When Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi called for a rally on Monday to support the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, he was put under house arrest according to the BBC. This came as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urged Egyptians to continue their protests and to “free” themselves and choose their own leaders and their own form of government. It seemed a case of “do as Teheran says and not as you see in Egypt”. An Iranian leadership eager to see unrest in other countries lost no time cracking down on its own dissidents for acting exactly on the same impulses they encouraged abroad. CNN rhetorically asks, “Will Iran change heavy-handed tactics against pro-reform protests?” Does a bear visit the woods? For the answer, see the previous paragraph and besides, CNN’s own coverage says:
Iranian authorities on Wednesday warned against any attempt by the opposition movement to hold the rally, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. It was unclear whether people will take to the streets, anyway.
Advertisement“We definitely see them as enemies of the revolution and spies, and we will confront them with force,” Revolutionary Guard Cmdr. Hossein Hamedani told IRNA.
The probable answer is, “no they are not going to change their heavy handed tactics.”
Fidel Castro, who the Huffington Post reported as saying “Hosni Mubarak’s fate is sealed” ensured he would not suffer the same end by taking the lesson to heart and arresting journalists and dissidents and throwing them into prisons far worse than the facility operated by the US military in Guantanamo, which is only notorious because it isn’t operated by Castro.
Human Rights Watch may say that “Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2010 the government continued to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, beatings, harassment, denial of employment, and travel restrictions.” But he’s “a man of the people”, isn’t he? So to the Wall Street Journal’s plaintive musing, “will Cuba be the next Egypt?” one can only answer: are you kidding? Repression works if you are anti-American, but only if you are anti-American. Yet once the unlimited brutality is allowed, as the Iran has discovered, then what doesn’t make you stronger kills you. CNN notes that the Iran’s last round of repression, rather than outraging the protesters, has made them gun-shy.
“Surviving the last round [of protests] strengthened the regime’s hand,” he said. The suppression “put fear in the protesters,” he said. …
“They are crushing anything that moves,” Bazzi said.
Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council for Foreign Relations, said one big difference between Iran and Egypt are their economies. Iran has a lot of oil, and it can afford to be “more reactionary and revolutionary.”
Meanwhile, the Obama administration will continue to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, human rights and influence with militant organizations that threaten Israel, among other governments.
Bullets work and they work better when you don’t listen to the White House. Which ironically means that the President will use diplomatic language in dealing with Teheran, and not the language he used with Mubarak. What could this mean in the coming weeks?
With unrest spreading according to Sky News, from Algeria to Syria, there can be little doubt that the political contagion over modern communications is real. That contagion can stir up unrest, but the self-organizing over the Internet has not yet reached the stage where it can complete itself. But the Internet has proved more than adequate at spreading awareness through the Middle East that they have put up with poverty and repression for too long. People are angry but don’t know what to do. Not only are whole populations being exposed to rising expectations, but they can talk about it — on Twitter, Facebook or in Arabic blogs. It’s a problem looking for a solution, but who is selling?
Hundreds of millions of people are aspiring to a way of life that only capitalism and some kind of democracy can fulfill. Neither fundamentalist Islam nor Nasser-style authoritarianism can feed the burgeoning numbers. Capitalism and freedom is the only system which can unleash the productivity which has lain dormant and chained up under centuries of represssion. Yet who will tell them this?
The real difference between the Democracy Agenda of George Bush and the current administration is that GWB in his simplicity had something to sell. He also had the hard-headed practicality to realize a combination of hard and soft American power would be necessary to sell it. In his naivete, the Bush approach targeted the enemy authoritarian regimes before allied authoritarian regimes probably on the theory that once you’ve dealt with the their SOBs, you could deal with your SOBs.
President Obama may have a far vaguer product, teeing off the idea that if you take the side of the street then all will be well. He will do nothing so crass as Always Be Closing. That’s beneath him. As unrest sweeps from “Algeria to Syria”, the adequacy of President Obama’s leadership style in Egypt will be tested against other crises. There may be serious difficulties because the President’s main role in Egypt was to take credit for whatever the protesters achieved. This may be described as “encouragement” or “support” by some, but it really resembles the shaman who dons the green cloak in winter and takes credit for the arrival of spring rather than the man who makes things happen.
The balance of probability is that the style of leadership demonstrated in the still-unfinished Egyptian crisis will be overwhelmed if events accelerate in the Middle East. They will be especially overwhelmed if other regimes, both nominally allied or hostile, derive the lesson that it is better to go ugly early than let things slide to the point where the man in the White House can pretend to lead events. Who wants to be the next Mubarak? Probably none of the leaders in the region.
In the coming weeks Egypt will try to find its way forward to a future that only capitalism and democracy can fulfill, a search that may be replicated all across the legion. And look as they will, no one will sell it to them unless they figure things out for themselves. Meanwhile, Teheran and Damascus will be touting their wares, not because they are any good, but because there’s a sucker born every minute. At heart Barack Obama’s dilemma and his distinction from the Bush democracy agenda may spring from an unwillingness to see solutions like Cuba or Iran or Syria as unacceptable end states. He may not even see America as the proper end state for America.
If he is very lucky the contagion now rampant will change the tone of the region from old-style authoritarianisms into somewhat more modern authoritarianisms. The “digital revolution” will leave the scenery unchanged, but the lighting will be better. But if he is very unclucky, then the unrest will unfold asymmetrically, in such a way as to ensure the survival of the most brutal. President Obama could see the region rid of good bad guys and left with only the baddest bad guys. With only soft power and media operations, he couldn’t really do more than cheer-lead the Egyptian street. Will the same methods handle Assad or Ahmadinejad?
Maybe he thinks it will, or worse he will apply it only where it can succeed, where the regime is not brutal enough to crack down hard.
Debacles often have their origins in a false sense of success. In 1954 the French Colonial Forces beat the Viet Minh soundly at a place called Na San and derived entirely the wrong lesson from it. The battle of Na San, they believed, proved that a fortress supplied entirely by air was capable of surviving against Viet Minh attacks and inflicting crushing losses against the Ho Chi Minh’s infantry. Determined to repeat the experiment on a grander scale, they dropped the cream of France’s expeditionary force into Dien Bien Phu. History describes how that turned out. Both the regimes in the region and the White House will be coming away with lessons learned from Egypt. Here’s hoping they pick the right one: that it is better to sell something you believe in than let things drift and to hope for the best.
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To early to call. In Iran it was either 30 or 32 days after the Shah left before the curent regime took over. They first think they did was start executing those that disposed the Shah. Smart move, since what they had in mind was worse then the Shah. So it only makes sense to get rid of the proven troublemakers. Egypt’s Generals know what happened to the Shah’s Generals. If there is a sudden stream of private Jets heading for Rome, we know what is happening.
Does unclucky mean no webbed feet or sticky fingers?
The Obama regime has demonstrated, to me at least, that it can not or will not learn from mistakes. Apparently they think that as long as the pursue the leftist agenda nothing they do is a mistake.
Thirty two years ago the air was full of blather, some from the same talking heads giving bland assurances now, telling everyone that the Iranian sophisticated educated class and pro-US military would keep things under control. Just why should we expect things to look different if this was a push for hegemony by the SCO?
The counter argument hangs on a pot-shot at Iran by Obama and a parting remark by Gibbs challenging the mullahs. This could be simple distraction or chain yanking.
To my mind the choice is between assuming that Obama like most of his supporters is simply a make it up as he goes along fraud and assuming that he really is an enemy agent. In determining our predictions for the future and anticipated responses to survive will the answer to that problem make any difference?
