With an Islamist dictator to vote for;
With a constitutional assembly on the brink of collapse and protesters battling the police in the streets here over the slow pace of change, President Mohamed Morsi issued a sweeping decree on Thursday night, granting himself broad new powers above any court and ordering the retrial of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.
Mr. Morsi, an Islamist who won Egypt’s first free presidential vote, portrayed himself as acting to satisfy popular demands. But the unexpected breadth of his new powers immediately raised fears that he might become a new strongman.
Related! “It is astonishing that American officials and the world media have hailed Morsi simply because he first sicced his dog on his neighbor, and then called the dog off.”
Meanwhile – Muslim Brotherhood offices torched.
These internal battles within the Islamic countries will continue for at least a decade.
A population that has operated for centuries only within a tribal political system, which is two-class, made up of Ruler over Ruled, doesn’t switch in a nanosecond to a constitutional democracy which develops an entirely new class, the middle class, and gives those people all political power.
It’s a tectonic, infrastructural change and requires changes in all parts of the societal structure. The economy must move from both a single wealth producing entity (oil, Suez tolls) controlled by statism to private enterprise small business capitalism. This will give economic power to a middle class rather than the elitist Rulers.
The political system has to switch to rule by a constitution and rule of law..rather than by family tribal contacts and military force. The legal system has to switch from theocratic decrees to legislated laws.
It took the West 400 years to make this transformation. It will take the MENA at least a decade or more. The violence will continue, it will be internal – and external. That’s because the ‘other threat’ to the MENA, apart from this very necessary infrastructural transformation of the entire society…is Iran.
Iran has imperialist ambitions. Obama’s enormous error in ignoring its people’s desperate attempt to take down this imperialist set of Rulers and his refusal to confront their nuclear agenda means that Iran is emerging as a major military power in the MENA. It has every intention of using that power to control the region.
After 60 plus years of experience with democracy in various third world nations, liberal elites still don’t get it. Unlimited majority rule more often than not results in a nation’s citizenry simply voting themselves into a dictatorship that is usually little better or often worse than the previous regime.
What do you expect from a pig, but a grunt?
Arab Spring, Arab fall.
Dennis, what do you mean by ‘unlimited majority rule’?
There should certainly be no election without a constitution, which sets the rules for a government.
What about the slipping into dictatorship that I, at least, consider is the case in the US? Obama ignores Congress, rules by fiat and his unaccountable czars, has violated federal laws repeatedly, violates his constitutional duties, pathologically lies and hides the truth (someone coined the term ObamaSpeak – very accurate), uses the media as his propaganda …and maintains his power by such tactics.
Coming to Canada soon.
ET, the question is when will the Obama administration recognize that its ME policy has failed. If Morsi’s becoming a dictator won’t do it, if Morsi setting aside the judiciary in the interests of setting up a theocratic system won’t do it, what will?
President Obama must have called to congratulate him…
And of course when I’m in need of a good laugh I simply pull up Doug Saunders’s “Who’s Afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood?”
Yeah, good times.
As Mr Morsi is a graduate of the University
of Southern California, I wonder if he’s a
loyal Trojan and will take time off from his new duties as dictator to watch USC play Notre Dame.
One man, one vote, once.
Democracy, Islam style!!
cgh, you aske when the Obama administration will acknowledge that Morsi is assuming dictatorial powers? Heh, about the same time that it recognizes that Obama is assuming dictatorial powers.
Obama ignores the duties and laws of Congress; rules by executive fiat and his unelected unaccountable czars; ignores and violates the Constitution; uses the media as his propaganda tool; constantly lies to and misinforms the public; uses taxpayer money to bribe and corrupt the population; rewards those sycophants who cover and do his ‘upfront’ work with plum appointments; …and so on.
As for internal power fights, attempts to re-establish tribal powers just with different Big Men in power, and attempts to prevent the emergence of a middle class in economic and political power, these will continue in the MENA for at least a decade. But it’s a one-way linear path. The population is simply too large to function within a statist one-industry economy; it requires that middle class of small business production.
