You cannot understand the modern Middle East without knowing about Sykes-Picot, the Balfour Declaration, Ataturk, and Nasser. None are mentioned in this essay.
Thanks for the links! I think the article assumes a passing familiarity with all that history. It is in line with the Economist's style in general, and is really a necessity for them to provide their type of content without every issue becoming a history primer. Although a "background material" section would be pretty neat for them to include.
And you cannot understand the "tolerant" period in the middle east without realizing that that period happened with a partially muslim government, but with the society very much an eastern roman society.
1) Barely any muslims at all. The actual society was near 100% Christian at the time with small concentrated pockets of Judaism, and a muslim army concentrated in the capital.
All of the organisations that made the golden age happened, almost without exception, were Roman organisations that existed before the muslim invasion and got more freedom to operate. It ended they started getting systematically killed.
Even so, immediately the dhimma system was introduced. If that's what people call tolerant, then why not say that Nazis were very tolerant of the Jews ? It's essentially the same thing.
2) Even so, this muslim government itself was not tolerant, given for example it's treatment of institutions of learning. Yes they did not just go out and directly destroyed all of them, but ...
In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar.[34][35] Bar-Hebraeus, writing in the 13th century, quotes Omar as saying to Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."[36] Later scholars are skeptical of these stories, given the range of time that had passed before they were written down and the political motivations of the various writers.[37][38][39][40][41]
While the library was notorious for political interference, keep in mind that it recovered from every attack except this one, mostly because the previous destructions of the library did not involve a massacre (they were not bloodless either, but there is a large difference). The muslims killed everyone they could find in a large area around it before burning it.
Muslims, during the golden age, made a habit of killing scientists. Yes there were a lot of scientists during that period, but to say that the muslim part of that society tolerated them is stretching the truth beyond recognition.
3) Massacres were very likely a common occurence. While not much history is known from that period from Egypt), this is from Spain, same government (more or less), same time period, same "Golden age" :
> While Islamic democracies elsewhere (such as Indonesia) are doing fine, in the Arab world the very fabric of the state is weak.
The Western countries and Israel have been doing everything they can for the past century to keep Arab democracy weak.
In the soi disant "only democracy in the Middle East", the West bank, claimed by Israel, where ultraorthodox right off the plane from Russia can go to a West Bank settlement to vote, but in which Palestinians who have been there for thousands of years can not vote for any government which Israel or the US recognizes - why not let the Palestinians vote? Israel is no democracy - they claim the West Bank is Israel, in a defacto sense it is, and they do not let Arabs vote. We see the contemplation of Islam causing problems, why don't we look at Judaism in the same manner in how it is against democracy? Meir Kahane said as much himself, and his policies have been running Israel, and the US and European backing of Israel for the past years.
Meanwhile the US and UK destroyed Iranian democracy, its parliament, Mossadegh, and installed a dictator whose CIA-backed secret police arrested, tortured and killed those who wanted a return to democracy. We had France, the UK and Israel invade Egypt in 1956, and on and on and on.
The economic and military might of the west and Israel has been fighting autonomy and democracy in the Middle East for a century, and will continue to in the next century.
Despite this, as we can see the beginnings of in the Arab Spring, as well as a history rooted in pan-Arab nationalism, in the years to come Arabs will see themselves freed from the shackles of imperialism and Zionism, and restore power in the the Middle East to the people of the Middle East.
Exactly this, the western world has long meddled in the region, drawing arbitrary borders and sowing unrest politically,economically and via force many times.
Palestinians vote(d) for their own leadership. I live in Australia, but I'm not an Australian, therefore, I am not permitted to vote here. I am unlikely to ever gain citizenship here, therefore, I will never be able to vote.
> But religious extremism is a conduit for misery, not its fundamental cause (see article). While Islamic democracies elsewhere (such as Indonesia—see article) are doing fine, in the Arab world the very fabric of the state is weak.
First, "fine" is relative. Religious conservatives have been a major force in turning back progress in countries like Bangladesh. The 1972 constitution envisioned a secular republic, and the end result was . . . something less than that. In particular, a series of constitutional amendments eliminated the commitment to secularism and made Islam the state religion. Over the past few decades, there was been a substantial regression in areas like womens' rights, coupled with an increase in public religiousity.
