Promoting true democracy in the Arab/Muslim world

[cerulean]

An article from last year, but interesting nonetheless:

http://www.observer.co.uk/waronterro...564700,00.html
Fighting Islam's Ku Klux Klan
The Muslim world cannot forever attribute all its ills to the Great Satan, America, writes the Iraqi dissident, Kanan Makiya
...
Attribution of all of the ills of one's own world to either the great Satan, America, or the little Satan, Israel, has been the driving force of Arab politics since 1967. As a powerful undercurrent of Arab culture and politics, it has been around much longer than that. After 1967, however, it became the legitimising cement upon which such murderous regimes as Saddam Hussein's Iraq were built.

From the hands of secular Arab nationalists, anti-Americanism was passed on to religious zealots. In 1979, it fused with anti-Shah sentiments to become the animating force of the Iranian revolution and, with that seminal event, major sections of the Islamic movement. Today, it has become a murderous brew of passions fuelled by paranoia and frustration.
...
To argue, as many Arabs and Muslims are doing today (and not a few liberal Western voices), that 'Americans should ask themselves why they are so hated in the world' is to make such a concession; it is to provide a justification, however unwittingly, for this kind of warped mindset. The thinking is the same as the 'linkage' dreamed up by Saddam Hussein when he tried to get the Arab world to believe that he had occupied Kuwait in 1990 in order to liberate Palestine. The difference being that if the argument was intellectually vacuous then, it is a thousand times more so now.

Worse than being wrong, however, it is morally bankrupt, to say nothing of being counterproductive. For every attempt to 'rationalise' or 'explain' the new anti-Americanism rampant in so much of the Muslim and Arab worlds bolsters the project of the perpetrators of the heinous act of 11 September, which is to blur the lines that separate their sect of a few hundred people from hundreds of millions of peace-loving Muslims and Arabs.
...

[elke]

The trouble is that none of these nice people offer practical steps to be taken to fight this "KKK of Islamic world". Here and there there seem to be voices of reason raised, but mostly "there" (i.e. in the West), and mostly in generalities. Yet again, the devil is in the details: the hows, the wheres, and the whens.

[Vic]

OK, Elke, next week you and me will be appointed the acting President and Prime Minister (feel free to make your choice) of the Republic of Saudi Arabia. What do we do to accomplish our main task - making the country a place that serves the interests of its citizens?

Here are some proposals:

1) Make it self-reliant. Educate the population in professions required for everyday life, not Islamic Sciences or whatever such subjects are called. The country's inhabitants should be capable of building their houses and doing their laundry by themselves where needed.
2) Maximize the oil revenues, i.e. raise the prices.
3) The oil reserves are limited, think of the future and invest the income in a productive way: build local industries, etc.
4) Don't waste the oil revenues on Western imports (luxury cars, consumer goods etc.) the country doesn't really need.

Further proposals are welcome

And now guess who will be hurt, should something of the kind become reality one day.

[elke]

Sounds good... ironic to have two Russian Jews in charge of Saudi Arabia, isn't it?

Yes, it's easy to be an arm-chair politician - even easier than an arm chair general.

I can feel a lenghthy response coming on, I will have to wait until after work for that one...

[Mediocrates]

SA is run as the personal property of the Saud al Aziz family. There are 7000 people who own and operate the nation. Because they rarely trust each other, one of the few key jobs not held by a genetic prince is the Minister of Finance slot.

Even with all the money (70% of the GDP comes from oil) and power there are few qualified 'worthies' who are able to run the infrastructure of the country, its army or industries. Most of the hands on work is performed by foreigners. Literacy in practical terms hovers around 10-15%. In technical ability it's a mere fraction of that. Fewer than 350 nontechnical books were published or translated into Arabic last year. Any education beyond basic religious instruction is performed for a tiny elite and outside of the country. SA industry and the armed forces would last about 60 days of steady state non 'active' operations w/o Western expertise, maintenance and spare parts.

SA does not make or build anything on their own. They claim to be able to feed their own people but the rest of the world sees no direct evidence of this. There is virtually no R+D in SA.

Women cannot drive, work, go to school or be unescorted. illiteracy for women is over 95%. An alarming percentage of the population is children.