Breaking News
@BreakingNews Breaking News
Mubarak has left Egypt for the United Arab Emirates, Al-Jazeera Arabic tweets – Business Insider http://read.bi/dH9j7I
Is this an indication that the UK is now so thoroughly penetrated by armed agents and so dhimmified that it is no longer a safe haven? Why would Mubarak want to go anywhere near Qattar, the home of Al-Jazeera? AJ is a weapon, a gun pointed at many heads. Why do the Saudis tolerate it?
UAE has some very loose banking laws. IF I had 40 Billion in swag and was getting out of town, that would be a good place to go.
The Swiss have no honor anymore.
For those trying to get a chunk of the 49 huge, Two wrongs don’t make a right.
The rational for taking (or trying) Mubarak’s money is that he stole it. Yet taking his money is stealing, which destroys the rational for taking it. Every government on this planet is stealing from it’s citizens. Why pick on an old man? You think the Obomanation is MUCH richer now then he was 2 years ago?
I think the big difference between Egypt (Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Jordan) is that the military is more or less professional, not particularly ideological, and most interested in keeping control of the perks that go with owning-running a state. The Leader serves at the pleasure of the military. Authoritarian but not totalitarian.
The Shah’s army was supplanted early by the Revolutionary Guards who owe their allegiance to an ideological regime and derive their position/wealth from maintaining the regime, and not the state itself. The Iranian regime is by definition ideological and much more prone to totalitarian control. The Iranian regime will shoot large numbers of demonstrators in the streets.
I can see how economies could loosen up in the Arab countries so long as the pecking order was not upended and military families participated in the new wealth creation. I cannot see any significant change coming in Iran until the regime, and the entire system of government, is replaced by a real revolution.
Since the Egyptians were able, remarkably, to overthrow Mubarak without a leader in the mold of a Lech Walesa; that makes the throngs resemble something more like a leaderless Tea Party than a movement that Ataturk led in Turkey in the 1920’s. But that was before the power of the information age, before Google and Tweets.
We can hope that an Ataturk arises but that might take awhile, meanwhile there continues to be common sense displayed by the people of Egypt who are not rushing to Allah for a fix, instead they keep talking about the reality of the underlying cause of this magnificent turnaround: the economy.
There a is good strong relationship and mutual respect enjoyed between the Western military and the Egyptian generals. So maybe the latter can be persuaded to sensibly reign in their new power and to also free up their grip on the many facets of commercial enterprise that they have milked.
Lots could go wrong here and lots could go right. But the power of this new information age will hopefully quickly self-correct the inevitable political mistakes, much like a blog quickly self-corrects. It’s a reasonable guess that the same kind of self-correction will have an impact on the direction “contagion” takes. As other countries commence what is shaping up like dominoes, we’ll see what good ideas they copy and what mistakes they avoid:
Algerian security forces and pro-democracy protesters are clashing, as demonstrations got underway in the capital Algiers on Saturday….Protesters are demanding greater democratic freedoms, a change of government, and more jobs.
“In his naivete, the Bush approach targeted the enemy authoritarian regimes before allied authoritarian regimes probably on the theory that once you’ve dealt with the their SOBs, you could deal with your SOBs.”
Yes, that was The Plan, the unstated one that people kept professing bafflement about. It was GWB’s version of Ronald Reagan’s “We win; they lose.” The big difference was that it could not be said aloud, since fighting all of the SOBs at once would be much harder.
With the CRA and a host of other initiatives, the Left planted a time bomb that blew up under GWB. They failed to notice that he was planting his own time bomb.
The dictators only hope is to be rescued by the Western Left.
So PB 6, is there maybe a better comparison to running the next Egypt on the China model? I question whether the Egyptian common man work ethic is anything like that of China, but I could be wrong. If the government stabilizes, one could make an argument that investment capital could start to flow into there.
Right – the key variables are: population size, the economy and the political organization that enables that economy. All are interrelated.
The Egyptian population has exponentially increased beyond the carrying capacity of its statist socialist economy. From 40 to 80 million in four decades. A socialist economy, running on state-owned ‘public’ industries and resource processing has a finite wealth producing capacity. It cannot grow beyond those internal resources. In Egypt, there is a limit to the wealth produced by the Suez canal tolls, tourism and some agriculture. This supported only an increasingly elite and isolate public civil service but could not support the masses.
For that, you need a capitalist or private enterprise economy made up of small to medium businesses – producing goods and services for internal and external consumption. This is a growth economy because it rests within a growing set of consumers/producers.
And Egypt’s authoritarian regime prevented private enterprise, prevented individual freedom. You need democracy – a political mode that empowers the productive class…that middle class of individual private businesses.
The result of authoritarian statist socialist rule – is that a repressed people will retreat into the only freedom they have: the imaginary world. So, they ‘imagine’ a magical solution, where If Only they are Pure, Then, all will be well. That’s islamic fascism, that’s the Muslim Brotherhood, which are ideologies of the mind, of the imagination – and not of practical individualist entrepreneurship. Islamic fascism is a product of the repressive regimes of the Islamic dictatorships.
Iran? It is running out of resources to maintain its own statist socialist economy. Oil lasts only for a finite period; same with Saudi Arabia. At some time, the carrying capacity of a finite no-growth economy ends..and the nation must move into a growth-style economy…and that means only one type: capitalism…the economy based around freedom of the individual.
Bush understood that repressive statist governments produce fascism – and his goal was to ‘drip’ it into the Middle East and let it spread.
Obama has no understanding of econmics or political structure. Or demographic pressures. He’s a pathological narcissist and his only focus is on himself as Himself. He’ll side, always, with ‘the Winning Side’. He has no core principles. He ignored the Iranian demonstrators because he felt they couldn’t win – so he sided with Power, Ahmandinejad. He wavered about Egypt until he was certain that The People had won. As Wretchard points out, he’s exactly like the Man-in-the-Green-Cloak taking credit for spring’s arrival. Like Mubarak, Obama will never admit that he’s not The Centre of the World.
#9 steeple
I first heard the term “neo-mamaluk” in a 2009 Middle East History lecture by a Professor Richard Bulliet (Columbia) that I got off iTunesU. Here is a very recent article by Bulliet on the same topic.
Since what Bulliet says fits in with what I can see on the ground for myself, I can accept it as accurate until proven otherwise. This is an excerpt from the article I referenced above:
It is unlikely that Hosni Mubarak is personally determining the government strategies being pursued in Egypt today. In neo-Mamluk regimes, the man at the top serves at the pleasure of his senior colleagues. When the regime is threatened, those colleagues are properly concerned with their collective interest. They confer with the president, or plot behind his back, to determine when he should leave, and they try to manage the succession in a fashion that will preserve their privileges.
It remains to be seen how skillfully the officer corps will manage the succession, and how significant the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood will be down the road.
Although it’s nice to see it as such, I think it way too early to call what’s happening in Egypt a democratic revolution. And even if it were we do not know what that will mean. Hamas gets top billing in the MSM as a democratically elected government.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Down with Obama!
To the streets!
#11 Peter Boston – the problem I have with your outline is twofold.
First, it focuses only on ‘the Leader(s)’, the so-called Hero Theory, and ignores the population size and economic mode. My own view is that the leadership had better be directly connected to both these latter variables or – they become irrelevant. As I suggest happened in Egypt.
Second, no leader operates alone -even the most monolithic dictators have their advisors and cronies. The question you pose is which has the power – the leader or the advisors? Your suggestion that the second level, the BackRoom Gang, so to speak, remain in power is important, but ignores the Tea Party Gang, (equally ‘so to speak’) which brought about Mubarak’s fall in the first place.
