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What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

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Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#101

Post by rayiner »

nine_k wrote: post #83
Theodores wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that there are many national identities that are similar. Poland is an example. Regarding the article, before and after pictures of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to name a few places are the same. Prosperous sovereign nations outside Western Europe and North America are bad for business.

I wonder why prosperous sovereign nations in South Asia are not bad for business. Maybe because they don't have the oil.

The resource curse is probably part of it. But another part is that the Ottoman Empire conquered all of these middle eastern societies at varying levels of development, and the european powers that inherited those colonies were faced with complex sectarian conflict that didn't exist in asia. With the separation of British India into Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, you've solved 90% of the sectarian conflict that exists in the region. In Lebanon, by contrast, history has left you with Christians, Shia, and Sunni all living in the same place, such that you have a constitutional structure where christians and muslims are each guaranteed half the seats in the legislature, and other roles such as president and prime minister are divided by religion.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#104

Post by martincmartin »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #90
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2016 forgotten already.

Pretty sure everybody understood that trump won in 2016. There were questions about what happened during the campaign though .

In January 2017, several Democrats objected to the certification of Trump's win. See for example

https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-democrats-object-mor...

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#105

Post by rayiner »

eldaisfish wrote: post #61
guykdm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lebanese" is a modern invention. Lebanon is a contrived post colonial state with no historical foundations. Those most usually fail horribly.

One could make the same argument for a country like India. There is no "India" in the sense of an ethno-linguisic grouping. India is more akin to the European Union but even more diverse. The Indian state has survived for seventy five years now. Just as the French and British dismembered the Ottoman empire to create modern Lebanon, so too did the British dismember the Indian empire to create India and Pakistan.

I don't think that is especially accurate. India has a lot of ethno-linguistic diversity, but has hundreds of years of centralized administrative rule even before the British: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire. That's longer than Germany or Italy have had centralized governance.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#106

Post by bnralt »

VictorPath wrote: post #93
bnralt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. didn't install the Shah. He'd been in power since 1941, when the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran forced the abdication of his father. He didn't have as much power as his father, so there was a power struggle between him and members of parliament, but he still wielded a great deal of political power in the country pre-1953. One only need look at the 1949 constitutional assembly, where the Shah sought and succee…

> He'd been in power since 1941 Does that include when he had fled to Italy in 1953? The reports were he had little desire to go back to Iran, and the CIA and SIS met trying to figure out how to get him to go back to Iran > the Iranian military were ones who ultimately removed him That's how it usually happens, the military elements with contact with foreign powers are usually who do in the local nationalists.

> Does that include when he had fled to Italy in 1953?

There were ~4 days between the Shah fleeing and royalist forces taking power. I supposed if you want to consider those a 4 day interregnum you can.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#107

Post by teh_klev »

googlryas wrote: post #86
campground wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran may not have been colonized but their democratic government was overthrown by the US and Britain to prevent them nationalizing their fossil fuel supply. I often wonder what the Middle East would look like today if Iran has been able to use their oil wealth for their own democratic civil development.

That's not really what happened. The Shah was the ultimate authority in Iran, and he asked the Prime Minister to step down, which was his legal right. The Prime Minister said "No thanks, I'm the boss now", at which point the US/UK helped the Shah assert his actual legal right under their existing rule of law. Can you tell me - if Queen Elizabeth asked that Boris Johnson step down from role as PM(which is her right),…

That's quite the re-writing of history there. The Shah removed Mosaddegh from power in 1952 but re-instated him almost immediately due to pressure from pro-democracy supporters. The Shah was then exiled after a failed coup attempt by one of his Imperial Guard colonels effectively leaving him powerless.

The rest is history and we've gotten to where we're at today because the UK and the US interfered with a nascent democracy because...oil.

> if Queen Elizabeth asked that Boris Johnson step down from role as PM(which is her right), and Boris Johnson instead refused and said that he was now the leader of the UK, whose side would you throw your support behind?

Regardless of Johnson's behaviour and incompetence I'd hold my nose and throw my support behind the Prime Minister. Such autocratic behaviour should not be tolerated. I should reveal that I'm an anti-monarchist and a believe that states should strip any and all powers from from their monarchies, even if they are quaint and historical anachronisms.

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#108

Post by [deleted] »

googlryas wrote: post #86
campground wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran may not have been colonized but their democratic government was overthrown by the US and Britain to prevent them nationalizing their fossil fuel supply. I often wonder what the Middle East would look like today if Iran has been able to use their oil wealth for their own democratic civil development.

That's not really what happened. The Shah was the ultimate authority in Iran, and he asked the Prime Minister to step down, which was his legal right. The Prime Minister said "No thanks, I'm the boss now", at which point the US/UK helped the Shah assert his actual legal right under their existing rule of law. Can you tell me - if Queen Elizabeth asked that Boris Johnson step down from role as PM(which is her right),…

[deleted]

Re: What Beirut was like before the war (2019)

#109

Post by _nedR »

james-redwood wrote: post #6
rayiner wrote: post #3

Lots of places in the Middle East were more European like this before the colonial influences weakened and the Muslim majority populations got back more power over their own countries. Egypt and Iran are similar. The nostalgia is somewhat uncomfortable because in some respects things were better because they were better, but in others it’s the perception of things being better because they’re more relatable to Europe…

Lebanon became independent in 1945. Civil war began in 1975, largely as a result of radical Islamist Palestinians who had left Palestine and wanted an Islamic state in Lebanon. Lebanon beforehand, it is important to note, was not Muslim majority at all. It was Christian and Druze, and that was the very foundation of the country itself. It was never the country of Muslims in the first place. Iran was also never coloni…

> a result of radical Islamist Palestinians who had left Palestine

You mean the native palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from their homeland and became refugees in Lebanon (and Jordan and Syria)

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