RUTHFULLY YOURS

It’s old news by now that the so-called Arab Spring was literally and figuratively sparked by a street vendor in Tunisia.The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in front of a government building took place in December 2010, a mere year and a half ago. It feels much longer, due to the great deal that has happened since then.

But time flies when you’re having fun. And the Middle East has been one big party for the last 18 months, with much fanfare and fireworks. That this bash has been characterized by the uncorking of Shariah, not champagne, and that blood is flowing instead of bubbly, is beside the point, according to many cautiously optimistic analysts. It took a century for the French Revolution to produce democracy, they argue. And what’s a hundred years in the grand scheme of things?

Such a take on the radical Islamization of every country in our neighborhood may or may not be justified in the distant future, though none of us will be alive to see how it all turned out. Either we’ll have been killed by the sword or died of old age. In the meantime, however, what we’ve been witnessing is an eerie repeat of the Islamic Revolution — the one that took place in Iran in 1979, with the toppling of the autocratic shah and the rise of the Muslim monster, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Though it is understandable that the French Revolution has come to mind in relation to the goings-on in the Arab-Muslim world — where decapitation is alive and well — even the barbaric act of beheading was conducted differently in France.

In fact, the guillotine was invented — and became the main method of capital punishment during the French Revolution — as a way of imposing the death penalty while inflicting as little physical pain as possible. The idea was for death to be swift so as to prevent prolonged suffering.

In the Muslim-Arab world, by contrast, decapitation is used by Islamist thugs for the opposite purpose. Indeed, it is usually carried out by religious fanatics who get a thrill out of watching and filming themselves torturing someone in the name of Allah. And rather than doing it quickly and “cleanly,” they carry it out crudely.

A recent case in point occurred in none other than Tunisia, where the democratization of the Middle East supposedly erupted. Now, my only expertise in democracy stems from being fortunate enough never to have lived in any other system. But my gut tells me that someone pouring paint thinner all over himself and lighting a match does not bode well for spurring freedom, justice and human rights.

So, when President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down as a result of the riots that broke out following Bouazizi’s self-immolation, I didn’t expect the aftermath to bear sweet fruit.

But even I was taken aback by the shocking footage released this week from Tunisia, ostensibly the most modern and liberal of the Islamic states. The film shows the slow slaughter of a Muslim whose crime was that he had converted to Christianity.

In the video — which is too graphic for most people to watch, let alone comprehend — a group of masked men hold down the young “apostate” and slit his throat. In the background, a narrator recites prayers condemning Christianity. As the crowd watches for two minutes as the man’s head is carved off from his neck, they chant “Allahu Akbar!”

When the head is finally severed, it is hoisted in the air for show and more shouts of rapture from onlookers. Is it any wonder that the anti-America and anti-Israel radical-Islamist Ennahada party won the first general elections held in Tunisia less than a year after Ben Ali’s ouster?

Apparently, while the West was busy celebrating the winds of change brought about by the “Facebook revolutions” across the Middle East, the people taking to the streets in the region had a different kind of change in mind. And it wasn’t the ability to wear mini-skirts or eat McDonald’s hamburgers. Rather, it was a return to “pure” Islamic values they seemed to be craving.

But don’t take my word for it: Ballots cast across the region speak for themselves.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to visit Tunisia in February to lend her support to this travesty.

“What I am impressed by is not only how inspiring the revolution in Tunisia has been, but how determined the people of Tunisia are about the future you are seeking,” she said, addressing an audience of students. “The spirit of human rights and human dignity lives within each of us, and the universal aspirations have deep and lasting power.”

About Ennahada’s victory, she commented: “…An Islamist party won a plurality of the votes in an open, competitive election which we applauded. And the party leaders promised to embrace freedom of religion and full rights for women. In my meetings today with both the president and the prime minister, that commitment was reinforced.”

If Tunisia is the beacon for the rest of the Middle East, as the Obama administration likes to reiterate, the wrong heads have been rolling.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” to be released by RVP Press in the summer.