The crux of the decision by the United Nations to adopt Resolution 1973 against Libya was the fact that Colonel Gaddafi was “waging war on his own people”.

There are no doubts about this at all. Gaddafi mobilised his army and has been pounding civilians with tank rounds, mortar fire, rocket fire and cluster bombs. But, although matters have not escalated as far, the same is happening in other regimes around the world.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has ordered his army to fire live rounds at protestors in Damascus and Homs. The nature of the attack was atrocious. Protesters planned a sit-in, and while they were sitting on the ground, the army opened fire. A total of 20 are believed to have been killed, while many others were injured, most with bullet wounds to the legs, feet and pelvis.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has repeatedly ordered his troops to fire on protesters for months on end. While these actions cannot be put into the same category as those in Libya, they are still cases of violence perpetrated against civilians.

The West allows freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. We allow protests and we allow demonstrations and strikes. Law enforcement agencies do sometimes get it wrong, and injuries do occur, but by and large, whether it is a protest before a G8 meeting, a student meet in London, a strike in Italy or a manifestation before an EU council meeting, people are allowed to express themselves.

We might not agree with modes of expression – a fellow mooning Belgian police before the last summit is a case in point – but the fact of the matter is that people are allowed to say their piece and vent their frustrations. The same, of course, can be said in Malta.

But the Arab regimes are of a different mentality. Many leaders have played the card of instability in a power vacuum as an excuse to fire on their own people. And one would have to ask, where is the UN?

The UN set a precedent with Libya, and, to be fair, followed it up by passing a resolution on the Ivory Coast situation, where incumbent Laurent Gbagbo resorted to widespread violence in his attempt to cling to power.

But the issue is now concentrating on Syria. The divisions over intervention are becoming ever more apparent. The UK, France and Italy have upped the ante against Gaddafi, as Nato dithers. The three nations have put advisors on the ground in Benghazi, continuing to highlight the drive towards regime change. Understandably, this term has been used very sparingly, with the West keen not to overuse the phrase – synonymous with former US President George W Bush and British PM Tony Blair’s ill-fated campaign in Iraq.

It seems that the stable world we once knew, and were comfortable to ignore (after all, ignorance is bliss), has gone and is now already a distant memory. The UN must revise its stance on Syria – although any action there is unlikely. Syria is still a very hostile place, with extensive links to terror networks. It is also a brutal place, where dissent is not tolerated in the slightest. If its people occupy squares and public places, it is the point of no return. People know that when they take to the streets in such numbers in the face of a repressive regime, there is no going back. What will the UN and the West do if there is another Syrian bloodbath? In 1982, just that happened when Bashar Assad’s father – Hafez al-Assad – ordered the quelling of an uprising in Hama. Between 10,000 and 20,000 people were killed. Will it be allowed to happen again?