I give it 20 years, tops before it collapses. It probably won't turn into a civil war it will probably just stop functioning altogether like the FSU. Once the welfare system grinds to a halt and there is no water food medicine or way to get oil money the princes will get in their Gulfstream jets and head for Europe.

This is the middle eastern Arab muslim's last stand and they know it.

[Vic]

originally posted by Elke
Sounds good... ironic to have two Russian Jews in charge of Saudi Arabia, isn't it?

Why not a European-American cooperation model? A pilot project? (Which would prove that the world could never do without Russian Jews, of course)

Yes, it's easy to be an arm-chair politician - even easier than an arm chair general.

I must admit that my aim was much more modest: the perfectly Marxist cui bono . Who needs SA the way it is now, except the 7000+ princes? Whose interests would be hurt by positive reforms? Same goes for other countries in the region, of course.



-----------------------------------------


First, a correction:

originally posted by Mediocrates
I give it 20 years, tops before it collapses. It probably won't turn into a civil war it will probably just stop functioning altogether like the FSU.

In case "FSU" stands for fmr. USSR, it - or at least a larger part of it - never "stopped functioning altogether", precisely because of a professionally well-educated population capable of absorbing economic and political shocks. It paid a high price so far, but the place is partially functioning: houses are being built and repaired, children attend schools, etc. , even if a leading Russian opposition politician recently warned of the "Saudi Arabization" of Russia (i.e. a high income from the export of natural resources not balanced by internal development). This scenario is unlikely to repeat itself in SA, the results of a collapse would be predictably much worse.

As for the rest:

Even with all the money (70% of the GDP comes from oil) and power there are few qualified 'worthies' who are able to run the infrastructure of the country, its army or industries. Most of the hands on work is performed by foreigners. Literacy in practical terms hovers around 10-15%. In technical ability it's a mere fraction of that. Fewer than 350 nontechnical books were published or translated into Arabic last year. Any education beyond basic religious instruction is performed for a tiny elite and outside of the country. SA industry and the armed forces would last about 60 days of steady state non 'active' operations w/o Western expertise, maintenance and spare parts.

Which makes me wonder yet again why the West, US included, pays so much attention to what is called the SA'an government. Pressurizing them on political issues would cost little effort, it seems, so why pretend they are a serious factor in politics (the joke called "Saudi peace plan" etc.)?

This is the middle eastern Arab muslim's last stand and they know it.

Huh? There are plenty other Arab Muslim countries around, all of Northern Africa, for one, then the small rich ones. I don't see how they will be affected, other than through proliferation of terror groups.

"Guardian", a leading newspaper of the Saudis' former colonial masters, runs an excellent, if depressive special section on them, btw.:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/saudi/0,11599,641778,00.html

[elke]

I don't think that other than the 7000 princes, anyone is benefitting from the SA as it is now. Fancy having a whole country named after a family, in the 21st century! It's pathetic!

Although I am certainly not communist, taking a partial page out of that book , I think that the first thing that should be done is deposing those jokers and installing a temporary government comprised of Arabian intellectuals. I know they don't seem to be anything much to look at, but there's got to be some normal people there! Confiscate much of the royal wealth, after a good trial for extortion and bribe-taking, close down all those Madrassas the world over, and that should be able to provide seed money for the education reform.

Not being an economist, I don't know if the world oil prices are at their equilibrium or could stand increase/decrease in a truly free market. Incidentally, OPEC would be illegal under the US anti-trust laws, from what I understand, and with good reason - so those prices may actually be too high to begin with. As the case may be, foreign investment in things other than oil should be encouraged as much as possible: tourism is obvious, certain types of manufacturing may be plausible with cheap labor, institute an "on-the-job" training incentives for semi-professional work, and other such things.

OK, I'll have to think some more on this to continue...

[Mediocrates]

In case "FSU" stands for fmr. USSR, it - or at least a larger part of it - never "stopped functioning altogether", precisely because of a professionally well-educated population capable of absorbing economic and political shocks.

True enough but it concerns me when we see a resurgence of typhoid, typhus, cholera, infant mortality, aids, std, a reversal of the life expectancy...public health & nutrition seem to be in free fall. High tech engineers and scientists are begging for food, selling their expertise to the highest bidder. The banking system coming apart at every nail, the standard currency is now the american dollar. Military controls are becoming increasingly fragile...maybe I paint too bleak a picture. At any rate the FSU will eventually in all likelihood pull themselves out. I remember reading George Kenan write that the 3CP had the potential of being a very well run third world country. I think their own oil wealth will help them with this.

