With a totalitarian party to vote for.
It’s a sea change from the ousted regime of President Hosni Mubarak, when women were guaranteed 64 parliamentary seats. In the latest post-revolutionary elections, the quota was eliminated and women won only five seats. “The other seats went to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists,” said El Soud, co-founder of the Revolutionary Women’s Coalition, which has 4,000 members on Facebook.
“We are going backward, backward and backward,” she added.
The Russian communists have circled the wagons around the murderous regime in Syria.
The white house communist is looking after his end in the rest of the middle east.
to quote an old song “b-b-b-babyyou ain’t seen nothin’ yet !”
the salafists in Egypt will make Afghanistan under the taliban look like Disneyland’s “World of Tomorrow”
Sooooooo. Where are all the fem-nazis/LGBTs/SOW piggies/etc. on this?? Only leftards need answer,us in the vast right wing conspiracy know.
Hypocritical lefties.
Where’s Bridgette Depape when ya need ‘er????
Justthinkin..it is not just the wingnuts on the left that allow the inhumane treatment of women to get worse each day…
The women I know are not stupid. Most of them KNEW that the new government brought in with the arab Spring would not likely improve things for Egyptian women in the short run. Unfortunately their intelligence was blurred by their HOPE that things would CHANGE for the better in the middle term. An honest mistake to be sure. Even Obama, the smartest guy on earth who promised to switch the US away from unintelligent foreign policy to his own special brand of SMART foreign policy, got it 100% wrong. As Egyptian women become first partially and then totally disenfranchised, while little girls suffer through female genital mutilation while their own mothers hold them down, while Christian women are murdered for the crime of being Christian women, women around the world will briefly wonder what went wrong and then start ignoring reality so they can hang onto their unshakeable belief in multi-culturalism. When women of the west demand that their governments do not deal, at any level, with countries that do not give their women 100% of all rights and privileges afforded to men things will change very fast. Unfortunately the lie of multiculturalism is stronger to women than watching women getting their brains blown out in a soccer stadium for essesentially being women.
Cool . . . the Middle East will end up being a 7th century political theme park but with 21st century technology.
We can take the family, watch the repression, torture and misogyny.
Who knew so little social and political progress could be made by a group over such an extended time.
Leftists Luv Libya toooo!!! “A UN delegate from Libya’s newly formed government told a human rights panel that gays and other groups threaten “reproduction of the human race,” drawing a stern rebuke from leaders of the international body.” http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/13/new-libyan-leadership-takes-harsh-stance-against-gays-at-un/
Then again who wants democracy? “Just 15% of 2,000 people polled by academics from Benghazi and Oxford universities said democracy should be installed in the next year. More than 40% backed strong leadership from one person or a group… the (survey)results painted a largely optimistic picture for Libya, with more than three quarters of people believing that their lives would be much better in 12 months’ time.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17045265
Didn’t Dimocrats say the exact same thing ’bout Obumbums first 12 months? Wonder if Libyans are going to be equally as vapid about such results!!
speaking of totalitarianism and what it brings…here’s a fascinating look at what 40 years of socialism looks like and what 10 years of democracy brings afterwards…
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,720326,00.html
then reverse the order of the pictures and see what the cities of the US and likely the world would look like if ‘bama ever gets re-elected and appoints the ever more socialist UN to manage it and hand more countries over to medieval islamic rulers…
Mubarak’s regime wasn’t democratic and the 64 women’s seats were thus irrelevant. From 1981 to 2005 you couldn’t run against Mubarak in the ‘election” In 2005, he allowed multi-candidates but he controlled the whole electoral infrastructure and the news media and indeed, according to reports, the vote itself was totally rigged. The runner-up was jailed by Mubarak.
Essentially, Mubarak ran a police state – under Emergency law since 1958.
Did he support the I-P situation, ie, the ongoing, never-ending conflict and peace? Certainly, Mubarak did not want the Palestinians to seek refuge in Egypt. And he didn’t want Iran to move in, as it most certainly would, and take over a ‘free’ Palestine. So, he supported the status quo.