Second, comparing the Arab states to south Asian muslim states is comparing apples and oranges. To use Bangladesh as an example again, that country has had organized government for almost all the past 500 years, between the Mughals, the British Empire, India, Pakistan, and independence. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, while nominally part of several different empires prior to the 20th century, was always on the outskirts of those empires, and was never really an orderly, centrally-administered place. In Saudi Arabia, central government has taken a back seat to tribal power for almost that whole history.
There's lot's of other reasons, obviously. I think a big one is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse. However, I think it can't be taken for granted the degree to which democracy and good government arises out of the ingrained sensibilities of people.
The shock was less that they implemented it, then that I had never heard of it. During the time it was active, my home country gave a large amount of foreign aid to Bangladesh -- while a subgroup (Hindus) was treated more or less like Jews in 1930s Germany.
This was interesting. Do you have a good overview or only papers as references?
(Not doubting, interested. I have heard quite a few stories from Indian friends about their (female) relatives running away to marry the wrong religion, both muslim and hindu. But India is a special case, if anything is.)
Why Arab countries have so miserably failed to create democracy, happiness or (aside from the windfall of oil) wealth for their 350m people is one of the great questions of our time. What makes Arab society susceptible to vile regimes and fanatics bent on destroying them (and their perceived allies in the West)? No one suggests that the Arabs as a people lack talent or suffer from some pathological antipathy to democracy.
Is religion the central problem? It seems like the religion has a built-in mechanism to perpetuate war and misery: "Jihad." The idea is to carry on fighting at any cost, and to train your children to believe that they too should fight.
If it weren't for the religion, would the people regularly blow themselves up in the middle of civilians?
However, this doesn't quite ring true. Long ago, their culture was the best in the world, and some of the most important scientific advancements were made by Arab scholars. Were they highly religious back then? If so, why was their society stable in spite of warfare being a core tenant of the religion? What changed?
The 'resource curse' of sitting on top of vast reserves of cheap (-to-extract) oil doesn't help. A lot of war-torn African countries have a similar problem - there are plenty of unfussy buyers offering enough money to a) be worth killing for and b) maintain a large system of patronage.
Jihad is an important concept in Islam, war is not.
The word jihad is often used in the context of internal and personal struggle, and physical (or external) jihad becomes the struggle against oppression or prosecution.
Perhaps what changed between the past and today is the shift in focus from an 'inner' jihad to an 'outer' one. Militants justify their violence with the chaotic events of the last century; these are perceived as oppression, much of it due to western countries.
"The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains." --Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri blind Arabian philosopher, poet - circa 11th century
what has any of this to do with "Hacker News"?[shrug]
ah well, if anyone wants to understand anything about middle east history they ought to start with Nina Paley: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/
What changed? Europeans intentionally destabilized the region in efforts to keep Colonial power for as long as possible, then the US and Russia used it as a battleground for the Cold War.
The Economist rather notably omitted the seeds of the current state sowed in the Sykes Picot agreement, which made a hash of things just as the old local power structure was in collapse. Rather than create a stable start for the region as the beginning of its development, the UK -- probably with The Economist's supporting conventional wisdom -- made it all the worse.
Yup. That and the continual Western presence in the region constantly builds up pressure. It's hard to feel free with an ever present security force, a constant string of corrupt political leaders who use religion to their advantage, and when international allegiances are murky at best. A great book on the subject is "Lawrence in Arabia" by Scott Anderson.
I don't like saying it, but I can't take this Economist article seriously if it doesn't even bring up some of the most important events of the last 100 years in the region. Yes, times are different; the region used to be very successful, promoting education and equality of all types. But it's no mystery as to why those changes came about, and why the region won't easily revert to what it used to be.
It sounds more like the standard way a dictator blame everyone else -- except their corrupt practices and oppression -- to explain why his country is a POS.
Hell, even the traditional scapegoat is officially used, with reprints of Zion's protocols and outright anti semitism in officially sanctioned media.
