There are many different forms of governments from dictatorship to democracy. So far, there hasn’t been one perfect system yet; however democracy has been proven to work a lot better than other forms of governments. That is one of the many reasons why democracy would be much more appropriate for other nations as well.

Most Middle Eastern countries are ruled under a Monarchy. Although the monarchy system in most countries is constitutional, Saudi Arabia for example is still governed under an absolute monarchy. The difference between a constitutional and an absolute monarchy is that the king or queen in an absolute monarchy have complete power over the state as well as the government, while in a constitutional monarchy the king or queen has limited authority since there is a parliament that they govern alongside with. An absolute monarchy in many ways can be considered a form of dictatorship the only difference would be that monarch leaders were born into the position whereas dictators sometimes come into power forcefully.

Dictatorship has proven itself to be one of the most disastrous forms of governments yet. Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Egypt are just some of the countries that have been and still are victims to dictators. Egypt’s leader Hosni Mubarak just recently stepped down from leadership as of February 11th 2011. The protests which led to the removal of their dictator showed other countries a non violent way of dealing with the issue. The people of Libya soon followed suit and are now in the midst of a civil war between pro Qadaffi forces and those that want to remove him from leadership.

Unfortunately Libya is still struggling to this day. It took Egypt a long time to come to a point where they could protest against their leader and it worked in their favor. Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt for almost 30 years. He was elected president on October 14th, 1981. Egypt experienced three decades of tyranny while under the control of President Mubarak. He has ordered many innocent civilians to torture and death.

The demonstrations lasted 18 days before Hosni Mubarak resigned. It was through social networks such as twitter and facebook that thousands of people supported the Egyptian revolution. It was truly inspiring to see what could be accomplished when the nation stands as one. It was a lesson and a wake-up call for similar regimes.

In 1969 Muammar Al-Qaddafi overthrew the monarchy and has been the ruler of Libya since then. What he and Mubarak have in common is that they both had an uncontested rise to power. Libya’s opposition to their government rose when they saw the success the protests had in the neighboring countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. On February 17th, a country wide protest began opposing Qaddafi’s rule. In an act to gain back control over the protest Qaddafi, began to use force against protesters. This only provoked more people to join the opposing force. Shortly after February 17th cities were getting taken over by protesters completely cutting off Qaddafi’s rule. Soon large numbers of military members and government officials renounced their loyalty to Qaddafi and joined the opposition. The protest still continues to this day and since then thousands of people have been killed.

It has been said that Qaddafi has hired African Mercenaries to protect the cities that he had control over. Among these mercenaries are members of the Somali rebel movement. Qaddafi never failed to show his support to countries that opposed Somalia. In 1977, Libya was one of the few African countries that supported Ethiopia during the war against Somalia. The Libyan Embassy was closed in Mogadishu for over a decade until it was re-opened in 1985. Qaddafi aided every Somali rebel groups that sought the destruction of Somalia’s government. Somalia has been in civil war since then so unfortunately his plan has become a reality.

Since 1991 Somalia has been in the middle of a civil war. The war began originally because of tribal reasons, but since 2000, militant islamist rebels have taken over the country. For almost twenty years Somalia didn’t have a stable government with rebel groups controlling and making their own rules for the people. The democratic movement in Egypt and Libya is something the Somali people can learn from. Somalis need to stand together to transition their own country through non violent tactics. If and when the Somali people realize that they can change the way their country is governed the possibilities will be endless.

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