Meanwhile, in the US, Obama is destroying the small business class into his movement towards statism. Incredible.
Even the Russians find the Muslim Brotherhood distasteful, which should tell you something…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
Russian Federation
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Russia as a terrorist organisation.[93][94]
As affirmed on 14 February 2003 by the decision of the Supreme Court of Russia, the Muslim Brotherhood coordinated the creation of an Islamic organisation called The Supreme Military Majlis ul-Shura of the United Forces of Caucasian Mujahedeen (Russian: Высший военный маджлисуль шура объединённых сил моджахедов Кавказа), led by Ibn Al-Khattab and Basaev; an organisation that committed multiple terror-attack acts in Russia and was allegedly financed by drug trafficking, counterfeiting of coins and racketeering.[95]
According to the above-mention decision of the Supreme Court:
Muslim Brotherhood is an organisation, basing its activities on the ideas of its theorists and leaders Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb with an aim of destruction of non-Islamic governments and the establishment of the worldwide Islamic government by the reconstruction of the “Great Islamic Caliphate”; firstly, in regions with majority of Muslim population, including those in Russia and CIS countries. The organisation is illegal in some Middle East countries (Syria, Jordan). The main forms of activities are warlike Islamism propaganda with intolerance to other religions, recruitment in mosques, armed Jihad without territorial boundaries. The Supreme Court of Russia[95]
I am sure things will be warming up in Egypt in due course.
What no hat tip Kate?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/022015.html#comments
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Re the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. The arrogance of journalists seems to know no bounds. They are mere observers but they think that they are a major influence on events and as a result people get killed. For instance, they thought that they were responsible for the EDSA Revolution in the Philippines just by their presence there and implied that their presence in Tiananmen Square would protect the demonstrators from government action. We saw what happened. Now they think that they just have to declare an ‘Arab Spring’ and it will happen. They should stick to reporting events and get out of the way. They seem to think that they are much smarter than they actually are.
It took the West 400 years to make this transformation. It will take the MENA at least a decade or more.
– ET
WOW, ET, they’re that good!!?? In only 2.5% of the time it took the West!!??
But seriously, ET, that is an impossibly laughable linear projection. It’s not a mere matter of time. They can’t get there from here, and here ain’t about to change, EVER, in my opinion.
ET, the question is when will the Obama administration recognize that its ME policy has failed.
– cgh
My good man, it has not failed! From Barack Hussein Obama’s POV, it is a SMASHING SUCCESS.
me no dhimmi, the West moved from tribalism to a civic societal infrastructure in 400 years. But kindly remember that it was the FIRST to do so. There were no examples to follow, no other constitutions to copy, no other economic models to follow.
The MENA has such models in abundance to follow. It, moreover is already networked into a global industrial system while the West changed before the development of an industrial economy.
Therefore, your prediction of ‘they’ll never change’, is, in my view, not feasible. The reason is basic: demographics and economics.
The exponential increase in MENA population, due to the importing (not local development) of industrialism has gone far beyond the carrying capacity of a statist resource-based economy. It cannot, I repeat, cannot, support this size of a population.
The West went through similar phases of a refusal to acknowledge that its old local village style agriculture couldn’t support its rising population. It tried constant wars, to both obtain more resources and reduce the population; it went through famines and plagues. Nothing worked. Eventually, it had to change its economic and political systems to enable a middle class private capitalist economy. No choice.
The same situation exists in the MENA. They have no choice. They cannot sustain their populations using their current economic mode. They MUST move to a private small business economy. That removes legislative and economic power from that Set of Hereditary or Self-Appointed Rulers.
No choice. But it’s not like choosing between decaf or regular coffee. It’s a violent and vicious tectonic change.
Well, ET, you’re the go-to person on demographics and tribalism. As for “examples to follow” they repeatedly and insistently tell us they ain’t interested in our model!