Now, with this dictator gone, it is naive to think that suddenly, Egypt will emerge as a liberal democracy. Two reasons.
First, there’s no infrastructure developed for it, there have been no opposition political parties allowed, no notion of free elections, and second, importantly, no free and self-reliant middle class.
This middle class is the backbone of the democratic infrastructure. It’s made up of private business, small to medium private business. Egypt and the whole Islamic world has not developed a middle class – and that is the reason for its economic weakness and its political tribalism.
Give them time. Egypt’s economy is a statist mess, reliant on Suez tolls and tourism and lacking private enterprise.
They must enable a private middle class business economy and this will then move them into giving this class – political power. Democracy functions when the middle class, that private business sector, has political power.
Give them time. Changing an infrastructure is not like changing one political party for another. It’s a massive tectonic shift and in Egypt must take place on two levels: economic and political.
No, Kate, no! Say it isn’t so!
I mean, months ago some SDAers were assuring me that the women I couldn’t see in all those massive Egytian street protests were actually there.
Blinded I was, blinded I am.
ET: “It’s a massive tectonic shift and in Egypt must take place on two levels: economic and political.”
You omitted social and religious; doesn’t matter, ’cause it ain’t gonna happen…nohow.
nemo2 – I think it will happen. The reason is basic: economics. And the basis for that, is demographics.
Simply put, the Egyptian (and this is valid throughout the Islamic ME) population has grown too large and too urban to sustain itself within a statist economy – and one that is dependent on singular resources. In Egypt, it’s the Suez tolls (built by the West) and tourism..from the West.
In the other ME nations, it’s oil. And remember, the Islamic nations didn’t develop the technology to extract or process this oil; they’ve relied totally on Western expertise.
But this simply isn’t enough to ‘spread the wealth’ (ignoring the vast wealth accumulated by the upper class in these Islamic nations). The economy has to shift from this statist single resource to private small business enterprise.
To do that, you have to empower the ‘ordinary citizen’ – something unheard of in the Islamic world of subservience and submission. You have to enable individual free enterprise, risk-taking, a free market.
And then, you have to give this class, the political power. Whew – it’s quite the change. It took the West 400 years to do it.
But, it has to be done, because these nations cannot, economically, last within those demographics and that statist economy.
As for the social and religious, that’s the ‘superstructure’; it’s the embedded beliefs and these will disappear in a whiff as the deep structure is transformed. But, this change comes from the ‘bottom up’, ie, from the population and economic requirements.
ET: 400 years may be pushing it.
FWIW, I’ve been to Egypt…..and Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia (7 years plus), and set foot in Morocco, Tunisia & Yemen.
I have no (great) expectations.
ET >
“Mubarak’s regime wasn’t democratic and the 64 women’s seats were thus irrelevant” – (speechless k99)
“Now, with this dictator gone, it is naive to think that suddenly, Egypt will emerge as a liberal democracy.” – (No kidding k99)
“This middle class is the backbone of the democratic infrastructure. It’s made up of private business, small to medium private business. Egypt and the whole Islamic world has not developed a middle class.” – (my favorite LoL k99)
“To do that, you have to empower the ‘ordinary citizen’ – something unheard of in the Islamic world of subservience and submission” – (who’d have thought? K99)
“Give them time” – ET
I believe you already gave them a 20 year recovery prediction on another thread.
Not allot to add to your comments really, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at your absurd analysis of the situation in North Africa, or your incessant defence/ backpedaling of your original regime change stand in 2011. I guess it’s about sticking to your guns regardless, very much like the Obamba supporters still do 3 years on.
That’s right, K99, I stick to my analysis of how and why human societal systems exist and change.
The two key variables I use are: population size and the economy. These are fact based values and not qualitative.
And I’ve analyzed changes to population, economic mode and the resultant societal organization over the entire world. I gave three basic courses in this analytic area for decades. This most certainly doesn’t make me an expert or even right. I mean that seriously. All it does is that it enables me to ‘stick to my analysis’.
