This year’s protests in Hong Kong had much resemblance with those of last year’s in Turkey. These protests have left so many questions for the political thinkers and international Think Tanks. In both the places, there is a temporary calm but there are many active waves under the calm waters and having gathered sufficient energy, they would again come to surface, creating a lot of uproar and unfortunately, such uproars never end without leaving behind traces of destruction.

We have no right to doubt on the good intentions of the organizers and supporters of these protests. Every citizen of today’s world deserves all the rights to have freedom of speech, basic human rights and all other rights granted to them universally and accepted by almost every nation of the world. The violent faces of protests for some small basic rights during the Arab Spring frightened many powers of the world that were not habitual of giving any importance to the voices of their masses. They soon came up with a lot of packages to their masses and immediately granted many rights to save their governments. Bashar-al-Assad of Syria got a bit late in this regard. When the uprising of anti-government militants got very serious, Mr. Assad thought of granting some rights but then it was late. We witnessed flexibility for the first time in history in listening to their masses by Saudi officials.

But victims of these protests complain of another thing. They accuse the West of exploiting people’s demand for basic human rights for attaining their own objectives. The accusations came on almost all the occasions. China is making great hue and cry against the involvement of foreign powers in sparking protests in Hong Kong. Turkish government also accused foreign hands in last year’s wide-spread protests. When protests got violent in Kiev and some other cities of Ukraine, Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych accused Western powers of using Ukrainian masses under the shield of protests to weaken Russia and decrease its influence in its neighboring nations. 

If majority of media showed these violent protests to be the anger of people against their corrupt governments, their extreme desire for their basic rights and their anger against the dictatorial tricks of state, a part of media was also busy in unveiling some of the less highlighted parts of these protests. From where the innocent protestors in Ukraine got weapons to fire against police and military, how untrained and naïve public was able to arrange well-organized and well-directed protests in dozens of Turkish cities, why were the major organizers of protests in Hong Kong were the strong supporters of West and its policies, and many other similar questions gave opportunity to governments of Turkey, Ukraine and China to blame external hands in these innocent public protests.

Another well-debated question is the price of these protests. In Egypt, the protests against Hosni Mubarak were termed to be due to the anger of public against a person that ruled them for many decades like a dictator and his so-called democratic elections were never fair and democratic. But what kind of justification can be given to the protests against the government of President Morsi that rose to power with a heavy public mandate in free and fair elections. According to some media outlets, the numbers of people were very less in these protests and Muslim Brotherhood blamed West of supporting and funding these protests due to its fear from the continuation of a government established and run by an Islamic movement. However, the following events were very disappointing. Government was dissolved and a military government was formed. All the efforts were made to eliminate even small remnants of Muslim Brotherhood. Their offices were sealed, their leaders arrested and imprisoned and dozens of them sentenced to death, and its local and international image was badly tainted with blots of extremism, bad governance, corruption and other accusations. But it was forgotten that same party had won elections with a heavy public mandate and roots of this organization are deep and historic in Egypt. When President Morsi was arrested, a new wave of sit-ins and protests started in Egypt, this time in favor of ousted and imprisoned president. Then, those who were opposing Morsi also became active and they also started their protests. The two groups clashed and brutal intervention of army resulted in more bloodshed. Merciless power was used against supporters of Morsi and hundreds of protestors were shot down by army. The protests got wide-spread, the economy crippled and general public lost the sense of security. Now, an elected president is ruling the country which used all its military resources to come into power. Freedom of speech and other basic rights have been snatched from people and once again, Egyptians have been left with a dictator that would keep ruling them for many decades until another blood-soaked protest becomes successful. With this the circle is completed and people of Egypt are standing at the same place from where they had taken the start against the dictatorial rule of Hosni Mubarak.

In Libya, Iraq, Syria, and many other countries, small public protests turned so bad that the entire region is burning with fire of war and destruction and hundreds and thousands of people have lost their lives and it would take many decades before these countries recover their losses. The demand for freedom of speech and human rights snatched the freedom and right of living from millions of people and people are repenting as why they made such a foolish demand on the first step.

But such a justification can never be used to deprive people of their basic rights. But then, many factors must be considered before reaching to a final consensus in this regard. If international powers and especially the West are interested in demanding for rights for people of some countries, why don’t they keep sticking to peaceful democratic ways instead of going to the extreme measures of making militant groups and supplying them with weapons and billions of dollars? How much it is fair that different powers of the world should utilize the public emotions and public dreams to achieve their own objectives and belittle their enemies? Why not these powers utilize their resources to bring positive changes in these countries instead of pushing the country and its masses into the fire of destruction and hatred?

The satisfactory answers of above questions would suggest a positive way of approach to all those nations that believe that basic human rights must be granted to the citizens of all the nations of the world. In this approach, the only way of action would be dialogue, education, understanding and peaceful protests. There is and there will never be any room for dangerous conspiracies and blood-stained protests as a good destiny can never be achieved by an evil approach.