The tragedy of the Arabs
economist.com
economist.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataturk
1) Barely any muslims at all. The actual society was near 100% Christian at the time with small concentrated pockets of Judaism, and a muslim army concentrated in the capital.
All of the organisations that made the golden age happened, almost without exception, were Roman organisations that existed before the muslim invasion and got more freedom to operate. It ended they started getting systematically killed.
Even so, immediately the dhimma system was introduced. If that's what people call tolerant, then why not say that Nazis were very tolerant of the Jews ? It's essentially the same thing.
2) Even so, this muslim government itself was not tolerant, given for example it's treatment of institutions of learning. Yes they did not just go out and directly destroyed all of them, but ...
In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar.[34][35] Bar-Hebraeus, writing in the 13th century, quotes Omar as saying to Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them."[36] Later scholars are skeptical of these stories, given the range of time that had passed before they were written down and the political motivations of the various writers.[37][38][39][40][41]
While the library was notorious for political interference, keep in mind that it recovered from every attack except this one, mostly because the previous destructions of the library did not involve a massacre (they were not bloodless either, but there is a large difference). The muslims killed everyone they could find in a large area around it before burning it.
Muslims, during the golden age, made a habit of killing scientists. Yes there were a lot of scientists during that period, but to say that the muslim part of that society tolerated them is stretching the truth beyond recognition.
3) Massacres were very likely a common occurence. While not much history is known from that period from Egypt), this is from Spain, same government (more or less), same time period, same "Golden age" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre
This is not an isolated incident in Spain, but a constant during that time period.
The Western countries and Israel have been doing everything they can for the past century to keep Arab democracy weak.
In the soi disant "only democracy in the Middle East", the West bank, claimed by Israel, where ultraorthodox right off the plane from Russia can go to a West Bank settlement to vote, but in which Palestinians who have been there for thousands of years can not vote for any government which Israel or the US recognizes - why not let the Palestinians vote? Israel is no democracy - they claim the West Bank is Israel, in a defacto sense it is, and they do not let Arabs vote. We see the contemplation of Islam causing problems, why don't we look at Judaism in the same manner in how it is against democracy? Meir Kahane said as much himself, and his policies have been running Israel, and the US and European backing of Israel for the past years.
Meanwhile the US and UK destroyed Iranian democracy, its parliament, Mossadegh, and installed a dictator whose CIA-backed secret police arrested, tortured and killed those who wanted a return to democracy. We had France, the UK and Israel invade Egypt in 1956, and on and on and on.
The economic and military might of the west and Israel has been fighting autonomy and democracy in the Middle East for a century, and will continue to in the next century.
Despite this, as we can see the beginnings of in the Arab Spring, as well as a history rooted in pan-Arab nationalism, in the years to come Arabs will see themselves freed from the shackles of imperialism and Zionism, and restore power in the the Middle East to the people of the Middle East.
I think The Economist is great, and subscribe to it, but perhaps there are more suitable places to discuss middle east politics.
Edit: after a few minutes, Exhibits B, C, D, E and F have been posted.
Palestinians vote(d) for their own leadership. I live in Australia, but I'm not an Australian, therefore, I am not permitted to vote here. I am unlikely to ever gain citizenship here, therefore, I will never be able to vote.
Can an Arab in the West Bank vote in the Israeli elections? No. Thus, Israel is not a democracy. The article questioned if Islam was conducive to democracy. On that basis, we have to question whether Judaism is conducive to democracy. Meir Kahane did not think it was, and his policies are what are being carried out on the West Bank.
"Palestinians voted for their own leadership". What does this mean? Can they vote for MPs in the Israeli Knesset? No. Can they vote for representation in a country that Israel or the US recognizes? No.
You moved to Australia. Arabs have been living in Jericho for thousands of years. Yet they are not allowed to vote for any government of a country recognized by Israel or the US. Yet an ultraorthodox Russian off the plane from Russia in a new settlement next to Jericho can vote in the Israeli election. People in the West Bank were invaded in an offensive war in 1967 and stripped of their rights. You moving to Australia was your choice. They had no choice.