I used to tell my students that it takes three generations to change a societal infrastructure, but I think it will take far less in the ME Islamist nations – because of the pressure of population, global economic networking – and the global electronic information network.
Nemo2 >
“I have no (great) expectations”
I’m with you 100%.
FWIW – Have lived in Libya 5 years, Algeria 2 years, Malta 2 years, and have worked & travelled extensively in Tunisia, Egypt and much of the ME over 20 years. As far as living in other Islamic countries, Malaysia 2 years, Indonesia 2 years and the so called multi-cultural bliss of Singapore for 10 years.
I don’t need armchair lectures on how things operate in these countries and how giving them a few years will change 5000 years of cultural and religious development into middle class SUV driving, McMansion living, Liberal preppies, who love all things baseball, bubble gum & Oprah.
ET >
You are welcome to your opinions; I know well that there is no point in debating them further with you; we have already been on this merry-go-round. By your own generous estimation it seems that only time will prove you right or wrong, therefore we are simply throwing theories around. Yours apparently based on your academic experience, mine on the physical integration within the societies we are discussing.
20 years and or 3 generations is one hell of a gamble for any social experiment.
ET..you could not be more wrong and time will prove it again as it always has in the past. Pick 5 years, 10 years or 20 years. Pick a longer period of time if your life expectancy allows. And when you have been proven wrong in 10 years tell your kids you were wrong. And when you have been proven wrong in 20 years, tell your grandchildren you were wrong and if you life longer than that, tell anyone who will listen to you that you were wrong..
No muslim state will have western style democracy because true democracy is anathema to muslim men and muslim men have and will always have all of the real power in islamic nations. In short, democracy cannot not and therefore will not flourish in islamic nations because muslims will never want true democracy. Islam and western style democracy cannot co-exist and if you do not believe that is true I would like to know upon what geopolitical situation you are basing your false belief. In every generation the islamic nations tell us reform is coming. Some idiots actually believe them but most just want to “wish” the world into a state of peace with our muslims brethren that will never come into being. muslims must choose between islam and democracy and one would be foolish to think that they would ever choose democracy. So we are best off to understand the reality as it is on the ground in muslim nations and accept that it is their right to live by their misogynistic 7th century rules because if you can’t change something you have to learn to live with it. But don’t kid yourself for one minute that it is “just a matter of time”; that is what muslim nations hope you will do and they have played that sucker card for about 1300 years because a new generation of suckers always seems to fall for islam’s lies.
K99- that’s right. You and I both have our points of view based on our various backgrounds, knowledge and experience.
No, I don’t think that it’s a ‘social experiment’; it’s an inevitable change, based, as I said, on population explosion, urbanization, the inadequacy of a statist one-resource economy, and..the global economic and informational network.
The reason it took the West 400 years (approx 1200 to 1600) to move out of its own two-class tribal infrastructure was that, although it had both population explosion and urbanization – it lacked that global economic and informational network.
ET >
“….it lacked that global economic and informational network.”
A small observation – It seems that it is we who are changing and adapting to other cultures, religions and ideologies, not the other way around. In fact Islam is growing exponentially, despite modern trappings, while Christianity and much of western legal status quo are declining.
Have you noticed what the kids are wearing these days?
ET > ps:
“No, I don’t think that it’s a ‘social experiment’; it’s an inevitable change, based…on….”
……UN/ US bombing of Libya without congressional approval along with various western special interests backed by CIA Assets in Egypt.
ET, I agree with your basic premise in your 6:40 post regarding the pressures to which ME nations are subject. Where I differ with you is what consequences can come of those pressures. You referred to the 400 years of political and social evolution that was required in Europe. However, the mechanism of that 400 years was warfare, violence between nations and between social classes on an increasingly escalating scale. And it was warfare both internal to Europe and exported to regions and continents outside Europe. The creation of the United States was an aftermath effect of one of those global wars, the Seven Years War.
The difference today is that technology gives the state far greater means of repression of unwanted political and social movements than was the case 200 years ago. A mob could storm the Bastille and overthrow a 1000 year monarchy in an afternoon in 1789. Today, a company of tanks can put a stop to it in 20 minutes.
