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Title: Radical political religion will soon shape the Mideast
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URL Source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio ... oon-shape-the-mideast-1.340271
Published: Feb 1, 2011
Author: Ron Leshem
Post Date: 2011-02-01 00:58:54 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 6499
Comments: 12
When the time comes for genuine elections in Egypt, the country's future will be determined not by university graduates in Cairo but by 70 million villagers. And also, for example, by the one million people living in the City of the Dead, the cemetery in northern Cairo. They will vote for the Muslim Brotherhood because no liberal party can give them the rapid change desperately longed for by the masses, who suffer from shortages of flour, clean drinking water, jobs and housing. The parties will be myriad and fragmented, colorless and disappointing, left-wing and right-wing - and all of them hostile to Israel, of course. An unstable, rudderless transition period, a parliamentary democracy in the Turkish model, if not the Iranian, will give rise to a religious regime that within a few years will presumably be in control of the best-trained and best-equipped army in the Middle East. Many urban, educated city dwellers will calmly accept the will of the people, seeing it as an alternative to the futile, fawning pursuit of the culturally hollow West, which gave birth to exploitative dictatorships. The people love Islam - the culture, the tradition. The proponents of sane and secular freedom will wake up too late, just like the socialists and liberals who took to the streets to bring down the Shah of Iran, only to be hanged in the city squares when the transition government in Tehran was replaced with darkness. Those who believe that the fear of losing the U.S. lifeline will rein in this process underestimate the Egyptian people. Radical, political religion is what will shape the Middle East in the coming decades. Even in states where a tiny, tired minority rules over an oppressed majority, like Syria, the alternative's day will come. Freedom, in our secular interpretation of the concept, will not easily represent an alternative. The Gaza Strip is already in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, which took the election decisively, and Lebanon will be controlled by Hezbollah. Islam is the solution, according to the slogan of the movement that was born in Egypt 90 years ago. The masses in the dictatorships are losing their dread of the regime. For them, the new and relevant "leader," who rules and stirs the spirits, is freedom of information and of technology, the most effective manipulators of which and often its big winners are the fundamentalists. That is the case with the Al Jazeera television network, which is controlled by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood but which cynically benefits from the support of international human rights organizations, which see it as battling for freedom of expression in the Arab world. The world does not necessarily move forward; it generally goes in circles. And progress does not necessarily lead to advancement. In late 1970s in Iran, too, it was audio cassettes of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's sermons that spread the revolutionary message. It is entirely possible that within a decade or two Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank will be part of the axis of political Islam. In two decades or so, more than half of Israeli youth will be either Arab or ultra-Orthodox Jews. Most of the Arabs will presumably support the Islamic Movement. The Haredim, for their part, will join the workforce, even high-tech, but their support for political religion and for a justice system ruled by Jewish law will not change. People can become accustomed to anything, and we too, presumably, will gradually get used to religious edicts and a changing reality. Many of us, members of the productive, liberal public, will give up and flee in desperation. Others will remain optimistic. Or skeptical.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
US/Israeli/UK been trying this since 9/11 The Islamists refused to join the revolt in Tunisis/Egypt. The Secular Military now. ;} And not liking either US/Israel/UK. ME kings in trouble. During the Bush administration, nothing contradicted the absurd claim that the US invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than Washington's ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution that did more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. Yet, far from calling for its journalists to be respected and freed from imprisonment and unlawful detention, the Bush administration waged war against Al Jazeera and its journalists. The US bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001. In March 2003, two of its financial correspondents were kicked off the trading floor of NASDAQ and the NY Stock Exchange. "In light of Al-Jazeera's recent conduct during the war, in which they have broadcast footage of US POWs in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention, they are not welcome to broadcast from our facility at this time," said NASDAQ's spokesperson. Later NASDAQ backed off that claim and said the networks accreditation had been revoked for "security reasons."
Revolutionary Rule of Thumb: When the ruler can see the barbed wire and tanks around his palace either the ruler's a prisoner and/or 100's of thousands are about to die.
Remember when the US was bombing Al Jazeera and Killing Reuters' Reporters? And now the only way Obama can find out what's going on. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA 8D
Btw Paul Craig Robert's correct: " What dictators do is to eliminate alternative leadership. Potential leaders are either assassinated, exiled, or imprisoned. Moreover, anything short of a full-fledge revolution, such as the Iranian one, leaves in place a bureaucracy accustomed to business as usual. In addition, Egypt and the country’s military have grown accustomed to American support and will want the money to keep flowing. It is the flow of this money that ensures the purchase of the replacement government. Only when the Secret Service name is changed. State secrets are revealed. And the reaction of the US/Israel/UK becomes hostile will you know that the Masses have another Nassir. ;}
And that's the USEMpire's real problem. Being Insolvent, it can no longer deliver. The colonies revolt.
It's not so much that they refused i- the protests came upon so quick the Islamists were taken flat footed - probably because religious types are not facebook or twitter.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Right, they all live in caves and have no access to news, and no communications with their neighbor in the next cave. They're totally clueless without Sarah's tweets. /s
The Jews are killing off their own stock, unlike the Muzzies where abortion is illegal among the militant sects.
Islamists in those countries tend to be older. This was more of a facebook revolution. Islamists are more like myspace users.......
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
In Revolution, you're quick or you're dead. An in Egypt I know for a fact the MB and Islamists refused outright.
No one is asking the right question. WHY will radical Islam soon shape the Mideast? Because the Mideast has largely been run by some of the most brutal and repressive regimes in the world for the last several decades. Those regimes have been supported by the West and the people being oppressed understand that. A funny thing happened when the Cold War ended. The U.S. largely ended its support for tyrants in Asia and Latin America because their wasn't any more communist threat. For the most part, with some notable exceptions, countries in Asia and Latin American have moved forwarded both politically and economically. Unfortunately, the U.S. government continued to send billions of dollars a year to Mubarak in Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. The government continued to chum around with the Saudi Royal Family, who runs one of the harshest regimes in the world. In 1990, the U.S. government sent American kids to their deaths to defend one Mideast dictator (the Emir of Kuwait) from another Mideast dictator. In 2003, the U.S. government sent more America kids to die so we could turn a Sunni run Arabic country over to Shiites who are in cahoots with Perisan Iran. On top of this, the U.S. government has continued to send Israel billions of dollars and weapons every year while the right-wing in Israel turned Gaza and West Bank into virtual prison camps. Why does it surprise anyone that there is turmoil in Egypt and elsewhere in the region? It's was very predictable and only a matter of time. Time has now run out and ultimately this will be a good thing.
Ditto.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Title: Radical political religion will soon shape the Mideast
#2. To: All (#1)
#3. To: All (#2)
#4. To: All (#3)
#5. To: All (#4)
(Edited)
It is the flow of this money that ensures the purchase of the replacement government.
#6. To: mcgowanjm (#1)
The Islamists refused to join the revolt in Tunisis/Egypt.
#7. To: Godwinson (#6)
(Edited)
the Islamists were taken flat footed - probably because religious types are not facebook or twitter.
#8. To: All, Brian gulps Wang (#0)
www.johnstonsarchive.net/...y/abortion/ab-israel.html
#9. To: hondo68 (#7)
#10. To: Godwinson (#6)
#11. To: A K A Stone (#0)
(Edited)
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill
#12. To: jwpegler (#11)
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