Another lesson of history
1/17/2007
Another lesson of history
While I am no sociologist, the historic record, available to anyone who’s interested in it, indicates that the people of the Middle East continue to be strongly divided into tribes, clans and sects as subgroups under the Shia or Sunni religious umbrellas. Much, if not most of Middle Eastern political life, continues to be largely based on these age old divisions hence what is happening in Iraq is a first, painful attempt at bridging some of these historic schisms. As an example, Iraq was brutally “governed” by the Tikriti for a long time, since Tikrit is where Saddam Hussein and some of his closest collaborators came from. They were Sunnis but really a secular political power. Only during the 1990-ies did Hussein try to give his regime a minor semblance of religion by building some mosques, etc. in order to gain favor with the Shias. The Shias, although the single largest population contingent in Iraq, hated Hussein and didn’t participate in the government and were sometimes brutally repressed.
Saudi Arabia has been the personal fief of the Saudi family since the 1920-ies. The Saudis are also Sunnis from the Wahhabi tribe. It is this tribe, based on the atavistic dogmas of some Sunni intellectuals like Sayyed Qutb, al-Banna and Muhammed Rashid Rida, that developed the current anti-Western, anti-Christian movement in the Middle East which has been spreading far beyond in the form of very dedicated but extrememly dangerous, radical and militant terrorist gangs.
The current multi-party Iraqi government, if it holds together, would be one of the key achievements of the American involvement in Iraq, notwithstanding the ongoing insurgent carnage. A considerable number of intelligent and dedicated people have realized that this may be their only chance, for a long time, to bury the worst of the old enmities and to try to create a more modern country able to grow and mature economically and socially in order to achieve a much better future for itself and its neighbors.
What Iraq is doing in the face of the visceral dislike for it from these neighbors, requires a significant extension of US military protection. The development of an effective Iraqi military, police and intelligence apparatus and the reorganization of the Iraqi economy to pay for it all will take time and much US (and European?) support. The alternative to this cannot be on the table, except in the dark, cowardly and uncomprehending minds of some of our politicians and much of the media and educational establishment.
Because of the fact that the neighboring countries are also basically still tribal or clan affairs they also feel threatened by this potentially promising Iraqi example, but that’s exactly one of the things that are so fundamentally wrong with the Middle East.
We must not forget that Europe went through similar stages of political growth many hundreds of years ago, but we grew out of it, very painfully. It is these lessons of history that the West is trying to convey, without much success so far, to many countries in the world that are struggling with the creation of multi party, secular political systems strictly apart from religious control but culturally imbued with the ethics and morality in their operations of what we know as Judeo-Christian ethics, the equivalence of which could be adopted by anyone.interested in running a halfway decent government.
But without that kind of cultural premise in place, it is virtually impossible to grow the sort of vibrant, creative and productive (both good and bad) social and economic structures that will provide people with opportunities for decent, rewarding and honorable lives. Until those western experiences sink into a country’s political system there is little hope for their future. China and India are the current major examples of how successful such changes in political systems can be.
General education needs to become a key priority of struggling countries. But too often, either the money isn’t there or the government educates only its own elite children to perpetuate itself in power. That’s still tribalism. Instead, all minds, rich and poor need to be educated as much as each individual one is capable of. While that will take many years to accomplish, even the West still has its problems with it, a wise government will forego many expenditures in order to focus on education.
Another major drawback in creating a vibrant Middle Eastern economy is to deny half the population the right and opportunity to get educated and participate in the economy and/or manage a growing family, if preferred. But to exclude a majority of women from getting educated is narrow minded, male chauvinistic foolishness.
The third major problem in many Muslim societies is the way boys and girls basically grow up separately, with the boys clearly being favored over girls. This Spartan approach to, particularly, teen-age growth and beyond, has led to exactly the same results as in the days of Athens and Sparta. Too many men grow up overly sensitive about their masculinity, develop unbridled aggressiveness because their sense of pride is always at a hair trigger, always ready to draw the sword so to speak, which together with their habit of overly and loudly exaggerating everything they do, suggests a basic sense of inferiority and fundamental immaturity. The much vaunted, but essentially worthless Spartan culture lasted almost 500 years. This current Islamic attitude about the rest of the world has just about run the same period of time. The big question is, will Western culture prevail this time or will we fail, like Athens eventually failed during the Peloponnesian Wars.
History is there to tell us what happened and it is not pretty.