Some regimes are prepared to exert that level of violence against parts of their citizens. Afghanistan prior to 2001 and the Iranian theocracy post 1979 constitute two such examples. Ghaddafi would undoubtedly have succeeded without foreign intervention on the rebel side. Western forces intervened when the rebels were mere days away from complete collapse.
So there are at least two possible outcomes. One is social change as you suggest. The other is increased repression, accompanied by an ever-dwindling public standard of living and freedom. I would suggest that at this time, the latter rather than the former is more likely to be experienced.
One interesting test case in this will be Turkey. That nation had been making considerable strides in modernization up to about 10 years ago. At that point, the army lost the ability to enforce secularism, and Turkey now has a strongly religious political party in power. It will be interesting to observe whether or not Turkey continues to develop in the ways you suggest or Islamic fundamentalism starts to play an increasingly repressive role in the development of its society. And it should be noted that Turkey has a much higher degree of national unity than the typical tribal divisions of most Arabic states.
Cgh >
“ …Today, a company of tanks can put a stop to it in 20 minutes.”
I beg to differ your premise.
The military forces of any freedom loving nation has nationalist patriot military, police and citizens willing to commander military assets against a regimen, regardless of technology.
When Arab peoples are willing to die for their freedom and liberty en mass they will.
Globalist fear mongers of a western militarized takeover have sold themselves over to the idea that everyone else will standby as some technical elite will smash the little people like ants. This is not a realistic view, unless like in the ME that mass population lays over for dictatorship like domesticated dogs.
The liberty loving constitutionalist underbelly of the United States is the Goliath that undermines the Liberal Progressive advancement of global governance, period.
cgh – right, I agree with you about the violent content of the 400 odd years it took the West to move out of a tribal to a civic political mode and a market economy. Plus, the West had the ‘release mechanism’ of developing new territories to garner more resources and get rid of population overload (as did wars and plagues).
Tectonic change is not ‘linear’; it’s not gradual and cumulative. It’s violent – and in the West included cycles of vicious repression, wars, famines and plagues mixed with interludes of an increasing urbanization, a market class, more power to the people, etc. Each cycle increased the ‘topping’ of freedoms and powers of the increasingly powerful middle class.
I think the same will happen in the ME, which are also tribal systems, operating within a two rather than three class infrastructure. You suggest that repression is one outcome. Certainly, the West’s feudal powers, which included the entire nobility, the Church, the landowner class, etc – tried repression. Didn’t work.
But, the ME has already been involved in repression. What do you think the phase of military dictatorships is about? And it has indeed resulted in an increasing dwindling standard of living.
However, I don’t think that repression can last. My reason is that it takes a LOT of energy to repress a population. The larger the population, the more repressive the top down energy is required. Can it succeed? I don’t think so, and the interference of outside forces is part of the whole ‘shift’.
This top down repressive agenda includes military, religious, mental energy. Do the Rulers control all this ‘energy content’ of the nation? Or, is the size of the population simply too much for the Rulers to repress? And, can they control the new informational ‘energy’ input via the external world?
I think that there is a critical threshold when the population size, and the economic needs of the population ‘tip the balance’ of the energy required by the State to repress the people.
I think that eventually, the ‘energy content’ so to speak, of the people and the inability of the State to support the population, will tip the balance and the Rulers won’t be able to restrain and repress the people.
It has happened in every tectonic shift we’ve seen – it happened over several violent centuries in the West; and over one generation in Russia and China. But, my view is that the ability of the Rulers to repress the ‘energy content’ of the population – has its critical limits.
Note that I’m basing my analysis on several key variables: population size, economic capacity to support this population, information input from outside the domain, – and – capacity of authorities to repress the population. My view is that such a capacity always has a critical threshold.
So, my own view is that the population size in the ME is simply too large for repression to work.
ET>
“Note that I’m basing my analysis on several key variables: population size, economic capacity to support this population…”
Yes, based on European history. Where has this occurred in Arab history?
You are still comparing apples to oranges, western liberation to western aided liberation – confusing aid with colonization or at best “commercial interests” with military muscle cloaked in humanitarian aid.
