KERRY O'BRIEN asked this Question to Robert Fisk of the Independent

The last question in an interview on ABC television, KERRY O'BRIEN asked this Question to Robert Fisk of the Independent: “When the dust finally settles on the Arab uprising, or whatever you might call it, I wonder how much democracy it will be seen to have delivered.”



ROBERT FISK answered: When the dust settles on what I call "The Arab Awakening", you and I will have died of old age. This is not something that's going to fit into the deadlines of ABC television or me and my deadlines every day for the London Independent, and it's not going to fit into our lifetime.


History goes on forever. Democracy of a kind, yes. What people are asking for in this region is not democracy - though they'd like some of it - and it's not human rights, though they want a lot of that. What they ask for is justice and dignity, and they are not the same things. And the question is:


Do we in the West intend to give them justice? because that means dealing fairly with the Palestinians, with Kashmir, with Lebanon. I'm not sure that's really what we want to do, and that's the question we should be asking.


Do we want democracy in the Middle East? Or do we want a sort of softer version of the various dictators which we've so generously bestowed upon the region in the past, like Mubarak and Gaddafi - when we used to like them!!!