The logical error I see in your argument is the presumption that a democratic capitalistic middle class structure MUST arise to support a population which MUST rise. My view is that the population can shrink down to the existing societal structures.
Your view seems like a kinda mirror-image marxism, a view that presumes the inevitablity of progress. I have a more tragic view and simply do not accept the premise of necessary progress.
Your view seems like a kinda mirror-image marxism, a view that presumes the inevitablity of progress.
Exactly, it’s like Marx’s view. People must conform to the only system ET can think of. Maybe if she repeats it enough times…heh
Interesting conversation here again.
ET has given some great answers to the questions cgh and Me No Dhimmi had, but I do not think there is the level of support or interest of the Islamic world in moving in the liberal democratic direction and that it is inevitable. At the present time anybody that has any stature in the Islamic world wants to take it back to the glory days of conquest.
Bernard Lewis suggests in his book “The Middle East”, that “They may unite – perhaps,as some are urging, for a holy war, a new Jihad which, again as in the past, might well evoke the response of a new Crusade. Or they may unite for peace – with themselves, their neighbours, and the outside world, using and sharing their spiritual as well as their material resources in the search for a fuller, richer, freer life”. p 387, 2002, 3rd Edition.
At this time, it appears that those advocating the former of Lewis’ two options are firmly in control, and that western leaders are largely asleep and some are in support.
Pretty much immaterial as to what the Mooslums do, except how it affects us.
Ishmael will always be in conflict. That much is certain. It’s written and no ‘system’ will change that. May as well get used to it and deal with it.
Of course the MSM is on board. They support Islam at every turn, just as they did the Soviets & Nazis before them. Probably the Kaiser before the rest. Its always on the side of the dictators.
They are power junkie groupies that love the “strong” men.
Ken, that’s the interesting difference between myself and ET on this. We both agree on the structure of Arab society and its unsustainability over the long term. Where we disagree is about the future course. I don’t accept linear projections any more, not after Walt Rostow’s industrial takeoff hypothesis was shown to be wrong so many years ago.
There are at least two methods of dealing with this unsustainability neither of which involve democratic modernism. War and emigration, and they are not mutually exclusive.
“Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for,” said Morsi. “I have always been, and still am, and will always be, God willing, with the pulse of the people, what the people want, with clear legitimacy” he said from a podium before thousands of supporters.
Oh, that was MORSI who said that and not Obama? It’s getting harder to tell. Forward!
me no dhimmi, nice try, heh, sorry, I’m not a marxist and don’t believe in linear progress. I’d say yours is the utopian view.
I don’t believe in ‘progress’ because it has a value-added component of ‘a better life’. I’m simply working from the variables of population and economic capacity to support that population. Those are the two variables I use.
You actually think that the MENA populations, which have increased exponentially with the western introduction of industrialism and urbanization, can be reduced to a level that the statist one-industry tribal economy can support? What utopian notion does that come from?
HOW will this be done? The West tried wars, famines, plagues and even, exporting its excess. Didn’t work. Eventually, they had to change from a tribal agriculturalism to a market capitalist system and even then, had to change their technology to industrialism.
Just think about demographics. In 1800, the population of Egypt was 3.8 million. In 1900, which saw the West move in, it was 10 million. In 1940, it was 17 million. In 1960, it was 26 million. In 1990, it was 55 million, In 2009, it was 83 million. Now, tell me, how are you going to get rid of at least 60 million, to fit into a statist one-industry economy?
No, cgh, war certainly does reduce the population by millions, but even so, not enough. And the problem with war is, as the West found out, the reduction in population doesn’t last. It goes right up again. So there.
A major, major problem with emigration, which certainly relieved pressures in the West but even so, couldn’t prevent the requirement to industrialize…is multiculturalism.
The West has fallen into the disastrous ideology of allowing emigrants to bring their old cultures, intact in their ancient hatreds of Other Peoples, simmering in their ancient grievances of ‘things done bad to us one thousand years ago’…and set themselves up, Isolate and Grieved, in the West.
