Tunisia riots offer warning to Arab governments

CAIRO (Reuters) - Nervous Arab leaders watching young Tunisian demonstrators force an ageing strongman into sweeping concessions are wondering if their own old established formula of political repression will have to change too.

There seems little likelihood that Tunisia's violence will soon spread and unseat autocratic governments from Rabat to Riyadh, partly as opposition movements are weak and demoralised.

No one thinks Tunis is the Arab world's Gdansk, heralding a toppling of dominos of the kind that swept eastern Europe in 1989.

Yet some wonder how long the region's unpopular rulers -- from absolute monarchs to ageing revolutionaries clinging to power -- can rely on the hard, old ways to stay in power.

The unprecedented riots that have shaken Tunisia have been closely followed on regional satellite television channels and the Internet across the Middle East where high unemployment, bulging young populations, sky-rocketing inflation and a widening gap between rich and poor are all grave concerns.

"This could happen anywhere," said Imane, a restaurant owner in Egypt who did not want to give her full name. "The satellite and Internet images we can see nowadays mean people who would normally be subdued can now see others getting what they want."

"We are not used to something like this in this part of the world," said Kamal Mohsen, a 23-year-old Lebanese student. "It is bigger than a dream in a region where people keep saying 'what can we do'.

While in recent decades democracy has supplanted despotism in regions once plagued by dictators, but governments in the Arab world are almost uniformly autocratic and heavily policed. [........]

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