This isn’t helped by foreign interference in every election they have. Even the borders, arbitrary lines drawn up by colonial powers, contribute to the problem as the forced groupings don’t suit anyone except for some colonial empire a long time ago. If the meddling stopped for a decent duration democracy might have a chance.
In the Middle East, there are so many bad actors it’s ridiculous. I haven’t consciously encountered Americans blaming the west for the situation in the Middle East. Does the definition of ‘west’ you are using include the US?
In case it is relevant, I am from New Zealand and think the disgusting behaviour in the region started long before the US got involved and includes far more countries than any set defined as ‘western’. Even places as far away and as small as New Zealand have ended up with a record of massacres and murders when in involved in the region.
As to it being patronizing. Speaking for myself—I think if you can’t blame people for the state of their own country, you’re taking agency away from those people. The British did lots of bad things in the subcontinent and looted it. (They also left some really good values and ideas and institutions.) But that ended 70 years ago. In that same time period, South Korea went from being nearly as poor, and far more war torn, to being a developed nation. It’s not the absence of interference from the west that did that, it’s the industry and virtue of the Korean people. Likewise, to the extent Bangladesh hasn’t grown as fast as it should (and to be fair, things have gotten better at least on the economic side in the last decade), who is to blame? I think it’s patronizing to continue to blame the west. Maybe blame the fact that Bangladeshis supported a military dictator for President, supported dismantling secularism, invited fundamentalism in from the Middle East, etc. Whose fault is it? Maybe it’s the fault of the clerks in the Bangladesh Supreme Court that demand bribes to quickly your filings quickly. If we credit Koreans for the development of their country, Bangladeshis must get their fair share of blame for what is happening in their own country.
I think that the two arguments are not in opposition though. It is possible for foreign interference to have harmed democracy in the Middle East and for locals to have damaged it too, and there are plenty of examples of this.
This whole narrative gets more implaussible by the day, the more you look at it. And by defending it, and not trying to look for the real issues, those who push it - further the only counter-quack-narrative, which is basically racism.
It sounds like the rambling of a homeless men by now, inventing invisible foes to justify all bad and random events happening to him.
What narrative? What quack? What racism? Please clarify.
I didn't say all cultures were unsuited to self-determination. Many are. All I said was that some are not, and that we may do better if we recognize this and learn from it.