Disastrous, as we’ve all seen. Emigration, moreover, apart from being a blight on the West unless they reject multiculturalism and insist on integration…still won’t deal with the problems in the old Home Land.
Furthermore, since I’m maintaining that the era of nation-states is over and we function in a globally networked economic and even political infrastructure, you cannot have extreme imbalances in content and type over this whole network. You must have differences and diversity, but extreme imbalances are dysfunctional.
So, cgh, reducing and keeping the MENA population to WWII size, operating in a non-capitalist statist economy dependent only on oil or Suez tolls, in a tribal two-class political mode – how the heck do you plan to do this? No, wars and emigration won’t do it.
Remember also, that emigrants talk to their relatives, and people in the MENA are not going to want to live as political serfs, while economic and political freedom exists elsewhere.
They can’t get there from here, and here ain’t about to change, EVER, in my opinion.
This is as silly and baseless as ET’s inevitability view. It’s impossible to say what’s ahead. All of the Arab Spring nations except Egypt are improved. Egyptians certainly aren’t taking too kindly to Mursi’s seizure of power. Tens of thousands of protesters some violent.
It varies nation by nation. It seems the nations not touched by Baathist/Nasserist ‘Arab socialism’ garbage are most stable.
Tell me, LAS, have you ever examined the variables of population size, domain (rural versus urban) and economic and political modes?
Have you? Do you know the role these variables: population, domain, economic mode, political mode, play in the nature of a society? No? You don’t?
Gosh, then, tell us how a society operates, LAS. I’m really interested in how you analyze a society.
ET, you have no idea how any of those variables affect how a society operates. For you they are just rhetorical tools to be used in supporting your narratives, as it always is with you.
“Muslim Brotherhood offices torched.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
LAS, kindly move out of your own rhetoric and provide proof that I have no idea how those variables operate. Prove it. Don’t just make empty assertions which anyone can do…
And now, since you claim that I don’t know how a society operates, then, please tell us how it operates. Come on, don’t run and hide behind insults. Tell us.
Roger and Pete summed it up quite well over 40 years ago
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Roger and Pete summed it up quite well over 40 years ago
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
ET, many years ago I made a detailed study of the question of war and population. Lamentably, I no longer have it. Fact is, war rarely reduces population levels. At best it only slows the rate of growth somewhat.
What it does however is allow forced immigration. An example of this is what was going on in Sudan. There may indeed be increased resentment over the differences. However, to a large degree this can be suppressed by increasing levels of despotism and state control. And when that state control is reinforced or outright controlled by a theocratic structure then it can be truly powerful.
And as North Korea has demonstrated, you can keep popular unrest to a much lower level by completely isolating the country from outside contact.
“Now, tell me, how are you going to get rid of at least 60 million, to fit into a statist one-industry economy?”
The same way Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Jung-il did it. By increasing both state repression and national isolation. Both of these lend themselves to an Islamic theocracy. Like German fascism, an Islamic theocracy has a ready-made supply of those who can be portrayed as external enemies. And those who echo their views are easily persecuted as heretics.
Whatever the promises of religion, defined as faith without reason, it is perhaps the most powerful force humans have yet devised for the control of the thoughts of mass populations. And religion’s capacity for justifying just about any action in the name of faith is near limitless. In our case, the revolt against religious control came with the Reformation and the Enlightenment. There is no indication that this is a general process to which Islam will be subject. Rather it may be a unique processs forged by the cultural, social and economic characteristics of Western Europe.
And don’t count too much on the continuing trend of population growth either. Tightening economic circumstances tends to reduce population growth ovr time.
cgh, thanks for your very thoughtful comments.
Right, in the long run, war will reduce the population for a decade, but, as Europe found out in the 16 and 17th centuries, it really doesn’t stop that growth.
