Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran ... biased to killing

Will the Non-Aligned Movement be biased to the people, or remain captive to an outdated ideology that seeks to bring the world to the days of the Cold War? Is the Non-Aligned Movement, its next conference to be held at the end of the month in Tehran, necessary or is raising more resonant slogans and issuing empty statements all that is required? The answer is simply that time has gone by the movement whose members have nothing in common. Is there currently anything that combines Egypt and Iran or Iran and Lebanon except Tehran’s desire to exercise custody over the small home and make Beirut an Iranian port on the Mediterranean? Will the Non-Aligned Movement be biased to the Syrian people instead of siding with the killing machine? Will the movement be biased for freedom rather than covering the repression carried out by obsolete regimes? It was supposed that among the 120 members of the movement existed someone who has enough courage to say that Iran had nothing to do with the Non-Aligned Movement, which firstly means to be aligned to the right and not to the expansionist policy of Tehran with all its insolence and arrogance. Is it enough for Iran to be a hostile state to the United States, or pretend to do so, to become non-aligned? The Non-Aligned Movement was founded in 1961 in Belgrade. It was founded by important leaders; Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru, Josip Broz Tito, Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah. Before the announcement of the founding of the Movement and the convening of the first conference in Belgrade, the capital of what was known as Yugoslavia, those leaders tackled the concept during a meeting held in 1955 in Bandung (Indonesia). Each had his own perspective, but what combined the five was to find a position for a group of countries outside the interactions between the two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. In 2012, there is nothing left of the Non-Aligned Movement to convene for in the conference at Tehran. The Cold War has ended; the Soviet Union collapsed in early 1992 and before it the Berlin Wall. More than that, the Soviet Union made the Non-Aligned Movement a part of its systems that revolved in its orbit. Cuba, for example, became a member of the movement, knowing that it was dependent on the Soviet Union completely. Cuba hosted the summit of the movement in 1979, without any of the participants wondering: Are we still at the same distance from Moscow and Washington, or do we deceive ourselves? The Soviet Union succeeded to a large extent in kidnapping the Non-Aligned Movement, especially after the decisions issued by the movement meetings specialised in attacking the US policy. This is what Iran is trying to repeat in 2012 as if attacking the American policy is a job in itself. There is no doubt that US policy has its pros and cons, but history has proven that the US model defeated the Soviet model and the future of any country in the world is largely related to two things. First, finding a state of institutions and advanced educational programmes and other economic openness under certain control to provide a decent life for the poor. Therefore, none of the five founding states of the of the Non-Aligned Movement achieved any progress on any level , except when it adopted democracy based on institutions and peaceful transfer of power and moved away from interfering in the affairs of others. The military rule collapsed in Egypt because the only institution built by Nasser was the security services. Yugoslavia collapsed, because it was based on one person named Tito. Ghana regained its vitality when it became a democratic country, so was Indonesia, which has suffered from the rule of Sukarno and his successor Suharto. However, India was an exception. Why is India  an exception?  The answer is that India was democratic. There was no monopoly by a certain party or a family of power, despite the importance of Nehru family and the succession of his daughter India Gandhi for her father, then her son's succession. What improved the Indian economy and turned India into an important country able to take independent decisions was its democratic institutions and openness to the world on one hand and the economy of the market and advanced educational programmes on the other. India did not need the Non-Aligned Movement to advance and reach what it has reached. In 2012, there is no need to remember that the Non-Aligned Movement has never been able to resolve any of the problems faced by the member states. For example, negatively watching the Iraqi - Iranian war for eight years, verbal positions, without actions, against Israel. It has never contributed in making the Israeli occupation back down or recede from an inch of Arab land. At a time when the Syrian heroes are confronting the killing machine used by the regime and supported directly by Iran, does the Non-Aligned Conference dare to take a position standing by the rights of the people to demand dignity and freedom? If it does not, then we bid a thousand goodbyes to the Non-Aligned Movement and to the participants in its conferences.  The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.