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Spend time in Tunisia or Egypt and it is clear that the protests are not driven by ideology but the search for equity When police spies are found among the young people occupying the Kasbah Square, the seat of government in Tunis, they suffer nothing more than a torrent of abuse and are then handed over to the soldiers, guarding ministry buildings nearby. Minutes later, photographs and film of the individuals, looking a bit flat-footed and middle-aged, are being exchanged on mobile phones and posted on the internet. After years of absolute power, these thugs are being outsmarted and, more important, they’re being beaten by reason, courage and wit. One of the many remarkable aspects of the first of the Arab revolutions is that the hope of young Tunisians seems to overwhelm the need for revenge. There are a fair number of recent bullet wounds to be found in the square – a shy street vendor aged 16 shows me four, star-shaped purple scars on his legs; and many have injuries caused by batons and tear gas cartridges – yet this generation seems determined to rise above the past and they burn brightly with that ambition. With good reason they’re nervous that the gains of the past two months will be snatched from them. The popular revolt may be inching towards some kind of consolidation but the apparatus of a police state – the extensive system of informers and torturers that kept President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in power until 14 January – remains largely intact, as does Egypt’s “deep state”. The Tunisian opposition estimates that 240 have lost their lives so far and last weekend, four young protesters were killed in the centre of Tunis. I was told that police snipers are still aiming for the head or the heart. To spend time with the protesters is to understand the scale of the change underway in the Arab world. There is almost a shift of consciousness: people are beginning to think differently about themselves and they are exhilarated by the possibilities of political debate. I lost count of the number of young women and men who spoke about self-respect and dignity and how those two could only be attained with freedom. Tunis-based banker Adel Dajani told me that everyone he knows has become political. Hip-hop artists such as Balti are rapping about Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and the 40 Thieves. The newspapers, once a dire noticeboard for the regime, have become racy and are full of scurrilous stories. Suddenly, life is a hell of a lot more fun. In the Kasbah, Ahmed Maaioufi, a language teacher in his mid-50s, translated the words of the crowd around us into very good English. We were both moved by what we heard and after a little while he confessed that his generation had completely failed to understand and trust their children. And it is true that young Arabs are tired of the paternalism that decides everything for them and tells them what to think. They’re especially sick of abusive father figures who steal their country’s money and blame everything on Israel and America. Only once was the United States mentioned in these conversations and that was by a young man commending the honesty of American diplomats, as revealed in US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. “The kids don’t buy these bullshit arguments anymore,” the veteran French-Tunisian commentator Guy Sitbon told me. Several times, I wished that Tony Blair could have stood by incognito to hear the reasoned contempt poured on his fears about Islamic fundamentalism, which, interestingly, chimed with nightmares about al-Qaida evoked last week by his old hugging pal, Colonel Gaddafi . This quake is not about religion or even ideology in the dogmatic sense – it’s about creating societies with dignity, fairness and justice. The things that obsess Arab people are corruption and the abysmal standards in public life. To most, that seems as good a place to start as any. As westerners, it’s easy to let the rhetoric about human rights and democracy wash over us, but that’s because we live in free societies. When the people in Tahrir and Kasbah squares talk about rights with such blazing passion, you feel slightly ashamed. Still, it is true the words are abused the world over. In Tunisia, the party run by Ben Ali was, without a trace of irony, named the RCD, or the Constitutional Democratic Rally , which, oddly enough, precisely describes the nature of the movement that eventually threw him out of Tunisia and into a Saudi hospital. Tunisia is unique in the Arab world for the rights that even under Ben Ali were accorded to women and it’s vital to understand how important women are to the Jasmine revolution. In Kasbah Square, there are representative groups from all over the country huddling round charcoal fires in tents and it was striking how often those who possessed the clearest political ideas and did the talking for a particular group were the women. The same is partially true in the Egyptian revolution and it may just be that the demonstrations in Tunis or Cairo contained an individual who will one day become the first female leader in the Arab world. For sure, a woman could do no worse than the thieving, torturing, posturing incompetents who currently run the Arab world. During long years of Ben Ali’s rule, it had often been the women who kept alive a sense of morality, who insisted on ideas of right and wrong in the home and at work, even in the circumstances of a brutal regime that tortured your son or daughter for opening their mouth. Despite the army in Egypt and the police in Tunis, good things are happening. In Tunisia, the new president has announced elections for constitutional assembly in July. Ben Ali’s assets are being frozen and the Tunisians have demanded his extradition from Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, I saw a demonstration last Friday where the new prime minister, Essam Sharaf , promised meaningful liberal reforms and the rebuilding of Egypt. The former president, Hosni Mubarak, is being investigated for corruption and in Alexandria protesters stormed the headquarters of the hated state security agency, believing that officers were destroying evidence of their crimes. For the moment, it appears that the dreadful retardant of autocracy is slowly being removed. It must be bliss to be alive, young and Arab in this dawn, but it goes without saying that there is a long way to go. Somehow, the new governments must find ways of creating jobs for this bright new generation and it will take enormous cunning and persistence to neutralise the armies and security services that have been in control for so long. If not checked, they may well mutate into a corrupt oligarchy, precisely in the way that KGB officers did after the 1989 revolutions in Europe. The new governments will need our support and trust, but most of the people I talked to want an end to the unbelievably condescending notion that Arabs cannot handle democracy and do not want civil society. Once we grasp that, our attitude to the Middle East and Islam will change for the better. Tunisia Egypt Arab and Middle East protests Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali Henry Porter guardian.co.uk