Most observers seem to be wearying of the Arab Spring, just as it is becoming interesting. The idea of a democratic contagion that would suddenly sweep away centuries of autocratic misrule and replace it with Tocquevillean civic-mindedness was too far-fetched for all but the most robustly wishful. But the notion that Mubarak in Egypt and Saleh in Yemen would be replaced almost magically by preferable people did enjoy wider currency than it deserved. Stretching the canvas across the Western and Near Eastern Muslim lands, more than a dozen countries can be seen, in snapshots, at widely differing stages of fermentation.
Morocco, always one of the most successful Arab countries, remains so. It was independent for many centuries prior to the French protectorate of 1912–56, and even signed Most Favored Nation trade agreements with Jefferson and Madison’s America. With a significant and influential Jewish population, it treats them quite well. King Mohammed, in response to rather gentle protestations, has just produced a new constitution that doesn’t give away much of his own prerogatives, but establishes a freely elected parliament and a range of civil rights, and the constitution was approved — without transports of popular enthusiasm, but without protest also — by 98.5 percent of the country. The Spring is not high summer in Morocco, but there are some green shoots.
Advertisement
In Algeria, where the constitution establishes the army as the guarantor of democracy — to prevent the triumph of the Islamist, anti-democratic parties required the imposition of a military dictatorship and the conduct of a long civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people died violently — the durable President Bouteflika has prevailed. There is the traditional Arab version of forcibly guided government festooned with a few trappings of popular influence, but it is progress from the long war of insurrection that preceded it.
Tunisia and its self-immolating protester had their 15 minutes of the world’s attention, and a somewhat similar regime to that which was ousted is in place. In Libya, NATO redefined a no-fly zone, the French and British revived Lend-Lease to borrow air-to-ground missiles from the U.S. and plastered the loyalists with them, and the French reinterpreted the U.N. Charter to allow arming the insurgents. Qaddafi is checking the air routes to the few places that would have him. If Milosevic couldn’t take the unfriendly skies of NATO, there was never any chance that Qaddafi could.
Egypt is a shambles. Hillary Clinton is trying to open up relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, as if there were any possible rapport between those two sides, or as if the U.S. brought anything to the party anyway (a party it should be grateful not to have been asked to attend). It ditched Mubarak, and is anathema to the Brotherhood (which is still unrepentant about murdering Anwar Sadat); and its financial assistance, though significant, could be replaced by one or more of the Arab OPEC countries. Egypt is not ready for the September elections, and the army, trying to maintain order, is losing its popularity. The traditional Arab choice impends, between reasonable (in policy terms) armed force, with no aptitude for government, and Islamist lunacy, with an aptitude only for chaos.
More interesting is Syria, where the withdrawal of the government from Hama, though it may be a ruse preparatory to a massacre replicating the piping days of Papa Assad, indicates that the Alawite terror is weakening. They passed the litmus tests of ordering the massacre of civilians and having the orders carried out, and they still can’t stop the demonstrations and heavily armed attacks on the police and army. The Alawite regime, with Mrs. Clinton’s commendation of it as a vehicle for reform ringing in its ears, is now in a race with Qaddafi to see who goes first, and young Assad will be packing up his implements and returning to his optometrist’s practice in Ealing (East London).
The Palestinians are waiting to see who governs in neighboring countries before confirming the bomb-throwing incompatibility of Hamas and Fatah; Hamas and Hezbollah are wondering how they are going to be supplied after Assad is swept out in Damascus; Lebanon is on hold waiting for Hezbollah, and in Iran the unspeakable Ahmadinejad, having just had his entire presidential staff arrested and been booed in the Majlis, mother of Islamist parliaments, is reduced exclusively to the patronage of the Grand Ayatollah. Iraq is a dodgy post-American proposition and its appeasement of Iran is tempered only by acute uncertainty about who will hold the reins, if there are any, in Tehran in three months.
The Battle of Lepano has been classified by military historians as the most significant naval "victory" since the engagement at Actium.
No one mourned the demise of the "Sick Man of Europe". In hindsight there was a Pax Ottoman. It was obscured by the Greek Tragedy and the sacrifices of the Bulgarian Martyresses. The problem with Islamic theology is the doctrine of abrogation.
Freedom of religion goes arm in arm with freedom of thought and expression.Peaceful change is virtually impossible without freedom of religion. A well educated citizenry is also nearly impossible. Many Muslim religious leaders are self taught. There is no governing body, such as the Pope, offering guidance,just a host of opinionated people. The biases and bigotry of these leaders is inculcated within their group of followers. Islam itself is a Christian heresy, an offshoot of Arianism and other misinterpreations taught by the unschooled to the illiterate.
Kevin, you say, "Islam itself is a Christian heresy, an offshoot of Arianism and other misinterpretations taught by the unschooled to the illiterate."
Arianism has nothing to do with Islam, they regard Jesus, Isa in the Qur’an, as a human profit second only to Mohammad. Arius taught that Jesus was not coeternal with God but that He was created by God and thus is inferior to and distinct from God. There is no parallel to that in the Qur’an.
When you say misinterpretations, it sounds accidental. It is not. Why have Judaism, Christianity, religious historians or historians in general, allowed such an utter historical deception to go un-challenged? There is not a single historical claim to descent from the Biblical patriarchs other than from the actual descendants, the Jews, prior to Muhammad’s claims.
The descent claims in the Qur'an should be enough to disqualify it as a recognized or venerated religion, let alone one of the so called “big three”. The religion in that area of the world, prior to Muhammad’s Islam, made no such claims. They were pagan and worshiped the moon and al-Hajr e Aswad the “black stone” that is in Mecca and is the focal point of the Hajj.
One of the most curious stories in the Qur'an occurs in surah 5 vs. 110 and following. It is a retelling of a story from the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas” about Jesus, as a small boy, making birds from clay and breathing life into them. The infancy gospel is part of a large number of pseudepigraphal, writings from the second and third centuries. Why is it retold in the Qur'an?
Given the legal indignities recently visited on Lord Black, I am amazed that he has the emotional and intellectual will to lay out such an insightful analysis of the remarkably dysfunctional Arab world. Thank you, sir, for sharing your wisdom with a largely apathetic and uninformed public. As always, you do us a great public service by enriching our worldview.
Lord Black's last paragraph should be made required reading for every current and future leader in the western world. The appeasement of radical Islam must stop and moderate Muslims need to do a much better job of speaking out against it.
What we need is a strong dose of Count Raymond of Toulouse; Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin; William the Conqueror's eldest son Robert; Bohemond Guiscard and his nephew Tancred.
By the way, there is no such thing as a "moderate" Muslim...
Where are they???
Has anyone out there heard from their "loud" and defiant collective voice???
Didn't think so...they're like "snipes"...they're an urban legend...
Islamophobe??? If by writing the truth condemnation follows...then so be it...but the truth is that the moderate Muslim voices are so quiet they are deafening!!!
"In the Arabian Peninsula, the pantomime horse in Saudi Arabia of the House of Saud (front legs), and the Wahhabi establishment (back legs), though spavined, continues to march on in the desert,"
Thank you, Mr. Black. Not only very informative, but entertaining too.
