G
gilliam
Guest
I made a rather provocative statement on Wednesday, on returning from vacation. (What? Me? Provocative?) I said, “That election in Iraq … shows, unmistakeably, that Bush was right and the world was wrong.”
Not a few readers have suggested that the remark might require some amplification. Very well, reach for your ear trumpets.
For many decades now — and essentially since the European powers discarded their imperial aspirations in the region — the Middle East has been, not precisely in a coma, but in a deep though fitful sleep. Not unlike Europe, in another way — though in Europe’s case, the sleep is spiritual.
Islam forges different minds, and in the Middle East, the lethargy has been expressed chiefly in political terms. Twenty or so Arab states have been thumbed under one or another form of secular authoritarianism, usually dynastic. The bad breath of nationalism came and went, roughly with the life of Gamal Abdul Nasser. Socialist aspirations, ditto. The world’s spectacular oil-burning post-War economic boom poured unearned wealth on several of the countries, which, so far as I can see, does more moral damage to a people than poverty could ever do.
But at the end of the day — and the last century — in the Arab countries, and many other Islamic states, public life continued under the clamp of arbitrary and ruthless despots. Saddam Hussein was only the most extreme example. Beyond the windfall of oil, and foreign aid, no Arab country displayed anything resembling economic vibrancy. Culturally, as well as politically, the atmosphere in almost every capital city, was stultifying. And lately, even the high birth rates in the hinterlands have collapsed. -snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at davidwarrenonline.com …
Not a few readers have suggested that the remark might require some amplification. Very well, reach for your ear trumpets.
For many decades now — and essentially since the European powers discarded their imperial aspirations in the region — the Middle East has been, not precisely in a coma, but in a deep though fitful sleep. Not unlike Europe, in another way — though in Europe’s case, the sleep is spiritual.
Islam forges different minds, and in the Middle East, the lethargy has been expressed chiefly in political terms. Twenty or so Arab states have been thumbed under one or another form of secular authoritarianism, usually dynastic. The bad breath of nationalism came and went, roughly with the life of Gamal Abdul Nasser. Socialist aspirations, ditto. The world’s spectacular oil-burning post-War economic boom poured unearned wealth on several of the countries, which, so far as I can see, does more moral damage to a people than poverty could ever do.
But at the end of the day — and the last century — in the Arab countries, and many other Islamic states, public life continued under the clamp of arbitrary and ruthless despots. Saddam Hussein was only the most extreme example. Beyond the windfall of oil, and foreign aid, no Arab country displayed anything resembling economic vibrancy. Culturally, as well as politically, the atmosphere in almost every capital city, was stultifying. And lately, even the high birth rates in the hinterlands have collapsed. -snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at davidwarrenonline.com …