I don’t think that the Egyptian people will put up with a continuation of the Old Regime with different leaders. Their economic mode has reached a critical threshold and has to be moved from no-growth to a growth eonomy, i.e., capitalist. No choice. And what follows that – is democracy – to empower that class that engages in a growth economy.
As for the MB – I’ll maintain that fundamentalism, or ‘magical thinking’ is an internal phenomenon, and will reduce its strength when the economy empowers the majority. It will never disappear for we humans always engage in imaginary worlds – whether it be in lotteries, gambling or conspiracy theories – but it will become marginal.
#13 ETAB
I agree with your assessment that Egypt must move to a free economy in order to better the lives of its people. But do the Egyptians understand that? Most Americans don’t even understand that. I see a lot of magical thinking going on in Egypt right now. All their problems have been placed upon the head of one man, Mubarak, and as soon as they get rid of him then all will be flowers and sunshine, milk and honey.
The reality is, now that Mubarak is gone the same conditions hold: an undereducated, backwards and ignorant population will still find higher food prices, fewer jobs and largely the same people in charge. And it appears likely that the only way to get rid of this group of thugs is for another worse group of thugs (Islamic fundamentalists like the MB) to push them out and install themselves.
What I don’t see is a centuries long tradition of the rule of law, respect for private property and free and enlightened thinking. I don’t see a constitution waiting in the wings, and that is what they need. A constitution that protects liberty, not another strong man.
I wish the Egyptian people well. I hope they work their way to a freer economy and system of government. But I’m not holding my breath.
e/14; I see a lot of magical thinking going on in Egypt right now
Well, thank goodness for that. If you’re spending half your income on food, and the food prices are doubling, if you ever quit the magical thinking and figure out that it’s the US Treasury selling bonds to the US Federal Reserve that’s debasing the global reserve currency and spiking commodity prices, well you might get pissed off at somebody or something.
Want to help the Egyptian people? Go to Washington DC and grab your congressman by the shirt collar and throw his ass out in the street. Unless your congressman is a spending-cutter, a real one, of course.
Memory refresher: The United Arab Emirates = DUBAI.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are both in the Emirates.
As predicted ( me ) Mubarak’s war chest is in Dubai — not the Alps.
It also has the digs that any ex-despot digs.
#14 elby – I agree with you that a great many in the US don’t understand the necessity for a private or capitalist economy – that’s the reason for the growth in the statist structure in the US. But,a great many reject socialism and statism – and understand why. So, it’s not hopeless.
I don’t think that the Egyptians are that naive – and don’t want authoritarian rule. Their key word is: freedom, as I’m sure you’ve heard.
There is, in any society, respect for the rule of law – whether it is secular or religious. As for the concept of private property, that too is aligned with freedom. You don’t see the Egyptian people asking for nationalization of things, but for more freedom to start their own businesses.
As I’ve said, fundamentalism, i.e., Islamic fascism, is ‘magical thinking’. And your supposition that the Egyptian people will turn to magical thinking once they’ve rid themselves of Mubarak misunderstands the cause of ‘magical thinking’ – which is repression, the lack of freedom to work and better themselves by themselves. Strip a people of such individual powers and they will turn to magical thinking. Give them those powers and they won’t waste their time on magic.
The “Big Theory” is that modernity as a whole will eventually steamroll these goat herders and their vicious and self-defeating ideology.
Cuba has survived at about a nineteenth century level of technology. Arabia has survived on a windfall of money from oil, but is self-sufficient in nothing much newer than sand. Every single child and adult now walking the Earth knows it, including every one of their citizens.
China is a really curious example, a mix of old and new, freedom and coercion. I don’t think Arabia has the human resources to be another China, neither cultural nor genetic. So, what is left to them?
They have their new prophet, and his name is Twitter. Mohammed made the fatal mistake of not mentioning Twitter. Obviously, Allah knows things Mohammed did not. So much the worse for Islam.
What other models do we have on the planet? North Korea? Russia? India? Indonesia? The Phillipines? The fifty nations of Africa? Latin America?
Here’s the thing, the new prophet Twitter doesn’t come from North Korea, nor Russia, India, Indonesia, The Phillipines, the fifty nations of Africa or Latin America. There is no world but cyberspace, and Twitter is its prophet. Twitter demands you pay a tithe every month, or you are cut off – gently, and with sadness, and always welcoming you back as soon as you conform. You don’t have to take your shoes off to talk to Twitter. There are more things on Twitter, than are dreamt of in your government’s philosophies. The Twitter, united, will never be defeated.
Which leaves … Iran. I will give the ayatollahs this – they are at least trying, to blend seventh century culture with modern technology. I can’t see it working. It will fail as the Soviets failed, for failing to engage the interest of its better citizens. Islam’s rewards are either in heaven, or comprise corruption. Twitter rewards you as soon as you hit Send. Mohammed was a long time ago, and these bearded characters, they just ain’t Sonic the Hedgehog.
wretchard, you wanted someone from the west who is Always Closing. That would be Twitter. resistance is futile.
In order to get intellectual clarity, it is sometimes required that we step outside of our homegrown comfort zone and examine the thoughts of pundits who are somewhat more disinterested.
“Does anybody in Washington recognize what the establishment of democratic governments in the Middle East would mean? War with Israel, because that is the settled will of the Arab street. Apparently western liberals want more democratic elections like the one that gifted Gaza to Hamas in 2006.” Gerald Warner Wash Post….2-12-11
War with Israel, because that is the settled will of the Arab street.
Yes fellow contributors and that is why I have tried to enlighten many that we do not have a democracy but a republic , for with a democracy you always eventually get the tyranny of the majority
So those of you who are applauding the “democratic” movement in the ME may get , in fact will probably get wars of tribe against tribe and a war of Arabs against Israel So have your fun now, banging the gong like the village idiot unknowing of what he is sowing.
http://tinyurl.com/66umeph
Arafat Joins Muslim Brotherhood in 1948.
Former DIE chief General Ion Pacepa reported in a 2003 Wall Street Journal article:
I was given the KGB’s “personal file” on Arafat. He was an Egyptian
bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign
intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops
school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as
the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official
records of Arafat’s birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious
documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was
therefore a Palestinian by birth.
Now about the MB…hmmm, what can we say? …….Depends on the depth of self deception to a degree. You see the deceiver, must be aware he’s deploying a deceitful strategy; but, as the deceived, he must be unaware of this strategy for it to be effective. And yet it is difficult to see how the self-deceiver could fail to be aware of his intention to deceive. A strategy known to be deceitful, however, seems bound to fail. How could I be taken in by your efforts to get me to believe something false, if I know what you’re up to? But if it’s impossible to be taken in by a strategy one knows is deceitful, then, again, self-deception as it has traditionally been understood seems to be impossible as well.
Try to dupe me?
How Vulnerable Are You to Being Duped? Why is gullibility such a universal phenomenon?
Gullibility can be defined as a person’s susceptibility to getting fooled, tricked, or otherwise manipulated. I’ve come to see this complex subject–both practically and theoretically–as an area of study as vital as it is fascinating. And to me it’s certainly worthy of the most serious professional scrutiny.
You will believe every rumor, you will believe every broadcast and newpaper article and blog theme………You will believe every rumor, you will believe every broadcast and newpaper article and blog theme…….You will believe every rumor, you will believe every broadcast and newpaper article and blog theme………You will believe every rumor, you will believe every broadcast and newpaper article and blog theme
But then it is so easy not to see whats at the end of your nose.