I.e. the same as we had in the west a few decades to centuries ago. (See kings, dictators, et al.)
Edit: Also, the article do touch the Western influence after the centuries of Turkish oppression, without using "Sykes Picot": "In much of the Arab world the colonial powers continued to control or influence events until the 1960s. Arab countries have not yet succeeded in fostering the institutional prerequisites of democracy—the give-and-take of parliamentary discourse, protection for minorities, the emancipation of women, a free press, independent courts and universities and trade unions."
Edit 2: That was quick down votes. :-)
Edit 3: I never argued that it wasn't a mixed picture -- England was early -- and that some were less primitive than my home country, rayiner.
First thing I did was search the page for the name "Sykes," and his absence made it obvious that this was to be yet more of the unaware Oxbridge noodling for which the Economist is famous.
Paradoxically the often cited turning point for the Decline of the Ottoman Empire is during the Tanzimat period. Which started Constitutional Reform, Secular Law, Abolition of Guilds, and the decriminalization of homosexuality.
It's an axiom of political science that heavy-handed regimes don't topple when their heavy-handedness is at its peak; they topple when that heavy-handedness is relaxed. The shock of liberalization wakes people up and starts them wanting more. Classic examples include the French Revolution, which erupted after the monarchy convened the Estates-General legislative assembly for the first time in 175 years, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which began with the glasnost and perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev.
However, the nationalization efforts came because of the reduced stature. Now that isn't to say that the strain of something new like constitutional reform didn't contribute to the problems, these reforms came because everyone knew which direction the Empire was heading.
PS, you speak as if the decriminalization of homosexuality was on par with major structural changes in how the state worked. How... peculiar.
The article looks back at the rich Arab intellectual tradition of the Middle Ages, and the question of what happened is intriguing indeed. I heard a fascinating interview with Robert R. Reilly, the author of _The Closing of the Muslim Mind_[1], and I think his book could be a significant contribution to understanding this problem. Here is what I remember from the interview:
The issue of how God interacts with the created world was an open question in the Middle Ages. Everyone agreed that God was the creator and sovereign Lord of the universe, but there were differing views about how that played out.
One school of thought had the concepts of primary and secondary causality. God is responsible for the existence of all things; he is the primary cause. However, God gives created things the power of causality so that they are secondary causes. Therefore a billiard ball has the "power" to cause other billiard balls to move when it strikes them. These powers of secondary causality are properties of created things and thus they can be studied and understood. Such a belief led to early forms of scientific inquiry.
The other school of thought was that God is the direct and only cause of everything that happens. Secondary causality is just an illusion. God directly moves all of the billiard balls. Just because billiard ball B starts to move after ball A comes into contact with it does not mean A was the cause of B's movement. Rather, God is the cause of all movement. It is the ultimate "correlation does not imply causation" argument. In fact, the current state of the universe has no bearing on the state of the universe in the next instance of time. God recreates the universe every moment in time solely according to his Will, rather like a video game engine completely renders the screen image for every frame. The image of one frame does not cause the image of the next frame. All frames come directly from the game engine.
The second school of thought ended up winning in the Muslim world because it exalted the Will of God as ultimate and without competition. Philosophical and scientific inquiry were squelched, but fortunately this happened after the great works of the first school had already passed into Christian hands. Since God is primarily Love rather than Will in Christian theology, it was reasonable to think that God, motivated by love, would give a measure of control to his creatures.
I hope I have not misrepresented the ideas of the book. It is on my reading list, but I have not gotten to it yet.
> The second school of thought ended up winning in the Muslim world because it exalted the Will of God as ultimate and without competition.
Not really. This is a complex philosophical and religious topic, and it is not as black and white as was presented in your post. There is no single view that dominates the Islamic landscape as you mentioned.
Interesting article in the Telegraph on how most Muslim countries are actually the least Muslim countries judging by the values found in the Quran -- whereas countries like Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg top the list:
A great deal of this could be applied to 19th century Western (European and American) society. Indeed it's not hard to find distinct homegrown pockets of such social ills today. I don't disagree with the authors views about the toxicity of some values, but they have to be evaluated in their socioeconomic ocntext or risk being confused with innate characteristics.
