Posted on 06/11/2011 4:38:26 AM PDT by Clive
Only the politically correct, and they are the majority in the contemporary West, remain surprised of how quickly the so-called “Arab spring” has turned into an “Arab frenzy” and is headed into an “Arab inferno.”
In the long run, everything can likely work out and Arabs hopefully may learn to distinguish between mobocracy, as a tyranny of the majority, and democracy, as a rule of law, in which minorities are protected as equal members of society.
But in the long run, as Lord John Maynard Keynes — the revered economic guru of the liberal-left — pointed out the obvious: “In the long run we are all dead.” What matters is whether in the short or medium term Arab politics can break out of its closed circle of traditional consensus that frowns upon innovation as heresy.
The problem is culture. Arab culture, despite tremendous changes that have occurred elsewhere in the world, remains resilient in adhering to traditional values of patriarchy and the tribal order of father (leader) knows what is best for his tribe or nation.
The Arab League consists of 21 states and the Palestinian Authority. There is not one single democracy in this collection of Arab states, and the predominant reason for the absence of democracy among Arabs is culture.
Democracy is not merely an election, and a representative party with majority support holding power.
For democracy to work, the prerequisite is a culture in which the people recognizes the “other” — irrespective of how the “other” is defined in terms of ethnicity or religion or gender — as equal, and their interests and aspirations as legitimate.
This recognition of the “other” is missing in Arab culture. The “other” is merely tolerated in a subordinate status and since the “other” in the modern context is unwilling to be consigned indefinitely into an inferior position, the result is the repeated cycle of rebellion and repression in Arab history.
One of the most insightful explorations of the reasons for the absence of democracy in the Arab world is provided by an Arab-Moroccan woman, Fatima Mernissi.
Mernissi’s book Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (1992) is remarkable for the wealth of ideas she presents in explaining the anti-democratic culture of her people, and the fear of modernity that grips them.
The ultimate “other,” and also the ultimate “minority,” is the individual asserting his/her individuality against the collective order of men and things. In Arab culture, individualism — as cultivated in the West — is feared and repressed because its affirmation represents the freedom of an individual contesting with and moving out of the closed circle of the tribe.
The West (“gharb” in Arabic), as Mernissi explains, is frightening because, among many things, freedom renders it strange, and like the female form, freedom is seductive.
Arab culture, on the contrary, demands whatever is desirable and relished in private must be hidden (veiled) in public. The fear of “fitna” or anarchy haunts Arab culture.
“In our time,” Mernissi writes, “freedom in the Arab world is synonymous with disorder.” And so a culture suspicious of the West will continue to prefer arid summers of tribal order over any spring that heralds freedom for its people.
Good point.
Will it be the Turks or someone else?
Well said....I will have to visit your site regularly!
Islamic civilization is economically unproductive in the modern world. The only thing keeping Islamism afloat is Arab oil money. Once Saudi oil is gone, so is Saudi Arabia’s ability to fund radical madrassahs (seminaries) and radical clerics all over the world.
Even if the muzzies exterminated everyone on earth that didn't follow islam, they would then start killing each other because their different beliefs.
Islam is kept in check by force only.
” recognized by enlightened Arab leaders for many years. “
/// there is very little leeway to be enlightened about. their Quran is literally the words of their God, and CANNOT be changed. a “reformation” is impossible, as scholars like Robert Spencer have explained.
...and that is why many enlightened thinkers are killed, or declared apostate.
Wafa Sultan is one of the more wonderful enlightened voices from there. and they want to kill her.
meanwhile, Turkey, Indonesia, and other muslim country, are growing MORE fundamentalist, not more enlightened.
i grant you there are exceptions that should be applauded and encouraged. but, the trend is clear. if not, the “arab spring” will soon make it so. along with Iran making it’s first bomb in about 8 weeks...
You confuse Arab and Muslim.
Indonesia and Turkey are not Arab. Neither are Iran, or Malaysia.
i wish i had read your post #25 first.
absolutely true and accurate, and much more concise than me.
well said Sir!
