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| Jackson stresses need to address people’s needs |  | | Gulf Times - 5/10/2011 | | As a prominent member of the civil rights movement that swept across the US in the 1960s, Reverend Jesse Jackson has witnessed one of the most significant changes to have occurred throughout history.
A two-time candidate for the Democrat party’s presidential nomination and founder of the Rainbow/Push movement, Jackson is in Qatar to participate in the Doha Forum and address issues related to future development in the region following the recent revolutions.
“We must all know that what’s called the Arab Spring is in many ways is the world’s Spring -- all of us are affected by the uprising for democracy and human rights and jobs in the Middle East,” he told Gulf Times on the sidelines of the event.
“Whenever you have a lot of educated unemployed people, and repressive and corrupt governments there is going to be a fight back,” said Jackson, adding “so the solution is more jobs, fairer distribution of resources and regimes that are transparent.”
Jackson is passionate about the redistribution of wealth, and expressed his disgust at the fact that the rich continue to get richer, while the poor get poorer.
An ardent supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, he said that in the light of the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, it is important to recognise the need for development and rebuilding in the Arab world.
“Its hard to tell,” he said when asked about the global reaction to bin Laden’s death, “one can only hope that after the trauma of 9/11 and the trauma of bin Laden being killed in 2011, the next stage should not be retaliation but reconstruction, and addressing the real needs that we see in the Arab Spring.”
“I think the Arab Spring should dominate the next phase of our struggle, which is about educated people having a job, non-educated people getting a job and the fairer distribution of resources,” he added. |
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