As for state control by military and theocratic control, it is indeed, ferocious and effective but only for that time period and I usually consider this to be only for a generation. It takes a lot of ‘energy’ to maintain both thought and behavioural control. Censorship, vicious repression, and isolation are effective. BUT, as with any high energy system, whether it’s a hurricane or a fire or a cult, the energy required to maintain this control doesn’t last.
I look at societies over ‘la longue duree’, in the long term.
I don’t think that Egypt, for example, can reduce its population of 83 million by 60 million, to enable it to remain statist and without a middle class capitalist economy. The West tried wars and heresy burnings and plagues and famines, but it still was unable to stay in the old feudal economic mode. It eventually had to move to a market economy. I seriously doubt that Egypt can reduce its population by 60 million. And then, in another generation, reduce it again. And then, reduce it again. Doesn’t work that way.
That’s why we have seen China move into a capitalist private business economy,- and China’s Mao certainly managed to reduce that nation’s population. But it couldn’t last and a statist economy simply cannot support that size of a population. N. Korea is unable to support its population and relies heavily on international aid.
Morsi, in Egypt, knows that the statist economy, reliant on tolls and tourism, can’t sustain the population. He’s borrowing heavily from the IMF and the US, and, is having to decrease the state subsidies for housing, food, etc to the people. They people won’t like that because they have no means of generating wealth on their own, ie, from developing small private businesses. Morsi can’t sustain Egypt this way. And the fascism of the Muslim Brotherhood can’t provide economic wealth.
The West’s Reformation wasn’t just an intellectual transformation. I always maintain that the ideology is always the last to change, for people hold on to it. What changes first, almost without our awareness, is the demographics, which will pressure the economic mode to change to enable the population to produce more wealth. This eventually changes the ideological and political structure.
As for Islam, as it is now, and it is primarily a political and societal framework rather than a religion (ie, dealing with the metaphysical), it can function only in a non-industrial tribal economic and political mode. It is certainly, as its texts and hadiths are now, unable to participate in the modern world, since it rejects reason, science, progress, individualism, democracy, people taking charge of their lives and societies.
BUT, those populations in the MENA cannot survive living in a tribal mode! So, since reducing populations can’t be a long term solution, and since living off the international community won’t last, and since even emigration won’t deal with the enormous MENA populations, then, my view is that they have to economically and politically change.
ET:
Obviously I don’t think you are a Marxist! I merely stated that yours seemed like a mirror image of marxist thinking vis-a-vis the inevitablity of certain forces, in this case democratic capitalism and a vibrant middle class to support a rising population which (agreed) needs these developments to be viable.
I’m fully aware of your variables. It’s just that I believe populations can decline and decline drastically. See projections for Russia’s population mid- century.
You suggested that I was the utopian. NO, I challenged YOUR utopian hopes for the emergence of a democratic capitalist middle class in the ME just as I have challenged your utopian view that a federation between Israel and the Palestinians was possible. And your utopian view that, but for Israeli intransigence, the Palestinians would have a state living in peace side by side with Israel. Which is delusional.
If I’m not mistaken many neo-cons are disappointed former Marxists who now believe in the inevitablity of democracy and pushing it along through military means. Which, also, is delusional. I was delusional. You still are.
LAS: Yes, my remark was silly. Never say never.
NOW, ET, if the West would END all “aid” to the ME, perhaps the ME might start developing along your utopian lines instead of being global welfare basket cases.
Real simple: One man, one vote. Morsi is the man and he has the vote! True muslim democracy in action…
In any other scenario ET night have a case. However, the defining difference of the MENA is Islam. Which emerged from the cloth during the lifetime of MO….but was then polished for 300 years….when it matured, innoculated against any change or reformation, it really exploded….and has been fine tuned every since.
The Crusaders understood this….hence their emphasis on slaughter and neglect of any evangelism.
me no dhimmi, I apologize for calling you utopian; I was just being provocative but I know perfectly well that you are a not utopian. But I don’t think you are a realist either! I, however, am a realist. I look only at particular variables: population, economy, political mode.