The Self-deceivers
Self-deception is the acquisition and maintenance of a belief or, at least, the avowal of that belief in the face of strong evidence to the contrary motivated by desires or emotions favoring the acquisition and retention of that belief. Beyond this, philosophers divide over whether this action is intentional or not, whether self-deceivers recognize the belief being acquired is unwarranted on the available evidence, whether self-deceivers are morally responsible for their self-deception, and whether self-deception is morally problematic (and if it is in what ways and under what circumstances). The discussion of self-deception and its associated puzzles gives us insight into the ways in which motivation affects belief acquisition and retention. And yet insofar as self-deception represents an obstacle to self-knowledge, which has potentially serious moral implications, self-deception is more than an interesting philosophical puzzle. It is a problem of particular concern for moral development, since self-deception can make us strangers to ourselves and blind to our own moral failings.
Ah yes, veritas.
Human Rights Watch “may say that “Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2010 the government continued to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, beatings, harassment, denial of employment, and travel restrictions.“”
And if you think that’s bad, you just better hope you don’t end up in a Cuban hospital.
http://www.babalublog.com/archives/001470.html
Hosni Mubarak has resigned. The Egyptian “color” revolution (ie: a peaceable one), carried out by heroic people risking life and limb, has been apparently been a success. I only wish it were that simple. But there is ample evidence the revolution has been manipulated and that the Anglo-American elite plans to replicate the Egyptian revolution not just in the Middle East but worldwide via the use of the Internet and swelling youth demographics. But as mentioned above about democracies, they know not what they do.
The latest and most astonishing global gambit is called AYM and Wikipedia provides us some information about the group, as follows: “The Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM) began with a December 2008 summit in New York City to identify, convene, and engage 21st century movements online for the first time in history. The United States Department of State partnered with Facebook, Howcast, MTV, Google, YouTube, AT&T, JetBlue, Gen-Next, Access 360 Media, and Columbia Law School to launch a global network and empower young people mobilizing against violence and oppression.”
According to Wikipedia, “Founders of AYM include Jared Cohen, former advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton and now Director of Google Ideas at Google, Jason Liebman, CEO and co-founder of Howcast and Roman Tsunder, co-founder of Access 360 Media. Speakers at the 2008 summit included actress Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz, The Obama Campaign’s New Media Team, and then-current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs of the United States James K. Glassman.”
Hmmmm Dept of State involvement…Hmm I wonder if Langley or the FBI or Ft. Meade had any input that even the Access 360 Media and AYM were unaware of? Naw, could never happen cause the USA is too dumb to play hide and seek on the international stage according to many…..but,but…. Say young bright conservatives who were CIA or FBI and then infiltrated these organizations? Gosh I sure don’t know, that’s for sure.
ETAB
What you call the Hero Theory has been the boots-on-the-ground political/social structure of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria for the last 700 years. When does theory become practice?
You grossly overestimate the political acumen of the Egyptians. The people who had the time and means to spend 3 weeks in Tahir Square are not reflective of the 79.9 million other Egyptians to whom having enough food to eat and fuel to cook it with are immensely more important than political and economic theory.
To the well educated, comfortable and well fed Westerner “freedom” may conjure up images of the world in John Locke’s 2nd Treatise (even if they never read it). For somebody who has been told their entire life that their miserable existence is caused by Jews, Americans, Brits (or all of the above) freedom may just mean the ability to get theirs and get even.
You grossly underestimate the allure of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have a powerful message to spread and many receptive ears will hear it. What you call fundamentalism empowers the individual and elevates his self-worth and status over the “other” people who have treated him badly. Mohammed was a criminal but he understood human nature.
We have already ploughed this ground, but it appears to me that you are cruising in the same philosophical slipstream that says that human behavior can be managed to a good end so long as you manipulate the right variables.
#24 Peter Boston – actually, fundamentalism doesn’t empower people; it makes them dependent on others.
First – dependent econmically, for fundamentalism is purely ideological and can’t deal with the economic realities. And second, intellectually dependent for it always requires an Evil Other. This means that a fundamentalist cannot innovate, explore the realities of the environment and world. As such, this type of population has to be parasitic on other economies and populations.
The reason for the rise of Islamic fascism in the ME – was the repression by the dictators. With a free economy, such needs for magical thinking will be reduced to a marginality – because the economy becomes generative rather than parasitic.
I’m still reeling from the reduction of one of the three Abrahamic religions of the modern world to ‘magical thinking.’ That’s quite a leap of presumption into the collective psyche of the Muslim faith.
Getting back to basics, and diminution and ridicule might be one way to accomplish such, but the means of segregating religion from secular government is not at all obvious with a faith dominated and defined by Sharia Law. Until a way can be found to isolate religious faith from state functions, I see little hope for peaceful resolution. (ref Paul Berman et al)
I can see a role for civic engagement through foreign aid based on themes developed from socio-cultural historical dynamics (the soft power approach as per ETAB et al). But I cannot see sustaining the Muslim religion in its current configuration. It’s not just a theological obstacle to western mores and thinking, but it’s an institutional obstacle to government that avoids the ‘tyranny of the majority’ as per Habu’s citations.
The treatment of women, the sexual amorality, and the intolerance of non-believers, strike me a phenomena more suggestive of a deeper mindset than simple response to oppression.
It’s (still) the Religion.
#24 ETAB
You say with freedom the need for magical thinking will be reduced dramatically. The problem is, Egypt’s problems won’t be solved overnight. It will involve tough choices and the reduction of the power of the entrenched ruling class. We have a difficult enough time of that here in America. In Egypt, things are likely to get worse before they get better. The question is, will the populace wait out the bad times and hold out for freedom, or will some thug arise who finds such a crisis too good to waste?
Whatever happens, it will be the Americans and the Jews fault.
At any rate, I hope your optimism is justified.
PB@24: You grossly overestimate the political acumen of the Egyptians….We have already ploughed this ground, but it appears to me that you are cruising in the same philosophical slipstream that says that human behavior can be managed to a good end so long as you manipulate the right variables.
Exactly. Creating synthetic events.
If long-term sustainability is the objective, the driving momentum must come from the human element, and not from humans responding (presumably rationally) to the right mixture of circumstances, events, and ingredients, the latter of which comes close to suggesting that Serenity comes with a cookbook.
The Soft Power approach is not a stand-alone solution. In the specific case of Muslim countries, I am not even sure it is effective in the (apparent) absence of fertile soil to allow growth of ideas in direct conflict with a very old religion.
22. Gaffe Price said …..
PET Cemetery Report: the left’s paradise >>> Cuba, Haiti, Egypt, etc. & Quebec.
C’mona my house, my housa c’mon*…. Si!
Stand up, stand up for Castro*……. “from an ant-infested apartment in Vinales, a two hour drive outside of Havana.”
…-
“Canadian stranded in Cuban village with broken back”
“A trip to Cuba has become a hellish experience for Canadian Daniel Baril, who is stranded in a small village with a broken back after he fell while mountain climbing nearly a month ago.
Baril’s Quebec insurance company refuses to pay for an air ambulance out of the Caribbean country, forcing his family and friends to raise the $25,000 bill by themselves.
“I’m living in hell,” Baril, of St. Jerome, Que., told QMI Agency by telephone from an ant-infested apartment in Vinales, a two hour drive outside of Havana.”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/02/11/17242521.html
…-
Stand up, stand up for Castro*…….:
“Alexandre Trudeau Whitewashes Castro – Recursivity **
Alexandre Trudeau Whitewashes Castro. Alexandre Trudeau, son of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has written a truly repulsive reminiscence of Fidel Castro.”
http://recursed.blogspot.com/2006/08/alexandre-trudeau-whitewashes-castro.html
A trip to Cuba has become a hellish experience for Canadian Daniel Baril, who is stranded in a small village with a broken back after he fell while mountain climbing nearly a month ago.