You do need to pay some attention to who is gaining political and economical power in these countries after our billions in tax dollars are spent to “liberate” these oppressive dictators.
Honestly ET, do you really believe that Obamba bombed Libya to save the little people from that evil tyrant Kaddafi? Egypt will prosper under the Muslim Brotherhood rather than Mubarak?
Quotas are bad so I’m glad they’re gone regardless of motivation.
The Muslim Brotherhood is too pragmatist and entwined in the business community to go ‘full Islamist’. Now would be a good time for America to stop sending billions of dollars over, no?
k99 – those variables are the same among any human population: population size, economic capacity to support this population, information content of input and output, capacity of authority to repress etc. The same everywhere and over all time.
No, I’m not confusing aid with colonization. Input of energy and information no matter how it’s done, has an effect. That includes the expansion of global economic networks in these nations, which are not achieved by ‘aid’ or ‘colonization’. It’s the effect of this external input that should be examined. Not the intention.
Most certainly, Obama did not bomb Libya to save the Libyans; he entered that war only because he was shamed into doing so by the UK and France. Obama has no interest in anyone other than himself.
Do I think that Egypt will prosper under the Muslim Brotherhood? Not if it represses the emergence of a free and independent private enterprise economy and a free and independent middle class.
I don’t think you understand my analytic frame. You are thinking within a mindset that views human history as caused by ‘individual intentionality’. You focus on ideology – whether of the individual or Rulers. I don’t do this.
I’m using a totally different analytic frame – which uses those variables I mentioned: population size, economic capacity to support that population, political infrastructure (enables innovation vs represses innovation), information input and output. These are quantitative values.
These have nothing to do with ideology or with individual or national intentionality and look at the causes of societal changes – in a very different way.
Do you mean to say that women have fewer rights under the muslim brotherhood/arab spring thingy? Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.
ET >
“…he {Obamba} entered that war only because he was shamed into doing so by the UK and France”. – ET
– The narcissist, ashamed??? – K99
“I don’t think you understand my analytic frame.” – ET
_ most probably not. – K99
“You are thinking within a mindset that views human history as caused by ‘individual intentionality’” – ET
Whatever, – I’ll tell you strait up without academic theory or guess work, I am interested in the annihilable rights of national, racial, religious/ spiritual, individual freedom of expression, privacy, and survival, including self defence and self determination. Bar non for all the worlds peoples. – K99
“These have nothing to do with ideology or with individual or national intentionality and look at the causes of societal changes – in a very different way.” – ET
Uh huh, I git that!
Unfortunately in my opinion it’s not the practical way, regardless of how it’s politically dressed up. I’m obviously not a scholar, but I can clearly see that that western academia is attempting to roll up the European historical experience to “all that is mankind” based on a narrow field of view.
As far as my subtle distain for liberal academic theories? I have yet to personally meet an academic that has achieved my financial and social comfort in this world who is able to convince me that my opinion is less than theirs simply because they can dress up their fanciful theories in flowery academic language.
“Boots on the ground” is not a Neanderthal expression.
ET said: “So, my own view is that the population size in the ME is simply too large for repression to work.”
Unfortunately I don’t think you’ve factored in the destructiveness of modern weapons and the will to use them being shown by some of these dictators. Its possible to depopulate entire regions with chemical and bioweapons.
Saddam Hussein was having a go doing exactly that with the Kurds not too long ago. That’s what Bill Clinton’s Northern no-fly zone was there to prevent, Saddam gassing villages wholesale. Even lowly mustard gas can be extremely effective if there’s nowhere to run.
For that matter the Russians did it to the Ukraine by the simple means of taking all the food. Works even better in the desert, you take the water too. Just drop a truckload of camel crap in the town well and drive away. Vultures clean up after you too.
We could live to see that happen someplace in the ME. In fact they could be doing it in Syria and Iran today and we wouldn’t know.
