From: Mike Linksvayer (ml@gondwanaland.com)
Date: Sat Apr 06 2002 - 19:07:19 MST
On Sat, 2002-04-06 at 16:11, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> The similarity between Sadaam and the Palestinian leadership
> is that both seem to be very comfortable sacrificing the lives
> of their own people to achieve their goals.
That's the bread and butter of political organization.
> The only way out of this mess is to begin to educate Arabs and
> muslims (and Christans and Jews) in general to "think rationally".
> You have to free the press, then convert the educational systems
> and change the governments from monarchies to democracies.
>
> You want to do this by gradual political pressure or by example
> (e.g. our economic growth rate in a free society is greater than
> yours in a suppressed society) rather than by force.
Strongly agree with all of the above apart from the monarchy->democracy
suggestion. The countries in the Arab world friendliest to the West are
all monarchies. Pushing them towards democracy only gives
fundamentalists a tool to [ab]use and discard. Their societies will
_slowly_ become more democratic as they become more liberal and
wealthy. You see slow moves in this direction in some of the gulf
states or Tunisia for example.
See the Robert Kaplan article
<http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.htm>. Also see
<http://mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=818&month=38&title=A+History+of+Folly+&id=38a
Note that some of the instability in the Middle East can be traced back
to overthrows of Arab monarchies instigated by the US (opposing
British(!) influence). This is how Saddam's Baathist party came to
power.
Mike Linksvayer
http://gondwanaland.com/ml/
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