Baril’s Quebec insurance company refuses to pay for an air ambulance out of the Caribbean country, forcing his family and friends to raise the $25,000 bill by themselves.
I’m sure Michael Moore will be happy to help, given his high opinion of Cuba’s standards of health care.
Based upon their posts…
It is apparent that many cannot comprehend the nature of Arabic and islam. They are bound tight.
Just to speak Arabic is to CONSTANTLY invoke islamic expressions. There is no secular Arabic.
No other creed is so embedded in a specific language.
The result of all of this is that the only way one can leave islam is to stop speaking Arabic as a first language.
This also explains why the transplanted ummah — in the West — wants language isolation. Any time English/French/Dutch/Swedish/German becomes someone’s first language they start drifting out of the ummah.
There is NO WAY for the ummah to tolerate the West. The two philosophies are ‘hypergolic.’ They enflame on contact.
Beyond that, the ummah are informed by their imams that allah insists that it is their right and destiny to be supported in a grand style by the kafir. That such is not happening can ‘only’ be explained by a vast conspiracy of evil: it’s the Jews!
This pitch sells itself — particularly to morons.
———–
In the West we have such as ETAB who project overarching grand theories to explain the simple.
Whenever the rubber hits the road the muslims default to shariah and supplication to allah.
Dull, ignorant muslims are not congruent with democratic republics. The one exception, Turkey, that was a beacon, has defaulted right back to fundamentalism the minute islam was permitted in the political arena.
BTW, Mubarak has been quoted: democracy in Egypt means extremism and fundamentalism. Mubarak expects this to radiate across the ummah – -pronto.
His opinion of the Zero is zero.
#xtz, or whoever gets credit
It will involve tough choices and the reduction of the power of the entrenched ruling class.
So the “entrench ruling class” is reduced.
Political Science 101 … a vacuum doesn’t remain a vacuum but for a very brief second.
So when the “entrench ruling class” is reduce and a vacuum develops who will fill that void? The unentrenched poor disenfranchised class? Hoi polloi? Or another more powerful faction who may end up being more brutal, entrenched forever holding the totally rigged , “one man,one vote, one time” gig.
What less than 3% of the Egytian people did, whooping it up in the streets, and magnified worldwide by the media, was trade someone who was a force for stability in the region and open themselves up for something that could possibly be far more authortarian and brutal to more Egyptians than they had before. Odds favor that outcome; for a democracy will bring on tyranny unless a more brutal force takes over first…they just screwed themselves and the entire ME. This will not end well.
From a previous thread:
23. mbayang “Whatever one feels about The Tea Party – it’s clear their tradition didn’t have as much resonance for Egyptianis…”
One would scarcely expect that it would, given that the Egyptians are Egyptians and not Americans. Neither is the Tea Party diminished nor the Egyptian revolt enhanced thereby.
As to the source of the inspiration for the Egyptian revolt, there seems to be more than one opinion.
No matter what faction in Egypt lands on their feet and comes out on top, they are all still Egyptians. 80 million of them. This is the beginning of a long and painful process.
US: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
34. Roberto
“No matter what faction in Egypt lands on their feet and comes out on top, they are all still Egyptians”
Ah, Roberto, you might want to whoa that train down. At this point the world has no idea who will be in charge of Egypt. Almost all the major powers either have or want a controlling interest in Egypt.
Any ole Egyptian faction won’t necessarily crate a better life for all Eqyptians because they all won’t belong to the same faction and the big boy faction will always dominate the little boy faction.
Now we can talk for a moment about the MB which is international and nefarious.
Or we can talk about Iran or Syria or any number of ME countries that if have the chance will gladly take the reins of Egypt and her large arsenal of weapons.
Ole boy, the bidding in booty and blood for control of Egypt has just begun. The average Egyptian may end up in the crapper …odds favor he will. Sharia law, stoning, clits & noses cut off, no more blue jeans, etc….. and a giant step backwards …. and if the wrong people take over the first thing they’ll go after is the bomb. Sounds like a real good deal for, “No matter what faction in Egypt lands on their feet and comes out on top, they are all still Egyptians”
Yeah, wanna buy a bridge?
#26 ybr – I didn’t say that Islam is ‘magical thinking’; I said that ANY fundamentalist ideology, and that includes Islamic FASCISM, is magical thinking. Kindly get your facts straight.
As for Islam, it has little to say about religion and most of that is derived from the judaic; it is, in my view, primarily a defensive ideology that emerged in the 7th c, among one particular economic mode, pastoral nomadism..because their land base (for pastoralism) was being reduced by settlements from the Byzantine/Christian/Roman market economy.
It has to change – and since man made it, regardless of its dogmatic assertions that it’s ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’…man can change it.
#19 and 23 Habu – your reliance on the rhetoric of a few doesn’t provide any validity to your opinions. Oh, and kindly provide some evidence for your conspiracy theory of manipulation.
#27 elby- of course it won’t be solved overnight; this isn’t a television show. It will take decades; people’s minds aren’t buckets; their beliefs aren’t pebbles..and it takes time to reject the old and accept the new.
#32 habu – yes, the ruling class will be reduced. Do you know emerges? A three class rather than a two class system…the rise of the middle class. Ever heard of that development in the West?
And Mubarak wasn’t a force for stability! Maybe you think that repression equals stability, but repression, like a lid on a pot, increases the pressure within! Don’t you know that? Mubarak’s repression was a direct cause of Islamic fascism in Egypt….as well as poverty and economic stagnation.
#31 blert – grand theories? Heh. Since when is a reliance on statistics, of population demographics, economic productivity and political structure …defined as a ‘grand theory’? It’s basic empirical data.
I would feel good if the FLN Apparatchik Bouteflika is outed by the Algerians too
Interesting, how do you destroy a religion without killing the off all the practioners of it? Perhaps if the economic penalties were severe enough?
Selective targeting of the radicals and financial enablers, such as various Saudi Princes, Iraninan espionage leaders, and etc.? Will it take the horsemen to stall it out, starvation, disease, and etc.? Will some of the major powers start going this route, China for example?
36. ETAB
Oh , you are so wise, that all shall call you wise, and you will be a wiseguy.
On the ruling class that will develop you must have a very nice crystal ball..but time will show us. Historically your prediction is a lot less likely than the outcomes I sugggested.
On 19 you need to ask Gerald Warner of the Washington Post since he wrote the piece I quoted.
On 22..you’re obviously behind the curve on what’s what in that area.
Finally, I have to applaud the executive level job you’re doing in showing us on a diurnal basis the place where God split you. You crack us up!
If things do get nasty in the fight over who controls Egypt, since if it falls into the wrong hands I suspect my tac nuke’em strategy will gain some new life ….unless of course we want to eat a bomb. Preemption is til and should be on the table and it could come to pass.
I mean how long does Israel have if the MB gets full control of Egypt and is followed by the other rabid dog ME countries? Think Israel will roll over and eat some megatons without an immediate answer?….this is a huge cluster fu*k now in the ME and it was pushed by very few and magnified by a press for higher ratings and more revenue. obama, the muzzie tartlet did his part of course ….nothing…. that we know of or can see the results of at this point.
#39 habu – sorry, retreating into insults isn’t an argument; it simply shows that you have no argument.
Again, you were the one who used Warner to support your opinion. One person’s opinion is hardly acceptable as infallible. Oh, and how about some proof for that theory of manipulation?
With regard to the ‘ruling class’, I go by the empirical evidence of history; the change in Western society from a two-class structure to a three class structure. Oh, and there isn’t then, any ‘class rule’. There IS a democracy which empowers the most economically productive class – the middle class.