I've been reading through the "A History of Korea" by Michael Seth, hoping to get some insight into how Korea went from a colonized underdog into a global economic power in such a short time. The modern history of both Koreas is truly fascinating as are their early parallels.
One thing I've been surprised to learn is how much of a role various Christian groups in Korea played in anti-governmnet activities going all the way back to the Japanese Colonial period. There's some interesting and unique history there with respect to Korea's history with Christianity -- including being one of the only countries with a history of self-conversion, before missionaries ever showed up there.
More recently, the parallels between the economic development of the North and the South are quite striking. While the North made some very big economic development strides early on, the long term focus on almost pure heavy industry and military development caused the country to stagnate and economically regress -- despite an almost constant stream of aid and support from first the Soviet Bloc and then China. The infrastructure has begun to crumble because the state never bothered developing the entire economic ecosystem needed to keep it running.
The South on the other hand, under the military dictator, Park Chung-hee, took a more step-wise foundation building approach that's yielded tremendous long-term success for the country. Seizing power from an incompetently run, but democratic, government. Park put in place a complex series of programs designed to build up an export-oriented economy through gradual development of industry from light-industry to heavy.
It was tremendously corrupt, and built on lots of favor trading. But he used the power of the military and the government to keep the economy focused on pure growth, and pragmatically eliminated "non-essential" economic activities. Starting with things like sugar refineries and textile manufacturing, the country started working up to construction (a significant number of U.S. projects during the Vietnam war were built by Korean companies), then shipbuilding, cars, petrochemicals, etc. Each designed to both provide economic opportunities for export, as well as provide domestic capabilities for the next steps.
No political activity was allowed and the country was basically run like a giant, efficient, no-nonsense, military apparatus for decades. It took until the 80s before it was really time to switch off from this into the more liberal and democratic country we see today.
He financed all this with a very pragmatic finance scheme, hitting up Japans booming economy during the 60s and 70s, despite a great deal of animosity between the two countries. And then more importantly sold back the finished goods to Japan and the U.S. markets.
It was under Park that South Korea started doing major construction projects in the middle-East. The technical ability of South Korean construction companies can't be underestimated -- the Burj Khalifa was built by Samsung.
Despite significant student demonstrations and unrest during the Park administration (and the similar Chun Doo-hwan one that closely followed), most people were simply too busy working and scratching out a living to take to the streets, or form anti-government organizations.
There's other parallels as well, extremely low participation in the work force by women, a history of foreign meddling, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that idle hands may just be the source of a lot of this misery. In richer Arab countries, most of the work is done by foreigners on the cheap and locals live off of the proceeds, they're bored and have nothing else to do. In poorer ones, people need jobs, are desperate and again, have nothing else to do.
There's been some half-hearted attempts to provide other activities. KAUST, for example, is a Science and Tech graduate-level university that's had billions invested into it. But one of the interesting points my book brings up is that setting up advanced schooling, or advanced industry, doesn't make sense unless a Park style staged economic program is put in place first to build all of the necessary social, educational and economic foundations to support these advanced industries. You can't really leapfrog these things, but you can make progress unbelievably fast.
The real problem is that, at least for the oil rich parts of the Arab world, there isn't much incentive to really do these things. If any place might have a go, someplace oil-poor, like Egypt, might be a logical place to kick off something like a "Tiger of the Nile" program. I know I'm not the first person to think of this either.
Note also, that having a resource-oriented economy tends to vastly overstate GDP. A dollar of exported crude oil counts as a dollar of "national income" but it's not income any more than selling off your furniture is income. You're just converting assets into cash. This phenomenon makes countries that derive their income from selling resources think they're richer than they really are.
I think there's something else going on there though...
South Korea (per capita GDP $24k) is hardly the only success story in that part of the world. Japan ($38k), Hong Kong ($38k), Singapore ($55k), and Taiwan ($20k) have basically pulled off the same trick. All these places have in common that they are either Chinese (mostly Chinese, in Singapore's case) or very closely related culturally to China (Korea and Japan are more closely related to China than, for example, Laos or Myanmar). They are all small, without huge agricultural potential or much other resources, but with good access to the sea.