Turks; it will be the Turks. Never forget, the Turks are always and only about the Turks. Mohammedanism, for example, is just a tool for them. That’s all it ever was, except perhaps during the Kemalist era. But...if one understands what is going on, especially in the 21st century, this can be used to one’s advantage or the advantage of one’s own omogenia. For example, young Greeks are moving into Constantinople in substantial numbers and doing very well there by all accounts. They know what and who they are dealing with. Remember, the Phanariotes ran that empire for centuries. I expect that at least the educated population of the Arab world understands this. I doubt the peasantry, like Westerners, understand it one bit.
Well...... I am aware of the hadiths and sira, but I referred to the Koran itself because there are Islamic apologists who will deny the validity of the hadiths, even those accepted as authoritative commentary on the Koran for many centuries, if they say things that infidels might interpret as prejudicial to Islam.
For example, that Jasser dude said on FoxNews that there is absolutely nothing in the Koran (a sly dodge, no?) about how rocks and trees will speak on judgement day, and tell the Muslims to kill the Jews hiding behind them. Of course, they really get uncomfortable (i.e., enraged) when infidels comment on a middleaged Mohammed and his child bride Aisha.
“There are hadiths, and then there are hadiths!” is another angered response from the ROPers.
Anyway, whoever said the Arab world is a culture and not a civilization, is spot on.
That's why their goal is to make the world, "less modern".
don’t you think this has been a rather extended autumn?
The or rather maybe A reason for this extended autumn can be explained in Arab or Muslim world’s isolation to areas few others considered habitable, and in areas that had no tangible valuable resources.
Due to its isolation and lack of resources it remained powerless to promote their 8th Century on the rest of the world to any extent capable of taking over.
Oil changed everything in their world except Islam, it enabled them some increased powers to affect the greater world. To the extent they have thus far failed to gain much control through the oil money relates to their tribal leaders keeping the majority of oil money to themselves.
Once either their oil depletes or better plentiful energy sources are found their oil will return to not supplying them with the money to ‘reach out” and islam will shrink back to its isolation. I do not think Islam will disappear completely because it is ideally suited to isolation and lack of resources.
Most Turks around here are not very islamic. A few are Orthodox (not Greeks, but they call themselves Turks).
Turkey moving into a more leading role would not surprise me much. The only question is what will Iran do? They are not Arab, but Persian, and many of the people do not align with the rest of the ME. The leadership is set on agitation, but there are some signs that is changing.
The Turks and the Persians have been enemies since the dawn of time. It won’t change.
The PC crowd will say only 10% of muzzies are radical, not realizing they are talking about roughly 150,000,000 ready to kill and die for the moon god.
Considering the fact the PC crowd is always wrong, the number of radical muzzies could be double or triple.
On top of that, even the non-radicals by and large believe islam comes first.
A protracted war targeting the radicals only will never work. They multiply faster than you can kill them.
As long as they follow Islam they will never change.
What we see in the Islamic world is an already collapsed culture, not one in the process of collapse. The danger is that the rats are fleeing their sunken ship... and hitching themselves to any boat that is available (ie: the West, India, China, Russia, South America).
And in the process, they are bringing the same ruin that they came from to *US*.
“And in the process, they are bringing the same ruin that they came from to *US*.”
I can not figure out if I am experiencing 1936 or 456 all over again. Barbarians at the Gate and Idiots at the Wheel. I hope we are not doomed to repeat the same stupid mistakes obvious to anybody with a triple digit IQ.
It doesn't matter if 10%, or even 1%, are willing to kill, as long as a large fraction are willing to feed, shelter, and give financial aid to the jihadis.
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There is only one authoritative set of texts: those I mentioned. ROPers are simpily spouting al taquia for Western public consumption.
The rocks and trees quote is on one of the other books, I forget which.
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Anyway, whoever said the Arab world is a culture and not a civilization, is spot on.
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Not a culture, not a civilization, but a politically oriented death cult:
The Shia and the Sunni are obligated to fight each other for the true version of Islam. If the 12 Imam returns for the Shia, then he will bring all humanity to Paradise, while the last two Shia are obligated to kill each other.
Sic transit homo...
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