An Arab Spring in Southeast Los Angeles County: Part I

Mr. Tobar:

Your article "At last, goodwill in Bell" (4/15/2011) was moving, comforting, and inspiring.

I was not aware that there was an Arab constituency in the city of Bell.

More importantly, however, the name of the newly-installed mayor, Ali Saleh, caught my attention because of its ironically similarity to embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Of course, Mr. Saleh of Bell is a legitimately elected council member in a Los Angeles municipality, whereas Mr. Saleh of Yemen is an out-dated, overspent autocrat whose long oppression of the Yemeni people is drawing to a protracted end.

The two Ali's bring up significant parallels between the "Bell Revolution" and the Jasmine Revolution spreading across the Middle East.

Like Arab dictators across the Middle East, Bell's previous council abused the law, robbed their constituents with illegal accounting, and consolidated their power grip on the city through arbitrary harassment through civil services. Like the frustrated Arabs from Tunisia to Iran, Bell residents finally revolted against those out-of-touch kleptocrats when the extent of their scandalous hoarding went public in the LA Times. The spark that set off the Jasmine Revolution, however, tragically lighted up from the self-immolation of a wronged fruit vendor despondent of ever receiving justice.

Sadly, unlike the people of the Middle East, the citizens in Bell chose to be uninformed and uninvolved in their government's affairs until the LA Times exposé of the city's exorbitant salaries for its part-time civil servants.

Fortunately, the Bell Revolution, a model turn-over in power, will be imitated by Arab states now reeling from military coups and unyielding popular uprisings. Rather than simply demonizing the previous council members and civil servants, the newly-empowered voters have committed themselves to participating within the political process. They engage their new leaders, whom they have chosen, rather than attempting to do away with the civil system entirely. Confident that justice will prevail against Rizzo and his fellow Pigs at the Trough, Bell residents are invested in making the hard decisions to bring their city back to civic and financial order.

Hopefully, the Bell Revolution will serve as a precursor to future political prosperity throughout the Middle East.