First, "fine" is relative. Religious conservatives have been a major force in turning back progress in countries like Bangladesh. The 1972 constitution envisioned a secular republic, and the end result was . . . something less than that. In particular, a series of constitutional amendments eliminated the commitment to secularism and made Islam the state religion. Over the past few decades, there was been a substantial regression in areas like womens' rights, coupled with an increase in public religiousity.
Second, comparing the Arab states to south Asian muslim states is comparing apples and oranges. To use Bangladesh as an example again, that country has had organized government for almost all the past 500 years, between the Mughals, the British Empire, India, Pakistan, and independence. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, while nominally part of several different empires prior to the 20th century, was always on the outskirts of those empires, and was never really an orderly, centrally-administered place. In Saudi Arabia, central government has taken a back seat to tribal power for almost that whole history.
There's lot's of other reasons, obviously. I think a big one is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse. However, I think it can't be taken for granted the degree to which democracy and good government arises out of the ingrained sensibilities of people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vested_Property_Act_%28Banglade...
The shock was less that they implemented it, then that I had never heard of it. During the time it was active, my home country gave a large amount of foreign aid to Bangladesh -- while a subgroup (Hindus) was treated more or less like Jews in 1930s Germany.
Actually, there is a fair amount of evidence that routine endogamy is a significant impediment to the development of democracy.
(Not doubting, interested. I have heard quite a few stories from Indian friends about their (female) relatives running away to marry the wrong religion, both muslim and hindu. But India is a special case, if anything is.)
Edit: Thanks!
It could also be that freedom and democracy happen for some other reasons, and then later in a free and democratic society people will have less incentives to marry close relatives.
Is religion the central problem? It seems like the religion has a built-in mechanism to perpetuate war and misery: "Jihad." The idea is to carry on fighting at any cost, and to train your children to believe that they too should fight.
If it weren't for the religion, would the people regularly blow themselves up in the middle of civilians?
However, this doesn't quite ring true. Long ago, their culture was the best in the world, and some of the most important scientific advancements were made by Arab scholars. Were they highly religious back then? If so, why was their society stable in spite of warfare being a core tenant of the religion? What changed?
If your country doesn't have easily convertable (to cash) resources, you have to give the average guy some incentive to support you.
Perhaps what changed between the past and today is the shift in focus from an 'inner' jihad to an 'outer' one. Militants justify their violence with the chaotic events of the last century; these are perceived as oppression, much of it due to western countries.
For more on the concept of Jihad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
None of which is to say that Islam is an inherently violent religion; just that it historically has oscillated back and forth between peace-seeking and external aggression, rather than starting as one and coming today to be the other. (Which is not an uncommon thing; Western Christianity has done much the same, with Crusades and Inquisitions flaming up and dying off as militancy in that faith waxed and waned.)
It did not regularize anything. That notion does not carry any weight, it was an attempt by some scholars to "model" the landscape, without backing by the Quran or Hadith, hence, not based in Islam proper.
As for your question, Islam was a lot more inclusive before the mongol hordes sacked Baghdad and brought an end to the Caliphate.
When religions prone to violence are introduced to a culture that is not, the religion is often modified to be more in line with local customs. The opposite is also true; excuses for existing local violent or oppressive customs are found in their new religion.
I think most people agree that at least most religions are man-made (all, if you are an atheist, but I think that most theists would agree that religions other than their own are man-made). If a particular religion is man-made, then it is made within the context of some particular culture. While it is possible that the new religion introduced new and novel ideas, more often than not I think the religions that found acceptance in their host-culture did not rock the boat too much. Those religions therefore largely reflect the cultures that they were created in. If a religion advocates stoning gay people, then chances are the culture in which it was created was also pretty on board with stoning gay people.