A more recent, and possibly more relevant example is Malaysia ($11k). Malaysia is an interesting case. It is majority Muslim, but it has a significant non-Muslim Chinese minority that controls most of the economy. It is a large petroleum exporter, but it has successfully expanded to manufacturing and services, arguably escaping the "resource curse".
You might be tempted to conclude that Malaysia pulled this off because of their Chinese population (and I know some Malays have said exactly this), but there are counterexamples to this - Thailand ($6k), Indonesia ($4k), Vietnam ($2k) and Cambodia ($1k) all have significant ethnic Chinese populations. On the other hand, ethnic Chinese control business in all those countries far out of proportion to their share of the population.
What useful lessons Arabs can draw from this I have no idea. Well, I have some idea: just look at North Korea ($0.6k) and Vietnam ($2k). The lesson isn't just simply "communism is bad" though, because they are well behind Russia ($15k) and even Cuba ($6k).
idle hands are s source of misery about anywhere in the world you look, whether they lead to violence or the obesity epidemic, people with little to do will rarely do well. Some take up self destructive habits and others are just waiting to be led by some charismatic character, of which very few are benign
[+] [-] alrs|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataturk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_declaration
[+] [-] sanderjd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waps|11 years ago|reply
1) Barely any muslims at all. The actual society was near 100% Christian at the time with small concentrated pockets of Judaism, and a muslim army concentrated in the capital.
All of the organisations that made the golden age happened, almost without exception, were Roman organisations that existed before the muslim invasion and got more freedom to operate. It ended they started getting systematically killed.
Even so, immediately the dhimma system was introduced. If that's what people call tolerant, then why not say that Nazis were very tolerant of the Jews ? It's essentially the same thing.
2) Even so, this muslim government itself was not tolerant, given for example it's treatment of institutions of learning. Yes they did not just go out and directly destroyed all of them, but ...
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria)While the library was notorious for political interference, keep in mind that it recovered from every attack except this one, mostly because the previous destructions of the library did not involve a massacre (they were not bloodless either, but there is a large difference). The muslims killed everyone they could find in a large area around it before burning it.
Muslims, during the golden age, made a habit of killing scientists. Yes there were a lot of scientists during that period, but to say that the muslim part of that society tolerated them is stretching the truth beyond recognition.
3) Massacres were very likely a common occurence. While not much history is known from that period from Egypt), this is from Spain, same government (more or less), same time period, same "Golden age" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre
This is not an isolated incident in Spain, but a constant during that time period.
[+] [-] firstOrder|11 years ago|reply
The Western countries and Israel have been doing everything they can for the past century to keep Arab democracy weak.
In the soi disant "only democracy in the Middle East", the West bank, claimed by Israel, where ultraorthodox right off the plane from Russia can go to a West Bank settlement to vote, but in which Palestinians who have been there for thousands of years can not vote for any government which Israel or the US recognizes - why not let the Palestinians vote? Israel is no democracy - they claim the West Bank is Israel, in a defacto sense it is, and they do not let Arabs vote. We see the contemplation of Islam causing problems, why don't we look at Judaism in the same manner in how it is against democracy? Meir Kahane said as much himself, and his policies have been running Israel, and the US and European backing of Israel for the past years.
Meanwhile the US and UK destroyed Iranian democracy, its parliament, Mossadegh, and installed a dictator whose CIA-backed secret police arrested, tortured and killed those who wanted a return to democracy. We had France, the UK and Israel invade Egypt in 1956, and on and on and on.
The economic and military might of the west and Israel has been fighting autonomy and democracy in the Middle East for a century, and will continue to in the next century.
Despite this, as we can see the beginnings of in the Arab Spring, as well as a history rooted in pan-Arab nationalism, in the years to come Arabs will see themselves freed from the shackles of imperialism and Zionism, and restore power in the the Middle East to the people of the Middle East.
[+] [-] davidw|11 years ago|reply
I think The Economist is great, and subscribe to it, but perhaps there are more suitable places to discuss middle east politics.
