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Food and failed Arab states (Egypt is backward, not because the Mubarak, but because of Islam)
Asia Times ^ | 02/04/2011 | Spengler

Posted on 02/05/2011 11:29:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year.

Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer, beholden to foreign providers for nearly half its total food consumption. Half of

Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. Food comprises almost half the country's consumer price index, and much more than half of spending for the poorer half of the country. This will get worse, not better.

Not the destitute, to be sure, but the aspiring and frustrated young, confronted the riot police and army on the streets of Egyptian cities last week. The uprising in Egypt and Tunisia were not food riots; only in Jordan have demonstrators made food the main issue. Rather, the jump in food prices was the wheat-stalk that broke the camel's back. The regime's weakness, in turn, reflects the dysfunctional character of the country. 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can't read.

Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, "The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical.

(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arabstates; crushislam; egypt; food; islam; islamofascism; mubarak; spengler
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1 posted on 02/05/2011 11:29:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

For those who think that deposing Mubarak is a good thing, consider this :

The Mubarak government announced a “complete” ban on genital mutilation in 2007, the second time it has done so - without success, for the Egyptian population ignored the enlightened pronouncements of its government. Do Western liberals cheer at this quiet revolt against Mubarak’s authority?


2 posted on 02/05/2011 11:30:06 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

According to Forbes :

http://blogs.forbes.com/schifrin/2011/02/01/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-in-egypt/


According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.


3 posted on 02/05/2011 11:32:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Very interesting, thanks for posting. I had heard that wheat farmers here in the US are now growing corn — because of ethanol subsidies — further exacerbating the wheat crisis in Egypt.


4 posted on 02/05/2011 11:39:21 AM PST by bboop (Stealth Tutor)
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To: SeekAndFind

Thanks for posting. A most interesting, revealing article.


5 posted on 02/05/2011 11:44:05 AM PST by lbryce
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To: bboop
So we get less MPG & gunked up fuel systems & they starve.

Something is " G U N K E D ~ U P !

6 posted on 02/05/2011 11:53:07 AM PST by de.rm ('Most people never believe anything you tell them unless it isn't true."-Groucho Marx)
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder how long it’s going to take for all of us, and most importantly, our Community Organizer President, to realize that none of these Egyptian protesters can name even one person or entity they want to represent them when and if they get their wish for Mubarak to leave? All they know is that they want “change”.

Obama has, true to form, fallen back on his community organizing tactics of urging change “now”, with the usual sense of false urgency used by any such instigator of unrest and upheaval. Obama, some of our Congress people and a great many of the American people are participating in the support of what generally amounts to a “stadium wave” driven by social media.

The consequences of what is going to be a failed state in Egypt hasn’t occurred to anyone who is moving along those lines.

When the young protesters visit their banks and grocery stores on Monday, they will find the freedom they desire is going to cost much more than a few days of throwing rocks and bottle bombs. Our Community Organizer President might have a few surprises in store as well. He would do well to put down the stick and step away from the POS.


7 posted on 02/05/2011 11:59:28 AM PST by Aleya2Fairlie
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To: SeekAndFind

Mubarak - Bad

Alternative - Much worse


8 posted on 02/05/2011 12:04:06 PM PST by Graybeard58 (Of course Obama loves his country. The thing is, Sarah loves mine.)
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To: Graybeard58

From an article by Edward Cline :

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.520/pub_detail.asp

Below two percent Muslims are well-behaved citizens and cause little apparent trouble for the host society.

At two percent and three percent Muslims begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.

From five percent on Muslims exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. They push for the introduction of halal (”clean” by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves—along with threats for failure to comply (United States, Switzerland, Sweden). At this point, Muslims work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, or Islamic law. (England, Netherlands, Philippines).

When Muslims reach 10 percent of the population, they increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions (Paris—car burning). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats (Amsterdam, Denmark—Mohammed cartoons, murder of Theo van Gogh).

After reaching 20 percent of a population expect hair-trigger rioting, Jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning (Indonesia, Ethiopia).

After 40 percent you find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare (Bosnia, Chad).

From 60 percent you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and jizya, the tax placed on [conquered] infidels (Sudan, Albania).

After 80 percent, expect to find state-run ethnic cleansing and genocide (Syria, Egypt, UAE).


9 posted on 02/05/2011 12:10:06 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Failed states. Failed culture. Failed religion. False prophet.


10 posted on 02/05/2011 12:12:11 PM PST by omega4412
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To: SeekAndFind
Even Islamists have to eat.

Soylent Red is Muslims! Bon apitite!


Today is a good day to die.
I didn't say for whom.