I think that religions are adapted or re-interpreted when they are introduced to other cultures that already have different values. Lots of things that were taken literally by the host culture suddenly become metaphorical. Holidays that were previously cherished by the new culture are wedged into their new religion under flimsy pretenses. Etc.
what has any of this to do with "Hacker News"?[shrug] ah well, if anyone wants to understand anything about middle east history they ought to start with Nina Paley: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/
Where are you getting this from? The idea is to fight in self-defence, not "at any cost".
Sow. Reap. Repeat.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/2012417...
I don't like saying it, but I can't take this Economist article seriously if it doesn't even bring up some of the most important events of the last 100 years in the region. Yes, times are different; the region used to be very successful, promoting education and equality of all types. But it's no mystery as to why those changes came about, and why the region won't easily revert to what it used to be.
It sounds more like the standard way a dictator blame everyone else -- except their corrupt practices and oppression -- to explain why his country is a POS.
Hell, even the traditional scapegoat is officially used, with reprints of Zion's protocols and outright anti semitism in officially sanctioned media.
I.e. the same as we had in the west a few decades to centuries ago. (See kings, dictators, et al.)
Edit: Also, the article do touch the Western influence after the centuries of Turkish oppression, without using "Sykes Picot": "In much of the Arab world the colonial powers continued to control or influence events until the 1960s. Arab countries have not yet succeeded in fostering the institutional prerequisites of democracy—the give-and-take of parliamentary discourse, protection for minorities, the emancipation of women, a free press, independent courts and universities and trade unions."
Edit 2: That was quick down votes. :-)
Edit 3: I never argued that it wasn't a mixed picture -- England was early -- and that some were less primitive than my home country, rayiner.
Yes and no. In 1215, the feudal barons of England rose up against the English king, and forced him, under the threat of violent rebellion . . . to sign a contract: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta.
Ostensibly medieval western kings were divine-right monarchs, but that characterization gives short shrift to the deep commitment to secular law. We think of western democracy as something that happened between the late 1700's and early 1800's, but it goes much further back.
Edit: Just for the record, I did not downvoted you.
Edit: Hmm... OK watwut -- the dictators have second movers advantage too? It seems to me that the reason evil juntas get fewer is that without an open society (which is hard without democracy) a country won't get above a certain economic level. The "Resource curse" counteract that and won't end in the Middle East until oil isn't critical.
And do not forget that some of current dictators have and traditionally had Western support which makes opposition against them even harder.
Edit: the second mover has to wait until the dictator gets weak (for whatever reason - it may be caused by outside threat) and power vacuum opens up. Interested parties then fight for power. I would not call any of that "advantage".
The regimes would never ever accept them unless they were already close to toppling (Gorbachev times are actually a nice example, http://www.aei.org/issue/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional... is an okay description), since [appearance of] strength is required to keep them in power.
Authoritarian regimes tend not to liberalize until they absolutely, positively have no other alternatives.
PS, you speak as if the decriminalization of homosexuality was on par with major structural changes in how the state worked. How... peculiar.
The issue of how God interacts with the created world was an open question in the Middle Ages. Everyone agreed that God was the creator and sovereign Lord of the universe, but there were differing views about how that played out.
One school of thought had the concepts of primary and secondary causality. God is responsible for the existence of all things; he is the primary cause. However, God gives created things the power of causality so that they are secondary causes. Therefore a billiard ball has the "power" to cause other billiard balls to move when it strikes them. These powers of secondary causality are properties of created things and thus they can be studied and understood. Such a belief led to early forms of scientific inquiry.
The other school of thought was that God is the direct and only cause of everything that happens. Secondary causality is just an illusion. God directly moves all of the billiard balls. Just because billiard ball B starts to move after ball A comes into contact with it does not mean A was the cause of B's movement. Rather, God is the cause of all movement. It is the ultimate "correlation does not imply causation" argument. In fact, the current state of the universe has no bearing on the state of the universe in the next instance of time. God recreates the universe every moment in time solely according to his Will, rather like a video game engine completely renders the screen image for every frame. The image of one frame does not cause the image of the next frame. All frames come directly from the game engine.