#31 blert – the theory of language as a determinant of thought was long ago discredited ( Bernstein theory, Sapir-Whorf)..These were rejected long ago, because language came to be understood as open rather than closed.
And democracy is not the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Democracy in a large population is constitutional; it requires a constitution that sets up term limits, freedom of speech, freedom to have opposition parties, the rule of law, etc, etc.
37. Marie claude
“I would feel good if the FLN Apparatchik Bouteflika is outed by the Algerians too”
Me, not so much…why..because I’m not sure it’s in anyones interest to take a very volatile region of the world, with a bastard philosophy written by a pedophile and inflame it any more than it presently is.
Anyway Algeria is already really People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria I mean shout it out baby…a Democratic Republic ….hey they’ve managed to bastardize the meaning of that too.
Maybe next week.
b @ 31: Just to speak Arabic is to CONSTANTLY invoke islamic expressions. There is no secular Arabic.
I don’t follow that, can you give some examples?
I mean, the Christian bible has the word “John” in it, but if I go talk to my neighbor about borrowing a rake, I don’t feel a lot of biblical weight necessarily attends.
Cultural Arabic may call for a lot of references to Allah and poobah’ing, but that’s not the language, exactly, is that what you mean?
41. ETAB
I’m surprised and hurt. Are you saying you aren’t wise?
Oh wait..you last paragraph proves you’re not wise or educated. If you gave that answer in a high school civics class you would fail..you have no idea what you’re talking about..I’m taking back your gold star.
Now I’m going to take a nap so I can be a Bible hold’n, gun tot’n NASCAR fan tonight watching the Bud Shootout…..
Hey Habu..
Yeah?
How come every time one of these weirdos show up you take the time to school them?
I guess I’m just too kind hearted.
Well dude just stop it. You’re wasting your time.
Yeah , I know ..Ok I’ll try.
Good.
ETAB
…because their land base (for pastoralism) was being reduced by settlements from the Byzantine/Christian/Roman market economy.
If your root premise is that geography determines everything about human social behavior (which it seems to be), should you have not looked at a map before making such an unsupportable statement?
Mecca and Medina are about in the middle latitude of the Arabian Peninsula on the Red Sea (West) coast. Circa 600 AD the Quraysh were the dominant tribe in the region. The Quraysh traded with the Byzantines but there is no evidence to suggest that the Byzantines were ever interested in establishing colonies in the Mecca/Medina region, much less actually attempting to do so. No part of the Byzantine empire ever bordered Quraysh territory.
Additionally, the Quraysh were traders/businessmen not pastoral nomads. Mecca (of Mohammed fame) was a market stop on the caravan route from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf side of the Peninsula. Mohammed’s family was in the hospitality business in Mecca where they ran the religious concession.
The biography of Mohammed says that he was pushed out of the family business and eventually run out of Mecca with a handful of followers. Mohammed changed the nature of his “revelations” while in Medina. He got a set of new revelations that told him he should recruit a gang and return to Mecca where he and his gang could get rich by slaughtering the Quraysh and plundering their caravans. It was a good plan.
Again, habu, insults are not an argument but reveal a lack of argument. I suggest that you try again, and leave the insults to children.
Democracy must be, in large populations, always constitutional. I won’t go into the other variations of democracy – but the so-called ‘direct democracy’ where everyone has a vote is only viable in small no-growth populations.
Since I strongly suspect that you know little of either the definition of democracy nor its history, I’d suggest you read Aristotle’s Politics for an examination of the various types, Karl Popper’s The Open Society for an examination of democracy as dynamic – and there’s Natan Sharansky’s ‘The Case for Democracy’. Sharansky’s rejection of ‘stability’ and his support for democracy might be interesting- or not – to you.
Way off topic but interesting:
Somebody figured out how to produce an image of the “average woman” for selected countries. Refer to:
http://www.businessinsider.com/faces-of-tomorrow-2011-2
Switzerland’s plain Jane is IMHO the prettiest (would never have predicted that). Oddly enough, all of the women depicted looked fairly hot. I guess beauty trumps ugly or the guy collecting the data introduced a systematic bias. It is interesting that the South African woman is white. That suggests systematic bias.
Josh & ETAB…
IF you’ve ever had the pleasure (?) of listening to conversational Arabic you quickly come to hear deferential cant to allah and his messenger drilling through your brain constantly.
Stuff like “if allah wills it” & ( PBOH ) …
There is a profound fatalism for those who literally believe that allah micro-manages all. For starters, blame must be shifted with an urgency quite profound. There is a belief that any personal, secular failure is directly as a consequence of failure in one’s relationship to allah.
( Sort of a jujutsu on the Protestant linkage between wealth and morality. )
What this means in terms of productive function was related by a contractor in Iraq. He found that every Iraqi muslim he could point to was a chronic super-liar. Education and pay-scale meant nothing. That they’d be found out for sure meant nothing.
What kind of lies? The status of construction, the arrival of supplies, the man-power working, the existence of any difficulties and even the need for additional information — a steady diet of B.S.
When confronted with their three-stooges management act their first words were to blame: the American, unknown malefactors, the equipment, the supplies and above all that allah did not will it to be so. IF allah had willed it everything would have fallen into place.
I mentioned the French. In Algeria — many decades ago — they noted that not ONE of their successful technical students spoke Arabic as a first language. It was so striking that it became the subject of French social experts. The long and the short of it is that Arabic speech leads to islamic constructs which mean that scientific reasoning becomes repulsive. When France did pull out of Algeria Arabs that had crossed over into French culture/speech were among the first to head north. Not only could they get a professional job — they were on the whole apostates. They’d become lapsed muslims — for the rest of their lives. Not exactly something that they wanted to have get around the old home/ town.
ETAB is that kind of expert who knows everything without that nasty, icky field work.
Like it is possible to transfer European norms to an entirely alien culture without a hiccup.
Well I’ve had long experience dealing with completely alien attitudes. Trust me, such individuals re-map reality to their own constructs and can continue to do so right to the grave.
It is entirely incorrect to assume that we all think alike.
Barry Soetoro: QED.
E@36: I didn’t say that Islam is ‘magical thinking’; I said that ANY fundamentalist ideology, and that includes Islamic FASCISM, is magical thinking. Kindly get your facts straight.
I am aware of no empirical evidence that justifies distinguishing “Islamic fascism” from the Muslim religion. The book is the book, but more to the point, the concept – call it a mindset – of rebellion against tyranny and injustice has near zero visibility within the Islamic intellectual theater. The distinction is western in origin and foreign to Muslim thought.
“Magical thinking” western style.
Eggplant…
The original creator is an African American residing in Europe.
Dragon Horse:
http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/
The South African is mislabeled — her legend should read Argentina, as in the big B.A.
Dragon Horse
“LOL, I’m the one doing those averages, on “postnational monitor”
Whoever you copied this from (who copied it from me) did not do South Africa correctly, it is not South Africa, the picture is for Argentina.”
Dragon Horse
“It’s funny how much Roissy does rip on black people with his “race realism”, HBD pimp shitck, however, he is praising the work of a black man. LOL”
b@49: It is entirely incorrect to assume that we all think alike.
And if we all agree, is that a logic trap?
#49 blert – I don’t discuss my personal experience therefore you have no way of knowing the source of my knowledge. And I certainly agree that we don’t all think alike, but, each of us can, if we wish to, change our ideas. That’s the nature of our species; our ideas aren’t genetically implanted. We learn them..and can change them.
As for what you are describing among the various workers in Iraq, I’d suggest that this is not indicative of the language but of the economic and social system of socialism – which rejects individual responsibility. You’ll find exactly the same off-loading of responsibility and ‘it’s not my fault’ in all – and I mean all – of our own bureaucratic systems.
