In a lecture at the Brookings Institute in Doha, Ihsanoglu: What the Region would be better termed “the Fall Season of Despots” Rather than the “Arab Spring”

Date: 13/12/2011

Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) noted yesterday 12 December 2011, that this coming Saturday will mark the first anniversary of Mohamad Bouazizi’s self-immolation, by setting himself on fire, thus sparking off the Arab-world revolutions. Prof. Ekmeleddin was to add, at the lecture he was delivering at the Brookings Institute in Doha, under the title of “The OIC’s Stand Towards the Developments in the Arab Region” that the label attached to the revolutions witnessed in the region, as “the Arab Spring” fails to reflect the reality that has swept over the Middle East and North Africa, and that a more accurate metaphore, in his view, should be: “The Fall Season of the Despots” The OIC Secretary General pointed out that since Bouazizi’s self-immolation on 17 December 2010, the Arabs have once again found their way back to the course of history, having strayed away from it for some time past. Ihsanoglu told his audience that there were many factors that stood behind the outbreak of these revolutions, foremost of which the evils of dictatorship, monopolizing of power, and exclusion of the masses from participation in decision-making with the economic and social problems by all this engendered, of which the most serious was the rampant unemployment with recorded rates in 2010 of 10.3% in the Middle East and 9.9% in North Africa. Ihsanoglu underlined in his lecture that the OIC’s stand towards the current events in the region proceeds from the resolutions issued by the Extraordinary Summit held in Makkah Al Mukarramah in 2005, at which it was unanimously agreed that there was a need to ensure democracy, good governance, rule of law and respect for human rights. He also noted that the new charter of the OIC, as adopted by the Dakar Summit in 2008, lays a particular stress on all these values, and that since the year 2005, the OIC has been following an in-house overhauling process in resonance with contemporary requirements.

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