Huh? There are plenty other Arab Muslim countries around, all of Northern Africa, for one,
then the small rich ones. I don't see how they will be affected, other than through proliferation of terror groups.

SA is the leader - the hub of its own empire like the 3CP was for its satellite states. It has the ability to set price, quotas and generally serves as the spiritual core of Islam and of how the musilm world wishes to be viewed by the west.

[cerulean]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1027328443706
Jul. 22, 2002
'Cherchez la femme'
By MARTIN SHERMAN

In a highly controversial article, "Clash of Civilizations?" published in 1993, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington predicted that the future lines of global conflict will be drawn not between nation states, as they have been during most of modern history, but between "civilizations" or "supra-national cultures."
[...]
There is, however, at least one course of action that can facilitate an uncompromising, long-term engagement against radical Islam, without contravening the moral tenets of liberal democracy.
This is a course of action capable of strategically undermining the foundations of the Islamic world in its present form, and certainly of the fundamentalist components therein.

The centerpiece of this stratagem is the Muslim woman, and her rights to civil liberties. It would be difficult to imagine any other measure which would cut the ground more effectively from under the pillars of Muslim society than a radical upgrading of the status of women in Islamic countries. Indeed, experience shows that advancement of women produces effects that run strongly counter to the factors which nourish fundamentalist extremism.
[...]
=======

The article suggests women in Muslim countries may need to be armed as they take steps to bring about their freedom. (Maybe this is a good idea, but not terribly practical for a young mother of several small children.) The article also mentions the general cause and effect relationship between women's education and a lower birth rate, but this relationship has not worked in Gaza.

Among other things, the article suggests: imposing punitive measures against countries which flagrantly violate women's rights such as curtailing diplomatic privileges of the representatives of such nations.

This is a good idea, but very idealistic. Women's rights in other countries are occasionally used as a supporting justification for particular actions, but not as a reason for a trade boycott.

[Vic]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
True enough but it concerns me when we see a resurgence of typhoid, typhus, cholera, infant mortality, aids, std, a reversal of the life expectancy...public health & nutrition seem to be in free fall. High tech engineers and scientists are begging for food, selling their expertise to the highest bidder. The banking system coming apart at every nail, the standard currency is now the american dollar. Military controls are becoming increasingly fragile...maybe I paint too bleak a picture. At any rate the FSU will eventually in all likelihood pull themselves out. I remember reading George Kenan write that the 3CP had the potential of being a very well run third world country. I think their own oil wealth will help them with this.

There are more than enough causes for concern there. What I was trying to say is that SA would be much worse off. I don't know whether the overall impact would be less serious b/c it is much smaller and has less arms at its disposal.

SA is the leader - the hub of its own empire like the 3CP was for its satellite states. It has the ability to set price, quotas and generally serves as the spiritual core of Islam and of how the musilm world wishes to be viewed by the west.

Are you sure about that? I am not. It is true that Mecca lies there, but I doubt that this fact alone grants any special status to the Saudi government.

[Mediocrates]

No I'm not sure of that. But they have the ability to shape the agenda as well as the general direction and policy of OPEC to the extent that they can move price and production numbers where they wish. They have the most advanced Western stocked military in the Arab world. They spread their money around all over the world to spread Wahhabism - to the tune of $20billion dollars last year to build Wahhabi schools. They have the most advanced technical infrastructure of the Arab countries, the tallest buildings.

True they don't dictate to Iran or Iraq but the 3CP rarely told the PRC what to do.

[signupforpeace]

Day after day this goes on yet the real root is never challenged...

the following is a quote from a teacher to the world - Krishan Kaul - his religious and national ties are irrelevant....this is a quote from a sanskrit shloka...

'when the mouth is parched, one drinks water, sweet and scented; tormented by hunger, one takes a morsel of food, that is rice with condiments; when the fire of passion catches the heart, one embraces one's wife fondly; thus [the] counter-action of pain is really misunderstood by people as some positive happiness.'

If this statement means anything to you and you want to make a personal commitment to peace - please join our petition...

at http://www.signupforpeace.com/petition.asp

or find out more at http://www.signupforpeace.com

Thanks.

[cerulean]

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