Yes, Islam is a tribal belief system, which is to say, it is primarily a political-social structure that is two-class. The majority are ‘the people’ (not the Rulers) and are denied the right and duty of being an individual – with responsibilities. Denied the necessity of using reason and empirical examination. Islam hasn’t produced a scientific innovation since it began.
But, once a middle class emerges, and my point is that it has to, this will have to change. The individual worker and businessman will have to be responsible for how his business succeeds. Who said that it is easy to change?
#50 ybr – I don’t merge fascism or fundamentalism with Islam. I believe that you can be Islamic without also being fascist.
As for rebellion against tyranny, what does that have to do with religion? Yet that is exactly what the Egyptian demonstrations were all about: a rebellion against tyranny and injustice.
ETAB: As for rebellion against tyranny, what does that have to do with religion?
Fundamental to the American way is the concept of inalienable (universal) rights bestowed by a “divinity” on all humanity. (One can argue deistic beliefs vs a personal god but let’s leave that aside for now.)
This is a problem for Islam and it’s very much a religious problem. Can’t be trumped by digging deeper for some version of an economic ‘middle class.’
#54 YBR – yes, I see your point. But the ‘American way’ was based in an already existent economic middle class. Nothing to do with religion – and I do see your point about deism vs a personal god, but I’ll claim that that too is an aspect of a middle class – a set who are defined as free individuals.
It’s a basic and serious problem within Islam, in its nature as a sociopolitical system (which it is, far more than it is a ‘religion’)..that it rejects the individual, rejects reason, rejects doubt, questions, freedom. There is no question about these huge roadblocks. BUT – Islam, as it is written, is functional only within a tribal or two-class political and economic system.
What happens to an ideology when a middle class economy is not merely a choice but an economic necessity? Does the ideology, set up as inviolate dogma, make such an emergence impossible? After all, at one time in the West, it was equally forbidden for the ‘average man’ to question, dissent, doubt, use his own reason; he was required to rely on The Church for all answers. That changed.
Islam will also have to change and permit freedom. There is no choice; it may sound trivial to you, but the population growth has exceeded the carrying capacity of a two-class or tribal (or Islamic style) economy. You have to enable a growth economy and that is only possible within a capitalist middle class.
“As for rebellion against tyranny, what does that have to do with religion?” etab
If Mohammedism isn’t the very definition of universal submission and/or tyrannical coerced compliance, what is? I haven’t seen Egypt’s/ North Africa’s putative spontaneous democratic rabbles protest against the suffocating strictures of Islamic fundamentalism shaping the socio-political landscape of their countries’ futures; on the Nile, the demonstrations have only brought down a pro-Egyptian, uneasy but reliable American and Israeli ally, quasi-secularist still Muslim strongman and his regime.
The Egyptian people now have naked military rule, once again, which in all probability will give way, or at least cede too much ground, to the radical Brotherhood of Muslim man, much like Pakistan has done with a military power base suffering factionalism and growing dual loyalities out of tribalism, true belief and expediency. As a stand-in for Arabist solidarity enshrined by Nasserism, this month’s “revolution,” which may have been more orchestrated than organic, could take outdated and discredited pan-Arabism into the fundy fire. Certainly, the democratic strains we in the West strain to hear coming from the ME tumult may be Islamic popularist urges to vote-in a different tyranny.
Let us clean out the earwax.
47. ETAB
It may not be an argument but wit you it’s like going to Disneyland, it’s fun.
Now since I have a BS & Masters Degree in Political Science …well you’re wise, you’re ..ah, wait we’ve been down that camel trail…suffice it to say that my degrees somewhat qualify me on the subject of the nature of democracies…
But thanks for playing..
Now our next contestant hails from the village of al-dey al-nite marianne in a hoven in the wa wadi wa tusi.
56. cleo
VERY NICE
#57 habu- appeal to authority? You must know that’s a fallacy of argumentation. A BS in political science? Heh, I thought they only had BA’s in that.
Sorry, guy, I’ve got 4 degrees – and one of them is much higher than your Masters. Now – can we get off the fallacies?
I’m surprised that your polisci courses didn’t expose you to the changes in economic and political infrastructure – and demographic changes – in Europe in the 12th through 16th centuries. And the changes in ideology, moving the governing themes from ones based on a two-class to a three class society. Weird that you didn’t analyze this.
#56 cleo- those are your opinions, but they aren’t substantiated by evidence.
The demonstrators weren’t ‘rabble’; they were demonstrating against econmic and political corruption and dictatorship – and such corruption isn’t due to any Islamic or religious ideology. Corruption can and does appear in any human endeavor – and is particularly entrenched in totalitarian governance.
Mubarak was ‘pro-Egyptian’? You are joking. Do you know about the ‘emergency rule’ that has kept him in totalitarian control for 30 years? Do you know that opposition parties were forbidden? Do you know that private entrepreneurship is essentially impossible to develop – and that 40% of the population are impoverished? How’s that for ‘pro-Egypt’?
Are you aware that Islamic fascism is a result of repression of freedom? That means that Mubarak’s repression of ‘his’ Egyptian people was a direct cause of such fascism? Have you ever read Lawrence Wright’s analysis of Al Qaeda and Islamic fascism? Ever read Natan Sharansky’s analysis of the Middle East and terrorism?
What the heck does ‘naked military rule’ mean – and kindly explain.
Nasser’s ‘arab solidarity’ was a reaction to the world wars movement into the Middle East – and certainly didn’t enable any solidarity, with Iran constantly focused on its own imperialist ambitions (acknowledging that Iran is not arabic but persian)..and Iraq focused on Kuwait, and Syria focused on Lebanon. So much for solidarity. Oh- and all of them dependent on oil, oil, …rather than developing a private capitalist economy.
Do you seriously support dictators ‘just because’ you think that they are ‘friends with the USA”? Why do you ignore the vicious repression of their own citizens? Was Mubarak a friend? Or bought – by several billion a year from the US? And is it real friendship when his repression directly led to the emergence of Islamic fascism? ‘Terrorism is the result of the absence of democracy’…now, that’s a sensible quote.
You seem to subscribe to the ‘theory’ that All Muslims must be constrained and restrained by authority’. Now, that’s what used to be said about blacks, women and jews. Neat.
Habu
http://www.eutimes.net/2010/06/rioters-in-algeria-asked-france-to-re-colonize-them/
Isn’t it funny?
The Algerians (the Kabyles) are rebels in soul (rebelles dans l’âme) and weren’t/are religion worshippers as much as the Marrocans. Unjustice irritates them more. They can be your fierceful enemis, but would respect you if you’re fair with them. Some became great scientists, writers, journalists… within our language. We can’t say that they are making proselythism to convert our people (unlike some Marrocans), but would rather organise riots, rebellions.
Lot of them are non-believers, also probaly because their first independant regime was copied on the Soviets. One of my cousins is married to a algerian woman that fled Algeria because she was a opponant laic teacher during the last civil war in the nineties.
The AQ cells or GSPC, LAKMI, are more or less thugs gangs that ransom people for money, not really because they need it for promoting their religious belief, it’s just the escuse given to a Saharian islamised population to justify their action. Often these thugs are former militaries that find more gratifying to earn a life so.
Bouteflika “played” with them when he need to scare a population that was questionning his corruption, that tried to get a free press.
He isn’t of Mubarak’s stature, a insurance for peace in the aeras, but a thug too, that has a double language, and a liar as far as historical facts.
So, if the algerians can get rid of him, I would applaud !
bachelor’s … master’s … BS … BA … MS?
My God!!! I’ve fallen through the looking glass!
