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How the Arab World Came Apart

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#61

Post by douche »

tdkl wrote: post #22
berntb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, will read after work. :-) It was surprising. From what I've read, people living for a long time in dictatorships are quite intolerant and hateful. (There were quite a bit of intolerance in East Germany after 1989, too. And examples from Eastern Europe are well known.) If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". Or maybe I a…

No, you're just naive in that a community ruled by religious narratives will suddenly jump to democracy. Look at age of enlightenment. They never had one.

The age of enlightenment only came after a series of religious/civil wars that wracked Europe for hundreds of years, set brother against brother, depopulated and ravaged huge swatches of Germany, central Europe and France, and essentially broke the temporal power of the churches and the papacy.

That's not the most pleasant blueprint to follow...

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#62

Post by TeMPOraL »

fsloth wrote: post #24
mms1973 wrote: post #12

I recommend to read Raphael Patai's classic "The Arab mind" to try to understand. Don't drink the NYT koolaid.

Some sources claim the book is racist and not backed by solid research. Any opinions on this? (looking for a good book on the topic).

> Some sources claim the book is racist

Funny thing - given how easy it is to get an "racist" label these days, I'd treat this as a signal that the book may be touching on some controversial topics or reaching unpopular conclusions.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#63

Post by crdoconnor »

douche wrote: post #54
return0 wrote: post #38

Long piece , but it fails in that it does not give a coherent message. Pieces of stories here and there are not history. First of all , lets stop calling it Arab Spring. If anything it's the arab Autumn of civil wars, where all arabs are united only in their resentment of the west. Secondly, let's talk about people, their souls, aspirations, and culture instead of political history. Given that these states were built…

Before they were western protectorates, they were Ottoman protectorates. It's been a mess for a long, long time. Once the oil runs out, or we move beyond oil, the whole region will be relegated to the kind of backwater it became after the advent of world-wide oceanic shipping in the age of sail and the overland trade routes were superseded.

Once the oil stops being important (Just Another Commodity like, e.g. iron ore), life will probably improve for citizens of the middle east:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

We'll stop meddling and making things worse. The leaders of those countries won't be able to substitute oil wealth for popular support or funnel money into pushing Wahhabism.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#64

Post by yardie »

hacker42 wrote: post #19
not_a_terrorist wrote: post #7

tl:dr 100 pages: 1) People are fucking poor and hungry (extreme wealth inequalities) 2) Salafi/Wahhabi (Saudi) funding of islamism 3) Antediluvian hatred between people (it goes, way, way, way farther back than Sykes-Picot)

It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.

Have you met any Muslims that pray? Do you know anything about it all? 2 of those prayers occur before and after business hours. And even if they were working there's not a whole lot going on at 4:30am. 2 are short coffee break level prayers. A little meditation and a quick baslama and get on with it. And the longest, conveniently occurs around lunchtime anyway.

I fail to see how prayer affects anyone's potential in a negative way.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#65

Post by eli_gottlieb »

abalone wrote: post #42
hacker42 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.

Because Christians would never pray a lot, slavishly follow an old book or oppress women?

Well they did, which is exactly how we know it's all a massively bad idea.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#66

Post by jessaustin »

pjc50 wrote: post #11
louwrentius wrote: post #4

I haven't read the article yet but from the introduction I sense a narrative that the current situation is due to the 'illegitimate' second war in Irak? So it's Amerika's fault as usual?

Where do those spare 'k's come from in America and Iraq?

I read them as parody. The sort of person who would fault USA for Arab problems might be the same sort of person who would write "Amerikkka", emphasizing a shameful aspect of our culture, and OP disagrees with that person on both counts.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#67

Post by icebraining »

jomamaxx wrote: post #30
jomamaxx wrote: post #28

Ha ha ha ... ha ... The 'Arab World' was never together. Ever. All of the 'Anti-American Imperialism' kids here should remember that the bulk of the 'Arab World' is 'Arab By The Sword'. Arabic is spoken across North Africa, in particular because of Arab Colonialism of the 9th-12th centuries. Not since then has the 'Arab World' been anything resembling 'together'. The Turks kept them (and there was not much of them) u…

Didn't finish that sentence: 'of course invading Iraq was a huge mistake' ...

I'm still surprised at how people let them off with "a mistake". Cheney himself detailed very clearly what would happen, just a few years back. How can it be a mistake when you predict that some action will have a certain consequence, you do the action, and you're right in your prediction?

https://archive.org/details/youtube-6BEsZMvrq-I

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#68

Post by hellrich »

hacker42 wrote: post #44
ihsw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam is unrelated to the emotional and intellectual deficits imposed upon victims of poverty and disenfranchisement -- not only that but I think there's a strong argument in that a task performed five times daily repeated ad infinitum doesn't cause cultural impairment, nor does the age of a given mandate. Furthermore, I think maximizing for "human potential" is a red herring -- the inevitable end-result is exercisin…

Sure, the praying alone would not create a huge amount of cognitive load, but it is just symptomatic of an overly binding religion. It must be terribly confusing as a Muslim to see other cultures vastly outperforming them even though these cultures don't follow the word of Allah, e.g. by not throwing people off of cliffs for having wild gay sex and not stoning women for adultery. These are literally the kinds of rule…

Similar punishments are prescribed by the Old Testament, so not specific to Islam. Luckily religion was replaced as a moral and especially legal guideline in "the West" thanks to the Enlightenment and the French revolution.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#69

Post by bogomipz »

nl wrote: post #43
sevenless wrote: post #13

The NYTimes itself is also a considerable part of the reason, considering Judith Miller, Friedman, Krauthammer and many others propagandized hard for invading Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq was a stupid idea, and the NYTimes should be ashamed for that. But the real problems occurred in the disastrous power vacuum and complete lack of a plan that occurred after the war was won. That's what tore Iraq and the Middle East apart. I don't think the NYTimes has any responsibility for that.

Indeed.

I can't recommend this Frontline piece highly enough - "Losing Iraq". Its practically a case book study on the missteps that took place under the leadership of Paul Bremmer a Kissinger associate and who was chosen to lead the CPA - Coalition Provisional Authority(the transition government) after the US took Baghdad. Bremmer knew nothing of Iraqi politics and was only briefed on them on the flight to Baghdad. The largest mistake was his decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army, followed closely by the de-Baathification of the government in country that only has a single political party - the Baath Party. Bremmer had near autonomy in his decision making. This is perhaps one of the best pieces I have seen on the subject:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/losing-iraq/

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#70

Post by cstross »

crdoconnor wrote: post #63
douche wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before they were western protectorates, they were Ottoman protectorates. It's been a mess for a long, long time. Once the oil runs out, or we move beyond oil, the whole region will be relegated to the kind of backwater it became after the advent of world-wide oceanic shipping in the age of sail and the overland trade routes were superseded.

Once the oil stops being important (Just Another Commodity like, e.g. iron ore), life will probably improve for citizens of the middle east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse We'll stop meddling and making things worse. The leaders of those countries won't be able to substitute oil wealth for popular support or funnel money into pushing Wahhabism. It's the best thing that could happen to them.

It's the best thing that could happen to them.

... In the long term.

In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed, as the sole source of foreign exchange goes away and the ordinary folks find themselves abandoned in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity, and the elite jets off to enjoy their stolen wealth in Switzerland.

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