I don’t know that marxists become neo-cons; I’ve never met someone who had such a transformation!
I don’t think that populations can decline below the functionality of a particular economic and political mode. That is, my analytic theory views a particular economic mode, political mode and population size as inextricably connected.
So, for example, a hunting and gathering economic mode has a certain population limitation and a particular political system.
A larger population cannot be sustained using hunting and gathering as an economic mode. It’s tribal, and that means an entirely different economic mode and an entirely different political mode.
So, I don’t think that any nation’s population in our modern industrial era can be reduced such that it would shift BACK into an agricultural mode, and a tribal political mode!!
Most certainly, democracy can never be inserted, by force, or otherwise, into a population.
Democracy is not inevitable. If a population is low, a non-industrial economy can sustain it and that political system would be hereditary tribal. But, IF the population is large, then, industrialism is the only economy to sustain it, and, industrialism requires democracy as the political mode.
The reason for requiring democracy is that all economic systems MUST politically privilege and give power to whichever groups provide the wealth of the society.
In an industrial system, the middle class, ie, those who establish and operate small private businesses, provide the wealth.
Therefore, they must have the political power. This means – a constitutional democracy. No hereditary leaders, no hereditary kin groups or families. But, anyone who ‘makes wealth’ must have a say in how their society operates.
Modern constitutional democracy is only found in large populations.
I don’t think that my view of an economic federation between Israel and Palestine is utopian; I consider it realistic. I also consider that continual Israeli settlements in the W Bank, which takes land from a future Palestinian state, naturally incites anger and resentment, and the action of settlers against Palestinians (burning their farms, cutting down olive trees etc) is hardly a ‘friendly action’. Both sides have long histories of rejection of the other; read their texts.
Yes, I think that aid should be stopped to the MENA. Egypt, for example, has been able to maintain its harmful tribal political mode and outdated economic statism far longer than it should have because of western aid. Same with other nations.
And no, I don’t deal in utopias but only in measurable variables and I have no ‘dreams of a future’.
The sage has turned into a seer. heh
Christianity always put the emphasis on the individual, the Mooslums do not. Hence the development of individual entrepreneurship in Christian societies.
Mooslum society can’t follow a prescription from a Christian society unless they give up their religion. That isn’t very likely.
provide proof that I have no idea how those variables operate. Prove it.
HAhA classic ET. She can’t demonstrate her point so it’s my job to prove a negative!
Nobody fully understands how societies work and I highly doubt you do. There are lots of countries with high populations that aren’t constitutional democracies like Russia, China,…America?
CGH: Theocracies just can’t do the same totalitarianism of Stalin and North Korea. It lacks…discipline…and ironically, rationality. Commies don’t understand capitalism, but they do understand how populations can be cowed by fear. Islamonuts are not so analytical generally speaking, hence the rioters burning Muslim Brotherhood offices in Egypt. Western aid to ME nations is making this much worse.
“Christianity always put the emphasis on the individual, the Mooslums do not. Hence the development of individual entrepreneurship in Christian societies.”
No it did not. Even a cursory examination of the Body of Christendom religious and political doctrine of the Middle Ages gives the lie to that generalization. Moreover, the mediaeval guild structure shows just how closed and commune-like much of the economic structure behaved.
Entrepreneurialism and the breakdown of the guild restrictions on labour and commerce did not begin until after the Black Death of the late 1340s. And its principal effect was to start to shatter the notion of Church and State as one and the same.
“Theocracies just can’t do the same totalitarianism of Stalin and North Korea.”
Oh but it can. The most outstanding example is that of ancient Egpyt. That was a theocratic system that retained absolute power for nearly 2500 years. It was only finally broken by the Romans.
More recently, we have seen what was effectively a cult of divine worship in China under Mao, under the various Kims in North Korea, and an overt theocracy in Iran.
