but that it was the first to succeed, giving hope to many other states. Egypt started its revolution just 11 days after Tunisia ousted its leader. Egypt’s revolution was very similar to Tunisia, and ended up electing Mohammed Mursi as the first democratically elected president through the Supreme Constitutional Court, by judges within the government. Not all countries were as lucky to go through a revolution so smooth and non-violent. Countries such as Libya and Syria were plunged into civil war.

The Syrian protests began around the same time as many of the other countries around mid-January 2011. On the 6^th of March, 15 children were arrested by Syrian security forces, which spawned an even larger amount of protesters. By mid-April hundreds of thousands of protesters began gathering in the main square of Homs. This worried the president Bashar-al-Assad, and on the 31^st of July he sent tanks into many cities to quell the uprising. This led to one of the biggest days of the uprising with an unconfirmed amount of 136 citizens killed. Bloodshed would continue even to this day, 18 months from the beginning of the uprising with the total number of deaths rising beyond 20,000 total, along with over 100,000 refugees in Turkey and tens of thousands in Jordan, testing the capabilities of these countries to provide support in these quantities. This has led to international talks with the U.N. about foreign intervention. This strategy did work in Libya where NATO Forces proceeded with a no-fly zone, but it is unknown whether it will work against Syria due to its larger military force, as the number of defecting officers is much lower than other states, therefore keeping domestic support.  Along with the no-fly zone in Libya it also had a large number of military defectors. Unless this occurs in Syria, I believe that any revolution will be crushed by a military take over.

With all of the refugees flooding into the surrounding states, I feel that these governments will be the most pressured to act rather than states from afar. If Syria were to have foreign intervention, Turkey will more than likely be the state that would intervene solely, at least in the beginning. They are the one of the few states that are involved now due to the fact that mortars are landing on their soil and killing Turkish civilians. And rightfully so I believe that they should at least to protect their own territory, but as for ousting Bashar al-Assad, I believe this is in the hands of the Syrian people.

It may still be too early to tell if the Arab Spring truly is the fourth wave of democratization, but only time will tell.

All information on this blog was found on:

www.cnn.com

www.aljazeera.com

www.bbc.co.uk

On 9/11, Al Qaeda & Attacks on US Consulate in Benghazi, by Michael Werner

            George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  In fact, that history may not have occurred that long ago.  Americans remember September 11, 2001.  The events of that date are etched in the memories of all most all Americans.  They have been recorded in the written achieves, so all can draw upon them, remember them, and learn from them.   It was on this date that Al Qaeda attached America.  They high jacked four planes.  Two planes were flown into the World Trade Center buildings in New York, one crashed into the Pentagon, and one crashed in Pennsylvania.  Over 3,000 people were killed.  Many believe that Al Qaeda has again attached America.  Not on its own soil, as in 2001, but in Benghazi, Libya.  On September 11, 2012 the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked.  History has repeated itself.

The attack occurred when heavily armed Islamic militants entered the consulate compound and fired upon and set fire to the consulate.  The attack resulted in the death of four American citizens.  While this number is significantly lower than the number that died in 2001, they died, it was an attack, and it is now being considered an act of terrorism.

In defense of history not repeating itself, the U.S. government initially implied the attack was a grassroots riot response to the American made anti-Muslim video.  Later the State Department indicated it was conducted by a militia associated with Al Qaeda’s branch in North Africa.  This was supported by Libya’s president Mohamed Magariaf.  He was of strong belief the attack was carried out by an Al Qaeda group hiding in Libya.  He supported this belief based on the sophistication of the attack and the alignment with the date of the original attack.  Based on recent media reports and comments out of the State Department, the Al Qaeda terrorist attack, not a grassroots riot, is the supported conclusion.

This raises the question; what was, or maybe the better question is what was not, learned from the first attack?  It has been well documented that there were warning signs ahead of both of these attacks.  At issue is whether or not those warning were credible.  We know that the Libyan Ambassador had been requesting additional security.  Some of those requests were met, but others were not.  Certainly, history leads to a path of landing with too much security.  So, why weren’t all the security requests met?  Has time alone caused a loosening of security?  Were the warning not considered credible?   Have we learned from history on American soil, but not on our overseas embassy locations?

Since September 11, 2001, it is a new world.  The history of this day cannot be forgotten.  The relaxing of what we learned from this day will cause history to repeat itself again.  When it comes to terrorism, let’s remember the words of George Santayana, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”