That eTab said: “You seem to subscribe to the ‘theory’ that All Muslims must be constrained and restrained by authority’. Now, that’s what used to be said about blacks, women and jews. Neat.”
is a vomitous distortion of my having said, with justification, that fundy Islam would circumscribe and dictate in favor of violent discrimination against non-believers irrespective of middle-classness. Your leftist PC cant invoking blacks, women and Jews inserted into a discussion over the ME is grossly ironic given how the groups you highlight are typically first to suffer under fundy Isamic jusrisdictions.
OBumble’s choices and actions are trumpeted by the fawning press. They are so utterly uncritical they do not waste a tenth of a second considering the conspicuous contradictions among the policies themselves, nor between any stated policy and the administration’s own ham-handed inconsistencies and reversals. OBumble’s Director of National Intelligence tries to fob off the absurd lie that the 83-year-old Muslim Brotherhood is a non-violent, secular, and broadly inclusive group. Even if we allow that the MB as a registered political party may have issued some statement that permits them to participate in recent Egyptian politics, that cannot negate the brotherhood’s decades of public violence, attacks on public officials, assassinations, and revolutionary activities in Egypt and other countries. Look up the history of President Hafez al-Assad (father of the current Syrian President Bashir al-Assad.) You’ll see that in 1979 a series of assassinations carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood forced him to suppress their takeover attempt, culminating in the brutal reduction of the Brotherhood’s stronghold city of Hama.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a TRANS-NATIONAL organization. While its members are drawn from the populations of the countries of its respective branches, they are committed to the Islamist goals of an expanded and restored world-wide Caliphate, NOT merely control of the local secular state. Islam is their shared religion, Shariah their immediate goal for their local government, the imposition of Dar-al-Islam on the infidel their ultimate goal.
The parallels to the events that culminated in the Islamic Republic of Iran are stunning. The likelihood of a fundamentalist Islamic government controlling Egypt and the Suez Canal six months from now is impossible to discount. The probability of the rest of the Arab countries following suit within 2 or 3 years takes no genius to see. But the Left are magnificently blind to any fact that contradicts their mass delusion.
ETAB
You gave it away earlier. It takes many years of higher education to turn a brain mushy enough to make an incoherent statement like this:
it is, in my view, primarily a defensive ideology that emerged in the 7th c, among one particular economic mode, pastoral nomadism..because their land base (for pastoralism) was being reduced by settlements from the Byzantine/Christian/Roman market economy.
59. ETAB
With all your degrees, K-Mart Univ, Target Univ, Amway via Internet etc, one would think you would know that one can earn a BS in Political Science. In fact you can get both a BA and a BS…USA land of opportunity..see you learn something new every day.
BTW, whats real life experience of 15 years in the CIA worth? Been a U.S. Marine? Fifteen years as a stock broker for major wire houses? Got some, or any, of that experience? Been on every continent on the globe? Been involved in covert ops? Done anything with DS&T? Made millions (got in during dot com run up) in the market for myself and clients…Or do you have a cubicle? No I’m sorry . Please don’t answer …I’ll remember your sagacious teaching that sarcasm and insults are not arguments, but remember also:
The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Dude , you are a piece of work and as I said to myself in #45…. adios, you’re wasting my time.
Thanks again for playing.
PB I salute you… !
What a post-clip.
It takes multiple PhDs to come up with that construct.
I must confess my impulse is to look at track records — especially WRT complex human interactions.
And the history of democracy + islam ===> theocratic absolutism every time.
That amateur of the hour, H. Mubarak holds the same opinion. He cursed the Zero, being the first dominoed: There will be other tiles to flip!
#46 peter boston – sorry for not replying; I hadn’t seen your post until someone pointed it out to me.
First, geography doesn’t determine everything about human behavior; it’s a key, vital element in a set of ‘determinants’. That is, IF you have a problem with water, i.e., a lack of rainfall, THEN, you can use ‘reason’ to develop s system of irrigation. That requires, however, a large population as work energy.
The geographic or ecological realities can’t be ignored. You have to deal with the realities of temperature and its variation (freezing period when no crops can be grown); type of animals and plants that can be domesticated (no domesticated animals in most of southern Africa); water – lack of, too much or, irregular…and so on. Soil type – can be ploughed, can’t be ploughed and so on. These can’t be ignored.
As for the ME and the rise of Islam – which is very different from the pre-Islamic pagan religions, my theory is that is was a reaction of an economic typology (pastoralism) which requires large land bases for the animals and control of trade for non-animal products (grain).I maintain that the growth of the Byzantine market economy – which is not pastoral but based around agriculture (and trade of these products), pressured the tribal land bases and also pressured its reliance on the local traders for non-animal products.
Mohamed was, as you note, kicked out of his links to this tribe and, I suggest, moved into the pastorals and recruited them into his Islamic ideology. When you read the Qur’an, it is based around a pastoral society rather than a trading society, for it rejects collaboration with Others. The rise of the market economy, which requires collaboration, was linked to the infrastructure developed by the Romans: roads, irrigation, currency, stability. Christianity, I maintain, is an ideology directly promoting a market economy for it rejects tribalism and focuses on collaboration with others.
Islam is tribal; it rejects collaboration and views Others an enemies. This is not a trading economic ideology but a tribal one – and one that relies on control of a large land base and a pastoral economy rather than an agricultural and market economy.
ETAB
1) and also pressured its reliance on the local traders for non-animal products.
2) When you read the Qur’an, it is based around a pastoral society rather than a trading society, for it rejects collaboration with Others.
3) Islam is tribal; it rejects collaboration and views Others an enemies.
-there is some contradiction in this and clarification would help your argument. As you note in 1, pastoralists are not completely independent, at least this is often the case, but do trade with settled agriculturalists. The Koran does not so much reject collaboration with Others as demand they be brought to submission to Islamic law, to a common ritual order. Islam seeks to transcend tribalism through construction of a mega tribe, a Muslim Brotherhood. In this it resists primitive democracy, i.e. the recognition among tribes that they are in a war that is stalemated, in which no one can dominate the other(s), no one’s ritual order can be imposed on the others, and so direction out of the dead-end conflict must be found through interjecting a new degree of freedom into the system.
None of this works particularly well; Islamic empires tend to grow from victorious tribes, but later become a focus for the resentment of tribes on the margin who periodically seek to restore the corrupt centre to the true religion. And pastoralists who attempt to dominate the agriculturalists with whom they trade – like the Arabs in present-day Sudan – are often impoverishing themselves in denial of their own dependence on others.
What this suggests to me is that one does need to consider the primacy of religious, not socioeconomic or geographical, thinking. It is the desire to hold on to something about one’s religious/ethical nature that leads to the dead-endism we see in Islamists today. I tend to agree with you that democracy is not an impossibility for the Muslim world; but i think it will only flourish from people facing squarely the choice between a certain fear of a final dead-end, and finding their only other hope in some kind of freer societies that can participate productively in a now single global economy with the kind of political transparency their neighbors’ security requires. Even then, one cannot know in advance how many will choose which path. It is only for us to insist on the choice that it is either our way or death through internal or external conflict. For if we were to try to quarantine them and leave them to their ways, under dictators, could we ever stop them from trying to rectify their internal conflicts or their isolation from the global economy by attacking and blackmailing us? and could we ever play that game by just periodically bombing them into submission, without them becoming ever more fanatical, without the situation accelerating to the point where we became more willing to consider genocide, or suicide, the dilemma that already structures our self-destructive white guilt? And how many Muslims would go along with the massive reduction in human population that a return to a Sharia-led economy would require? Sooner or later, we all have to face the choice between a new degree of freedom, or death. And that is ultimately a religious question: what do I really believe?