Rationality is a different matter. A religion may not be rational in its basic principles and beliefs, but it can be entirely rational in the secular application of power. If it’s ruthless enough. After the reconquest, religion remained the dominant political factor in Spain for about four centuries until finally being blown to pieces by the joint blows of the Napoleonic War and the Spanish Civil War. Because of religion, Ireland remained in an ideological time-warp until the late 20th century.
Understand that none of this is about faith, credo or belief in God. It’s about organized religion as an institution. And it can function as a unifying force irrespective of being surrounded by secular political and economic decay. The nations of Islam have arguably been in a state of political and economic decay since about the early 17th century. During that time, religion has strengthened, not weakened, as an instrument of social control in all those nations.
And hello to you, LAS.
That’s not a negative assertion. When I ask you to substantiate your claim that I have no idea how the variables of population, economic and political modes work, this is not asking you to prove a negative! How about learning some logic to your need to learn about societal infrastructures.
After all, if the doctor is asked to prove that ‘this bite was NOT caused by a dog’, they most certainly can do this. The firemen can certainly prove that ‘this fire was not caused by a gas leak’.
That’s because what a thing is NOT, doesn’t carry any information about what it IS. But what a thing IS, most certainly carries information about what it is NOT. That’s basic science.
So, LAS, since you declare that I haven’t a clue about what I am talking about, then, you can, if YOU have any knowledge about what a society IS, show how I am wrong. But, you can’t. Not because it is illogical but because you are ignorant.
You are quite wrong to state that ‘no-one fully understands how societies work’. There’s a lot of work out there, and the fact that you have no knowledge of this research – is your problem.
China is moving towards constitutional democracy. Like it or not, Russia is a constitutional democracy.
Now, LAS, normally all you do is insult and make ungrounded assertions. But try to tell us how you consider a society operates. Don’t slither out of being accountable and answering questions, as you usually do. If you reject my outline, then, you must have the knowledge to state WHY you reject it. Insults are useless. Provide some facts.
cgh, yes, I agree with your focus on the communal economic mode in the medieval period (which was tribal) and the development of individualism from the 14th century. I’d even put it before then, beginning slowly with the 13th, when you had, for example, de Troyes’ ‘Perceval’ who is chastized for not questioning, and where Abelard insists on his right to doubt what the church is saying.
Yeah, I see where you’re coming from cgh but I still don’t think even ancient Egypt or modern Iran can hold a candle to the well-built death machines that typified 20th century totalitarianism.
Hitler and Stalin could at least build armies of death. Islamonuts just kinda blow themselves up and then suck at doing anything more. Which is one reason I am tired of the hysteria over Islam that riddles this place.
Like it or not, Russia is a constitutional democracy.
Professor Pomeranian has reached new heights of absurdity.
Isn’t it odd that, once scripture became freely available, the Christian countries also became freer?
Scripture teaches that there is no earthly authority who can affect ones salvation. That what an individual does, good or bad, is on their own head, nobody else.
From that individualism has come a belief in individual entrepreneurship, and laws supporting the same. Beginning with the Reformation.
It is also easy to see, as scripture becomes less and less well known, that laws have a tendency to impede individual entrepreneurship.
People, more and more, seem to prefer to be slaves to earthly authority. Like Mooslums.
Have a nice trip, is all I can say…
I think sasquatch has the best understanding of the situation. ET, you’re partly right about geographical factors involved in Egypt, but that is only because intelligence is not operative in this area. One of the most natural-resource poor areas of the world is Singapore, yet it has made itself into a technologic mecca – a friend of mine who visited the place sent me an email about how the place was populated with hackers. THAT is what the combination of intelligence and private enterprise can produce.
Religions are not rational and inculcation into the death cult meme from childhood as occurs in islam might work fine in a few tribes spread out in the Arabian desert, but it’s a disaster in waiting given the Egyptian birthrate, poor economy and lack of any technocracy.
Expect various scapegoats to be eliminated first and the Coptic christians of Egypt will likely be the first to go. Religion is very good at turning seemingly harmless people into locust-like killing mobs. Given the problems inherent with packing in far too many people in too small a space, look next either for a civil war among various factions of islam or expansion of Egypt into other areas of Africa.