Faced with that, people will repress themselves. And they seem damn determined to go in that direction, don’t they?
as usual, most people are making the mistake of considering what ME inhabitants would or wouldn’t do in Western terms…which is doomed to failure because they don’t THINK like we do and you can never, ever, understand that…we can’t comprehend strapping explosives to a 5-year-old and sending him into the marketplace to kill everyone he can and feel no remorse at all simply because “if Allah had wanted them to live, they wouldn’t have been harmed”…
liebrals in particular don’t see that they are being used like tools in a box, played like chessmen on a board and will never see it, not even when they’re the targets…anyone not sworn to islam is an enemy to be killed once their usefulness is at an end…period.
you WILL be killed or enslaved at the very least, there are no other options open to you under islam and they’ll work at it as long as it takes.
the sad part is that ‘bama and the rest of the ‘leaders’ are actively aiding in the eventual destruction of the West, and all non-islamic cultures…and in his case, I suspect, it’s being done willingly and deliberately.
before the end of the generation being born today, it’s going to be ‘bags on, beards on or heads off’ and the moonbat maniacs are going to let it happen until it’s too late to stop it…mainly because they have no idea what ‘shar’ia law’ actually is and how quickly they’ll lose their countries once they put it on an equal footing with common law.
we’re being colonized and the new masters will have a heavy hand indeed…remember, it was muslims that sold the slaves 300 years ago and they’ll gladly do it again.
Bemused >
“as usual, most people are making the mistake of considering…”
Correction – (academia, the liberal progressive left, Big government and Big Business) are…….making the mistake and in many circumstances purposefully…………
Otherwise, spot on!
which is most of the voices allowed airtime by the moonbat media…
on a related note…
surprisingly, this took longer than I expected.
(PressTV) — The lower house of the Egyptian parliament has unanimously approved a text declaring that Israel is the number one enemy of Egypt and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and a halt to gas exports to Israel.
On Monday, Egyptian MPs voted by a show of hands on the text of a report, which was compiled by the Arab Affairs Committee of the People’s Assembly (lower house of parliament).
“Revolutionary Egypt will never be a friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity, which we consider to be the number one enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation,” the report declared, adding, “It will deal with that entity as an enemy, and the Egyptian government is hereby called upon to review all its relations and accords with that enemy.”
In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but was compelled to agree to supply gas to Israel as one of the main economic conditions of the US-sponsored peace deal.
The most likely scenario is that the Salafists slaughter everyone else.
Churchill’s description of Islam in The River War retains its ring of truth over 100 years later:
“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 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. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; 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 civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
small c conservative >
Apparently Churchill was an out of touch barbarian, devoid of intellectual discovery/
ET
Bemused has it exactly, you base everything on the fact that the “mussulman/islamist” is and has the same basic thought process or humanity as the westerner.
That is not the case and never has been, which is why you fail to understand the real reason behind the I/P “conflict” or any other interface between Islam and the rest of the world.
Of course pretty much like the other commentators here, Nemo/ knight, et.al. I can only base my observations on actually working in countries where the population are adherents to a 7th century murderous pedophile fake religion, and not to some armchair lonely planet reading or glossy travel brochure
Last time we had this discussion on SDA Louise was of the same optimistic theme as yourself, and you know I hope your right, but if you are it’ll be the first time in the known history of the world.
Meanwhile my guess is that true to form the Islamists won’t care just like in Somalia/Yeman/Northern ethiopia etc etc how many will starve and died understand this, THEY DONT CARE its just the will of Allah.
As to your middle class, you are going to very disappointed you best start and get used to it.
DSV >
The problem for many is that they want to rationalize and in effect excuse the violence of the Third World with neat little rows of western logic and experience.
Westerners should have one goal in mind at this stage of our history, self preservation.
Getting involved in any third world conflicts, and importing any third world peoples is and has proven to be suicidal. The continued fracturing of our societies by imported religions, ethnicities, and cultures, while we continue to embroil ourselves in their endless regional conflicts is madness.
The Third World is not changing for the better, as we are changing for the worse, all the while we nurture and support our mutual distruction.
bemused, k99, small c etc – No, I don’t consider ideology as the basic cause of an infrastructural identity or change in a society.