Edit: after a few minutes, Exhibits B, C, D, E and F have been posted.
[+] [-] scalesolved|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedalpete|11 years ago|reply
Palestinians vote(d) for their own leadership. I live in Australia, but I'm not an Australian, therefore, I am not permitted to vote here. I am unlikely to ever gain citizenship here, therefore, I will never be able to vote.
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
First, "fine" is relative. Religious conservatives have been a major force in turning back progress in countries like Bangladesh. The 1972 constitution envisioned a secular republic, and the end result was . . . something less than that. In particular, a series of constitutional amendments eliminated the commitment to secularism and made Islam the state religion. Over the past few decades, there was been a substantial regression in areas like womens' rights, coupled with an increase in public religiousity.
Second, comparing the Arab states to south Asian muslim states is comparing apples and oranges. To use Bangladesh as an example again, that country has had organized government for almost all the past 500 years, between the Mughals, the British Empire, India, Pakistan, and independence. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, while nominally part of several different empires prior to the 20th century, was always on the outskirts of those empires, and was never really an orderly, centrally-administered place. In Saudi Arabia, central government has taken a back seat to tribal power for almost that whole history.
There's lot's of other reasons, obviously. I think a big one is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse. However, I think it can't be taken for granted the degree to which democracy and good government arises out of the ingrained sensibilities of people.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BugBrother|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vested_Property_Act_%28Banglade...
The shock was less that they implemented it, then that I had never heard of it. During the time it was active, my home country gave a large amount of foreign aid to Bangladesh -- while a subgroup (Hindus) was treated more or less like Jews in 1930s Germany.
[+] [-] fiatmoney|11 years ago|reply
Actually, there is a fair amount of evidence that routine endogamy is a significant impediment to the development of democracy.
[+] [-] BugBrother|11 years ago|reply
(Not doubting, interested. I have heard quite a few stories from Indian friends about their (female) relatives running away to marry the wrong religion, both muslim and hindu. But India is a special case, if anything is.)
Edit: Thanks!
[+] [-] throwaway192382|11 years ago|reply
Is religion the central problem? It seems like the religion has a built-in mechanism to perpetuate war and misery: "Jihad." The idea is to carry on fighting at any cost, and to train your children to believe that they too should fight.
If it weren't for the religion, would the people regularly blow themselves up in the middle of civilians?
However, this doesn't quite ring true. Long ago, their culture was the best in the world, and some of the most important scientific advancements were made by Arab scholars. Were they highly religious back then? If so, why was their society stable in spite of warfare being a core tenant of the religion? What changed?
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mef51|11 years ago|reply
Perhaps what changed between the past and today is the shift in focus from an 'inner' jihad to an 'outer' one. Militants justify their violence with the chaotic events of the last century; these are perceived as oppression, much of it due to western countries.
For more on the concept of Jihad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
[+] [-] yxhuvud|11 years ago|reply
As for your question, Islam was a lot more inclusive before the mongol hordes sacked Baghdad and brought an end to the Caliphate.
[+] [-] theophrastus|11 years ago|reply
what has any of this to do with "Hacker News"?[shrug] ah well, if anyone wants to understand anything about middle east history they ought to start with Nina Paley: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/
[+] [-] ebiester|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkaziz|11 years ago|reply
Where are you getting this from? The idea is to fight in self-defence, not "at any cost".
[+] [-] dbrower|11 years ago|reply
Sow. Reap. Repeat.
[+] [-] washedup|11 years ago|reply
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/2012417...
I don't like saying it, but I can't take this Economist article seriously if it doesn't even bring up some of the most important events of the last 100 years in the region. Yes, times are different; the region used to be very successful, promoting education and equality of all types. But it's no mystery as to why those changes came about, and why the region won't easily revert to what it used to be.
[+] [-] BugBrother|11 years ago|reply
It sounds more like the standard way a dictator blame everyone else -- except their corrupt practices and oppression -- to explain why his country is a POS.
Hell, even the traditional scapegoat is officially used, with reprints of Zion's protocols and outright anti semitism in officially sanctioned media.
