ZIONIST ENTITY VERSUS ISLAMIST ENTITY? OR JUST THE LATER?
"The Economist" disserts on Arabia (July 23, 2009). Another occasion for me to attack the subject with the sharp knife of unbowed philosophy, while proffering my usual incantations (please respect me as I practice my religion of universal critique). (A more detailed essay extending this will appear, hopefully, on wordpress, where many articles on the subject already exist, following those on patriceayme.com.)
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"The Economist" comes back on the mysterious philosophico-political disease that afflicts Arab speaking nations, and turns around the problem like the wolf turns around the moose, not daring to bite, or even to come too close... No apparent desire to experience high explosives, or sharp blades, how to blame them?
An instant optimistic, "The Economist" opines in its lead editorial that:"A quiet revolution has begun in the Arab world; it will be complete only when the last failed dictatorship is voted out." Still "The Economist" wonders: "What ails the Arabs?", but it does not dare, or is unable to give one of these sharp answers it likes.
All it dares to do, is to hint at the nature of the disease:
..."more people, especially women, are becoming educated, and businessmen want a bigger say in economies dominated by the state. Above all, a revolution in satellite television has broken the spell of the state-run media and created a public that wants the rulers to explain and justify themselves as never before. On their own, none of these changes seems big enough to prompt a revolution. But taken together they are creating a great agitation under the surface. The old pattern of Arab government—corrupt, opaque and authoritarian—has failed on every level and does not deserve to survive."
In other words, according to "The Economist" what ails the Arabs is a cultural phenomenon.
Reading more carefully, one see that it has to do with Islam:
"Some in the West are wary of Arab elections, fearing that Islamists would exploit the chance to seize power on the principle of “one man, one vote, one time”. Yet Islamists seem to struggle to raise their support much above 20% of the electorate. Non-Arab Muslim countries like Turkey and Indonesia suggest that democracy is the best way to draw the poison of extremism. Repression only makes it more dangerous."
"The Economist" forgets to mention that such was the theory of the Islamists in Algeria, twenty years ago. After they won the first round of elections, the Algerian army had to seize power, and reset the (would-be) democratic system to zero. Otherwise Algeria would be now like Iran (or probably much worse, because there is so much Western European culture in Algeria, that there would have been an even more horrific civil war than what happened, with just a few hundred thousands killed).
"The Economist" forgets to mention also that in most countries where Islam cohabits with democracy nowadays, a very violent past cracked down on Islam, way back.
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WE PRAY QUIETLY, THUS THEY CAN PREY MIGHTILY:
OK, enough with the wooden tongue, the one that is in the mouth, but does not quite work, due to rigidity and inappropriateness to the supple nature of thought.
Some Arabs would say it's the Zionist Entity, or colonialism, that afflicts Arabia, or... But rarely is the Islamist Entity evoked.
Islam is to blame for the friendliness of Arab countries to dictatorship. A command in Islam (a verse in the Qur'an) orders believers to follow their leaders without any question, as long as they are Muslim. To do otherwise is to disobey God.
Thus the problem is very simple, and not really different from the catastrophic fanaticism that caused the Dark Ages in the Roman empire.
Islam is actually a direct prolongation of it: Muhammad faithfully copied what he had below his nose, and that inspired him so much, the demented caesaropapism a la Justinian, which had immensely damaged the Roman empire and civilization itself, from a particular interpretation of Roman Catholicism, which was imposed by killing millions and oppressing even more (leading to a terrible war with Sassanid Persia).
What of countries which have Muslim majorities, and are not dictatorship? Well, they adopted enough of the Western European model in their political culture to fight off Islam. This is true for Turkey, or Indonesia, etc... In Iran, the father of the late Shah, founder of his dynasty, took even more terrible measures against Islam than Ataturk did. Simply something is left of that history today.
Here is the verse in the Qur'an:
“O YE WHO BELIEVE! Obey Allah, and obey the messenger and OBEY THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE IN POWER.” (Qur’an’s , Sura 4; verse 59).
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com
For more details please see:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/
And also:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/
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