The second school of thought ended up winning in the Muslim world because it exalted the Will of God as ultimate and without competition. Philosophical and scientific inquiry were squelched, but fortunately this happened after the great works of the first school had already passed into Christian hands. Since God is primarily Love rather than Will in Christian theology, it was reasonable to think that God, motivated by love, would give a measure of control to his creatures.
I hope I have not misrepresented the ideas of the book. It is on my reading list, but I have not gotten to it yet.
1: http://www.amazon.com/Closing-Muslim-Mind-Intellectual-Islam...
Not really. This is a complex philosophical and religious topic, and it is not as black and white as was presented in your post. There is no single view that dominates the Islamic landscape as you mentioned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/108...
What it is, is an incredible indictment of "Muslim" countries. They aren't producing what their religion says that they're supposed to produce.
One thing I've been surprised to learn is how much of a role various Christian groups in Korea played in anti-governmnet activities going all the way back to the Japanese Colonial period. There's some interesting and unique history there with respect to Korea's history with Christianity -- including being one of the only countries with a history of self-conversion, before missionaries ever showed up there.
More recently, the parallels between the economic development of the North and the South are quite striking. While the North made some very big economic development strides early on, the long term focus on almost pure heavy industry and military development caused the country to stagnate and economically regress -- despite an almost constant stream of aid and support from first the Soviet Bloc and then China. The infrastructure has begun to crumble because the state never bothered developing the entire economic ecosystem needed to keep it running.
The South on the other hand, under the military dictator, Park Chung-hee, took a more step-wise foundation building approach that's yielded tremendous long-term success for the country. Seizing power from an incompetently run, but democratic, government. Park put in place a complex series of programs designed to build up an export-oriented economy through gradual development of industry from light-industry to heavy.
It was tremendously corrupt, and built on lots of favor trading. But he used the power of the military and the government to keep the economy focused on pure growth, and pragmatically eliminated "non-essential" economic activities. Starting with things like sugar refineries and textile manufacturing, the country started working up to construction (a significant number of U.S. projects during the Vietnam war were built by Korean companies), then shipbuilding, cars, petrochemicals, etc. Each designed to both provide economic opportunities for export, as well as provide domestic capabilities for the next steps.
No political activity was allowed and the country was basically run like a giant, efficient, no-nonsense, military apparatus for decades. It took until the 80s before it was really time to switch off from this into the more liberal and democratic country we see today.
He financed all this with a very pragmatic finance scheme, hitting up Japans booming economy during the 60s and 70s, despite a great deal of animosity between the two countries. And then more importantly sold back the finished goods to Japan and the U.S. markets.
It was under Park that South Korea started doing major construction projects in the middle-East. The technical ability of South Korean construction companies can't be underestimated -- the Burj Khalifa was built by Samsung.
Despite significant student demonstrations and unrest during the Park administration (and the similar Chun Doo-hwan one that closely followed), most people were simply too busy working and scratching out a living to take to the streets, or form anti-government organizations.
There's other parallels as well, extremely low participation in the work force by women, a history of foreign meddling, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that idle hands may just be the source of a lot of this misery. In richer Arab countries, most of the work is done by foreigners on the cheap and locals live off of the proceeds, they're bored and have nothing else to do. In poorer ones, people need jobs, are desperate and again, have nothing else to do.
There's been some half-hearted attempts to provide other activities. KAUST, for example, is a Science and Tech graduate-level university that's had billions invested into it. But one of the interesting points my book brings up is that setting up advanced schooling, or advanced industry, doesn't make sense unless a Park style staged economic program is put in place first to build all of the necessary social, educational and economic foundations to support these advanced industries. You can't really leapfrog these things, but you can make progress unbelievably fast.
The real problem is that, at least for the oil rich parts of the Arab world, there isn't much incentive to really do these things. If any place might have a go, someplace oil-poor, like Egypt, might be a logical place to kick off something like a "Tiger of the Nile" program. I know I'm not the first person to think of this either.
http://www.academia.edu/5319334/A_Comparison_of_the_Politica...
http://www.e-ir.info/2013/12/23/south-korea-egypt-and-waller...
http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC057-13-two-dictator...