I don’t think that the people of the ME or elsewhere ‘think’ differently than people in the West; that is, they have the same cognitive abilities. I DO think that they have a completely different set of thoughts, beliefs and values. And I totally agree with your descriptions of their belief system as ignorant, rejecting life, etc, etc.
BUT – where I differ is that I think that ideology, or beliefs, are the ‘top expression’ of a deep infrastructure.
They are not the cause but the surface expression. A comparison would be..that a rash is the ‘surface expression’ of chicken pox. It is not the structural cause of it. A rash is comparable to the beliefs, the ideology of a people. In order to get rid of the rash, you have to change the basic cause – and that, in my view, is the population size and the economic mode..which is linked to the political mode.
Your travels have exposed you to the rash; I’ve certainly been exposed to it as well, but my focus is on the infrastructure, not the surface expression. You can’t change a societal system from the ‘top down’, ie, by forcing an ideological change on them; it has to be infrastructural, and that is always economic and population.
But, you can help destabilize a system, where the infrastructure is already cracking, from the top down. That’s happening in the ME via informational networks; this begins in the periphery of the society and spreads. But, the real and only change – is that infrastructure.
Based on population size and economic paucity of a one-industry statism. I continue to predict that the ME Islamic nations have to move to a middle class private business economy – and that will then be expressed in ‘surface’ or ideological change.
I’m sorry ET, but your position reminds me of a gorean, confusing correlation with causation.
To a muslim, there is NOTHING except Allah…”Inshallah” decides everything and any sort of ‘infrastructure’ argument is doomed to failure…they don’t CARE whether they live in tents or skyscrapers…whether they eat caviar or camel…whichever they get, it’s because Allah decided that they get it…take a close look at the ‘revolutions’ going on now in the ME, they aren’t driven by people wanting better lives for themselves or their children, the voices that do say that are very quickly pushed aside once their usefulness is over…invariably, the westernized teens you see at the front of the pack in the videos that are allowed to be put into the media stream are soon quashed, violently as we see most recently in Egypt, and a hardline islamic order installed…100 or so killed in Iraq for having the wrong haircut, Christians killed and their churches burned in Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and everywhere else…ludicrous charges of ‘blasphemy’ to get rid of anyone the hardliners don’t want…if you refuse to open your eyes and see what’s happening, don’t forget to close them when the sword comes down on your neck.
bemused – we’ll have to agree to disagree. You focus on ideology as causal of societal organization, I focus on population size and economic mode as causal. This has nothing to do with correlation as causal.
No ideology can, on its own, sustain a population. You can’t live on words, and this includes the dogma of the Christian Church of the 5th through 14th centuries in Europe (and this dogma is not the same as Christian theology) as well as the dogma of Islamism.
Hardline Islamism, which operates within a two-class infrastructure, just as did medieval Europe, cannot support that population size. Plus it cannot isolate its people from the Internet and the influx of the global economy.
If you think that a population of that size, and I’m referring only to the ME, can sustain itself using only a single state-owned economic resource, well…
On the odd occasion I returned to Canada on an R&R from Saudi, and for a while after I came back permanently, (nowadays I generally can’t be bothered, and nobody asks anyway), I’d attempt to indicate what it’s like by creating an imaginary ‘lecture’ scenario:
You’re tasked with explaining gravity….you have a group of M.E.s and you say “If I have a piece of lead in my hand, extend my arm in front of me and release my grip, what happens?”
“I know, I know” says the guy in front, “It flies up into the air!”…..”Yes, yes” exclaim others, “I have seen it, God willing”.
And you’re standing there going “But, but….”.
ET >
It looks like much of Europe and parts of NA have caught “the rash”.
It must be the “population size and the economic mode” that brings on the Muslim gang rapes, car-b-ques, honor killings etcetera into the west, or do we have yet another excuse we can help them out with?
This rash is growing, not getting better. Allot of people need to roll down their windows and check out the geography more often.