I.e. the same as we had in the west a few decades to centuries ago. (See kings, dictators, et al.)
Edit: Also, the article do touch the Western influence after the centuries of Turkish oppression, without using "Sykes Picot": "In much of the Arab world the colonial powers continued to control or influence events until the 1960s. Arab countries have not yet succeeded in fostering the institutional prerequisites of democracy—the give-and-take of parliamentary discourse, protection for minorities, the emancipation of women, a free press, independent courts and universities and trade unions."
Edit 2: That was quick down votes. :-)
Edit 3: I never argued that it wasn't a mixed picture -- England was early -- and that some were less primitive than my home country, rayiner.
[+] [-] alrs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valarauca1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smacktoward|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebiester|11 years ago|reply
PS, you speak as if the decriminalization of homosexuality was on par with major structural changes in how the state worked. How... peculiar.
[+] [-] andrelaszlo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephby|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnazim|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cicero|11 years ago|reply
The issue of how God interacts with the created world was an open question in the Middle Ages. Everyone agreed that God was the creator and sovereign Lord of the universe, but there were differing views about how that played out.
One school of thought had the concepts of primary and secondary causality. God is responsible for the existence of all things; he is the primary cause. However, God gives created things the power of causality so that they are secondary causes. Therefore a billiard ball has the "power" to cause other billiard balls to move when it strikes them. These powers of secondary causality are properties of created things and thus they can be studied and understood. Such a belief led to early forms of scientific inquiry.
The other school of thought was that God is the direct and only cause of everything that happens. Secondary causality is just an illusion. God directly moves all of the billiard balls. Just because billiard ball B starts to move after ball A comes into contact with it does not mean A was the cause of B's movement. Rather, God is the cause of all movement. It is the ultimate "correlation does not imply causation" argument. In fact, the current state of the universe has no bearing on the state of the universe in the next instance of time. God recreates the universe every moment in time solely according to his Will, rather like a video game engine completely renders the screen image for every frame. The image of one frame does not cause the image of the next frame. All frames come directly from the game engine.
The second school of thought ended up winning in the Muslim world because it exalted the Will of God as ultimate and without competition. Philosophical and scientific inquiry were squelched, but fortunately this happened after the great works of the first school had already passed into Christian hands. Since God is primarily Love rather than Will in Christian theology, it was reasonable to think that God, motivated by love, would give a measure of control to his creatures.
I hope I have not misrepresented the ideas of the book. It is on my reading list, but I have not gotten to it yet.
1: http://www.amazon.com/Closing-Muslim-Mind-Intellectual-Islam...
[+] [-] azth|11 years ago|reply
Not really. This is a complex philosophical and religious topic, and it is not as black and white as was presented in your post. There is no single view that dominates the Islamic landscape as you mentioned.
[+] [-] hiphopyo|11 years ago|reply
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/108...
[+] [-] happyscrappy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sampo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] platz|11 years ago|reply
http://idlewords.com/2014/07/sana_a.htm
[+] [-] bane|11 years ago|reply
One thing I've been surprised to learn is how much of a role various Christian groups in Korea played in anti-governmnet activities going all the way back to the Japanese Colonial period. There's some interesting and unique history there with respect to Korea's history with Christianity -- including being one of the only countries with a history of self-conversion, before missionaries ever showed up there.
More recently, the parallels between the economic development of the North and the South are quite striking. While the North made some very big economic development strides early on, the long term focus on almost pure heavy industry and military development caused the country to stagnate and economically regress -- despite an almost constant stream of aid and support from first the Soviet Bloc and then China. The infrastructure has begun to crumble because the state never bothered developing the entire economic ecosystem needed to keep it running.
The South on the other hand, under the military dictator, Park Chung-hee, took a more step-wise foundation building approach that's yielded tremendous long-term success for the country. Seizing power from an incompetently run, but democratic, government. Park put in place a complex series of programs designed to build up an export-oriented economy through gradual development of industry from light-industry to heavy.