Another lesson of history
While I am no sociologist, the historic record, available to anyone who’s interested in it, indicates that the people of the Middle East continue to be strongly divided into tribes, clans and sects as subgroups under the Shia or Sunni religious umbrellas. Much, if not most of Middle Eastern political life, continues to be largely based on these age old divisions hence what is happening in Iraq is a first, painful attempt at bridging some of these historic schisms. As an example, Iraq was brutally “governed” by the Tikriti for a long time, since Tikrit is where Saddam Hussein and some of his closest collaborators came from. They were Sunnis but really a secular political power. Only during the 1990-ies did Hussein try to give his regime a minor semblance of religion by building some mosques, etc. in order to gain favor with the Shias. The Shias, although the single largest population contingent in Iraq, hated Hussein and didn’t participate in the government and were sometimes brutally repressed.
Saudi Arabia has been the personal fief of the Saudi family since the 1920-ies. The Saudis are also Sunnis from the Wahhabi tribe. It is this tribe, based on the atavistic dogmas of some Sunni intellectuals like Sayyed Qutb, al-Banna and Muhammed Rashid Rida, that developed the current anti-Western, anti-Christian movement in the Middle East which has been spreading far beyond in the form of very dedicated but extrememly dangerous, radical and militant terrorist gangs.
The current multi-party Iraqi government, if it holds together, would be one of the key achievements of the American involvement in Iraq, notwithstanding the ongoing insurgent carnage. A considerable number of intelligent and dedicated people have realized that this may be their only chance, for a long time, to bury the worst of the old enmities and to try to create a more modern country able to grow and mature economically and socially in order to achieve a much better future for itself and its neighbors.
What Iraq is doing in the face of the visceral dislike for it from these neighbors, requires a significant extension of US military protection. The development of an effective Iraqi military, police and intelligence apparatus and the reorganization of the Iraqi economy to pay for it all will take time and much US (and European?) support. The alternative to this cannot be on the table, except in the dark, cowardly and uncomprehending minds of some of our politicians and much of the media and educational establishment.
Because of the fact that the neighboring countries are also basically still tribal or clan affairs they also feel threatened by this potentially promising Iraqi example, but that’s exactly one of the things that are so fundamentally wrong with the Middle East.
We must not forget that Europe went through similar stages of political growth many hundreds of years ago, but we grew out of it, very painfully. It is these lessons of history that the West is trying to convey, without much success so far, to many countries in the world that are struggling with the creation of multi party, secular political systems strictly apart from religious control but culturally imbued with the ethics and morality in their operations of what we know as Judeo-Christian ethics, the equivalence of which could be adopted by anyone.interested in running a halfway decent government.
But without that kind of cultural premise in place, it is virtually impossible to grow the sort of vibrant, creative and productive (both good and bad) social and economic structures that will provide people with opportunities for decent, rewarding and honorable lives. Until those western experiences sink into a country’s political system there is little hope for their future. China and India are the current major examples of how successful such changes in political systems can be.
General education needs to become a key priority of struggling countries. But too often, either the money isn’t there or the government educates only its own elite children to perpetuate itself in power. That’s still tribalism. Instead, all minds, rich and poor need to be educated as much as each individual one is capable of. While that will take many years to accomplish, even the West still has its problems with it, a wise government will forego many expenditures in order to focus on education.
Another major drawback in creating a vibrant Middle Eastern economy is to deny half the population the right and opportunity to get educated and participate in the economy and/or manage a growing family, if preferred. But to exclude a majority of women from getting educated is narrow minded, male chauvinistic foolishness.
The third major problem in many Muslim societies is the way boys and girls basically grow up separately, with the boys clearly being favored over girls. This Spartan approach to, particularly, teen-age growth and beyond, has led to exactly the same results as in the days of Athens and Sparta. Too many men grow up overly sensitive about their masculinity, develop unbridled aggressiveness because their sense of pride is always at a hair trigger, always ready to draw the sword so to speak, which together with their habit of overly and loudly exaggerating everything they do, suggests a basic sense of inferiority and fundamental immaturity. The much vaunted, but essentially worthless Spartan culture lasted almost 500 years. This current Islamic attitude about the rest of the world has just about run the same period of time. The big question is, will Western culture prevail this time or will we fail, like Athens eventually failed during the Peloponnesian Wars.
History is there to tell us what happened and it is not pretty.
posted by Schaesberg at 10:27 AM
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