This phenomenon has a name, the resource curse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse.
Note also, that having a resource-oriented economy tends to vastly overstate GDP. A dollar of exported crude oil counts as a dollar of "national income" but it's not income any more than selling off your furniture is income. You're just converting assets into cash. This phenomenon makes countries that derive their income from selling resources think they're richer than they really are.
One of the interesting things I've also read about the development of South Korea is that U.S. advisors pushed South Korea to develop its agribusiness, but this was rejected by the Park administration in favor of the export-driven focus because of the poor and highly variable economic performance of agriculture.
Basically you can feed people if you grow rice, but you can feed them twice as much if you sell cars.
I think more important is the early and strong rejection in South Korea of Communist and Socialist economic ideas in favor of growth oriented chrony-capitalist ones. Notable is that Korean conglomerates who went along with the government plan and met their economic targets were given tremendous leeway, while ones that didn't hit their targets or were against the government goals, were simply ripped apart and bankrupted.
South Korea (per capita GDP $24k) is hardly the only success story in that part of the world. Japan ($38k), Hong Kong ($38k), Singapore ($55k), and Taiwan ($20k) have basically pulled off the same trick. All these places have in common that they are either Chinese (mostly Chinese, in Singapore's case) or very closely related culturally to China (Korea and Japan are more closely related to China than, for example, Laos or Myanmar). They are all small, without huge agricultural potential or much other resources, but with good access to the sea.
A more recent, and possibly more relevant example is Malaysia ($11k). Malaysia is an interesting case. It is majority Muslim, but it has a significant non-Muslim Chinese minority that controls most of the economy. It is a large petroleum exporter, but it has successfully expanded to manufacturing and services, arguably escaping the "resource curse".
You might be tempted to conclude that Malaysia pulled this off because of their Chinese population (and I know some Malays have said exactly this), but there are counterexamples to this - Thailand ($6k), Indonesia ($4k), Vietnam ($2k) and Cambodia ($1k) all have significant ethnic Chinese populations. On the other hand, ethnic Chinese control business in all those countries far out of proportion to their share of the population.
What useful lessons Arabs can draw from this I have no idea. Well, I have some idea: just look at North Korea ($0.6k) and Vietnam ($2k). The lesson isn't just simply "communism is bad" though, because they are well behind Russia ($15k) and even Cuba ($6k).
- South Korea had some colonial development under Japan, and the U.S. support post WW2 and the Korean War made up to 1/5th of the country's GDP during some periods, nearly all of the Government budget and 100% of the military budget for quite some time. Favorable investment and borrowing and an open U.S. export market were instrumental to the modern success it is today.
- Japan was well on its way to being a major economic power before WWII, and significant support from the U.S. helped it rebuild after the war. Again, Favorable borrowing, investment and an open U.S. export market were helpful.
- Taiwan was a model Japanese colony before WW2 and received significant support from the U.S. after the establishment of the ROC. Significant U.S. support of the ROC military, aid and favorable borrowing and open markets.
- Singapore and Hong Kong have similar histories of British support, but towards trade and finance centers rather than export driven economies.
- Maylasia is a fascinating, formerly under British rule, has had stellar growth since independence in 1957, and has just started moving towards a similar growth model that Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have enjoyed. It also has the Chinese "Bamboo Network" to tap into (which explains the dominance of the Chinese minority in the economy). It's also offering Islamic alternatives to Western finance for Muslim countries.
I think people blame religion far too quickly in these issues because it frequently arises as a symptom of some larger issue rather than a strict cause. I think what the Arabs need is a Park Chung-hee, distasteful in the short run, but providing for a solid economic foundation while keeping idle hands busy in the interim. Instead it's just sectarian brutal dictator after brutal dictator. Malevolence instead of Benevolence.
Maybe there is something in the East/South-East Asian cultural makeup that gives a better chance for a Benevolent(-ish) dictator to take charge for a while? I don't know, and again, I think that's over simplifying things for a bit and unfair to the Arab people.