Theories don’t do much for the present reality…
Sorry ET
As everyone is trying to point out to you, Islam doesn’t need to have any type of economic model, it doesn’t need the “society” that you equate to, they are not interested, and they are certainly not reasonable, it is as Allah wills, and yet again just use your own lying eyes, anywhere ever just once, what has in its entire history Islam ever done but take great riches and destroy, it conquers, over runs and then reduces the spoils to the third world dust and shit bowls that are the Islamic world today. That my friend is the history of Islam, and somehow you think this time its going to be different.
As K99 says WE the west should be learning we should not be allowing this misogynistic 7th century death cult into our society in any shape way or form, come to the west as adherents to anything but and adapt and assimilate, quite simply we should ban and outlaw any expression or practice of Islam, just a bit like Islamist countries do with real religions. If anyone has the pressing need to experience this death cult they can quite easily find a country to go to where they can embrace the rich and varied culture that is the incoherent ramblings Mohammed was.
DSV – I agree with you about not letting the Islamic ideology into the West; that is, we should not accomodate their beliefs and behaviour, as we do within ‘multiculturalism’.
What that does is, it REMOVES the economic force for change from this ideology, for the Muslims who come here are not living within economic stress but are supported by our generous socialist welfare programs.
If they come to the West, they must live within the beliefs and behaviour of the West. No multiculturalism, no special dispensation, no wearing of veils, no ‘quotas’ for hiring minorities, no subsidies.
I’m talking about the ME, and the FACT that the economic stresses of those nations will force the people to enable a private sector economy. This will then have a transformative effect on the ideology.
You are looking at the top-down perspective and considering only the dogma of the 7th century which is still existent in these nations – because they have both repressed change, and, been able to exist within a statist one-resource economy. This can’t last; it has to change, and the change is one that promotes and requires individual free enterprise. That will change the dogma.
It happened in the West, it happened in China – it’s not simple and linear, but, it’s how history operates – by economic infrastructures.
ET
I appreciate what your saying but there is one small item that lets your theory down, you say
“because they have both repressed change, and, been able to exist within a statist one-resource economy. This can’t last;’
But you fail to address why that can’t last, what we are all trying to say to you is, it can last and it will last and century after century have proved that it does last.
Look at the post above about Nigeria, under colonialism Nigeria was a progressing country with ample resources and education medical progression and an improving lifestyle for the people, now granted its had its African heritage of generals and dictators but enough of the excuses explain to us all how the Islamist north is not now progressing at a rapid rate into just another sub saharan basket, nothing there is going to get better, nothing no education, no medical care no rule of anything other than sharia, it is going the way of Niger/mali/sudan etc etc, time and time again as I keep saying history, there is no precedent for the hopes you have for Egypt or any other ME country once the “spring happens” left to the Islamists they descend into Afghanistan prior to 2001.
The middle classes you so rely on for your hopes they don’t exist in Islamist culture, they just don’t, every one ends up as subsistence farmers/hunters or they die, the will of Allah, any middle classes that stay once Islam has taken over exist for a while but surely as day follows night they either get out or they convert to the mass and become just more of the same.
I’m sorry but you need to base hopes on something, and yours seems to be based on a theory that worked on a way of life and a type of society that isn’t Islam.
DSV >
The only reason that most of these Third World countries are overpopulated is due to western aid, including food and medicine that artificially prop’s them up. We feed them, they reproduce, and then we feed more of them in a never ending cycle of increasing starvation.
Egypt as an example could never support its +80 million people from what it could produce from the Nile Delta. All of these overpopulated desert nations would be dropped back into the Stone Age if the rest of the world turned their backs on them. Of course, then there’s the oil, the sole reason for their continued existence on the world stage.
Knight99>
Yep too true.
Bizarrely the only real damage done to the world by the oil industry is enabling Islam, it even out ways saving the whale eh.
Guess we are just going to have to wait for the inevitable collapse of the west, wait for the aid money to get cut due to none functioning economies of the donor countries and then I guess no one will either know or care. The aid that America pumps into Egypt should be turned off that might help but can’t see that happening any time soon.
What was the next chapter in “Atlas Shrugged”?