Death tolls in religious wars between Pakistan and India have been in the millions (especially during the partition of India) and Rwanda demonstrates what even primitive technology can do in a short period of time. I see no problem in reducing the population of Egypt by millions of people given the right circumstances.
loki – I agree. As I said above, the Islamic ideology functions only in a non-industrial tribal system which cannot sustain a population of the MENA sizes. To sustain this size, you must move into industrialism.
The current population size of the MENA nations is due to industrialism, but operating within a unique strategy. Its technology and investment was and is funded by the West. The oil and Suez canal were built by and used by Western technology and investment. The profits from these Western industries have enabled tribalism to remain entrenched and even more powerful in the MENA.
But even so, these one-industry economies have reached their economic limit. They can’t sustain the population. These states have to enable a middle class capitalist small business economy. That requires individual freedom and that’s rejected by both tribalism and Islam
Islam rejects reason, individual freedom of thought and action, science, dissent and is thus, suited for a tribal but not an industrial economic and political mode.
Since the population can’t be sustained within tribalism but requires that free-thinking, business-creating middle class, Egypt and the MENA are in a bind. They have to change, and are, as in the West in the 14th century, strongly resisting any and all changes. But, in the end, even if it takes many years, they will have to.
As for your suggestion of reducing the Egyptian population by millions, which I presume you are suggesting will remove the economic and political pressures to change – I suggest that is naive.
There is no way to reduce from 83 million to, let’s say, 24 million in Egypt. Furthermore, as the West found, reducing the population by massive wars or disease was a short-term solution.
Second, as I said, the era of isolate nations is over; the world is networked. There is no way that the billions living in the Islamic tribal economies are going to passively accept living as impoverished and tribal and refuse to participate in the modern world of high technology, individual freedom and networking.
“Since the population can’t be sustained within tribalism but requires that free-thinking, business-creating middle class, Egypt and the MENA are in a bind. They have to change… even if it takes many years”
Agree ET, centrally planned economies won’t work in large populations. In this case the military was running the economy and skimming too much, no middle class was created, without a middle class you can’t introduce rapid economic adaptation needed for a globally competitive economy. So an attempt by the MB to prop up an artificial central plan won’t work, it will keep collapsing until the appropriate form of small business capitalism that employs a middle class is found.
So there is no question that Islamic tribalism will have to change. However, it could be that part of the process which causes strife and violence leads to a population in better equilibrium with economic capacity. The reason the MENA has exploded in population isn’t because of some rich biome like France had 500 years ago; it’s because MENA have benefited from imported medical technology that reduces death at birth. And unfortunately they haven’t had time for their women and culture to learn to practice birth control; hence the population outpaced the economic ability to support it. But that could lead to violence that reduces the population.
LAS, I agree with you about the destructive capabilities of 20th century tyrannies. But remember, none of them lasted more than decades. Hitler’s 3rd Reich was blown apart in just 12 years, and Stalinism lasted barely 80. Whereas the theocracies of Egypt lasted 2500 years, while that of Mediaeval Europe lasted at least 500 years. Now that’s unifying longevity.
By contrast, the only long lasting civilization encompassing a wide variety of religious and racial groups was the Roman Empire. Including the Republic, it lasted roughly 500 years, and its social controls were explicitly economic and secular, not religious. Rome was perhaps the first society in the world which practiced a form of religious tolerance for other creeds.
ET, yes it had its intellectual roots in the 13th century, particularly with the emergence of Aristotelianism and the rise of the universities. But it was the Black Death that provided the hammer to smash the mediaeval construct on a broad social scale.
It obliterated the manorial economic system which destroyed the eoonomic basis of the feudal system by creating a massive labour shortage. The subsequent rise in economic and political power of the middle class was remorseless from there-on. Like the nobility, the political power of the priesthood would start a 600 year-long retreat.