It was tremendously corrupt, and built on lots of favor trading. But he used the power of the military and the government to keep the economy focused on pure growth, and pragmatically eliminated "non-essential" economic activities. Starting with things like sugar refineries and textile manufacturing, the country started working up to construction (a significant number of U.S. projects during the Vietnam war were built by Korean companies), then shipbuilding, cars, petrochemicals, etc. Each designed to both provide economic opportunities for export, as well as provide domestic capabilities for the next steps.
No political activity was allowed and the country was basically run like a giant, efficient, no-nonsense, military apparatus for decades. It took until the 80s before it was really time to switch off from this into the more liberal and democratic country we see today.
He financed all this with a very pragmatic finance scheme, hitting up Japans booming economy during the 60s and 70s, despite a great deal of animosity between the two countries. And then more importantly sold back the finished goods to Japan and the U.S. markets.
It was under Park that South Korea started doing major construction projects in the middle-East. The technical ability of South Korean construction companies can't be underestimated -- the Burj Khalifa was built by Samsung.
Despite significant student demonstrations and unrest during the Park administration (and the similar Chun Doo-hwan one that closely followed), most people were simply too busy working and scratching out a living to take to the streets, or form anti-government organizations.
There's other parallels as well, extremely low participation in the work force by women, a history of foreign meddling, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that idle hands may just be the source of a lot of this misery. In richer Arab countries, most of the work is done by foreigners on the cheap and locals live off of the proceeds, they're bored and have nothing else to do. In poorer ones, people need jobs, are desperate and again, have nothing else to do.
There's been some half-hearted attempts to provide other activities. KAUST, for example, is a Science and Tech graduate-level university that's had billions invested into it. But one of the interesting points my book brings up is that setting up advanced schooling, or advanced industry, doesn't make sense unless a Park style staged economic program is put in place first to build all of the necessary social, educational and economic foundations to support these advanced industries. You can't really leapfrog these things, but you can make progress unbelievably fast.
The real problem is that, at least for the oil rich parts of the Arab world, there isn't much incentive to really do these things. If any place might have a go, someplace oil-poor, like Egypt, might be a logical place to kick off something like a "Tiger of the Nile" program. I know I'm not the first person to think of this either.
http://www.academia.edu/5319334/A_Comparison_of_the_Politica...
http://www.e-ir.info/2013/12/23/south-korea-egypt-and-waller...
http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC057-13-two-dictator...
[+] [-] rayiner|11 years ago|reply
This phenomenon has a name, the resource curse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse.
Note also, that having a resource-oriented economy tends to vastly overstate GDP. A dollar of exported crude oil counts as a dollar of "national income" but it's not income any more than selling off your furniture is income. You're just converting assets into cash. This phenomenon makes countries that derive their income from selling resources think they're richer than they really are.
[+] [-] tsuyoshi|11 years ago|reply
South Korea (per capita GDP $24k) is hardly the only success story in that part of the world. Japan ($38k), Hong Kong ($38k), Singapore ($55k), and Taiwan ($20k) have basically pulled off the same trick. All these places have in common that they are either Chinese (mostly Chinese, in Singapore's case) or very closely related culturally to China (Korea and Japan are more closely related to China than, for example, Laos or Myanmar). They are all small, without huge agricultural potential or much other resources, but with good access to the sea.
A more recent, and possibly more relevant example is Malaysia ($11k). Malaysia is an interesting case. It is majority Muslim, but it has a significant non-Muslim Chinese minority that controls most of the economy. It is a large petroleum exporter, but it has successfully expanded to manufacturing and services, arguably escaping the "resource curse".
You might be tempted to conclude that Malaysia pulled this off because of their Chinese population (and I know some Malays have said exactly this), but there are counterexamples to this - Thailand ($6k), Indonesia ($4k), Vietnam ($2k) and Cambodia ($1k) all have significant ethnic Chinese populations. On the other hand, ethnic Chinese control business in all those countries far out of proportion to their share of the population.
What useful lessons Arabs can draw from this I have no idea. Well, I have some idea: just look at North Korea ($0.6k) and Vietnam ($2k). The lesson isn't just simply "communism is bad" though, because they are well behind Russia ($15k) and even Cuba ($6k).
[+] [-] Shivetya|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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