While people in Ocean Beach bask in the glow of another beautiful sunset, other\u00a0countries around the world are enduring violent political unrest. Tensions continue to flare in Egypt, following the lead of a successful and bloody uprising in Tunisia that ejected that North African country\u2019s longtime dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on Jan. 14. Additional shockwaves have also rocked Yemen, where longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced Feb. 3 he would end his quest to remain that country\u2019s leader for life. The political backlash in Tunisia \u2014 a member of the Arab League \u2014 appears to have set the stage for Egypt\u2019s embattled president, Hosni Mubarak, who is clinging to his 30-plus years of exclusive power over his country. Even though Mubarak vowed to bring new reforms to his country and promised to step down and hand over his leadership after the upcoming elections there in September, protests and clashes have grown and continue daily in Cairo. A sizeable number of citizens of Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries have said they don\u2019t trust Mubarak\u2019s intentions \u2014 including at least one Ocean Beach visitor who can speak from experience in that region of the world. “No way!” said Wadia Ben Sliman, 31, of Tunisia. “He\u2019s [Mubarak] tricking people. He says he\u2019ll step down. But when the time comes, he won\u2019t.” Sliman left his family behind five months ago to earn his master\u2019s degree in business administration in international business at National University in Kearny Mesa. Chrisinna Ivosevic, Sliman\u2019s girlfriend, listens as she sits next to him on the bench in front of the Ocean Beach International Hostel on Newport Avenue \u2014 the couple\u2019s home for now \u2014 then chimes in. “Why all this thirst for power?” said Ivosevic, who is from the former Yugoslavia but grew up in Pennsylvania. “Isn\u2019t 30 years enough for one person?” Sliman agreed. “Yeah, if he honestly loves his people like he claims, he should leave,” Sliman said. Sliman and Ivosevic said they did not see the political backlash and uprising in Egypt coming and were caught by surprise. “It happened overnight,” Sliman said. He calls it the “domino effect” triggered by the successful protests and uprising in his Tunisian homeland. He said he is relieved Ben Ali\u2019s repressive reign of more than 20 years has ended, and hopes for change socially, politically and economically for his homeland and the region. “People want freedom, they want a real democracy,” Sliman said. “They\u2019re tired of wars and killings.” Sliman, whose family is primarily in Tunisia, has some relatives and friends in Egypt. He said he is worried about them facing burning cities, looting, riots and the brutal beatings and killings by “the very malicious police over there.” With Egypt\u2019s fate closely mirroring that of Tunisia\u2019s, Sliman said he remains hopeful. “I believe it\u2019s a very good thing. People deserve the right to freedom,” he said. “I totally support them [Egyptians] and their demands for a better, less-controlled life. Who wants to have a censored Internet these days?” Ivosevic agreed. “They [Egyptians] have no privacy, no rights, if they\u00a0criticize the government, ” she said. “You go straight to jail.”\u00a0 Sliman and Ivosevic said they both ultimately hope the Egyptian people succeed in their demands for reform and democracy. But they said they fearfully pray “the killings have not been in vain.” “My fear is that President Mubarak will never leave,” Sliman said. “Who will protect my people then?” Sliman said he is not sure when, or if, he will return home. “I don\u2019t know,” he said. “Not immediately, though.” Then, with a smile, Sliman said: “I am going to enjoy my freedom. I would like to travel all over the place. And, most important, I want to go surfing!”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While people in Ocean Beach bask in the glow of another beautiful sunset, other\u00a0countries around the world are enduring violent political unrest. Tensions continue to flare in Egypt, following the lead of a successful and bloody uprising in Tunisia that ejected that North African country\u2019s longtime dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on Jan. 14. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":269447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"WORLD-WATCHING FROM OB: Tunisian visitor sees mirror images in Egyptian crisis","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}