11 posted on 02/05/2011 12:21:30 PM PST by The Comedian (Muslim Brotherhood = A.N.S.W.E.R = Soros = Obama)
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To: SeekAndFind

Perhaps we can protest the Obama regime and President Hosni would tell Obama to step down immediately.


12 posted on 02/05/2011 12:27:11 PM PST by Frohickey
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To: SeekAndFind
Islam encourages stagnation and entropy and because it is completely fatalistic. Islam teaches that Allah controls all of them; that human beings has no free will, and even those that "dis-believe" do so because Allah wants them to. The Qur'an says that if Allah had wanted to he could have brought all of mankind to to he same belief, but he didn't want to.

Instead he said that he will fill Hell with jinns (spirits) and men and thus he wants to send us "non-believers" to Hell. Thus the upshot is that those follow Islam, if their life is louse, if they are poor, weak, hungry, etc., that is what Allah wants, (INSHALLAH—“god willing”) thus don't fight that combined with an almost complete lack of any work ethic because in Islam, the Muslims never did the work, the Dhimmis did all the work. Once you run out of Dhimmis, its society stagnates.

That is the culture in every Islamic country. Noboby works.

And this is hardly anything new as evidenced by this 1391 AD, Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus quote:

""Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

13 posted on 02/05/2011 12:30:19 PM PST by Conservative Vermont Vet ((One of ONLY 37 Conservatives in the People's Republic of Vermont. Socialists and Progressives All))
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To: SeekAndFind

Enlightening article. Thanks very much for posting. Fluctuations in wheat prices may be beyond the grasp of MSM journalists, but, as the author says, you might expect a reference or two to genital mutilation. Except Islamaphilia always trumps feminism for the left, so mum’s the word.


14 posted on 02/05/2011 12:36:41 PM PST by varialectio
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To: Conservative Vermont Vet

For me, the following paragraphs in the article ( if true ), gives me cause for pessimism. Why? because the problem in Egypt is DEEP SEATED and cultural.

All attempts by the media in trying to tell us that the vast majority of Egyptians are moderate falls by the wayside.


Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt’s First Lady, continues to campaign against the practice, which she has denounced as “physical and psychological violence against children.” Last May 1, she appeared at Aswan City alongside the provincial governor and other local officials to declare the province free of it. And on October 28, Mrs Mubarak inaugurated an African conference on stopping genital mutilation.

The most authoritative Egyptian Muslim scholars continue to recommend genital mutilation. Writing on the web site IslamOnline, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars - explains:

“The most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet’s hadiths - even though such hadiths are not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife: “Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands.”

That is not a Muslim view (the practice is rare in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan), but an Egyptian Muslim view. In the most fundamental matters, President and Mrs Mubarak are incomparably more enlightened than the Egyptian public. Three-quarters of acts of genital mutilation in Egypt are executed by physicians.

What does that say about the character of the country’s middle class? Only one news dispatch among the tens of thousands occasioned by the uprising mentions the subject; the New York Times, with its inimitable capacity to obscure content, wrote on January 27, “To the extent that Mr. Mubarak has been willing to tolerate reforms, the cable said, it has been in areas not related to public security or stability.

For example, he has given his wife latitude to campaign for women’s rights and against practices like female genital mutilation and child labor, which are sanctioned by some conservative Islamic groups.” The authors, Mark Landler and Andrew Lehren, do not mention that 90% or more of Egyptian women have been so mutilated. What does a country have to do to shock the New York Times? Eat babies boiled?


15 posted on 02/05/2011 12:44:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Conservative Vermont Vet

RE: “”Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”


Pope Benedict quoted the above and was condemned by Muslims everywhere.


16 posted on 02/05/2011 12:46:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Winston Churchill:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism[72 virgins, I'm assuming] deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green | 1899

17 posted on 02/05/2011 12:58:01 PM PST by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough.)
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To: truthguy
A degraded sensualism[72 virgins, I'm assuming] deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

More likely a reference to The Sotadic Zone, by Sir Richard Burton.
18 posted on 02/05/2011 12:59:44 PM PST by aruanan
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To: SeekAndFind

Egypt was once the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, but now must import half of its food. Part of that is that the legendary three crops a year have been ruined by the Aswan Dam, build by Nasser, and the socialist system he created, and has been maintained by Sadat and Mubarak. Farmers must sell their produce to the government at government dictated prices. We conservatives know what that will do to a nation’s agriculture.

Mubarak may be the lesser evil here, and let’s remember that. The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy, but not necessarily my friend.


19 posted on 02/05/2011 1:17:49 PM PST by Daveinyork
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To: SeekAndFind

Reflecting upon these statistics, why should I care if 73% of the Egyptial Muslim filth starve to death? Islam, the socio-political system of death and destruction.


20 posted on 02/05/2011 1:48:56 PM PST by Lion Den Dan
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